- Population 2.2 million
- Size 105.4km2
- Global cities index ranking 3
On April 14 this year, Emmanuel Macron, France's minister for the economy, and Axelle Lemaire, minister for the digital economy, travelled to London to launch the French Tech Hub, an entrepreneurial network to support the 450 French startups that have offices in London. "Politicians like Lemaire and Macron are genuinely interested in what goes on in the digital economy," says Yann Lechelle, COO of AI startup Snips. They can't afford not to be interested: in 2015, French startups raised more than £1.38 billion, including £77 million raised by Sigfox and £137 million by BlaBlaCar. It's an indication that its tech industry no longer suffers from a dearth of global ambition. And at CES 2016, 256 companies represented France, the third-highest number of exhibitors, behind only the US and China.
2ème étage, 13 Rue d'Uzès, 75002
Talent.io is a digital recruitment platform, used by companies such as Adobe, Criteo and BlaBlaCar to headhunt engineers. It vets candidates when they sign up and allows clients to offer jobs on its site. Launched in 2015, it has raised $2.2 million from Alven Capital, Elaia Partners, Ventech and various business angels.
10-12 Rue de l'Amiral Hamelin, 75016
Mirakl allows retailers such as Best Buy, Darty and Harvey Nichols to create online marketplaces. The company, founded in 2012 by Philippe Corrot and Adrien Nussenbaum, also has offices in Boston and London, and more than 55 partner business in 11 countries. In July 2015, it closed a $20 million series B round led by 83North.
23 Rue Duret, 75116
Save works in a simple way: leave (or post) your broken smartphone at a Save shop and it will be repaired in 20 minutes. "They are the 21st-century Geek Squad," Liam Boogar, editor of tech blog La Rude Baguette, says. "They're taking advantage of dwindling retail rent cost in malls and building an agile retail chain." The company, launched in 2013 by CEO Damien Morin, raised $16.7m in October 2015.
10 Rue de la Victoire, 75009
Talent management startup Clustree uses big data to help human-resource departments find the right internal candidate for job vacancies. It does this by analysing millions of CVs to discern career paths and improve job recommendations. In October 2015, the startup, launched in 2013 by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan, raised $2.9 million from Alven Capital.
8 Rue du Sentier, 75002
Launched in 2014 by Didier Rappaport and Antony Cohen, dating startup Happn has raised $14m since appearing in our 2015 rundown, bringing its total to $22m. The app relies on user location to find matches and reports ten million users across 25 cities including London, Hong Kong and New York. It recently added a new feature which allows users to send audio recordings to potential dates.
tinyclues.com1 Rue du Mail, 75002
Predictive marketing startup Tinyclues claims to make marketing campaigns 30 per cent more profitable for its customers. The startup analyses companies' databases of products and clients using machine learning to predict what they will buy in the future. Founded in 2010 by mathematician David Bessis, the company raised €5 million from Alven Capital in December 2015.
131 Boulevard de Sébastopol, 75002
Doctolib enables patients to book doctors' appointments directly with physicians. Founded in 2013 by Stanislas Niox-Chateau, Ivan Schneider and Jessy Bernal, the system charges a fixed fee of €99 a month to the 5,000-plus doctors that use it. In October 2015, it raised a $20 million series B round from Accel and business angels, including BlaBlaCar co-founder Nicolas Brusson.
57 Rue de la Roquette, 75011Agricool grows food without GMOs or pesticides. Co-founded by Guillaume Fourdinier and Gonzague Gru, it claims to be 100 times more productive than standard agricultural methods. It uses 90 per cent less water than its rivals by using recycled shipping containers, custom-designed with optimal conditions. It even has its own colony of bees to pollinate crops.
18 Rue Saint-Marc, 75002
The Snips app "makes technology disappear with AI", according to board member Renaud Visage. It works as a personal assistant for smartphones, first learning how you use it and, eventually, anticipating your actions and intentions. Launched in 2013 by Maël Primet, Michael Fester and CEO Rand Hindi, Snips takes privacy seriously: it conducts most of its personal analysis directly on your user's smartphone.
88 Rue Rivolli, 75004
Founded in October 2012 by Nicolas Dessaigne and Julien Lemoine, Algolia provides a search-as-a-service experience for any website's search engine with a just a few lines of code. It is growing fast, with more than 1800 websites, including CrunchBase, Periscope, Birchbox, Genius, Vevo and Medium now using its search service. In May 2015, the company raised $18.3m led by Accel.
Update: This article has been updated as Save's CEO is Damien Morin, not Daniel and Happn was launched by Didier Rappaport, not Didier Rapport.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
