In 2012, BNP Paribas launched its first Innovation hubs to meet the specific banking needs of start-ups: from fund-raising, stock-market flotation and internationalisation, to wealth management for executives.
The Group itself participates in this financing by investing in start-ups via seed funding or sometimes even directly, through its own risk-capital structure. “Besides the essential matter of funding, start-ups also need to find their first customers,” Myriam Beque points out.
We decided to appoint investment managers to offer banking support to these atypical companies throughout their funding process.
The bank soon thought of an acceleration programme that successfully linked up start-ups and large companies looking to innovate and accelerate their business. Equisense, which specialises in connected devices for horses, is proof that the acceleration programme is a formidable growth lever. The start-up was able to raise funds from its partner Neovia (formerly InVivo), an animal nutrition and healthcare player, during the second season of the acceleration programme. In 2017, the overall offer for start-ups (financing, acceleration, internationalisation, etc.) was brought together in France under a single label, WAI, for We Are Innovation.
Two accelerators in Paris
To meet its own needs, the BNP Paribas Group also set up two accelerators in Paris, dedicated to the FinTech and InsurTech segments, one in partnership with Plug and Play, the global innovation platform in Silicon Valley, and the other thanks to the expertise of L’Atelier, the BNP Paribas technology intelligence unit. For start-ups in search of new markets, this is an opportunity worth grabbing. BNP Paribas lets them benefit from its global network deployed in 80 countries.As a major international bank, BNP Paribas can offer start-ups support in their development from A-Z. They should make use of it, since they are our clients of tomorrow!