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As La French Tech and unicorns both turn 10, maybe it’s time to rethink where to shine a light
London was the place to be this week for a who ’s who of political leaders and tech CEOs ; or more precisely , Bletchley Park was . Famous for housing Alan Turing and other Enigma codebreakers during WW2 , the British inheritance site played legion to the public ’s first AI Safety Summit on Wednesday and Thursday .
The Exchange explore startups , markets and money .
Culminating in theBletchley Declaration , an correspondence on AI safety signed by all the land in attending , the event was also very much about “ positioning the U.K. as a central participant in setting the docket for ‘ what we talk about when we talk about AI , ’ ” TechCrunch ’s Ingrid Lunden report from the ground .
experiential endangerment ? Regulatory seizure ? AI for one and all ? A look at what ’s going on with AI in the UK
permit ’s not , however , overestimate the leg up that hosting the conference might have render Great Britain over its cross - channel competition . While this hebdomad did put the U.K. and its meridian diplomatic minister in the glare , things should soon even out . After a mini , practical summit in Korea in six months , France will behosting the next in - person AI Safety Summitnext yr .
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French minister of finance Bruno Le Maire was already in attendance , as was French entrepreneurArthur Mensch , whose inauguration Mistral AI call down a$113 million seed roundat a $ 260 million valuation in the beginning this year . Yes , a nine - figureseedround .
But whether it ’s in France or in the U.K. , and despite all the hype around AI , mega - rounds are once again rare . And without mega - round , unicorn may become an endangered coinage .
Unicorn dearth on both sides of the Channel
The U.K. fancies itself as the “ Unicorn Kingdom , ” per a late ad hunting expedition in the U.S. Meanwhile , Gallic President of the United States Emmanuel Macron said he wants the body politic to have100 unicorns by 2030 , including 25 “ gullible ” unicorns .
Neither of the two countries made much progression on the unicorn road last fourth part . agree toa late Dealroom theme , only three unexampled unicorns were born in Europe in the third quarter of 2023 . Of these three , none is headquartered in France , and just one in London : Zyber 365 , a web3 startup that is arguably better known for its Indian operation . ( The CEO himself describes iton LinkedInas “ India ’s & Asia ’s fastest unicorn in 3 months ” and the “ 109th unicorn of India . ” )
Of course , it ’s not just France or the U.K. that suffered a dearth of unicorn births this year . Quarterly Crunchbase datum show that global unicorn creation levelshadn’t been that lowsince Q3 2017 .
Charting the last 10 years of the unicorn era
With so few unicorns being mint this year , this leave France and the U.K. pretty much where they were a twelvemonth ago — that is , with the U.K. well ahead of France by unicorn count : 59 , compare to 29 , including 46 in London and 24 in Paris , accord to Crunchbase .
While the real reckoning is undoubtedly low now that many unicorns are losing their motor horn , there ’s no reason to mean that valuations were more touched in one area over the other , think that the pecking order remains unchanged .
As a side note , while Germany fall somewhere in between by mere unicorn count , its universe is significantly larger than the U.K. ’s and France ’s , which makes its proportional positionless encouraging than it seems for German inauguration .
Since France and the U.K. have both been vocal about their unicorn goal , it is these two body politic we are looking at today . But is this even the right metric to look at ? plausibly not , as pol , too , are start to have uncertainty about newspaper publisher money milestones .
Rethinking unicorns
This month marks the tenth anniversary of theTechCrunch columnin which Cowboy Ventures ’ Aileen Lee mint the terminus “ unicorn ” as a way to describe individual tech companies with billion - dollar valuations .
coincidently or not , La French Tech , France ’s government - stake first step in charge of advance and foster its inauguration community of interests , also celebrated its 10 - class anniversary this calendar month . TechCrunch ’s Romain Dillet was at the birthday party , and while there was cake , humor killers were also loom .
After years of volatile growing , the French technical school ecosystem is at a turning period
A few hours before the event , Les Echos account that Gallic DIY due east - commercialism unicorn ManoMano wasabout to lay off25 % of its staff . It ’s not just ManoMano , Romain noted : “ Just like many tech ecosystems , the Gallic technical school ecosystem is currently going through a rough plot of land and face layoffs , down rounds , flack sales and even bankruptcies . ”
Still , that unicorn are n’t immune to the upheaval made many wonder whether they deserve all of the attention they had received . Unicorn - sized rung used to guarantee startups a spot on La French Tech ’s Next 40 outrank — always . But these touchstone areset to change , tell Jean - Noël Barrot , France ’s surrogate minister of religion in charge of digital transition and telecom .
These are the big French startup in 2023 accord to the French government activity
commence in 2024 , France will refresh the criteria of its Next 40 and French Tech 120 . free-base onrecommendationsfrom ad hoc committee French Tech Finance Partners , the rule of “ once a unicorn , always a unicorn ” may no longer apply .
It remains to be seen how a proper audit can be conducted , as Les Echos recently noted thatonly 17%of French Tech 120 inauguration publish their financial accounts in 2022 ; but the design makes sense as a style to make these ranking more current .
Meanwhile , 20 startup association from 16 European Union phallus land and Ukraine teamed up to make a new index finger calledLETS — Leading European Tech Scale - Ups . There are some limit , initiate with the fact that it does n’t include Switzerland and the U.K. But the focus on growth potential and scale - up condition , rather than billion - dollar valuations , is at least bracing . What Europe really needs now , though , is a serial publication of billion - buck outlet .
