👋 Inside this week's edition:

👀 A war-driven shortage of Helium exposes a thin European safety net, the holes in new European resource initiatives, and why "critical raw materials" lists may not be enough. Special correspondent Samuel Hodman produced this deep dive into this hidden market and what it reveals about the challenges facing France and Europe as they seek greater technical and economic independence.

👀 As the fashion-tech company marks its 10th anniversary, CEO Michael Jaïs explains why his answer to the AI threat is buried in an archive of old content. And why traditional media is quietly staging a comeback.

Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand

SPONSORED

Eurosatory 2026, the benchmark global tradeshow for Defense and Security, returns to Paris fromJune 15 to June 19.

The French Tech Journal is pleased to partner with investors from BSV Ventures and JOIN Capital, alongside military leaders and innovators, to discuss how defense investment can scale fast enough to deliver operational impact. Drawing on lessons from the Russia–Ukraine war, the panel explores how private capital and non-traditional suppliers are accelerating capability development for Europe and NATO while preserving interoperability and sovereignty.

June 17, 4 p.m. Delta | Hall 4

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Tech Talk

🛡️🇪🇺 Europe may finally be ready to give its tech champions a little home-field advantage. As part of a broader push for “technological sovereignty,” Brussels wants the most sensitive public-sector AI and cloud contracts - particularly in areas like defense and security - to go to European providers. The plan stops well short of a full-blown Buy European Act, but it introduces sovereignty requirements aimed at keeping critical data and services under European control, with officials explicitly warning against foreign providers having a geopolitical “kill switch.” Add in a Chips Act 2.0, incentives for AI infrastructure, and faster approvals for strategic data centers, and the message is clear: Europe has decided that digital dependence is no longer a feature. | European Commission

💰💻 France’s quantum ambitions just got a very large cheque. Grenoble-based Quobly has raised €115 million in a Series A round backed by Bpifrance, STMicroelectronics, and SEALSQ to industrialize its silicon-based quantum computers and bring its first commercial system online in 2026. Rather than reinventing manufacturing from scratch, Quobly is betting that quantum computing can ride on the back of existing semiconductor infrastructure, a refreshingly unsexy strategy in a sector often powered by PowerPoint physics. The company now faces the hard part: proving that silicon qubits can scale from promising lab demos to actual machines that customers want to use. | EU Startups

🍏 🚫 Apple has written yet another sizeable cheque to the French tax authorities. The iPhone maker has set aside €212 million to settle a long-running dispute over how profits generated in France are routed through its Irish headquarters, where most of its European revenues are booked. The agreement gives Apple certainty over future transfer pricing arrangements, but it also shines a spotlight on a tax structure that leaves France reporting a surprisingly modest €233 million in local revenue despite billions in iPhone and Mac sales. For a company that prides itself on seamless user experiences, its relationship with European tax authorities remains stubbornly glitchy. | Les Echos

**🤝 🇪🇸 Aircall has officially entered its M &A era. **Fresh off hitting profitability and crossing €200 million in ARR, the French unicorn has snapped up Spain’s Piper AI just weeks after acquiring US-based Vogent, stitching together a broader AI stack for sales teams. The pitch: let AI handle everything from logging customer interactions into the CRM to answering certain calls, because apparently even sales reps are getting automated now. As whispers of a SaaS apocalypse grow louder, Aircall seems determined to be the disruptor rather than the disrupted - and, for now, it's focused on buying growth rather than ringing the Nasdaq bell. | AFP

🎓🚪 Gojob has decided to graduate from the Next40. The AI-powered recruitment scaleup is voluntarily leaving France’s startup hall of fame just a year after joining, arguing that profitable, internationalized companies should make room for the next generation. With €220 million in revenue, a Japanese majority shareholder, and profitability under its belt, Gojob says it has moved from startup mode to industrial mode. In a French tech ecosystem obsessed with getting into the club, Gojob may be the first to brag about leaving it. | Maddyness

🚗💨 France’s online driving schools are merging into a single convoy. Ornikar has acquired rival En Voiture Simone, creating a group that now accounts for more than 10% of the French driving school market and trains over one million students a year. But the real destination lies beyond the driving test: Ornikar is steering toward insurance, financing, and broader mobility services. After teaching a generation of French drivers how to get on the road, it now wants a seat in everything that happens after they pass the exam. | Entrevue.fr

💸French startup funding found its spring in May. Startups raised €392 million across 34 deals, roughly double the amount secured in May 2025 and slightly ahead of April’s tally. The catch? There was no blockbuster mega-round inflating the numbers. Instead, the month was powered by a broader spread of fundraising activity, suggesting that capital is flowing a little more evenly through the ecosystem. After two years of funding jitters, investors may finally be putting their wallets back on the table - if not quite throwing them yet. | Maddyness

How A Hidden Global Helium Crisis Reveals The Limits Of Europe's Tech Sovereignty Strategies

Europe talks endlessly about AI sovereignty, semiconductor independence, and technological self-sufficiency. But what if the biggest threat to those ambitions isn't chips, software, or talent, but...helium?

