Paris named as Europe’s leading tech ecosystem, beating London

This Reuters analysis explains how Paris has emerged as Europe’s leading tech ecosystem, overtaking London on several critical indicators of startup health. Drawing on data from Dealroom, the article notes that between 2017 and 2024 the combined enterprise value of Paris based startups grew 5.3 times, compared with a 4.2 times increase for London. While London continues to attract larger funding rounds in absolute terms, those rounds have translated less into higher valuations, whereas capital flowing into Paris has produced stronger value creation.

The article highlights the role of high profile French tech companies such as Mistral AI and Poolside, which together with other local players raised 7.8 billion dollars last year. That is still below London’s 11.3 billion dollars, yet the trajectory favours Paris when value growth is considered. At the same time, the piece situates Europe within the global picture using McKinsey data, showing that the continent’s share of tech, media and telecom market capitalisation has dropped from 30 percent in 2000 to just 7 percent today.

Paris stands out as the only European city on Dealroom’s list of the top five global tech champions, a ranking otherwise dominated by United States hubs. The article connects this rise to momentum around VivaTech, one of the world’s largest tech conferences, which drew more than 165,000 attendees and regularly hosts leaders from Nvidia, Alibaba, Meta, OpenAI and others. It also credits policy choices since 2017, when President Emmanuel Macron made leadership in AI and deep tech a national priority and supported initiatives like Station F. Reporter Supantha Mukherjee, Reuters’ European technology and telecoms lead, adds further credibility with nearly two decades of specialised coverage.