The public bank is launching Blue Sea to fill a market gap in large unlisted investments, while defending its general interest mission.
Bpifrance is starting to raise capital for its new unlisted fund Blue Sea, from investors around the world, its executive director in charge of development capital said on Thursday. This fund aims to respond to “a market failure” in France, into which American funds are rushing, on investments worth several hundred million euros in unlisted assets.
A new fund to fill a market gap
While the Lac1 fund, for investment in listed French multinationals, is reaching maturity, with some 5 billion euros invested, Bpifrance is launching Blue Sea after identifying this opportunity on the French market. Bpifrance wishes to raise four billion euros, “ideally five”, according to José Gonzalo, by providing “between 20 and 25% of the entire fund”. Investors from the Middle East are interested, but “we also want North American players”, he said, in addition to “European players, obviously French”, and Asian. He is preparing to leave for Japan and South Korea with general manager Nicolas Dufourcq for this purpose.
Citing the French artificial intelligence start-up Mistral, he noted that to follow its expansion, “we will have to invest large amounts and this fund is also used” for that.
Bpifrance currently holds around 700 holdings, with 30 billion euros of assets under management. In 2025 it made 2.5 billion euros in investments, and 3.2 billion in sales. She sits on all the boards of directors of the companies in which she invests.
Defense of the general interest mission
During this press meeting, José Gonzalo distinguished the specificities of Bpifrance, accused in a report by LFI MP Aurélie Trouvé on investment funds of being “mainly guided by financial performance to the detriment of its mission of general interest”.
Referring to the parliamentary report, José Gonzalo noted that for the public bank, “profit is not a taboo word, because if you don’t make any, it means that you lose the money entrusted to you by the French.” But, he underlined, alongside “more traditional files”, “we put tickets in technologies which are not profitable, to help them grow, we make deals with cooperatives, we help SMEs to open their capital for the first time, our Blue Spring fund invests in small dormant listed companies to give them energy again”. “It’s not hedge funds that would do that,” he concluded.
