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FrancePlatform

Europe · Pop. 68.5M · #8 startup ecosystem by EV

A public taster of the full France ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

1 Overview

7,217 Pool of Funded Startups
2,561 Annual Startups FoundedAll new ventures
825 Annual Startups FundedReceived investment
get funded 32%
1,741 Pre-Seed Startups$100K–1M
2,646 Seed Startups$1–4M
Pre-Seed to Seed 23%
1,655 Series A Startups$4–15M
Seed to Series A 22%
679 Series B Breakouts$15–40M
A to Series B 26%
313 Series C Breakouts$40–100M
B to Series C 25%
127 Mega Scaleups$100–250M
reach Mega 1.8%
56 Mega+ Scaleups$250M+
reach Mega+ 0.78%
64 Unicorns($1–10B valuation)
reach Unicorn 0.89%
2 Decacorns($10–100B valuation)
reach Decacorn 0.028%
Pre-Seed
1,741
Seed
2,646
Series A
1,655
Series B
679
Series C
313
Unicorn
64
Decacorn
2

* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.

2 Largest rounds

Largest funding rounds in France

A live treemap of $100M+ rounds from the Dealroom API. Each cell is one round into a France-headquartered company, grouped by Dealroom sector.

Largest rounds in France - 2026

Every $100M+ VC round into France-headquartered companies in 2026, grouped by Dealroom sector.
- rounds · - raised
Live from Dealroom API Open full VC dashboard

3 Startup hubs

Inside France: top 12 startup hubs

Sub-national ecosystems ranked by combined enterprise value, paired with their 5-year growth multiplier.

By enterprise value
1 Paris $286B
2 Lyon $14.3B
3 Marseille $13.9B
4 Grenoble $13B
5 Lille $8.7B
6 Montpellier $8B
7 Toulouse $7.9B
8 Bordeaux $6.5B
By 5-yr EV growth
1 Montpellier 6.8×
2 Marseille 6.4×
3 Grenoble 6.1×
4 Bordeaux 5.8×
5 Paris 5.8×
6 Toulouse 4.9×
7 Lyon 4.4×
8 Lille 3.1×

4 VC investment

How much venture capital flows into France

VC investment into France-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.

5 Academia

France's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to France.

University-linked startup formation
2,213
University spinouts
15.7K
Total alumni-founded companies
10.8K
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
3,900
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
1,004
Scaleups ($100M+)
University ranking By alumni who went on to found startups · 1,066 tracked
# University City Founders Companies
1 HEC Paris Jouy-en-Josas 5,791 6,183
2 INSEAD Business School Fontainebleau 4,546 5,416
3 ESCP Business School Paris 1,626 1,898
Unlock the full university ranking for France on Dealroom

6 Location comparison

How France stacks up

Compare France with similarly sized ecosystems in Europe — switch between combined EV, 5-year EV growth, and a growth × size view. Expand the table for the full ranking.

France
$399B
$324B
$278B
$213B
$142B

Combined enterprise value of each ecosystem.

7 Patent intelligence

France startup IP portfolio: 176.3K patent families

Granted patent families assigned to startups headquartered in France. Aggregated across the country's hub-level filings — Bay Area, Boston, etc. roll up under the United States row, the same way Tokyo and Osaka roll up under Japan.

Granted patent families
176.3K
Filed by tracked startups headquartered in the country.
2573 patents per million residents · #13 globally
Top patenting hubs
1 Ile-de-France (Paris Region) 139.3K
2 Lyon, France (Greater Lyon) 20K
3 Toulouse Metropolitan Area 11.2K
4 Grenoble Metropolitan Area 2,489
5 Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis 796
6 Métropole Européene de Lille 737

8 Premium analytics

What we don't show on this page (yet)

Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full France dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where France's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
Unlock on Dealroom
Capital autonomy
France's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
Unlock on Dealroom
Recent momentum
France's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
Unlock on Dealroom
Founder origins
Where France's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
Unlock on Dealroom
AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in France
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in France
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
Unlock on Dealroom

Get the full France ecosystem on Dealroom

Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.