Emmanuel Duteil 4:08 p.m., December 09, 2021

Lydia, a company specializing in mobile payments, has exceeded one billion dollars in value, thus making it access the status of unicorn.

It is the 22nd French company to benefit from it.

Emmanuel Duteil, in his morning editorial on Europe 1, looks back on this economic news.

EDITORIAL

For once, it's not overused to say it's unheard of. The year 2021 is by far the year that has seen the most French unicorns hatch in years (in other words, companies that are worth more than a billion dollars). Veepee (the former Private Sale) or Blablacar were made in France exceptional against American equines. Those days are clearly over. Especially since the French herd is very diverse. We can cite the reconditioning of cell phones with Black Market, DIY with ManoMano, NFT technologies with Sorare, and therefore now personal finances with the youngest: Lydia. Mainly present in France, the company now aims toset up in Germany and Italy and recruit 800 additional employees over the next three years. 

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More ambitious companies

This is proof of the liveliness of our young shoots.

France is clearly in the European top three of the most dynamic countries with Germany and Great Britain.

And this is quite new as well.

This is explained by a change of state of mind.

The environment has simply matured.

There have been great successes.

Suddenly, entrepreneurs say to themselves that: it is possible!

And above all: "Why not me?"

The second point is precisely ambition.

We are no longer afraid of wanting to create world leaders, to go outside our borders and to have this global ambition from day one, according to the boss of Sorare. 

France, an Eldorado

A global ambition therefore, and companies positioned in promising markets such as Doctolib which are currently taking advantage of the health crisis to remedy the failures of the health system.

But we can also cite Miracle, which creates marketplaces on the Internet.

There too, we are very strong in France on this.

Add to this that the economic environment for setting up businesses has improved.

It is Xavier Niel, the founder of Free, who says it: "France is an El Dorado for creating companies".

But we also have major French weaknesses.

Better support made in France projects

Certainly. And most importantly, the development of our unicorns is largely funded by foreign funds. There is a lack in France of structures capable of financing these very large projects and suddenly, there is also a lack of very large unicorns which are worth more than 10 billion dollars while there is a dime in the United States. These are really the two points on which solutions must be found, because the future and the sovereignty of our country will depend on our ability to innovate and therefore to set up French or European players in key sectors. We can cite cybersecurity or health data. The recent successes are encouraging and prove that nothing is impossible and that France does not lack ideas or actors to carry them.It just remains to better support them.