Business France in North America

Business France PARTNER WITH FRANCE, INVEST IN ITS CREATIVITY

897

FRENCH COMPANIES WERE ASSISTED BY BUSINESS FRANCE NORTH AMERICA IN 2015

214

INVESTMENT PROJECTS WERE INITIATED IN FRANCE

BY NORTH AMERICAN COMPANIES IN 2015

71

B2B EVENTS WERE ORGANIZED IN 2015 IN 33 CITIES ACROSS NORTH AMERICA

Arnaud Leretour Executive Director,Business France North America

Entrepreneur is a French Word.

Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, responsible for fostering export growth

by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France. It promotes France’s companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and also runs the V.I.E international internship program.

Our Export department focuses on assisting French companies in their export strategies by providing advice, access to market information and business leads to clients.

Our Investment department helps foreign companies to set up business in France. Our priorities reflect the will of the French government to promote the French economy by making available the tools and support companies need to succeed overseas.

With 85 offices in 70 countries, Business France offers a comprehensive range of products and services aimed at advancing companies’ export and invest plans at every step of their strategy.

From the very beginning, with market and business information or personalized market studies, to the end, with legal information or potential partners’ one-on-one meeting tailored schedules.

Our Agency also organizes promotional, informational and networking events, and helps companies in adapting their communication tools to better reach their targets. Every year, our local offices help hundreds of French and foreign firms to execute more efficiently their business strategies and pursue partnerships with companies overseas.

Our strength lies in concentrating our efforts in promising sectors, fostering partnerships between North American and French companies, creating added value for both sides. Our priority is to support the evolution of North American companies in areas where French companies are innovative and business-forward. French companies can bring a lot to the table as business partners when it comes to high-quality manual labor and top-notch research and expertise in the technology field.

Entrepreneurship is strongly rooted in French culture with entrepreneurs more than willing to expand their businesses outside of France. This shared appetite for risk-taking in the pursuit of growth is one commonality demonstrating that French and North American businesses are on the same wavelength.

Close to Opportunities Business France is a worldwide network constantly evolving to better serve French and foreign companies in their development projects. It is also a strategic network in France. With 500 employees in its head offices in Paris and Marseille, our French team includes 24 regional directors and delegates. Their mission: ensuring constant contact with SMBs and SMEs wishing to develop their export activities, and also maintain contact with French regions – our counties – to present the best investment opportunities to our international contacts.

Since 2013, Business France has been working in close partnership with Bpifrance, a public bank whose mission is to help the most promising companies to grow by providing financing solutions tailored to their needs and potential. To carry out this partnership, we developed an additional network of 40 International Business Managers throughout the country. Working directly with and in Bpifrance’s local branches, they provide high value-added services to the best intermediate-sized enterprises and fast-growing SMEs in France.

Identified by Bpifrance as high potential firms, these companies are systematically vetted by Business France prior to financing of their export strategy.

A local International Business Manager then helps each company in building a worldwide strategy in collaboration with our offices in the targeted countries whose markets are more likely to be a successful match.

Close to the Markets

1500 EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE

500 EMPLOYEES IN FRANCE

The Business France North America team is made up of young professionals with a vast array of experiences in various industrial and services sectors. Our team members are fully equipped with the necessary linguistic, cultural and technical expertise to assist the business development needs of our clients. With extensive knowledge of both cultures, our agents help design personalized business strategies with a longterm commitment.

We have an established presence in 10 locations all over North America. Our offices are in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Montréal, Atlanta, Vancouver, Boston, Houston and Detroit.

We have a fully integrated network with sector-based teams operating out of each location, an approach that we adopted to establish better coverage of the North American market, from east to west. This focus also helps us in responding efficiently to the requirements of our clients and in matching their needs to the local expertise, such as technology in Silicon Valley, biomedicine in Boston or aerospace in Montréal.

10

LOCATIONS

110

EMPLOYEES IN NORTH AMERICA

A Specialist for Each Industry INDUSTRY & CLEANTECH Our Industry & Cleantech department deals with sectors such as aeronautics, automotive, transportation, environment, energy and public works.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES & SERVICES The New Technologies, & Services department dedicates itself to services, distribution and ITC companies.

