Top 10 Unicorns in France

According to various sources including the French Tech Journal, France is home to 21 of the world’s nearly 1.5 thousand unicorns as of 2024.

Of course, companies’ valuations are constantly changing as they receive investments, make investments and experience success and failures. The other thing influencing unicorn lists is businesses that make the shift from private ownership to public ownership by means of buyouts, acquisitions, IPO and other means. Indeed, as soon as they’re no longer privately owned, they lose unicorn status.

Despite all this, however, Tracxn asserts that of France’s approximately 58,000 startups, there are 30 different businesses with French origins that have reached unicorn status, even though some are now publicly owned or have dropped below $1 billion in value.

 

Multi-Million (And Billion) Dollar Companies in France

 

“Unicorn” is a term used to describe a business that meets two basic criteria: it’s privately owned and it’s valued at $1 billion or more. So, due to these restrictions, not all of the world’s most successful companies are necessarily unicorns.

That is, several French businesses may be worth many billions of dollars, such as Hermès and L’Oréal that are worth $249 billion and $228 billion respectively, but still not be unicorns, because they’re publicly owned.

Thus, unicorns are pretty rare, not only in France but all over the world, making it pretty impressive when businesses reach unicorn status as it’s not something that happens every day.

In fact, only two new French businesses became unicorns in 2023, and now, midway through 2024, France

 

Top 10 Unicorns in France 

Ranging from healthcare startups to AI-generated software giants, here are the top 10 unicorns in France.

 

1. Doctolib: $6.5 Billion 

 

 

Operating in the healthcare sector, Doctolib is an online management programme that allows patients to schedule appointments and doctors to manage patients, consultations and patient information.

Founded in 2013 by Jessy Bernal, Steve Abou Rjeily, Stanislas Niox-Chateau and Ivan Schneider, Doctolib has gone through 11 rounds of funding, most recently receiving $157 million in a funding round led by General Atlantic, completed in 2023.

It took Doctolib six years to reach unicorn status, first exceeding the $1 billion mark in 2019.

 

2. Mistral AI: $6.23 Billion

 

 

Founded as recently as 2023, Mistral was one of only two French-based companies to reach unicorn status last year December, and now, it’s worth an astonishing $6.23 billion.

Mistral AI develops open-source artificial intelligence models to help the AI community build safe AI models that can benefit all users.

Based in Paris, this startup brought in $645 million in its latest funding round in June of this year. Its founders are Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix who are now the business’s CEO, chief scientist and CTO respectively.

 

3. ContentSquare: $5.6 Billion 

 

 

ContentSquare provides users with digital experience analytics that enable businesses to understand customers, including their feelings, intent and behaviour. The objective behind this technology is to translate this understanding into business, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Now valued at $5.6 billion, this Paris-based company was founded by Jonathan Cherki in 2008 and achieved unicorn status in 2020.

 

 

4. Qonto: $5 Billion

 

Founded in Paris in 2016, Qonto has developed specialised software for businesses to manage finances, organising banking, bookkeeping and more. Their primary focus is to provide customers with holistic financial management that is reliable, safe and secure.

Qonto became a unicorn in 2021 by of the beginning of 2024, Qonto had 1,400 employees. The startup was founded by Alexandre Prot, CEO and GM, and Steve Anavi, Qonto President.

 

5. Hugging Face: $4.5 Billion

 

Based in Paris, Hugging Face was founded in 2016 and is the developer of machine-learning platforms. The primary aim of these platforms is to inspire and facilitate collaboration on machine-learning projects.

Founded by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face, named after the well-known “hugging face” emoji, started off by launching a chatbot aimed at teenagers that was then open-sourced.

After that, the startup moved on to focus on machine learning, and i 2022, Hugging Face achieved a $2 billion valuation upon the completion of its Series C funding round that was led by Sequoia and Coatue.

 

6. Sorare: $4.3 Billion

 

 

Founded in Saint-Mandé, France by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, Sorare is a fantasy sport, cryptocurrency-based video game company. It develops blockchain-based sports games based on football, basketball and baseball.

Compatible with both iOS and Android devices, Sorare’s games and platform attracted significant funding through several different stages, most recently securing $36.5 million in 2022. As of 2024, Sorare has 199 employees and 69 different investors to date.

 

7. Mirakl: $3.5 Billion

 

 

Mirakl is a French cloud-based e-commerce software company used by businesses to manage third-party marketplace and dropship business. The startup was founded in Paris in 2011, and as of 2024, has 750 employees and 24 investors.

The business was launched by Adrien Nussenbaum and Philippe Corrot who went on to become co-CEOs. Mirakl enables companies to manage the quality of their product offerings, helping them improve productivity and achieve business growth.

 

8. Alan: $2.85 Billion 

 

 

Alan is an online digital insurance services provider aiming to provide people with a means to access insurance coverage that provides an easy claims process, reimbursements as well as access to experienced medical professionals by means of face-to-face appointments.

Alan was launched in 2016 and now has 550 employees. The startup received $197 million in its latest Series D funding round in May of 2022 after having officially achieved unicorn status in 2021.

The company is based in Paris, France and was founded by Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve and Charles Gorintin whose primary aims were to provide a digital insurance solution that was not only simple but transparent too.

 

9. ManoMano: $2.6 Billion

 

 

ManoMano, founded in 2012 by Philippe de Chanville and Christian Raisson, is the operator of an online marketplace facilitating gardening projects.

By means of a data-led approach, ManoMano provides customers with DIY, gardening and home improvement products that can be purchased directly from merchants via their platform at fair and affordable prices.

With 884 employees, ManoMano is based in Paris and is now worth an incredible $2.6 billion.

 

10. PayFit: $2.1 Billion 

PayFit, launched in France in 2016, is a payroll software developer that also manages human resources tasks, making it an all-in-one, modern CRM solution. The startup automates the payroll process and offers reliable, holistic HR software to allow businesses to manage everything to do with personnel via a single platform.

Founded by Firmin Zocchetto and Florian Fournier, PayFit is now with $2.1 billion, having brought in $287 million in their latest Series E funding round.