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.

A funding slump or the new normal? 🤔

Something strange is going on with French startups this year. Anecdotally, from writing this newsletter each week, I feel there’s more momentum and energy in the ecosystem than a year ago. France’s tech scene has gained more global notoriety thanks to progress in AI and I’m even seeing VCs hiring more junior level roles—something that definitely was not happening a year ago.

Progress in the hottest startup sector and more VCs surely translates to more investment in French companies…right?

…right?

Apparently not. So far this year French startups have raised a little over €1.5 billion—slightly off the pace of 2024 by €200 million and the lowest total for a quarter since 2020. It’s too early to call whether this trend will continue through the year, but if it does it will have funding on track for a 40% decrease year-to-year.

This may not be as problematic as it seems though.

Last year, mega-rounds of over €100 million for startups like H, Mistral, Electra, and HysetCo accounted for over €2 billion of the capital raised by French companies. In Q1 2025 we’ve only seen two rounds of that size for Loft Orbital (€170 million) and Alice & Bob (€100 million). Truly massive mega rounds don’t come along every month—or even every year, and this alone could account for a decrease in overall funding. Looking at France’s 31 unicorn startups, most have also raised large rounds within the last 2-3 years and may not need to raise again in 2025.

It’s also possible that the market is still resetting after the boom of 2021-2022 and “sustainable” funding amounts will be even closer to 2019-levels than 2024-levels. Either way, I don’t see this changing much for founders on the ground. Funding has been harder to come by for several years now and businesses have had time to adjust. Plus, there is still capital on hand for the most promising companies.

That said, I do see things getting weird at the later stages for companies in need of an exit. The European IPO market is barely showing signs of life and the appetite for acquisitions still appears muted. Founders with billion-euro-plus valuations in search of elusive exits could quickly find themselves in a challenging position if they need to raise again this year.

For more on the topic of funding, Chris O’Brien at the French Tech Journal has a great piece that I highly recommend checking out.

With that, let’s jump into this week’s update!

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

• 🤖 Mistral rules out an IPO anytime soon: although this is likely more of a clarification than an announcement. The update follows cofounder Arthur Mensch’s “Mistral is not for sale” statement in January when he also floated the idea of an IPO.

• 🌱 Daphni launches €250 million climate-tech fund: the Paris-based VC’s newest fund, named Blue, aims to close its full value by the end of 2025 and will back up to 40 startups.

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• 🧬 23andMe files for long-awaited bankruptcy (TechCrunch)

• ⚖️ Anthropic wins early round in music publishers' AI copyright case (Reuters)

• 🤖 OpenAI close to raising $40 billion in SoftBank-led round (Bloomberg)

• ✂️ CoreWeave cuts back IPO plans and cuts share price (Semafor)

• 🤷‍♂️ xAI acquires X for $33 billion (BBC)

• Leaked data exposes a Chinese AI censorship (TechCrunch)

The art of being first: an inside look at the being the first employee at a startup 👀

This section of the newsletter is usually reserved for a French company I think you should keep an eye on. But, those companies got to where they are thanks to the people building them. So, this week I’m trying something new and bringing you a closer look at one of the impressive people creating the future of French startups. I hope you enjoy this format. Please let me know what you think by responding to this email!

When I asked Victoria Dalleau how she would describe her job as a Founder Associate she couldn’t. "If you ask me about my day six months ago versus now, you'll get completely different answers.” As Hyperline's first hire, her role has transformed from naming the company, establishing the brand, and managing investor relations to leading a major international expansion—all within 24 months.

This ever-shifting experience is typical of the Founder Associate role (also called Chief of Staff or Bras Droit)—a position that has become increasingly popular in the last few years. In our interview, Victoria shared how she landed this role and her advice for those considering a similar path.

Becoming a Founder Associate

You may recognize Victoria from her active LinkedIn presence or from following Hyperline’s impressive growth since I first wrote about the company a little over a year ago. While working with startups was always her goal, the path to get there wasn’t exactly straightforward.

