TL;DR:
- Motier Ventures recently hosted a tech meetup featuring prominent French AI startups.
- France is emerging as a global AI hub, attracting tech giants due to its talent pool.
- Notable AI research labs in Paris include Facebook’s FAIR and Google’s AI center.
- Mistral AI, with former Google talents, showcased its open-source language model.
- Other significant AI startups include Poolside, Dust, and Nabla, sharing office space.
- Public support for AI startups is evident, with invitations to the Elysée Palace.
- European AI startups, including Giskard, prioritize regulation and compliance.
- A new wave of stealth AI startups, such as Adaptive, is gaining traction.
- Notable individuals are founding AI startups like ZML and Heart Hands.
- French AI startups are thriving despite challenges in the broader tech ecosystem.
- market.
Main AI News:
In a recent gathering hosted by Motier Ventures, the spotlight shone brightly on the burgeoning world of AI startups in France. Notable players like Dust, Finegrain, Gladia, Mistral AI, and Scenario, all under the Motier Ventures umbrella, took center stage, igniting an electrifying atmosphere of anticipation.
Much like its American counterpart, the French tech industry has seen AI rise to prominence with remarkable speed. What sets France apart, however, is its promising position to become a global AI hub. This should hardly be a revelation, considering the historical presence of tech giants’ AI research labs in Paris. The city boasts a rich talent pool of math, computer science, and engineering PhD graduates, often from prestigious institutions such as Polytechnique, ENS, or Inria. Many choose to pursue postdoctoral research in the United States before returning to France to contribute to local research endeavors.
For example, Meta (formerly Facebook) established its Paris research lab in 2015, with the eminent Yann LeCun spearheading the initiative, aptly named FAIR (Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research). Google followed suit with its own AI research center based in Paris.
One entrepreneur, impressed by the achievements of the FAIR team, commented on their remarkable work, citing their achievements with Llama as a prime example. He recently had the privilege of a private meeting with some of the engineers and scientists actively engaged in AI projects.
Examining the founders of Mistral AI, the French AI startup that secured a €105 million seed round ($112 million in today’s exchange rate), one finds a noteworthy connection. All three co-founders, Arthur Mensch, Timothée Lacroix, and Guillaume Lample, previously honed their skills at Google’s DeepMind or FAIR.
Last night, Mistral AI’s co-founders presented a compelling demonstration of Mistral AI within a ChatGPT-like interface dubbed Mistral AI Chat. The demo showcased their latest model, “mistral-70b-instruct-alpha01,” signaling the team’s active pursuit of a model with more parameters to compete with sophisticated Large Language Models (LLMs). A recent report from The Information hints at Mistral AI’s ambition to raise up to $300 million in the near future.
Mistral, however, is not the sole standout in France’s AI landscape. Poolside, another prominent company, recently secured a $126 million seed round with plans to leverage AI to simplify code writing. Co-founded by Jason Warner, former CTO of GitHub and serial entrepreneur Eiso Kant, the company has chosen Paris as its headquarters.
Dust, on the other hand, is devoted to integrating large language models with internal corporate data from platforms like GitHub, Notion, and Slack. It also demonstrated its capabilities at the event. Interestingly, Dust shares office space with Nabla, yet another French AI startup, co-founded by former FAIR engineers, dedicated to aiding doctors in harnessing large language models. This convergence reinforces the notion of a flourishing AI ecosystem.
The founders of both Mistral AI and Dust had to make a hasty exit from the meetup, as they were invited to dine at the Elysée Palace, the official residence of French President Emmanuel Macron. This demonstrates the public support for AI startups in France, with multiple startups collaborating on government grant tenders valued in the millions of euros as part of the “France 2030” initiative.
One distinct characteristic that sets European AI startups apart from giants like OpenAI and Anthropic is their proactive approach to regulation and compliance. An intriguing player in this arena is Giskard, a French AI startup developing an open-source testing framework often dubbed “the best LLM antivirus in the market” by its co-founder and CEO Alex Combessie. Expect more in-depth coverage on Giskard in the days to come.
Meanwhile, a new wave of stealth AI startups is making waves. Adaptive, an AI startup founded in Amsterdam by French AI researcher Julien Launay, is reportedly on the verge of securing a seed round with a valuation of $100 million. Adaptive empowers companies to iterate on their AI applications without relying on external data or annotations. Index Ventures is reportedly leading this funding round, with participation from Iconiq and Motier Ventures.
Additionally, Wiem Gharbi is raising a seed round in collaboration with Index Ventures for an AI startup with a team spanning Paris and London.
In other developments, Steeve Morin, a key contributor to the success of Zenly, a popular consumer app acquired by Snap, is venturing into the AI realm with the launch of ZML. The focus of this endeavor will be on enhancing machine learning inference and other foundational tools.
Maxime Germain, the founder of mental health startup Jour, which was acquired by Alan, is charting a new course with Heart Hands, an AI startup aiming to create a “second brain in your pocket,” as described by an investor.
Pierre Valade, the founder behind Sunrise and Jumbo, is assembling a team for an AI startup tentatively named Chief of Staff, while Hugo Mercier stealthily works on another AI startup project.
This surge in startup activity forms a compelling trend. Amidst a broader tech ecosystem experiencing challenges, French startups are embarking on a remarkable journey, with a flurry of new AI ventures emerging and venture capital firms vying for competitive funding opportunities. The future of AI innovation in France holds great promise.
Conclusion:
The French AI startup ecosystem is rapidly gaining momentum, with a strong talent pool, notable achievements by startups like Mistral AI and Dust, and a growing wave of stealth AI startups. European startups are distinguishing themselves by prioritizing regulation and compliance. This trend signals a promising outlook for the AI market, with France poised to become a significant player in the global AI landscape.
