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Leading Irish & French Innovators Showcase European Tech Capabilities
The representative body for French innovation France Digitale unites with La French Tech Dublin and Dogpatch Labs to host a two-day Scale-up Expo event (May 4th & 5th) to support the development of the European innovation ecosystem and highlight opportunities across Europe for startups & innovators.
This event comes in the context of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU and the recent successful re-election of French President Emmanuel Macron. It echoes the announced objective by Macron during Scale-up Europe 2021 to achieve ten decacorns (companies with a valuation of more than $100 billion) at the Continent level by 2030 . In addition, as a candidate, he revised the national goals upwards with the objective of creating 100 nationals unicorns (vs 26 today) and injecting 500 000 new tech talent into the job market.
Maya Noel, France Digitale CEO said, “2021 was a record year for startup investment across Europe. The number of European Unicorns grew by one third, and more than $100bn was invested into startups. This increased investment highlights the strength of European technology, as well as representing new opportunities for professionals across Europe. However, European startups suffer from an alarming shortage of talent : for 64% of them, the difficulty of recruiting talent is considered as the main obstacle to their development. It has serious economic consequences. We have to join forces to tackle this issue at the Continent level, that is why we want to showcase the amazing professional opportunities at scale-ups.”
Ireland and France are two of Europe’s leading startup economies, and this event will offer stakeholders from both countries the chance to share best practices and work towards building a more integrated European innovation ecosystem. The two-day event will feature keynote speeches from Irish & French ecosystem leaders, discussing the startup landscape from a venture capital, policy and talent perspective, as well as an interactive ‘Meet the Startups’ event for attendees.
“Ireland can look to France for inspiration on building a strong pipeline of homegrown tech and talent. President Macron has made indigenous innovation a cornerstone of his time in office, with more than 25 new unicorn companies since 2017,” said Patrick Walsh, CEO Dogpatch Labs. “French innovators are leading the charge in developing a European ecosystem to rival Silicon Valley, and this event will offer the chance for Ireland’s own unicorns and tech leaders to share best practices and work towards a united European approach to entrepreneurship.”
More than 30 European scale-ups will be in attendance, including Aircall, Back Market, BlaBlaCar, Qonto + Irish unicorn Fenergo to meet Ireland’s leading innovators & tech professionals.
Since 2012, France Digitale has supported startups at all stages of growth from financial assistance via a network of 1800 members, to networking needs in order to position them at a European level. France Digitale is building on successful past events, such as in San Francisco, to collaborate with La French Tech Dublin and Dogpatch Labs to highlight the opportunities and challenges in the dynamic European ecosystem.
Speakers:
The event will be opened by H.E. Vincent Guérend, French Ambassador to Ireland and feature speakers on the European ecosystem including:
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Stella Fau Clark, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Fenergo
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Senior Executives from French unicorns including Mirakl and Back Market
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Martina Fitzgerald, CEO, Scale Ireland
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Maya Noël, CEO France Digitale
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David Jullo, President La French Tech Dublin
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Jake Phillips, Ecosystem Development Director, Dogpatch Labs
Agenda:
May 4th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
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Launch party and Keynote Talks
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Panel Discussions on the State of European, Irish & French ecosystems – and the opportunities for talent
200+ people are expected to attend to hear the latest news from European tech and to network.
May 5th
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10:00am – 6:00pm : Meet the Startups, featuring 30+ European Irish & French Unicorns & Soonicorns
300+ professionals from diverse backgrounds and expertise will be in attendance.
