Pod Insights a16z Podcast The Olympics of Talent: France's Tech Boom About this episode Once criticized for lacking ambition, French founders are now aiming to create the world’s largest companies. With a thriving ecosystem attracting talent from across Europe and the US, France is becoming a major player on the global stage.
In this episode, we cover the unique advantages of building startups in France. Roxanne Varza, Director of Station F; Antoine Martin, co-founder of Amo and Zenly; and Brian Kim, a16z consumer partner, discuss the key factors driving this transformation, including infrastructure, community, and government support.
Discover how international talent, a supportive community, and robust governmental backing are propelling France’s startup scene. This episode is filled with insights into why France is now an exciting place to build a startup.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 There is a distinct advantage of building companies in France from dollar perspective.
0:06 Speaker 01 I think France is now on the map.
0:09 Speaker 02 We see a lot of folks who come from Europe or come from the US and decide to move to Paris and contribute to the startups in the same way that this happened with Silicon Valley 15, 20 years ago.
0:20 Speaker 01 That was the main feedback that all the entrepreneurs in the ecosystem heard for many years. You're not being ambitious enough. You're not being ambitious enough.
0:28 Speaker 00 The French founders that I've met, oftentimes the ambition isn't that. Ambition isn't even the Eurozone. Ambition is, we're going to build the biggest company in the world.
0:39 Speaker 02 It was dirty in France to say that a few years ago.
0:43 Speaker 01 That's the one thing we need to crack.
0:47 Steph Smith? The Olympics return to Paris this year, precisely 100 years since the city last hosted the event. Hopefully you've caught some of the highlights, like how the world's fastest man was only a fraction of a second faster than the athlete who came fourth, just shy of the podium. Now, every games is filled with these incredible moments as host nations use the event to show their strength as a country, while over 180 participating nations do the same with their athletic talent. But as the games do approach their close, it's worth reflecting on the fact that in the 98% of the time when the Olympics aren't happening, countries show their strength with their talent in other fields and increasingly in technology.
1:29 Steph Smith? So in this three-part series, we'll be exploring those dynamics across three regions: France, the UK, and Latin America. So what makes these regions distinct? And what ingredients yield thriving startup ecosystems? Is it funding, risk tolerance, regulation, or lack thereof? As people increasingly ask the question of whether Silicon Valley can be recreated elsewhere, the answers may just be across the pond: their nuanced conversations around visa programs, successful startup mafias, and local culture. In this episode around France, you'll get to hear from Roxane Barza, longtime director of Station F, the world's largest startup campus; also Antoine Martin, co-founder and CEO of Zenly,
2:10 Steph Smith? which was acquired by Snap in 2017, who is now working on AMO; and Antoine was even referred to by Sifted as the "godfather of France's emerging social media apps." And finally, Brian Kim, a 16Z consumer partner who also happened to lead the round on the recently acquired French startup BeReal. Reflecting on the very startup scene that they helped build, let's kick things off with Roxanne, then Brian, then Antwan.
2:38 Steph Smith? As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16z.com/disclosures.
3:08 Speaker 01 My Prism is very early-stage founder, and I've seen this evolve quite a bit over the last few years. I feel like it's become a lot more international. We're seeing a lot more people from different geographies that now want to come build companies here, join companies here. And also, I think with the maturity of the ecosystem, we're starting to see people who have previously been in a startup or a scale-up, or even founded companies before now building new companies. So these are things that we weren't seeing as much of a few years ago. But I would say also with the AI boom, and I think it's no secret for anyone, that the technical talent here, especially because the math and data programs that we have here are so exceptional, that if you look in, I think, any of the leading tech companies worldwide, their tech and data teams will usually have a lot of French
3:53 Speaker 01 people in them.
