The hottest startups in Paris in 2018

When Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France in May 2017, he set about exploiting the triple crisis of Brexit, Merkel trying to form coalition, and Donald Trump’s isolationism to recast France as a dynamic startup nation, open for innovation and business – a sales pitch best symbolised by the opening of Station F, Europe’s largest tech incubator. Still, the last 12 months have not been easy for Paris’s technology sector. Ride-sharing app Blablacar laid off 25 per cent of its staff in 2017, while online advertising company Criteo saw its market cap fell by 50 per cent after an iOS update diminished its ability to track users on Apple’s browser Safari.

All the same, that did not prevent younger startups – such as Ledger, ManoMano and Alan – from closing significant fundraising rounds. With a crop of emerging stars in fields ranging from cryptocurrency to Artificial Intelligence to software as a service, Paris is working hard to become one of the globe’s foremost technology hubs.

Margo Bank

Launched in 2017 by Jean-Daniel Guyot – famous for building ticket-buying app Captain Train, which he sold to TrainLine for $189 million (£141 million) in 2016 – Margo Bank is a FinTech startup aimed at providing small and medium businesses with smarter digital deposit account services. Its team will be comprised of both technologists and traditional bankers, with a focus on customer relationships. Before even launching its first product, in March 2018 Guyot’s new project secured a Series A round of €6.4 million (£5.2 million) from veteran tech investors including Xavier Niel, Marc Simoncini, and VC firm Daphni. margo.com

Snips

In 2013, Mael Primet, Michael Fester, and Rand Hindi launched AI startup Snips. Their vision? To develop AI that could make technology at once smarter and less intrusive. Snips made it to our 2016 list, after releasing its first product, an iOS app that combined data from different apps to provide a bird’s eye view of the user’s digital life. Its latest product is a customisable voice-powered assistant that can run on Raspberry Pi, Android or Linux devices, and works without an internet connection. The company is currently developing its own voice-powered devices, to be financed through an Initial Coin Offering. snips.ai

Alan

Alan is a digital platform for complementary insurance – an insurance for medical expenses not covered by the national healthcare service, geared towards both companies and individuals. The move was rather bold in a country where the last independent insurance company had been licensed in 1986, but it seems to have paid off so far. Altogether, the company, launched in 2016 by Charles Gorintin and Jean-Charles Samuelian, has raised €35 million (£30 million) in funding – of which €23 million (£20 million) were secured in April 2018 in a round led by London- and San Francisco-based VC firm Index Ventures. alan.eu

ManoMano

Founded in 2013 by Christian Raisson and Philippe de Chanville, ManoMano is an e-commerce venture catering to the DIY and gardening market. Besides being the go-to e-store for tools, water filters and lawnmowers, the startup has become a community for DIY enthusiasts, who turn to ManoMano to exchange tips with their peers, or to ask for expert help from one of the company’s “Manodvisors.”

In 2015, it even launched SuperMano, an online platform to hire handymen for repairs and renovations. Now present in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, the company raised €60 million (£52 million) from General Atlantic in late 2017. manomano.fr

WHERE TO EAT: Head downstairs at Rice and Fish and take off your shoes in the zen room, an intimate setting for lunch with friends or potential investors. Try the chicken katsu, one of the chef’s specialities.

WHERE TO DRINK: The IPAs, nachos, and pinball machines, might trick you into thinking you’ve been teleported to California. In fact, Red House is a well-kept secret. It’s relatively secluded location has kept it hidden from flocks of Parisians looking for one last drink in Bastille.

WHERE TO VISIT: It’s not as easy to get into Station F, Europe’s biggest incubator, these days. If you find your way in, you will rub shoulders with Paris’s who’s who, from François Hollande to Tony Fadell.

Ledger

Hype around cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is still strong among investors in Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Europe. No wonder, then, that Paris-based cryptocurrency venture Ledger has been under the spotlight during the last year. Founded in 2014 by Eric Larchevêque, Joel Pobeda, Nicolas Bacca, and Thomas France, Ledger makes some of the most secure hardware cryptocurrency wallets available – of which it sold over a million units in 2017. In January 2018, Ledger made international headlines after raising a $75 million (£55.7 million) Series B round led by British investor Draper Esprit. The company has offices in France and California, and a team of over 80 people. ledgerwallet.com

Qonto

Founded in 2016 by Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi, fintech startup Qonto is a digital banking service for small and medium businesses. Its service works on a subscription model: for €9 a month, companies or freelancers can get a MasterCard, a current account with a French IBAN, fully manageable from desktop or mobile app. The platform also offers accounting features, while connections with other digital financial services such as PayPal or Stripe are reportedly in the works. The company raised €10 million (£8.7 million) from US-based firm Valar Ventures in June 2017 – which brought the startup’s overall funding to €11.6 million (£10 million.) qonto.eu

Shift Technology

Launched in 2014 by David Durrleman, Eric Sibony, and Jeremy Jawish, Shift Technology designed an Artificial Intelligence tool able to automatically detect and flag up fraudulent insurance claims – an issue which firms had traditionally tackled by employing humans to pore over dubious documents. So far, the company claims to have processed over 100 million claims, with 45 firms using its services. A new automated claim-handling software is also under development and slated for release in 2018. In October 2017, Shift Technologies raised $28 million (£20 million) from Accel and General Catalyst. shift-technology.com

AnotherBrain

In 2012, Bruno Maisonnier sold his company Aldebaran Robotics – maker of iconic robots NAO and Pepper—to Japanese conglomerate Softbank in a $100 million deal. Five years later, Maisonnier launched Another Brain, and immediately raised €10 million (£8.78 million) in a Seed funding round led by Aglaé Ventures. The company is working on embeddable AI chips that could help sensors understand their surroundings, and autonomously learn from them. The technology could find application in fields such as driverless vehicles, The internet of things and industrial robotics. anotherbrain.ai

eFounders

Company builder eFounders calls itself a startup studio: they act like an incubator, raising money from investors which they then use to build new startups, particularly in the SaaS space. Since its debut in 2011, eFounders has manufactured 14 companies and counting, some of which have gone on to join the Y Combinator programme, or to raise whopping funding rounds – inbox tool Front, for instance, secured $66 million (£49.5 million) in January 2018, in a round led by Silicon Valley’s Sequoia. efounders.co

ContentSquare

ContentSquare uses Artificial Intelligence to find patterns in billions of computer mouse movements, helping businesses understand how customers behave on their websites – and how their user experience might be improved. Launched in 2012, the company operates in 191 countries, and boasts household names such as l’Oréal, Citroen, Unilever and Pepsico among its clients. It has so far raised $62 million (£46.5 million) in funding, $42 million (£31.5 million) of which secured in a January 2018 round led by American VC firm Canaan Partners. contentsquare.com

This article was originally published by WIRED UK