France enjoys the advantage of having many elite schools in mathematics that are creating an ecosystem of developers and engineers working on artificial intelligence (AI). The European nation’s sovereign wealth fund hopes to grow this ecosystem and bring 500 deeptech start-ups to the fore each year, creating 100 French unicorns by 2030.
This is one of three pillars of Bpifrance’s 2030 strategy, unveiled in October. It involves a plan to deploy nearly EUR35 billion ($52.80 billion) over five years to support French companies.
In addition, AI, blockchain and disruptive technologies will be at the heart of investments, with EUR10 billion earmarked for AI.
“[French schools are] grooming a new generation of entrepreneurs,” says Bpifrance CEO Nicolas Dufourcq in an interview with CNBC. “Many companies that are famous in the AI scene were founded by French entrepreneurs.”
He lists as examples Poolside, a French start-up specialising in the development of computer programmes using AI; and Hugging Face, another French company focused on opensource tools.
Speaking at the start of Bpifrance’s inaugural Asia forum on Nov 17, the week after the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025, Dufourcq says his investment firm “wants to be constantly inspired by what we find in Singapore”. In particular, Dufourcq is focused on developments in the “frontier fields” — “everything that is linked to blockchain and crypto”.
In addition to being a shareholder of six quantum computing companies, Bpifrance announced in March that it plans to spend up to EUR25 million on smaller newly-created tokens issued by French projects, before they are listed on crypto exchanges.
Prior to that, Bpifrance, with over EUR60 billion in assets under management, had already spent EUR150 million on investments in blockchain-related projects.
“We were extremely cautious,” says Dufourcq to CNBC. “We didn’t try, you know, to be investors in FTX and so forth; but we looked at it, we scanned it [and] we were documenting the situation. We decided to go with relatively small amounts of investments [at first], but still, we have a fund that is investing in tokens.”
There is a “very buoyant” ecosystem of crypto start-ups in France, Dufourcq adds. “So, we put small tickets of equity in those companies. We [invest] in funds of funds [and] different crypto funds. We’re ready for the possible start of a healthy growth of that sector.”
While Bpifrance will not invest in publicly listed digital asset companies, Dufourcq says the investor will “definitely” diversify into “small assets”. “It’s just a bit of an intellectual strategy; we want to understand fully the category of crypto, because something is going to happen inevitably, and we want to be prepared for that, but we are honestly cautious.”
Singaporean traits
What is fascinating in the landscape of Singapore is the “incredible alignment” between the regulators, bankers and start-ups in the scene, says Dufourcq. “We would really like to mirror that in France.”
Speaking to over 500 entrepreneurs and investors at Bpifrance’s Inspire & Connect Asia at Andaz Singapore, Dufourcq says France is “not far” from Singapore’s efficient model, but the “cost of coordination” among the players “is a little bit higher” in France.
“Consensus building in a big country like France, or in Europe, is something that is constantly a challenge,” he adds.
Dufourcq says Bpifrance “particularly likes” Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. “When you look at the documents of this extraordinary fund, they say we are state-owned but we are not state-directed. We like that. This is part of the spirit of Bpifrance also; there is total independence in investment.”
