Sifted - OpenAI gets cosy with Paris

Good morning there,

With VivaTech kicking off this morning, it’s a busy week in French tech, and one US company wants to make the most of it. Yesterday, OpenAI hosted a meetup in Paris to connect with local developers and startups — the first of its kind in France with the promise of more to come.

I’m hearing whispers that the company is pondering setting up shop in the French capital, which would serve as another stamp of approval for Paris’s tech scene, which has been enthused lately with the rise to fame of darling AI startup Mistral. I have more on OpenAI’s schmooze below. 

Elsewhere today:

• Europe’s fastest growing fintechs
• Former DeepMind scientists raise $220m for AI startup Holistic
• The results from Sifted’s women in tech survey

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

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OpenAI gets cosy with Paris

It’s VivaTech week in Paris — “kind of our own Cannes festival,” one VC told me as we queued up yesterday for an early side event.

Set up a day before the official kick off of France’s biggest tech conference today, it wasn’t just any side event; it was the OpenAI à Paris one. The meetup in the popular cultural centre La Gaîté Lyrique in the heart of the French capital was for the maker of ChatGPT to connect with Paris’s AI developers and startups. Judging by the crowd that amassed at the entrance — mostly developers in jeans and trainers invited thanks to OpenAI’s “local connections”, according to the company — it was successful.

“There is a kind of fervour around OpenAI,” one founder told me. “Every time they go somewhere, it creates a buzz.”

On the menu, an opération séduction that saw OpenAI’s team provide wine from 12pm, a free lunch and a demo of the company’s best tools. There was also an intro video with CEO Sam Altman preaching about how “there’s so much talent in the French ecosystem”. He also pointed to Nabla, Photoroom and Dust — three of France’s hottest AI startups — as examples of companies building GPT-powered applications.

It’s the first event of this kind that OpenAI has organised in Europe outside of London and Dublin, where it has offices — and apparently not the last time the company will pay the French capital a visit. “You’re going to see more of us,” OpenAI’s head of developer experience Romain Huet promised on stage. 

Could that be a lot more — in the form of a Paris-based office? “I would not be at all surprised if that were the case,” one VC told me at the event. 

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. For the past few months, investors and founders have been speculating, with varying degrees of confidence, that OpenAI is thinking about setting up shop in the French capital. And even more so since earlier this month the company hired its first Paris-based recruit, Julie Lavet, to look after lobbying matters in Europe.

“I can’t comment on OpenAI’s future expansion plans,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Sifted.

Almost exactly a year ago, Sam Altman embarked on a big European tour with the objective of determining where OpenAI should open its first European office. He settled on London before expanding to Dublin — but since then, the French capital has started making a serious mark in the field of AI, most notably thanks to Paris-based Mistral’s quick rise to fame and succession of big rounds. 

With Mistral commonly dubbed as one of Europe’s most promising competitors to OpenAI, there could be worse times for the US company to think about purchasing a few square metres’ worth of Parisian real estate.

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

🇫🇷 Paris-based AI startup H, previously known as Holistic, has raised a $220m seed round to build foundational models — AI models trained on large amounts of data, similar to those developed by OpenAI in the US, Mistral in France and Aleph Alpha in Germany. The company did not disclose how much of the investment is equity and how much is debt.

• H was founded earlier this year by a team that includes Karl Tuyls, Laurent Sifre, Julien Perolat and Daan Wierstra, who are all former scientists from Google DeepMind. Former Stanford University researcher Charles Kantor is also part of the team.
• Investors included US VCs Accel and FirstMark, Amazon and New York-based robotic automation software company UiPath. Sifted previously reported that UiPath had invested $35.2m in H.

🇩🇰 Søborg, Denmark-based Cellugy raised €4.9m to replace petrochemicals in cosmetics products with its biodegradable cellulose product EcoFLEXY, which it makes through fermentation using microorganisms that naturally convert sugar. The round was led by Germany’s ICIG Ventures and Denmark’s Unconventional Ventures.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based startup Karri has raised €775k in a round led by 468 Capital. It’s developing a screenless, data-connected walkie-talkies for kids, so that they can stay in touch with their parents without needing a smartphone.

