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  • 🇫🇷 French Tech Updates — June 23, 2025. €334.76m in new funding for French companies.

🇫🇷 French Tech Updates — June 23, 2025. €334.76m in new funding for French companies.

What you need to know this week in France: 🚀 Largest fundraising of the year, 💰 a new €150M VC fund, 🧏 privacy bill aims to protect founders after a wave of crypto kidnappings.

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.

Fete de la fundraising 🤔

Happy post-fete-de-la-musique back to work day!

While the weekend was filled with live music, dancing, and very little sleep, the week leading up to the longest day of the year was filled with fundraising announcements.

Driven in part by a > €100M mega-round for Descartes Underwriting, last week saw the highest cumulative total funding announced yet in 2025.

For all the stories you need to know let’s jump into this week’s update!

📝 Quiz: Which VC fund was just rated #1 in France by CB Insights?

(answer at the bottom of the newsletter)

  • A.) Partech

  • B.) Newfund

  • C.) Sofinnova Partners

  • D.) Kima Ventures

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

🌍 Headlines from around the world

  • ⚔️ OpenAI closed a $200 million defense contract with the Pentagon to create AI tools (The Verge)

  • 🤝 British VCs Par Equity and Praetura merge their combined €783 million AUM (Sifted)

  • 📢 WhatsApp will start showing ads for the first time (Semafor)

  • đź’¸ xAI seeks $4.3 billion in equity funding + $ billion in debt to finance its Grok chatbot and large-scale compute infrastructure (Reuters)

  • 🛑 Microsoft and OpenAI struggle to reach a deal over the future of their multibillion-dollar alliance (FT)

  • 📜 Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta want Congress to block state-level AI laws for 10 years, drawing criticism for dodging oversight (FT)

  • 🙏 Tech lobbyists are swarming Pope Leo XIV to prevent him from condemning AI as a threat to humanity (WSJ)

  • 📱 Trump grants TikTok another extension to divest from China, despite the law allowing just one (CNN)

  • 🏗️ Masayoshi Son is pitching “Project Crystal Land,” a $1T AI/robotics hub in Arizona, to TSMC, Samsung, and Trump (AI Insider)

  • 🕵️‍♂️ Telegram’s Pavel Durov calls charges against him in France “absurd” and vows never to sell Telegram (Le Point)

  • đź“° Cloudflare says AI bots are draining publisher traffic with OpenAI sending 1 visitor per 1,500 crawled pages and Anthropic 1 per 60,000 (Axios)

New Funding đź’¶

16 companies announced €334.76M in new funding last week.

🏥 ArcaScience | €0.62M | HealthTech

Paris-based ArcaScience secured €620,000 in Seed funding from Akka. The startup builds AI-driven biomedical data systems to enable precise medical research and drug targeting.

🏇 Jockiz | €1M | Sports Betting

Paris-based Jockiz raised €1 million in Seed funding from FDJ United. The platform allows users to buy, sell, and trade virtual jockey cards linked to real horse racing data.

👥 Daven | €1M | HR Software

Paris-based Daven raised €1 million in Seed funding from Paris Business Angels, Bpifrance, and other private investors. The startup develops software that tracks and measures HR performance metrics.

📋 Angel | €1.1M | Business Planning

Saint-Malo–based Angel raised €1.1 million in Seed funding from Bpifrance and Wendel. The startup provides a free tool that helps small businesses get setup with their required legal structure and create their own business plans.

🎧 Base for Music | €1.5M | MarTech

Paris-based Base for Music secured €1.5 million in Seed funding from LeanSquare, Gilles Moncaubeig, and Tristan Toulemonde. The startup has created tools to help musicians setup and manage ads on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

📚 La Bourse aux Livres | €2.3M | Marketplace

Paris-based La Bourse aux Livres raised €2.3 million in a Series A led by UI Investissement, Notus Technologies, and angels. The company operates a marketplace for used books and is expanding to include new book sales.

