In this edition:

🧠 When stolen credentials breached his 'impenetrable' system, Gautier Bugeon had an insight: give attackers fake doors to try. His startup MokN raised €2.6M, hit $1M ARR in 16 months with half its clients being billion-dollar companies, and is now expanding to America.

🧠 Cybercrime has evolved fast: from human-led hacks to AI-boosted attacks, with autonomous MOAIs (Multimodal Offensive AI) still in labs but soon within reach. The big question: can defenders evolve fast enough to see, decide, and act before machines strike? Cybersecurity CEOs Stu Solomon (HUMAN security) and Philippe Humeau (CrowdSec) give us the lowdown.

And a reminder, our coverage from Part I:

👀 France is betting over €1 billion to become a cybersecurity powerhouse. This in-depth Sector Deep Dive maps the nation’s integrated ecosystem—government, defense, ANSSI, startups, research, and corporate giants—driving its push for digital independence and global leadership.

👀 A sweeping new study by Cybervadis and CESIN of 1,000 firms finds most have solid policies but weak proof. As Europe's cybersecurity regulation NIS2 expands oversight to thousands more companies, the gap between compliance on paper and verifiable protection is now a national competitiveness issue. Cybervadis' Thibault Lapedagne breaks it down.

Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand

Headlines

🗞️ “Winter Is Coming.” Vincent Strubel, DG of ANSSI, opened Monaco’s 25th Assises de la Cybersécurité with a stark Game of Thrones warning: from rising attacks and reliance on US tech to the quantum decryption horizon, cyber threats are intensifying. The summit—kicked off by Maria Iacono and Minister Christophe Mirmand—brought together top experts from ANSSI, AMSN, Eurojust, and Campus Cyber, renewing Franco-Monégasque cooperation through 2030. Over three days, 3,000 participants tackled everything from ransomware to phishing, sharing best practices like strong passwords, systematic updates, data backups, ongoing staff training, and secure connections. Cybersecurity isn’t just a strategy. It’s habit, whether you’re a company or a connected citizen. | Challenges, Monaco Tribune

🗞️ In an op-ed for l’Opinion’s “Top 100 Making AI Happen in Europe” supplement, Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, delivered a rallying call for Europe to turn artificial intelligence into a force for inclusion and trust, not concentration and exclusion. She argued that while AI is already empowering students, entrepreneurs, and patients across France, its benefits risk becoming unevenly distributed unless access and training are deliberately democratized. Simo positioned Europe’s humanistic values as its biggest competitive edge, insisting that “what history will remember is not the raw power of our models, but how we chose to put them in service of people.” Her message: the true measure of progress won’t be how advanced AI becomes, but how widely its opportunities are shared. | L'Opinion

🗞️ French deeptech startup Prophesee has made a comeback from near-collapse, reinventing itself as a rising star in defense technology. Once backed by the CIA’s venture arm IQT and nearly bankrupt a year ago, the company is now courted by heavyweights like Thales, Safran, Leonardo, NATO, and DARPA. Its neuromorphic “metavision” sensors, which mimic the human retina to detect motion and light changes, are proving vital in drone detection amid the war in Ukraine. After breaking free from restrictions tied to Sony, Prophesee struck a new partnership with STMicroelectronics and shifted focus from smartphones to industrial and military clients—now making up 70% of its revenue. CEO Luca Verre says the company aims to reach profitability by the end of next year, powered by Europe’s growing appetite for homegrown AI vision tech. | Les Echos

🗞️ French startup Harmattan AI soars with UK MoD deal. Founded in April 2024, it’s set to deliver 3,000 autonomous drones (UAS) in record time, following a multi-million contract announced at London’s DSEI. Its SORONA model is lightweight, modular, AI-powered, and cloud-free — built for ISR missions and rapid deployment. Paris watches closely as the startup ramps production and eyes €200M funding. | Opex News, Frenchweb

🗞️ We're number cinq! Whatever the nation's rep may be for being stuck it the past, the good folks at the Financial Times and the AI for Good Lab - Microsoft research, France ranks 5th in terms of the percentage of working adults who use AI, at just over 40%. | Financial Times

🗞️ Veteran publishing powerhouse Anne-Solange Noble, former rights chief at Gallimard, has been awarded France’s Médaille de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, capping nearly four decades in the literary world. In her acceptance speech, Noble celebrated the global reach of French literature through translation while defending the country’s integrated rights model. She also took aim at the industry’s rush toward automation, warning that “nothing will replace natural intelligence, made of emotion, sensitivity, conviction.” Her remarks struck a chord in Paris’s literary circles, blending cultural pride with a subtle critique of how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity and publishing alike. | Publishing Perspectives

