Tech investing in France to surpass 2018 by $500 mln

Tech investing in France slowed during the third quarter, but is still on track to outperform last year’s final results by $500 million.

The French market saw $708 million invested across 164 deals during the third quarter, according to a report from CB Insights and La French Tech, an organization for French startups.

This was a decline from Q1 and Q2 of this year, which saw more than $2.7 billion invested during the first half of 2019.

Despite the decline, the market still predicts a strong finish of about $4.5 billion in investments, which is up from the more than $3.6 recorded in all of 2018.

The first and second quarters of the year saw multiple deals more than $50 million, which dropped off to only one during Q3.

Seed and angel-stage investing saw the most activity in Q3. Overall, there were 72 deals in the seed and angel-stage in Q3, which is 44 percent of the total deal flow. Series A had the next highest market share during the quarter with 23 percent, or 37 deals.

Internet startups saw the highest deal flow and capital count across the tech sectors during Q3 and 2019 so far. The sector saw 91 deals, or 56 percent of the overall share during Q3.

The next highest sector was mobile and telecommunications, which encompassed 18 percent of the deal flow that quarter through 29 deals.

Paris still gobbled up the most deals in the country and secured more than half of the capital flow. The city saw $382 million flow into 68 deals in Q3.

The biggest tech deal during the quarter was a $56 million Series C round into JobTeaser, a Paris job recruitment software solutions company. The round was led by Highland Europe and also included Alven Capital, Seventure Partners and Korelya Capital.

Akeneo, a Nantes, France-based product management software company, secured a $46 million Series C round led by Summit Partners that also included Alven Capital, Partech Partners and Salesforce Ventures.

Kima Ventures was the most active venture investor in France during Q3. The firm participated in a $2.7 million round into Upflow, an invoice tracking software company, and a $2.6 million round into Agicap, a Lyon-based treasury management software company.

Kima had closed on 453 commitments since 2014 as of August, according to data from PitchBook.