Analysis ·
Arlequin AI raises €28 million to build a European alternative to Palantir
Original title, in French: “ARLEQUIN AI lève 28 millions d’euros pour construire une alternative européenne à Palantir”
- Publication
- FrenchWeb (France)
- Author
- Unsigned
- Published on
- 10 September 2026 · read in the page structured data · updated on 21 September 2026
Summary
Arlequin AI, a Paris-based startup founded by Hugo Micheron and Antoine Jardin, has raised €28 million from Redalpine, OTB Ventures and Bpifrance's Fonds Innovation Défense, following a €4.4 million seed round in 2025. The company, which had been developing a data analysis platform called HuDEx, now intends to build its own models based on topological neural networks, positioned as a sovereign European alternative to Palantir. According to the article, Arlequin was working with ministries, Radio France and BNP Paribas in 2025, and now says it has around thirty employees. The entry of the Fonds Innovation Défense, which has €275 million in funding, signals a strategic interest in dual-use security and intelligence technologies, but does not amount to certification or an operational contract.
Summary based on the full text of the article.
Read the article on FrenchWeb →Figures cited
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28 M€
Amount of the Series A raised by Arlequin AI
Arlequin AI, 2026
« Arlequin AI lève 28 millions d’euros auprès de redalpine, OTB Ventures et du Fonds Innovation Défense de Bpifrance »
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4.4 M€
Amount of the previous seed round
Arlequin AI, June 2025
« un peu plus d’un an après un amorçage de 4,4 millions d’euros »
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32.4 M€
Total funding raised since founding
Arlequin AI, since founding
« porte à au moins 32,4 millions d’euros le montant annoncé depuis la création de l’entreprise »
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30 people
Number of Arlequin AI employees
Arlequin AI, 2026
« Arlequin revendique aujourd’hui une trentaine de collaborateurs, dont huit au sein de son équipe de R&D »
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275 M€
Funding of the Fonds Innovation Défense
Fonds Innovation Défense, Bpifrance, 2025
« Sa dotation, initialement fixée à 200 millions d’euros, a été portée à 275 millions en 2025 avec l’arrivée de la Caisse des Dépôts, d’Allianz France et de MBDA. »
Classification
- Country
- France, United Kingdom, Germany, United States
- Company size
- Large companies, All sizes
- Industries
- Software vendors, IT services companies, telecoms · Government and local authorities · Banking, insurance, asset management, finance departments · Media, communications, marketing
- Companies
- OTB Ventures (cited), Primer (cited), Arlequin AI (supplier), Quantexa (cited), Linkurious (cited), Better Angle (cited), Palantir (cited), Bpifrance (study author), Dataminr (cited), Radio France (deploys AI), Kima Ventures (cited), Vsquared Ventures (cited), Babel Street (cited), 10x Founders (cited), Nuix (cited), Redalpine (cited), BNP Paribas (deploys AI)
- Keywords
- fundraising, artificial intelligence, digital sovereignty, data analysis, defence, palantir
Entry written by Marsanne Studio from the cited article, with the help of an AI model (claude-sonnet-5). The rights to the article and its illustrations belong to FrenchWeb. Entry translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.