The “French Tech”, not yet a label but more an open book idea back at the time, was pushed by the French minister Fleur Pellerin in 2013.

A friend of mine who met her in Vietnam was seduced by the idea and started to speak about possibilities around. I get then introduced to one of my friend’s colleague who was on a business trip in Japan and we spoke about the launch of a “French Tech Japan”. “What if ?” was the first question, and we naturally responded “Let’s do it”.

I gathered a founding team here in Tokyo, and the adventure was on its way.

Everything went quite fast. We met the former French Economy minister Emmanuel Macron in 2014 and one year after, the launch of the “French Tech Tokyo” hub was effective. Tokyo was the third labeled French Tech hub after New York and Tel Aviv.

Rencontre avec FrenchTech Japan, une initiative qui exporte la marque à l’international

And of course, the 2015 launching pic’