AGROTECH

LIFESTYLE & HEALTHCARE

The Agrotech department handles the wine, spirits & beverages, food and agricultural equipment industries (including oenological, agricultural and food processing equipment).

The Lifestyle & Healthcare department gathers all sectors linked to consumer goods: building materials, tourism, beauty, well-being, leisure, fashion, home decor, luxury‌ They also manage the biotechnologies and medical equipment industries.

Informing

GET THE KNOWLEDGE YOU NEED TO GO FORWARD

We prepare our French clients to adapt their offer to the North-American market, so we can introduce marketready solutions and ultra-competitive suppliers to our local contacts. From personalized market studies and legal advice, to workshops highlighting key-markets opportunities, our goal is to help French businesses target the right market for their products and adapt their strategy and marketing accordingly. We also coach them and work with them on their communication approach prior to prospecting so that they can market themselves appropriately in North America.

Import Success Story: EUROBIO: LEARNING, ADAPTING, PARTNERING Eurobio offers innovative solutions designed to preserve corneas in between procedures or for organ culture purposes. A leader in Europe, its products are widely used in hospitals, at eye banks and in pharmaceutical research.

Corneal grafting is a delicate operation: it requires an excellent preservation of tissues, usually achieved in the US through cold storage solutions, as warm storage solutions are traditionally created with components deemed unsafe by the FDA. Yet, warm solutions have a double advantage: not only do they extend the length of possible storage, erasing the time factor from delicate procedures, they also offer a higher level of safety against possible contaminants, as warm environments accelerate the formation of visible signs of microbiological cultures.

Already aware of this sanitary limitation, Eurobio developed warm solutions using only FDA-approved components for the US market.

The company contacted Business France in the middle of 2015 to know more about the American market and determine how to market its solutions overseas.

Business France offered the company a helping hand in recruiting the perfect candidate to carry out its strategy in the US. Working closely with Eurobio’s new local employee while training him, Business France realized an extensive market study and introduced the company to 90% of American eye banks, which showed interest for one or several products. One of them, the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, is currently running tests for the warm solution to be approved by the FDA, with the additional goal of showing the efficiency of the products in comparison with current American solutions.

Invest Business France Invest helps North American companies to prepare their investments with advice on potential tax and legal issues. Additionally, we help investors to find appropriate funding solutions for their project and support them in finding talent for their French offices. We also organize regular gettogethers in North America, for businesses to better understand the opportunities that France offers and the specificities of French business culture.

Success Story: CONCORDIA FIBERS: GOING GLOBAL, GOING BIG Concordia Fibers specializes in high performance yarns for composite companies. In the summer of 2013 it turned to Business France to identify potential locations for a new manufacturing facility in Europe. Concordia Fibers had just secured a contract to process carbon fiber used in manufacturing fan blades and fan cases for the CFM LEAP engine by Albany Safran Composites and Safran Aerospace Composites at their factories in Commercy in the French region of Lorraine. Concordia Fibers had no previous experience of going global with its manufacturing operations being based in the North East of the USA (Rhode Island and New Hampshire).

Business France and its partners in the Lorraine region supported the company through every step of its development. The Agency worked

closely with Commercy’s district administrations to identify potential locations for a new plant, secure financing for its facilities, secure grants and incentives and also set-up a recruitment and training program for its workforce. Business France also helped Concordia Fibers identify candidates for its French operations manager in collaboration with APEC, the French office for executive recruitment.

After a successful collaboration, Concordia Fibers broke ground in December 2015 at its new facility in Commercy. The new Concordia Fibers French unit is set to open in July 2016, with 40 people working on the production lines.

Finding quality suppliers with particular high-level skills can prove to be a hard task. This is why Business France offers turnkey, personalized B-to-B solutions designed for a buyer with specific needs. Our advisors get the company’s specifications, and then use our extensive French supplier database for active prospection to find export-orientated prospects that match expectations. Once the company chooses which suppliers it wants to meet from among our selection, we organize an entire day of individualized meetings, in Paris or at client headquarters.

