More than 750 startups have been created since the early 2000s, including almost 500 in the last 10 years. In 2024, 470 are still active in the region. Some of them have already became scale-ups, others growing more slowly. 70 have been acquired by big companies.

According to the « 2023 European Deep Tech Report » from Dealroom, Grenoble-Alpes ranks 4th in Europe, just behind Paris, for deeptech startups financing. Representing 34 of the 715 deals completed in 2023, Grenoble Alpes startups accounted for over 13% of the capital raised in France (8.3 billion euros).

In early 2024, nearly 8,000 jobs have been created by local startups and scaleups, including jobs in the 60 startups that have been acquired but which still have an identified local entity.

Among startups and scaleups active in the Grenoble Alpes region, 40% are spin-offs from academic research. Laboratories from UGA, CNRS, CEA, INRIA and INSERM are key players in the success of technology transfer, which is part of Grenoble Alpes DNA for decades.

This explains the exceptional weight (27%) of deeptech startups : this is why BPI France calls Grenoble Alpes “the French capital of deeptech”. These technology-intensive companies, carrying out breakthrough innovations, are most of the time spinoffs from public research laboratories.

The presence of numerous industrial startups (40% of startups in Grenoble Alpes, compared with 12% in France) is one of the distinctive asset of the local ecosystem. These innovative young companies are dedicated to producing goods. Many of them have set up pilot lines or are in the process of doing so, and some are already in the industrialization phase.

Grenoble Alpes startups are focused on four main areas: industry, healthcare, energy and environment, but their markets can be very diverse.
Many of these startups develop innovative technologies in the fields of semiconductors and hardware, IOT, software and artificial intelligence. This ability to combine hardware and software is one of the main asset of Grenoble Alpes startups.

This combination of microelectronics and digital technologies (software, artificial intelligence, etc.) can be found in many different types of applications, ranging from medical devices and smart batteries to waste management or solutions for Industry 4.0.

With nearly one hundred startups in the healthcare and medtechs sector, the region boasts a large pool specializing in surgical robotics, making Grenoble Alpes the European capital of Surgery 4.0.

The region is also home to over a hundred startups working in the fields of energy transition and decarbonization of industry, offering technological solutions that will enable us to move towards a more sustainable model of society, helping to adapt to climate change.

In total, Grenoble Alpes startups have raised almost 4 billion euros, including 2 billion euros in the last 3 years.

In 2023, more than 30 startups raised funds for a global amount of 1.12 billion euros. Grenoble Alpes is benefiting from a spectacular increase in funds raised by startups, a figure twice as high as 2022 (525 million euros) or 2021 (548 million euros).

75% of this amount is due to the largest ever fund-raising by a French start-up : VERKOR, founded in Grenoble in 2020, which raised 850 million euros plus financing from the European Investment Bank and French subsidies, for a total of 2 billion euros secured for the construction of its battery gigafactory.