SATT CONECTUS, a technology transfer accelerator in Alsace, and the startup TEKIMPACT have signed an exclusive license for the worldwide exploitation of an innovative technology from a public research laboratory INSA/ICube (University of Strasbourg). This new Tekimpact software solution aims to enable companies to quickly identify the best technological innovation opportunities and thus give them a competitive advantage. Big names of the French industry such as Faurecia or EDF’s Deconstruction and Waste Projects Department have already shown their interest for this solution.
In France, every year, more than 35 billion euros are invested in R&D by companies, but only 1 product out of 7 innovative projects is launched on the market. Companies therefore focus on exploring as many avenues as possible as quickly as possible, mobilizing means and resources in numerous ways that mostly turn out to be dead ends.
Financing provided by SATT Conectus
Since 2012, the thirteen SATTs (Sociétés d’Accélération du Transfert de Technologies) have stimulated, invested in and supported the creation of 672 deep-tech startups, including around 100 with an industrial vocation. By detecting innovative technologies in public research laboratories, financing their technical, scientific and economic development, then securing their distribution on the market and supporting their development through technological and industrial transfer, in particular through the creation of deep tech startups, SATTs are the essential link in the innovation chain from research to industry.
STATT Conectus has enabled the Tekimpact solution to see the light of day by financing the development of a beta version of this solution, now marketed by the start-up TEKIMPACT. This financial investment has enabled the first full-scale tests to be carried out with industrial users of the work of Prof. Denis CAVALLUCCI and his team at the Laboratory of Engineering, Computer Science and Imaging (ICube at INSA Strasbourg – UMR CNRS University of Strasbourg 7357), who have succeeded in combining artificial intelligence with business expertise.
Caroline DREYER, President of SATT Conectus, explains:
“Tekimpact’s innovative solution proves how much public research is now a driving force behind the French Recovery Plan. Accelerating the design of innovations and guaranteeing their systematic competitive performance are unprecedented promises on the market that will concretely serve the competitiveness of our companies. This is why Conectus invested €200k in 2016 in this project to develop a beta version of this solution. This has enabled us to carry out the first full-scale tests with industrial users. Today, it is a young startup that is disseminating an innovative technology to the largest companies. That’s how rich public research can be!
The ICube engineering, computer science and imaging laboratory is a CNRS research laboratory (UMR 7357) under the triple supervision of the University of Strasbourg, ENGEES and INSA Strasbourg. It brings together in equal measure two scientific communities at the interface between the digital and physical worlds, which gives it a unique configuration. With nearly 650 members and 17 teams, it is a major research force on the Strasbourg site. With its focus on imaging, ICube’s main fields of application are engineering for health, the environment and sustainable development.
Prof. Denis CAVALLUCCI who, with his team, is at the origin of this new technology, declares:
” Our teams of researchers, data-scientists and developers produce, in connection with industrial partners, tools for tomorrow’s R&D. The Tekimpact software solution is based on AI, TRIZ theory and business expertise. For a given company, we perform a semantic extraction of the patents in its sector, we map the innovation axes of the competition, we cross-reference the data with the technical issues of the company. Several stages of analysis and confrontation follow one another. At the end of the process, technological avenues emerge that are likely to give the company a real, strong and unique competitive advantage.
The Tekimpact solution
Tekimpact, founded by the entrepreneur Hugo Chague, holds the exclusive worldwide license for the solution designed by Professor Denis Cavallucci, in which AI and the TRIZ method played an important role.
The theory of Inventive Problem Solving, TRIZ, is a convergent creativity method, which does not promote the emission of numerous ideas like brainstorming for example, but which guides the reflection directly towards solutions. In the 2010s, this method was improved and hybridized to AI by Prof. Denis Cavallucci.
The innovative Tekimpact solution aims to enable R&D managers to identify the most relevant innovation issues in order to achieve their strategic objectives, to map competitors’ innovation priorities and to suggest to R&D teams the most relevant research axes to develop successful and patentable innovations.
The advantages it brings are:
- Mapping of competitors’ innovation priorities on a specific technical subject: better market visibility to build a customized technological development project;
- Saving time and R&D costs;
- Limitation of R&D risks;
- Major competitive advantage in major national, European and international competitions,
in major national, European and international competitions.
Hugo CHAGUE, President-Founder of Tekimpact, concludes:
” At Tekimpact, we have the expertise and the mastery of innovative methods that allow us to base an R&D and Intellectual Property strategy on rigorous foundations. In all the technological challenges we face, we believe in a different way of inventing. We believe in finding the golden question first: that problem which, if well posed, is half solved. Our way to find this impactful question is to use the Artificial Intelligence developed by Denis CAVALLUCCI to make patents, engineers and the market talk. Our ambition is to be the GPS of industrial innovation and to support as a priority all innovations that can accelerate the ecological transition. “
Based on its first missions, notably for EDF’s Radioactive Waste Deconstruction Projects Department and Faurecia, Tekimpact aims to deploy the solution to all companies where innovation is a strong strategic issue, whether they are large groups, ETIs or SMEs.
Translated from Focus sur la solution Tekimpact qui vise à accélérer l’innovation technologique des entreprises
