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.

📝 Quiz: How many unicorn companies (privately held with valuations > €1 billion) has France produced?

(answer at the bottom of the newsletter)

• A.) 25

• B.) 32

• C.) 46

• D.) 51

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

• 👨‍⚖️ X refuses to hand over data in “politically motivated” investigation: We have now gone 1 0 weeks without fresh drama with Elon Musk. This latest controversy involves a French government investigation into whether the company’s algorithm was misused to distort discourse on the app for the purpose of foreign interference. The investigation, which began in January, received pushback last week from X, with the company refusing to hand over data and calling the inquiry an action designed “to restrict free speech.”

• 🙅‍♂️ Meta refuses to sign the EU's AI "Code of Practice": The voluntary set of rules covers hot-button topics like copyright, transparency, and safety and is intended to provide companies with a guide for complying with the AI Act (GPAI), which goes into effect on August 2. So far, Meta is the only major US tech company that has refused to sign.

• 🔋 Electra closes €433M debt financing: The new capital brings the total available funding for the electric vehicle charging startup to over €1 billion. During a panel I attended at VivaTech, Electra CEO Aurelien de Meaux said “We have an extreme focus. We do 1 thing: public fast charging. We are going to do it extremely well and scale it.” With the new funding, Electra has the means to scale and scale quickly. The company currently operates 500 charging stations across 9 countries and aims to more than 4X the number of stations in the next 5 years.

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• 💔 Scale AI lays of 14% of its workforce (TechCrunch)

• 🤑 Chinese AI company MiniMax files for $4 billion IPO (Reuters)

• 🛍️ OpenAI to take cut of ChatGPT shopping sales in hunt for revenues (Financial Times)

• 🦄 Swedish “vibe coding” startup Lovable just became a unicorn 8 months after launching (TechCrunch)

• 🤖 China is spending billions to become an AI superpower (NYT)

• 📈 AI start-up Perplexity’s valuation tops $18 billion months after latest funding round (Financial Times)

• 💸 Meta settles $8 billion privacy lawsuit (Reuters)

• 🇺🇸 Following a mutual falling out with Elon Musk, Sam Altman is cozying up to Donald Trump (WSJ)

New Funding 💶

7 companies announced €55.9M in new funding last week

Upcoming Events 🗓

• Paris AI Club – August 1

• Founders Running Club, Paris – August 2

• AI & Tech Networking, Paris – August 26

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• 🧩 Senior Product Manager @ Pigment

• 🫡 Chief Product Officer @ Lokki

• 🎓 Web & CRO Intern @ PayFit

• 📣 Marketing Lead @ Bonx

• 🎓 Data Science Apprentice @ Brevo

• 🧲 Head of Talent Acquisition @ Alma

• 🛠️ Senior Product Manager @ Skello

• 💻 Senior Frontend Web Engineer @ Photoroom

• 🧭 Strategic Project Manager @ Pennylane

• 🧬 Product Manager @ Nabla

• 🤝 Brand Partnerships Manager @ TikTok

• 📈 Growth Manager @ Bending Spoons

• 🌐 Head of Partnerships @ Instantly.ai

• 🚀 Growth Manager @ WeTransfer

• 🫡 Head of Growth @ Tremau

What Else I’m Reading 📚

• The Art of Ideation, Part 1: Be a BUM (Gagan Biyani)

• The Substackification of VC (Sifted)

• Why Products Don't Succeed: The 7 Biases of Product Teams (Shreyas Doshi)

• Environmental impact of AI: Mistral bets on transparency (Le Monde)

Newsletter Recommendations 🫶

Quiz Answer: C.) 46

According to research from Alexandre Dewez, 33 of these businesses likely still maintain their unicorn status. In 2025, only one new name has been added to the list in France: cybersecurity/blockchain company Zama.