In French tech, much of the action still happens in and around Paris.
Some of the country’s best-known tech companies were born outside of the capital: HRtech unicorn Swile is HQ-ed in Montpellier, while gigafactory scaleup Verkor is based in Grenoble.
But data released by Numeum, a union that represents French tech companies, showed that just under half of all active startups in the country in 2023 were located in or around Paris. Startups in the capital also raised nearly three-quarters (73%) of total funding.
Paris is where some of the country’s biggest fundraises have happened in the past year, including as Mistral, Poolside and H. Sifted asked VCs to share which Parisian startups they see making headlines next, which are not part of their portfolio.
Nicolas Essayan, founding partner at Motier Ventures
Motier Ventures is a family office that manages startup investments made by the owners of French retail giant Galeries Lafayette Group.
The Mobile-First Company
SMBs that form the backbone of the economy — such as plumbers, nurses, restaurants and service companies — lack tailored digital solutions. The Mobile-First Company creates user-friendly mobile apps for their business tasks, such as CRM, invoicing, inventory and payroll. With mobile as a natural and efficient channel to penetrate these sectors, the potential for widespread adoption is high, and CEO Jérémy Goillot, who led French unicorn Spendesk’s growth team for nearly five years, knows how to scale a business.
Escape
Escape is a security platform for APIs — the mechanisms that enable different components of software to communicate, which are key to enable most software to function. The startup has an ‘agentless’ approach, which means it can provide visibility of exposed APIs without the need to deploy agents, thereby preserving data privacy and enabling faster deployment. Over the past 18 months, it has demonstrated promising commercial traction, particularly in the US.
ScorePlay
ScorePlay enables sports organisations to better manage their media workflows. It provides a suite of products to streamline media operations, enhance distribution and effectively monetise content. More than 200 sports organisations have adopted the platform, including teams (Brooklyn Nets, Atlético Madrid) and federations (UEFA, FIBA, LPGA) worldwide. It was launched by French founders and is a great example of an early-stage company successfully expanding internationally, with part of the technical team still based in Paris and an office opened in New York for commercial purposes.
Alison Imbert, principal at Partech
Partech is a global tech investment firm headquartered in Paris, with offices in Berlin, Dakar, Dubai, Nairobi and San Francisco. It backs entrepreneurs from seed to growth stage.
Entalpic
Entalpic uses GenAI to accelerate the discovery of new materials and chemical compounds that are more sustainable. The technology eliminates the manual approach normally needed for testing by providing R&D teams with insights into the physical properties of new materials.
Qevlar
Most security operation centres (SOCs) manually investigate cyber alerts to distinguish false positives from true threats, and are increasingly overwhelmed by attacks. Qelvar’s GenAI solution supports these SOCs. By leveraging sophisticated and fine-tuned AI models, it can conduct in-depth investigations in just a few minutes, significantly reducing response times.
Companies responding to public tenders need to ensure they don’t miss a relevant opportunity; prioritise the tenders that are more likely to convert; and optimise their potential to win the tender through high-quality responses. Tengo is building an AI-powered solution which tackles these three bricks, enabling companies to maximise their win-rate when responding to calls. With their great team, they are well-positioned to become a key player in transforming public procurement at scale.
Marc Fournier, managing partner at Serena Capital
Serena backs early-stage startups in AI, SaaS, climate tech, internet infrastructure and impact.
Orus Energy
Orus Energy has built an AI-powered platform that helps businesses manage and optimise their energy consumption by shifting usage to off-peak times. This enables them to support grid stability, reduce reliance on fossil fuels and generate more revenue.
Adaptive ML
Adaptive ML provides tools for companies to fine-tune and deploy GenAI models in a faster, more efficient way. Its platform enables businesses to optimise AI model performance based on user feedback while keeping data private within their cloud infrastructure.
Margaux Gregoir, principal at Alven
Alven is a sector-agnostic VC firm that invests in early-stage ventures across Europe. Its portfolio includes Qonto, Dataiku, Algolia and Carbonfact.
Syntetica
Syntetica tackles a major economic and environmental challenge of the fashion industry: textile recycling. It’s quite a challenge to scale big innovations in this space but Syntetica might be able to avoid many pitfalls thanks to abundant feedstock, and processes that are low-cost, fast and low-energy.
Spiko
Spiko has built a blockchain-based infrastructure for capital markets, meaning that you can currently invest euros or dollars in the company’s two tokenised monetary funds. It’s a big bet and a long-awaited revolution that might be starting — and Spiko might be in a good spot to surf it.
Morfo
Forest restoration is part of the answer to our environmental problem — but only if these projects have a long-term meaningful impact. Morfo builds technology based on a scientific approach and powered by data, that ensures restoration projects are comprehensive and have a long-lasting impact. Its first reforestation projects have been a success.
Alexis Robert, partner at Kima Ventures
Kima Ventures is French billionaire Xavier Niel’s startup investment arm, which backs 100 startups a year at pre-seed and seed. Based in Paris, it has invested in nearly 1,400 startups since 2010, including Mistral, Sorare, Photoroom and Pigment.
Ten Ten
Ten Ten is the new rising star of social media apps for Gen Z, and follows the footsteps of French startups like Zenly, BeReal, Yubo and others. Founder Jule Comar had a simple yet brilliant idea: transform phones into walkie talkies to let users communicate via voice message. Ten Ten is now one of the top apps in all the stores worldwide.
Tsuga
Tsuga is the latest venture from Gabriel-James Safar and Sébastien Deprez, two founders with an impressive track record. Their previous company, Madumbo, was acquired by Datadog in one of its most successful acquisitions. While the details of Tsuga’s product remain under wraps, their past successes and world-class expertise suggest that something groundbreaking is on the horizon.
Helical
Helical is set to tackle one of the most crucial problems in biology and bioinformatics: the absence of standards for biological data. To make foundational models in biology work, you need a structure that is coherent across your dataset; Helical is introducing the first open-source platform designed to help data scientists and computational biologists easily integrate foundation models in the field.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/14-startups-to-watch-in-paris/