Import Success Story: EPCOT, TRUST RENEWED FOR A TAILORED SOURCING Epcot is one of Walt Disney World’s four theme parks in Florida. Opened in 1982, it is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, technological innovation and international culture. Its World Showcase section features 11 pavilions, each containing architecture, landscapes, streetscapes, attractions, shops and restaurants representing a country’s culture. Among them, the French Pavilion is a delightful mix of Paris and small French towns, adorned with typical souvenir shops. Over the course of three years, Business France helped Epcot to find no less than seven new suppliers corresponding to its needs, and is still in contact with the park for any new project.

Epcot contacted Business France in early 2012 seeking introduction to French companies that could contribute interesting products to its shops. It was looking mostly for jewelry, perfumes, soaps and souvenirs. After giving specifications to Business France’s export arm, and determining a day for 1-on-1 meetings later that year, it let us discretely sound out

potential suppliers. After a thorough selection and validation process, 12 companies were introduced to Epcot, which decided to reference 3 of them: Historiae, which produces perfumes and soaps inspired by historic French personalities; Gimex, which designs portable, customizable ice bags to keep bottles cool; and Namaste, a designer of souvenirs adorned and scented with sprigs of lavender.

Highly satisfied with this first experience, Epcot decided to renew the project in 2013, listing two new companies: Sabre with its high-end chromed, plastic tableware, and Le Blanc with its naturally scented soaps and pouches for closets and drawers. In 2014, the third year of our collaboration, Epcot took special interest in the products of Incidences, which produces humorous boxes and tool kits, and Bel cheeses, which produces vintage-inspired objects to celebrate the life of its star product, the Laughing Cow.

Sourcing FIND THE RIGHT LOCATION, THE RIGHT PRODUCT, THE RIGHT SUPPLIER.

Invest Our advisers can help companies to select the location for their investment according to various criteria, and organize site visits. We give them information and help them target the best market opportunities in France, or the best way to set up their investment strategy according to their project and their company’s culture. We also act on the mergers and acquisitions market and look for potential foreign buyers or investers for French companies.

Success Story: SAVOIR-FAIRE LINUX, COMPARING TO BETTER CHOOSE Savoir-faire Linux is a 17-year-old company who provides training, consulting, development and support services on open source technologies.

They developed a large scale of services, from embedded Linux to management software, infrastructures, mobile solutions and cloud computing. Based in Montréal, Savoir-faire Linux has built a network of more than 120 employees in five offices, including a European sales and support office in Paris since 2014, thanks to a successful collaboration with Business France.

five French administrative regions. Business France worked closely with the company and the regions to establish a list of criteria, and the targeted regions provided information to enable the company to compare all ecosystems.

Eventually, after narrowing the choice down to two regions, Savoir-faire Linux was introduced to both ecosystems through an extensive program of visits and meetings, and it finally chose Lyon for its second office, because its incubator fit the company’s needs.

Facing galloping growth on the European market, the company decided last year to open a second sales and support office in France and contacted Business France for a second collaboration. Together, and in compliance with Savoir-faire Linux’s needs, they targeted

Business France Export then worked with Invest in Lyon to help Savoir-faire Linux to find talent and a location for its new office.

Matchmaking LET US MAKE THE INTRODUCTION

Business France organizes and promotes more than 70 events a year to introduce relevant French companies to North American buyers. Whether it is through French pavilions at major trade shows, or independent events such as product showcases, tastings or matchmaking events, we gather the best companies from France and coach them prior to the events to assure that their strategy takes into account North American requirements. It is the opportunity for both our clients and our North American contacts to grow their professional networks and identify future suppliers, clients and partners.

Import Success Story: ARMOR, A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN A century-old company, Armor is a worldrenowned specialist in chemical formulations for high precision coating on ultra-thin materials. Since 2009, the company has been using its expertise to develop formulations for new applications in the energy industry.

