Jean-Jacques Pluchart
France has become the European leader in AI. France Digitale’s 2025 AI mapping, carried out with Sopra Steria Ventures and the H7 accelerator, lists 751 startups as of January 1, 2025, an increase of 27% compared to March 2023. It “exclusively lists start ups created since 2004, whose head office is based in France, employing at least 2 people and which develop at least one product that is based on, integrates or serves the development of artificial intelligence technologies”.
The French ecosystem has raised €13 billion and created 36,000 jobs since March 2023, and 92% of them intend to recruit in 2025, which could represent 3,500 additional jobs. Île-de-France remains the main innovation hub, with 63% of start ups, followed by Occitanie (6.5%) and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (6.1%). However, the mapping reveals that there are still many challenges to be met in terms of financing, recruitment, computing power and market conquest (especially public).
Startups are using an increasingly wide range of technologies: 43% of startups are developing generative AI, 47% are developing solutions based on machine learning, deep learning, computer vision or symbolic AI. The application sectors are increasingly diversified, and the main ones are health and biotechnology (13%), software development (9%), data and cloud (8%).
© France Digitale. Répartition des start-ups par secteur
The mapping also reveals that 32% of French AI start ups are already profitable, and 54% of them expecting to be profitable within three years. These performances are explained by the relevance of their business models: 27% offer “off-the-shelf solutions”, 22% offer customizable solutions, 37% support their customers in deployment, 13% co-develop their products with their customers. Their main customers are large companies (34%) and mid-caps (20%). 60% of start ups already generate part of their revenues internationally.
Two-thirds of start-ups have obtained class A funding, and 24 of them have raised more than €100 million, 2.5 times more than in 2023.
Access to data remains a major obstacle for 25% of startups, who would like to see the creation of a European regulation of data access. Computing power (11%) and recruitment (13%) are also cited as challenges. Energy consumption is also a problem, although France has several data centers.
According to Maya Noël, director of France Digitale, competition with the United States requires a collective approach: “France is the European hub for AI startups in Europe. However, this national scale is not realistic for anyone: faced with the increased competitiveness of the United States, Europe must now constitute a united ecosystem that offers turnkey solutions to support the deployment of AI in companies and in public administrations”.
