Inside this week's edition:
👀 Open wide and say, "La Fraise." A team of former Doctolib-ers has launched a new company that is using AI agents that turn confusing quotes into bite-sized, actionable care plans. At the moment, half of the recommended treatments by dentists aren’t accepted today in France. La Fraise Co-Founder Florian Duchêne helps us get to the root of the problem.
👀 Clover has entered the Future of Work arena to rewrite the VC rulebook. Forget cookie-cutter funds. Co-founders Hugo Mendes and Samuen Tual have created an evergreen fund to play the long game for AI in the workplace and scaling startups across Europe and the U.S. Check out our spotlight interview with Hugo Mendes to see how Clover is turning the future of work into today’s opportunity.
Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand
ai-PULSE, Europe’s premier AI conference organized by Scaleway, is coming back to STATION F, Paris on December 4 for a unique blend of deep technical expertise and business insights.
The themes this year: Smarter, Faster, Everywhere. How is AI being integrated into everything from pharmaceutical R&D to fighter jets? Which metrics should researchers focus on when benchmarking the latest models? How can you circumvent hardware constraints to make inference 100x faster?
Across a full day of groundbreaking keynotes, technical demos, practical workshops, and networking, you'll hear about how AI leaders from Europe and beyond are driving AI forward.
Join us on December 4 either on-site or online to hear from Proton, ZML, Kyutai, Meta, NVIDIA, and dozens more pioneers in the field.
Tech Talk
🙅🌱 Start-ups are talking the ESG talk…but are they walking the walk? Not so much. According to a new report from Growth Equity firm Revaia and Apiday that comes in the wake of international ESG backlash, diversity policies are up, but women in leadership are still snoozing around 21–25%. Data protection certifications are soaring, because hey, cyber rules are serious business. But the environment? That’s where the clouds gather: fewer start-ups are formalizing policies, and emissions-heavy AI and cloud usage don’t help. Still, more teams are hiring ESG leads, because, hey, someone’s got to keep the moral compass spinning. | Les Echos
⚡🦏 Jolt Capital announced “Jolt Capital V” with a first close at €600 million, including €260 million from the European Investment Fund via the European Tech Champions Initiative. The firm is targeting a beefy €1.1 billion final size to back around 20 European deeptech scaleups in fields from semiconductors and medtech to advanced materials, applied AI, energy management, and industrial software. Betting on what it dubs Europe’s (oh no please don't please don't please...) “rhinoceroses,” its fun moniker for industrial deeptech champions built on strong IP that it will do its best to make so fetch. Jolt wants to help these companies break out globally, building on recent exits like NILT and UnitySC. Jolt is expanding its 45-person, increasingly international team, opening offices in Canada and Asia, and leaning on its Jolt.Ninja AI platform tracking five million companies. | Maddyness
🦄 💳 Selling out.. or buying in? Shine just leveled up…again. But someone at French banking giant Société Générale might need a refresher in math. To recap: Société Générale bought neo-bank Shine for €41M in 2018. Rejoice! An exit in Frenchtechland to a corporate! Huzzah! Alas, SG spent lots 'o cash trying to integrate Shine and it didn't go so well so they sold the startup in 2024 for €131M and at least got some of the back that it burned along the way, right? Except, the buyer last year was Denmark-based Ageras, which just sold Shine to French software company Cegid for (are you sitting down for this? you really should be sitting down.)...€1B. As flipping startups go in a tough market there are no exits happening that's like...HOW? HOW!!! That’s a 24x glow-up in 7 years worthy of a fintech superhero origin story. The plan for Cegid is to build a pan-European financial platform for 1M+ small biz pros and 15,000 accountants and create a full-on TPE empire in the making. Meanwhile, thoughts and prayers to the people at SG who oversaw the Shine deal. Woof. | Les Echos
🪐 👩🚀 Europe’s New Space Darling Opens a Factory Near Bordeaux and Ramps Up the Arms Race for Cargo to Orbit. The Exploration Company has cut the ribbon on a new 7,500-m² site near Bordeaux, now home to propulsion, thermal-shield production, and its future mission-control center. Fresh off a €150M raise and €850M in contracts (mostly U.S. missions), the Franco-German startup is scaling fast ahead of ESA’s 2026 cargo-vehicle showdown. The new facility lets TEC test engines and produce hardware in parallel, a bottleneck it previously hit in Mérignac. With headcount set to triple and millions more earmarked for investment, Nyx is officially in the running to become Europe’s next space workhorse. | Les Échos
