👋 Inside this week's edition:
👀 Three years after launching, French IT startup Primo has already crossed $4 million in annual recurring revenue. Now, with $8 million in new funding, it is betting that AI agents can take its software from automating IT workflows to actually running them. Check out the story here.
Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand
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Tech Talk
🚀🔍 Former Entrepreneur First Paris chief Coralie Chaufour is getting back in the game. You may recall EF is the global talent investor and startup incubator that identifies talent first, then brings them together to hatch ideas and find co-founders. But a couple of years ago, the British co-founders decided to abandon Europe and go all in on San Francisco, so EF in Paris was shut down, and now EF focuses on funneling European talent to the U.S. As for Chaufour, she joined forces in July with former XAnge investor Majdoline Wahbi to create OpusLab. The website includes a Manifesto that sounds the alarm over the fall of Europe into entrepreneurial barbarism: "Then something broke, and it was not the science. Europe still produces research of the first rank: what it stopped producing are the companies that carry that research out of the lab and into the world." To solve this, OpusLab says it will scout scientists and senior engineers before they have teams or startup ideas, pair prospective co-founders in an eight-week paid formation program, and invest in selected companies focused on strategically important technologies including energy, defense, industrial systems and deep engineering. Which reminds me of.... | OpusLab
🎓💰 The European Investment Fund is writing a big check for Educapital, committing €20 million to the Paris-based VC firm’s third fund after previously backing Educapital II. Founded by Marie-Christine Levet and Litzie Maarek, Educapital invests from Seed to Series B in European startups spanning edtech, skills and the future of work, and has backed more than 45 companies including 360Learning, Lunii and Preply. The new fund will push that strategy further across Europe, as AI increasingly reshapes how people learn and how companies train and deploy talent. Educapital currently manages about €200 million across its first two funds. | FinYear
🏢🏦 Qonto has opened the doors to a sprawling new 11,000-square-meter European headquarters in central Paris, nearly doubling its previous footprint with 900 desks spread across nine floors. The move comes as the fintech passes 750,000 business customers across eight European markets and pushes toward becoming a fully licensed bank. Qonto, which now employs more than 1,700 people and hired 450-plus in 2026 alone, says the new Bonne Nouvelle HQ will serve as its long-term base for that next phase of growth. The goal, CEO Alexandre Prot says, is to turn Qonto into an “AI-powered European champion” for SME banking and financial management. | TechEU
🚌🛒 French autonomous-driving pioneer EasyMile has been acquired by industrial group ALVEST, which is folding the company together with TractEasy and TLD’s driverless operations into a new business called TLD Robotics. The combined operation is targeting airports and industrial sites, where the partners say they already have more than 35 deployments across 10 countries and have completed over 50,000 autonomous missions. The deal caps nearly a decade of collaboration between EasyMile and TLD and is meant to move the business beyond pilot projects toward larger-scale commercial deployments. TLD Robotics will be led by Richard Reno and will combine EasyMile’s autonomy software with TLD’s manufacturing footprint and global support network. | EasyMile
🚨📍 Google gets a €403M GDPR slap - Ireland’s data watchdog has fined the tech giant €403 million over its use of users’ location data, giving Google its latest reminder that “where are you?” is a legally complicated question. The penalty is the DPC’s fourth-largest ever, and Google has six months to bring its data processing into line with EU rules. | Les Echos
😈🛡️ TikTok is moving into Station F - this time to make the internet safer. The platform is launching a six-month incubation program for 10 startups working on online safety, from AI and digital identity to child protection and wellbeing. The timing is interesting: TikTok gets startup innovation and a chance to polish its reputation, while founders get Trust & Safety experts, mentoring and a Demo Day. | Maddyness
🚀🛒 European startups are increasingly going shopping - M&A is becoming a bigger growth lever as the continent’s maturing scale-ups turn from acquisition targets into acquirers. XAnge says VC-backed acquisitions in Europe jumped from 62 in 2010 to 1,090 in 2025, while average deal values fell from €66M to around €18M. The fund has now published a 100-page playbook to help founders navigate the buy-and-build game. | Maddyness
Primo Raises $8M To Scale AI Agents That Can Run Company IT Operations
Primo is an all-in-one solution for employee IT management, bringing devices, software, access rights, and support together on a single platform. With $8 million in fresh funding, the startup is now doubling down on its AI agents that are already executing IT operations end-to-end - from onboarding employees to managing access and devices.
💸 Top Funding Deals 💸
📇 Company: Biolevate
🏷️ Sectors: AI, HealthTech
🔍 Description: Builds evidence-grade AI software for regulated life sciences workflows, using AI agents to automate scientific, clinical, and regulatory work while maintaining traceability, auditability, and human oversight.
💻 Website: https://www.biolevate.com
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Series A
💰 Amount Raised: €30 million
🏦 Investors: RAISE France and Orange Ventures (co-leads); MSD Global Health Innovation Fund; Station F; existing investor EQT Ventures.
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Joël Belafa, Nathan Chen, Anas Laaroussi
🗞️ News: Biolevate raised a €30 million Series A to accelerate international expansion, deepen its product capabilities, and scale deployments with life sciences customers. The round coincides with the opening of a Boston office as the company expands into the U.S. Biolevate says it now has more than a dozen enterprise customers in production, has increased ARR 20x over the past 12 months, and has grown to 50 employees. | Biolevate
📇 Company: Wealthcome
🏷️ Sectors: Fintech, Wealthtech, SaaS, AI
🔍 Description: Software platform for wealth-management professionals that centralizes client and asset data, automates workflows, and provides tools for financial advisers, family offices, insurers, and banks. Wealthcome is also launching Binom, an AI layer designed to automate administrative tasks within its WealthPro platform.
💻 Website: https://www.wealthcome.fr
📍 HQ City: Bordeaux
🧗 Round: Series B
💰 Amount Raised: €15M
🏦 Investors: Breega (lead, new investor); BlackFin Capital Partners (returning investor).
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Cyprien Delmeule, Éric Foin, Morgan Emmery.
🗞️ News: Wealthcome says it will use the capital to expand with large financial institutions—including insurers, mutual insurers, and banks—continue investing in its technology platform, and grow the organization. Since its €7M Series A in March 2025, the company says it has grown from roughly 300 to 800+ equipped firms, from 2,500 to 6,000+ professional users, and from €20B to €80B+ in aggregated assets. The Series B brings total funding since the Series A to €22M. | Wealthcome, Breega confirmation, French Tech Bordeaux
📇 Company: Zeliq
🏷️ Sectors: AI, SaaS
🔍 Description: AI-native sales workspace combining prospect identification, data enrichment, multichannel outreach, and sales automation. Its new Zelia agent suite handles sourcing, qualification, and follow-up while keeping sales reps in control of key actions.
💻 Website: https://www.zeliq.com
📍 HQ City: Paris
🧗 Round: Seed extension
💰 Amount Raised: €7 million
🏦 Investors: The Moon Venture / CMI (lead); Julien Jean of JJCapinvest; Sylvestre Blavet of Freelance.com; existing investors Ora Global and Cleo Ventures; plus business angels and family offices.
👨💼👩💼 Founders: Dorian Ciavarella, Guillaume Cruz
🗞️ News: Zeliq raised a €7 million seed extension to develop its AI-agent-based sales platform, expand its Zelia agent suite, double its product and technology team across Paris, Barcelona, and Milan, and deepen its European expansion and CRM partnerships. The company says the round brings total funding to roughly €21 million in under three years and that its workspace has grown to around 20,000 users.| Zeliq, Tech Funding News, Maddyness
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