French startups that succeeded in the US, from Criteo to Hugging Face, almost all earned their first major American article through a specific event: a funding round, a founder or headquarters on the ground, or a product shown at a trade show. Seven of our ten examples went through TechCrunch. Here is what each story shows, and what a Series A startup can replicate.

Last updated: November 2026.

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How did we choose these 10 startups?

We selected ten French-founded companies that meet two verifiable criteria: a real presence in the US (headquarters, office or a major share of the business) and coverage by an American outlet that is still available online. We started from a list of twelve names.

For each company, we looked for the earliest notable US article we could find, then checked dates, amounts and cities against official press releases, SEC filings and the original articles. It is not necessarily the very first article ever published: it is the oldest one we could date and read.

Two names were left out. Pigment describes North America as its largest market and opened offices in New York and Toronto in 2024, but the reference article on its Series C presents it as a Paris startup, with no US angle. For Mistral AI, we did not find enough public evidence of a US base. None of these companies is a Linker client: we worked only from their public coverage.

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Which French startups broke through in the US, and with which article?

The ten stories below are listed by the date of the earliest US article we found, from 2010 to 2019. For each one: what the company does, where it settled, the article and its trigger, then the lesson.

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1. Criteo: a team already in Palo Alto (2010)

Criteo, the ad retargeting company, moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley before seeking press. In April 2010, the trade outlet ClickZ reported a French retargeting company arriving in Silicon Valley: 20 staff in Palo Alto out of 120 worldwide, a former Microsoft executive hired as VP of marketing, and US retail clients to be announced within weeks.

Three years later, on 30 October 2013, Criteo debuted on Nasdaq at $31 per share, above its initial range, according to its SEC prospectus. The lesson: the first article was not about the product but about a team already on site and a local hire. Trade press covers an arrival when it is visible, with names and numbers.

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2. Datadog: American from day one (2012)

Datadog, the cloud infrastructure monitoring platform, was founded in New York in 2010 by two French engineers, Olivier Pomel and Alexis Lê-Quôc, both graduates of École Centrale Paris. In November 2012, its $6.2 million Series A, co-led by Index Ventures and RTP Ventures, was announced in a release describing it as a New York company.

The big mainstream story came with the Nasdaq IPO on 19 September 2019: CNBC reported a 39% first-day jump, after a $648 million raise at $27 per share. The lesson: Datadog never had a "French phase" in the US press. A startup born in the US is treated as an American startup, and its founders' origin becomes a biographical detail.

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3. Front: well-known investors in the story (2014)

Front, a shared inbox for teams, went through Y Combinator in summer 2014. On 30 September 2014, TechCrunch announced its $3.1 million seed round led by SoftTech VC. The article listed a long line of angel investors, including Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, and noted that co-founders Mathilde Collin and Laurent Perrin were based in San Francisco, with the rest of the team in France.

In January 2018, TechCrunch covered its $66 million Series B led by Sequoia. The lesson: well-known names from the US ecosystem on the cap table give a reporter a headline. For an email product, having the creator of Gmail as an investor is already a story.

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4. Algolia: US customers named in the article (2015)

Algolia, a search API, was founded in Paris in 2012 by Nicolas Dessaigne and Julien Lemoine. After Y Combinator (winter 2014), the founders moved the headquarters to San Francisco while keeping a large team in Paris. On 20 May 2015, TechCrunch announced an $18.3 million Series A led by Accel and described Algolia as headquartered in San Francisco.

The article listed customers any American reader knows: Medium, Genius, Vevo, WeWork, Product Hunt. The lesson: a US journalist judges a foreign startup by its local references. A few recognisable American logos outweigh a long track record in Europe.

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5. Aircall: the CEO announces his move to New York (2016)

Aircall, a cloud phone system for sales and support teams, was founded in Paris in 2014. On 19 September 2016, TechCrunch covered its $8 million Series A led by Balderton Capital and reported plans for a New York office, where CEO Olivier Pailhes intended to move. Aircall's own timeline dates the opening of its New York office to 2017.

In May 2018, the release for its $29 million Series B carried a New York dateline. The lesson: announcing the founder's move alongside the round turns a funding story into a market-entry story. The reporter understands the company will not sell to the US from Paris.

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6. Dataiku: a New York fund and a US use case (2016)

Dataiku, a collaborative data science platform, announced a $14 million Series A on 25 October 2016, led by New York firm FirstMark Capital. TechCrunch noted the startup had been profitable for three years and gave a concrete example: NPR, the US public radio network, used it to recommend shows. VentureBeat reported the same day that the company had moved its headquarters to New York.

The lesson: one precise US use case beats a list of logos. "NPR recommends its shows with this tool" fits in one sentence and hands the reporter a ready-made example.

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7. Hugging Face: the press followed usage, not the pivot (2017)

Hugging Face was founded in New York in 2016 by three French founders, Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf. On 9 March 2017, TechCrunch introduced "the New York-based startup" and its chatbot app for teenagers, backed with $1.2 million from investors including Betaworks, SV Angel and NBA player Kevin Durant.

