New Kids on the Block: Paris-based startups founded in 2024 that raised €1M or more in their debut year

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Paris has been a leading player in the global startup ecosystem, and in 2024, the city continued to reinforce its position as a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2024 reveals that Paris is home to over 8,000 startups and boasts the world’s largest startup campus, Station F. This makes the city a central force in driving business growth, not only across Europe but on a global scale. 

With its thriving ecosystem, Paris continues to attract entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators, solidifying its status as a key player in the global startup scene. In 2024, a new wave of startups emerged, quickly gaining traction and securing impressive funding in their first year of operation. 

These companies span various sectors, including artificial intelligence, fintech, edtech, and sustainability, and are attracting significant capital. Their efforts are addressing pressing global challenges such as biodiversity loss and decarbonisation and reshaping industries like video production, insurance, and customer satisfaction.

Many of these startups have raised €1M or more in their debut year. With such innovative solutions, these Paris-based startups are poised to make a lasting impact on industries worldwide. Let’s take a closer look at some of these ventures making waves in Paris this year!

Some details are sourced from Dealroom.

H Company

H Company is an AI startup that focuses on developing “multi-agent” models. Founded by two former DeepMind scientists, it operated under the name Holistic during its stealth phase.

In May, H Company raised $220M in seed funding to advance its development of foundation models and agentic AI aimed at achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Backers include investors such as Accel, UiPath, Amazon, Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Xavier Niel, Yuri Milner, Bernard Arnault’s Aglaé Ventures, and Samsung. 

The funds will support the company’s efforts to expand its research team, acquire extensive compute and data resources, and develop commercially viable models for business and consumer applications. H focuses on building action-oriented models capable of reasoning, planning, and collaboration across various verticals.

The founding team comprises AI innovators: Charles Kantor (CEO), Karl Tuyls (Chief Research Operations), Laurent Sifre (CTO), Julien Perolat (Chief Multi-Agent), and soon-to-join Daan Wierstra (Chief Scientist).

Comet Software

Comet Software supports B2B software providers in overcoming challenges like scaling, talent recruitment, and technological innovation. By offering financial and operational support while preserving the independence of its subsidiaries, Comet helps these businesses grow and reach their potential.

In April, Comet Software secured €60M in funding from Otium Capital, the investment firm of French entrepreneur Pierre-Edouard Stérin.

Entalpic

Entalpic is a generative AI startup focused on decarbonising the chemical industry. Entalpic’s AI platform designs catalysts to improve processes in energy storage, fertiliser production, and pollution control.

Backed by €8.5M in seed funding from Breega, Cathay Innovation, and Felicis, it emerged from a collaboration between Mila and Owkin. Combining open and proprietary research, the company aims to expand globally and promote sustainability in industrial chemistry.

Altered

Altered is a trading card game (TCG) designed for both competitive and casual players. Set on a transformed Earth after a mysterious event called the Confluence, players explore a world of lore and visuals inspired by Miyazaki and Dixit. Players choose factions, lead expeditions, and uncover the game’s story.

Created by Régis Bonnessée, the designer behind Dixit and Mysterium, Altered introduces innovative mechanics, a rarity system, and a mix of physical and digital gameplay. In February, Altered set a record as the most-funded TCG ever on Kickstarter, raising nearly $7M from almost 15,000 backers.

Spotlight Medical

Spotlight Medical is a precision medicine company focused on improving cancer treatment by understanding each patient’s unique disease. The company develops advanced AI tests that use patient data to help doctors choose the most effective treatments, leading to better outcomes and quality of life. 

By working closely with physicians, Spotlight Medical aims to create tests that address important gaps in cancer care. In July, the company raised €6.2M in a seed funding round led by Kurma Partners and Heal Capital.

Biolevate

Biolevate uses AI to improve research and development in drug discovery, personalised medicine, and regulatory data management. Its AI platform, ELISE, processes unstructured healthcare data using natural language processing (NLP) and visual document reading. 

ELISE helps medical writers and researchers with tasks like metadata extraction, document collaboration, and integrating research for regulatory-compliant processes. Biolevate offers AI solutions for the pharmaceutical, MedTech, and cosmetics industries, focusing on regulatory compliance, product development, and data management.