3:54 Speaker 00 When I think about the French tech ecosystem, typically have this three-pronged answer. I would start with an infra level, and I don't mean infra as in like, and with speed. It's an infra for the startups, especially early-stage. And Roxanne, of course, runs one of the largest startup studios in the world, and I view Station F as being a critical piece of infrastructure. And there's, of course, you know, the amazing school like Polytechnique that are technical, and you even have schools like School 42, where the infra is really, really good for creating the next batch of startup founders. The second ingredient, I would say, that France has that I haven't really seen elsewhere is, there's such a strong sense of community.
4:35 Speaker 00 Even the fact that there's a group of French consumer founders that all know each other, all talk to each other and are very keen on giving back to the community after having seen what they've gone through. Antoine is a perfect example of someone who sort of grew up in the French tech ecosystem and then is very determined to give back, whether it's lessons, learning, angel investing, advising. And that loop, to me, is quite rare. And the last, I would also mention that there's actually a lot of, I don't want to say governmental support, but there is a lot of push for the startup ecosystem to do really well.
5:15 Speaker 00 Like, there is a distinct advantage of building companies in France from dollar perspective, whether it's like BPI loans or whether it's actual GPUs. So when you combine all three, the infra, the community and the support at a governmental scale, I think that makes for a very, very unique country to build companies in.
5:36 Steph Smith? Yeah, it is fascinating to see that the country last year published a national AI strategy dedicating 500 million euros to AI clusters. So we'll get into that. But Antoine, I'd love to hear your perspective, especially since it's been about seven years since your company Zenly was acquired. So you've been in this ecosystem for a while. Love to hear how you see it, but also how you've seen it change.
5:56 Speaker 02 I mean, high level, I doubled down on what what San and BK have said. There is this obvious like underdog mentality, just because it's a smaller ecosystem, which does create the bonds and there are for folks to help each other. And so we discussed the last decade, if I go even a little further than that, Hoaksan managed an incubator before Station F. We had the most poor office you could have at the time and we couldn't host even 15 people in that consumer group you were talking about, BK. We needed a space to see each other at nights. Hoaksan would lend us rooms in the incubator she managed back then. So the whole like underdog slash give backs mentality is one of the things that today
6:40 Speaker 02 is paying dividends. We're also seeing Second time founders, third time founders for the first time. That coming with an ambition level and access to funding and talent was in their initial teams that we couldn't see 10 years ago when it was the first generation. You add the openness that France is coming towards where it feels like a more open country than it was 10, 15 years ago. Yes, we had a lot of tourists, but it wasn't depicted as the place where your quality of life was great and you'd be biking around the city. That is driving a lot of international talent. And we see a lot of folks who come from Europe or come from the US and decide to move to Paris and contribute to the startups.
7:22 Speaker 02 In the same way that this happened with Silicon Valley 15, 20 years ago. The top of mind example I have is Didier Yorost was one of the funding designers, early designers at Flipboard, then at Mailbox, then led design at Uber. And now he's helping Konto who's on an IPO road track. And he moved back to France a couple of years ago. And that generation of folks is helping us get to the next stage.
7:46 Speaker 00 It's amazing. I know Roxanne, you also just published the international component of Station F.
7:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, for the last seven years, because we just celebrated seven years. We've always been around one third of our community international, but we found out this year that we have actually 65 nationalities on campus. I didn't believe that, wouldn't have never guessed that. And then when you actually look also at some of the nationalities, they're countries that also aren't the most obvious ones. There's a lot of places that you would just imagine very pro-business and maybe they have ties to France. But also you have some very small countries that you cannot imagine that these people just picked up and came here to build the companies. So yeah, it's attracting people from everywhere now. And how many companies are now on campus? So we always have 1,000 that are based on campus. We're refreshing minimum 700 companies per year.
8:37 Speaker 01 And so we've actually worked with more than 700 new companies per year, which takes us to over 7,000 since the beginning.
8:45 Speaker 00 My partners Olivia and Justine, when they visited, the word for Station F in their eyes are it's like a Disneyland for startups.
8:53 Speaker 01 I've heard that before.
