STATION F after 9 years and 9000+ startups

While STATION F is in no way representative of the entire ecosystem, it is somewhat of a snapshot of the greater ecosystem and what’s to come. As we celebrate 9 years (!) we are noticing clear shifts in terms of founder profiles, the impact of AI, and topics that keep our founders up at night.

2026: multiple new partners & programs

While 2025 was an incredible year - including record funding, a global AI summit and more - the first half of 2026 has in many ways been one of our best periods yet. We welcomed multiple new partners to campus - including OpenAI, Mistral AI, Deepmind, Sorbonne, Databricks, Cisco, Roche x Doctolib x Hotel Dieu, Sanofi and more. You can see from the line-up that we are clearly doubling down on health tech as well as AI. We also launched F/ai, Europe’s leading AI Program bringing together 16 AI leaders and 8 Tier-1 funds to power top AI founders who want to build from the continent. And we have more lined up that we will share shortly.

As far as our startups are concerned, we could not be more proud. During the first half of the year, our companies have already raised €800m, not including Ami Labs. This is €100m less than for the same period in 2025 - however we have 15 companies that have raised €10m or more already this year: companies like Quobly, Qevlar, Squaremind, Escape, Opsmill, Linkup and more. And we welcomed 2 new campus-based unicorns to the family: Profound and Pasqal. All in all, company building has never been more competitive - but clearly our founders are rising to the challenge.

Founder evolution

From its launch in 2017 STATION F has catered to a primarily pre-seed and seed stage audience. However, we have noticed that the profiles of who is starting a company is shifting.

The shift clearly reflects a maturing ecosystem, largely driven by a shift towards AI and deeptech. When STATION F started in 2017, the average age on campus was quite young, many of the founders on campus were young graduates building apps. In today’s very competitive and fast-paced ecosystem, we see the average age has gone up to 36 (from 31 in 2018 and up from 33 just last year), demonstrating that fewer founders are choosing to launch a business straight out of school. Founders with absolutely no previous experience are around 5% on campus. In addition, founders also have stronger educational backgrounds, with 1 in every 5 founders having a phd-level of education or higher. Around 25% of founders also have research experience. This shift is largely the result of the current AI-boom, with stronger technical backgrounds often being favored by investors.

From day one, STATION F has maintained a strong international community. However the best-represented countries also demonstrate a shift in geopolitics as well as ecosystems on the rise. The US remains the best-represented country after France, followed by Morocco, Germany, the UK, Algeria and India. Countries that are either neighbors or have strong historical ties with France are now the best-represented on campus. While maintained near 70 nationalities on campus, also demonstrating France’s attractiveness and accessible tech visa scheme.

We need to talk about exits

I admit that last year I was really surprised to learn that only 16% of our companies were even interested by an IPO as an exit strategy. This year, the number goes down by nearly half to 9%. However, we still maintain approximately 50% that are eyeing an acquisition as their exit strategy. And with recent acquisitions on campus - including Mistral AI’s acquisition of Koyeb, Hugging Face’s acquisition of Pollen Robotics, H Company’s acquisition of Mithril Security, etc. - this may just be a reflection of the reality of the ecosystem rather than founder ambition.

Moving at the speed of AI

A very large portion of our company are AI-first companies. However, even beyond companies that are building AI we can see the impact. 77% of all companies on campus, regardless of their industries, say AI has reduced their hiring needs. However 82% are actively hiring or plan to within the next 12 months, including 16% that will open 5 jobs or more. In some cases this number is even as many as 20 jobs. In addition to hiring, AI is also facilitating company creation, allowing more people to build technical products than previously.

Their use of different AI tools also evolves very quickly. For example, in 2025 OpenAI was the clear frontrunner on campus. This year, Anthropic has taken over with over 90% of companies using their models. However, geopolitics, new product releases and more can quickly sway these preferences and impact use.

A decade of entrepreneurship

As we inch closer to next year’s Presidential election, we can feel that this topic is also increasingly on everyone’s mind. We launched STATION F just after President Macron was first elected, and in many ways have lived a near-decade of entrepreneur-friendliness. Now we are preparing for what’s next. 47% of STATION F founders believe that a far-right leader would be the biggest political concern, while 24% believe a far-left leader to be the lesser ideal. Regardless of their political affiliation, entrepreneurs are worried about immigration and tax policies, and any other form of business unfriendliness. That said, very few of them have made any plans at this stage to account for changes. The current geopolitical climate makes it difficult to know where the world will be in the next 12 months.

Just keep building

Despite entrepreneur worries, the competitive environment and more - we are incredibly optimistic on what’s to come. We believe there has never been a better time to build - and there has never been a better time to build in Europe and at STATION F. We are incredibly proud of all the teams that have called or continue to call STATION F home. And none of this would be possible without our incredible partners, startups and greater ecosystem friends that have supported us along the way.

This was 9. Get ready, because 10 years is just around the corner!