12 Top Paris Startups to Watch in 2024

Scenic view of Paris.

Paris may be home to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame, but the City of Lights is also a haven for disruptive startups. Ranging from innovations in artificial intelligence to employee spend management, these Paris startups are shaking up their industries and securing the venture capital needed to scale up. 

If you’re looking for the top Paris startups to watch, look no further – these French startups should be on your radar this year.

Best Parisian Startups to Follow

Every year, new startups pull to the forefront of their industry through exciting innovation, tech, and industry-disrupting business models. We’ve rounded up the best Paris, France startups of 2024 that startup lovers, investors, and aspiring entrepreneurs should follow. 

Disclaimer: With so many exciting startups launching and growing, we aren’t able to cover them all. Furthermore, the startups that are listed below are not officially ranked and are listed in no particular order.

1. Escape

  • Industry: Cybersecurity 
  • Founders: Antoine Carossio, Tristan Kalos
  • Founded In: 2020 
  • Funding: Seed, $6 Million 
  • Investors Include: Y Combinator, IRIS, Kima Ventures 

Created after the founders experienced a data hacking turned ransom situation, Escape is a cybersecurity platform that protects APIs like never before. The platform works to find and fix concerning security issues, in GraphQL APIs specifically, while they are being developed by working with the developers directly. 

2. Spendesk

  • Industry: B2B, Fintech 
  • Founders: Jordane Giuly, Quentin Nickmans, Rodolphe Ardant
  • Founded In: 2016
  • Funding: Series C, $311.8 Million 
  • Investors Include: Index Ventures, Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic

Spendesk is a powerhouse in spend management software. The startup provides companies with built-in automation, high visibility, and end-to-end spend management features. With Spendesk, customers are able to give their teams access to budget and spend tools, track their spending in real time, and manage their bookkeeping with ease.  

3. Tomorro

  • Industry: Legal Tech
  • Founders: Antoine Fabre, Sebastien Decreme, Thibaut Caoudal
  • Founded In: 2020
  • Funding: Series A, $16.1 Million 
  • Investors Include: Motier Ventures, Resonance, Kima Ventures 

Managing your business’s contracts can be tedious, to say the least. Tomorro makes contract management simple for all teams, providing better visibility and control to help avoid costly mistakes and legal risks. Used by over 1,000 companies, including Upflow and Alma, the platform boasts features for automated contract renewals and generation plus e-signatures for our increasingly digital world. 

4. Mistral AI

Despite being a new company founded in 2023, Mistral AI boasts a massive amount of capital to support its open-source artificial intelligence platform. On the platform, developers can build generative AI-supported products using their efficient, trustworthy, and open model. 

5. Swan

  • Industry: Fintech 
  • Founders: Mathieu Breton, Nicolas Benady, Nicolas Saison
  • Founded In: 2019
  • Funding: Series B, $63.5 Million
  • Investors Include: Accel, Lakestar, Bpifrance 

Swan makes embedding banking features into your product easy. Their banking-as-a-service API allows users to embed white-labeled banking features in their products, from bank accounts to cards and payment processing. Not only does their service save companies time, but they seamlessly integrate into the user experience to create a frictionless workflow for customers and team members alike. 

6. Eligo Bioscience

  • Industry: Biotech, Healthcare 
  • Founders: David Bikard, Luciano Marraffini, Timothy K. Lu, Xavier Duportet
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Funding: Series B, $69.8 Million 
  • Investors Include: Khosla Ventures, Sanofi Ventures, CARB-X 

Eligo Bioscience is a biotech startup with a primary product, their GEM (gene editing of the microbiome) platform, that is used to develop impactful treatments through the editing of microbiome gene repertoire in vivo. By understanding the connection between the bacterial genes within the human body and the immune system, the startup is making advancements in the understanding of the role of this relationship in health and illness. 

