Edito

Quantum computing took center stage at VivaTech 2025 last month, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang serving as the show's emcee. Gone were the days of quantum being relegated to academic side sessions or tucked away in research corners.

Instead, Huang said quantum is ready for its mainstream moment.

"There's an inflection point happening in quantum computing," Huang said while discussing CUDA-Q, NVIDIA's platform for hybrid quantum-classical computing. He predicted that "every single supercomputer" will soon have quantum processors.

The conference welcomed the usual suspects, such as IBM's quantum team holding court and French quantum startups buzzing with energy in the dedicated Quantum Zone. President Macron joined Huang on stage. Orange demonstrated quantum key distribution in live networks. For the third consecutive year, the Quantum Zone, sponsored by France's HQI initiative, showcased a who's-who of European quantum startups that felt less like lab experiments and more like companies building actual products. Alice & Bob's Cat Qubits promise to slash hardware overhead by 200-fold. Quandela's photonic chips are enabling quantum devices. Pasqal is running live algorithm demos that solve real problems.

These aren't science projects anymore. They're businesses with roadmaps, partnerships, and paying customers.

What struck me most was the urgency in the air. Panel after panel wrestled with quantum's timeline, not whether it will matter, but when and how fast.

Quantum isn't developing in isolation; it's weaving itself into AI workflows, national security strategies, and digital infrastructure. Huang's vision of quantum-accelerated AI "factories" resonated because it made quantum tangible, not some far-off quantum advantage demo, but a practical tool for the next generation of computing workloads.

In this special edition of the French Tech Wire, we're sharing two conversations from VivaTech 2025 about quantum computing:

⚛️💻 While quantum computing giants build massive and costly systems, Quandela Co-Founder and COO Valérian Giesz explains why the French startup's photonic approach is more efficient. Quandela has already sold quantum computers to European clients and is partnering with NVIDIA on AI integration.

⚛️🛡️ As quantum computers accelerate toward breaking current encryption, experts reveal most organizations are dangerously behind on preparation for a threat that could be harvesting encrypted data right now. Clément Jeanjean, Senior Director at SandboxAQ, and Duncan Jones, Head of Cybersecurity at Quantinuum, reveal the reality of quantum preparedness.

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Tech Talk

🕵️‍♂️📉 France Travail just got hacked. Again. The successor to Pôle Emploi revealed that personal data from 340,000 job seekers—including names, emails, phone numbers, and IDs—was accessed via a third-party training app. The culprit? A stolen password from a training org in Isère. While no bank info was touched, the breach echoes last year’s monster leak affecting 43 million users. Heads up: phishing scams may follow. Time to change that password (again). | Usine Digitale

⚡️💰 Electra just charged up with €433M in debt to supercharge its EV station rollout across Europe. The French scaleup (yep, the one gunning for Tesla) now boasts over €1B raised in just four years. Next stop: 2,200 ultra-fast stations by 2030, complete with solar panels, smart batteries, and app-powered everything. They’re betting big on clean energy - even if politics and climate denial make the road a little bumpy. Profitability in 18 months? Watch this space. | Maddyness, Les Echos, Sifted

☁️ 🇺🇸 Surprise! Microsoft can send your French health data to the U.S... and has been able to for years. During a Senate grilling, Microsoft France admitted that if Uncle Sam comes knocking with a valid legal request, those Health Data Hub files could fly across the Atlantic faster than you can say “CLOUD Act.” It’s not a leak — just the joys of extraterritorial law. The kicker? The French state knew this when it picked an American cloud giant to host its most sensitive data. A new tender for a French host is finally out… only five years and several facepalms later. | Usine Digitale

🧬 🩺 Agoria Santé has become the first to get the CNIL’s blessing to mix French health records with biological data. Thanks to a partnership with Biogroup, the consortium (Docaposte, AstraZeneca, Takeda & co.) can now enrich the SNDS - France’s massive national health data system - with lab results like hormone levels and tumor markers. The goal? Sharpening real-world research into cancer, fertility, diabetes, and more. It’s a big step for data science and for the future of personalized medicine. | Usine Digitale

🧪🚀 Abivax just went full rocket mode on the Paris stock exchange — +383% in one morning. The biotech’s magic pill, Obefazimod (try saying that twice), showed strong remission results in two late-stage trials for ulcerative colitis. 1,275 patients, 36 countries, and the FDA are all ears. If follow-up data checks out, Abivax could file for approval in 2026. For now, it’s champagne and lab coats.  | Maddyness

🤖 🇨🇳 Plot twist in the Aldebaran saga! Just weeks after the iconic French robotics company was unplugged for good, its hardware has found a new home in China. Shenzhen-based Maxvision swooped in with €900K to scoop up Aldebaran’s electronic kit. The goal? Supercharge their humanoid robot R&D and bring bots to the masses (especially in emerging markets). Bonus twist: they’re setting up shop in France. Pepper may be gone, but its circuit board lives on. | Les Echos

💸 🦢 Swan’s flying high on growth (and deeper into the red). The French fintech, which lets companies offer embedded banking services, hit €14.8M in net banking income in 2024, up 155%. But operating losses also ballooned to €17.7M. After a €42M Series B extension in January, Swan is gliding across Europe with 164 employees, 4 offices, and over €1.5B in monthly transactions. Who said fintech was boring? | Les Echos

