Recent data from Dealroom, supported by the French startup movement La French Tech, revealed that the combined enterprise value of French startups founded since 2000 was 179 billion euros in 2021, or 17.7 times more than in 2010.

With 31 local unicorns – companies valued at over $ 1 billion – France also topped Sweden and the Netherlands (24 each) in the number of unicorns created, ranking only second behind Germany (53 ).

According to the report, venture capital (VC) investments in French startups have doubled in the past year alone, from 5.1 billion euros ($ 5.8 billion) to more than 10 billion dollars. euros ($ 11.3 billion) in 2021.

Related: Soccer NTF Sorare Trading Platform Brings $ 680 Million

The first three rounds of venture capital funding this year were the $ 680 million Series B raised by non-fungible soccer token (NTF) trading platform Sorare, the $ 555 million Series E from software as a service (SaaS) company Mirakl and a $ 400 million Series D funding from French neobank Qonto.

Overall, 2021 has been a banner year for mega-tours – fundraising at least $ 200 million – in France, with 11 of the 15 tours since 2016 having taken place this year alone.

See also: SaaS company Mirakl releases $ 555 million to expand e-commerce offerings

Commenting on the feat, Clara Chappaz, director of La French Tech, said the country “is finally attracting the means to match its ambitions”, foreign investors being the source of most of these funds.

According to data, 60% of funds raised by French startups since the start of the year have come from abroad, with American (31.2%), European (19%) and Asian (3.3%) investors. at the top of the list of non-national investors. This year.

However, Chappazz said there is a significant funding gap between Paris and the rest of the country, with other regions attracting only 50% of investments despite housing more than 70% of new startups.

That said, success stories like Swile from Montpellier who achieved unicorn status this year and Leocare from Rennes who raised € 100million show that other regions are starting to gain the attention of investors.

Read more: French super app Lydia raises $ 100 million, worth $ 1 billion

Another big achievement coming to France this year is the mobile financial services platform Lydia which achieved unicorn status earlier this month after raising $ 100 million in a Series C cycle.

Founded in 2013, Lydia started out as a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app like Venmo and has since grown into the second most downloaded FinTech app in France, giving 5.5 million customers access to other offerings. such as loans, savings accounts. and, more recently, cryptocurrency trading.

Like WeChat in China and Revolut in the UK, Lydia has set itself the goal of becoming a financial ‘superapp’ for millennials and Gen Z customers, while targeting 10 million European customers by 2025.

See also: Lydia app users can now trade crypto assets on Bitpanda

“The superapp is really the future of banking as we know it,” Lydia co-founder and CEO Cyril Chiche recently told Sifted. “The banking application has improved somewhat, but it hasn’t really changed over the past few decades. Apps should really hide all the complexity [of banking]. It must be an interface as close as possible to the real intention.

With French President Emmanuel Macron determined to make France “a startup nation”, 2022 could be an even more important year for the country’s startup ecosystem.

The La French Tech initiative, supported by the government, already brings together more than 21,774 startups and a network of more than 100 entrepreneurial communities around the world, aiming to propel French companies both locally and internationally.

France is also home to the popular Station F startup incubator, which is considered the largest startup facility in the world.

In October, PYMNTS announced that the startup incubator had partnered with payments giant Square to help entrepreneurs access commerce and payments resources, expertise, and application programming interfaces (APIs). of Square.

Related: Square partners with French startup incubator STATION F, offering expertise, technology