Bercy wants to boost purchases from start-ups

Fewer grants, more contracts. This refrain begins to sound like a plea in the French Tech. Despite ten years of existence, the tricolor ecosystem of start-ups is still struggling to settle in the minds of major public or private buyers when it comes to providing products and services. The solutions of start-ups thus represent only 2.4% of the volume of purchases made by public administrations and between 0.1 and 0.5% among large companies, according to figures from Bercy.

Too few to hope to fight on equal terms with Chinese or American start-ups, whose domestic market is much larger and/or less fragmented than Europe. “The best source of funding for a start-up is neither grants nor investors, but contracts”, confirms Rachel Delacour, serial entrepreneur and founder of the start-up Sweep. The subject is not new. Over the past ten years, several initiatives, such as that of…