The French Tech Journal

👋 Inside this week's edition: 👀 French startup ArcSpace has raised more than €2 million to test its compact electron-beam welding and cutting system in orbit in 2027, starting with satellite repair before targeting orbital manufacturing and space infrastructure. Co-Founder and CEO Guillaume Mohara explains the lofty vision.

ArcSpace is working on a problem that sounds almost mundane by space-industry standards: how to weld metal once you are already in orbit. The French startup, founded in 2022 by Guillaume Mohara and Adam Abdin, has developed a compact electron-beam system designed to join and cut metal in space. It has raised more than €2 million in a round led by Czech VC firm DEPO Ventures, with SCE Freiraum Ventures, IRDI Capital Investissement and a French business angels network also participating.

👋 Inside this week's edition: 🧠 What if gig workers could keep the freedom of the open road without giving up the safety net? French startup INCOM is betting drivers can have both - using tech to turn platform work into something that looks a lot more like a job, without the nine-to-five.Read all about it here.

What if gig workers could have the freedom of freelancers - and the security of employees? Incom says its possible. What if gig workers could keep the freedom of the open road without giving up the safety net? French startup INCOM is betting drivers can have both - using tech to turn platform work into something that looks a lot more like a job, without the nine-to-five.

Observatory BriefingUpdated Aug 30, 2026 This week we highlight two papers, one new hire, one job posting, and a burst of evaluation-framework commits. Overall, they reveal a lab systematically attacking the same problem from multiple angles: how to build video representations that are not merely descriptive but causal, predictive, and cheap enough to scale.

👋 Inside this week's edition: 👀 Essential Summer Reads #8: We’re wrapping up our final Summer’s Essential Reads newsletter with a lighter but inspiring story celebrating French creativity and global success beyond AI. Discover how Sandfall Interactive, a small French studio, made the world’s best video game of 2025 with Clair Obscur. Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand In today’s high-growth environment, security must be built-in—not a blocker.

👋 Inside this week's edition: 🧠 Essential Summer Read #7: Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch says Europe has just two years to secure a meaningful stake in the AI economy or risk becoming dependent on US and Chinese suppliers. His warning: Europe has the talent and energy to compete, but must urgently fix its capital, infrastructure and procurement gaps. Read it here.

👋 Inside this week's edition: 👀 Essential Summer Reads #6: The agency behind La Suite numérique is now ditching Windows for Linux on its own machines. And it's telling every ministry to map its way out of American software. Here's how the project works, and where it could still go sideways. Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand In today’s high-growth environment, security must be built-in—not a blocker.

👋 Inside this week's edition: 🧠 Essential Summer Read #5: CEO Jérôme Lecat is rebuilding a profitable, founder-led storage company around agentic AI. He's canceling SaaS subscriptions, rewriting code reviews, and has just launched a new agentic platform that could expand the company's ambitions. Read it here. Chris O'Brien + Helen O'Reilly-Durand For today’s AI-native, data-driven startups, security is no longer optional. Customers expect it, investors demand it, and growth depends on it.

Someone didn't get the memo about taking August off. So, here's a summer catch-up edition on funding deals over the past three weeks. 📇 Company: Chargepoly 🏷️ Sectors: CleanTech, Mobility 🔍 Description: Chargepoly designs, deploys, and operates high-capacity DC charging infrastructure for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fleets.