Baromètre Financement des PME et des start-ups – 1st edition

Key trends

• Access to financing

SMEs in the digital sector are characterized by significant financing needs, particularly for R&D, which tops the list of planned investments cited by 58% of companies surveyed. However, access to financing remains difficult for 42% of them. This trend is particularly prevalent in the case of capital increases, where the entire financing chain is problematic for over a third of companies.

• The banks

Relations with banks are paradoxical: 59% of companies are the primary source of financing, and almost three-quarters are satisfied with their relationship with their banker.

However, their actions are judged severely and (rather) inadequately by 80% of the panel. This situation is due to the real difficulties digital SMEs have in obtaining appropriate resources.

This dissonance reveals the cohabitation of companies in good health, benefiting from unprecedented access to financing in terms of cost and volume, with companies severely tested by the crisis (credit risk, etc.).

• Government action

Digital SMEs and startups welcome the drive to simplify and organize their business, notably with the creation of Bpifrance and the perpetuation of the Research Tax Credit (CIR), even if these measures remain difficult to access (49%) and insufficient (45%).

Here again, digital companies are stern and circumspect: neither the interests of SMEs (57%) nor those of start-ups (41%) seem to be defended to the extent they had hoped.