The French Adtech Conquest of the U.S.: Hypergrowth, Agentic AI and Hard Truths
Originally featured on & interviewed by Minted.
Against the backdrop of Vibe’s headline-making acquisition, three French adtech entrepreneurs, Arthur Larrey (Audion), Fabien Magalon (Xpln.ai) and Jules Minvielle (Olyzon), share the complex realities of setting up in the United States and the technology trends that defined this year’s Cannes Lions.
Walmart’s recent acquisition of Franco-American startup Vibe.co has been the talk of Cannes this year. The company’s meteoric rise in connected TV proves that French founders can win in some of the most fiercely competitive segments of the US market.
For Jules Minvielle, co-founder and CEO of Olyzon, who recently relocated to the US, Vibe’s trajectory is a textbook case:
“Vibe’s story is an absolute model of execution. Going from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in such a short space of time is a huge source of inspiration for every entrepreneur, far beyond the adtech world.”
Arthur Larrey, co-founder of Audion, who will move to the US at the end of the summer, shares that admiration and highlights the boldness of the founding team:
“Launching a business from Aix-en-Provence while targeting only the massive North American connected TV market is a real feat. Being acquired by Walmart in barely three years proves that with a strong team and a clear vision, you can take on any giant.” He adds that Vibe now joins the very exclusive club of French success stories, alongside established players such as Criteo and Teads (acquired by Outbrain last year for $900 million), which have done much to build French Tech’s credibility in the United States.
The American Dream: Economic Scale Meets Cultural Frugality
Expanding into the United States is not just a growth lever; it is a necessity. Jules Minvielle puts it bluntly: in connected TV, it is now impossible to scale without a presence in the American market, where technology adoption is highest.
Audion, for its part, chose not to go straight for the US. Arthur Larrey explains that the company first followed “the old playbook”: consolidating its presence in Europe, particularly in the UK, before setting its sights on America.
So why make the move now? Beyond being “the natural next step to scale,” as he puts it, it is also a matter of technological timing. “In audio, there’s a lot of automation happening right now, and AI is completely reshuffling the deck, which opens up an ideal window of opportunity for our product,” he explains. In a sign of a certain European independence, this US expansion has been financed entirely by European investors, with no need to turn to local capital from American VCs.
Fabien Magalon, co-founder and CEO of Xpln.ai, who has also settled across the Atlantic, puts the gap between Europe and North America into perspective:
“You have to look at the scale rationally: the US economy represents a GDP of around $26 trillion, compared with less than $3 trillion for France. The economic power of this market is simply staggering.”
But that financial abundance comes with a different set of rules. In the US, investors reward hypergrowth, even at the expense of short-term profitability. Jules Minvielle says he ran up against this mindset in discussions with American investors, who encouraged him to spend far more to accelerate growth, citing metrics such as the “Rule of 40” (which combines growth rate and profit margin), an approach far removed from the often cautious, profitability-focused management of European companies.
The Rise of Agentic AI and a Broader Definition of Performance
Aside from the Vibe.co acquisition, conversations at this year’s Cannes Lions unsurprisingly centred on artificial intelligence.
For Fabien Magalon, AI is redefining advertising performance, which no longer ends at the transaction. Large language models (LLMs) are becoming the new search engines and acting as decision-making tools.
“When a user asks an AI a question, it will offer a shortlist of five or six options. To be chosen at that decisive moment, a brand needs to have built a strong image and earned trust. It’s the gut feeling and brand awareness built upstream that will make the final difference,” he explains. In his view, this new paradigm puts attention measurement and optimisation back at the heart of advertising strategy.
Arthur Larrey shares and reinforces this analysis, stressing that algorithmic visibility will never replace the trust built with consumers:
“Making the AI’s shortlist is great, but the trust a user places in an AI will always be lower than the trust they place in a brand they’ve already encountered. That’s why a brand needs to exist over time and carry weight.” To illustrate how deeply AI is transforming the industry, he points to a standout announcement at Cannes Lions: the AI partnership between Zeta Global and Palantir, a company historically specialised in defence and intelligence. For him, it proves that the advertising market is constantly looking for new opportunities and that, with AI, “anything can be monetised.”
Jules Minvielle highlights what he sees as the most significant trend of the year: the widespread adoption of Model Context Protocols (MCPs). Platforms are no longer content with standard generative AI; they are building ecosystems of autonomous agents. “The whole industry is shifting to agentic. Tomorrow, the challenge for agencies will be to run decision-making platforms capable of orchestrating these agents. You can’t hand over the management of a $150 million media budget across 40 different channels to a simple chat window like Claude. You need dedicated, secure interfaces,” he explains.
{{CTA-BANNER}}
About Audion
Founded in 2018 by Arthur Larrey and Kamel El Hadef, Audion has established itself as the go-to partner for digital audio solutions for brands and their media agencies. With a technology-driven and AI-powered approach, Audion transforms audio into a high-performing, controllable, and measurable media lever across the entire marketing funnel.
Leveraging proprietary technologies integrated with artificial intelligence, Audion designs, activates, and optimizes results-oriented audio campaigns capable of delivering tangible outcomes - from brand awareness to business performance.
With offices in Paris, New York, London, Milan, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, Audion brings together a team of 50 experts dedicated to helping advertisers unlock the full strategic and operational potential of digital audio.
Website: www.audion.ai
