🧮 Data Point: Bpifrance 2025

Bpifrance just delivered the strongest results in its 13-year history: €72 billion deployed, €900 million in capital gains at 8x returns, record fund commitments, and a bold €10 billion AI push.

On paper, France’s startup engine has never looked more powerful. Paris is now a global deep tech hub, AI champions like Mistral are scaling fast, and venture fundraising is defying the broader European slowdown.

And yet, standing before journalists, CEO Nicolas Dufourcq couldn’t hide his concern. Late-stage capital is dangerously thin, France 2030 stimulus money is winding down, IPO exits remain clogged, and Europe still struggles to finance its own frontier technologies.

Beneath the record-breaking numbers lies a startup ecosystem in transition. And a quiet warning about what happens next with a presidential election looming in 2o27.

💸 Weekly Funding Recap: February 20

📇 Company: VIZZIA
🏷️ Sectors: AI & Machine Learning, Hardware
🔍 Description: VIZZIA develops sovereign video protection solutions dedicated to public safety and urban cleanliness for municipalities. The company integrates hardware, connectivity (4G/5G), and AI-powered investigation tools into a compliant-by-design platform aligned with the GDPR and the EU AI Act, enabling rapid deployment without extensive infrastructure work.
💻 Website: VIZZIA
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Series B
💰 Amount Raised: €30M
🏦 Investors: Headline, Base10 Partners, Sistafund
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Katrin de Proyart, Alexandre Leboucher
🗞️ News: VIZZIA has raised €30M in a Series B to accelerate large-scale deployment of its public safety video protection platform across France, the UK, and Italy. Already operational in dozens of municipalities just months after commercial launch—and with over 250 cities using its anti-dumping solution—the company positions itself as a European leader in sovereign, AI-enabled security infrastructure. Its model combines rapidly deployable 4G/5G-connected cameras with AI-assisted law-enforcement investigation tools, while ensuring encryption, a privacy-by-design architecture, and compliance with evolving European regulations. With 100 employees today and plans to hire 150 more in 2026, VIZZIA aims to equip a new municipality every week this year and establish physical offices in the UK and Italy, reinforcing its ambition to redefine public safety technology in Europe. | Maddyness, Sifted

📇 Company: HEXANA
🏷️ Sectors: Energy, CleanTech
🔍 Description: HEXANA develops a Generation IV Small Modular Reactor (SMR) platform based on Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) technology. Its solution aims to provide high-temperature nuclear cogeneration (heat and electricity) to support the competitiveness and decarbonization of energy-intensive industries while delivering flexible, low-carbon power to electrical grids.
💻 Website: HEXANA
📍 HQ City: Aix-en-Provence
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €15M
🏦 Investors: Blast Club, Groupe M
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Sylvain Nizou, Paul Gauthé
🗞️ News: HEXANA has secured a €15M seed extension, bringing its total Seed financing to €30M. Blast Club reinforced its commitment with a €6.8M investment, joined by new investor Groupe M. The additional capital will accelerate the development of HEXANA’s Generation IV sodium-fast-reactor-based SMR platform and support the company’s industrial and commercial structuring in France and export markets. The funding provides visibility to reach key technical and regulatory milestones through 2026 and beyond, as HEXANA targets the construction of its first industrial SMR platform by 2030. Positioned at the intersection of industrial heat decarbonization and grid flexibility, HEXANA aims to become a strategic player in Europe’s next-generation nuclear energy landscape. | LinkedIn

📇 Company: Firecell
🏷️ Sectors: Telecom, DefenseTech
🔍 Description: Firecell develops sovereign, hardware-agnostic private 5G networks for industrial and mission-critical environments. Following its merger with Belgian Open RAN specialist Accelleran, the combined entity delivers a fully integrated European private 5G stack combining core, RAN, AI-driven optimisation, and network management.
💻 Website: Firecell
📍 HQ City: Nice
🧗 Round: Growth
💰 Amount Raised: €7.9M
🏦 Investors: Matterwave Ventures, Bpifrance, Qbic, Cogito Capital Partners
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Claude Seyrat
🗞️ News: Firecell and Accelleran have announced their merger to create a pan-European sovereign private 5G champion targeting industrial autonomy, critical infrastructure, and defense connectivity. The transaction is backed by a €7.9M investment round led by existing investors Matterwave Ventures, Bpifrance, Qbic, and Cogito Capital. The merger combines Firecell’s core network and network management system (NMS) with Accelleran’s programmable Open RAN stack and AI-driven RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), forming a pre-integrated private 5G solution. The platform supports global FDD/TDD spectrum bands, sub-millisecond latency, network slicing, Voice over NR, and mission-critical push-to-talk capabilities, alongside programmable xApps and rApps for real-time optimisation. Positioned as a sovereign European alternative in a market often dominated by multi-vendor integration complexity, Firecell’s solution is designed for rapid deployment (within weeks) via system integrators, with full on-premise deployment ensuring data sovereignty—critical for defense, ports, factories, and logistics hubs. The combined company will operate under the Firecell brand, double its engineering and commercial teams, and expand across France, Belgium, the UK, Germany, and Poland, with deployments already spanning Europe, the US, and Asia. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Q1 2026. | Firecell