7. Back Market

  • Industry: Ecommerce 
  • Founders: Quentin Le Brouster, Thibaud Hug de Larauze, Vianney Vaute
  • Founded In: 2014
  • Funding: Series E, $1 Billion 
  • Investors Include: Generation Investment Management, Eurazeo, Sprints 

Back Market is a marketplace for refurbished electronics disrupting the ecommerce space. Not only does the Back Market save electronics from simply filling up a landfill, giving them a second life. The startup also helps consumers save money by buying refurbished electronics or by selling their used electronics.  

8. Hivebrite

  • Industry: Edtech 
  • Founders: Jean Hamon
  • Founded In: 2015
  • Funding: Series B, $61.5 Million 
  • Investors Include: Quadrille Capital, Insight Partners 

Hivebrite is a community engagement platform used by Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, and the Obama Foundation. On the platform, users can create their own branded community hub with a personalized URL to engage with and mobilize their communities to work toward impactful change. The tool can be used by commercial businesses, nonprofits, educational invitations, and associations to better connect with their community and drive action.  

9. Vestiaire Collective

  • Industry: Fashion, Ecommerce
  • Founders: Alexandre Cognard, Christian Jorge, Henrique Fernandes, Sebastien Fabre, Sophie Hersan
  • Founded In: 2009 
  • Funding: Debt Financing, $722.3 Million 
  • Investors Include: SoftBank Vision Fund, Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale

Vestiaire Collective is a disruptive fashion startup making it possible to buy and sell vintage, luxury, and pre-owned garments and other related goods. The startup is on a mission to make a more sustainable future in the fashion industry possible through the circular fashion movement – providing a space to reliably buy pre-owned and vintage pieces. 

10. BlaBlaCar

  • Industry: Mobility, Rideshare
  • Founders: Francis Nappez, Frédéric Mazzella, Nicolas Brusson
  • Founded In: 2006
  • Funding: Venture, $578.5 Million 
  • Investors Include: Accel, Insight Partners, IFC 

BlaBlaCar has reinvented the rideshare model. The platform connects drivers with passengers seeking to share costs for long-distance carpooling. Each member of BlaBlaCar is verified through reviews, IDs, and profiles to provide a secure rideshare experience. The platform works to benefit both drivers and riders to cut costs and save fossil fuels by traveling together.

11. Pivot

  • Industry: Fintech, Financial Services 
  • Founders: Estelle Giuly, Marc-Antoine Lacroix, Romain Libeau
  • Founded In: 2023
  • Funding: Series A, $27.4 Million 
  • Investors Include: Visionaries Club, Emblem, Cocoa Ventures 

Pivot is a unique spend management platform that is based on a procure-to-pay model. The AI-powered platform helps businesses intake employees, manage and validate invoices, manage vendors, and monitor budgeting and analytics all in one place. A startup for scale-ups, Pivot is built for companies dedicated to rapid growth and expansion to more easily manage their employee spend and workflow. 

12. Greenly

  • Industry: Greentech, Sustainability 
  • Founders: Alexis Normand, Arnaud Delubac, Matthieu Vegreville
  • Founded In: 2019 
  • Funding: Series A, $25.5 Million 
  • Investors Include: MassChallenge, XAnge, Energy Impact Partners 

Greenly is a greentech startup with a carbon accounting platform used by companies such as HelloFresh, HSBC, and Bridewell. Companies can utilize the platform to measure, manage, and make improvements to their CO2 emissions. Each emission is categorized on the platform to help businesses learn where they can improve and engage in sustainability reporting. 

Final Thoughts

The City of Light is known for many things, including luxury fashion houses, culinary excellence, and iconic monuments. But Paris has also grown into a startup ecosystem all its own. From sustainability software to wildly successful AI startups, Paris is home to exciting companies that are reshaping their industries and possibly the world. 

Whether you’re looking to find startup jobs, invest in a Paris startup, or launch a company of your own, these startups are the ones to watch this year.