SATT Aquitaine Science Transfert has officially launched chrysa-link, its deep tech incubator. In operation since last year, it is operated by Bpifrance and financed by the State through the General Secretariat for Investment and by the Regional Council of New Aquitaine, to the tune of 1.5 million euros for an initial period of two years.

Incubator funds are intended to finance disruptive innovation projects that will lead to the creation of future so-called “deep tech” start-ups (i.e. carrying disruptive innovations with a high societal, environmental and economic impact).

From the idea of creation to the first fund raising: the ‘lean-start-up’ toolbox

Characterised by long R&D cycles, high investments and Intellectual Property that is difficult to counterfeit, the deep-tech projects that SATT Aquitaine Science Transfer helps to bring to light will be supported over periods ranging from 18 to 21 months, using a method known as ‘lean start-up’, which allows for back-and-forth between theory and practice during the entrepreneurial apprenticeship.

In addition to the incubation funding of 20,000 euros to cover the initial costs incurred by the project leaders (rent, market research, legal and accounting advice, communication and other training), support for business creators will be based on the ‘start-up action boost pack’ consisting of five ‘boosters’: team building, positioning of the product or service on the market, pre-industrialisation and regulations, intellectual property and financing of the activity. Certain actions carried out by the initiator at the very beginning of the project are taken as a pre-market study.

In an interactive mode, each booster workshop includes a two-day collective session, personal work sessions in real-life situations, individualized coaching by SATT teams and thematic collaborative lunches with experts and entrepreneurs (launched in September 2019 at a rate of one per month).

During this initiatory entrepreneurial journey, the participants are invited to pitches twice at the halfway point and at the end of the course before a panel from the regional business creation ecosystem (New Aquitaine Regional Council, New Aquitaine Development and Innovation Agency, Bordeaux French Tech, technopoles, etc.).

A transition will then be made to a local technopole chosen by the holder, leading to the creation of the company.

SATT: the most upstream position in the innovation chain

The projects will also be able to benefit from the capacity of the SATT Aquitaine Science Transfer to invest in their maturation, in order to produce an initial proof of concept. As an example, SATT invested €1.2 million as early as 2017 in the Braincaps project by Maxime Feyeux and Kevin Alessandri, which has since become the start-up Treefrog Therapeutics (raising €7 million in 2019).

As such, in the innovation chain, SATT is the first to assume a financial investment, both upstream; often it will take many months, or even years in the case of health-related projects, before the start-up raises its first funds and brings its product or service to market.

The chrysa-link incubator is already supporting 16 projects.

“Within SATT Aquitaine, we benefit from an experienced environment in the maturation of highly innovative projects as well as access to a network of more than 4,000 business contacts and experts, which is key to our mission of coaching entrepreneurs. And of course our close connections with regional economic development players, notably French Tech Seed Aquitaine* and French Tech are our second major asset in ensuring start-ups a coherent continuity in their support, from the idea of creation to fundraising, and even accelerating the company! “says Nicolas de la Fuente, head of the chrysa-link incubator.

The first results of the chrysa-link incubator – SATT Aquitaine Science Transfer

* The French Tech Seed consortium brings together SATT Aquitaine, the Aquitaine technology parks (Unitec, Technowest, Agropole, Hélioparc, Technopole Pays Basque) and the ADI Regional Development and Innovation Agency, all of which are supported by the French State, the New Aquitaine Region, research establishments and Bpifrance.

** Some of the projects came from the former Aquitaine regional incubator.

Translated from Nouvelle-Aquitaine : SATT Aquitaine Science Transfert lance chrysa-link, son incubateur deep-tech