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The AI funding frenzy continues, and France is getting its share. A couple of recent panoramas highlight the growth of the nation's GenAI ecosystem.

The first comes from the Resonance VC team, which updated its mapping of French GenAI companies and published a lengthy analysis of key trends.

That tracks with Wavestone's most recent report which identified 195 GenAI startups in France, up from 141 in 2023.

This is a global phenomenon, of course, but the momentum in France is a big reason we started La Machine, a monthly newsletter focused on French AI news and information. We'd love to hear your feedback. Our goal is to provide advanced intelligence on the French AI ecosystem.

Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to unlock all of the content and archives. We are also actively seeking sponsors for this monthly newsletter, so if you're interested drop us a note: chris@frenchtechjournal.com / helen@frenchtechjournal.com.

Chris O'Brien & Helen O'Reilly-Durand

The Headlines

🗞️ France nominated its first "AI Minister" following the creation of its new government. Clara Chappaz, who just finished a three-year run as head of La French Tech mission, was named France's Secrétariat d’État chargé de l’Intelligence artificielle et du Numérique. You can read more about the appointment here and watch her initial remarks.

🗞️ French AI startup H hit some unexpected turbulence when 3 of 5 co-founders left just a few months after raising its $220 million Seed Round. As Karl Tuyls, Daan Wierstra, and Julien Perolat walked out the door, a LinkedIn post cited “operational differences,” according to a LinkedIn post from the company. “While this has been a difficult decision for all parties involved, all are in agreement that this will enable the company’s greatest success moving forward and H continues to have the full support of its investors and strategic partners,” the company said in the post. (Sifted)

🗞️ Bloomberg broke the news that AI Startup Poolside had raised a $500 million round at a $3 Billion valuation. The company subsequently confirmed the funding this week. According to Sifted: "French billionaire Xavier Niel and US VC Felicis led the round, which also included French business angels Rodolphe Saadé and Motier Ventures, and investors such as Bpifrance, NewWave, and Frst. The round is a $100m extension to a $26m seed round announced in May, which was led by US-based Redpoint Ventures." The company posted a deep dive into its vision and strategy. At the Sifted Summit in London, Vice President of Operations Margarida Garcia said, "Poolside is now getting ready to bring its model to market — and generate more significant revenue. The startup is currently testing its technology with a number of users in Europe and the US. See also the Q&A we shared last year with the co-founders. (Sifted)

🗞️ OpenAI is opening an office in Paris as the US giant behind ChatGPT tries to lure more European talent. (L’Informé)

Other headlines:

🗞️ Xavier Niel, a Driving Force of French AI, Is Now Shaping TikTok | "In Niel, ByteDance has found a board member who revels in challenging the establishment." | Wired

🗞️ AI: the French connection | "A top-down focus on cutting-edge research has helped France move ahead of Britain where it counts." | Tortoise

🗞️ LVMH’s Bernard Arnault has quietly invested in 5 AI startups this year via his family office | Fortune

🗞️ Belfius Bank announces 'strategic' investment in two French AI companies | "Belfius Bank and Insurance announced on Friday that it is "joining forces with European leaders in artificial intelligence," as it is investing in health insurance provider Alan and generative AI specialist Mistral AI." | The Brussels Times

🗞️ How Paris Became a Rising Player in AI (FR) | "In recent months, the French capital has seen new start-ups in the field such as Mistral AI and Dust. It can also count on a pool of talent and active investors." | Les Echos

🗞️ France quietly catches rivals in battle for data center supremacy | "Jerome Totel of French firm Data4 said there were virtually no AI-ready data centers in France right now. But by 2030 data capacity would double in France, with between 30 and 40 percent of it dedicated to the technology, according to a recent report by trade group Datacenter." | France24

The Interviews

🗣️ How Actionable Uses AI To Predict Customer Satisfaction

The startup is using AI to reveal greater insights about what makes customers happy. A €2M Pre-Seed round will give the company a boost toward developing its first commercial version.

🗣️ AI + The Future Of Retail

Paris Retail Week 2024 embraced AI as its major theme. The technology is poised to rewrite the rules of the game across all aspects of the industry.

Products

☀️ Mistral AI released its first multimodal model, the Pixtral 12B, which can handle both text and images. The model uses 12 billion parameters and is based on Mistral’s Nemo 12B text model. Pixtral 12B can answer questions about images via URLs or images encoded with base64 such as how many copies of a certain object are visible. (Techcrunch, PR)

☀️ Mistral AI launched a new free tier to let developers fine-tune and build test apps with the startup’s AI models, the company announced in a blog post on Tuesday. The startup also slashed prices for developers to access its AI models through API endpoints and added image processing to its free consumer AI chatbot, le Chat. (TechCrunch, PR)

☀️ Hugging Face announced LightEval, an open-source evaluation suite to benchmark AI models. These came just as Hugging Face crossed 1 million free public models on its platform. (Tweet)