📇 Company: Skydrone Robotics
🏷️ Sectors: DefenseTech, Robotics, Drones
🔍 Description: Skydrone Robotics designs, manufactures, and operates next-generation professional drones for critical infrastructure and defense applications. Its platforms go beyond aerial inspection, enabling physical intervention, manipulation, and logistics operations in complex and constrained environments. The company operates at the intersection of energy infrastructure maintenance and military aerial logistics.
💻 Website: Skydrone Robotic
📍 HQ City: La Rochelle
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount Raised: €5M
🏦 Investors: Provence Angels, Paris Business Angels, BADGE, Synergence, Arts et Métiers Business Angels, PSBA, INEXT, Investessor, Défense Angels, Aerospace Angels, FFI Invest, France 2030
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Antoine Vidaling
🗞️ News: Skydrone Robotics has raised €5M to accelerate its industrial scale-up and expand across strategic energy and defense markets. The round combines €2M in equity from eleven business angel networks and €3M in non-dilutive funding (France 2030 grants and bank financing). Already deployed with major energy operators such as Enedis and RTE, Skydrone’s modular drones can attach to and operate directly on live power lines, enabling smart grid sensor installation without power interruption. On the defense side, the company develops tactical aerial logistics drones capable of transporting payloads up to 30 kg for missions including mountain resupply, naval logistics, and combat medical support. The funding will strengthen industrial production capacity in France, support workforce expansion (with plans to double headcount), and accelerate international growth. Positioned on a dual energy/defense industrial model, Skydrone Robotics aims to become a European leader in sovereign drone systems for critical infrastructure and military logistics. | Relations Publiques

📇 Company: Ocellus
🏷️ Sectors: Gaming
🔍 Description: Ocellus is a Lyon-based gaming studio operating a hybrid model that combines stylized game art production for major global studios with the internal development and publishing of original video game IPs. Through Ocellus Services and Ocellus Games, the company blends AAA-level artistic production capabilities with agile, indie-style creative teams.
💻 Website: Ocellus
📍 HQ City: Lyon
🧗 Round: Growth
💰 Amount Raised: €4M
🏦 Investors: Elevation Capital Partners
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Cyril Corallo
🗞️ News: Ocellus has secured €4M from Elevation Capital Partners to scale its hybrid model combining premium stylized art production and in-house game development. Founded in 2016, Ocellus Services has contributed to projects for Supercell, Disney, and Epic Games, with cumulative titles surpassing 3 billion downloads and 345 million daily active users. The funding will accelerate Ocellus Games, its internal studio dedicated to building and publishing original IPs through focused teams of up to 30 developers. By leveraging its in-house artistic infrastructure—spanning Braintrust (strategy), Lab (innovation), Audio, Cinematic, QA, and Marketing—the company aims to reduce production costs (art often representing up to 50% of total game development budgets) while delivering high-quality, stylized titles at scale. With this round, Ocellus positions itself to transition from a premium service provider to an IP-owning creative studio, aiming to create long-term value in the global gaming market. | FinYear

📇 Company: Newable
🏷️ Sectors: ClimateTech, PropTech, AI & Machine Learning
🔍 Description: Newable is a Bordeaux-based climate operator focused on decarbonising commercial real estate. The company installs and operates low-carbon heating and cooling systems directly on-site, using AI-driven optimisation to reduce energy consumption and emissions while improving asset value for landlords.
💻 Website: Newable
📍 HQ City: Bordeaux
🧗 Round: Pre-Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €4M
🏦 Investors: Revent, Leonard, Business Angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Sébastien Renault, Sakina Elkassouani
🗞️ News: Founded in 2024, Newable has raised €4M in a pre-seed round to accelerate the deployment of its low-carbon energy solutions across commercial real estate portfolios. The round was led by Berlin-based climate VC Revent, with participation from Leonard (Vinci Group’s innovation arm) and strategic angels. Newable positions itself as a “landlord-first” decarbonisation operator, targeting heating and cooling systems, which represent roughly 70% of energy consumption and up to 90% of CO₂ emissions in tertiary buildings. Rather than selling isolated retrofit projects, the company installs and operates energy systems over time, combining on-site infrastructure with AI-powered performance management. The funding will support industrialisation of deployments, portfolio-level analytics, team structuring, and commercial acceleration, as regulatory pressure (notably France’s tertiary decree targets for 2030, 2040, and 2050) and asset value considerations push landlords to adopt operator-based energy models. With founders coming from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and real estate M&A backgrounds, Newable aims to bridge energy infrastructure and asset management, monetising decarbonisation as both a compliance lever and a value-creation strategy for institutional property owners. | Infonet

