Made in Paris: Local roots with global ambitions

Following its emergence as a major European technology hub in the late twentieth century, Paris has remained on the cutting edge of digital innovation with a thriving startup ecosystem. Hear what startups and Eurazeo—a Paris-based VC firm— love about the French capital, and how working with AWS benefits them.

Paris has long been a center of scientific and technological innovation. Supported by strong government investment and elite engineering schools, the 1950s saw it develop important strengths in telecommunications, aerospace, and computing. In the late twentieth century, Paris emerged as a major European technology hub, home to leading multinational companies and a growing startup ecosystem.  Today, it’s a strong contender for the most significant center of AI innovation outside of Silicon Valley, with Station F—the world’s largest startup campus—helping over 1,000 startups each year access a network of partners, funds, and entrepreneurs.

Following stops in Boston, London, New York, San Francisco, and Seoul, the AWS tour of global startup hubs lands in Paris.  Here, we talk to startups and a VC firm based in Paris to find out what they love about the city and what they’ve gained from working with AWS.

A balanced ecosystem

Geographical location is an important part of any company’s foundations. This is especially true for startups, for which it can impact their talent base, funding opportunities, and company culture. For the startups we spoke to, Paris provides that perfectly balanced ecosystem. “What’s cool with Paris is that it’s a capital, but it’s also a tiny city with a strong ecosystem,” says Laure Piekelko, Product Marketer at Pyannote AI, which helps build voice AI tools through models, speaker diarization, and speaker identification. “Our funds are here. Fellow companies are here. Our partners are here,” says Philippine Breuil, Head of Marketing at Lucis, a startup that provides preventive health insights. She continues: “Paris gives us this network of people that we can work with and grow from.”

But being based in one city doesn’t stop our startups from having international aspirations: “At Joko we had global ambitions from day one, because the problem that we are addressing is universal, we want to reshape the way people shop online,” says Alexandre Hollocou, CTO and Co-founder of Joko, which helps users find the products they’re looking for at the best prices. Piekelko concurs: “We are based in Paris, but 95% of our customers are from outside of France.” To meet global ambitions, startups need a partner with the technical foundations to help them build, grow, and scale quickly. For the startups we spoke to, AWS provides a strong technical foundation.

Starting fast, scaling efficiently

“AWS has been one of our first partners since the inception of the company,” says Neil Zeghidour, CEO and Co-founder of Gradium, a startup that trains state-of-the-art models for speech transcription, synthesis, and translation. Pyannote AI also partnered with AWS early on, as Piekelko explains: “Because we are an AI company, we needed infrastructure at scale really fast so we could scale with our customers’ needs, this is where AWS helped us.” Zeghidour continues: “Without AWS, being able to start a company and serve customers all around the world would have been much more challenging.”

For others, the security and compliance of AWS were crucial benefits. Breuil explains: “At the beginning of the company it was an obvious choice; we’re hosting health data so it was very important for us to be on servers with high privacy and health privacy.” Zeghidour continues: “As a young startup, we cannot provide the same level of compliance that AWS can. We deploy our model through AWS’ private cloud so that our customers can know their data is going to be handled in a safe way.” AWS also provides access to AWS Activate Credits, which help startups build and scale faster: “They helped us scale to our first tens of thousands of users when we were not making any revenue,” says Hollocou.

Partnering with AWS isn’t limited to infrastructure and technical support. Matthieu Baret, Managing Partner of Eurazeo’s venture practice which invests in technology startups across Europe, says: “We’ve been working with the AWS team in Paris for the past ten years. When we do due diligence, when we look at new opportunities, we can leverage some strong experts from AWS.” For our startups, the AWS expertise Baret mentions is a key highlight, specifically in the context of bringing their solutions to market.says Philippine Breuil

Go-to-market support

For the companies we spoke to, the relationship with AWS has only strengthened over time. Piekelko explains: “It’s really a 360-degree partnership.” In Pyannote AI’s case, that meant leveraging AWS go-to-market support, including being listed on the AWS Marketplace for easier discovery and deployment. But according to Piekelko, the real value was the network it helped them create: “It’s really helped open some doors to enterprises and other large companies that may need the products we bring.”

Eurazeo also saw valuable connections as a crucial benefit for its portfolio companies. Baret says: “Our recent go-to-market initiative with AWS connects portfolio companies with the business needs of AWS customers and provides access to the best technologies in our portfolio.” Similarly, Lucis was able to take advantage of exclusive opportunities to broaden its network. Breuil explains: “AWS gives us an international reach, such as the opportunity to speak at VivaTech, which also gives us access to a broader panel of international enterprises.”

Enabling international reach was also a crucial benefit for Joko: “Right now we are expanding fast in the US, and what’s great with AWS is that it’s a global infrastructure, so it’s very easy to copy what we have in Europe to the US,” says Hollocou. He continues: “So this global expansion comes quite natively with AWS.” Piekelko summarizes the value of Pyannote’s partnership with AWS: “It’s really helpful to have people that are not only there to sell you something, but are there to help you grow your company.”

Building something that matters

From the incredible density of talent to the city’s cultural and artistic scene, building a team in Paris brings a range of benefits for our startups. Breuil says: “Our team culture is very unique. We’re obviously focused on health, so we really take advantage of the different woods and being able to run across the Seine together.” For Piekelko, it’s the people that make the difference: “They are so generous. They go above their job and are really keen to create something that matters to them.”

According to Zeghidour, it’s a matter of pride: “We want to prove to the world that world-class companies can start here.” He continues: “It’s different to be building in a maturing ecosystem, or feeling like you’re laying the foundations for what will become one of the major places in tomorrow’s economy.”

A growing community

Paris’ startup community will continue to grow as VC investment in AI and deep tech increases, with the next generation of founders focused on building impactful, world-changing solutions. “And if you take quantique (quantum) for instance, most of these technologies are from CNRS, which is the national research lab,” highlights Baret. Headquartered in Paris, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) is the largest public research body in Europe, and the second largest research organization in the world. Hollocou concludes: “You have a great talent pool with great companies. Basically, if you have a curious mind and want to have a great quality of life, Paris is a small paradise.”

The right technical foundations are crucial for startups looking to build, scale, and grow quickly. For the ones we’ve spoken to, AWS has offered more than just infrastructure. It’s helped them take their solutions to market, opened up doors to connect with their customers, and unlocked exclusive speaking opportunities.  

AWS has a long history of helping startups at every stage of growth, from building an MVP to preparing for an IPO. Since 2013, it has provided over US $8 billion in AWS Activate Credits to more than 350,000 startups around the world. These credits help them build and scale quickly while offsetting the costs of AWS services. Thinking about the next step for your startup? Find out more and apply for AWS Activate Credits today.