🚀💰 Éric Larchevêque, Tony Parker & Nathan Benchimol are shaking up Paris with The Bitcoin Society. Part Bitcoin Treasury Company, part global Network Society, it transforms a dormant listed firm into a crypto-powered hub for entrepreneurs. Long-term Bitcoin accumulation meets a membership platform offering education, networking, and economic sovereignty. The goal is to give individuals more control over money, influence, and opportunity. Plus, yes, Parker is actually involved. And with Bitcoin down 18.97% over the past month amid a global panic over crypto currency, the timing couldn't be better! | Maddyness, Frenchweb
🌎📱 MWM goes full US takeover mode. Just 18 months after swiping New York’s Swipewipe, the French app powerhouse has acquired Sincerely, a San Francisco studio for heartfelt anonymous letters. iOS-only… for now, but Android is coming. MWM’s CEO Jean-Baptiste Hironde says it’s all part of a “global consolidation” play, with more acquisitions lined up for 2026. Big moves, big ambitions as France goes shopping on the West Coast. 💅 | Maddyness
⛈️ ⚽ Stormy or sunny skies for Sorare? The French fantasy-football unicorn is trimming 35% of its team and closing its New York office, while co-founder Adrien Montfort steps down as CTO. But CEO Nicolas Julia is keeping one eye on the clouds and one on the sun. He says Sorare 26, the company's new immersive version of its platform, is gaining traction. And that NBA and World Cup tie-ins promise growth as he accelerating the path back to profitability in 2026. | Maddyness
🏠☀️ Cool Roof is feeling the heat. The French “cool roofing” pioneer, famous for turning oyster shells into sun-reflecting paint, has been placed in judicial reorganization. After a soggy 2024 and clients hitting pause, revenues tanked 60–70% in 2025. The tech is a reflective coating that bounces 95% of sunlight and a satellite-powered platform to map roof temps and heat islands. Plan B: new investors, industrial partners, and Kyteos, their data-driven revival tool. | Les Echos
🕺🤦♂️ Slush Afterparty Facepalm. Backed VC is investigating after an unknown guest allegedly whipped out a swastika sketch and performed a Nazi salute on the dance floor at its Helsinki afterparty while being filmed by a friend. Guests kicked him out. Backed says it was “shocked” and has a zero-tolerance policy. Honestly, who does this in 2025? Well, unless you're a certain AI for a popular social media platform formerly known as Twitter. | Sifted
Ex-Doctolib Team Deploys AI Agents To Fix France's Dysfunctional Dental System
Nearly half of all French people skip recommended dental care each year. It's a paradox in a country celebrated for its healthcare system.
And a problem that a company founded by a handful of former Doctolib employees believes it can solve with artificial intelligence.
La Fraise, the Paris-based startup they created in October 2024, wants to modernize the relationship between the nation's citizens and their dentists by using AI agents to create greater transparency and simplicity for the pricing of procedures that are not as generously covered by the nation's celebrated national health care system. The company just raised €3.2 million from investors, including 20VC, Seedcamp, Kima Ventures, and Bpifrance, to jump-start its ambitions.
Co-founder Florian Duchêne said patients are too often confused by either the medical rationale or the financial implications of treatments their dentists have recommended, in part because these types of procedures more often fall into categories that are covered by a mix of public and private insurance. As a result, quote acceptance rates in dental offices across France hover at a dismal 50%.
The result is often a cascade of worsening outcomes: An initial €300 inlay becomes an €800 crown, then a €1,500 implant. Each delay becomes more costly, more painful, and more complicated than the last as patients wait too long, Duchêne explained in a recent interview.
Spotlight Interview: Hugo Mendes, Co-founder of New Future of Work VC Fund Clover
As the future of work becomes one of the hottest (and most overwhelming) themes in tech, Clover is stepping into the arena with unusually bold ambitions. The early-stage evergreen fund, launched by French entrepreneur Samuel Tual, wants to become nothing less than the reference VC for work and education on both sides of the Atlantic.