💳 Jubilé | €3M | Fintech

Paris-based Jubilé raised €3 million in a Seed round from business angels including Charles Egly and Frédéric Ruppli. The fintech platform is an accredited institution offering reverse mortgage loans to give retirees access to home equity without moving.

🥙 Fungu'it | €4M | FoodTech

Dijon-based Fungu’it raised €4 million in a Seed round with backing from Evolem, UI Investissement, and Asterion Ventures. The startup provides healthy, local, and eco-friendly meal options through a digital platform aimed at mindful consumers.

đź§  Arlequin AI | €4.4M | Social Data Intelligence

Paris-based Arlequin AI secured €4.4 million in a Seed round led by Kima Ventures, Vsquared Ventures, 10x Founders, Better Angle, and business angels. The startup extracts insights from complex social datasets to help businesses understand public opinion and trends.

🏥 DESKi | €5.2M | MedTech

Bordeaux-based DESKi raised €5.2 million in a Seed round supported by BNP Paribas Développement, NACo, Épopée Gestion, Better Angle, Racine², and Good Only Ventures. The startup develops AI-powered software for cardiac ultrasound to enable remote heart diagnostics on any device

💳 Skarlett | €8M | Fintech

Paris-based Skarlett raised €8 million in a Seed round backed by Eurazeo, XAnge, OneRagtime, and angel investors. Skarlett’s platform delivers financial services and retirement-focused content tailored to older customers.

📊 Sifflet | €16M | Data Observability

Sifflet, which has dual HQs in Paris and New York, closed a €16 million Series A extension led by EQT Ventures and Mangrove Capital with participation from Capmont. The startup provides an AI-driven tool that monitors data pipelines, helping companies flag errors and maintain reliable data flows

🏭 Pelico | €37M | Industrial AI Ops

Paris-based Pelico raised €37 million ($40 million) in a Series B round led by Eight Roads, Partech, Serena Capital, and 50 Partners. The startup has created an operations management platform that uses AI to anticipate disruptions and optimize factory production in real time.

🏥 Nabla | €63.64M | Health Tech

Paris-based Nabla raised €63.64 million ($70 million) in a Series C round led by HV Capital, DST Global, Highland Europe, Tony Fadell, and Cathay Innovation. The startup builds an AI assistant that helps doctors by automating clinical documentation and integrating with electronic health records.

🤖 Animaj | €75M | Generative AI

Paris-based Animaj secured €75 million in a combined debt and equity Series C round led by Bpifrance Large Venture and HarbourView Equity Partners, alongside JP Morgan, Left Lane, XAnge, and Daphni. The three-year-old company uses generative AI to accelerate creation of animated content for children.

🛡️ Descartes Underwriting | €111M | InsurTech

Paris-based Descartes Underwriting raised $120 million (~€111 million) in a Series B led by Highland Europe and Eurazeo, with participation from BlackFin, Serena, Cathay Innovation, Seaya Ventures, and Mundi Ventures. The company provides parametric insurance products that use data and AI to help businesses and governments insure against climate events and other emerging risks, offering fast, transparent payouts.

Upcoming Events đź—“

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

What Else I’m Reading 📚

  • Why AI Labs Are Starting to Look Like Sports Teams (David Cahn)

  • Wealthy business leaders are leaving the UK (X)

  • Kevin Durant and the Diminishing Value of Older Athletes (New York Magazine)

Newsletter Recommendations đź«¶

Techpresso

Why you’ll like it: Daily updates on the latest tech and AI news in an easy-to-read format. Stay in the know while finishing your morning coffee.

Trends.vc

Why you’ll like it: Short summaries of breaking topics in the world of startups and Venture Capital. An easy way to find new ideas and opportunities.

Quiz Answer: A.) Partech

The results were based on data from 1,100 investors based in France who invested in equity deals in 2024. While “best fund” is a subjective term to measure, CB Insights arrived the rankings with a combination of portfolio performance metrics: unicorn companies backed prior to their $1B valuations and the share of portfolio companies backed since 2018 who have since had an exit.