Looking On The Bright Side Of France's 2022 VC Meltdown

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The venture capital funding picture continues to go from bad to worse in France as 2022 comes to a close. While there are still a couple of weeks left before the holidays, we're far enough along in Q4 to render some judgments – and they are not particularly cheerful.

French startups have raised $1.6 billion so far this quarter. That's down from $2.5 billion in Q3 and $2.8 billion in Q4 2021, according to Dealroom. That gap will continue to close as smaller rounds dribble out in the next 2 weeks, but not by much. So far, there have been no 9-figure rounds announced this quarter. If someone has raised a $500 million round, they're going to sit on the announcement until at least January (which is what happened earlier this year when 2021 started with a flurry of 9-figure rounds being announced).

Of course, France is not an isolated case. These tumbling numbers come in the broader context of global weakness in tech, from publicly-traded giants to the earliest-stage startups. No one has been immune. And hit hardest have been those late-stage funders – PE firms and hedge funds – who rushed into the game in the past couple of years and goosed funding levels and valuations in the process.

So given that dismal context, there is some positive news (at least on a relative basis) for the French Tech ecosystem.

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