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.

Here’s to 2024 🥂

Welcome to a new year! I hope the holidays were a time of warmth and relaxation for you, your family, and your friends.

The first week of 2024 is behind us and the results so far have been…mixed 🤷‍♂️. Global equity markets ended the week down slightly and new VC funding has been off to a slow start. On the flip side, expectations for increased IPO activity are heating up and several new French companies announced their formation.

PASQAL CCO Bennpo Broer has left the quantum computing unicorn to start his own venture (Science Rockstars), three former Owkin executives departed to launch Bioptimus, a foundational AI model to advance the drug discovery process and HEC has announced its Winter ‘24 batch at Station F.

Let’s jump into the rest of this week’s update!

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

In classic fashion, new regulations in France are creating waves in the tech and investing industries. Here’s the rundown of this week’s top headlines.

• ♻️ ESG fund showdown following French legal ruling: Starting in 2025, pan-European funds marketing themselves with the socially responsible “ISR” label will lose this distinction in France if they continue investing in any companies that launch new hydrocarbon exploration, exploitation, or refining projects.

• 🎧 Coming soon, a new music streaming tax in France: The French Ministry of Culture will introduce a 1.2% tax for subscription streaming platforms with turnover greater than €20M starting in 2024. The new tax is projected to generate €15M in annual tax revenue.

• 🛢 France aims to reduce fossil fuel dependence from 60% to 40% by 2034: according to an interview with Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher. Part of the plan to achieve this goal includes new investments in nuclear power including the construction of up to 14 European Pressurized Reactors.

Startup To Watch — Folk 👀

It’s a little past the holiday shopping season, but the one thing every company seemingly has to have in 2024 is a CRM (take note for next year’s shopping list). Thanks to near-universal demand, legacy CRM providers, like Salesforce, have achieved staggering market caps reaching into the hundreds of billions. Yet, many people seem to actively dislike their current CRM providers.

Folk is a 4-year-old startup that aims to change that by rethinking what a CRM should look like and building a modernized version of this essential tool. Folk’s product is built around 3 pillars: 🎨 design, 🤖 automation, and 🤝 integrations. The result is an appealing user interface that integrates well with the way customers actually want to use a customer relationship manager. After emerging from startup studio eFounders, Folk quickly amassed a waitlist of 10,000 people and went on to raise $4.5M in funding.

Folk’s massive market opportunity and differentiated product approach make them a startup to watch in 2024.

New Funding 💶

In a slow first week back after the holidays two French companies, both in the health space, raised nearly €70M in new funding.

Events This Month 🗓

• Wednesday, January 24th 19:00: Thinking about launching a startup? Networking with 360 Capital

• Wednesday, January 24th 12:00-13:00: Revenue, runway and returns: How to go-to-market in 2024

What Else I’m Reading 📚

• 10 charts that defined 2023 (NYT)

• 10 questions for 2024 (A Wealth of Common Sense)

• European private capital outlook for 2024 (PitchBook)

• First principles: the true building blocks of knowledge (Farnam Street)

• 3/5 of Pitchbook’s European “Soonicorns” are French (PitchBook)

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