BPCE takes a stake in Swile

Swile, a French unicorn specialising in employee benefits, and the banking group BPCE have announced that they have entered into exclusive negotiations with a view to combining their activities. It is therefore a double operation which would see the Bimpli brand (ex-Apetiz) disappear in favour of Swile and BPCE enter the capital of the fintech.

FACTS

• The start-up created in 2017 by Loïc Soubeyrand (ex-Teads) became a unicorn last October following an investment from Softbank.

• Following this transaction, Swile would own 100% of Bimpli and Groupe BPCE would become Swile's largest shareholder with a 22% stake.

• 140 million in 2022, with a profitability target of 2024.

• This project is still subject to the approval of the employee representative bodies and the regulatory authorities and should be validated before the end of the year.

CHALLENGES

• A marriage based on complementarity: In terms of client profiles, the new entity will cover all types of groups: VSEs/SMEs, major accounts and the public sector. But also in their approach. Swile is a great app with a strong focus on digitalisation, whereas Bimpli has made the diversity of the activities covered its strong point.

• International ambition: This project would allow Swile to be particularly well placed to seize development opportunities, especially in Brazil, the leading market for employee benefits and engagement.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• The acquisition of an entity of a large group by a start-up is a very rare occurrence. The acquisition of Sygma, a subsidiary of BNP Paribas, by the start-up Wynd (in-store checkout software) had marked the French Tech ecosystem in 2021.

• The new entity will have 5 million user employees in 75,000 companies. This still leaves it far behind Edenred (50 million users worldwide) and Up (24 million)