In France, 2021 had been the year of all records in terms of fundraising for French start-ups: 11.5 billion euros of private money injected into the ecosystem, a historic operation of 586 million euros. euros, carried out by the specialist in non-fungible tokens (NFT, “non-fungible tokens”) Sorare, in September, an unprecedented number (12) of new unicorns created, these start-ups valued at more than 1 billion dollars (910 million euros)…
A distinguished guest was missing from the party: Doctolib, the most prominent start-up on the French scene, during the health crisis, with the deployment of teleconsultation, participation in test and vaccination campaigns. Why didn’t this company take advantage of this to attract new investors, at a time when it had never seemed so easy to attract fresh agents? The anomaly is now rectified. By announcing a financing operation of 500 million euros, Tuesday March 15, it now becomes the best valued French start-up, at 5.8 billion euros, dethroning Back Market (5.1 billion euros) , which was on the first step of the podium, with its fundraising of 450 million euros, on January 11, 2022.
In fact, the European leader in medical appointment booking has not remained completely inactive, since the 150 million euros raised in March 2019. In the meantime, it has carried out an operation on which it has not not communicated. Since its creation, the company has, in any case, managed to attract 900 million euros in funding, and it could certainly have obtained more. “We had requests from many other investors”, in recent months, says Stanislas Niox-Chateau, the company’s CEO and co-founder.
European sovereignty
For its last round, it preferred to turn to two of its historical investors, Eurazeo and Bpifrance, which is seen rather favorably for a company that plays the full card of European sovereignty. The envelope of 500 million euros includes a minority portion of debt.
For Mr. Niox-Chateau, the new valuation of Doctolib reflects, “Above all, the trust carried by [les] investors in [l’]team, and [leur] ability to create value for patients and healthcare professionals”. Especially, he admits, since this amount of 5.8 billion euros is “fairly decorrelated from the economic size of Doctolib, which remains quite modest today, since[il y] has 150,000 healthcare professionals who pay between 100 and 200 euros per month”. We can deduce that the turnover of the company is in a wide range, between 180 million and 360 million euros.
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