📇 Company: Weytop
🏷️ Sectors: SaaS & Enterprise
🔍 Description: Weytop is a French software publisher specializing in Cloud PC and desktop virtualization solutions. Its technology enables low-latency remote workstations with a native hybrid architecture (on-premises or in the cloud), simplified deployment, and infrastructure-based pricing rather than per-user licensing. Designed for both office and high-graphic workloads (CAD, BIM, engineering), Weytop positions itself as a sovereign and cost-efficient alternative to dominant international vendors.
💻 Website: Weytop
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Growth
💰 Amount Raised: €1.7M
🏦 Investors: Ewak, Effirom, HDB, BLV Invest, Bpifrance, Bouygues Telecom Initiatives, Klabs
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Souchiam Sechao, Vincent Sécher, Loïc Poujol
🗞️ News: Weytop has raised €1.7M to accelerate commercial expansion, particularly in the healthcare vertical and high-graphic workstation markets. After two years at break-even, the company aims to scale its Cloud PC solution, already deployed with major public and educational institutions such as Région Île-de-France, Université de Bordeaux, ENAC, ESGI, and INSA. Distributed through partners including SCC, Cheops Technology, Bouygues Telecom Solutions, and Unowhy—and supported by technology alliances with Dell and Nvidia—Weytop positions itself around performance, sovereignty, and digital sobriety. Its model extends hardware lifespan and optimizes server utilization, potentially reducing CO₂ emissions by up to 50 kg per user annually. The funding round also marks a governance evolution, with Ewak joining the strategic committee as the company enters a new growth phase. | FinYear

📇 Company: Stairling
🏷️ Sectors: Mobility & Transportation
🔍 Description: Stairling is a French startup reinventing the working model for ride-hailing (VTC) drivers by combining platform flexibility with salaried-entrepreneur status and enhanced social protection. It provides a legal, fiscal, and technological framework that secures drivers’ income while maintaining access to major ride-hailing platforms.
💻 Website: Stairling
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1.4M
🏦 Investors: Business Angels, One Green, Side Angels, Bpifrance
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Sarah Bouleau, Mimoun B. El Alami
🗞️ News: Stairling has secured €1.4M in new funding, bringing total capital raised to nearly €3M. The round includes €1.3M from a group of Business Angels, with participation from impact-focused investors One Green and Side Angels, as well as €400K in additional support from Bpifrance. The funding marks a strategic step as regulatory scrutiny intensifies around gig worker status in Europe. Stairling positions itself as a compliant, scalable framework for platform workers by offering drivers “entrepreneur salarié” status, blending autonomy with social security coverage. With over 1,200 active drivers and another 1,200 in onboarding, Stairling claims to be France’s largest cooperative employment structure by number of salaried entrepreneurs. The company is already profitable and targets more than 3,500 drivers by 2026. The new capital will be deployed to accelerate nationwide commercial expansion, enhance its data and AI capabilities to optimise driver revenues, build new financial services tailored to gig workers, strengthen product and operations teams, and prepare for European expansion within the next 18 months. Stairling currently partners with major ride-hailing platforms including Uber, Heetch, Bolt, Freenow, and Allocab. | J'aime les startups

📇 Company: Revolty
🏷️ Sectors: ClimateTech, Energy, PropTech
🔍 Description: Revolty is a French startup developing low-carbon residential energy storage systems using repurposed European lithium batteries. The company enables households with solar panels to store excess electricity, increase self-consumption, and reduce reliance on imported battery systems.
💻 Website: Revolty
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €1M
🏦 Investors: Hexa Sprint, 50 Partners Impact, Benoit Lemaignan, Julien Belliato, Business Angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Mathilde Janicot, Valentin Heuzé
🗞️ News: Revolty has raised €1M to launch France’s first eco-designed residential battery built from repurposed European lithium batteries. The round was led by Hexa Sprint (Hexa’s climate acceleration program), alongside 50 Partners Impact and prominent energy-focused angels, including founders of Verkor, Electra, and Murfy. The startup addresses a growing structural issue in the French residential solar market: while 830,000 households already have solar panels (projected to exceed 3 million by 2030), most self-consume less than 50% of their production. With EDF feed-in tariffs reduced to €0.04/kWh since February 2025, economic returns increasingly depend on storage capacity. Revolty’s circular model repurposes existing lithium batteries, significantly lowering the carbon footprint compared to new, imported batteries while preserving critical raw materials and reducing water use and emissions. The company has already secured €2M in pre-orders from 20 solar installers and deployed three live prototypes. The new capital will fund product certification and market launch in 2026, with commercial deployments planned for 2027. Revolty’s ambition is to become Europe’s reference in low-carbon residential storage and avoid 30,000 tons of CO₂ annually by 2030. | Tescol Quotidien

