Business France, the Trade & Investment Commission of France in India, is organizing, with several stakeholders and partners, the second edition of the “French Tech Tour to India”, a multi-purpose and multi-format platform to run over Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad & Bangalore from the 13th to the 17th of November 2017.
The “French Tech Tour to India 2017” will consist in an immersive mission to India for 9 innovative “French Tech” startups and SMEs and 1 of France and the World biggest car makers. The program for these companies will include customize business meetings with Indian start-ups, investors, partners and clients as well as pitch sessions and curated networking cocktails across the 4 cities. The first edition of the event in 2016 pitch sessions and networking and networking event was a tremendous success and recorded a footfall of more than 150 participants in each city.
France is eager to develop strong partnerships with the Indian start-ups ecosystems. Therefore, the “French Tech Tour to India 2017” will also include meetings with several incubators in the 4 cities, and more specifically T-Hub in Hyderabad, Indian leading start-ups incubator, and one the biggest in the World. The “French Tech Tour to India 2017” will finally have a strong participation at the Bangalore ITE.Biz 2017 (Bangalore, 16th to 18th of November 2017), with the objective of strengthening reciprocal awareness between the French and Indian Tech ecosystems, and of promoting France as a leading Innovation and Business Hub in Europe for Indian Tech Companies.
In the years to come, Business France looks forward to take these initiatives to greater scale. The French Tech initiative fits in the with the goals and objectives of the “Startup India” and “Digital India” initiatives by the Government of India. We hope that this spirit of reciprocal learning and collaboration between India and France strengthens in the following years.
For some years now, the French Tech ecosystem has enjoyed a steady and strong development, driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, designers and other talented people. Like India, France has emerged as a leading Startup Power, home to vibrant Tech Hubs and talents, and imbued with a strong entrepreneurial culture.
With 100,000 Engineers trained yearly, 6,000+ Tech startups, 200+ Tech startup incubators /accelerators, 100+ VC funds active, more and more large companies and Mid-Caps involved into startup initiatives, not to mention our Innovation Clusters, France stands among the leading ecosystems globally when considering Tech-related Entrepreneurship and Innovation; as ascertained by the fact that France led -for the 6th consecutive year- the race in the “Deloitte Fast 500 2015 EMEA” ranking with 87 laureates.
The “French Tech” is benefiting from both Software and Hardware-centric capabilities. Also, while France has been historically known for Telecommunications and Media technologies for instance, the country has nurtured a growing number of World market leaders emerging in domains such as Big Data & Analytics (with Success Stories such as Criteo, Scality, Talend or Teads…), IoT and Connected Devices (over 25% of all startups exhibiting at the CES 2016 were French), eCommerce and Sharing /On-demand Economy, or BioTech and MedTech (No. 2 in the World for BioTech and No. 1 forMedTech IPOs over 2011-2015).
In addition to public supportive programs, private initiatives such as the StationF to open in early 2017 in Paris (consisting in the retrofit of the Halle Freyssinet, to make it the largest business incubator worldwide with over 1,000 startups spread over 33,000 sqm), shall contribute to sustain this dynamic. Also noteworthy is the fact that many MNCs (Cisco, Facebook, General Electric, Google, Huawei, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung…) have implemented R&D and Innovation centers in France and are increasing the scale of their operations in this domain.
The “French Tech Tour to India” finds its origin in the statement that with over 5,000 and 6,000 Tech startups respectively, and many large corporates involved in Open Innovation and Acceleration programs, India and France both belong to the Top 5 of the Tech startup ecosystems in the world. Yet, further initiatives need to be developed to exploit the true potential for synergies and value co-creation between the 2 Startup Powers.
Hence, in addition This French Tech Tour to India 2017 is part of the larger French Tech initiative spearheaded by the French Government and associated public and private stakeholders to promote innovation and the growth of startup ecosystems in France. These initiatives look at bridging the French and India Tech ecosystems, creating reciprocal awareness between the two ecosystems and enabling participating French Tech startups and SMEs to find their future partners and clients and develop in the Indian market.
For further information, please visit: www.businessfrance.fr and youbuyfrance.com/in.