Traditionally powering small mobile devices, lithium-ion batteries have started to be used for larger objects, such as electrical vehicles or power walls, in the past few years. They are made of several components, including layers of aluminum or copper. Armor developed a chemical formula that, applied to these layers of metal, enables batteries to store and deliver energy more efficiently.

With a battery market concentrated mostly in Asia and North America, the US quickly became a priority for Armor. It approached Business France in 2015 and worked closely with our automotive team to identify potential clients, academic partners and opinion leaders. An initial list of 500 contacts was reduced to 60, and after Business France contacted them all, Armor met with half of these contacts throughout the

year. Out of these 30 contacts, 10 companies showed interest in Armor’s technology, and five are already conducting technical tests.

One of the biggest American players in the battery industry decided to partner with Armor and is integrating Armor’s technology into its products. This partner had recently won a multi billions contract with a Chinese E-Bus manufacturer determined to help Chinese cities to lower pollution levels by replacing gasoline buses with electrical buses. Production started in 2015, with two of what would soon be Armor’s local competitors. After being introduced to Armor by Business France, the partner decided to test its technology and quickly made Armor its second supplier for the project, keeping one of the local companies as its primary supplier. Due to the scope of this project, and the exceptional results of Armor’s tests and responsiveness, the partner eventually made Armor its primary supplier. The project is rolling out perfectly and the batteries will be delivered to China on schedule.

Invest Once an investment project is launched, the Business France Invest team helps businesses in every aspect of their strategy: we offer administrative support to speed up procedures, and we organize meetings with French experts —banks, financial and legal institutions, accounting and audit firms…— and experienced companies that can give advice based on their own experience. We can introduce our clients to local authorities, government representatives and elected officials. We can also identify and connect them to potential partners, subcontractors and suppliers.

Success Story: PREMIERE TECH, WHEN EXPANDING MEANS ACQUIRING Headquartered in Quebec, Premier Tech Ltée is a major player in three fields: horticulture, water treatment through bio filtration and packaging machines for the food industry. Already present in Europe through the acquisition in 2010 of a French company specialized in water treatment, the group appreciated the economic and geographical assets of the country and decided to use the same strategy three years later to develop its horticulture branch.

After a successful collaboration with Business France in 2010, the group naturally got back in touch with the Agency to get support and achieve its goals. A tremendous collaboration took place to find the right location, get information about local eco-policies and public supports, find local partners in business development and ensure that these partnerships were valuable for the group.

Business France introduced Premier Tech Ltée to several local elected representatives, including secretaries of state, public environmental agencies, local organizations, and accounting and law firms. The Agency also helped Premier Tech Ltée with administrative procedures that would grant the PAT, a financial support designed to help companies that preserve or create jobs in targeted French regions.

Premier Tech Ltée eventually acquired SAS Falienor Terreaux de France, a French company specialized in compost production for the horticulture and nursery industry as well as the general public. Using the company as local headquarters for its horticulture division, it dedicated the Falienor site in Maine-et-Loire to the development, production and marketing of culture substrates and active ingredients not only for France but also for the European, Asian and African markets.

Success Story: GIROPTIC: A REVOLUTION FOR HOME MOVIES, AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE Giroptic brings virtual reality to the home.

Created in 2006, this company dedicated its first six years to developing a home camera that would fuse image stream coming from different sensors at the same time to create 360° images and movies without having to work on the raw files. The 360CAM saw the light of day in 2014 and met the public through Kickstarter, raising $1.4 million through 4000 pre-orders, becoming the greatest French success on Kickstarter to date. Fifty percent of the crowdfunding backers were North American, highlighting for Giroptic the interest that its product represented on the US market.

Seeking to capitalize on this experience, the company contacted Business France. It got enrolled in ubi i/o in the second quarter of 2015 with three goals in mind: finding technological partnerships, adapting marketing strategy to local expectations, and mastering logistics and customer service. Participation in the program realized these goals beyond expectations, and Giroptic opened its North American branch in San Francisco at the end of 2015. With a pitch and a communication plan improved thanks to ubi i/o, Giroptic quickly found local investors to help it grow in the US.

Bpifrance, OUR PARTNER FOR INNOVATIVE AND PROMISING PROJECTS Bpifrance, The French Public Investment Bank, is a trusted partner for entrepreneurs.