A largely invisible global helium crisis is exposing a deeper truth about Europe's technology ambitions: critical innovation depends on fragile supply chains that stretch far beyond its borders. From semiconductor manufacturing to quantum computing and advanced research infrastructure, a single gas is revealing just how dependent Europe's future remains on resources it doesn't control.

This story by guest correspondent Samuel Hodman explores why the helium crisis is a reality check for Europe's sovereignty narrative.

👉 Read the Sovereignty Stress Test

'We Will Invest In The Past': How Launchmetrics Turned A Decade Of Data Into An AI Moat

As Launchmetrics celebrates its 10th anniversary, the accelerated pace of artificial intelligence has a strange way of warping the sense of the moment for founder and CEO Michael Jaïs.

On one hand, he noted that starting the company feels like "yesterday." On the other hand, he observed that the last two years alone have felt more like a century.

That distortion is a good place to start, because Launchmetrics spends its days turning fashion's seemingly unquantifiable impact of buzz, hype, and the wattage of a celebrity in the front row into numbers a brand can measure and track. This year, the company turns 10, and the anniversary lands at the exact moment its industry is asking whether any of the software it spent a decade building still matters.

Jaïs's answer: a lot of it may not. But for Launchmetrics, the data does.

Step inside the Launchmetrics Data Moat

💸 Top Funding Deals 💸

📇 Company: Sêmeia 🏷️ Sectors: HealthTech, Digital Health, Telemedicine, Remote Patient Monitoring, AI Healthcare 🔍 Description: Sêmeia develops MedicWise, a remote patient monitoring platform that collects, analyzes, and structures health data from chronic disease patients to help clinicians optimize care pathways, reduce hospitalizations, and improve healthcare efficiency. 💻 Website: https://www.semeia.io 📍 HQ City: Toulouse 🧗 Round: Growth Round 💰 Amount Raised: €21M 🏦 Investors: Acton Capital (lead), Mutuelles Impact, Citizen Capital, Banque des Territoires, Orange Ventures 👨💼👩💼 Founders: Pierre Hornus, Mathieu Godart, Daniel Szeftel 🗞️ News: Sêmeia has raised €21 million in equity financing to expand its remote patient monitoring platform into new disease areas and accelerate product innovation. The round was led by German investor Acton Capital, alongside Mutuelles Impact, Citizen Capital, and existing investors Banque des Territoires and Orange Ventures. Founded in 2017, the company developed MedicWise, a platform that aggregates and analyzes patient health data from connected devices, lab tests, prescriptions, and questionnaires to help clinicians monitor chronic conditions. Sêmeia is the French market leader in nephrology telemonitoring with an estimated 85% market share and currently supports more than 35,000 patients across 500 healthcare facilities in nephrology, organ transplantation, mental health, and cardiology. The company generated €5.5 million in revenue in 2025 and reached profitability. The new capital will fund expansion into additional pathologies, including diabetes, depression, inflammatory bowel diseases, respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular conditions, while also supporting AI-driven product development and further acquisitions following its purchases of Optim’Care and Healabs. Clinical studies have shown significant benefits from the platform, including a 26% reduction in hospitalizations for nephrology patients and a 50% reduction in suicide attempts among monitored bipolar disorder patients. | Les Echos

📇 Company: Innovorder 🏷️ Sectors: FoodTech, RestaurantTech, HospitalityTech, SaaS, AI 🔍 Description: Innovorder develops an all-in-one SaaS platform for restaurant digitalization, covering order management, payments, kitchen operations, business management, customer loyalty, and AI-powered analytics for both commercial and contract catering operators. 💻 Website: https://www.innovorder.com 📍 HQ City: Paris 🧗 Round: Growth Round 💰 Amount Raised: €20M 🏦 Investors: UL Invest (lead), Evolem (existing investor) 👨💼👩💼 Founders: Jérôme Varnier, Romain Melloul, Olivier Loverde 🗞️ News: Innovorder has raised €20 million in a financing round led by UL Invest, the family office of entrepreneur Laurent Useldinger. The transaction combines new capital with the buyout of shares from historical investors, while Evolem remains a shareholder. Founded in 2014, Innovorder has become a leading French restaurant software provider, serving both commercial catering brands and major contract catering groups, including Sodexo, Elior, Compass, and API Restauration. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate its European expansion strategy, pursue targeted acquisitions, and strengthen its AI-first transformation. Innovorder has already deployed AI agents through its proprietary Atlas platform to automate restaurant operations and enhance decision-making. Active in France, Morocco, Spain, and Italy, the company aims to become the European leader in restaurant digitalization by 2030. Profitable since 2024, Innovorder reports 40% annual organic growth and expects to reach €15 million in revenue by 2026. | EU Startups

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