Welcome to French Tech Updates! Your weekly source of startup, VC, and tech news and insights. I’m James, a startup-obsessed American living in Paris.

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

• 👎 Apple and Meta face fines of over €700M: In the midst of the growing trade war with the US, the EU has fined the American companies for alleged breaches of the block’s tech competition rules outlined in the Digital Markets Act. Along with the fines, the EU has also issued cease-and-desist orders targeting Apple’s app store and personalized advertising on Meta.

• 🤑 Bpifrance purchase of Septeo shares values the company between €3-4 billion: while the exact size of Bpifrance’s 8-figure stake in the software developer is unknown, the move could bring Septeo one step closer to an IPO. Septeo serves a broad range of customers who process sensitive data—including notaries, lawyers, and bailiffs. In a statement following the news, Septeo founder and CEO Hugues Galambrun acknowledged the additional value of the new investment stating “Bpifrance's investment in our company represents a sovereignty issue for our strategic data, compared to American or Chinese players."

• 👏 Station F announces new Founders Program batch of startups: the 18 companies span industries from construction to travel and will spend the next 3-18 months at the world’s largest startup campus building their businesses.

• 👨‍🍳 Freelance booking platform Brigad’s founders have a new startup: the company, called Rosk, aims to address temporary staffing issues in the restaurant industry starting in Île-de-France.

• 📸 Photoroom adds new image generation capabilities powered by gpt-image-1: the three new tools use OpenAI’s latest image generation model to perform tasks ranging from image retouching to placing products onto an AI-generated human model.

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• 👀 OpenAI exec says the firm would buy Google’s Chrome browser if offered the chance (TechCrunch)

• ✂️ Intel plans to cut more than 20% of its workforce (Barron’s)

• 🛠️ Nvidia is creating a tool to let companies build AI agents (WSJ)

• 🤷‍♂️ Founder kicked out of Columbia for AI “cheating tool” raised $5.3M to help users “cheat on literally everything” (LinkedIn)

• 🦿 Humanoid robots in China competed in their first half-marathon (Mashable)

• 🎮 Discord founder steps down, is replaced by former Blizzard Activision CEO (VentureBeat)

• ♻️ Second hand apps in the US see a rise in traffic post-tariffs (Washington Post)

• 📊 Google’s Gemini reaches 350M MAU but still lags behind ChatGPT (≈600M) and Meta (≈500M) (TechCrunch)

• 🧠 Neuralink is reportedly pursuing fundraising at an $8.5 billion valuation (Reuters)

• 📈 Revolut’s revenue grows 72% to €4B and over €1B in profit (PYMNTS)

New Funding 💶

6 companies raised €110.1M in the last week

Upcoming Events 🗓

• Kafka Meetup in Paris With Conduktor – April 29

• Women in VC: Run & Breakfast – April 29

• MKIA 25 – April 29

• GOSIM Open Source AI Conference – May 6-7

• {Tech: Paris} AI Hackathon – May 24

• VivaTech – June 11-14

• Startup World Cup Paris – June 12

• The Paris AI Conference 2025 – June 16

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• 💼 Investor @ Serena

• 🚚 Senior PM @ Shipup

• 🫡 CPO @ Mirakl

• ⚡ Performance Marketing Internship @ Electra

• 👩🏼‍🔬 R&D Project Leader @ Exotec

• 🐍 Python Developer @ 73 Strings

What Else I’m Reading 📚

• Is anyone using AI agents to do actual work right now? (Lucas Bédout)

• The limits of French Tech are those of the Startup Nation: a model designed by investors (FRENCHWEB)

• How to fix the internet (MIT Technology Review)

• Even Mark Zuckerberg thinks social media isn’t what it used to be (The New Yorker)

• European Q1 Tech Update (dealroom)

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