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Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand
Headlines
🗞️ OpenAI officially opened its Paris office with a soirée last week and felt the warm French fuzzies, including a welcome tweet from French prez Emmanuel Macron.
"I have a rather special role, one that I probably consider one of the most exciting in the company," said OpenAI Head of Developer Experience Romain Huet on stage. "It's to work with developers and start-ups on a daily basis, all of you who create and innovate on top of our models and technologies. For many of you, AI is above all a catalyst for success and growth. So, I'm really delighted to be with you all here tonight."
“I’ve moved back from the US for this,” Arnaud Fournier, a solutions architect at OpenAI previously based in New York, who is leading the Paris office, said in an interview with Sifted. “It’s the start of a big expansion for OpenAI, and we believe Paris is a great base for it.”
French AI Minister Clara Chappaz (more from her below 👇) also stopped by to say, "Howdy." She wrote on LinkedIn: "Why did the world's largest AI company choose France for this new office? Simply for its excellence and its talents in artificial intelligence!"
🗞️ François Chollet, the French creator of the widely-used Keras AI framework and a prominent AI researcher, announced his departure from Google after nearly 10 years in a post on Twitter: "I'm leaving Google to go start a new company with a friend. More to be announced soon!" Known for his influential work including the ARC-AGI benchmark and his advocacy for human-like AI reasoning approaches over purely computational methods, Chollet has made significant contributions to the field during his tenure at Google. The Keras framework he created now has over 2 million users and powers major tech products including Waymo's self-driving cars and recommendation systems for YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify. Recently recognized as one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI, Chollet expressed gratitude for his time at Google, during which he witnessed deep learning transform from a niche academic topic into a massive industry. | TechCrunch, Twitter
🗞️ Former French Digital Minister Cédric O is starting a new AI EdTech called "The Marshmallow Project," according to documents filed with French authorities. The September filing was first spotted by French digital news site L'Informé.
O was a strategic co-founder of Mistral AI, which has likely made him a bazillionaire—at least on paper. His post-government plunge into the tech world has been aggressive and sometimes stymied. A government ethics agency blocked his appointment to the board of French tech giant Atos. O's original attempts to raise an investment fund floundered amid a tough funding environment.
O's Marshmallow co-founders include Flore Cousin, Sébastien Boyer, and Nicolas Princen. Cousin was most recently Managing Director of Alma, a French BNPL fintech. Princen was a former digital advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy who sold his start-up, Glose, a site for selling digital books, to Medium in 2021. Boyer is Mistral AI's strategic advisor.
Also listed in the founding documents is Frédéric Potter's Veyrach investment fund. Potter founded Netatmo, a manufacturer of connected objects for the home which he sold in 2018. Potter then joined Apple before leaving last May to return to Paris. He and his wife run an educational foundation.
According to the founding documents, the company's mission is "the creation, publishing, distribution, marketing, as well as the dissemination of educational materials, videos, quizzes, interactive content, physical objects, educational toys, or any other educational medium, whether intended for personal use, for school, university, vocational education, or continuing education." Hopefully, their LLMs will be named "s'mores."
Meanwhile, Sifted reports that the company is about to close a €10m seed round that will include investors such as General Catalyst, Balderton, Alpha Intelligence Capital, VC Edu Capital, Motier Ventures, Kima Ventures, daphni, and Sistafund.
Other headlines
🗞️ Tech investor Xavier Niel urges Europe’s AI start-ups not to cash out | French billionaire warns that if the region misses AI boom it will be 'a very small continent abandoned for a few generations.’ | Financial Times
🗞️ Google, Meta, and some of France's top universities: Where Mistral poaches its top talent from | Sifted analyzed 105 profiles that are reported to work at France’s buzzy AI scaleup. | Sifted
🗞️ EDF in discussions to power three 1GW data center projects in France | French utility EDF is in discussions with three data center providers about supplying power for up to three 1GW data center projects in France. In October, EDF launched Project Giga to meet the growing energy demand from artificial intelligence data centers. | Data Center Dynamics
🗞️ Here’s how Orange Business CMO says GenAI is raising its revenue | Fierce Network
🗞️ Generative AI: energy consumption soars | INSTITUT POLYTECHNIQUE DE PARIS
🗞️ The top 10 family offices for startup investments | Motier Ventures, the family office and venture arm of Guillaume Houzé of Galeries Lafayette money, and Aglaé Ventures, the tech venture arm of LVMH chief Arnault’s family office, both made the list thanks to their AI investments. | CNBC
Meet Our Sponsor
The French Tech Journal subscribers can get a free ticket to GenerationAI 2024!
GenerationAI 2024 on December 3 is not just another AI event—it’s the premier conference for those at the forefront of GenAI APIs and Large Language Models (LLM) APIs. The event showcases the latest innovations, connects leaders in the AI space, and brings real, hands-on knowledge to a community of AI professionals.
