Paris-based startup hub Station F is preparing to launch the second cohort of its F/ai accelerator program in September 2026, building on an inaugural batch that collectively raised $34 million in pre-seed funding.
F/ai, which launched in January 2026, targets AI-focused startups at the early-product stage and aims to help them reach €1 million (approximately $1.14 million) in revenue within six months. Station F director Roxanne Varza cited criticism of slow commercialization among European startups as a driving motivation. “This brings them on par with what investors are seeing in the U.S.,” she said.
The first cohort of 20 startups was backed by AMD, Anthropic, AWS, Clay, Google, G42, Hugging Face, Lovable, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, OVHcloud, Snowflake, and Qualcomm, along with several venture capital funds. The second cohort will add Eleven Labs, Nebius, Rippling, OpenRouter, HubSpot, and GitHub as partners.
Two teams from the first batch have already drawn attention: Alpic won the global grand finale of The Pitch, a competition organized by Deel, and Rippletide won the OpenAI Codex Hackathon. The founding teams skewed experienced — 80% were repeat entrepreneurs, and a third held PhDs.
Station F, founded by French billionaire Xavier Niel and spanning 538,000 square feet, sits at the center of France’s tech ecosystem. The hub has hosted 11 presidential visits since 2017 and welcomed figures including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Turing Award winner Yann LeCun. It has also taken equity stakes in companies selected for its annual Future 40 program since 2022.
Unlike many accelerators, F/ai does not accept direct applications. Startups must be recommended by founders, partners, or investors, though Varza noted that prospective teams can reach out through F/ai’s partner network. Station F also runs approximately 30 other programs open to direct applications.
Varza framed the program’s broader goal as keeping European AI founders from feeling they need to relocate to the United States to access top-tier networks and resources. “We actually want to show that you can stay here and do it from here,” she said.
Source: TechCrunch