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.

The founders barbell

I recently listened to an episode of Invest Like The Best featuring Karim Ariyeh, co-founder of Ramp—the $22 billion b2b fintech company. About two thirds through the interview the host, Patrick, asked Karim what types of people he believes are best positioned to build great companies right now.

Karim gave an answer that I think is only half right, and the half he missed is worth briefly discussing here.

His response was that technical people are the most likely to create great companies in today’s environment because they see how to connect emerging technology with real-world problems.

For these types of founders, product risk is likely lower since they have the hard-skills know-how to bring their ideas to life. With trillions of dollars pouring into AI, new possibilities are coming to light every day and certainly some people on the cutting edge will find novel ways to apply them. In this way, Karim is not wrong.

But this misses the other half of the picture, and excludes the vast majority of potential founders.

In the AI example there are ≈80K AI engineers in Europe on the high end. Compared to a population of 744 million that means just 0.0001% of Europeans have a high chance of starting a successful AI company. This percentage is similar for biotech and other technical fields.

On the opposite end from the technical elite are the curious beginners. They don’t know what can’t be done and that turns out to be a useful advantage. When you don’t know what you “can’t” do its suddenly a lot easier to approach a topic from first principles.

Asking questions like, “why is declaring VAT so hard?” or “why can’t we re-use a rocket?” can lead to highly disruptive and impactful companies. The difference for these founders is that they face real product risk while technical founders are more likely to face market risk.

Ironically, the Ramp co-founders were closer to this beginner mindset than the technical mindset when they started the company. Their first business started from a spreadsheet and helped their users dodge e-commerce price discrimination. Ramp was built on the idea that corporate cards should try to save users time and money instead of maximizing transaction revenue. These are not technical leaps, but simple “wait, why is it like this?” moments.

In this way, you can think of the field as a barbell with beginners on the left and technical experts on the right. In my opinion, both are equally well positioned to start billion-euro businesses—but for different reasons.

Another way of looking at this is as the “midwit curve” in startup form. The high ground is on the edges, and always has been.

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

📝 Quiz: Since 2021, the average amount of equity sold in a seed round has consistently been what %?

(answer at the bottom of the newsletter)

• A.) 10%

• B.) 20%

• C.) 15%

• D.) 35%

What’s new this week in 🇫🇷

• 🤝 Marseille-based ImCheckTherapeutics was acquired by pharma giant Ipsen in a deal worth up to €1 billion. The biotech develops next-generation immunotherapies for cancer, with its lead drug ICT01 currently in clinical trials for leukemia. The acquisition underscores France’s growing biotech credibility on the global stage.

• 🏦 Paris-based Margin Ventures is raising a €50M fund to back underrepresented founders—those outside traditional social, academic, and geographic networks. Co-founded by Anas Jaballah and Mehdi Belkahla, the firm plans to invest up to €2M per startup in sustainability, health, education, and AI. Their goal: make innovation in France less exclusive and more equitable.

• 👩‍🎓 The alumni fund of École Polytechnique raised €21M for its second deeptech fund with a total final close targeted between €30–40M. It will invest €250K–€2M in startups connected to the school—spinoffs or alumni-founded ventures—across AI, energy, and industrial innovation. Backed by 160 alumni and the school’s foundation, the fund leverages top researchers and a powerful mentor network to turn science into startups.

• 😱 France prepares for a 5X tax increase targeting American tech companies. The proposed changes in the 2026 budget would raise the digital services tax from 3% to 15% for companies earning more than €2 billion in annual revenue. The budget will be up for a plenary vote on November 4 and the tax measure, if passed, is expected to draw “substantial additional tariffs” from the US if passed.

• 🎬 Lemlist acquired Claap in a deal valued ‘between €15-€30 million that will see the bootstrapped sales engagement platform incorporate Claap’s video recording, transcription, and sales coaching tools into its offerings.

🌍 Headlines from around the world

• 🌐 OpenAI launched ChatGPT Atlas, its own browser (OpenAI)

• 🇪🇺 EU regulators have found Meta and TikTok in breach of the Digital Services Act (TechCrunch)

• 🙅‍♂️ AI voice startup Synthesia rejected a $3 billion takeover offer from Adobe (The Times)

• 📎 Microsoft is bringing back Clippy…sort of (The Verge)

• ✂ Meta is laying off 600 employees from its AI unit (CNBC)

• 🚪 Sequoia COO quits in protest over fund partner’s comments on NYC mayoral race (Financial Times)

• 🦾 Amazon plans to replace 500,000 jobs with robots (NYT)

New Funding 💶

8 companies announced €102.9 million in new funding last week.

Upcoming Events 🗓

• BioBuilders' Drink by Singular – October 27

• Bio Breakfast @ BioWeek Paris – October 29

• CTO Voices x Pivot : réinventer la tech dans un secteur trop lent – October 29

• Microbiology 2.0 – October 30

• AI x Oncology & Gene Editing – October 30

• Together AI Workshop: Upgrading and Customising Open Models – October 30

• Derrière les coulisses d’un exit – November 4

• The European AI Championship 2025 Launch Party – November 5

• Google AI Founders Studio – November 12-28

• Tectonic European Defense Summit – November 12-13

• Paris Meetup | fal x Hugging Face x BFL – November 13

Interesting Jobs 👩‍💻

• ✏️ Head of Brand @ Malt

• 📈 Head of Growth @ Finary

• 👨‍💻 Product Manager @ Nabla

• 🎓 Founders Associate @ Kolverr

• 🤗 Hub Success Engineer (Remote) @ Hugging Face

• 🧑‍💻 Senior Product Owner @ Filigran

• 🖲️ PR Manager @ Alice & Bob

• 👩‍💻 Product Manager @ sunday

• 🇬🇧 Market Opener, UK @ OneFlash

• 🎓 Founders Associate @ Nabla

• 🧑‍🔬 Senior User Researcher @ Photoroom

What Else I’m Reading 📚

Europe’s AI startups are increasingly being targeted for M&A (Sifted)

Hoping to Grow in Europe, but Bogged Down by Red Tape (The New York Times)

Newsletter Recommendations 🫶

Quiz Answer: B.) 20%