French public safety startup Vizzia has secured €30 million in a Series B funding round, raising its total capital to approximately €50 million. The company, which builds 4G/5G-connected cameras and AI-enhanced software for local authorities, plans to use the investment to accelerate municipal deployments, expand internationally, and more than double its workforce by year-end.
How the Round Was Structured
The Series B was led by San Francisco-based Base10 Partners, a venture capital firm focused on automation for traditional industries. Headline, a global VC firm with operations across the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and Sistafund, a Paris-based fund that invests exclusively in startups with at least one female co-founder, also participated. Both Headline and Sistafund had previously backed Vizzia in its €16 million round in September 2025, making this a continuation of existing investor commitment.
Sistafund, which backed Vizzia from its earliest days, has described the company as a potential benchmark for sovereign public safety technology in Europe. The fund, which targets €100 million and received a €30 million commitment from the European Investment Fund in November 2024, focuses on health tech, sustainability, and frontier technology ventures led by women or gender-balanced teams.
From Illegal Dumping Detection to Urban Safety Platform
Founded in 2021 by Katrin de Proyart and Alexandre Leboucher, Vizzia initially developed camera-based sensors to help municipalities identify and penalize illegal waste dumping. Its systems use motion detection and image comparison to alert enforcement teams when dumping is detected at known hotspots. The company says more than 250 French municipalities now use this technology, with some reporting reductions in illegal dumping of up to 90%. Early adopters include cities such as Le Havre, Avignon, Hyères, and Béziers, while more recent deployments, such as in Vénissieux, where the city council approved Vizzia smart cameras to combat persistent dumping violations, illustrate ongoing municipal demand. The company’s momentum earned it a finalist spot at The Smart Deal 2024, a startup competition powered by Kurrant at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.
In 2024, Vizzia broadened its scope to include wider urban safety monitoring, covering antisocial behavior and criminal activity. The company’s hardware operates on cellular 4G and 5G connectivity rather than fiber, meaning cameras can be deployed and repositioned within hours without civil works or dedicated server infrastructure. All data is hosted on sovereign European servers, and the platform is designed to meet GDPR requirements from the ground up.
Navigating a Complex Regulatory Landscape
The expansion comes at a moment when the regulatory environment around AI-assisted video surveillance in Europe is in flux. France introduced experimental legislation in 2023 allowing algorithmic video analysis at large public events, first deployed during the 2024 Paris Olympics, where approximately 485 AI-linked cameras were tested. That experimental framework, initially set to expire in March 2025, was extended by a government amendment in February 2025 through to March 2027. The extension has drawn criticism from civil liberties organizations including La Quadrature du Net and Amnesty International France, which argue it risks normalizing mass surveillance.
Meanwhile, the European Union’s AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, has been rolling out in stages since August 2024. As of February 2025, the Act prohibits the untargeted scraping of facial images from CCTV footage for facial recognition databases, and real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces remains broadly banned, with narrow law enforcement exceptions. Rules for high-risk AI systems, including many public safety applications, will become fully applicable by August 2026.
Vizzia has maintained that its technology is compliant with existing law by design. In France, real-time AI-powered detection in public spaces remains restricted; the company’s AI tools are primarily used for post-event image analysis to support investigations rather than live automated surveillance. As the company enters new markets, particularly the UK and Italy, where regulatory frameworks differ from France, it will need to adapt its detection capabilities to each jurisdiction’s legal standards.
Competitive Pressure in European Civic Surveillance
Vizzia operates in an increasingly crowded segment. Paris-based Orasio, which emerged from stealth in May 2025 with a €16 million seed round led by Frst, Global Founders Capital, and Expeditions Fund, is building AI-powered video intelligence for public safety, defense, and law enforcement. Unlike Vizzia’s motion-detection-focused approach, Orasio offers real-time anomaly detection and natural language video search, positioning itself more toward deep-tech AI applications. Other French players in the sector include XXII and Veesion.
What differentiates Vizzia from these more AI-heavy competitors is its emphasis on operational simplicity and rapid deployment. The company has described its approach as deliberately accessible, avoiding reliance on advanced AI in favor of practical, low-friction tools that municipal teams of any size can adopt quickly. That model appears to be resonating: the company claims a customer retention rate exceeding 97%.
Growth Targets and International Ambitions
With the new funding, Vizzia is targeting an aggressive growth trajectory. The company aims to onboard one new local authority per week throughout 2026 and plans to open offices in the UK and Italy to serve those markets directly. Headcount is expected to grow from approximately 100 employees to 250 by the end of the year, with 150 new hires spanning engineering, commercial, and operational roles.
The timing aligns with broader momentum in the European video surveillance market. According to Market Data Forecast, the European market was valued at approximately $21.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of over 12% through 2033, driven by smart city investments, rising urban crime concerns, and the increasing adoption of IP-based and cloud-connected systems.
Whether Vizzia can sustain its current pace of municipal adoption while navigating divergent regulatory environments across multiple European countries remains an open question. The company’s strategy of building regulatory compliance into its core architecture, rather than retrofitting it, may prove to be a competitive advantage as EU-wide AI rules tighten. But the sector’s trajectory, privacy debate, and competitive landscape will all shape whether a municipal-first approach can scale to a continental one.
Dig more into this story with CEO Katrin de Proyart podcast about Vizzia’s journey from market validation to growth-stage fundraising recorded in 2023.
