No time for a lull. Since 2018 we've been pitching French tech as an economic engine to supplant Germany and this would be an awful time to pull up on the reins.
Do whatever it takes, either get the deficit under control (6.1% of GDP? That's American-level depravity but with a currency you don't issue) or do a Frexit and go back to the franc so you can inflate it away, what ever it takes to make the investments now.
From Sifted.eu, November 8:
An event organised by Xavier Niel, ai-Pulse, came back to Station F in Paris for a second edition — but with a few degrees less hype
This article first appeared in Sifted’s Daily newsletter, sign up here.
A year ago, French billionaire Xavier Niel threw a blockbuster event dedicated to AI in Paris’s iconic startup campus Station F. Dubbed ai-Pulse, the show was an opportunity for Niel to gather fellow billionaires Rodolphe Saadé (CEO of shipping giant CMA CGM) and Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) to announce a joint €300m investment in Kyutai, a brand-new non-profit AI lab based in the French capital.
The first edition of ai-Pulse carried a palpably febrile atmosphere — it came just a few months after AI darling Mistral raised a €105m seed round and US AI startup Poolside relocated to Paris. The crowd was full of excitable, enthusiastic founders and investors filled with optimism about the future of France’s tech scene. It was a high bar to set.
Yesterday ai-Pulse came back to Station F for a second edition — but with a few degrees less hype.
“We’re not Americans, we can’t get €300m every year,” one founder attending the event told me, laughing.
The event started with a five-minute intro from Niel, which no one heard because of faulty mics — a classic tech conference mishap. The five-star lineup also included speakers from high-profile companies like Dell, Nvidia and Ampere.
Even Charles Kantor, the CEO of ultra-secretive startup H — which recently saw three out of five cofounders leave three months after it raised a $220m seed — took to the stage to share teasers of the company’s product, to be released “very soon”. Spoiler: it’s a cutting-edge technology to create AI agents, with the potential to “disrupt productivity goals” and exploit “huge opportunities”.
Despite this, ai-Pulse 2.0 was undeniably tamer than last year — a mood potentially reflective of the latest trends in the French tech sector.
Sifted data for Q3 this year shows a significant dip in deal count across the country. There were fewer than 100 deals announced between July and September, a quarter-on-quarter drop of more than 45%. The €1.2bn raised across those deals put France way behind the UK (€3bn) and Germany (€2.4bn) in Q3.
“Since the start of September, seeds haven’t been closing,” one VC told me at the event. “Rounds that used to take two weeks are taking months [...] people are feeling a bit morose.”....
....MUCH MORE
Turn that frown upside down. Previously on Niel:
"Station F: A symbol of France's startup ambitions"
"Xavier Niel SPAC Said to Weigh Bid for French Supermarket Chain"
"French Groups Swoop For Depressed British Assets"
Apparently 1066 wasn't big enough in the cross-channel asset-grabbing biz..
"Billionaire Xavier Niel Invests €200 Million in French AI Push"
"Xavier Niel, a Driving Force of French AI, Is Now Shaping TikTok"
And on the long game, the outro from July's "GenAI startup Dust’s founders on raising €15m, leaving Silicon Valley and launching in Paris":
....It's taken a bit longer for France to develop the ecosystems, the connections, than we thought it would take, six - seven years ago but it is indeed happening. If interested see:
"Venture Capital: "These 12 startups could be France’s next unicorns"
French Tech: "Mistral AI secures €105M in Europe’s largest-ever seed round"
This. This is what we've been pitching for the last five years as the way France picks up the economic torch from Germany....
"...Big Tech Alumni building AI startups in Paris"
"France makes high-profile push to be the A.I. hub of Europe setting up challenge to U.S., China"
"Report: France's Macron Seeks Seat at AI Table"
And back into the mists of time (well, the twenty-teens):
"French government officials advocate for a €500m investment in blockchain technology"
The
country might be better served adding to the €1.5 billion that
President Macron has pledged for research in Artificial Intelligence.
But I might be biased....Related:
France:
"For Emmanuel Macron, AI is more than a technological revolution. It is
a political revolution of hope in an increasingly dystopian future"
"The Race is On for European AI Research"
Profit From The Global Riot Control Industry
"The Top-10 French Artificial Intelligence Startups"
The Creator of the iPod and the iPhone Seeks to Dethrone Tech’s Giants
It’s
a crisp January morning in Paris’s 13th Arrondissement, and outside
Station F, the former freight terminal that is the epicenter of France’s
startup scene, twentysomethings climb out of cars hailed using iPhone
apps.
Tony Fadell’s Next Act? Taking on Silicon Valley—From Paris
I was about to headline this link "The 1600 AI Startups you must know" to play off the "672 thought leaders you must follow on Twitter" or the "37,000 young people who want to take your job" articles but then realized our wary-yet-intrigued readers are not the type of people who respond well to someone saying they 'must' do anything....