🇬🇧 San Francisco-based payments giant Stripe is opening a new office in the City of London, Bloomberg reports. It’ll be the base for 250 staff across engineering, sales, operations, partnerships and financial compliance. Its UK push puts it in closer quarters with some of the payments fintechs headquartered in the country, which include Checkout.com, GoCardless and SumUp.

🇧🇪 Leuven, Belgium-based research lab imec will receive €2.5bn under the European Chips Act to set up a pilot line to develop and test advanced computer chips. It’ll receive a €1.4bn grant from the EU, with the remaining €1.1bn to come from industry players including Eindhoven's ASML.

🧑‍🏫 Sifted Scout: 20 edtech startups to watch. (Sifted Pro subscribers)

📈 Europe’s fastest growing fintechs.

🤕 The founder 'scar tissue' from the last two years will run deep. 

🇱🇺 How has Luxembourg become Europe's unlikely healthtech hub? (Sponsored by Startup Luxembourg)

According to Sifted’s recent Women in Tech Survey of 320 readers, women are considering quitting their jobs to escape the pressures of their current workplace or to pursue new opportunities — and better salaries.

• While 46% of women rated their happiness at work as a 4 out of 5 or above, 62% of survey respondents said their stress levels have increased in the past year.
• More than 50% of women are planning to leave their current employer in the next two years. Among the reasons cited for leaving were “unmanageable” workloads, “toxic” culture and a lack of direction from managers. Losing faith in the leadership and a lack of career progression were also given as reasons. 
• You can read the full survey results here.

May 22 - 25 | Paris. French tech reporter is in and around VivaTech in the French capital this week. If you're there, give her a shout. 

May 23 | Madrid. Steph Bailey is moderating at Samaipata Annual Summit tomorrow, talking about the future of fintech. If you're around, reach out.

May 29 | Berlin. Next week DACH reporter Miriam Partington is hosting an intimate breakfast meetup for Sifted readers alongside 2hearts, Waanda and Qunomedical. They'll be showcasing the successes of migrant founders in Germany and sharing advice on how to navigate the challenges of building a business there. RSVP; it's free!

June 3 | Vienna. Join Sifted at the ViennaUp Startup Festival for an exclusive networking event to connect with the fastest-growing startups on our Central Europe Leaderboard. Join our brilliant lineup of speakers from Refurbed, HYDROGRID and SEON. RSVP. 

June 4 | Munich. Newsletter editor Tom Nugent is moderating a panel on the state of Europe’s spinout ecosystem at Spinoff Summit 2024. Going to be there? Reach out.

June 4 | Paris. French tech reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet will be hosting our third breakfast reader meetup of the year at Station F. She’ll be joined by guest speakers from Miraki and Doctolib to discuss how France’s most established unicorns have approached — and are still navigating — the hurdles of internationalisation. RSVP.

June 12 | Online. Fintech reporter Tom Matsuda will bring together a panel of experts from Omio, Eight Roads and Tipalti to look at how to build, nurture and maintain an airtight finance team to improve your bottom line. RSVP.  

London-based CIRCTEC, which develops pyrolysis technology to recycle tyres into renewable fuels and circular chemicals, raised €150m from investors including Novo Holdings, A.P Moller and the Netherlands government. The round included €75m equity and €22.5m in grant funding.  

Madrid-based Capchase, which develops revenue acceleration tools for SaaS companies, raised a €105m credit facility from Deutsche Bank.

Toulouse, France-based OneStock, an order management systems provider for retail companies, raised $72m from Summit Partners.

London-based Zen Educate, an online platform that connects schools with teachers, raised $37m in Series B funding. Round2 Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Adjuvo, Brighteye Ventures, FJ Labs and Ascension Ventures.

Dublin-based Nory, an AI-powered operating system for hospitality businesses, raised $16m in Series A funding. Accel led the round and was joined by investors including Cavalry, Playfair, Samaipata and Triplepoint. 

Lausanne, Switzerland-based Limula, which works on automating cell and gene therapy manufacturing, raised $6.8m in funding. LifeX Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Verve Ventures, Zühlke Ventures, Oxford Seed Fund, Lichsteiner Foundation and W.A. de Vigier Foundation.

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