In just a few days, France will host the Summit of the action of artificial intelligenceWith heads of state who flock to Paris to meet global technological leaders. They will most likely announce significant investments and diplomatic security agreements or the environmental impact of artificial intelligence.
Before the summit, VC company at an early stage Galion.exegrowing investment company Revaiaand consulting firm Slippers associated to create the French AI reportwhich examines the current trends in the technological ecosystem.
Although all eyes are currently in the United States and China with Openai seeking to raise tens of billions of dollars and have in depth the attention of each, there was also a boom in the startups of the IA in Europe. In 2024, IA companies represented around 20% of all CR funding in the region.
In total, this represents about $ 8 billion in funding for AI startups in 2024. This metric will most likely develop, because AI startups are still relatively young. Seventy percent of the capital raised by IA startups in 2024 were intended for a seed for series B.
European countries which tend to attract the financing of the CR in general have also become the main investment centers in AI, the United Kingdom leading the group, France and Germany which followed the step, and the Nordic above its demographic weight. Here is the ventilation from 2020 to 2024:
Interestingly, as IA companies become larger, they tend to attract international investors, American venture capital companies representing around 50% of funds invested in AI companies during the C series and later.
In France, more specifically, there are “more than 750 startups which have created 35,000 jobs and operate in all areas that transform today’s society,” said the Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Technologies Digital Clara Chappaz at a press conference.
She also mentioned that there were 2,000 scientists focused on AI and 600 doctoral students working on artificial intelligence. And you may have noticed that there are also some French engineers and researchers who work for IA companies in the United States.
The team behind the French AI report looked closely at the 400 best IA startups in France and tried to identify the rising stars. While Mistral IA and Poolside are already familiar names for readers who have followed the AI industry, the vast majority of AI startups do not work on the next foundation model.
In terms of infrastructure, some companies optimize workflows and data pipelines, such as Linkup and Kestra, or improve the performance of inference, such as ZMLOr in development of agents that can browse large data sets and improve productivity. Dust is a good example.
But the reality is that most AI startups in France focus on applications for specific verticals. Based on this report, two important areas for AI startups in France are health and climate.
Owkin and his biotechnology company spin-off bioptimus led the pack on the front of health technology, but it is a group of companies surprisingly diverse with three major areas of interest: imagery tools, discovery drugs and improving medical treatment.
Likewise, while a large part of the AI industry focuses on productivity gains for office employees, artificial intelligence is also actively used to build the next generation of climate startups. In addition to the management of Agritech, carbon and energy – two subjects that are linked – seem to be a big goal. There are also a handful of new promising materials companies that emerge (Altrove, for example).
All companies included in the list Can be found here. You will also find many AI companies working on a job function – sales, customer service, HR or legal – and using AI to simplify the most common tasks.
Of course, some companies will not be there in five years. But many of them are currently increasing at a quick pace. We are always at the start of the AI revolution, and although it is easy to think of the AI industry as a zero -sum game with a country or a company “win” on others, it seems that the AI boom is more distributed than expected.