8:54 Speaker 00 Or what it's worth.
8:56 Speaker 01 So true. It is Disneyland. Sometimes it's too cushy, maybe for entrepreneurs. We gotta give them a kick, but yes, it's definitely Disneyland for startups.
9:05 Steph Smith? What a title. And I mean, I think when people think about the world's largest startup campus, they expect that to be in Silicon Valley. It's amazing that it's in France. Roxanne, same question posed to Antoine. Seven years. What have you noticed?
9:19 Speaker 01 I mean, it's been 180 degree shift. When we started Station F, people didn't know there are 1,000 companies in France. This was very clearly the underdog ecosystem that Antoine mentioned. And it's funny because, Brian, you mentioned community. I actually forget that. I think we're so used to people here just helping each other and working together that we forget that it's not like that in all the ecosystems. But I think what we've seen really change in the last few years is maybe also the international investors that are paying attention to this ecosystem. So we talked about international talent. But seven years ago, we didn't have Andreessen coming out here. We didn't have Sequoia coming out here. And I think today it makes up over 50% of the investment that's going into this ecosystem
10:03 Speaker 01 and helping the startups scale on an international level. So, I mean, to just put that in short form, I think France is now on the map and very high up there.
10:13 Speaker 00 Absolutely true. Roxanne, that actually reminded me of something where one of the things that I love about French startups is a lot of times when you look at other geographies or communities or ecosystem, they're building for their own ecosystem, right? They're like, oh, I'm going to build this biggest company in Germany, or biggest company in Korea. But the French founders that I've met, oftentimes the ambition isn't that. Ambition isn't even the Eurozone. Ambition is we're going to build the biggest company in the world. And of course, US is one of the largest markets. We're going to go after it with zeal and thoughtfulness and design that actually works for those markets. I think that attitude, confidence and approach is actually fairly rare.
10:57 Steph Smith? Any thoughts on what makes that unique when it comes to France?
11:01 Speaker 02 High level, I think it's new, to be honest, because it wasn't the case 10 years ago. And I've heard her say this many times to consumer founders or other founders we know in common. Hey guys, France is great, but it's 65 million people. You're not going to make an extremely successful business if you focus on that. And clearly today, it's not a topic anymore. It's actually the opposite. There was a founder yesterday at 42, which is one of the earliest coding schools, asking me if he should focus on the US first or France first. Because he was naturally going towards the US. And I was like, yeah, of course you need to succeed in the US, but maybe you need TMFs with 50 folks locally just to mature your product and test it. And he was so grown on the idea that US is the only way to succeed,
11:46 Speaker 02 that he was also forgetting that it also has to work locally. But that's a change. It wasn't like this 10 years ago, for sure.
11:53 Speaker 01 Totally agree with that. And I think it was very intentional. I mean, that was the main feedback that all the entrepreneurs in the ecosystem heard for many years. You're not being ambitious enough. You're not being ambitious enough. So I don't know when the change happened. It was maybe like two or three years ago. It just really accelerated. And literally, I have not heard that in several years.
12:13 Steph Smith? The messaging worked. And I mean, two industries that are inherently international, at least these days, AI and consumer. Right? You often don't think of like a country-based AI model or in some cases, consumer applications, but still the big ones obviously are international. So let's talk about those because France has become a leader in some ways in both. And so, starting with AI, we're seeing companies like Mistral leading the charge. What do you think is yielding that kind of representation?
12:41 Speaker 00 This will be a maybe a surface level observation, but I go back into what is AI? Because ultimately, it's numbers, it's math. And I think there is a little bit of difference between AI and consumer in that regard, where consumer can be about culture, taste, UX and design aesthetics. AI is a little bit more around the technical prowess. You actually understand the math underlying it. And if you think back historically, I think France has been extremely strong at producing elite mathematicians.