🗞️ Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro is helping breathe new life into the endangered art of stop-motion animation, backing a Paris training studio in partnership with Gobelins and Netflix. He insists the technique is “AI-proof” — in an era when artificial intelligence is creeping into most forms of animation, stop-motion remains “protected.” Del Toro, who views stop-motion as a rebellious, handcrafted counterpoint to AI-driven automation, hopes this venture will nurture new talent and preserve the magic of frame-by-frame cinema. | France 24

OTHER HEADLINES

🗞️ Chat3D: The French Deep Tech Startup Reinventing 3D Modeling with Gen AI | Barely a year after its creation by two young engineering students, Chat3D is rapidly emerging as one of the most promising players in the French deep tech ecosystem. Based in Lyon, the startup has just raised €3 million and announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia, a key move to accelerate the development of its generative AI technology for 3D modeling. We spoke with Félix Balmonet, one of the co-founders, who shared insights into the company’s fast rise, its industrial ambitions, and its vision for the future of 3D creation. | DirectIndustry e‑Magazine

🗞️ How to get a job at H Company: ‘It’s so competitive right now’ | France’s buzzy agentic AI startup is fast growing its team of forward deployed engineers. | Sifted

ICYMI

🗞️ Inside TiHive: How a French Deeptech Startup Is Revolutionizing Quality Control, One Diaper at a Time | The Grenoble-based company just raised €8M to scale its terahertz-AI technology that can see inside products on production lines | The French Tech Journal

🗞️ VSORA: The French AI Chipmaker Taking on NVIDIA with High-Performance, Cost-Efficient AI Hardware | Backed by €40 million in funding, CEO Khaled Maalej believes the company is set to disrupt the AI hardware market with its Jotunn8 chip, leveraging a fabless model and advanced chiplet architecture to slash the cost of deploying large language models and generative AI at scale. | The French Tech Journal

🗞️ Figma's CPO On Navigating The GenAI Revolution: 'It's A Very Dynamic Landscape.' | Chief Product Officer Yuhki Yamashita discusses how the design company abandoned its traditional planning process to build AI-powered products as it adapts to the rapid evolution of GenAI capabilities. | The French Tech Journal

🧠 How Cybersecurity Startup MokN Combats Phishing With Deceptive 'Fake Doors'

Imagine spending six years building what you believe is an impenetrable security system for a $6 billion company. You've implemented awareness programs, dark web monitoring, endpoint protection, every tool in the cybersecurity playbook.

Then one day, a targeted phishing attack slips through anyway, and you realize with sinking clarity that for this particular threat, all you can really do is "raise awareness and pray that users will not share their password."

This was Gautier Bugeon's reality two years ago as SOC manager for Eramet, a major French mining corporation. The breach was a turning point, not just professionally but philosophically. "I became very, very frustrated because I had everything in place," he recalled. "And we still got breached, because it was a very targeted attack."

The culprit was stolen credentials—the cybersecurity industry's oldest and most intractable problem. "When someone is targeting you with a stolen credential, it's still the best way to get into a network," Bugeon said. "Unfortunately, it's been 10 years, and I think it will still be the case in 10 years."

From that frustration came an insight that would become the foundation of MokN, a cybersecurity startup that has just raised €2.6 million in a Seed funding round led by Moonfire, with participation from OVNI Capital, Kima Ventures, and business angels. In just 16 months, the company has surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue and attracted 26 clients. Half of them are billion-dollar companies.

Their solution sounds almost absurdly simple: If attackers are going to try stolen credentials on your network, why not give them fake doors to try and trick them into disclosing them?

🧠 When Bots Go Agentic: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Cybersecurity

Our lives are more digital than ever, and so is the danger lurking online. Cybercrime has always evolved alongside cybersecurity, but now, AI is hitting fast-forward. Phishing, ransomware, and malware are getting faster, smarter, and harder to detect.

But while attackers gain new AI superpowers, defenders aren’t helpless. They have their own tools.

Bottom line: the race has never been fiercer.

To understand how AI is rewriting cybersecurity, I caught up with Stu Solomon, CEO of HUMAN Security and Philippe Humeau, CEO of CrowdSec, ahead of the big annual industry gathering Les Assises de la Cybersécurité in Monaco last week.

