Sequoïa, the consortium led by Erganeo, Incub’13 and Creative Valley, awarded Bpifrance’s label 

Today, Erganeo, the Université Paris 13’s ‘Incub’13’ incubator and incubator Creative Valley announced that their ‘Sequoïa’ consortium has been awarded Bpifrance’s label. The consortium aims to support various Deep Tech start-up projects with strong growth potential, and foster French entrepreneurial spirit. 

From support to start-up

The consortium was awarded the label following the call for expressions of interest issued by French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on June 21 2018 for the French Tech Seed investment fund, entirely overseen by Bpifrance. Having been injected with €400m from France’s Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (future investment program), the French Tech Seed fund aims to support French Deep Tech start-ups that are under three years old and at post-maturation stage. This investment fund’s defining feature is its labelled business introduction system and its ability to leverage private investment. The members of Sequoïa are thrilled with having been awarded this label and are committed to supporting young, innovative companies to give them the very best chances of success. 

Highlighting the Ile-de-France region’s Deep Tech 

The consortium is positioning itself as an innovation ecosystem in the Ile-de-France region, with the focus on companies rolling out breakthrough technology projects, primarily in the digital, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, computing and telecom sectors. Erganeo, Incub’13 and Creative Valley have come together to source and select innovation-led projects from the partners supporting them, which will then be submitted to Bpifrance for a joint financing injection from the French Tech Seed fund in a bid to boost fundraising. 

Paving the way for new futures 

Erganeo - Press release – January 17 2019 Suat Topsu, CEO of Erganeo, and the brain behind the idea for the consortium, explains that “You go faster alone, but further together. We’re convinced that through this consortium, our joint efforts will take our Deep Tech start-up projects further and faster. Sequoia will be working towards sending our start-ups’ chances of success skyrocketing at a key stage in their development - when they first launch.” Benoît Berthou, Vice Chairman of the Université Paris 13 and head of business relations, adds that “We are delighted by this news. The start-ups supported by our consortium will have access to significant additional financial resources that will be crucial to their growth.” According to Creative Valley CEO Yann Gozlan, “While the first decade of our economy’s digital revolution was given over to the web and simple data collection, it’s now about companies and wider society being exposed to communicating objects and systematic use of artificial intelligence in how we interpret and extrapolate complex data. Our consortium aims to foster innovative start-up projects capable of taking this revolution head on, and consolidates the Ile-de-France’s position as a major tech development hub on a global scale.” The members of the Sequoia consortium will be pooling their efforts to contribute to these innovative projects’ technological and financial expertise to take French Deep Tech start-up development to the next level and bring it in line with the market’s socio-economic ambitions. 

About Erganeo – www.erganeo.com 

Erganeo is an investment fund that specializes in breakthrough innovations (Deep Tech) with major societal impact. We invest early in the game to secure researchers’ newest inventions before they are transferred to companies or before start-ups are founded, across a wide range of scientific fields: Biotech, Infotech (Telecom, connected objects, big data, AI) and Enertech (new energy, chemistry, materials), among others. 

Erganeo aims to accelerate and simplify links between research and industry for the benefit of society. To do so, we finance and accompany the new generation of French researchers and entrepreneurs on the road to international recognition and success. 

As a member of the SATT Network, Erganeo draws on the Ile-de-France network in building the foundations of a better tomorrow, tapping into a talent pool of over 20,000 researchers across 370 cutting-edge, leading laboratories. Since it was founded, Erganeo has invested over €27m, thus contributing to signing 62 licensing agreements with companies of all sizes, and setting up 13 start-ups. 

Press contact: Céline Clausener - Director of Public Affairs – +33(0)1 44 23 21 52//+33(0)7 61 04 60 02 

About d’Incub’13 - www.univ-paris13.fr/incub13 

Incub’13 is the Université Paris 13’s innovative start-up incubator. It aims to foster and support innovation-based processes, help start-up projects emerge and take shape and/or assist with developing new companies. Since late 2012, Incub’13 has been putting its expertise to use for the benefit of innovation company entrepreneurs and supporting them in putting their plans together and getting them off the ground. The Incub’13’s location at the heart of the Université Paris 13 campus is symbolic of its ambition of bringing academia and research closer to business and innovation-led entrepreneurship. Thanks to its prime location, Incub’13 helps connect incubator start-ups with the university’s wider ecosystem, thus giving the start-ups access to all the Université Paris 13’s resources. 

About Creative Valley - www.creative-valley.fr 

Creative Valley is a network of innovation centers across the greater Paris area. Each center focuses on developing innovation-led start-ups and SMEs in a specific sector, such as Art & Digital, Fashion Tech, Health Tech, VR, Games, Data, Security and Agritech. The network has been behind some of France’s most striking success stories, such as Keymetrics, Clevy, PK paris, Ayo and Agriconomie, all of which first launched in the Creative Valley network.