When you think of Paris, tech founders probably aren’t what springs to mind.
This year’s Olympic host city is well known for its art, cuisine, architecture and history, but it’s also a major startup hub.
In a typical year, startups in Paris raise billions of dollars in venture funding, and the city’s dominance as the country’s startup hub typically attracts the majority of France’s venture investment.
So far, 2024 has been no exception, with startups in Paris and other parts of France securing nearly $4.7 billion in total seed funding through growth-stage funding. Funding this year is well below its peak, but is expected to be roughly on par with last year, as shown in the chart below.
This year’s funding total was boosted by some particularly large rounds, the most notable of which was for Paris-based Mistral AI, a developer of large-scale open-source language models. The startup raised $500 million in equity and $140 million in debt in a June round that reportedly valued it at more than $6 billion.
Another big fundraiser has come from electric vehicle charging station provider Electra: The Paris-based company raised $330 million in Series B funding in January, led by Bpifrance and PGGM Investments.
Hydrogen vehicle and fueling services company HysetCo also closed a huge $217 million funding round, which comes at a robust time for hydrogen mobility startups.
For a longer list of French startups that raised larger rounds this year, we’ve listed the top 10 companies by funding below, using data from Crunchbase.
Over the next few weeks, it’ll be athletes, not founders, competing for glory in Paris, but long after the Olympic stars have left the city, startup employees will be toiling late into the night in the City of Light, hoping for victories that don’t translate into medals.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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