"My dad is an entrepreneur. And not just my dad—my mom too, which I think makes a big difference. In university, it was all about finance or consulting. I was different. My goal was to maximize my impact, so the smaller the company, the better."

Given her objectives Victoria’s early career saw her land in unlikely place: an internship with RATP. During her time at the 71,000 person transportation giant, she worked in an internal innovation lab focused on the future of transportation—an interesting topic but not without difficulties.

As Victoria told me, “That was my first and probably last corporate experience. In a big company like that the board can say no in one meeting and six months of work just disappears.”

After graduating from Université Paris Dauphine and Mines ParisTech, she took her first steps into the world of early-stage startups as a Portfolio Manager at 50 Partners before moving deeper into venture capital at Serena in Paris. In those jobs, she saw dozens of businesses being built—from two person companies to teams of over 100 breaking in the U.S. market. While this period was definitely formative in deepening her interest in early stage startups, it also exposed Victoria to the harder sides of entrepreneurship. “During COVID, we had a session with entrepreneurs and a professional coach. The topics were about how to stay motivated as a founder, navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and knowing when to stop. By the end, a few were crying. Normally, as a CEO, you have to act like everything’s perfect. But the reality is very different and you can’t share that with anyone else."

Undeterred, Victoria began to notice that the pull towards working directly alongside early founders was becoming harder to resist. While she enjoyed her work, she began thinking making the switch from investing to building. But, to make that leap she set some very specific criteria to find the right company to join. Victoria’s 5 criteria were:

1. The company had to be very early stage. So early that it wasn’t publicly announced yet. She figured the earlier she could be the more impact she could have.

2. The founder needed to have the right background. She was looking for a repeat founder or someone who had joined a successful scale-up early and then left to start something new—bringing their operational expertise with them.

3. She wanted to work on a complex, tech-driven product, ideally with an international focus.

4. She needed to be the first non-technical employee.

5. She wanted to join right after the startup had raised from a top-tier global VC.

If you read that and are now thinking “wow that seems like a lot,” you’re not alone. “People were just looking at me saying ‘oh, you're dreaming. That's not possible.’”

The thing is though, this highly specific list actually worked. A discussion with a partner at Serena brought about an introduction to another VC, which led to an ignored LinkedIn message, and eventually a coffee was scheduled with Lucas Bédout—freshly exited from his VP of Engineering job at Spendesk ✅, ready to build a then unknown startup ✅, with a first round of VC funding led by Index Ventures ✅, operating in the complex, tech-driven world ✅ of fintech.

What was meant to be a quick coffee turned into a two hour discussion and a second day spent working together as the final test before Victoria was hired as Hyperline’s first employee ✅.

What I took from Victoria’s path to Hyperline is to achieve atypical results you need to do atypical things. The early stage is usually all about networking and you need to put yourself out there to a degree that’s probably uncomfortable for most people if you want to find the right match for your goals and skills.

Whether she realized it or not, Victoria approached her job search like a VC—understanding she would see a lot of options and most of them wouldn’t be the right fit. Getting specific about exactly what you’re looking for can also help you more easily spot the right opportunity for you so you know when to jump in and when to pass.

What makes a great Founder Associate anyway?

“A partner at Serena told me: ‘You’re searching for a vertical craft, but yours is horizontal—zero to one, early-stage, no fear of starting from nothing.’ That changed how I see my skills.”

It would be easy to call Founder Associates “masters of none.” I think a more apt description is “strategic chameleons”—able to adapt to whatever the situation calls for. In this sense, adaptability is a skill to be mastered in its own right.

A great Founder Associate can pivot with the needs of the company, moving from market research one moment to investor relations the next. This is especially crucial in the early stages when few hands need to do many jobs.

But adaptability alone doesn’t cut it. They also have to thrive in the gray areas—the early-stage moments when there’s no playbook to follow, just raw hustle, intuition, and an ability to turn ideas into action over and over. You need a mentality that is comfortable “building from zero to one,” as Victoria describes it—a willingness to start from scratch, embrace the unknown, and build the plane as you’re flying it.

