New AI Startup Program launches at STATION F, led by Meta with Hugging Face & Scaleway

While other ecosystems may be feeling that the AI momentum is “cooling off”, at STATION F we feel it is anything but. Interest and resources for AI companies continues to grow on campus, with our historical partner Meta now announcing a new open source AI program with Hugging Face and Scaleway.

The French AI ecosystem started to attract attention earlier this year with AI startup Mistral raising a record €105 million seed round. But US startup Poolside then made bigger headlines with a €126 million round and announcements to move the company to France. Other French startups like Sequoia-backed Dust, Photoroom, Nabla, Owkin and Dataiku have also helped contribute to the momentum in the local ecosystem.

At STATION F, we also have a growing interest and strong teams in this space. Of course, we never fail to mention our first unicorn Hugging Face, who has become a recognized AI leader worldwide. When they hosted an AI meet-up on campus last month (with llamas!) the event drew over 2,000 participants. 

AI meet-up party organized by Hugging Face at STATION F in October 

But Hugging Face isn’t our only AI leader - we’ve got many other excellent AI startups on campus - including Clipdrop (acquired by Stability AI) and quite a few will be revealed in our upcoming Future 40 announcement next week. When OpenAI’s Sam Altman came to Paris in May, we were pleased to host him at STATION F for our biggest-ever “Ask me Anything” event, with over 500 participants and a dedicated startup session just prior. Stripe also chose STATION F to host its second-ever AI Day (following a first event in San Francisco). To top things off, our partner Microsoft announced a new Gen AI Program on campus just weeks ago.

Ask Me Anything with Sam Altman at STATION F in May (photo credit: Romain Ruiz)

As a result, we could not be more thrilled about this new program from Meta - especially given the fact that they are teaming up with Hugging Face and Scaleway to bring unparalleled resources to AI companies. The program will focus specifically on open source. Interested companies have until December 1st to apply here and 5 teams will be selected to join the program beginning January.

We will continue to follow this space very closely and we are confident that it is only the beginning of what's to come. AI, along with quantum computing and climate tech, is one of the 3 areas we have chosen to focus on and we believe that our ecosystem is well-positioned to play a leading role.