The company raised €6M in a seed funding round led by EQT Ventures, with participation from bpifrance and prominent angel investors.

Kolet

Kolet has set out to build a new telecom operator that is responsible, transparent, and accessible. The startup aims to address the high costs of accessing the Internet while travelling abroad and the abusive practices of existing telecom players in the industry. 

The company does this by designing a dedicated service for the travel industry, available in over 130 countries — a single free eSIM with 1 GB of data. Kolet can offer access to a high-performance network (4G or 5G) at a very competitive price (starting at 3.99€ for 1GB in Europe, with a 30-day validity period).

In March, Kolet secured €5M in a seed round with European investment funds daphni and 9900 Capital.

Phacet

Phacet specialises in creating personalised AI solutions to improve business operations for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Its platform helps businesses build and use AI applications to automate repetitive tasks, boosting efficiency and productivity. 

Phacet’s AI solutions free up employees to focus on higher-value work like decision-making and customer engagement. A key feature is its AI Bootcamp, where client teams collaborate with Phacet’s engineers to tailor solutions to their specific needs, improving workflows in areas such as finance, customer service, and e-commerce.

In September, the company raised €4M in a seed round to further develop its AI platform.

Altrove

Altrove is a startup focused on creating sustainable alternatives to rare earth elements (REEs) using AI-driven technology. By developing a proprietary system that accelerates material discovery, Altrove aims to address the growing demand for REEs in industries like energy and electronics, while reducing reliance on China’s supply chain. 

The company collaborates with sectors such as automotive, defense, and electronics to produce these materials at scale. 

In July, Altrove raised €3.7M in a pre-seed funding round led by Contrarian Ventures, Emblem and angel investors like Thomas Clozel (CEO Owkin), Julien Chaumond (CTO HuggingFace) and Nikolaj Deichmann (3Shape).

Decade Energy

Decade Energy offers logistics companies comprehensive, cost-effective solutions for electrifying commercial vehicle fleets. While the components for fleet electrification exist, the infrastructure is often complex and fragmented, leading to high costs and inefficiencies. Decade Energy simplifies this by integrating and managing the necessary systems, improving both operational and environmental efficiency. 

This approach makes electric vehicles more cost-competitive with diesel and helps reduce millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

In June, the company raised €3.6M in seed funding to accelerate the decarbonisation of logistics fleets by simplifying the transition to electric vehicles (EV) and making them cost-competitive compared to diesel.

Omaha Insights

Omaha Insights specialises in providing a structured and objective approach to financial analysis, using expertise and technology to deliver high-quality solutions. The company offers normalised financial data and analytical tools to support investment research and company valuations. 

Operating in the financial services sector, Omaha Insights’ business model focuses on client and supplier-facing applications, generating revenue through specialised services. The company ensures privacy and data protection while using personal data to improve its offerings, staying updated to meet client needs.

According to Dealroom, in November, the company raised €3.5M in seed capital from Ventech and Axeleo Capital.

BaCta

BaCta produces carbon-negative natural rubber using genetically engineered microorganisms and renewable feedstocks. The company’s technology combines a synthetic organelles platform developed at INSERM with advanced lab automation, AI, and protein modeling to accelerate data collection and processing for industrial bio-production. 

After achieving proof of concept in bacteria, BaCta is working with fashion and industry leaders to develop prototypes. The company’s long-term goal is to create a platform for producing carbon-negative isoprenoids, which are widely used in the petrochemical industry.

In October, BaCta raised €3.3M in pre-seed funding led by OVNI Capital, and with participation from Kima Ventures, Sharpstone Capital, another.vc and prominent business angels such as Thibaud Elziere and members of the Hexa team and Nicolas Morin, co-founder of Gourmey.

Hyle

Hylé is creating a network to verify zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), enhancing scalability and privacy. Designed as a key part of the modular ZK tech stack, the network uses its own consensus system for ZKP verification and offers flexible options for developers and users. 

In May, the company closed its seed round at $3.4M, led by Framework Ventures and co-led by Cherry Crypto, with support from Fabric Ventures, Frst Capital, and Heartcore Capital.