And behind the wheel of this new vehicle is Hugo Mendes, a VC who’s spent years oscillating between the founder and investor worlds in France and the U.S. Now he’s helping build a fund designed to bridge those two universes with speed, clarity, and a distinctly founder-centric approach.
I sat down with Mendes to talk about why the future of work deserves its own specialist fund, why Clover opted for an evergreen model, and what he’s seeing on the ground from AI agents to corporate adoption gaps and the surprising optimism of U.S. founders.
💸 Top Funding Deals 💸
📇 Company: Zadient Technologies
🔍 Description: French deeptech developing an ultra–high-purity, low-cost silicon carbide (SiC) production process to supply the European semiconductor industry with strategic SiC materials used in EVs, renewables, aerospace, and high-performance electronics.
💻 Website: Zadient Technologies
📍 HQ City: Chambéry (France)
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount Raised: €35M
🏦 Investors: Crédit Mutuel Impact – Fonds Révolution Environnementale et Solidaire (lead), European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), existing shareholders
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Kagan Ceran (President & Founder)
🗞️ News: Zadient Technologies raises €35M Series A to scale European production of silicon carbide (SiC), a critical material for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and next-gen power electronics. Funds will support the reconversion of a Bitterfeld (Germany) facility targeting 350 tons/year SiC powder output by 2026, implementation of a proprietary gas-recycling system, and expansion of R&D into crystal growth and wafer production. The company also targets emerging applications such as augmented-reality optics and AI chips, positioning itself as a future sovereign supplier for European energy, industrial and defense sectors. | EIC
📇 Company: Damae Medical
🔍 Description: French MedTech pioneer developing non-invasive 3D digital biopsies and real-time AI diagnostic tools for dermatology, enabling faster, more precise detection and treatment planning for skin cancers.
💻 Website: Damae Medical
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Series B
💰 Amount Raised: €15M
🏦 Investors: Creadev (lead), Kurma Partners, ISPB, BNP Paribas Développement
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Anaïs Barut (CEO & cofounder), Prof. Arnaud Dubois (scientific cofounder), David Siret
🗞️ News: Damae Medical raises €15M Series B to accelerate the global scale-up of deepLive™, its CE-marked and FDA-cleared 3D digital biopsy device powered by LC-OCT imaging and real-time AI. The funding will support commercial expansion in Europe, the U.S., and Australia, strengthen industrial production in France, and broaden the AI portfolio beyond basal cell carcinoma (97% diagnostic accuracy) to melanomas, actinic keratoses, squamous cell carcinomas, and inflammatory diseases. Already installed in 100+ centers across 15+ countries, deepLive™ is increasingly integrated into clinical workflows and reimbursement pathways as a new standard for non-invasive dermatological diagnosis.
📇 Company: Ventuno Biotech
🔍 Description: French biotech developing next-generation immunotherapies designed to stimulate antitumor immune responses and address cancers resistant to current treatments.
💻 Website: Ventuno Biotech
📍 HQ City: Lyon
🧗 Round: Seed
💰 Amount Raised: €3M (including €2M equity + €1M loans)
🏦 Investors: Octalfa (lead), Relyens Innovation Santé (via Turenne Santé), Gilles Alberici, Armand Bensussan; bank partners include Caisse d’Epargne Rhône Alpes and BNP Paribas Innovation
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Jeremy Bastid (CEO), Nathalie Bonnefoy (IRCM Director), Octalfa
🗞️ News: Ventuno Biotech secures a €3M seed round to accelerate the development of its preclinical portfolio of first-in-class cancer immunotherapies. The company, incubated for two years at Octalfa and supported by major public-private partners, will use the funding to advance discovery programs in immuno-oncology, strengthen translational research, and build the foundations for future preclinical submissions. Based in Lyon with research labs at the IRCM in Montpellier, the startup aims to transform treatment approaches for hard-to-treat cancers by stimulating robust anti-tumor immune responses. | PR
👋🏻 If you’re enjoying The French Tech Journal, support the project by forwarding it to friends and sharing it on your social networks. You can also comment on this post. And if you have ideas for stories, tips, or just want to harass us, shoot us an email: chris@frenchtechjournal.com / helen@frenchtechjournal.com 👋🏻
