“the fall of French Tech has arrived”

FOnce the euphoria comes, it’s time for the hard work of restructuring. One of the most famous and emblematic stars of French Tech is in great difficulty. The company Ynsect, which produces insect-based foods intended for animal and human consumption, has just placed itself under the protection of the safeguard procedure with the commercial court of Evry (Essonne). She will have up to a year to find a solution to her financial problems. However, it had raised more than 550 million euros since its creation in 2011 and promised profitability soon thanks to a well-filled order book.

But start-up fall has arrived. Private and public financiers have less money and patience, in a context of economic slowdown and tight budgets, to fully support a company that invests in giant factories without being able to finance them through its activity. In 2022, the company only sold 568,000 euros worth of finished products and recorded almost 90 million losses.

Still, Ynsect ticked all the boxes. That of industrial renewal, with its vertical farm in Poulainville (Somme), which produces beetle worms on 45,000 square meters and employs more than a hundred people. That of the ecological transition too. Antoine Hubert, the founder of the company, is an agricultural engineer and environmental activist.

Too big, too soon

It intends, with its manufacture of insect-based proteins, to make the food chain, particularly animal, more sustainable. The good fairies quickly leaned over his cradle. French institutional investors, such as Crédit Agricole, Caisse des Dépôts, Bpifrance, but also Belgian, Hong Kong and American financiers. In October 2020, the company recovered 316 million euros from them.

An unexpected amount that makes him think big. Ynsect buys competitors in the Netherlands and the United States, negotiates in Mexico at the same time as it multiplies industrial projects. Too big, too soon, in a more difficult environment with rising interest rates, which is dampening investor enthusiasm.

The first alert comes in 2023. In April, it managed to raise new funds (160 million euros), but at the cost of a falling valuation, according to Les Echosand a restructuring with the closure of activities in the Netherlands. Three months later, the founder gave way to an experienced manager from Engie, Shankar Krishnamoorthy. The company is not yet on the ground, but it will have to seriously revise its ambitions downwards. Like France with its dreams of French Tech and green reindustrialization.