Tibi Initiative: Launch of Phase 3 and Expansion to the European Level

Philippe Tibi (X77), a professor of economics at École Polytechnique, has been leading an initiative since 2019, at the request of the French authorities, to mobilize private capital for the financing of disruptive technological innovation. He has just been tasked with overseeing the next phase of this initiative—which has raised more than 15 billion euros since its launch—and with expanding it to the European level.

20 May. 2026

Entrepreneurship, Innovation

The Tibi Initiative, named after its founder Philippe Tibi (X77 and professor of strategy and finance at École Polytechnique), has raised more than €15 billion since its launch to fund disruptive technological innovation. It is now entering its third phase, with a more specific focus on disruptive technologies such as quantum computing, New Space, and biotechnology.

Launched in 2019 by the French Minister of the Economy, under the auspices of the President of the Republic, the Tibi initiative aims to mobilize a portion of funds from institutional investors, particularly life insurance companies, which manage more than 2 trillion euros in France, for the benefit of the technology companies of tomorrow, thereby promoting French scientific and technological research, in which the École Polytechnique plays a leading role.

It has helped create a robust ecosystem for financing technology companies, with the certification of 160 funds—both listed and unlisted—that provide financing for "scale-ups," or companies that have moved beyond the startup stage.

The Draghi report on European competitiveness and the future of the European Union, published in September 2024, highlighted the EU’s lag behind the United States in its ability to finance new technologies. This finding was confirmed by the Noyer-Kukies report, published in January 2026.

In an op-ed published by the French business daily Les Echos on May 9, 2026, titled “European Investors, Unite!”, Philippe Tibi pointed out that nearly a quarter of the world’s unicorn founders are European, yet half of them cross the Atlantic to finance the hypergrowth of their companies.

“The root cause is well known: major European institutional investors—pension funds, insurers—manage more than €15 trillion. But their allocation to venture capital is less than 0.05% of their assets, compared to 1% to 3% for their American counterparts,” he pointed out.

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