📣 📈 Better late than never: LumApps (remember that $650M Bridgepoint buyout?) finally dropped its 2023 numbers — €36.7M in revenue and a modest loss. But fast forward to 2025, and things look shinier: the French-Swiss software merger with Beekeeper has them buzzing at a $1.2B valuation, with revenue expected to hit €128M. From Lyon to unicorn in two years - pas mal. | Les Echos

💰🔗 Spiko just unlocked €18.5M in Series A fuelled by Index Ventures and a dream team of fintech angels (Revolut, Wise, Blackstone… ). Their magic? Tokenised money market funds that pay daily interest — no lock-in, full transparency. Already managing €335M AUM in <2 years, aiming for €1B and world domination (ok, Europe first). Disrupting idle cash with crypto-tech swagger. | The Big Whale

How Quandela Is Racing To Make Quantum Computing Practical

In a small laboratory at France's CNRS research institute a decade ago, a team of scientists made a breakthrough that would eventually challenge the global quantum computing landscape. They had created what Valérian Giesz, now Co-Founder and COO of Quandela, describes as "the brightest, the most efficient single photon source that you can imagine, fabricated with semiconductors."

That discovery at France's Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology would become the foundation for Quandela, a quantum computing startup that has quietly positioned itself as Europe's leader in photonic quantum computing while major players like IBM and Google dominate headlines with their own approaches.

"We are not the first company. IBM and other startups have already started the journey of quantum computing. But our vision was that we needed to make it more efficient, and this is exactly what our technology does," Giesz explained during a recent interview at VivaTech 2025. "We make resource-efficient quantum computing."

Post-Quantum Cybersecurity: Are We Too Early or Too Late?

The question hanging over the quantum cybersecurity panel that I moderated at VivaTech 2025 was deceptively simple: Are we too early or too late in preparing for the post-quantum threat?

With quantum computing still emerging, I assumed it was the former. However, the answer, according to industry experts, should keep every CISO awake at night.

"If we're forced to choose one of those two buckets, then we are definitely not too early," said Duncan Jones, Head of Cybersecurity at Quantinuum, the world's largest integrated quantum company. "I think the threat of quantum breaking cryptographic systems is very real. And I think it is not a distant threat. I think it is a near-term threat."

His assessment was echoed by Clément Jeanjean, Senior Director at quantum and AI startup SandboxAQ, who drew a sobering comparison to the Y2K crisis. "For quantum, it's a bit different because we don't have a date," Jeanjean said. "What's at stake here is the risk. Not that you know it's going to happen next year, or even in the next couple of years. But it's the risk of not being ready when it happens."

💸 Top Funding Deals 💸

📇 Company: MagREEsource
🔍 Description: Industrial deeptech startup developing low-carbon, high-performance permanent magnets from recycled rare earth materials. The company is building a sovereign, circular, and strategic European supply chain for magnet production, aiming to reduce reliance on Chinese rare earths.
💻 Website: https://www.magreesource.com
📍 HQ City: Noyarey, near Grenoble, France
🧗 Round: Growth / Industrial Scale-Up
💰 Amount Raised: €23 million
🏦 Investors: Bpifrance (Fonds SPI 2 under France 2030), FININDUS (ArcelorMittal & Région de Flandres), Innovacom, BNP Paribas Développement, C2AD, Fonds Régional Avenir Industrie Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (via UI Investissement), FCPR Impact&Performance, Rhône Dauphiné Développement, strategic partners including L-Acoustics and Groupe Pochet, and private investors.
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Erick Petit, Sophie Rivoirard
🗞️ News: The funds will accelerate MagREEsource's plan to build a large-scale, sustainable magnet manufacturing plant ("MagFactory") with 1,000t annual capacity by 2028. This project has been labeled a “Strategic European Project” under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act. The company already operates a short-loop hydrogen-based recycling process in Noyarey and will now industrialize a new “Fusion short-loop” technology. | Le Dauphiné, Les Echos

📇 Company: Austral Dx
🔍 Description: Austral Dx is a French medtech startup developing AI-powered acoustic diagnostic tools for non-invasive, rapid screening of pulmonary and cardiac conditions. Its handheld device captures body sounds to aid in early detection of illnesses such as COPD, asthma, and heart failure, with a focus on remote and resource-limited settings.
💻 Website: https://www.australdx.com
📍 HQ City: Marseille, France
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1.2 million
🏦 Investors: Région Sud Investissement (managed by Turenne Groupe), Angels Santé, private investors
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Dr. Florent Baty
🗞️ News: This first funding round will enable Austral Dx to finalize its medical device certification and scale up clinical validation. The startup is positioning its tech as a lightweight alternative to stethoscopes and imaging, useful for both developed and underserved health systems. | Maddyness

📇 Company: OnParty
🔍 Description: OnParty is a French social event app designed to become the go-to social network for nightlife and memorable parties. The platform lets users discover, join, and organize parties, combining event listings with private social sharing features like guest lists, videos, and photo memories.
💻 Website: https://www.onparty.app
📍 HQ City: Paris, France
🧗 Round: Pre-Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1M
🏦 Investors: Business angels including Roxanne Varza (Station F), Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (Alan), Daphné Parrot (ex-Fabernovel), and Thibaud Elzière (Hexa)
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Maxence Wargnier, Maxime Eyraud, Nicolas Cormouls-Houles, Jordan Cohen
🗞️ News: With over 40,000 app downloads since launching in April 2024, OnParty is gaining traction among Gen Z and students. The new funds will support further tech development, user acquisition, and a growing team, aiming to scale the platform across major French cities before expanding internationally. | Maddyness

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