☀️ Magentine Healthcare, a deeptech startup pioneering connected medical biology, today announces the official launch of the first AI video companion, an innovative digital tool to help patients better understand their medical biology test results. (YouTube video)

☀️ Daxte released LegalMap, a French GenAI tool for legal documents built on AWS. (AWS)

Government + Policy

👉 President Emmanuel Macron on a visit to Serbia said Europe needs to invest in its own artificial intelligence model to catch up with China and the United States. "The Chinese and the Americans invest a lot more," Macron said during a trip to Serbia. (Barron's)

👉 France's National Institute of Geographic and Forestry Information (IGN) is deploying AI to update and enhance geographic data. (Elblog.PL)

👉 As part of the AI Action Summit, taking place on February 10-11, 2025 in Paris, the Paris Peace Forum is launching a Call for Projects focused on artificial intelligence. (French Foreign Ministry)

👉 Benoît Cœuré, president of the French competition authority, warns of the risk of giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta using their strength in digital technology to crush the artificial intelligence market and its start-ups. (Le Monde)

👉 Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, said that while emerging technologies such as GenAI present security risks and remain young, he urged his colleagues to embrace them as a necessary step for their future. "It seems to me that we must first lay down a fundamental principle of governance: AI must be at the service of humanity and society, and not the other way around. (Transcript)

👉 X vows to end harvesting of EU users' personal data to train its AI | (AFP)

Research

🧠 Enabling AI to detect the truth despite conflicting sources | Sébastien Konieczny, CNRS director of research at the Centre de recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL - CNRS/Université d'Artois) | Read

🧠 Priority equipment and research program on the development of innovative materials using artificial intelligence | "France launched the pioneering Priority Equipment and Research Program (PEPR) DIADEM in 2022. This innovative initiative, focused on DIscovery Acceleration for the Deployment of Emerging Materials (DIADEM), leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accelerate the innovation chain from conception to realization, revolutionizing Materials Science sustainably." | Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

🧠 What is hidden under our pontoons? Abundance and distribution of filter feeders (bivalves and tunicates) in the port area revealed. Artificial intelligence: an interesting analysis tool? | Université de la Rochelle | Sec. Marine Ecosystem Ecology

🧠 Real Estate Automated Valuation Model with Explainable Artificial Intelligence Based on Shapley Values | Dieudonné Tchuente, Department of Information, Operations and Management Sciences, TBS Business School | The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics

🧠 France's national digital research institute Inria, (L’Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique) launched the P16 project, a strategic program to strengthen the technological sovereignty of France and Europe in the field of AI and data science. P16 is part of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (SNIA) and is supported by the France 2030 innovation funding program. | ActuAI

🧠 French national railway operator SNCF and the École Polytechnique have created a Chair for Artificial Intelligence and Optimization for Mobility. The goal of the research position is to develop approaches combining operational research and AI for the benefit of public transport and its users. | PR

Deals

🛒 Kea & Partners Group acquired Veltys to boost its Data and AI services. (LinkedIn)

🛒 Septeo, which makes software for legal, real estate, and business professionals, acquired Ideta, an editor of no-code solutions for the creation of active chatbots, callbots, and AI assistants based on GenAI. (PR)

🛒 Autodesk acquired the team and IP behind French startup Golaem for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2011, Golaem developed a crowd simulation tool for animators called Maya that gave designers greater control. Mayu used custom AI logic that could generate variations of crowd characters. "We believe that the Golaem team’s experience with procedural animation and AI will be a key addition to Autodesk’s teams," according to a Golaem blog post. (Story) (Golaem Blog Post) (CG Channel)

🛒 Datasite, a SaaS platform used by companies around the world for the execution of complex strategic projects, finalized its acquisition of Paris-based Sealk, a startup that offers an M&A search engine that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to quickly and intelligently identify new opportunities. (PR, LinkedIn)

🛒 Samsung finalized its $86 million acquisition of French AI Medtech Sonio after the deal was approved by the French Ministry of Economy. (The Next Web)

🛒 French aerospace and defense giant Safran finalized its acquisition of AI-powered cybersecurity startup Preligens following approval by French regulators. (Journal Du Net)

🛒 US-based HCLSoftware acquired Zeenea, an innovator in data catalog and governance solutions based in Paris in a cash transaction valued at €24 million. The company plans to integrate Zeenea into its Actian division to enhance such tools as its GenAI data readiness checklist. (PR, Economic Times)

Foundings

🚀 Emotia: Uses AI to analyze emotional responses and to enable greater emotional responses in bots. The company was founded on July 17, 2024, by 4 researchers in AI and psychology: CMO Claire Conan-Vrinat, Chief Emotional Officer Alexandre Dubarry, Chief Scientific Officer Thierry Petit, and CEO Arnault Pachot (a noted AI researcher, author, and entrepreneur).