Presently, Victoria’s wide range of responsibilities at Hyperline include:

• GTM and marketing, including brand, content, lead gen, and event management.

• Partnerships, integrations and deepening relationships with strategic networks.

• Customer-facing work, including leading several new deals.

• Expansion—market discovery, international partnerships, and setting up events abroad.

• Additional work that keeps the company running like hiring, finding their new office to fit the growing team, handling legal documents, and investor relations.

As the company matures, the role continues to evolve until it actually can become specialized in one area. "If your craft is the early stage, you have to ask yourself—where do you fit as the company grows?" As Victoria put it, “a great Founder's Associate is also someone who discovers their craft —the one thing they do better than anyone else in the company and are recognized for. And if they’re good enough, they’ll eventually lead a team to own that function—whether it’s a business vertical, a new product, or a new market."

With such strong foundations in many areas of the business, the founder associate role is an excellent launching pad for future founders—so good, in fact, that today Victoria is officially a co-founder at Hyperline.

So, you want to be a Founder Associate?

If you found yourself reading the description above and thought “where do I sign up?” Victoria was also kind enough to share some advice for future Founders Associates:

1. Embrace Chaos & Ownership
→ The best Founder’s Associate thrives in chaos. You won’t get a structured playbook. Instead, you’re handed a blank slate and that’s your playground.Be proactive, take initiative, and figure things out as you go.

2. Network Like It’s Your Job (Because It Is)
→ People think networking is just for founders, but every early operator should be an ambassador. Surround yourself with other early employees. A strong peer network saves you time, helps you solve problems faster, and makes the job less lonely.

3. Build in Public (If Your Founder Supports It)
→ Building in public is common for founders, but rarely done by early employees and it can open some unexpected doors. Share your journey. Post on LinkedIn, speak at events, and build your personal brand while you build the company.

4. Learn Fast by Asking the Right People
→ Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find and learn from others who have done what you’re doing—especially those who were in your shoes 3, 6, or 12 months ago.

5. Evolve Into a Specialist
→ Being a generalist is essential at the start, but long-term success comes from developing a unique expertise that the company can’t live without. Explore many things to find what this is for you, and double down on it when the time is right.

On points #2 and #4, Victoria has laid the groundwork to make these topics much easier thanks to the Early Builders community—a small group that started as a WhatsApp chat and has now expanded to over 100 members across Europe. Early Builders offers a wealth of resources, events, and workshops and a supportive community for anyone navigating the early-stage startup world. I highly recommend checking them out!

New Funding 💶

4 companies raised €92.9M in the last week.

Upcoming Events 🗓

• Web 3.0 Community Meetup – April 10

• Mistral AI Robotics Hackathon – April 11-13

• L’Agenda Des DAF (Webinar) – April 15

• How Stripe Builds With AI – April 16

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• 🫡 Chief of Staff @ Hiro

• 🫡 Chief of Staff @ Riot

• ✋ Right Hand to the CEO @ Metreecs

• 👗 Founder Associate @ The Frankie Shop

• 🎵 VP Strategy @ Deezer

• 👟 Group Product Manager @ Decathlon

• 📈 Director of Product, Growth @ Gorgias

• 🤖 Country Manager, France @ Cohere

• 📞 Product Manager @ Aircall

• 💳 Staff Product Manager Payment & Fraud @ Back Market

• 📢 Marketing Manager @ Favikon

• 🎨 Product Marketing Manager @ Pigment

• 🏡 Product Manager, EMEA @ Airbnb

• 🚗 Head of Brand @ Free2move

What Else I’m Reading 📚

• Do chatbots understand you? (Science without the gobbledygook)

• Y a-t-il une menace russe? (Le Monde diplomatique)

• Excel never dies (Not Boring)

• Dysevolution explained in exactly 500 words (Complexity Condensed)

• The DNA of 15 million people is up for sale (404 Media)

• As the Trump administration purges web pages, this group is rushing to save them (NPR)

Newsletter Recommendations 🫶