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- 🇫🇷 French Tech Updates — June 24, 2024. €98.3m in new funding for French companies.
🇫🇷 French Tech Updates — June 24, 2024. €98.3m in new funding for French companies.
What you need to know this week in France: 💶 €205m for new VC funds, 🤝 Société Général to sell B2B neobank Shine, 🏖 Poolside raising €400m.
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.
Joyeux lundi 🤗
For the readers in France, I hope you were able to enjoy Fête de la musique on Friday. While it is now officially summer, the startup scene in France remains active with fresh funding announcements, two new French VC funds, acquisitions, and exits.
This week will also see the first of two election rounds that will shape France’s government and, no doubt, the country’s tech and immigration policies. Large banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America, which have added or moved hundreds of banking jobs to France, are already expressing concern over potential hiring restrictions.
And with that, let’s jump into this week’s update!
📝 Quiz: Preligens, an 8-year-old French geospacial data company with 220 employees and subsidiaries in 5 countries, is set to be acquired by The Safran Group. What is the rumored acquisition price?
(answer at the bottom of the newsletter)
A.) €55 million
B.) €110 million
C.) €220 million
D.) €325 million
What’s new this week in 🇫🇷
🌍 Breega launches €75m fund to invest in Africa: the fund’s 6th investment vehicle is the first with an investment mandate outside of Europe. The announcement comes just one week after bpifrance announced their €100m Maghreb fund.
🏖 Poolside is reportedly raising $400m at a $2b+ valuation: coming hot on the heels of Mistral’s €600m raise the AI mega-rounds show no sign of slowing. Just 10 months ago Poolside, the AI for software development company, closed a $126m round and relocated to France from the US.
🤑 Société Général to sell B2B neobank Shine: after acquiring Shine for a reported €100m in 2020, the bank is now selling the company to Danish fintech Ageras for an undisclosed amount.
🌳 Paris-based VC Wind has launched a new €130 million climate-focused fund: €90m has already been secured to invest in 30 sustainable Deeptech startups at the Seed/Series A stage.
New Funding 💶
10 companies raised €98.3m in the last week
Webyn | €1.2m | Marketing
Webyn has raised €1.2m to continue development and expansion of its conversion rate optimization platform, which automates website updates to boost conversion rates. Founded in March of 2023, Webyn’s targets smaller e-retailers with it’s no-code product that analyzes site traffic, suggests optimizations, and implements improvements.
NectarGo | €1.8m | Food & Beverage
Paris-based NectarGo, a startup that connects local producers with major retailers through a SaaS platform, has raised €1.8m in its second funding round. The platform, used by 500 stores including Carrefour and Intermarché, digitalizes sourcing, order taking, and invoice management to streamline operations.
Morfo | €4m | Reforestation
Paris-based reforestation startup Morfo has extended its first funding round by raising an additional €4m, bringing the total raised to €11m. The latest investment also included participation from two star athletes: former Manchester United center back Raphaël Varane and French rugby team captain Antoine Dupont. Morfo, which uses drones and computer vision to scan landscapes, analyze the data, and plant new seeds, aims to expand its operations in Brazil with a new laboratory in Rio. The company has set an admirable goal to restore 100m hectares of forest by 2050.
Caats | €5m | Pet Food
Paris-based Caats, a startup offering personalized cat food recipes, announced a raise of €5m. Founded in 2020, Caats uses an algorithm to tailor cat food to individual animal’s nutritional needs based on activity, weight, and other factors. The food is purchased on a subscription basis with over 30,000 cats fed to date.
epresspack | €7m | Marketing Tech
Epresspack, developer of corporate communication software for brands and institutions has secured €7m in funding from Entrepreneur Invest. Founded in 2011, epresspack supports over 300 major brands with customers including Accor and Orange.
Ramify | €11m | Consumer Fintech
Paris-based Ramify, a financial advice and wealth management startup, raised €11m in a Series A round led by 13books Capital with participation from AG2R, Crédit Agricole, Newfund, and Fidelity International Strategic Ventures. Founded in 2021 by Olivier Herbout and Samy Ouardini, Ramify offers multi-product asset management for wealthy French investors with lower fees than traditional advisories. The low fees and access to assets ranging from real estate and equities to Luxembourg life insurance and are seem to be working with Ramify reporting AUM growth of 20X in the last 18 months.
Hero | €11.3m | Fintech
Paris-based fintech Hero has raised €11.3m in a round led by Valar Ventures. Hero provides a banking solution for small companies that integrates money management, payment processing, and credit services into one platform. The funding will support Hero's continued product development and regulatory approval efforts for their payment services.
Omi | €13m | Generative AI
Paris-based Omi, maker of a GenAI 3D image creation tool, has raised €13m led by Dawn Capital with participation from Founders Future and other investors. Founded Hugo Borensztein, Omi uses a mix of third-party generative AI models and proprietary technology to help companies like Nestle and Meta (Borensztein’s former employer) create 3D images and videos.
C12 | €18m | Quantum Computing
Paris-based quantum computing startup C12 announced an €18m investment round. Founded in 2020 as a spinoff from the École Normale Supérieure, C12 is developing quantum computers using a unique process involving carbon nanotubes. Their approach aims to reduce errors and improve scalability for the super-powerful computers. C12 has established a production line in Paris and is focusing on the chemical and energy industries with its quantum emulation platform named Callisto.
Matterup | €26m | Construction Materials
Materrup raised €26m led by Eurazeo's Smart City fund and the EIC Fund to expand their low-carbon cement technology. Concrete production has historically been a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for up to 25% of all industrial emissions and 7% of total global emissions (3X that of air travel). Materrup’s The new funding will be used to finance the development of ten production plants across Europe.
Interesting Jobs 👩💻
What Else I’m Reading 📚
The invisible dangers of traveling through time (BBC)
How not to be fooled by viral charts (Noahpinion)
The US Olympics team are bringing their own air conditioners to Paris (AP)
Quiz Answer: C.) €220 million
Source: ActuIA