13:16 Speaker 00 And the schools like Polytechnique are focused also on deepening that technical prowess and this sort of arrival of LLM and ChatGPT, etc. Just coincides really with the talent and interest, which I think it's not really a surprise to me that one of the biggest fair offices was in Paris, right? And that the Mr. Robb folks came out of that and Jan Le Cun, of course, as well. And then two, again, like we're talking about last seven years, but the infra, the idea, the direction towards globally expanding, that's all been set as a foundational pieces. And then now you have this wave that's happening.
13:55 Speaker 02 I think the underlying for AI is mass and numbers, where we do have strong technical talent. The underlying for consumer today might be taste. And if you look at the city we live in, it's the epicenter of fashion, art, a lot of crazy brands. This is what we're inspired by on a daily basis. I come out of this office and there is fashionistas in the street doing exhibitions. There's an exhibition within 42's own campus where there's Banksy's on the wall. So we are emerged in that culture that I think leads to consumer, provokes great design talent. You add awesome engineering to that, then the equation becomes really strong.
14:37 Speaker 02 And in the last five years, we've added funding, which was the one thing that was back in the days missing. In my own case, one of the reasons why it made sense back then to join Snap, because if you wanted to do an IPO in architecture, you would have to raise a billion, a billion and a half, like Snap, Pinterest and others had done prior to us. And that seemed impossible with very few growth funds locally and with the level of ambition to enable that. This has changed. Thanks for having us on this podcast. This is the perfect example of that.
15:07 Speaker 00 I so agree with the culture piece. I think I told a couple of people, I'm like, what's different for French consumer founders? And my theory was, well, look, like, how many countries in the world export culture? And if you think of consumer product as like a cultural force, then honestly, think about it, how many companies can actually even export culture and is not a net importer of US Hollywood or French fashion? I think we are left with very few countries. And again, I do think you need the funding. I think you need the technical talent, but from that standpoint, there just aren't that many countries in the world that can export culture.
15:42 Speaker 01 This is also a shift. Antoine, I'm sure when you guys were launching Zenly, like, nobody was talking about consumer in France. You guys were the only ones. So what's changed? Why are we good at consumer now?
15:53 Speaker 02 I think we've had the luck of seeing a few successful companies paving the way. And yeah, Zenly is probably one of them. We've had MWM, Vudu. We're both massive app publishers. Mindy was the origin of TikTok. Their own design was invented locally by art students. And so these companies have shown that it's possible and have succeeded. No one yet was an IPO, so no home run. But some of us have gone to a first base, second base. And so there is everyone wanting to compete and go further than this, which leads to today where it seems possible to by generation, the generation after. And so there's more and more new, cool consumer products coming out.
16:37 Speaker 02 We're talking about 1010 a lot these days. And there's more coming in the same direction. Wiz, former team members from all of these companies. Excel, who leads backend as a former Zenly team member. And that enables the scale that was harder for Zenly back in the day.
16:52 Speaker 00 And we're also seeing a little bit of mafia-ness, right? Zenly mafia, Stupaflix mafia, or Photo Room.
16:59 Speaker 02 Definitely.
17:00 Speaker 00 So it's just very interesting to see the concept of mafia. Like, there are places where that doesn't exist. Like, in Korea, where I'm very familiar with, there's no concept of mafia.
17:10 Speaker 02 There will be, one day.
17:11 Speaker 00 One day.
17:12 Speaker 02 Naver.
17:12 Speaker 00 Like, a prerequisite for a lot of the founders wanting to build the next thing.
17:17 Speaker 02 Korea has produced great ones too.
17:20 Speaker 00 This is true.
17:20 Speaker 02 Kikao Talk, Naver, there's a few good examples.
17:23 Speaker 00 Absolutely.
17:24 Steph Smith? Are you guys seeing people from those mafias go on and create consumer applications once more? Or if we're seeing more integration, more of the crossover as founders go for round two?