The product then changed completely. In December 2019, TechCrunch covered a $15 million round led by Lux Capital for its open-source Transformers library, downloaded over a million times. The lesson: a public, verifiable usage figure such as downloads works as proof even for a young product. It also lets the press follow a company that changes course.

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8. Contentsquare: New York's local tech press (2017)

Contentsquare, a digital experience analytics platform founded in Paris in 2012 by Jonathan Cherki, raised $20 million from Highland Capital Partners in October 2016. Its founder moved to New York with his family in January 2017, and the headquarters followed. In July 2017, Built In NYC, a media outlet covering the New York tech scene, published a piece on why the company relocated.

In May 2020, the release for its $190 million Series D, led by BlackRock, carried a New York dateline. The lesson: the first outlet does not have to be national. Local ecosystem media readily cover an arrival, and they are read by the people the company wants to hire there.

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9. Back Market: launch first, announce later (2018)

Back Market, a marketplace for refurbished electronics founded in 2014, launched in the US in early 2018. On 13 June 2018, TechCrunch covered its $48 million round (Groupe Arnault, Eurazeo, Aglaé Ventures, Daphni) and noted the company had just expanded to the US. In 2025, Back Market described the US as its second-largest market.

The lesson: the US launch was not announced on its own. It gave substance to the next announcement. A startup can open a market quietly, then use its funding round to tell the story with a few months of results.

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10. Ledger: a product to try at CES (2019)

Ledger, a maker of hardware wallets for crypto assets, already had a San Francisco office when it opened a New York office in November 2018, focused on its offer for financial institutions. Two months later, at CES in January 2019, it unveiled the Bluetooth-enabled Nano X. TechCrunch published a hands-on with the prototype on 9 January 2019.

In March 2026, Ledger opened a new New York office and hired a CFO from Circle, which The Block linked to a possible US listing. The lesson: a US trade show where reporters can try the product creates a story that a press release alone does not.

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What do these 10 stories have in common?

The clearest common point is the trigger: seven of the ten earliest articles we found accompany a funding round. The other three follow a team relocation (Criteo, Contentsquare) or a trade show (Ledger). None is about a mere intention to enter the US.

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Second finding: physical presence comes before or with the article. In eight cases out of ten, a founder or the headquarters was already in the US at publication, or the article announced the move. The two exceptions, Back Market and Ledger, had launched operations or opened an office there.

Third finding, less expected: seven of the ten articles were written by the same journalist, Romain Dillet, a TechCrunch reporter based in Paris from 2012 to 2025. For a decade, the entry point to the US tech press for a French startup was a French journalist in Paris who followed the ecosystem closely. The other three came from a trade outlet (ClickZ), a local outlet (Built In NYC) and a business network covering an IPO (CNBC).

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Why is this path no longer enough in 2026?

That path closed in 2025. TechCrunch, bought by private equity firm Regent in March 2025, cut its European team, around ten jobs, according to Press Gazette (June 2025), although its owner says it still intends to cover Europe. Romain Dillet left in April 2025. A French startup can no longer count on a reporter from a major US tech outlet sitting in Paris, effectively a foreign correspondent for startups.

European outlets in English remain open: Sifted and Tech.eu cover European startups' funding rounds and expansions. But to reach the US press itself, you now need to pitch US-based journalists, by beat, with an American angle.

What those newsrooms expect is documented. According to Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026, 88% of journalists immediately discard a pitch outside their beat, and 40% value original data in a pitch. In practice, a pitch to a US fintech reporter should talk about American customers, investors or market, and bring data they will not find elsewhere. Being French is not an angle in itself.

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What can a Series A startup take from this?

A Series A startup can reproduce the mechanics of these ten stories without their resources. Five rules stand out.

• Wait for a real trigger. A round, a first named US customer, a relocation or a trade show. "We are targeting the US" is not news.
• Be there. A founder on the ground, an office, or a first hire, for example through the French VIE programme. Eight of our ten examples had a visible US presence when the article ran.
• Name American names. Customers, investors, partners: Algolia and Dataiku were introduced through their local references, Front through its investors.
• Bring a verifiable number. Profitability, downloads, customer count: a reporter quotes a precise figure, not an adjective.
• Write for the US reporter. An English-language press release written for their reader, not a translation, sent to journalists on the right beat, with an embargo or an exclusive when the news allows it.

US expansion does not replace coverage at home: these companies remained French Tech references in the French press. Our guide to PR for international expansion explains how to run several markets, and our comparison of PR costs in France, the UK and the US gives the budgets to plan for. To act on it, our US PR guide for French startups sets out a six-month plan.

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Where does Linker fit in?

Linker is an independent PR and LinkedIn agency founded in Paris in 2022, working with tech startups and scale-ups. It supports French startups expanding abroad, including with the US press in English, and combines media relations with the LinkedIn presence of their founders. See our international expansion page to prepare your US launch.