French Tech has a new unicorn. Pigment, a French startup specializing in the marketing of business planning software, crossed the $1 billion valuation on Wednesday evening after its latest funding round. According to The echoes And Le Figarothis allowed the company to raise $145 million.
“ Pigment crosses the billion dollar valuation this evening after its latest funding round » rejoiced on X the Secretary of State for Digital, Marina Ferrari, congratulating the co-founders of the strategic planning software, Éléonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli, and their teams “.
Enough, also, to satisfy Emmanuel Macron. The latter had set the objective in 2022 of having around a hundred unicorns in France by 2030.
This decisive funding round was led by the American fund Iconiq Growth, “ entered the capital last June during the previous fundraising “, according to Le Figaro. “ In addition to the investors already present (IVP, Meritech and Felix Capital…), who all followed, Pigment brought into its capital the fund of Sheryl Sandberg, former right-hand man of Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, and her husband, Tom Bernthal », Specifies the daily, which questioned its founders.
Double the engineering team to accelerate generative AI
Still according to the daily, Pigment “ will prioritize its investments in generative AI by doubling its team of engineers “. The company also plans to increase its workforce, “ 400 today “, of approximately ” 50% by the end of the year “.
Furthermore, if in 2023, if French Tech fundraising has collapsed (-38% compared to 2022, or 8.3 billion euros), the deeptech sector is doing well. More than 1,300 startups with a high degree of technological innovation have been created in France since the launch of the deeptech plan in 2019, bringing the number of these specialized companies in the country to 2,170.
This assessment drawn up by the public investment bank (Bpifrance) indicates that the number of these start-ups created each year has doubled, going from 168 in 2018 to 340 in 2023. At the top of investments: the health sectors (23% ), energy (18%) and agro-industry (10%).
The deepteech sector attracts investors
French tech startups recorded a 38% increase in investments in 2023 compared to 2022, for a total amount of 4.1 billion euros, in an overall context of a degraded market and declining investments. “ That’s four times more than five years agos”, welcomed Paul-François Fournier, executive director of innovation at Bpifrance, during a press conference. He said he hoped that the drop in interest rates would be accompanied by a return of investment in Europe.
France thus returned in 2023 to second place in investments in the deeptech sector in Europe (which it occupied before 2019), almost tied with the United Kingdom, after having occupied fourth place in 2021, then the third in 2022, caught up by the growth of investments in Germany and Sweden.
(With AFP)