17:35 Speaker 01 So we have a little over 50% of our founders that are repeat founders at Station F. It's grown considerably in the last few years. And what I've noticed is second time founders, they either go for something related to their first domain because they have better insights and experience and connections. But I'm also seeing a lot of people really going more for impact. There'll be a lot of people that will say, my first company, we built this, it was great. But now is my chance to really make a mark. And so there's a lot more of these kind of experience profiles going for climate-related projects, health-related projects, education-related projects.
18:12 Steph Smith? You know, people are quick to label, right? People think of Boston for healthcare, they think of New York for finance. But obviously, every city, every country has a medley of things. And perhaps there are things that are more underground that folks who live there know, oh, actually, we're not just good at consumer, we're not just good at AI, we're good at many other things. Curious if you're seeing other things where France actually has a lot of strength, but other people may not know that quite yet.
18:38 Speaker 01 I don't think Station F represents the entire French ecosystem particularly well because we're obviously attracting people based on the infrastructure we have. So we don't have a ton of bio, but I think health is a space where France really shines. And we're seeing a lot of, even with regards to AI, a lot of really interesting things in the health space. Obviously, AI, we're seeing just all sectors, all fields. B2B historically has been a very strong suit for France, so a ton of really interesting B2B applications. We also have decided that we want to double down on two sectors where we feel France is well positioned to lead. But I would say quantum computing, we have some excellent Nobel prizes in France. I think this is an ecosystem, if you want to talk about community, like that is a really tight-knit community.
19:21 Speaker 01 You can count the quantum companies probably on both hands, but they all know each other, they all work together. So we have a quantum program on campus, probably the only one in Europe. Climate, because I feel like the regulation in Europe is very well positioned to accelerate these businesses. And we're seeing a lot of really interesting climate-related innovations. Female health solutions, things that are in the femtech space, more stuff in that area here.
19:45 Speaker 02 Plus one on that one, I think I would add, when you look at the panorama of scale ups and companies that really have a go at world domination at some point, with founders and teams that are ambitious enough to do that, in fintech, we have a squad of repeat founders that are so driven, have made significant exits the first time and start looking to do massive ones the second time or never actually exit. I think of Yvain First, I think of Memo Bag, I think of Kito in the HX in insurance space, I am an eternal believer in Jean Charles and Charles from Allen, who I think have a go at one of the biggest companies in the world, they're
20:26 Speaker 02 rethinking insurance through AI. And this whole group is repeat founders who have succeeded once, are going at existing industries and are executing super well.
20:38 Speaker 00 Antoine, you mentioned John Charles and that actually reminded me of something. One thing that I always have a question on in regards to founders in France is the balance between commerciality, i.e. I want to make money, I want to go public, I want to build this giant thing, versus, oh, I want to have a great impact on the world, which is obviously noble and amazing and is a mission for a lot of folks, I want to build something beautiful, I want to build something that gives me joy and satisfaction when people use it. Those two are not necessarily at odds, of course, but I tend to see a little more folks focusing on like impact, beauty, like the satisfaction, the internal sort of, oh wow, like I built
21:23 Speaker 00 something beautiful, versus, let's go make money. And I do think there are few folks, and when you say John Charles, that's like, oh, like, he's in that camp. What would you say to that?
21:36 Speaker 02 I mean, he's also in the health camp and the founding story behind Alain is also his first solving health in a country where a lot of its deficit and structural balance goes into solving health. If he thinks he can partially solve that, so it's both noble and yeah, definitely. He wants to build a massive business, you know, he finishes his investor report saying he wants to build the biggest company in the world and he has the ambition and the courage to actually say that and he's executing in that direction. So I think this is also something that changed where it was dirty in France to say that a few years ago, it still is in parts. I, you know, was very well perceived by everyone until then he exited and then suddenly I was a bad guy because we had
22:21 Speaker 02 made money. I think that's changing and there's more respect for the way that can also be utilized for public good. And when you look at all of these stories, the tie in between every single story which is discussed, whether it's Station 42, AI in France, Zenly and its capacity to be funded early stage when no one else wanted to give money, is one entrepreneur, one founder pushing in all directions.
