Tech IT Easy

” Message from Jeremy : For those new to Tech IT Easy, who could obviously not remember the initial announcement, I have invited my friend and fellow Alexandre Lucas to help me try to provide you, dear readership, with everyday better analyses on software, telecom & Internet trends. Alex’s mission statement is basically to go further into the details, from both a financial and a strategic angle. Alex, the floor is yours…”

Today, French minister Renaud Dutreil, who is in charge of the development of small and mid-sized companies, will soon implement a series of additional measures (mainly tax breaks) aiming at optimising returns of investors in start-ups in France.  Several tax reductions are already in place : investors can deduct up to 25% of a cash investment from their revenues (thus reducing their income tax) and long-term investments are tax-exempt.

French governement is aiming at boosting the number of business angels from 4-5.000 to 20.000 over a period of 5-6 years. There are 40.000 business angels in the UK and 400.000 in the US.

 A study by AFIC (the French Venture Capital Association) has recently published a study on venture capital financing in France. Main takeaways:

 - companies financed by business angels represent account for 9% of total private employment in France (1.5m people, c.4.800 firms), i.e. the same figure as the sum of employees of the companies included in the CAC 40

- the number of people employed by these firms has risen by 4% (60.000) over 2005 with total sales of EUR200 bn

- these firms outperform the french economy and the CAC 40 in terms of growth with 7% p.a.