In the same vein, Swile, the employee-benefits and meal-voucher start-up, was forced to publish its accounts in the summer of 2022 when it “bought” Bimpli. On 15 July 2022, the company filed its accounts for 2018 to 2020, then those for 2021 the following month.

Financial performance worth setting against the funding rounds:

• €11M in 2018 (led by Indinvest)
• $34M in 2019 (Index Ventures)
• €70M in 2020 (Index Ventures)
• $200M in 2021 (Softbank 🙄 (in French)), at a valuation of €750M according to some sources, €1bn according to the carefully organised leaks, or 68 to 90 times that year’s revenue

Is that what explains the tie-up with BPCE, the French banking group? Because while the headline everyone remembers is that Swile bought Bimpli, the reality is more mundane. BPCE handed Bimpli over to Swile, and in exchange the bank took 22% of Swile’s capital, becoming its anchor shareholder. Along with a €150M injection of preferred convertible bonds.

And yet the story had got off to a bad start with Natixis Intertitres, a subsidiary of Natixis, one of BPCE’s asset managers. In 1982, the company created the Chèque de Table meal voucher, which gave rise to Apetiz, which became… Bimpli. At the end of 2021, Natixis took Swile to court over a contract to supply meal vouchers to public employees of the Brittany region. The company argued that Swile’s bid was irregular, a claim the court would reject.³

Swile’s boss is aiming for a €30M profit in 2024.