📇 Company: Numalis
🏷️ Sectors: AI & Machine Learning, DeepTech
🔍 Description: Numalis is a Montpellier-based deeptech developing formal verification methods to validate and secure artificial intelligence systems. Its technology enables organisations to test the robustness, reliability, and compliance of AI models before deployment in mission-critical environments.
💻 Website: Numalis
📍 HQ City: Montpellier
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €840k
🏦 Investors: 574 Invest
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Arnault Ioualalen, Matthieu Martel
🗞️ News: Numalis has welcomed 574 Invest, the SNCF Group’s venture fund, into its capital. The investment follows seven years of industrial collaboration between Numalis and SNCF, during which the railway operator has used Numalis’ formal methods technology to validate the robustness of AI models prior to operational deployment. The strategic move aims to strengthen SNCF’s ability to deploy trustworthy and secure AI across railway operations, positioning Numalis as a key player in the emerging field of “trusted AI.” For Numalis, the investment will support commercial acceleration and further R&D expansion. Founded in Montpellier and employing 25 people, Numalis has participated in around fifteen industrial and European consortia since 2018, reinforcing its role as a reference actor in AI validation for safety-critical and regulated sectors. | Je Journal des Entreprises

📇 Company: MadeForMed
🏷️ Sectors: HealthTech
🔍 Description: MadeForMed is a French software publisher dedicated to general practitioners, offering practice management and patient follow-up tools designed to preserve medical independence and streamline daily operations. The company operates under a physician-led governance model, with users directly participating in its capital.
💻 Website: MadeForMed
📍 HQ City: Saint-Mandé
🧗 Round: Crowdsourcing
💰 Amount Raised: €200K
🏦 Investors: Business Angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Vivien Peralta
🗞️ News: MadeForMed has raised €200K directly from its physician users, bringing its total funding since 2018 to €1.6M—all sourced from doctors who have become shareholders. Unlike traditional HealthTech startups reliant on VC funding, MadeForMed has built a governance model centered on user-ownership, integrating 400 general practitioners into its capital structure. Positioned as an alternative to large medical appointment platforms, MadeForMed focuses on empowering doctors rather than intermediating the patient relationship. Its SaaS tools support practice management, long-term patient follow-up, and operational efficiency—including automated telephone secretariat services tailored to general practice workflows. The company reports €7.8M in revenue in 2025, with +54% average annual growth since 2020, and profitability. It targets €10M in revenue by 2026. MadeForMed’s model highlights a rare case in French HealthTech: sustained growth, profitability, and capital independence, while reinforcing physician-led governance in a market increasingly dominated by investor-backed platforms. | J'aimes les startups

📇 Company: MoneyShape
🏷️ Sectors: FinTech, PropTech
🔍 Description: MoneyShape is a French platform designed to help individuals simulate, compare, and validate real estate investment projects before purchasing. Positioned as a neutral decision-support tool, it aims to reduce financial paralysis by making complex financing and tax mechanisms accessible and actionable.
💻 Website: MoneyShape
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Pre-Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €400K
🏦 Investors: Business Angels
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Léa Pavese, Denis Fayolle
🗞️ News: MoneyShape has raised €400K in a pre-seed round from business angels to launch its real estate investment simulation platform. Co-founded by Léa Pavese and serial entrepreneur Denis Fayolle (La Fourchette, Habiteo, Singulart), the startup targets a structural issue in personal finance: decision paralysis. According to the founders’ research, 90% of individuals with a financial project in mind fail to act, often due to complexity, information overload, and perceived lack of neutral guidance. MoneyShape addresses this gap through a three-step framework: simulate (integrating financing, taxation, charges, rental assumptions, yield projections), compare (scenario-based recommendations), and validate (external decision support). The platform initially focuses on rental real estate projects, positioning itself as independent of financial product distribution. Longer term, MoneyShape aims to expand into broader financial planning categories, including savings, investment products, and entrepreneurial finance. With a long-access model at launch and potential subscription-based post-acquisition tracking tools in development, the company is exploring B2B2C partnerships with brokers and financial intermediaries. The immediate objective is to grow the user base and refine the product during its early-stage deployment. | FrenchWeb, LinkedIn

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