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 🇫🇷

🌊 Daphni’s Blue fund closes €260 million total funding

The newly closed fund will focus on backing ≈40 European startups with roots in scientific research across mathematics, chemistry, biology, life sciences, and AI. As part of the announcement, daphni cited Europe’s “unique reservoir of scientific knowledge” as a promising and underfunded source of future successful startups.

To me, this type of fund makes a lot of sense both for daphni and for France. At a time when newbies are coming closer to “one-shotting” web app MVPs with Claude Code it’s becoming harder, and more important, to find new defensible moats. Doing complex research is both a moat and a competitive advantage for France, which is currently home to over 330K researchers. Making the jump from research to revenue in any market has historically been a major hurdle and poor access to capital has only made it more challenging. The new Blue fund aims to close that gap with nine innovative companies already funded to date.

👾 Ubisoft had a bad month

Last month was a rough one for established gaming companies and Ubisoft did not escape the fray. Google’s AI game generating tool Project Genie dropped onto the market like a CoD nuke after a demo video showing a collection of short clips from games supposedly created with the text-to-game tool was uploaded to YouTube.

Gaming stocks dropped, even though Project Genie is currently only available on a very limited basis to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US.

Ubisoft was already in hot water following an announcement in late January that they were cancelling six planned games, delaying seven others, and restructuring the company. That bombshell sent Ubisoft lower by 34% — the latest in a string of losses that has shrunk the company’s public market valuation by nearly 95% since 2021.

🚫 The French government ditches US tech

I know it’s only February, but “digital sovereignty” might just be the phrase of 2026. After a tension-filled Davos conference, more tariff threats, and European NATO countries deploying soldiers to potentially defend Greenland from US’ NATO forces it appears that France is finally fed up and is striking back

One French counterpunch, aimed towards American tech giants, will see all public administrators move away from American tech like Zoom and Microsoft and onto homegrown solutions like Visio—a video conferencing tool being developed by Kyutai and Pyannote AI. The government claims it will save €1 million every year for every 100K users who stop paying for American tech licenses.

🙅‍♂️ France votes to ban social media for kids under 15

France’s National Assembly voted to ban social media access for children under 15—echoing Australia’s under-16 social media ban which passed last year. If approved by the Senate, the law would make France only the second country to enact such a ban and would also restrict the use of mobile phones in high school by prohibiting their use inside of classrooms. (Back in my high school days this was always the case?)

President Macron framed the bill as part political statement (there’s that digital sovereignty again) and part child protection stating “the emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.”

🏦 Société Général finds a buyer for Treezor

Société Général, a bank with far too many accent aigu in its name, is close to selling Banking-as-a-Service leader Treezor to consumer investing startup Shares. The price of the sale has not yet been disclosed and the deal is still pending regulatory approval.

SG acquired Treezor at the end of 2018 and, while the fintech has remained unprofitable, it has issued over 8 million cards and processed more than €130 billion in transaction volume.

The sale is the latest divestment for SG, which also sold of neobank Shine in 2024 after holding it for only four years. The market seems to like these moves, sending Société Général’s shares up over 148% in the last 12 months.

*In their write up on this deal, Maddyness claimed Treezor provides BaaS services for Qonto. As a Qonto employee I feel obligated to clarify that this is no longer true. While Treezor initially helped Qonto get up and running, Qonto has operated under their own payment institution license sincd 2018.

🙋‍♂️ Quiz: How much foreign investment went towards data centers in France in 2025?

(answer at the bottom of the newsletter)

• A.) $21 billion

• B.) $39 billion

• C.) $57 billion

• D.) $69 billion

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• ✂️ Amazon cuts 16,000 jobs amid AI push (Reuters)

• 💉 Internal Meta messages calling Instagram a drug could pose legal risks (Ars Technica)

• 🤖 OpenAI launches Prism, a new AI workspace for scientists (OpenAI)

• 👂 Google will pay $68 million to settle claims it eavesdropped on users through phones (BBC)

• 🇦🇮 Anguilla brought in $70 million last year from selling .ai domain names (BBC)

• 🇩🇰 2150, the Copenhagen-based climate-focused VC, raised €210 million fund (TechCrunch)

• 🇨🇦 Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in (Betakit)

• 💬 WhatsApp has 4 months to comply with new DSA rules following “Very Large Platform” designation (European Commission)

• 🤝 OVHcloud has acquired French cybersecurity startup Seald (OVHcloud)

New Funding 💶

13 companies announced €70.07M in new funding last week including €300K by Hopteo (🎓 Edtech)

Upcoming Events 🗓

AI Tech & Startup Night, Paris – February 4

🆕 Claude Code Paris 02 – February 4

Ray Meetup at Criteo Paris: Building Scalable AI & Data Platforms – February 5

🆕 Clay in Paris: GTM workflows you can use in 2026 – February 5

🆕 2026 AI Predictions & Founder Mixer – February 5

AI Film Hackathon – February 7

🆕 {Tech: Europe} Paris AI Hackathon – February 7

🆕 No-Code Communities Meetup #3 — AI Edition – February 9

🆕 France Digitale AI Day 2026 – February 10

Neurons and Peppers #3 AI Research Meetup – February 12

🆕 Modern Revenue Club #1 - Revenue Forward 2026 – February 12

🆕 World AI Cannes Festival (WAICF) – February 12-13

Paris Hardware Meetup | The New Defense Stack – February 17

Maddy Invest Awards – February 19

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• ♟️ Strategic Project Manager @ Qonto

• 👩‍💻 Product Manager @ Upway

• 💰 Head of Monetization & Growth @ Photoroom

• 🏦 Head of Product, Financing @ Agicap

• 💇‍♀️ Social Media & Partnership Planner @ Planity

• 🎓 Strategy & Chief of Staff Intern @ Quandela

• 💼 Head of Sales @ Vizzia

• 🫡 Revenue Operations Director @ Qevlar AI

What Else I’m Reading 📚

The Voters Who Have Taken a U-Turn on Trump (NYT)

The 26 startups to watch in 2026 (Sifted)

Quiz Answer: D.) $69 billion

I thought the same thing — that’s a lot! France actually attracted more foreign investment into data centers than South Korea (3X more) or the United States (2x more) last year. The planned “AI Mega Campus” in Île-de-France supported by Mistral, NVIDIA, Bpifrance, and MGX is a major source (and recipient) of this investment alongside the €20 billion Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management plans to invest into data centers and infrastructure. (Le Grand Continent)