Author
AVOLTA
Date
Dec. 07th, 2021
With €500bn in global VC funding, the industry‘s overall funding has grown twofold vs. 2020.
Europe has also hit a new high-water mark with €100bn in funding (incl. Israel) crossed for the first time ever. This is a staggering 2.5x increase vs. 2020. The UK and Germany are the clear winners of the year with respectively €30bn (2.5x vs. 2020) and €16.5bn (3.2x).
More specifically in France, 2021 is a watershed: for the first time VC funding and exit deals have reached their highest levels ever with €11.1bn (+100% vs. 2020) in VC funding and €10.2bn (+112%) in exits.
What should we expect for 2022?
Even with rate hikes on the horizon and potential economic downturn, more records in VC funding are expected globally. The reason is simple: investors have no alternative but to keep on investing their cash, which is reaching record levels. Otherwise, LPs will pressure to get their money back and seek other alternatives.
VC money will keep on focusing on a handful of over funded companies. Thus, making it more and more challenging for the growing bulk of entrepreneurs to fund their start-ups.
On the exit front, France has proven its capability for >1€bn IPOs, which is a very good lead indicator, but this market still has a huge margin of improvement to match its European peers.
Yet, 2022 might not be the big year for exits in France as unicorns have little trouble finding funding in private markets as Dataiku, Sorare, Qonto as the rest of the herd has proven in 2021.
Arthur Porré, Founding Partner, Jan. 10th, 2022