🚀 GrowGraph: The company was founded on September 9, 2024, by Alexander Belikov, a researcher and AI manager who is "currently working on a platform for academic knowledge management and decision-making." His website notes that he is "Currently developing project GrowGraph, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at revolutionizing scientific processes. His website also highlights that he "Led the Research Team at Qantev, an AI-driven health insurance startup" and "Founded the Data Science team at Hello Watt, a consumer energy company." The technology behind GrowGraph appears to be based on a research paper he co-authored that was published by Nature in 2022 called: "Prediction of robust scientific facts from literature." The abstract says: "The availability of massive digital archives, machine reading, extraction tools and automated high-throughput experiments allows us to evaluate these challenges computationally at scale and identify novel opportunities to craft policies that accelerate scientific progress."

AI Funding News

What: AKUR8, a machine learning-powered insurance pricing and reserving platform.

Why: To enable insurers to rapidly price insurance policies, gaining efficiencies that improve financial outcomes and enhance risk assessments.

Funding: €109 million

Who: Co-Founders Brune de Linares & Samuel Falmagne

Investors: Partners Group, One Peak Partners, and Guidewire Software

What's next: The company plans to invest the new funding in R&D to expand its platform with new modules, integrate its recent acquisition of Arius, and accelerate marketing efforts in North America.

What: Entalpic, a generative AI platform for the detection of molecules and materials for the chemical industry.

Why: To replace outdated industrial chemical processes and develop new solutions notably in the energy storage, fertilizer production, and pollution control sectors.

Funding: €8.5 million

Who: Co-Founders Mathieu Galtier, Victor Schmidt, and Alexandre Duval

Investors: Breega, Cathay Innovation, and Felicis

What's next: Already present in France, Germany & Canada, the cash will go towards powering the ML startup's next phase of growth by forging partnerships with key industry players and expanding into the US and Asia markets.

Announcements

📢 AWS's GenAI Loft Tour | An immersion in generative AI from October 8 to November 25 at Station F hosted by the cloud computing giant. AWS is setting up its GenAI Loft at Station F. For nearly two months, the campus will host a vast program of workshops, expert demonstrations, coaching sessions, and networking for French startups, developers, and tech decision-makers | Register

📢 Lifen, a start-up specializing in digital health solutions, announced an investment of €15 million in research and development, which includes a €7 million grant from the government's France 2030 program. This funding, provided under the i-Demo call for projects, aims to accelerate the development of Lifen DataLab, which is dedicated to the collection and structuring of clinical data through AI. | FrenchWeb

📢 Cegid, a European cloud management platform for HR, finance, and accounting, has launched the fourth season of the Cegid Startup Program (previously named Cegid Data Lab), a personalized acceleration program for 11 new start-ups. Hosted at STATION F in Paris, the Cegid Startup Program is now focused on AI startups. artificial intelligence. The latter aims to create a collaborative ecosystem where ideas can be shared and grow, with an undisguised goal of Open Innovation that benefits both entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. | Information

📢 The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has launched a call for tender to select a vendor for the acquisition, delivery, installation and maintenance of Alice Recoque, the European exascale supercomputer to be located in France. | Information

Events

📆 [AWS GenAI Loft] Next Generation Developer Day | October 9 | This event will look at how generative AI is shaping the future of development, taking a look at how developers are using next-generation developer tools such as Amazon Q Developer, Amazon Bedrock Studio, and other tools. It will take you on a journey of what development will look like in the future, with hands-on technical talks, code, and demos. | Registration

📆 NoCode Summit | October 16 & 17 | Discover the latest innovations in NoCode and LowCode. Organized by the SFPN, the French Syndicat des Professionnels du NoCode, this edition will emphasize the challenges of Tech for Good and cybersecurity. The conference will include sessions on AI & NoCode. | Station F | Information

📆 Big Data & AI Paris | October 15 & 16 | The most comprehensive exhibition of AI and Big Data stakeholders in Europe with more than 230 exhibitors, including large technology groups, pure AI players and data, specialized consultants, professional training actors, and innovative start-ups. | Buy tickets

📆 Unleash World | October 16 & 17 | HR + AI conference | Registration

📆 ai-PULSE | November 7 | Sponsored by Scaleway at Station F | Join leaders and engineers for a one-day technical conference dedicated to AI breakthroughs, research & demonstrations | Registration

📆 AWS GenAI Day France | November 25 | A free event that brings together the French GenAI community to connect, collaborate, and be at the forefront of the latest innovations around generative AI. The event is aimed at technology specialists from all sectors and skill levels who want to discover how generative AI can help them innovate quickly and deliver flexible and reliable solutions at scale. During the afternoon, AWS will offer you thematic tracks (Business/Industries, Technology, Startups) as well as a closing cocktail. Throughout the day, you will be able to discover AWS demos, innovative GenAI startup stands, "Ask an Expert" sessions, and partner stands. The event will be broadcast online for remote participants. | Information

📆 SOPHI.A Summit | November 27 to 29, 2024 | At the heart of the European cradle of innovation, SOPHI.A Antipolis, international experts and leading companies will bring their thoughts and research on AI-related themes such as health, images, ethics, management, and GenAI. | Information

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