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Station F campus in Paris. 

Station F campus in Paris. 

Photographer: Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg
Business

Paris Is Trying to Steal the UK’s Fintech Crown

A growing number of startups are setting up in the city as the French government pushes to be at the forefront of Europe’s financial technology sector

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It was not in vogue to found a startup in Paris when Jordane Giuly graduated a decade ago. “The cool thing was to go into banking or consulting. Three quarters of my friends did that when they started working.”

Giuly returned to Paris after completing his master’s degree at Stanford to start a string of companies that didn’t quite take off, before he co-founded expense management platform Spendesk in 2016, which was valued last year at $1.5 billion. Giuly left in 2020 to co-found Defacto, a firm that offers credit infrastructure. 

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