According to Solomon, the line between human and automated activity online has already blurred. “For the first time in history," he said, "there’s more bot traffic than human traffic on the internet.”

But these aren’t the simple crawlers of the 2000s. Today’s bots, powered by AI, can act autonomously, make contextual decisions, and coordinate across systems. In short, they are becoming agentic: software that pursues goals and adapts without direct human input.

Both Solomon and Humeau agree: AI isn’t just changing cybersecurity. It’s accelerating it at an unprecedented rate.

The pressing question is: can defenders keep pace in this new agentic era?

AI Funding News

For the week ending October 10, there were 9 AI French Tech companies that raised €102.15 million.

📇 Company: Filigran
🔍 Description: French cybersecurity scale-up pioneering Extended Threat Management (XTM)—a unified, open-source, and AI-native suite helping organizations operationalize threat intelligence and transform cybersecurity operations. Its products (OpenCTI, OpenBAS, and upcoming OpenGRC) enable teams to detect, assess, and respond to threats faster using agentic AI and community-driven intelligence.
💻 Website: https://filigran.io
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Series C
💰 Amount Raised: $58M
🏦 Investors: Eurazeo, Insight Partners, Accel, Deutsche Telekom (T.Capital)
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Samuel Hassine (CEO, ex-ANSSI), Julien Richard (CTO)
🗞️ News: Funding will accelerate Filigran’s expansion in the U.S., DACH, Saudi Arabia, and Japan; scale its agentic AI platform XTM One and launch OpenGRC, a dynamic threat-informed cyber risk management tool.

📇 Company: Phagos
🔍 Description: French biotech pioneering phage-based therapeutics as a natural, AI-enhanced alternative to antibiotics. Phagos develops bacteriophage drugs to combat bacterial infections in veterinary medicine and has obtained the first EU authorization to market personalized phage-based treatments. Its discovery platform combines advanced microbiology with artificial intelligence to identify, design, and optimize phages for therapeutic use.
💻 Website: https://www.phagos.com
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount Raised: €25M
🏦 Investors: CapAgro, Hoxton Ventures, CapHorn, Demeter (co-leads); Acurio Ventures, Citizen Capital, Entrepreneur First, Founders Capital, Station F
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Alexandros Pantalis, Adèle James
🗞️ News: The funds will enable Phagos to deploy its veterinary phage treatments in the field, develop next-generation AI technology for phage discovery, and expand internationally. | AgFunderNews

📇 Company: Diffusely (ex-Meero)
🔍 Description: AI-powered SaaS platform enabling enterprises to generate and optimize large-scale visual content. Originally known as Meero, the company pivoted from a global photography marketplace to an AI software provider serving industries such as fashion and automotive with solutions like CarCutter and AutoRetouch.
💻 Website: https://www.diffusely.com/
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Growth round
💰 Amount Raised: €11M
🏦 Investors: Alven, Eurazeo, Prime Ventures, 50 Partners
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Guillaume Lestrade, Thomas Rebaud; current CEO Gaétan Rougevin-Baville
🗞️ News: Following its 2022 pivot from Meero to Diffusely, the company now reports €12M in ARR and 1,500 clients. This new round supports growth in its visual AI verticals and aims for profitability by 2026. | FrenchWeb

📇 Company: RSight
🔍 Description: Startup developing an agentic AI recruitment platform that automates and enhances the hiring process by combining artificial intelligence with human intuition. RSight® sources, contacts, and qualifies candidates at scale—drawing from over 1 billion profiles and 3,500 job boards—to deliver pre-screened, GDPR- and EU AI Act-compliant candidates within 24 to 72 hours.
💻 Website: https://www.rsight.com/
📍 HQ City: Paris, France / Bucharest, Romania
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €2.65M
🏦 Investors: European business angels from Romania, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and Italy
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Philippe Beucher (Founder & CEO) and a team of French and Romanian entrepreneurs
🗞️ News: The funding will fuel international expansion, strengthen RSight®’s AI-powered matching engine, and scale operations across key verticals, including tech, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. The company aims to make recruitment faster, fairer, and fully compliant through responsible use of agentic AI.

