🧠 Paris-based Gleamer built one of Europe’s fastest-growing AI radiology platforms, reaching €30M ARR and 700 hospitals. The company faced a familiar dilemma: remain independent and try to become an international champion or join forces with a larger established player? We look at Gleamer's €230M sale to U.S. giant RadNet.

Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand

Headlines

🗞️ After a couple of jittery years, hiring is ticking back up in France’s tech startup scene. And, of course, AI is hogging the spotlight. According to Numeum, digital startups created more than 25,000 jobs in 2025, a 6.1% increase over the year before. That’s not quite the breakneck pace of 2021, but it’s a step up from 2024, and at least a sign the ecosystem still has a pulse. AI startups generated more than 5,400 jobs last year, edging out SaaS and leaving other hot sectors like data, analytics, and greentech trailing behind. Generative AI, in particular, posted the sharpest growth, with hiring up 29% in 2025. If you can fine-tune a model or ship an LLM product, France probably has a job for you. Geographically, it’s the usual story: two-thirds of those new roles landed in Île-de-France, tightening Paris’s grip on the country’s tech talent. IT services and product startups reclaimed the top hiring spot, while fintech also muscled back into the mix. | Le Monde Informatique

🗞️ Accenture inked a multi-year partnership with French AI darling Mistral AI, because apparently, you can never have too many model providers on speed dial. The consulting giant will bundle Mistral’s models and products into large-scale AI transformations for multinationals across the Netherlands and wider Europe, handling the messy business of implementation while Mistral supplies the brains. The duo is also rolling out joint training and certifications, aiming to help clients scale AI without permanently clutching a consultant’s hand. What makes this tie-up notable is the “sovereign AI” pitch. With Amazon, Google, and Microsoft dominating more than 70% of the European cloud market, Accenture is betting that some clients want top-tier AI performance without shipping their data across the Atlantic. Of course, this comes just days after Accenture was named a global partner to OpenAI, and it already works with Anthropic, so the firm is hedging its AI bets. For Mistral, meanwhile, it’s another step toward turning European tech sovereignty from a slogan into a sales pipeline. | Consultancy EU

🗞️ Teleperformance — sorry, “TP” now — is still trying to convince investors it’s an AI winner, not roadkill. The outsourced customer service giant reported 2025 results that were… fine. Revenue dipped 0.7% to €10.3 billion, margins slipped slightly, and while profits broadly met expectations, cash flow fell short of last year's and is set to weaken again in 2026 due to unfavorable currency swings. Growth in its core customer care business barely offset a near 11% plunge in its “specialized services” arm, hit in part by tougher U.S. immigration policies affecting its interpretation unit. The market, already jumpy about AI automating call centers into oblivion, sent the stock down anyway. TP insists AI will “enhance humans, not replace them,” but investors seem to be waiting for proof and stronger cash generation. In a symbolic (and strategic) move, founder Daniel Julien is stepping aside, handing the reins to McKinsey veteran Jorge Amar, billed as a global expert in large-scale AI integration. | BFM Bourse

🗞️ France’s defense establishment is going shopping in the startup aisle. Less than a year after launching, AI video analysis startup Orasio has landed a deal to deliver its image-recognition tech to the Ministry of Armed Forces’ new AI unit, Amiad, the agency tasked with wiring artificial intelligence into tomorrow’s battle plans. Not bad for a 2025-born company co-founded by PayFit’s Florian Fournier, which raised €16 million to build real-time video tools that flag suspicious behavior and critical events. Orasio is pitching itself as a “sovereign” solution, stressing that its code, models, and architecture are fully controlled in Europe, a key selling point as France doubles down on military autonomy. Its tech is designed to scan everything from stadiums and train stations to conflict zones, spotting anomalies before humans do. It seems that defense is no longer taboo in French tech circles, thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine and Europe’s renewed appetite for strategic muscle. | Maddyness

🗞️ High-res streaming platform Qobuz has unveiled its proprietary AI detection system, joining the growing anti-bot brigade in the music industry. The French company says it’s already scanning both new uploads and its back catalog for 100% AI-generated tracks, which will soon be clearly tagged across its apps and, in some cases, removed entirely if they appear fraudulent. It’s a move that echoes rival Deezer, which has been loudly flagging tens of thousands of AI-made tracks flooding in every day. Qobuz is framing the crackdown as a defense of “human passion” against algorithmic spam, citing research suggesting that artists could lose billions to AI-generated music by 2028. Beyond labeling tracks, the platform says AI-made content won’t be promoted, counted in royalty calculations, or allowed to game the system. | Music Business Worldwide, Qobuz

OTHER HEADLINES

🗞️ Can Artificial Intelligence Help Vingegaard Win the Tour de France? Visma is Betting on It | Visma-Lease a Bike is pushing deeper into cycling’s high-tech arms race in a new partnership with French artificial intelligence firm Mistral AI. The team announced Thursday that Mistral AI will collaborate on “performance-driven projects designed to enhance decision-making and create competitive advantage,” officials said. | Velo

ICYMI

🗞️ From Tesla to Paris: UMA's Audacious Bet on European Robotics | A new French startup believes Europe—not Silicon Valley—is the best place to build the robots of tomorrow. | The French Tech Journal

🗞️ Gradium Wants To Make Voice The New Operating System for AI | The Paris startup, spun out of research lab Kyutai, just emerged from stealth with a $60M seed round to become the global foundation layer for real-time voice interactions. | The French Tech Journal

🗞️ How HyprView Is Using Photonics And AI To Bring Cancer Diagnostics Into the Light | Thanks to developments in AI, photonics is stepping out of the lab and into the clinic. HyprView uses light to uncover the invisible biology inside tumors - information microscopes miss entirely - opening the door to faster, smarter, and far more predictive cancer diagnostics. | The French Tech Journal

🧠 Sell Out or Scale Up? AI Radiology Startup Gleamer Scores Rare €230M Sale To U.S. Giant RadNet

Gleamer, the Paris-based medtech using AI to reduce radiology misdiagnoses, has been acquired by U.S. imaging giant RadNet in a deal valued at €230 million. After months of rumors, the deal will fold Gleamer into RadNet’s DeepHealth unit, effectively turning it into the group’s French outpost.

