With more than 185 unicorns created and a tech ecosystem valued at $1.2 trillion, the UK stands as the world’s third-largest technology hub behind the United States and China. The country also ranks third globally for venture capital investment in AI.
Three scale-ups based in the UK perfectly illustrate this momentum: Synthesia,, specialising in AI-generated video; ElevenLabs, an expert in voice synthesis; and Luminance, a pioneer in AI applied to the legal sector. All three have strong international ambitions and are already developing a significant presence in France.
Synthesia: AI-generated video adopted by 90% of the Fortune 100
Valued at $4 billion following its January 2026 funding round, Synthesia has made AI-powered video creation its specialty. Its technology enables companies to rapidly produce video content for training, internal communications or marketing, without the need for traditional filming.
Synthesia aims to surpass $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2026. Its platform, created in 2017, is already used by 90% of Fortune 100 companies. In France, the scale-up counts Decathlon among its clients, with a partnership announced at the UK-France Summit last July.
“With clients like Decathlon, we typically start with very practical use cases such as training, onboarding and internal communications - areas where teams struggle to communicate using text alone, and where video makes a significant difference. These initial pilot projects are designed to integrate directly into existing processes,” explains Daniela Chordia-Doll, Vice President Europe at Synthesia.
“With clients such as Decathlon, we start with very practical use cases such as training, onboarding and internal communications - areas where video makes a significant difference. These initial pilot projects are designed to integrate directly into existing processes,” explains Daniela Chordia-Doll, Vice President Europe at Synthesia.
“France is a major part of our strategy and we want to be embedded in the French and European ecosystem, in addition to selling our solutions there,” she adds. This approach is reflected in investments in local teams and a particular focus on European regulatory specificities.
Synthesia 's headquarters in London
Conversational agents for training
Beyond simple video creation, Synthesia is now developing a new generation of products based on conversational agents. “These products allow teams to conduct role plays and conversational scenarios such as sales conversations, customer interactions and operational situations,” explains Daniela Chordia-Doll.
The objective? To enable employees to train, receive feedback and improve. “This benefits employees by helping them build confidence and skills without pressure, and it also benefits employers by allowing them to identify where teams are struggling so they can adapt training accordingly,” she explains.
The company’s first pilots demonstrate higher engagement and faster knowledge transfer than traditional training formats.
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Daniela Chordia-Doll, Vice President Europe at Synthesia
ElevenLabs: the boom in voice synthesis
Another “made in Britain” success story, ElevenLabs closed a $500 million funding round in February 2026, bringing its valuation to $11 billion, more than triple its valuation a year earlier. The unicorn, which develops voice synthesis technology and conversational agents, now reports ARR of over $330 million.
“As a European AI champion, we are committed to making Europe competitive in the global AI race, while ensuring that AI adoption remains safe, secure and responsible,” says Jonathan Chemouny, Go-To-Market Lead Europe at ElevenLabs.
France is one of ElevenLabs’ fastest-growing markets, where it has already attracted numerous clients: Alan in healthcare, Adecco in recruitment, OpenClassrooms in education, as well as M6 and TV5Monde in media.
Voice agents for customer service
The strongest opportunity identified by ElevenLabs in France ? Voice agents for customer service. “We recently announced a partnership with Revolut, and we are seeing rapid adoption in France,” notes Jonathan Chemouny. “What is interesting is the acceleration of adoption among more traditional large players across a wide range of industries: luxury, healthcare, travel. They are testing and finding that the agents are ready for large-scale production deployment.”
This momentum has been reinforced by a major platform update: ElevenLabs’ voice agents now offer faster response times and improved expressiveness, while supporting more than 70 languages. “This allows European and French companies to scale easily, not only across Europe but also globally,” he adds.
The startup is also investing in local ecosystems in the countries where it operates: participation in events, sponsorships, press relations, as well as support for entrepreneurs through a grant programme offering three months of free credits to startups, and hackathons organised in 14 European cities.
Luminance: AI serving legal and compliance functions
Born out of research at the University of Cambridge, Luminance has established itself as a reference in AI applied to legal professions. With a $75 million funding round announced in February 2025, bringing total funds raised over 12 months to more than $115 million, the British scale-up now works with more than 1,000 organisations across over 70 countries.
In this phase of hypergrowth, France is among Luminance’s strategic priorities. “Alongside Germany, France is one of our main European markets after the UK, and we see enormous growth potential there,” explains Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance. Among the company’s French partners are Dassault Systèmes, Lactalis and Banijay.
Eliminating ‘corporate amnesia’
Luminance stands out in the AI market through its specialisation in high-level legal analysis. “Our platform supports legal teams at every stage of the contract lifecycle, from drafting and negotiation to repository management and ongoing workflow automation,” details Eleanor Lightbody.
“Our latest version eliminates ‘corporate amnesia’ by preserving institutional memory, ensuring that the context behind contracts is captured, not just the outcome,” she explains. In practice, this means legal teams can identify risks earlier and unlock new business opportunities through AI-driven document analysis.
France, and more broadly the European Union, with their complex regulatory environments, represent an ideal playing field for Luminance. “Companies must comply with both local legislation and European regulation, which increases demand for a legal AI solution capable of managing complexity. With the entry into force of the EU AI Act and increased scrutiny around compliance and risk management, organisations need AI systems they can deploy with confidence,” the CEO emphasises.
A call for stronger collaboration
Beyond their commercial success, these three companies share a common vision : that of a Europe capable of competing with the United States and China in the AI race. To achieve this, collaboration between the UK and French ecosystems appears to be a key lever. “The UK has clearly stated its ambition to be an ‘AI superpower’ and France aims to be an ‘AI power’. There is already a shared ambition,” says Eleanor Lightbody of Luminance.
For Jonathan Chemouny of ElevenLabs, the two countries have complementary strengths: “France has an exceptional talent pool and Paris is rapidly becoming one of the world’s leading AI hubs, with Station F, Meta’s FAIR, Mistral, Yann LeCun’s AMI, etc. This shows that the UK and France can be competitive not only locally but also internationally.”
Opportunities for collaboration between the two ecosystems are numerous, as Daniela Chordia-Doll from Synthesia explains, whose CEO Victor Riparbelli took part in the CEO roundtable at the UK-France Summit. She notably mentions “more cross-border programmes and networking through regular joint events such as UK-France tech weeks, joint summits and shared platforms.”
The challenge, according to Eleanor Lightbody, is to “enable companies to operate seamlessly across both markets. This involves reciprocal visa arrangements for technical talent, joint research initiatives that translate into commercial applications, and interoperable rather than divergent regulatory frameworks.”
The message from these three promising scale-ups is clear: if Europe wants globally competitive AI champions, it must build ecosystems that cooperate in a pragmatic and harmonious way.
The Trade Services team at the British Embassy in Paris supports French companies in their expansion projects. Click here to find out more.