Featured speakers:
- Neil Zeghidour – Chief Modeling Officer and Co-Founder
- Kyutai Gilles Babinet – Author of "Green AI" and Co-Chairman Conseil National du Numérique and Digital Champion pour la France à la Commission Européenne
- Plus experts from Meta, Hugging Face, Scaleway & More!
LightOn IPO Tear Down
Hyped as Europe's first GenAI public listing, the company is more Seed-stage startup than juggernaut. After starting as a hardware research project, the company pivoted to a SaaS platform. The journey has been financed by public subsidies, tax credits, debt, and equity from Huawei.
AI-Palooza: Station F Unveils Its Future 40
Station F has become an AI hothouse.
Last week, the Paris-based startup campus announced its latest Future 40, a cohort of companies that are the top performers among the more than 1,000 startups at Station F. Of those: 34 were AI and machine learning startups.
Special Envoy: Global AI Summit Aims to Bridge Digital Divide and Promote 'AI Biodiversity'
Speaking at the Paris Peace Forum, Anne Bouverot, Special Envoy for the upcoming AI Action Summit in Paris, explained her vision for making artificial intelligence more inclusive and environmentally sustainable. "We need to do everything we can to mitigate the risks, and we need to do everything to help AI develop towards positive outcomes."
France's AI Ambitions: Open And More Inclusive
In a discussion about France's artificial intelligence strategy, Clara Chappaz, France's Omnipresent Secretary of State for AI and Digital Affairs, outlined a vision that balances technological ambition with social responsibility.
"We have a new technology, artificial intelligence...especially since the arrival of ChatGPT and these conversational models, that have turned our lives upside down," she said. "It is an issue that is no longer just a technical issue. Today, it is an issue that is eminently political. What do we want to do with this technology? This is where France has a card to play and it intends to carry a vision that is perhaps a little different, a vision that is much more inclusive, that is much more open."
AI Funding News
📇 Company: Polar Analytics
🔍 Description: Polar Analytics is a centralized platform that assists e-commerce merchants in leveraging their first-party data to make more informed decisions. It integrates seamlessly with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, providing in-depth analysis of acquisition costs and marketing campaign performance, particularly across channels such as email.
💻 Website: polaranalytics.com
📍 HQ City: Paris, France
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount Raised: €18 million
🏦 Investors: Point Nine, Frst Capital, Chalfen Ventures
👨💼👩💼 Founders: David Dokes and Charbel Seif
🗞️ News: Polar Analytics lève 18 millions d’euros pour aider les commerçants à exploiter leurs données
📇 Company: Omaha Insights
🔍 Description: Normalized financial data and analytical tools for small businesses.
💻 Website: https://www.omaha-insights.com/
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount raised: €3.5 million
🏦 Investors: Ventech, Axeleo Capital
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Jordan Alloun, Bryant Matthews
🗞️ News: Omaha Insights raises funding
📇 Company: IADYS
🔍 Description: Designs, develops, and delivers Artificial Intelligence solutions.
💻 Website: http://www.iadys.com
📍 HQ City: Roquefort-la-Bédoule
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount raised: €10 million
🏦 Investors: Innovacom, Région Sud Investissement, GO Capital
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Nicolas Carlési
🗞️ News: IADYS funding announcement
📇 Company: Just
🔍 Description: One-click payment solution.
💻 Website: https://www.getjust.eu/
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €6.5M
🏦 Investors: Backed, Daphni, Otium Capital, Kima Ventures, business angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Jeremy Pinto and Benjamin Cohen Aloro
🗞️ News: https://www.vestbee.com/blog/articles/paris-based-e-commerce-platform-raises-8-m-led-by-backed-vc
Events
📢 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
📆 TechBio France 2024 | November 20 | Join TechBio France 2024 to shape the future of France's TechBio ecosystem, fostering innovation and collaboration in biotech and technology. The conference includes several sessions on AI + Biotech. | Tickets
📆 DATA + AI World Tour Paris by Databricks | November 20 | During this major data intelligence event, you will have the opportunity to discover the latest advances in GenAI, machine learning, analytics, and data governance.
📆 Generative AI for Health | November 21 | Hosted by Artefact at Station F | Tickets
📆 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
📆 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing | November 25 | The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all aspects of Development in Science and Technology. | Tickets
📆 Data Centre World Paris | November 27 & 28 | The event brings together a community of data center professionals, including decision-makers, technical experts, and innovative solution providers. | Register
📆 Big Data & AI World | November 27 & 28 | Register
📆 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
📆 GenAI Days Paris édition #2 | November 28 | A conference focusing on feedback on the applications of Generative AI. | Tickets
📆 apidays Paris 2024 | December 3 to 5 | Apidays Paris 2024 is also home of our other sister conferences GENERATIONAI focusing on AI-related topics and GREENIO, addressing IT sustainability. | Tickets
📆 RAISE Summit 2025 | July 8-9, 2025 | RAISE Summit is the premier event for professionals seeking to disrupt, build, and connect in the AI landscape. This summit is the ultimate destination to validate AI strategies through real-world use cases, define a winning AI playbook, and find the right partners to deliver cutting-edge solutions. | Register
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