Communities are like icebergs.
Most of the time, you only see the same emerged parts.
It’s only when you dive under the surface, that you realise their true size.
Unfortunately, during the past year, this has been our relationship with many of you.
But if you are reading this, it means that you are part of our community, and you always will.
We never forget that you are there, and that there are way more of you out there than what we see every day.
And so, thank you, for your support and for paying attention.
It’s a new year. Time to recap.
But can we do a yearly recap while avoiding excessive navel-gazing?
In that case, the right question shouldn’t be:
“Was 2021 successful for us?”
but rather:
“Are you happy with what we did in 2021?”
You are an essential part of what we do, so you deserve to be the judge.
Let’s start with the basics.
The Challenges of Growing Broader
If you were there last year (read the 2020 recap if you weren’t) you know that the past years have borne great change for us, and this year did not disappoint.
But simply speaking, in 2021, we did more of the same.
Emphasis on more.
Always more founders to support 👨👩👧👦
Having to say “no” to startups we would have liked to support is always frustrating.
This is why we always strive to grow, to support increasingly more founders and companies.
And so here are the milestones we reached in 2021:
181 startups went through an Incubateur HEC Paris program over the past year
(There were only 105 in 2020)74 of these startups have female founders (41%)
(Only 30 were in 2020)130 of these startups are for or with impact (72%)
(Only 59 were in 2020)42 of these startups originate outside of France (23%)
(Only 14 did in 2020)
152 startups are currently enrolled in one of our programs as of January 2022
Increasingly mature companies 💪
Most of us that work in supporting startups do it to leverage our impact on the world.
Which is why the scale of the projects we support matters.
Of course, funding rounds are not the best proxy for success and impact of a company, but still, they are the sign of something changing…
26 of our startups have raised funds this year
(Compared to 20 in 2020)€265M were raised through their combined rounds
(Up from €142M in 2020)
What does that entail for us? 🎯
Any scientist will tell you, a simple model is the best one.
We are simple people, so to support more, we need more.
And so we grow.
Whipping the secret sauce 🤝
Again, we are simple people, which is why we work on connecting together smarter people than us.
And to that end, the lifeblood of our ecosystem is the many men and women that share their time and expertise with our founders, tirelessly.
589 experts are now actively part of our network today
(They were only 356 in 2020)Sadly, only 179 of them are female (30%) - yet
4651 Office Hours were delivered to our incubees in 2021 thanks to them
(Up from 1852 hours in 2020)47 webinars were organised with industry experts and founders
(After doing 11 in 2020)
Doing more of the same is well and good, but is it enough?
Our Responsibility to Help Change the World
By essence, Incubateur HEC Paris has always been a generalist one, but these are changing times.
As HEC Paris, we are committed to building a better word, socially and environmentally; and, being a research and education institution, we believe that part of our role is to help and support the bringers of change.
And so we sought the changemakers.
7 partnership startups programs were carried out or launched in 2021, in addition to our regular one.
Each of them with a goal to change an industry, or to change the entrepreneurial ecosystem itself.
Changing the material world 🛠️
Building the cities of tomorrow - Urban Odyssey with Icade 🏗️
Our cities are one of the biggest footprints of the human species, and so we need to fix them.
Since 2020, we have collaborated with Urban Odyssey to support startups providing new ways to live and work, as well as more sustainable ways to build and maintain our infrastructures.
Diversifying our mobility solutions - Afriquia 50 Sprints with Akwa 🚴
For decades, we have lived in a magical world. Where gas-powered transportation was cheap and without consequences.
Now we need to rebuild all our assumptions about the way to move people and goods, both at the local and at the global scale.
Improving our food system - Accelerator with Hectar 🥕
Our food system was cut from the same cloth as our transportation system. Yields increasing and workers decreasing, thanks to the same ubiquitous oil manna.
To start healing soils, we need to rethink entire food value chains, from more sustainable farming to committed brands.
Transforming the cosmetics industry - Beauty Tech Atelier with L’Oréal 💄
The cosmetics industry has long suffered from many of the flaws of the CPG industry, with opaque value chains, and complex formulations, unintelligible to the users.