📇 Company: Ewake
🔍 Description: Paris-based AI startup developing an “AI teammate” for software reliability—a suite of intelligent agents that monitor, investigate, and prevent production issues before they escalate. Unlike traditional observability tools that merely display telemetry data, Ewake’s agents interpret and correlate data in real time, helping engineers detect issues early, automate repetitive reliability tasks, and reduce downtime.
💻 Website: https://www.ewake.ai/
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Pre-Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €2M
🏦 Investors: Connect Ventures (lead), Notion Capital, 2100 Ventures, Insiders, 50 Partners, with angel participation from Amirhossein Malekzadeh
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Pooné Mokari (CEO) and Omid Gosha
🗞️ News: Emerging from stealth, Ewake will use the funds to expand its Paris-based team and grow its intelligent agent platform, aiming to redefine software reliability for global engineering teams. The company maintains 50-50 gender parity and a diverse, international founding team, positioning itself as a next-generation competitor to Resolve.ai and Phoebe.ai. | TechFundingNews

📇 Company: Claimy
🔍 Description: French startup using AI to recover missing music royalties by reconciling fragmented metadata and identifying altered audio versions across hundreds of databases, labels, and platforms. Claimy’s technology detects remixes, covers, and AI-generated tracks to restore lost revenue to creators and rightsholders, addressing the estimated €15B in annual unclaimed royalties.
💻 Website: https://www.claimy.co/
📍 HQ City: Paris & London
🧗 Round: Pre-Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1.5M
🏦 Investors: Jean-Baptiste Hironde (MWM), Julien Codorniou (ex-Facebook), Flavien Kulawik, Ludwig Sels, Bpifrance, Centre National de la Musique
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Pierre-Alban Mulliez, Gustave Larrouturou, Guillaume de Lavenère
🗞️ News: Funding will accelerate product development in partnership with Télécom Paris’ Listen Lab, expand Claimy’s AI-based detection of transformed and AI-generated music, and scale its B2B royalty-tracking platform for labels and publishers.

📇 Company: Jint (formerly Mozzaik365)
🔍 Description: Jint, previously known as Mozzaik365, is a Microsoft 365-based Digital Workplace platform enhancing employee experience through AI-augmented intranets. The company’s suite of products simplifies communication, boosts engagement, and enables organizations to build intelligent, connected workplaces.
💻 Website: https://www.jint.ai
📍 HQ City: Paris, France — new office in Montréal, Canada
🧗 Round: Growth / Expansion
💰 Amount Raised: €1.5 million (bringing total funding to €5 million)
🏦 Investors: Includes Christophe Karvelis-Senn (CAPZA, joining the board)
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Florian Bouron, Antoine Chancel
🗞️ News: The rebranding to Jint marks the company’s international expansion and launch of a clearer, AI-driven product suite. Its solutions are now available on Orange and Capgemini’s Cloud Bleu sovereign cloud platform, reinforcing its commitment to security, compliance, and intelligent employee experiences.

📇 Company: Skyld AI
🔍 Description: Skyld AI is a French deeptech cybersecurity startup securing AI models against theft, reverse engineering, and malicious manipulation. Its technology acts as an “anti-theft system” for AI — protecting generative and embedded models (LLMs, vision, etc.) in sensitive sectors such as defense, healthcare, automotive, and Industry 4.0. A spin-off from Inria, Skyld has been accelerated by UC Berkeley SkyDeck and is based at Station F in Paris.
💻 Website: https://www.skyld.io/
📍 HQ City: Rennes, France — also present at Station F, Paris
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1.5 million
🏦 Investors: Auriga Cyber Ventures (lead), BNP Paribas Développement, Bloomhaus Ventures AG, Sodero, and several business angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Marie Paindavoine, PhD (Founder & CEO) — cryptography expert, winner of CEFCYS “Woman in Cybersecurity” 2024, and listed among Le Point’s 100 Innovators of 2025
🗞️ News: The funding will accelerate the commercial rollout of Skyld’s AI security technology in France and Europe, strengthen R&D for industrial use cases, and grow the team. Skyld’s solution is already deployed in sensitive environments and is becoming a key enabler of “trustworthy AI.” The company aims to lead the fast-growing global AI security and governance market, projected to reach $7.4B by 2030.

