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Europe · Country profile

France

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.

$414.1B+41%
Combined startup EV
$8.4B
VC invested (last 12mo)
9,082
Tracked startups
0.95
Unicorns per 1M people
🦄 Unicorns
65
65 live · +4 new in 2025 (incl. 1 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
2
$10B+ tier
🐎 Thoroughbreds
108
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Adjacent ecosystems by EV

Startup hubs

Inside France: top 12 startup hubs

Sub-national ecosystems ranked by combined enterprise value of all tracked startups headquartered there.

By enterprise value
1 Ile-de-France (Paris Region) $296.3B
2 Lyon $14.3B
3 Grenoble Metropolitan Area $14.1B
4 Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis $13.7B
5 Métropole Européene de Lille $8.7B
6 Montpellier Metropolitan Area $7.7B
7 Bordeaux Metropolitan Area $7B
8 Toulouse Metropolitan Area $6B
By unicorn count
1 Ile-de-France (Paris Region) 53
2 Grenoble Metropolitan Area 2
3 Métropole Européene de Lille 2
4 Montpellier Metropolitan Area 2
5 Lyon 1
6 Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis 1
7 Toulouse Metropolitan Area 1

Startup funnel

France's power-law funnel

From every VC-backed startup down to the biggest scale-ups. Conversion rates show what fraction of one tier graduate into the next. Capital figures (where shown) are total VC deployed at that stage.

VC-backed startups
9,059
Colts ($25M+ revenue) $1.7B deployed
235
2.6% of prior tier
Unicorns ($1B+ valuation) $2.8B deployed
64
27% of prior tier
Decacorns ($10B+ valuation)
2
3.1% of prior tier

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

France grew 9.1× since 2015

Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in France that's still operating today, totalled by founding-year cohort.

0 $125B $250B $375B $500B France · $415.5B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How France stacks up

Peers chosen from the same Europe cluster within ±70% of France's combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size for the wider continent — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
France
$414.1B
$410.2B
$346.9B
$286.4B
$214.1B
$141.3B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV
peer median 5.4× 2.1× 21.3× 40.5× $10.8B $113B $1.2T EV growth (5yr ×) Combined enterprise value (log) United Kingdom France Germany Netherlands Sweden Switzerland Denmark Belgium Ireland Spain Finland Russia Italy Norway Estonia Portugal Ukraine Austria

Top overview

Europe ecosystems — combined view

Top ecosystems in Europe ranked by combined EV. France's row is highlighted.

# Ecosystem Combined EV 5-yr EV growth Unicorns VC invested Tracked startups
1 United Kingdom $1.2T 4.6× 211 $24.1B 20K
2 France $414.1B 5.6× 65 $8.4B 9,082
3 Germany $410.2B 4.0× 86 $8.3B 8,710
4 Netherlands $346.9B 2.7× 39 $3.2B 3,887
5 Sweden $286.4B 5.5× 56 $3.5B 3,215
6 Switzerland $214.1B 3.5× 47 $4.3B 3,003
7 Denmark $141.3B 4.3× 23 $1.8B 1,659
8 Belgium $106.3B 7.2× 12 $900.8M 1,871
9 Ireland $105.9B 4.9× 24 $1.2B 1,959
10 Spain $98.4B 5.4× 17 $3.4B 4,529
11 Finland $78.9B 3.9× 10 $2.2B 1,726
12 Russia $69.3B 3.2× 11 $1.7B 1,718

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 Paris 139.3K
2 Lyon 20K
3 Toulouse 11.2K
4 Grenoble 2,489
5 Marseille 796
6 Lille 737

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
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Founder origins
Where France's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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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
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