22:48 Speaker 00 He was the elephant in the room that I was going to at some point talk about. So I'm glad you
22:54 Speaker 01 But I do think Antoine said something that's definitely not to be ignored. There's a cultural element to talking about money in France that's not the same as in the US. And I think within the ecosystem, it's much more accepted to talk about raising money, going after money, making money. I don't think within the entrepreneurial community, it's particularly taboo, but I think outside of this community, the general public, that is very much the case, which means that when people are talking about their businesses openly, they're not going to be seeing that as much.
23:28 Steph Smith? And that permeates who people's role models are, what fields they go into, whether they're willing to start businesses. But another key driver in addition to talent is of course the government strategy and what messages they're sending as well. So maybe we can pivot to that. I mentioned a little bit earlier, the country last year published a national AI strategy, but you also have private businesses. You have Microsoft, for example, announcing An additional $4 billion for data centers and other AI investment in France. But then you also have, for example, the EU reaching a deal on AI regulation that some people are debating may actually stifle that innovation. So I'd love to hear this group's perspective on how regulation is playing a role here.
24:08 Speaker 00 As an outsider, I view recent policy towards the tech ecosystem as being very encouraging. They're seeing the impact that these businesses can have. They're seeing the impact that having these businesses on your shore and representing the country to some extent, what that can do to the national image, the talent coming back to your country and building things and creating value within your borders. Where we're seeing it from the top, right? It's almost as if somebody listens to like, oh, it's time to build and they'll say France edition. And so I get pretty excited about that. And I've seen the concrete benefit, right? Like I mentioned, the BPI loans. And I do know that changes the calculus for initial funding for a lot of startup founders,
24:52 Speaker 00 because it's a non-dilutive funding and it enables them to think through the initial inflow of funds a little differently from other ecosystem. And I think that's interesting. I also know that there's a real concrete economic benefit for AI companies to relocate or build in France.
25:10 Speaker 02 You know, all these things are so connected. But on the launch of Station F, we had sold Zeny and joint Snap a couple of months prior. And Roxanne invited me to a private tour before the day of the launch with the president, which I met for the first time that day. We tell him Zeny's story. He learns the word divot, which he uses in a speech an hour later. Along the way, one of his cabinet members, who led digital strategy for France for maybe five years afterwards, comes to me and says, hey, I work with the president. I'd love to understand where we can do better. We've been very lucky. We've had political momentum. We need to transform that into economic momentum and we need to deliver. These are his exact words that day.
25:53 Speaker 02 And he invited me over and a few other entrepreneurs to give feedback. And they did that continuously over the last seven, eight years. A lot of that led to reforms, led to encouragements, led to fixing a few things that made it harder to be an entrepreneur in France and elsewhere. Today, as a French founder, I don't see a reason to build a company and a team elsewhere unless 100% of your market is in another location. But even then, the access to talent you have locally, the local encouragements, the support, makes it a fairly easy equation to actually stay in France and build from here.
26:30 Speaker 01 I can't help but agree with everything that's been said, but I do think we have to make a distinction because we talked about also AI policy on a European level. So I think when you look at the French government specifically, I can pretty much only say positive things about what's happened. And some of the groundwork was laid pre-Macron, but I think he really came in. I mean, the story from what Antoine said, I remember that speech that he gave more like, oh my God, pivot, he heard that 10 minutes ago. But yeah, I think the thing is he really understood, he really connected, he grasped it. But he also pushed the government to be close to the entrepreneurs. I mean, we have at Station, I have 30 government services, but I actually, my team shares a floor with 20, 30 people from the government.
