News Five unicorn companies were born in January 2022 alone. Startup from France, the background of breakthrough?

5 unicorn companies were born in January 2022 alone. Startup from France, the background of breakthrough?

Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron posted a video on Twitter in a black turtleneck reminiscent of Steve Jobs instead of his usual tight tie and suit, saying, ``French startups have changed the lives of French people. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs across France." President Macron, who also has a career as Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital, made this post because France, which had only three unicorn companies in 2017 when he took office, will have 25 unicorn companies by 2025. This is to convey to the public the joy of achieving the goal of creating a What are the members of the five French unicorn companies that were born in January this year alone? I will also tell you about the background of the excitement of the French startup scene.

UNIQLO is also a customer, the industrial robot unicorn "Exotec"

The 25th unicorn company in France has UNIQLO and Fast Retailing, which develops GU, as customers, and the Japanese subsidiary "Exotec" Exotec, a logistics robotics company with deep ties to Japan, has an office in Tokyo. It is also the first company to become a unicorn in the field of industrial robots in the French startup scene, where fintech and cloud services stand out. The autonomous warehouse robot "Skypod" developed by the company, which can also move in the vertical direction, automates warehouse work such as picking products from shelves, and the robot arm "Sky Picker" performs sorting operations accurately and efficiently. carry out to The company, which has acquired not only UNIQLO but also global brands such as GAP as customers, has offices in Atlanta and Munich, and plans to increase the number of employees from the current 350 to 500 by 2025. are doing.

Unicorns supporting European SMEs one after another

"Spendesk" that supports internal spending management of SMEs (from official website)

The list of French startups that have entered the unicorn list this year is lined with companies that make small and medium-sized businesses smarter. “Spendesk”, which started as a debit card company for employees, provides “The 7-in-1 spend management solution”, a platform that allows one-stop management of all company spending, with European small and medium-sized enterprises as its main customers. It supports the digitization and efficiency of clerical work such as payment of outstanding bills, submission of expense reports, budget management, and expense reports. PayFit, which became the first French unicorn this year, is also helping SMEs streamline their back-office operations. About 6,000 companies currently use the payroll and personnel labor SaaS platform provided by the company, and about 150,000 people receive their salaries through this platform. About 80% of its customers are French companies, but it has expanded not only in Paris but also in Berlin, Barcelona and London. It has grown into a company with 700 employees.