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 🇫🇷

• 🤖 Cathay Innovation closes €1B AI-focused fund: SF-and-Paris-based VC firm Cathay Innovation has closed its third fund at €1 billion, the largest AI-dedicated venture capital fund in the EU. The fund will invest in vertical AI solutions across sectors like digital health, fintech, consumer services, mobility, and energy.

• 🕵️‍♂️ French police thwart additional crypto kidnapping plots: Authorities have arrested 25 individuals, including six minors, in connection with attempted kidnappings targeting prominent figures in France's cryptocurrency sector. The incidents have raised concerns about the safety of crypto executives and their families.

• 🇪🇺 EU unveils Startup and Scaleup Strategy: The European Commission has launched the "Choose Europe to Start and Scale" initiative, aiming to make Europe a leading destination for global tech startups. The strategy focuses on improving access to finance, simplifying regulations (let’s see if that plays out), and fostering innovation-friendly environments.

• 🩺 Alan secures major public sector contract: French insurtech unicorn Alan has been selected to provide health insurance coverage for 130,000 civil servants at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. This marks a significant shift for the government from traditional mutual insurers to digital-first platforms and has sparked some controversy among unions.

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• ✏️ Grammarly raises $1 billion in growth round from General Catalyst (FinSMEs)

• 🧠 Neuralink raises $600 million at reported $9 billion valuation (MassDevice)

• 🤑 Salesforce acquires Informatica for $8 billion (Forbes)

• 🧑‍💻 The Browser Company may be ditching its browser (TechCrunch)

• 🤝 The New York Times signs an AI licensing deal with Amazon (Digiday)

• ❌ Trump has ordered US semiconductor manufacturers to stop selling to China, sparking backlash (CNBC)

• 💰 xAI will pay Telegram $300M to integrate Grok AI into the app (TechCrunch)

• 🔔 Shien working towards Hong Kong IPO after losing steam on an IPO in London (Reuters)

• 🏦 Fintech Chime plans for an IPO next week at a valuation of $11B (Fortune)

Startup To Watch 👀

The Invisible Layer Powering European Financial Software: How Chift is Solving the €50B Integration Problem

Every financial software company expanding across Europe faces the same nightmare: rebuilding integration after integration for each country's local accounting and financial systems. It's a €50B problem hiding in plain sight, and this week’s startup to watch Chift has been quietly solving it.

"There are two types of entrepreneurs," explained Gauthier Henroz, CEO and one of three co-founders at Chift. "Those who see a problem and solve it, and those who want to start a company and search for the right problem." Gauthier and his co-founders, brothers Henry and Matthieu, were the second type—friends turned business partners determined to build something together even before they knew what that something would be.

While exploring various ideas, Henry and Matthieu were building a small integration platform at night "more for the challenge than for an opportunity." The breakthrough came when Gauthier reflected on his previous role as a sales executive for CRM software. "I had to sell not just software, but huge integration projects costing 10-50k+ euros," he told me. "Smaller companies would say, 'You already work with Odoo, shouldn't you be connected already?' But each integration had to be rebuilt from scratch."

After six months interviewing IT managers and software companies, their "aha moment" arrived during a meeting with Vertuoza, an ERP for the building sector. Vertuoza desperately needed the exact integration platform the founders had been tinkering with on the side. Following that meeting and additional discussions with French accounting startup Pennylane, they reshuffled this technology to create a unified API for financial data and Chift was born.

Today, Chift offers two main products: Unified APIs for direct connections to financial tools, and Syncs, which are pre-built flows. Their platform handles everything from authentication and onboarding to monitoring and maintenance, allowing customers like Agicap, Qonto, Pennylane, and Defacto to expand their services without rebuilding integrations for each new market.

Chift operates as "invisible infrastructure" powering business software across Europe. "People don't know us because they don't see us," said Gauthier. Their unified API is embedded within other software products, enabling one-click connections between financial tools. This marketplace dynamic—where more connectors attract more customers, which attracts more connectors—is creating a powerful network effect

The timing couldn't be better. Europe's financial software landscape is notoriously fragmented with local players for each country—yet to really win the European market, software companies have to overcome this barrier and scale across the continent.

As for building with childhood friends, Gauthier offered this wisdom: "You don't choose co-founders because they're friends—that's a mistake. You choose them because they're brilliant and complementary. If they happen to be friends, it's easier because you can be brutally honest and trust them completely."

While Chift may not be a household name yet, their ambition is unmistakable: to become "the infrastructure for financial connectivity" across Europe. For an industry where cross-border expansion has always been the greatest challenge, that's a vision worth watching closely.

New Funding 💶

10 companies announced €145M in new funding last week including €0.6M by Novëm (💄 Cosmetics)

Upcoming Events 🗓

• AI for Good: From Creation to Exit ft. Buster.ai founder Julien Mardas – June 3

• 🆕 From idea to launch: Build your app in 30 days! – June

• IoT Innovation Day – June 4

• From Title to Token: Reshaping Financial Markets – June 5

• Road to the US: Lessons From Repeat Founders – June 10

• 🆕 No-filter talk with Cisco's ex-CEO John Chambers – June 11

• 🆕 La French Tech in Europe – June 11

• VivaTech – June 11-14

• Startup World Cup Paris – June 12

• 🆕 No-filter talk with GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke – June 13

• 🆕 Hangover Walk For (AI) Founders & Funders – June 14

• 🆕 AI Agents Hackathon with Hugging Face, Anthropic, and Unaite – June 15

• The Paris AI Conference 2025 – June 16

• French Tech Connect 2025 – July 3

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• 🫱 Right Hand to the CEO (USA) internship @ sunday

• 🧑‍💻 Senior Product Manager e-Invoicing @ Qonto (referral link)

• 📈 Head of Acquisition @ Photoroom

• 🌍 International Operations Expert @ Alma

• ⚙️ Operations Manager @ Upway

• 🖲️ Program Manager, Hardware Integrations @ Alice & Bob

• 🧑‍🎨 Product Design Manager @ Pennylane

• 💝 Head of Total Rewards @ BackMarket

What Else I’m Reading 📚

• The State of EU Accounting Tech (Chift)

• Dodge Days (Sahil Lavingia

• Some Theories About How The World Works (A Wealth of Common Sense)

Newsletter Recommendations 🫶