Paris has overtaken London as Europe’s top startup hub for the first time, according to a new ranking published by data platform Dealroom.
The French capital is the only European city to have made it to the top five cities for startups globally, ranking fourth behind the Bay Area, New York and Boston.
Dealroom assessed 288 cities across the world on metrics including VC funding, startup valuations and growth, unicorn numbers, patent concentration and university spinout activity to determine which spots are the most established startup ecosystems. Paris topped the ranking in Europe, followed by London, Stockholm, Munich and Amsterdam.
London is still a bigger hub overall, however: Dealroom data shows startups in the UK capital raised $11bn in 2024, much more than Paris’s $5.9bn. Sifted data also shows that with 38 unicorns, London has more billion-dollar startups than Paris, which has 23.
But tech businesses in the French capital are growing at a faster pace than their UK neighbours: according to Dealroom between 2017 and 2024 the combined valuations of startups in Paris grew 5.3x to reach $286bn in total, compared to 4.2x reaching $593bn for London.
“Paris has been closing the gap,” says Dealroom. “[It] has been growing faster than London in enterprise value, in VC and in unicorns.”
It adds: “These have been driven by Paris’s strong showing in AI, establishing itself as a global hub of AI talent and startups.”
Paris’s AI boom
AI companies raised nearly half of VC funding in Paris last year, says the report. High-profile deals included generative AI startup Mistral’s €468m ($526m) Series B and AI-for-coding startup Poolside’s 500m (€445m) Series B.
The French capital was also found to have a large talent pool thanks to top universities like École Polytechnique, which produces some of the most sought-after candidates for AI jobs.
With 133k patents — a key metric for deeptech and AI — Paris leads London (48k patents). The French capital also has nearly 9.5k university alumni founders, compared to 5.3k in London.
Globally Paris ranks fifth (and is the only European city in the top five) for AI hubs, according to the report.
“Paris and London have evolved as twin engines of the European tech ecosystem,” said Remus Brett, partner at European investor LocalGlobe.
“In fintech, London remains a standout with its unique combination of financial heritage, regulatory innovation and deep talent, producing category leaders like Monzo and Revolut… Meanwhile, Paris’s investment in AI has seen some of the most exciting European AI talent emerging across the ecosystem.”
Government action
For the past decade, France has benefited from a pro-innovation policy from the government, epitomised by president Emmanuel Macron’s ambition to build a “startup nation” since 2017.
The report says that this has enabled “entrepreneurs and the ecosystem to flourish”, with events like the AI Action Summit held in Paris last February “putting Paris firmly on the tech map”.
Since 2017 Macron has also hosted the annual Choose France summit intended to attract foreign investments. This year’s event, which took place this week, secured €20bn in funding. It included a €1bn commitment from UK fintech behemoth Revolut, which also announced it is opening a new HQ in Paris.
The French tech ecosystem, however, has recently run into headwinds following months of political instability and a 2025 budget that is seen as less business-friendly.
Pitchbook data shows that French startups raised €1.4bn in the first quarter of 2025, a 36.4% drop from Q1 2024 and the worst quarter for VC investment in the past five years.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/paris-london-startup-hub-dealroom/