27:11 Speaker 01 So anything that we need, someone's visa is blocked, we're having issues with public funding, they're going to announce some kind of new thing for data protection, we can just go right next door and just ask these questions and get it solved. So I think that's just something we never would have imagined prior. And I also think that with regards to the negotiations around AI Act, I mean, yes, I think it could have been better. And I'm hearing a lot of comments from AI founders today that are saying Europe is going to be behind because of what can be released here. But the fact of the matter is that when you look at what well, France was playing in those negotiations, a lot of people are saying France was coming across as way more pro-business than everyone else. So I think that's also not something to be ignored.
27:54 Steph Smith? Maybe we could get into the specifics. I mean, I love that both of you mentioned that France seems to be a place that's more pro-founder. And just for the uninitiated who aren't as familiar with what it's like to be a founder there, how would you characterize whether it's the regulation or the community? What is actually different about being a founder in France, let's say, compared to America?
28:16 Speaker 01 I see people coming over from all different countries, but actually, the country that's the best represented at Station F after France is the US, and it's been the US from day one. We get a lot of Americans that come here, and I think in the past, maybe like 10 years ago, the conversations were around the cliches around hiring and firing. I don't hear that at all anymore. That's not a topic people are concerned about. Actually, people are pleasantly surprised by, Brian, you mentioned it, the public funding, the grants you can get. In some cases, people qualify for unemployment, very generous unemployment. I mean, there's money here, and there's public money here. That is probably way, way more generous than what you have in the US. So I think that's the first thing that a lot of people are talking about.
29:01 Speaker 01 And then, obviously, a lot of people who are coming from different countries are going through the visa scheme. The government did a massive overhaul of the visas, and I think it's probably, hands down, the best entrepreneur or tech talent visa that exists in Europe.
29:14 Speaker 02 Plus one, I mean, if you look at AMO, my current company, the majority of our hires come from abroad. It's often faster to get them a visa and make them move in than notice periods in certain countries. The first nationality represented in terms of international hires is the US. We have, I don't know, nine, 10 Americans in the team, up to a point where I'm questioning the idea of making the seat too American if we want to stay international. This is the reality. This was enabled through the French tech visa. There's also a lot of things that were done around capital gain taxes. They were done very early on and barely changed since, which was also one of the asks from the entrepreneurs to stop changing these systems every year.
29:59 Speaker 02 They've been good at not doing that too often. They've improved the way we grant stock options, and this was one of the liabilities. It was harder here to do so, to apply for market value and things like that. And it seems like it's been changed, and it's now very competitive. So. I have a few investments in Germany and in other countries where DocuSign is barely recognized. You need a notary to actually sign a fundraise. It's crazy how complex it seems versus what it is today in France.
30:28 Steph Smith? That's amazing. What I'm hearing is clarity as well. Obviously, it sounds like over the last decade, a lot has changed for the positive. But I'd love to hear your take on where we go from here, right? What would you love to see, whether it's from the government or from the startup ecosystem as we look to, let's say, the next decade? Imagine we're recording this in 2034.
30:48 Speaker 00 I would love to see a couple of $10 billion plus IPOs.
30:52 Speaker 01 Thank you. Plus one.
30:54 Speaker 02 I was gonna say the same thing. And then probably some M&A on top, which, by the way, we had the very first local significant M&A in France ever with in tech companies. You all know B Real, Anderson Hobbit was through BK and an investor. It was awesome for me as the early helper of that team and investor to see them sell to another local company that has a go at that $10 billion IPO in the next two, three years. That's very new. That opens up another market for VCs. It qualifies the early-stage space. It enables more business angels. It enables teams who have made money through exit and
31:36 Speaker 02 are therefore telling us there's that stock options have value associated. That's one of the things I'd love to see. It will come with the IPOs.
31:44 Speaker 01 100%. I think the only thing that I could think of is exits. That's the one thing we need to crack. The government is very conscious of this. So what I think is really great is they're often on the ground, asking people what needs to change, what needs to happen, where can we act? They've been doing that also since COVID. And when the funding kind of cycle started changing, 2022, 2023, on the ground again, especially close to people in the finance world. And the one topic that is always talked about is exits. So hopefully we'll see some movement there.
