From November 29th to December 3rd, 2021 STARTUP3 had organised a deep tech-week. Starting off with Brokerage Day in Sophia Antipolis, startups had the chance to participate in matchmaking activities, award ceremony, visit to deep tech ecosystem in Sophia Antipolis and get last training on pitching before investors. Following Sophia Antipolis, STARTUP3 shifted its activities to Paris where startups were engaged in Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, meeting investors, corporates and enjoying networking activities.

STARTUP3 Brokerage Day

Organised in the heart of the French deep-tech ecosystem in Sophia Antipolis, the event gathered on 29^th November those that have participated in the STARTUP3 project, either as an innovator/startup or Corporate Pool Member.

Welcoming attendees to Sophia Antipolis, Clémence Castell, Marielle Campanella and Gerard Martinez from Pôle SCS have opened the Brokerage Day event. Recapitulating on the STARTUP3 project from its very beginnings, they have opened the floor to all the STARTUP3 partners who have made the project possible. Despite COVID-19, lack of the physical events and possibilities to engage with startups more directly on ever changing deep-tech market, it was the passion for growth and innovation of the consortium that made the success of the STARTUP3 possible. Each with their special skillset and expertise it was Pôle SCS, InoSens, Agenso, ITC Cluster, Hola-UP!, Latvian IT Cluster and EKT (National Documentation Centre) that turned the idea from paper to a real project with results and impact beyond the project lifetime.  

As the event has gathered not only participating startups and corporates but additional cluster and corporate representatives, Jean-Luc Fretard has provided insights on the methodologies and tools used throughout the project, especially the Founder Studio as part of STARTUP3 hub. Presentation encompassed both initial ideas to development and final outcomes and experiences drawn from work with 25 startups and pool of 38 organisations (corporates, investors, other supporting organisations).

Pitching Session

As the event has attracted many deep-tech stakeholders, STARTUP3 innovators had the chance to showcase their solutions. In addition to the Top 5, three innovators from Top 10 have joined the pitching session, reflecting on the development of their solutions through STARTUP3 and afterwards as well as indicating the next steps for their products.

Loïc Henninot has introduced Centiloc, a French company developing disruptive IoT sensors for various markets, providing innovative IoT sensors to geolocalize objects. Switching to another industry STARTUP3 covers, Miguel Marchamalo had presented Detektia, a Spanish company developing solutions that monitor and analyse deformation in dams, infrastructures, aquifers and entire cities based on DInSAR technology.

Evangelos Pappas of RTsafe presented the Pseudo patient. Diving into med-tech, RTsafe provides personalized care in radiation oncology by combining proven expertise in medical physics and highly accurate 3D printing technology creating a perfect replica of patient’s body that is to be radiated before the actual patient in cancer and other treatments.

Following are three from the Top 10 startups. First to take the stage was Fillipo Lubrano, who presented the work of Haruspex. Haruspex is currently the only solution available on the market able to predict, according to the desired level of confidence, how an ICT infrastructure could be attacked, before the cyber-attacks occur in reality. That way, it provides solutions to neutralize the attackers, making it the perfect match for securing the IT/OT systems.

Denis Ardabatsky, a serial entrepreneur had introduced NeoSound Intelligence which offers AI tools that transform customer interactions/emotions into rich management information in an efficient way, creating opportunities to maximize customers by increasing sales and reducing costs.

In a heartbeat, Slaheddine Aridhi captured the attention with the work of Sensoria Analytics. Developing innovative, digital solutions that analyse bio-signals by exploiting advancements in the fields of optics, electronics, MEMS systems and artificial intelligence, Sensoria’s primary focus is on the prevention and detection of cardiovascular, respiratory risks, especially relevant in cases of COVID-19 and respiratory complications that often otherwise go unnoticed in initial stages.

Joining virtually, and as part Top 5 innovators, Fauna Smart and Magos team had the chance to present to the audience. Fauna Smart, led by Dragana Vukasinovic dedicates to helping farmers transition to greener, healthier, and more efficient farming practices in line with the newest EU regulations. Magos and its gloves that disrupt VR market with the state-of-the-art Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) devices in XR were presented by Gregory Agriopoulos.

Pitching session was crowned by the Award Ceremony to the Top 5 startups: Centiloc, Detektia, RTsafe, Magos and Fauna Smart. Awards were handed in by Aiga Irmeja of LITC whose inspiring speech highlighted what makes the innovators stand out, especially in the times of crises. Following the Award Ceremony, startups had the chance to engage in the panel discussing the way forward for all innovative startups in deep tech arena as well as to voice the challenges and opportunities they encountered on the STARTUP3 journey.

Deep-tech Ecosystem visit

In the scope of the second day of Brokerage event, startups had twofold activities. In the morning session, they had the opportunity to attend the last training held by Ornella Solari from Hola-UP! tackling the pitching techniques and best approaches to ensure investments.

Later on, innovators, consortium members and other interested stakeholders had the opportunity to visit the deep-tech ecosystem of Sophia Antipolis. Host to many international organisations and companies, Sophia Antipolis serves as a Silicon Valley of France.

Through the visit to Inria, Head of Innovations Anthony Schoofs showcased the work of Inria as National Institute for research in digital science and technology and innovations they bring to areas of communication, computational medicine and biology as well as modelling, simulation and interaction of their solutions with real world.

Next was getting to know Marc Barret, the Innovation Executive Director who had led the attendees through 3IA Côte d’Azur, Interdisciplinary Institute for Artificial Intelligence. 3IA acts as one of the four interdisciplinary institutes of AI created in France. It aims to create an innovative ecosystem that is influential at the local, national and international level and partners with major higher education and research partners in Nice and Sophia Antipolis gathering more than 62 companies and startups at the same place!

Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge Summit

In the course of the project, STARTUP3 has developed startegic partnerships in order to provide more opportunities to the startups to network, pitch, and test their advancments. Gathering startups, SMEs, corporates, investors and other organizations, Hello Tomorrow tackled various deep tech markets, from Industry 4.0, aerospace, Data & AI, Energy, Food, Environment to digital health and urban mobility.

In the scope of the 10^th Hello Tomorrow summit, STARTUP3 innovators got the chance to attend the Innovator’s day event, and present their solutions in person. Innovators that attended from STARTUP3 were Magos, Latitudo40 and Oscillum Technology.

What is next?

STARTUP3 project is nearing its end, nonetheless there are still exciting things to come. In addition to the STARTUP3 podcast mini series, 3 more innovators will join sharing their vision and solutions, we follow up on the sucesses of the Top 25 and release the videos with all the interviews held with our Top innovators. Stay tuned!