International Battery Companies "Choose France"

All eyes will be on France this summer as the Olympics come to Paris and it's not only on the sporting scene that France is grabbing the headlines. 

We're continuing to see a wave of announcements on international companies investing in France.  It seems that President Macron and the French Government's bold actions seem to be paying off, in line with their investment strategy slogan "Make it iconic. Choose France"

Earlier this month at the Choose France summit, Macron announced a monumental €15 billion in outside investments into France across multiple tech sectors, from healthcare, IT, and most notably Cleantech / ClimateTech. 

Most recently, these 3 notable players in batteries and energy storage (Skeleton, Nidec, and Sunlight) have pledged significant commitments to new French R&D and production facilities, as you can read in the article. This news comes at a time when speculation is rife that Tesla will choose France as a future Gigafactory location and when Taiwanese JV, ProLogium, continue to scale it's first international R&D capability near Paris. 

This international faith in France is a real boost for the green economy, and coincides with a strong domestic footprint also, with French players like Verkor (secured €1.3bn debt finance this week), ACC (€4.4Bn commitment in February), and Blue Solutions (€2Bn investment for first SSB Gigafactory) all pushing forward with industrialisation strategies. 

It does make you think what's the secret sauce? Well bold action from Government level, with a more attractive fiscal policy (tax-credit system for sustainable investments), changes to regulation making it easier to establish start-ups and hire international specialist talent into France, and a strong, clear strategy with sustainability at the heart of it. 

France's impressive announcements should also serve as inspiration and breed confidence for the rest of Europe, at a time when the USA has been getting all of the spotlight. 

Hyperion has had the pleasure of working with numerous exciting French cleantech companies like HSL Technologies (HySiLabs), Verkor, and EasylZinc, to name a few. We're excited by the continued investment momentum in France and look forward to partnering with more and more French innovators and international players moving into France.