A new generation of brands is now transforming the industry to bring about a more inclusive, responsible and transparent beauty of the future.
Changing entrepreneurs 🙏
Improving the state of female entrepreneurship - WomenEntrepreneurs4Good with Women’s Forum 👩💻
Across all countries, Women are still underrepresented in entrepreneurship, and even more so on the tech and startup scenes.
Programs such as WE4G work on equipping women entrepreneurs with unique resources and capabilities to innovate and grow businesses.
Breaking socio-economic barriers to tech - FrenchTech Tremplin with La French Tech 🐓
Entrepreneurial talent can and should come from anywhere in France, regardless of socio-economic background. But too often, aspiring founders are held back by structural obstacles such as funding, training or networks.
French Tech Tremplin is an initiative that aims to identify aspiring entrepreneurs from tougher backgrounds and welcome them into the French Tech ecosystem.
Making the French ecosystem more international - Korea Startup Center with KISED 🤖
COVID-19 closed a lot of borders. While borders and continents were - almost - only lines on maps before, ties between Europe and Asia have suffered.
The KSC program aims to build and strengthen bridges between Korean and France by supporting local expansion and softening founders’ landings.
Bonus: another industry transformation program is in the works, stay tuned! 🔮
Of course, our time and energy are limited, and therefore, by opening these doors, we implicitly closed others.
Have we chosen wisely?
If you believe that the topic on which we should have focused all of our energy is missing from our list, tell us!
We don’t mind increasing our burden, when others are joining to help us carry it.
We could have stopped there, but we didn’t.
Our Dream Job Doesn’t Exist Yet
The trade that we ply is new.
And so our job changes, often.
Sometimes the change comes from the outside, and we adapt to it.
But sometimes we decide to build and shape it.
And so this year we started exploring, and learned new jobs.
Designing New Spaces 📐
Real estate is dead, and work in 2021 is all about going remote, right? Wrong.
Was there any better context for us to launch a new site in Paris?
Well, maybe… But we still did.
And so last summer saw the launch of our new location in Bastille: an entire building dedicated to Incubateur HEC Paris, scale-ups, and startups.
Building a Content Factory 🎥
Metaverses are not there yet, but if you want to be relevant, you need to be visible.
And for that, you need content.
Since we like to delve deep into our topics, we build a studio, HEC Records.
Many formats will be coming soon, stay tuned!
Advising Accelerators 👨🏫
Bringing change to an industry is a tall order.
But when we are not able to carry out an entire new program, it is always fulfilling to contribute to the creation of an ambitious project.
And so it was extremely rewarding to collaborate with Future4care, a joint venture between Sanofi, Orange, CapGemini and Generali, who have joined forces to create a unique open-innovation ecosystem in Europe to accelerate e-health.
Sharing our knowledge and know-how creates a stronger and more diversified ecosystem, from which we will all benefit.
Supporting Corporate R&D ⚗️
We have been supporting independent founders for more than a decade, but it’s difficult to argue that most of the IP created today is done within big corporations’ R&D departments.
Therefore, we are now starting a collaboration with Jacquet Brossard and with Alstom to explore the opportunities that arise when a strong IP is paired with a startup methodology.
Only after we achieve something do we realise how much ignorant we were before.
However big our plans for the year to come are, there is much that we don’t know yet.
And there is more that we don’t even know that we don’t know.
But as always, we will ask you.
For each of our ideas, you have been many to answer to share feedback, time, knowledge, or network.
So the least we can do is strive to be worthy of more of the same.
Emphasis on more.
Happy new year 2022.
Judge us. Shape us!
In your "Judge us. Shape us!" article, its interesting that you open talking about 'communities' and then do a vertical dive into corporatizing innovation and startups using traditional business language, hierarchy, and structure. Why is that? The future of innovation will come from communal network flows and not business pyramidal frames. My thoughts. I am building an innovation community network, so give me a shout if you'd like to talk.
VicDesotelle@gmail.com
MythicDesign.us (community innovation project)