Bpifrance finances businesses through loans, guarantees and equity, from the seed phase to transfer and listing on the stock exchange.

Bpifrance has been developing its international offer by creating new products dedicated to export projects, and also specific programs in partnership with Business France, such as Ubi i/o and Ubi Mobility. The bank now houses 40 Business France experts across several regional branch offices to accompany businesses in their export activities. Another crucial goal for Bpifrance is to provide support for

innovation projects, either through financing and equity funding, or via networks like Bpifrance Excellence, which encompasses 3000 of its most-promising clients.

Bpifrance’s partnership with Business France not only has strengthened both Entities in their complementary missions, it has also offered their clients a more solid help in their development strategies, as they are now validated in their approach by both Organizations prior to start, then closely accompanied at every step of their development. For our North-American contacts, this is an additional guarantee of their reliability.

Supporting Innovation FRANCE IS CREATIVE

5 Accelerators in North America: PREPARING FRENCH INNOVATORS FOR THE FUTURE Over the past few years, Business France has developed French accelerators where French creativity can be appreciated the most. With already five accelerators in North America in fields as diverse as tech, agriculture, mobility and healthcare, our team is working on developing new programs in fields where the expertise of French companies is a sought-after asset.

The French Tech Tour was created 10 years ago in San Francisco. This three-week immersion program has been so successful that it has since been organized in countries around the world. The Canadian tour celebrated its third year in 2016 and offered a 3-week immersion to 10 cuttingedge French Tech companies.

UBI Mobility offers to 8 promising companies working in the field of connected and autonomous vehicles a 2-week immersion in the Detroit/Ann Arbor and San Francisco/ Silicon Valley regions, to meet with automakers, suppliers, think-tanks, universities, potential partners and investors.

Co-hosted by the prestigious Galien Foundation, MedstartUp is a competition program that encourages, rewards and supports the development of 3 of the best partnerships between US and France entities in the healthcare industry, with a focus on innovation, scientific excellence and commercial ambition. ubi i/o, another tech-oriented program, was born in the US three years ago and offers a 10-week immersion to 18 promising French companies selected by a jury of experts.

The companies follow an intensive program designed to give them the keys to kick-start their business in the US. Designed for innovative and sustainable agribusinesses and startups, Agri N.E.S.T. offers an immersion into the American business system to the most promising green techs from France. The goals are for the companies to better understand the US market, adapt their products, build a stronger strategy, and meet their future partners and clients.

Contact Us

VANCOUVER +1 (604) 639-0920 1130 West Pender, suite 1100 Vancouver, BC V6E 4A4

SAN FRANCISCO +1 (415) 4781-0986 88 Kearny Street, Suite 700 San Francisco, CA 94108

CHICAGO +1 (312) 327-5250 205 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 3730 Chicago, IL 60601

HOUSTON +1 (713) 85-3278 777 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 600 Houston, TX 77056

TORONTO +1 (416) 977-1257 154 University Avenue, Suite 400 Toronto, ON M5H 3Y9

MONTRÉAL +1 (514) 670-4000 1501 McGill College, Bureau 1120 Montréal, QC H3A 3M8

BOSTON +1 (617) 398-2416 50 Milk street, 16th Floor, Boston, MA 02109

NEW YORK +1 (212) 400-2160 1700 Broadway, 30th Floor New York, NY 10019-5818

ATLANTA +1 (404) 495-1660 3399 Peachtree road NE Atlanta, GA, 30326

DETROIT +1 (248) 457-1150 525 E. Big Beaver Road, Suite 202 Troy, MI 48083

Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy.

It is responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France.

It promotes France’s companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and also runs the V.I.E international internship program.

Founded on January 1, 2015 through a merger between UBIFRANCE and the Invest in France Agency, Business France has 1,500 personnel, both in France and in 70 countries throughout the world, who work with a network of public- and private-sector partners.

For further information, please visit www.businessfrance.fr.

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Business France North America @BusinessFrance_NorthAm @BFranceNA

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