The Lyon metropolitan area’s leading sector of excellence in terms of growth percentage, the digital industry leverages a cutting-edge environment to meet the major challenges it is facing, and to empower all of its players.
Lyon brings together all of the conditions for sustainable development of the sector: hyperactive tech communities, an abundance of local events and promotion, cutting-edge training and renowned research laboratories, a dense network of small and large digital companies, a strong entrepreneurial and industrial culture, dedicated real estate and high-performance infrastructures.
All in for a digital sector that is more environmentally friendly and inclusive
The Lyon metropolitan area is investing 100% of its energy to:
- develop and encourage sustainable practices in the digital industry, in terms of economics (low consumption, greenIT, sustainable informatics and more), social issues (digital inclusion, diversity and more) and societal challenges (Tech For Good, the social and solidarity economy)
- support the paradigm shift of our economy and the digital transformation of the most fragile companies
- boost the region’s transformation through its sustainable purchasing policy.
Find out more about the transformation of the region and its companies
You can count on a booming local ecosystem and capitalize on a network of organizations specialized in:
- innovation
- the digital transformation
- development of the industry
- digital inclusion and mediation
Key figures on the digital industry in the Lyon metropolitan area:
- France’s 2nd-largest digital ecosystem in terms of number of jobs, startups, training programs and laboratories
- 41,834 jobs (Acoss-Urssaf as of 31-12-2019 and the Digital League Industry Observatory in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes 2020: focus on the Lyon metropolitan area):
- 23% growth in 5 years, between 2015 and 2019
- 62.2% of digital industry jobs at digital services companies, i.e. 26,009 jobs
- 23.1% of digital industry jobs at software and video game publishers, i.e. 9,678 jobs
- 14.7% of digital industry jobs at telecommunications companies, i.e. 6,147 jobs
- 8,690 companies (Insee-REE 31-12-2018)
- 1,000 startups in the Lyon and Saint-Étienne metropolitan areas (French Tech One Lyon St-Étienne)
- €300 million in funds raised in 2019 (French Tech One Lyon St-Étienne)
A local environment that encourages tech and digital business
A French Tech capital alongside Saint-Étienne, Lyon boasts a local ecosystem attractive to digital and tech industry professionals with:
- 1 competitiveness cluster: Minalogic
- 3 clusters with a big digital component:
- Digital League (software and digital services),
- I-Care (e-health),
- Cluster Lumière (light technology)
- 10 accelerators
- 20 incubators
-
More than 600 training programmes
- 50 schools with digital sector training programs
- 25 research laboratories
- 11 community coworking spaces with the “Greater Lyon Coworking” label
Lyon and Saint-Étienne: a pool of attractive, qualified talent
France’s second-largest centre for higher education, Lyon has more than 300 university programmes devoted to digital, and many engineering schools.
The Lyon metro area is also home to a large number of digital-tech schools such as Epitech, Epita, l’INSA (National Institute of Applied Sciences), Digital Campus, EPSI (Professional School of Informatic Sciences) and Ecole 42.
Lyon also has the second-largest centre for developers in France, with 14.8% of the national total (source: Stack Overflow 2017). It also features in the global top 20 cities that are attractive to developers (source: Nexten.io : Where to Live as a Software Engineer, 2018).
Lastly, Greater Lyon boasts a particularly vibrant tech community of nearly 50 meet-up groups: Lyon Tech Hub, La Cuisine du Web, Lyon is AI, Crypto Lyon, CARALyon, Lyon Data Science, etc.
A particularly active tech community
Finally, the Lyon metropolitan area can count on a particularly active tech community, with nearly fifty organized groups or communities:
- Edtech (education and learning),
- Foodtech (food),
- Fintech (finance and banking),
- HRtech (hiring and human resources),
- Proptech (real estate),
- Lyon is AI (artificial intelligence)
- La Cuisine du Web (web)
- Groups of developers brought together at Lyon Tech Hub, Crypto Lyon, CARALYon, Lyon Data Science and others.
These companies have chosen Greater Lyon:
- Agicap
- Arskan
- Attestation Légale
- Cegid
- Cosmotech
- Dimo Software
- Esker
- iExec
- Georges Tech
- LDLC
- Lumapps
- Navya
- Obiz
- Opera Energie
- Tilkee
- Troops
- UbiTransport
- Visiativ
- Wizaplace
Resources and professional organizations to support you
Professional organizations, a means to break into the region
Our staff build close relationships with professional organizations that promote the tech and digital sectors, assist industry players and support Lyon-area companies in their digital transformation. Meet them!
- ENE, a non-profit organization for SMEs that wish to equip their business with digital tools to train themselves, test and prototype
- Digital League, the regional cluster that brings together digital-industry players in the fields of animation, networking, training, development and trade shows.
- French Tech One Lyon St-Etienne, an association that helps and supports startups: to find out everything about the startup ecosystem, its players, its tools, its locations and more.
- LDigital, a foundation to promote and develop the role of women in digital business.
- EdTech Lyon, a community of innovative education companies, for digital solutions dedicated to learning.
- La Cuisine du web, a community of web companies helping drive the digital transformation.
- Minalogic, a regional innovation hub that runs R&D projects thanks to digital technologies.
Qualified digital data available to you
Together, with our public and private partners, we have invented innovative cooperative programs and specified regional digital governance frameworks, namely for data management, distribution and accessibility.
The Lyon metropolitan area particularly stands out thanks to its expertise and its open data strategy. Qualified digital data, which everyone can access, are made available on Lyon Metropole’s data.grandlyon.com platform.
Need digital data for your project?
Real estate for the digital sector
In the Lyon metropolitan area, digital is expanding in four main hubs that are the sector’s nerve centres:
- Lyon Confluence, a hub for the media and creative industries, is home to H7, the largest community to support high-growth, high-impact startups. It offers 5,000 sq m of floorspace for high-potential start-ups; a spacious events venue for innovating, and for digital players; a food court, etc.
- Lyon Part-Dieu, the fast-changing business district, now provides a new varied and flexible offering (Wojo, MamaWorks, Deskeo, state-of-the-art service-sector property, etc.) and is home to major digital industry groups (Orange).
- Lyon Vaise, historically Lyon’s digital-sector district with the HQs of international groups like Cegid, Bandai Namco, Electronic Arts, Econocom, SQLI, etc.
- Villeurbanne, which is home to the dynamic Pôle Pixel, France’s biggest provincial cluster devoted to the creative industries and digital content. It hosts nearly 100 firms in 22,000 sq m, plus the mythical Studio 24.
- Villeurbanne is also home to scientific campus LyonTech-la Doua, which offers direct access to 40% of Lyon’s scientific potential: 20,000 students and 80 research laboratories. The campus also hosts more than 50 innovative firms and Pulsalys, an accelerator for startups originating in academic R&D.
At your service
Digital industry professionals with a stated desire to take a responsible approach to digital technology:
- A group of organizations active in the region are at your service. Discover them!
- We develop Digital Services for Users (SNUs) with and for Lyon-area companies.
- Our staff support you to bring your projects to life in the Lyon area.
Your dedicated specialists
Lead Advisor - Digital and SSE
ONLYLYON Invest
Lead Advisor - Digital and SSE
ONLYLYON Invest
Project Manager, Digital industry and sustainable digital industry
Lyon Métropole
Project Manager, Digital industry and sustainable digital industry
Lyon Métropole
Policy Officer for Marketing
Lyon Métropole
Policy Officer for Marketing
Lyon Métropole
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20 Apr 2023
09 Mar 2022