From TechCrunch, February 4:
In just a few days, France will host the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, with heads of state flocking to Paris to meet global tech leaders. They’ll most likely announce some big investments and diplomatic agreements focused on safety or the environmental impact of artificial intelligence.
Ahead of the summit, early-stage VC firm Galion.exe, growth investment firm Revaia, and advisory firm Chausson Partners teamed up to create the French AI Report, which looks at the current trends in the tech ecosystem.
While all eyes are currently on the U.S. and China with OpenAI looking to raise tens of billions of dollars and DeepSeek capturing everyone’s attention, there has been a boom in AI startups in Europe, too. In 2024 alone, AI companies represented around 20% of all VC funding in the region.
In total, that represents around $8 billion in funding for AI startups in 2024. That metric is most likely going to grow rapidly, as AI startups are still relatively young. Seventy percent of the capital raised by AI startups in 2024 was for a seed to Series B round.
Image Credits:French AI Report (screenshot)
European countries that tend to attract VC funding in general have also become the main AI investment hubs, with the U.K. leading the group, France and Germany following suit, and the Nordics punching above its demographic weight. Here’s the breakdown from 2020 to 2024:
Interestingly, as AI companies become bigger, they tend to attract international investors, with U.S. VC firms accounting for around 50% of money invested in AI companies at the Series C round and later.
In France more specifically, there are “more than 750 startups that have created 35,000 jobs and operate in all areas that are transforming today’s society,” minister delegate for artificial intelligence and digital technologies Clara Chappaz said at a press conference....
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