32:17 Speaker 00 I circled. I wrote then, when Steph asked the question, I literally exits and I circled it. And to your point of the government really asking for feedback, Macron is till this day, the only head of states I ever met. And he asked the question, what can we do better? Like, why do you think this is an interesting market for you? And at the beginning of our podcast, talked about like the infra, the community and the policy. Like I said, like exactly those three things. And He took notes. I'm like, what? Like an investor and you're like taking notes. Like, great. So that's when I also sort of, the third point, the policy, I'm like, oh, there's actually a system here that thinks of the tech ecosystem as being priority.
32:58 Steph Smith? Totally. And Brian, I'd love to hear your just quick take. I mean, I know there's probably limitations in what you can say, but just with the B Real acquisition, like, what was that like to see that French company? You obviously invested on our side. Was that surprising at all? Or how does it feel to see that M and A get off the ground?
33:13 Speaker 00 It's interesting. When you think about the exit ecosystem, we talked about the commerciality and what have you, like Vudu is led by someone who I think is also very commercial. And he also was a fairly early investor in B Real himself through the angel sort of system. And I think he posted almost every day as well. I was friends with him on B Real, so I would see him post every day. And I think it's very interesting when founders who understand the power of the product, the origin story, the design, eat those, the people behind the product intimately well, to have that confidence, right? Like, someone from far, far away may not be able to make the same decision because there's
33:58 Speaker 00 so much wealth of knowledge and intimate relationship and understanding about what the product is, what the potential is, to combine the forces together. So I think there is really something to be said about, I think this also is a power of the community, where had it not been the group, the closeness and the intimacy within the community and the knows at all crisscross across like all the people, I think that would have been a different outcome, right? So like, I think that's an interesting case study of how the ecosystem actually can produce real exits.
34:36 Speaker 02 It is changing the ecosystem for sure, because it's also enabling visibility for these companies at a level that was not possible for a French company prior to now. One of the successes for Mistral is the quality of the model, the quality of their team, of course, but also the way they're evangelizing it and how this whole community, it's a million developers has been using it. This is only possible because French entrepreneurs now speak English and their teams are connected to the US and have all these French engineers living in Silicon Valley and evangelizing, et cetera. You do the same Miss Trout 10 years ago. I don't think it could have had the reach it has today because of the maturity of the ecosystem.
35:14 Speaker 01 You're right. This is the first time people are putting the world leader OpenAI and a French company back to back, which we haven't had before. And also, what's really funny is, Miss Trout, we didn't talk about this researcher movement. Before, we didn't see people leaving research to build companies. And we saw it with Miss Trout, and then we saw it with H Company. And I think a couple of the corporations freaked out and came and made some announcements here to calm their research teams down. But I'm now hearing entrepreneurs on the ground here, that's a new way to build a company. Now, people are like, oh, I'm just gonna go get some researchers, raise 200 million, and build a company. That's the new dream, which is really incredible to see that they've inspired this new level of ambition, even further than what we had before.
36:00 Steph Smith? Well, this has been great. I have to cap things off with a final question. So Roxanne and Antoine, will you be swimming in the river this Olympics?
36:10 Steph Smith? Do you believe in French technology enough that you would swim in the river?
36:14 Speaker 01 Oh, wait, man, no way. But I'm very happy the mayor did because she said she would, so.
36:19 Speaker 00 Oh, the mayor did?
36:21 Speaker 01 Oh, she did. She did.
36:23 Speaker 00 She's a true woman of the people. Nobody can like.
36:26 Speaker 01 She didn't have a choice. She had to get in.
36:29 Speaker 02 That's amazing. And she swims pretty well, too, to be honest. She was fast.
36:34 Speaker 00 Wow, respect.
36:36 Steph Smith? All right, that's all for now. Stay tuned for two more episodes in the series where we cover the unique attributes that have shaped the UK and Latin America up to the forces that they are today. We'll see you then.
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