The Telecom Paris Tech incubator has been in existence for almost 20 years and is open also to entrepreneurs that are not from the engineering school. Currently based in Paris but about to move to the Saclay plateau, it has already hosted more than 400 start-ups since its creation in 1999. The best known include, among others, the bank account aggregator Linxo and the legal advisor Captain Contrat.
35 start-ups are currently hosted (for a maximum of 18 months) by the incubators that every year welcomes about 20 of some 200 candidate companies. “Our start-ups do not talk about the Luxembourg market spontaneously,” explains Gabriel Jullien, chargé d’affaires at the Parisian incubator. “However, it is an interesting ecosystem that certainly offers very good opportunities to a little more mature companies that want to take their first steps on the international level. Luxembourg is not very far away and is home to a number of players that are strongly outwards-oriented. It is an ideal test site.”
Pilot projects to be developed
The exchanges were thus intensive and showed natural affinities. “Our discussions continued with start-ups hosted on the Telecom Paris Tech,” says Jean- Michel Ludwig, Director Start-up Support & SME Performance at Luxinnovation. “We clearly identified an interest for developing pilot projects out of Luxembourg, particularly in the automotive sector.”
The three partners now wish to deepen the links and pave the way for start-ups from the incubator that want to enter the Luxembourg ecosystem.