France's top corporate finance chiefs are getting lessons on thespecifics of acquiring startups in a push by a state-backedinvestment fund to triple tech deals in the country within threeyears.

Chief financial officers from France's biggest companies, frombanks to industrial conglomerates, are learning to pin a price tagto a startup, spot when a company is ripe to be snatched up, andcalibrate how many acquisitions it takes to land a technology goldnugget. Their teachers are venture capitalists or otherentrepreneurs, called in by Bpifrance, an investment fund supportedby the government that has spent years pumping money into thecountry's startup ecosystem and investing alongside other funds toprovide reassurance.

“What France's tech scene needs now is more exits,”Paul-Francois Fournier, Bpifrance's head of innovation, said in aninterview in Paris ahead of a conference Wednesday detailing itsinvestment strategy. “Bigger companies are learning to manage theirstartup investments, and VCs can teach them a lot.”

Bpifrance invests in companies to help boost financing forstartups in France as well as in other funds. The next step is tospur acquisitions so investors can cash in and back new projects.Fournier is looking to go from about 50 corporate takeovers ofstartups a year to double or triple that, in three years at themost.

“French companies are still dominated by CFOs who are terrifiedof valuation multiples,” Nicolas Dufourcq, Bpifrance's CEO, saidWednesday in a conference in Paris about the fund's investments ininnovative companies. “We do our part to educate them.”

With offices in central Paris, not far from Google's Frenchheadquarters, Bpifrance brings CFOs and venture capitaliststogether in a space called Le Hub for informal chats about how tohelp companies identify a target and close the deal. Frenchcompanies that have participated include Accor SA, Valeo SA,Faurecia SA and TF1.

“Owning an incubator or a corporate venture fund with a bunch ofminority stakes doesn't fix the problem for companies — they needto buy startups, do full acquisitions,” Fournier said. “It's anopportunity to get new technologies and talents in as biggercompanies seek to regenerate and reinvent themselves.”

Brexit Amplifier

Investment in technology companies in France was $1.5 billionduring the first nine months of 2016 spread over 368 operations, upfrom $1.25 billion in 2015 over 215 operations, according to areport by CB Insights. France overtook Germany in the third quarterwith $857 million to $462 million, but it still lags the U.K. whichhad $919 million during that period.

France can leapfrog the U.K. in the final quarter of the year iffinancing keeps up, helped by several fundraising rounds inNovember including Sigfox's 150 million euros ($159 million) andDevialet's 100 million euros, Fournier said. Brexit could alsocreate instability for the U.K. and persuade investors to looktoward France, including in the financial technology sector.

“The French ecosystem is benefiting from deeper factors thanjust Brexit, but Brexit could lead to an acceleration of the trendfrom the first nine months of the year,” Fournier said. “Brexit isan amplifier.”

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