Founded in 2017 by Christian Allouche, Dr. Alexis Ducarouge, and Dr. Nor-eddine Regnard, the company had raised roughly €50 million across 3 funding rounds: €27M in 2023, €7.5M in 2020, and €1.1M in 2018.

By the end of 2025, Gleamer had reached around €30 million in annual recurring revenue and built a customer base of roughly 700 clients across 44 countries. It's the kind of commercial traction that tends to get strategic buyers’ attention.

For a French tech ecosystem that hasn’t exactly been drowning in blockbuster exits lately, Gleamer’s acquisition is certainly notable both for its size and its timing. Last year, the company shifted into consolidation mode with the acquisitions of Pixyl and Caerus Medical, two startups specializing in AI-powered medical MRI readings.

That raised the question: Was Gleamer building momentum toward becoming a new AI champion?

Nope.

Instead, it will have to settle for the title of France's latest liquidity champion.

🗣️ Announcements 🗣️

🚀 €1M AI Challenge for Space Data Innovation | Apply by March 9 | The Île-de-France Region and CNES officially launch a €1 million AI Challenge to accelerate innovation at the intersection of artificial intelligence and space data. Continuing the Region’s AI Challenge series started in 2019, this initiative aims to foster future national champions and strengthen France’s technological and economic sovereignty. Two tracks are open: (1) AI-powered applications leveraging satellite data for use cases such as security, energy, environment, and risk management; and (2) advanced vision-language models for automatic interpretation of high- and very-high-resolution satellite imagery. CNES will provide data, technical expertise, and project oversight. | Apply via the Île-de-France Region platform: Challenge AI for Space

📆 Events 📆

📆 Build a Real AI Product in 3 Hours with Lovable | Paatch x Eugenia | March 5 | Eugenia School, Paris, Île-de-France | A highly practical hands-on hackathon where participants go from idea to a working AI product in one evening. Hosted by Paatch and the Eugenia School, this session focuses entirely on rapid prototyping with real AI tooling — no slides, no theory, just building, coding, and demoing projects, capped with networking. Ideal for builders, product folks, and anyone curious about modern AI workflows. | Request to Join

📆 Air Street Paris AI meetup | March 11 | Air Street Capital is a venture capital firm investing in AI-first companies. We wrote the State of AI Report and Air Street Press. ​Join us for our Air Street Paris AI meetup on Wednesday, 11th of March 2026 at 5 pm. We'll feature speakers on research and applied AI topics, as well as members of the research, product, engineering, and founder communities.| Request to join

📆 Open Office + Lunch Break w/ Lya Akgun – Gen AI Product Design | March 17 | The Design Crew, Paris, Île-de-France | Spend a full day in a collaborative open-office environment with designers and product folks, culminating in a Q&A lunch session with Lya Akgun, GenAI Product Designer at Pennylane. A casual yet educational community day focused on AI in product design — with in-person and streaming options available. | Request to Join

📆 AI in Higher Education Summit 2026 | March 17–18 | ESCP Business School | Paris | Artificial intelligence is transforming universities at every level — from classrooms to research labs and administrative offices. The AI in Higher Education Summit 2026 in Paris will bring together academics, innovators, and policy-makers to discuss one central question: How should higher education evolve in an AI-driven world? This international event is the place to exchange ideas, showcase innovations, and shape the roadmap for universities in the age of AI. | Pre-Registration

📆 Cursor Meetup Paris | March 26 | Paris, Île-de-France | Paris’s first Cursor community meetup of 2026, bringing together engineers, product managers, designers, founders, students, and AI/tool enthusiasts for an evening of networking, live Q&A with an engineer from the Cursor team, lightning showcases from the community, and casual social time with pizza and drinks — open to all AI builders and creators looking to connect and share insights. | Request to Join

📆 OpenText Summit Paris 2026 | April 15 | Palais Brongniart | AI is everywhere and full of promise — but without contextualized data, governance, and security, AI fails. Join OpenText Summit Paris 2026 to discover how to unlock the intelligence of your enterprise data and activate AI with confidence. Expect visionary keynotes, French customer success stories, real-world use cases, in-depth small-group sessions, live demos, expert meetings, and peer networking. Explore the latest innovations in content management, cybersecurity, service management, business networks, and more — and learn how to deploy responsible, compliant AI with full control and freedom of choice. | Register

📆 RAISE Summit 2026 | July 8–9, 2026 | Carrousel du Louvre, Paris | Join one of Europe’s most influential AI gatherings bringing together thousands of builders, investors, executives, and innovators to shape the future of artificial intelligence. Learn from global leaders through keynotes, panels, workshops, a hackathon, startup competitions, and high-impact networking — all curated to accelerate AI strategy, investment, and real-world deployment across industries. | Tickets

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