📇 Company: Ficha
🔍 Description: Ficha develops an AI-powered waste analysis solution using computer vision to detect sorting errors and assess waste quality. By equipping garbage trucks and sorting centers with embedded cameras, the startup helps municipalities identify problem areas and launch targeted awareness campaigns, reducing environmental and economic inefficiencies.
💻 Website: https://ficha.fr/en/
📍 HQ City: Lyon, France
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €2 million (approx. half in non-dilutive funding)
🏦 Investors: Climate Leaders Fast Track (lead), Neo Founders, Rhône Dauphiné Développement
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Hubert Ménard (Co-founder)
🗞️ News: The funding will support Ficha’s expansion with public-sector clients such as the cities of Annecy, Lyon, and Rouen. The company has surpassed €1M in annual recurring revenue and is part of a growing wave of AI-driven waste management startups tackling recycling inefficiencies through practical, field-deployable computer vision systems. | Les Echos

🗣️ Announcements 🗣️

🗣️ Orange has launched its 2025 Agentic AI Challenge to identify startups developing innovative autonomous AI solutions in fields such as customer service, cybersecurity, smart industry, and financial services. Selected startups will test their products at scale with Orange, receive mentorship from Orange Fab, gain visibility through global tech events, and connect with strategic partners like NVIDIA and key investors. | Apply to the Agentic AI Challenge

🗣️ NeoStartups & Growth Startups | The Paris Chamber of Commerce (CCI Paris) has opened applications for two complementary startup support programs starting October 17, 2025. NeoStartups helps early-stage founders build solid foundations with expert workshops and coaching, while Growth Startups targets companies with initial traction, offering a year-long program to scale sales, expand into new markets, prepare for fundraising, and access CCI Paris’s powerful business network. | Apply to NeoStartups | Apply to Growth Startups

📆 Events 📆

📆 AWS Gen AI Loft Paris at Station F | October 7 - 21 | The AWS Gen AI Loft is not limited to technology, it brings together start-ups, developers, investors and industry experts. Whether you are looking for in-depth knowledge or expert answers, our Gen AI Lofts offer you all the support you need to make your projects a reality. | Registration and details

📆 MCP Connect with Alpic, Alan & Mistral | October 14 | MCP Connect is for developers, practitioners, researchers, and enthusiasts working with the Model Context Protocol and AI agents. We share best practices, new tools, and real-world use cases for building MCP servers and integrating them into agentic workflows. Whether you are building MCP servers for your internal or external use cases or just exploring how agents connect to applications, MCP Connect is a place to exchange ideas, learn, and help shape the future of AI workflows. | Request to join

📆 CLUB INNO by WOLD - EDG | October 15th | Club Inno takes over the 8th arrondissement for an evening of AI, blockchain, and Web3. Speakers Hamza Kourimate (Dailymotion) and Olivier Kouvarakis (Coinhouse) will share insights on adtech innovation, crypto trends, and the future of digital finance. Expect lively AI-fueled debates, networking, and even a cocktail or two. | Maddyness | Tickets

📆 Inclusive hiring in the age of AI | October 16 | Roundtable discussion & breakfast in Paris | How do we ensure the integration of artificial intelligence tools promotes fairness, rather than multiply bias, when businesses hire? Join the European non-profit Sistech, recruitment experts from LinkedIn and Ekino, as well as French government officials and scholars to tackle this timely question. Participate in a candid conversation about how AI has transformed talent acquisition already and leave with concrete HR strategies your company can implement to foster opportunity | Register (FREE)

📆 CODE + MATTER Opening | October 21 | CODE + MATTER brings together Alexis André, Julien Espagnon, William Mapan and Florian Zumbrunn. Four artists who write programs rather than prompts, transforming algorithms into paintings, sculptures, reworked prints and installations. | Register

📆 The European AI Championship 2025 - Launch party | November 5 |What is the European AI Championship? ​Coming soon: 15 of Europe’s top AI engineers will battle live on stage, building real-world solutions using AI tools. They will represent their country to win, and you'll be able to watch and cheer for them with 1500 fellow engineers and AI-curious minds. Experience a championship where code meets competition, and AI hype meets AI application, wrapped in a unique, entertaining show. Think Eurovision, but for AI builders! | Buy tickets

📆 Data & AI Leaders Summit | November 5-6 | Paris becomes the nerve centre of data and responsible artificial intelligence. Access a program rooted in business reality: case studies, AI audits, governance, industrialisation, and sustainability. France's AI ecosystem is dynamic but under pressure: talent shortages, projects stuck at the POC stage, regulatory uncertainties (AI Act), and poor-quality data. Data & AI Leaders Summit Paris helps you move forward with technical content, immediately applicable and designed for the field. | Register

📆 dotAI | November 6 | We’re putting the spotlight on the best engineers in fabulous stages, so that their work is beautifully wrapped, their ideas travel better, and so that future leading engineers can aspire for that recognition. | Register

📆 ai-Pulse | December 4 | Hosted by Scaleway at Station F. Join leaders and engineers for a one-day technical conference dedicated to AI breakthroughs, research, and product demonstrations.| Register

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