Arlequin AI: a new AI architecture to tackle Europe’s most pressing threats
the blind spot at the heart of modern intelligence
The most consequential threats do not announce themselves. Terrorist networks, money-laundering operations, and disinformation campaigns do not reside in individual documents or transactions. They emerge from the hidden structural patterns between them: the topology of a coordination network, the spreading shape of an influence campaign, the closed loop of a financial layering scheme designed to be invisible at every individual step.
Today's AI was not built to see these patterns. Large language models have transformed language and content generation. But they process data point by point, and can only ever compare two things at once. They are not designed to capture the structures and dynamics hidden across millions of interconnected data points. The result is a systematic blind spot at precisely the moment when governments, law enforcement agencies, and large enterprises are handling more relational data than at any point in history.
Arlequin AI was founded to close that gap, not by building a European version of an existing architecture, but by originating a genuinely new one.
a new architectural path: topological neural networks
Arlequin is developing proprietary AI models based on topological neural networks, designed to learn not only from individual data points but from how data is connected, including relationships involving multiple elements at once. Where LLMs capture what data says, Arlequin's architecture captures the structure of how data is organised, identifying coordination cycles, coalition formations, and multi-way relationships that conventional models are not designed to efficiently detect.
At the core of the platform is HuDEx, an analytics platform that analyses relationships across heterogeneous data, from documents and transactions to video and operational information, and delivers traceable, explainable, and auditable results. Every finding is grounded in underlying evidence, making outputs defensible in court and deployable in the air-gapped, sovereignty-sensitive environments that governments and defence agencies require.
The architecture is also designed to require significantly less compute than large-scale transformer models, reducing reliance on the energy, advanced semiconductors, and computing infrastructure that increasingly constrain AI development. As Antoine Jardin, CTO and co-founder, puts it: "We believe the next advances in AI will come from fundamentally different architectures, not simply from making models larger and feeding them more data and energy. With topological neural networks, we are opening a new field of artificial intelligence for problems that existing architectures are not designed to solve efficiently."
Development is supported by research collaborations with INRIA, CNRS, the Max Planck Institute, and teams at Oxford, Cornell, Princeton, and UC Santa Barbara.
a different opportunity for Europe
Arlequin's approach opens a different path for European AI: competing not by developing European versions of existing technologies, but by originating new architectures and opening new fields. The round is backed exclusively by European investors, a deliberate signal about where this technology is being built and for whom.
Hugo Micheron, CEO, frames the urgency plainly: "At a time when we are overwhelmed by information, we need to regain control. If AI and algorithms can be used for destructive purposes, we also need algorithms that provide greater transparency and give us greater control over the environment in which we now operate."
an exceptional founding team
Few teams embody founder-product fit as clearly as this one. Hugo Micheron is a professor and specialist on terrorism and the Middle East, a winner of the 2023 Geopolitics Prize, and an adviser to multiple French heads of state. He has spent his career studying the very networks the platform now makes visible. Antoine Jardin is a former CNRS research engineer and data scientist who contributed to France's 2018 National AI Strategy and the deployment of the Jean Zay supercomputer. Together they have built a team of around 50 people, including 35 engineers and 15 PhDs, researchers, and data scientists.
traction with the most demanding buyers in the world
Arlequin's technology is already deployed with governments and large organisations across Western and Eastern Europe, across security and defence, criminal and terrorist network investigations, fraud and money laundering, judicial investigations, information integrity, and cybersecurity. The platform is active across four European countries, with offices now open in London and Berlin and an AI lab in Silicon Valley in the works.
our investment
redalpine is proud to co-lead Arlequin's €28M Series A alongside OTB Ventures, with Bpifrance's Defence Innovation Fund, existing investors Vsquared Ventures and 10x Founders increasing their stakes, and Xavier Niel joining the round.
"From day one, Hugo and Antoine impressed us with their exceptional founder-market fit, deep technical edge and relentless drive to solve a critical problem," said Oliver Pabst, General Partner at redalpine. "Arlequin is building a truly differentiated, fully productized sovereign tech platform for safety and security in Europe and beyond, and we are convinced this exceptional team has what it takes to build a category-defining company in a market worth trillions."
Oliver and Luca will work closely with Hugo, Antoine, and the team as they scale. redalpine is proud to back them as they pursue this European ambition.