The company plans to use funding to launch its mainnet and hire experts to develop additional cryptographic proving schemes like Polygon zkEVM, Cairo, and Noir, which verify data without revealing sensitive details.

Linkup

Linkup aims to create efficient and ethical pathways for artificial intelligence (AI) to access and navigate the Internet. Recognising that current web frameworks are designed for humans, not AIs, Linkup provides APIs that allow AI agents to search, access, and interact with the web without relying on inefficient methods like scraping or SEO-optimised search engines. 

In November, the company secured €3M in funding, led by Seedcamp and supported by Axeleo Capital, Motier Ventures, Financière Saint James, OPRTRS Club, Kima Ventures, and business angels from the AI and media sectors.

Yampa

Yampa leverages generative AI to transform customer service by integrating AI-native agents with brand environments, enhancing customer engagement and operational efficiency. The company’s platform, Y.Core, uses advanced AI technologies to ensure secure and streamlined implementation. 

Yampa collaborates with businesses to improve customer performance metrics and elevate customer care standards. In December, the company raised €3M in a seed round of funding led by Partech.

Freqens

Freqens is a B2B platform that streamlines purchasing processes with its Negotiation Intelligence platform. By providing real-time market data, the platform helps businesses make informed decisions, understand true costs, and optimise spending. 

Serving clients from startups to large enterprises, Freqens focuses on transparency and accuracy, replacing traditional benchmarking with live price comparisons. Its platform-as-a-service model helps clients identify overcharges and improve procurement strategies. 

In November, the company raised €3M led by Seedcamp.

Swaive

Swaive is a fintech company aiming to become a leading platform for risk-free investments. It offers investment options with capital guarantees and quick access to funds, catering to individual savers and corporate treasuries. Swaive targets risk-averse French depositors seeking secure and flexible financial solutions.

In July, the company raised €2.2M in a pre-Seed financing round from several renowned investors such as Aglaé Ventures (Bernard Arnault), Kima Ventures (Xavier Niel), and Motier Ventures, as well as many Business Angels and founders of French startups.

Actionable

Actionable is a startup specialising in AI-driven predictive analysis of customer satisfaction. Its platform allows businesses to forecast customer satisfaction daily by analysing data across the customer journey. 

Actionable identifies key drivers of satisfaction and provides real-time tracking through dashboards and widgets, aiming to make customer satisfaction measurement continuous, accurate, and actionable.

In September, the company raised €2M in a pre-seed round to support the development of its AI platform to forecast satisfaction and identify key drivers.

Mago

Mago is an AI-powered software that transforms and stylises various types of videos, including films, 3D animations, and text-to-video, into different aesthetics using style transfer. It aims to reduce the cost of creating stylised content across genres like anime, sci-fi, and historical fiction, making it an efficient tool for video production workflows.

Last month via a LinkedIn post, Mago announced it raised €1.5M in a pre-seed funding round led by Atlantic Labs.

Darwin

Darwin is developing a scientific methodology aligned with international standards like SBTN and TNFD to help companies assess their biodiversity impacts and dependencies. The company measures contributions to the five key pressures on biodiversity identified by IPBES and analyses dependencies on ecosystem services. 

Darwin supports organisations in data collection, processing, impact assessment, strategy development, and reporting, leveraging algorithms to manage the complexity and volume of data involved.

In November, the company raised €1.5M from Astérion and Business Angels active in the climate field.

Little John

Little John supports the independence of insurance brokers by providing tools and resources tailored to their needs. The company offers an AI-powered toolbox to enhance brokers’ efficiency and effectiveness in serving small businesses, SMEs, and mid-sized companies. 

Additionally, Little John fosters a collective of brokers to address industry challenges, defend their independence, and promote collaboration. Their mission combines leveraging technology with shared resources to strengthen the brokerage profession.

In December, the company raised €1.1M in pre-seed funding just weeks after its inception to develop its generative AI platform.

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Vishal Singh

Vishal Singh is a News Reporter and Social Media Marketing Lead at Silicon Canals. He covers developments in the European startup ecosystem and oversees the publication's social media presence. Before joining Silicon Canals, Vishal gained experience at the Indian digital media outlet Inc42, contributing to its growth with insightful content. Despite being a college dropout, his passion for writing has driven his career in journalism.

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