- France has raised €13 billion in new institutional capital as part of Tibi’s third phase, which was launched at VivaTech.
- Half of this new funding is set aside for deeptech, and state-linked companies such as SNCF and Naval Group are joining as investors.
- Since 2020, the program has raised nearly €31 billion and aims to reach €15 billion in new pledges by 2030.
Today, France’s finance ministry announced it has raised another €13 billion in institutional capital for the tech sector, reports Reuters.
This marks the third phase of Tibi, a program that encourages French insurers, pension funds, and now state-owned companies to invest in venture and growth funds rather than keeping their money in safer, lower-yield assets. The goal for this new phase is to reach a total of €15 billion by 2030.
The first two phases of Tibi relied primarily on private insurers, with early support from companies such as AXA, Crédit Agricole Assurances, and Groupama. The finance ministry has added new participants, including mutual insurer Carac, rail operator SNCF, Paris transport group RATP, satellite operator Eutelsat, and defence companies Naval Group and MBDA.
Bringing in state-linked industrial companies alongside private insurers represents a shift, especially since institutional investors have typically avoided the defence tech sector. Half of the new funding is specifically set aside for deeptech.
Expanding across Europe
Tibi’s first phase ran from 2020 to 2022 with a €6 billion target, but investors ultimately invested €6.4 billion. The next phase beat its own target more than a year early. This money has gone into funds that have supported scale-ups such as Doctolib, Exotec, and BlaBlaCar.
A French government audit found that the program has nearly tripled annual investment in French tech companies, with little cost to the state budget. TFN has pointed to Tibi as a model for the rest of Europe to follow, especially since US pension funds invest much more in venture capital. Phase three will show if other countries actually adopt this approach.
This is the main change in the new announcement. While the first two phases focused mostly on France, phase three is designed to support pan-European funds that can invest larger amounts across several countries.
The government wants to help small and mid-sized companies grow and go public while remaining based in Europe, rather than being acquired or moving abroad when they need more funding than local investors can provide.
How Tibi compares to Brussels’ own funds
Tibi is not the only program trying to fill this funding gap, and comparing it to others is helpful. The EU’s European Tech Champions Initiative, managed by the European Investment Fund, raised €3.9 billion in its first round in 2023 and is now moving into a second phase with a €15 billion target. This phase is open to both private institutional investors and national governments.
In the long run, the EIF says ETCI could attract up to €80 billion in additional investment. Brussels has also proposed InvestAI, a much larger €200 billion plan for AI infrastructure, along with a separate €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund that invests directly in companies instead of through fund managers.
The main difference is who provides the money and who decides how it is used. Tibi is managed by the French Treasury and relies on French insurers and, more recently, state-linked companies, with Paris deciding which funds receive the Tibi label.
ETCI, on the other hand, gathers commitments from several national governments through an EU institution, which then selects the funds itself. Tibi is betting that a single government can act faster and with more determination than 27 countries working together in Brussels. ETCI believes that only a supranational program can truly be pan-European, instead of mainly serving the country that funds it.
Both programs are now focused on the same goal: helping European companies at the growth stage that need to raise more than €50 million, an area where US investors have often stepped in when local funding was insufficient. This overlap raises a question that Brussels has not fully answered.
Some of Tibi 3’s new participants, including major French insurers, could also join ETCI 2. France has shown over the past five years that institutional capital will invest at home if the state creates the right conditions. Now, phase three tests whether this capital will also cross borders.
Whether Tibi and ETCI end up working together or competing for the same investors will reveal if Europe’s push for tech independence is truly coordinated or just two similar efforts running side by side.
