Created in 2013 and endowed with a total of 50,000 investment as well as high-level mentoring from California entrepreneurs and investors.

X-Grant Silicon Valley: identifying talented entrepreneurs and promoting innovative ideas

The X-Grant Silicon Valley Award recognizes talent from the X entrepreneurial ecosystem and aims to support the School’s work in entrepreneurship and innovation. It is aimed at:

• Students and alumni of the École Polytechnique (all courses) with a business creation project for less than 5 years
• Start-ups (current and alumni) that have passed through the X-Up incubator of the X Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center
• To (current) start-ups from the X-Tech incubator of the X Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center

To be eligible, candidates must present an innovative project with a Silicon Valley-related component. Each year, two winners receive $50,000 each and also benefit from high-level mentoring by entrepreneurs who are X alumni based in the Valley, as well as access to the network of former winners.

This award is funded 50% by the École Polytechnique Foundation and 50% by the Friends of Ecole Polytechnique, thanks to the generosity of alumni donors based in California. InSpek and invisensing.io thus join a community of high-profile start-ups: PriceMatch (2013), Dreem (2014), Cardiologs (2015), Plato, Tempow and Meteo*Swift (2016), Decidata and SpotAngels (2017), Astraveus and Totem (2018), Lalilo and Tarmac Technologies (2019), Omini and Monk (2020), Escape and Flyinstinct (2021).

InSpek: a new generation of chemical sensors to monitor reactions in real time and better characterize them

Start-up created by Juejun Hu, Jérôme Michon (X 2011) and Laurent Vivien.

A graduate of École Polytechnique (class of 2011) and MIT, where he completed a PhD
in integrated optics, Jérôme Michon co-founded in September 2021 the start-up InSpek
which is developing a new generation of chemical analysis systems based on its patented
on-chip optical sensors. While process deviations generate very high costs in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, these sensors enable real-time monitoring of chemical reactions to better characterize them, and thus reduce the time and costs associated with chemical production.

Currently housed in the Drahi – X Novation Center, the entrepreneurship and innovation center of the École Polytechnique, the start-up has developed several prototypes and is beginning a test phase with its first customers. The next step is to validate the technology by the end of 2022 before marketing the solution on a large scale.

Jérôme Michon states:

“We are very honored to be awarded the X-Grant Silicon Valley Prize. This prize, awarded by a jury of experts, is a great recognition of the validity of
of our project. It gives us visibility and credibility, which are considerable assets in the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry.

Invisensing.io: improving industrial operations with artificial intelligence-assisted remote sensing

Start-up created by Lionel Lhommet, Alice Li, Shangran Xie and Feng Yang (X2001)

After having worked for more than 8 years in the geophysics sector, Feng
Yang co-founded invisensing.io with the objective of providing players in the oil, gas and railway
oil, gas and rail industries with high precision remote sensing solutions. Since its inception in 2019, the startup has used artificial intelligence to develop a
tool capable of controlling flows, but also of monitoring the state of infrastructures
such as oil and gas pipelines. Based on a distributed fiber optic measurement system
fiber optic measurement system, this tool can remotely detect vibrations, acoustic events
temperature, and soon the pressure of flows. invisensing.io has already developed a
already developed a measuring device that is to be deployed in the field for testing under
tests in real conditions. The start-up should also finalize the development of its application software by the summer.

Fend Yang states:

“We would like to thank the Fondation de l’X, the Friends of Ecole Polytechnique and
and all the donors who finance this prize. Receiving it is a real encouragement and
and gives us confidence for our future exchanges with investors. In concrete terms, the financial endowment allowed us to rent a second office at the
Drahi – X Novation Center where we are housed, to expand our team, and of course to continue
and of course to continue developing our solution.

Translated from InSpek et invisensing.io, les deux start-ups lauréates du prix X-Grant Silicon Valley 2022