2023-06-16 09:48:00
For the tenth anniversary of French Tech, the Minister Delegate in charge of the Digital Transition, Jean-Noël Barrot, finally responds to a recurring request from French startups: direct public procurement towards their products and services. With the “I choose French Tech” program, the government aims to double the use of solutions by French startups by 2027 in the public sector, but also in the private sector.
If the State obviously has a direct influence on the public market via its Purchasing Department, it must on the other hand multiply the levers of action to encourage the private sector to follow the movement.
Only 2.4% of the public order goes to French startups
The assessment carried out by French Tech reflects the feelings of the managers of startups: only 2.4% of the public purchase of the ministries was allocated to their solutions in 2021. That is barely 540 million euros of orders on the more than 40 billion euros spent by the State. Worse, this ratio falls below the 0.5% mark among private companies. According to a survey by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) conducted among 410 business leaders in June 2023, only 6% of private companies (mostly large groups) buy from startups, for an average amount of 30,100 euros.
In France, start-ups regularly lose public tenders to foreign companies, most often American. Conversely, several countries – the United States and Israel in particular – do not hesitate to booze their nuggets with major public contracts. Result: French startups complain of not playing on equal terms when they export, while they only benefit from few advantages when they play at home.
« Guaranteeing the dissemination of the technologies of French Tech startups also means promoting the maintenance of these companies and technologies in France in an ultra-competitive geopolitical context. “, develops Clara Chappaz, to recall the stakes of sovereignty behind the initiative.
The command of the State to show the example
To remedy this situation, the administration will multiply the initiatives, and is the first bearer of the project. Concretely, the State Purchasing Department undertakes to double its orders for innovative SMEs from 2.4% to 4% by 2027. It would thus spend around 1 billion euros in the services of nuggets French.
In order to facilitate the achievement of this objective, the State Purchasing Department will register the entirety of the Next40 and the French Tech 120 – the public ranking of the most promising startups – on the recent single public order platform, APProach, by the end of the year. Finally, it will deploy a fund endowed with 6 million euros over two years to support innovative purchasing projects of less than 100,000 euros, which do not have to go through the traditional public tender process.
For its part, the French Tech Mission will contact the buyers of each ministry to identify their needs and provide them with lists of startups capable of meeting them. As for the 100 strategic start-ups of the recent “French Tech 2030″, they will benefit from tailor-made support in order to ” identify the most relevant public buyers and position themselves on their calls for tenders ».
Only “commitments” for the private sector
To encourage the private sector to consume more French services, the program relies on a network of partners, who undertake to “choose French Tech”. The latter is now made up of 45 institutional players and 225 companies (including 108 large groups and a significant number of large startups). The State aims to increase the number of partner companies to 500 by the end of the year, and even to more than 5,000 by 2027.
In concrete terms, these partners undertake to organize one meeting with start-ups per year, to mobilize their network to participate in the initiatives of the “I choose French Tech” program, and to appoint a referent on these subjects within their organisations. Some of them (including Bouygues, EDF and BPCE) even promise to double their purchases from start-ups by 2027. Before evaluating the implementation of these promises, French Tech will create a ranking of best partnerships in which startups will rate their experience of collaborating with large groups.
To oversee everything, the program provides for the creation of an observatory, which will publish an annual barometer, ” with encrypted data “. It will be presented at an event organized by the French Tech Mission, the first edition of which will be organized in November 2023.
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