Pioneering medical firm to be next French ‘unicorn’

MedDay, a Paris-based biotech firm developing pioneering treatments for Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, has been tipped as France’s next $1bn start-up “unicorn” by the head of the country’s public investment bank.

“It’s remarkable. The research has been more and more promising. It’s going to be a unicorn,” said Nicolas Dufourcq, chief executive of Bpifrance, referring to those new ventures whose value exceeds $1bn.

MedDay was founded in 2011 by the neuroscientist Frederic Sedel. Mr Dufourcq said BPI, which has an equity stake in the business, nurtured Dr Sedel, who came up with the treatment while working at the Pitié-Salpêtrière teaching hospital in Paris. “We fed his desire for independence and then we fed his sense of confidence to be an entrepreneur,” says Mr Dufourcq, who added that he expected the start-up’s value to exceed the $1bn mark in its next round of fundraising.

MedDay is developing treatments for Alzheimer’s, autism and multiple scleroris. In April 2013 it secured $8m of funding from BPI and the private equity firm Sofinnova Partners.

Mr Dufourcq, a former chairman of Wanadoo (which became Orange), said that, contrary to many perceptions, the French start-up sector is thriving. He cited tech unicorns such as the drone-maker Parrot, the ride-sharing internet company Blablacar and the online advertising company Criteo.

Mr Dufourq was in London last week on a trip to persuade the city’s venture capital funds to co-invest in French firms.

He admitted that one of the concerns of London investment firms was France’s relatively restrictive labour laws, but he stressed that the burden was greatly exaggerated.

The Bpifrance (Banque Publiqe d’Investissement) was formed in 2012 by François Hollande’s administration out of a group of other state finance providers. Its mandate is to provide growth capital to small firms in the form of both equity and debt. At the end of last year it had a €17.4bn balance sheet.

As at June there were 17 UK start-ups whose valuations surpassed the $1bn mark, according to the tech-focused investment bank GP Bullhound.

Of the 13 new European unicorns in the year to June, seven came from the UK.