LONDON VAUXHALL DEALERS

Twenty French tech entrepreneurs crossed the Channel on Monday 28 May  for a ‘speed dating’ day with the movers and shakers of the London digital and tech start-up scene.

Acting almost as the closing event of Digital Shoreditch festival, the Startup Caravan,  sponsored by The Bridge and Frog Valley, embodies the tremendous diversity of the European digital community and the unquenchable thirst for sharing and learning from one another.

Started at the Innovation Warehouse in trendy Smithfields at 9 am, the Caravan finished in the wee hours of the following morning at the fancy Google Campus and was clearly a success.

Twenty entrepreneurs were successively fed information on London’s attractiveness for starting up a tech business. They were exposed to the possible barriers to investment for a French startup and some of them even had the occasion to pitch at Digital Shoreditch festival in the afternoon.

Not surprisingly, the three pillars of any entrepreneurial ecosystem did not fail to be mentioned during the discussions.  Rooted in the financial power of the City, the fast growing number of tech startups is also due to the extraordinary density of lawyers and of high-tech and prestigious universities. All of the above most naturally foster and cater for the creation and high concentration of incubators and pre-incubator structures.

From an investor perspective, the questions asked were more pressing and down to earth:

What is the best way for a French start-up to raise money, or be attractive for UK-based investors?

The key takeaways were leaning towards the harsh side for the French wannabe entrepreneurs.

“French startups are still mainly focused on local markets, with rarely international or global ambition, making them not necessarily competitive for us,” noted Sitar Tell from Doughty Hanson Technology.

“We are mostly looking for fast exportable products or business models and some of what we see are too French-specific, ’’ echoed Sean Seton-Rogers from Pro-Founder.

“The current tax benefit given to investors in UK startups tends to bias the investment decision, for an equally good idea and an equally good team, most would choose to benefit from the Enterprise Investment Scheme. The best ways of tapping into the rich business angel network still remains to consider creating a holding structure in the UK,” reflected one informal investor.

These are interesting comments that went to the core of the difference in perception of entrepreneurship between the French attitude of ‘play it safe, see if it works first’— because if you fail you will clearly be stigmatized – and the English mentality of  ‘go big or go home’, similar to that in the US.

On the entrepreneurs’ side, the response was clearly enthusiastic.

“London has such an energetic vibe, a lot is happening, and things often move faster,” commented Tobias Nevin from  Everfeel – an innovative online gaming startup offering a new real-time social gaming experience, based  on immersive 3D role plays with voice dialogue between players.

“’For me, London is a symbol of gutsy finance, where appetite for ambition and risk is more on the agenda; London is also a clear pathway to North America, with the traditional ties to Silicon Valley, as well as a springboard for global growth in general,” he added.

“Coming  to London is a breath of fresh air; an energetic fix. It is also a great networking platform for second round of funding needs, in a funding market embracing more disruptive type of products,” smiled Antoine Sakho from Skimm! – a mobile payment app start-up.

The recent change of Government in France was also on the agenda. “Entrepreneurship and the need to push for it, was never really a founding theme for any of the presidential candidates,” reflected Sakho, while Nevin echoed  that  “it would be a stretch in the France system where companies are classed and often prioritised by size to orient the future growth of the economy towards ‘small and unknown’ startups.”

“And you know, yes Fleur Pellerin is the newly appointed minister of SMEs and innovation, but by the time she has founded a committee, agreed on rules and found a portfolio of companies with something ‘tangible’ to show, it is not going to help young startups. They are operating in the here and now, with immediate cash issues and at time limited track-records,” reflected Sakho.

This is the core of the issue for young French tech entrepreneurs.

They do not feel supported in their own country, and might be considered as ‘discretionary’ investment for UK investors already cherry picking in the rich  London based startups ecosystem.

Regardless of a highly virtual and connected world, the ‘tyranny of distance’ is still pretty much alive when it comes to investment.  What if the real value of an initiative like the Caravan was awareness-building within the investment community for it to become truly global ?

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As public sector organisations face a period of unsurpassed austerity, managers are bombarded with directives to not only cut costs and improve efficiency, but to reduce carbon emissions and lower energy consumption at the same time.

In London, mayor Boris Johnson has committed the city to targets that could make it the greenest conurbation in the world, reduce the capital's CO2 emissions and energy consumption by 60% by 2025.

As a significant part of London's CO2 is emitted from public sector buildings, there needs to be a focus on making those buildings more efficient. This will require action from local government – figures estimate that up to 80% of premises belonging to councils, health, and education authorities will still be in use in 2050.

One answer lies with the Greater London Authority's retrofitting scheme, known as RE:FIT, which alone could lead to a reduction of 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2015.

The programme works by helping public organisations equip their buildings with energy-saving technology that did not exist when the buildings were first built. Retrofit measures include new building management systems, combined heat and power, photovoltaic solar panels, low-energy lighting and new, efficient boilers.

A pilot exercise applied these tools to 42 buildings currently used by Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade. This has been followed by work near completion on a further 44 buildings with the London boroughs, universities, hospitals and cultural organisations.

The potential energy and cost savings of retrofitting are substantial: for the organisations that took part in the pilot, the installation of the new technology helped them to identify savings of over 7,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum, generating annual cost savings of more than £1m.

It is anticipated that a total of 100 public sector buildings will have completed or signed up to the programme by May 2012, with 43 organisations already committed to the programme.

The RE:FIT scheme itself places councils at a very low financial risk. Approved energy service companies, which provide the retrofitting work, guarantee that the alterations to these buildings will deliver the agreed reduction in energy over an agreed payback period. This helps transfer the risk from the public into the private sector.

It also gives participants access to specialist skills and support. Financed via £2.67m from the European Investment Bank's ELENA (European Local Energy Assistance) fund, a development unit established to oversee the rapid implementation of the programme – and act as its public face.

This unit provides a single point of expertise and helps participating authorities understand how the scheme can be applied to their assets and provides support during the preparation of tenders and the procurement of suppliers that will help to save them energy. It oversees all projects being undertaken through RE:FIT, reporting back on their overall impact and success so new public sector retrofit schemes can learn from its progress.

This development unit is also responsible for managing the performance of the energy service companies. This is all done at no cost to those taking part.

Plans are underway to retrofit a further 297 buildings in London during the next year, with a target for a total of 600 public buildings to be given an energy-efficiency makeover as part of the programme by 2015. These include town halls, libraries and museums, and could lead to estimated savings of up to £6m on energy bills each year with reductions of 36,000 tonnes of carbon – the equivalent of taking around 60,000 vehicles off London's roads.

• For more information visit paconsulting.com/greeningbusiness

David Rees is head of local government services at PA Consulting Group

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