French Tech, a government initiative which aims to to organize and promote French innovation globally, launched officially its Moscow branch on Monday. The opening ceremony took place in Skolkovo, the international tech hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow, where French Tech Moscow has established itself.
French economy minister Emmanuel Macron offered a brief speech in English language. “This launch shows our willingness to strengthen the partnership between our two innovation and startup systems,” he said.
In separate statements, Macron also expressed his hope to see the sanctions “lifted by the summer, as far as the peace process in south-eastern Ukraine is respected.”
French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert (left), Euryale Chatelard of Altima, French economy minister Emmanuel Macron (center), Stéphanie Morley and Elizabeth Puissant of government agency Business France, French Tech initiators Thierry Cellerin and Yannick Tranchier (right). Photo credit: Skolkovo.
French Tech started activities in Moscow – after San Francisco, New York City, Tel Aviv and Tokyo – in early 2015. Since then, partnerships have been secured with several major Russian state organizations FRII, RVC and Skolkovo as well as with such venture funds as Baring Vostok, Direct Group, iTech Capital, Maxfield Capital, and Runa Capital.
The latter has already invested in two French startups (including Capptain, which it exited in 2014), and is looking for new investment opportunities worldwide.
French startups still coming to Russia
French Tech Moscow aims to help French tech players develop activities in Russia via networking opportunities and experience sharing. Another objective is to raise France’s tech profile in the Russian technological, venture and media communities – which have tended so far to focus their attention to California and Asian countries rather than France.
The organization already claims to have enrolled more than a hundred tech entrepreneurs, companies and funds.
The French tech community in Moscow took off in 2014 when a range of French startups entered the Russian market. Among them were AT Internet, Blablacar, Cegid, Criteo, Generix, Humelab, Kameleoon, News Republic, and a few others.
That same year, French entrepreneur Yannick Tranchier launched the MEF (Maison des Entrepreneurs Français), which provides French startups with advice, office support and other forms of assistance to enter the Russian market.
The small flow of French startups coming to Russia did not stop in 2015, in spite of the economic crisis and the international tensions, with such players as Lengow, Netatmo, Parrot, StarOfService, and Target2Sell launching activities in Moscow.
“We’re not seeing much of a crisis,” said Euryale Chatelard, who launched the Russian office of French digital agency Altima in 2013. “We were preparing ourselves at the start of 2015, but online retail has continued to boom so it hasn’t had a direct impact on us, people are still investing in online marketing,” she explained in an exchange with Skolkovo’s online portal SK.ru.
Last year also saw the launch of the Moscow branch of NUMA, an internationally-oriented startup accelerator headquartered in Paris, with the participation of Tranchier’s MEF. NUMA Moscow launched its first 6-month startup acceleration program for Russian startups in October.
