Financier Chausson Finance has confirmed that French Internet start-ups are attracting phenomenal numbers in the venture capital arena.
During the first semester of this year, 32 companies have raised $45.8 million, according to results from a semester indicator presented by Chausson Finance.
Chausson Finance, a specialist in raising funds for start-ups in
the IT and biology fields, released the indicator called ICF (Indicateur Chausson Finance).
According to the conclusions made by the ICF, the Internet sector — including content, services and e-commerce sites — has progressed to a total of $42.8 million reportedly raised by 32 start-ups. This figure represents four times the amount closed by start-ups in 1998.
Thus, Internet industry investments follows software in the rankings of top VC investment choices. Among the Internet sectors, e-commerce has attracted around 10 percent of all the investment operations while Internet services and content represents around 16 percent.
Big winners in the VC pool include 3 Internet start-ups: None Networks, the operator of the ISP Freesbee, leads with $23.3 million; e-commerce company Imediation closed $10 million; and online ad company Universal Netcom follows with $8 million in funding.
For its second issue, the fundraiser has provided the agency Edité with information on transactions made by the 22 main french venture-capital companies. Each must manage funds higher than US$8.3 million, and the transactions must involve more than $80,000.