The future of farming is here 🚜
Climate change is transforming production, and animal welfare is a key focus in building a sustainable future. Let’s spotlight startups working towards this mission with the 9th cohort of HECTAR!
Technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, driving massive changes in our society and daily lives. But another undeniable shift is happening: our climate is changing. 🌍
It’s no longer something we can sweep under the haystack. That’s why it’s our responsibility to adapt and redefine how we grow, harvest, and distribute food.
Fortunately, some visionary entrepreneurs haven’t waited for the alarm bells to ring before tackling this challenge. Whether through smarter farming technologies or sustainable agribusiness solutions, this month shines a light on the undeniable impact startups are having in shaping a future where agriculture is not only more productive but also eco-conscious. This week, we’re putting the spotlight on the dynamic world of startups joining HECTAR and their crucial role in the field of agriculture. 🌱 🚀
The 9th cohort of Hectar is here!
In partnership with the Incubateur HEC Paris, Hectar presents 4 innovative projects that are redefining the future of agriculture, blending technology and sustainability to tackle the challenges of tomorrow!
Do you know HECTAR yet?
HECTAR accelerates the transformation of agriculture by supporting startups and projects that foster sustainable farming practices, innovation, and education to tackle the challenges of food production and climate change. Since its creation, Hectar has identified 2,400 startups, supported 71 of them, and contributed to raising €50 million in just two years. 📈
BioAZ 🐖
Revolutionizing Animal Welfare in Meat Production.
BioAZ is a startup committed to reducing animal suffering through an innovative solution to assess meat quality. In non-castrated male pigs, hormones cause "boar taint", an unpleasant odor during cooking that makes the meat unfit for consumption. Many countries still rely on painful surgical castration to prevent this. However, BioAZ offers a new solution: a single painless injection.
Founder: Romain Delcombel
👉 Follow the company
Leafy 🌿
Precision Diagnostics for Sustainable Farming
Leafy develops rapid diagnostic tools for agriculture, helping detect crop diseases and resistances with precision. Their solutions use advanced PCR technology to support farmers in choosing appropriate treatments, reducing pesticide use, and fostering sustainable farming.
Founders: Carole Bloës and Patrice GUIOSE
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Innofenso 🐞
Natural Solutions for Pest Control
Innofenso offers natural alternatives to synthetic pesticides by using beneficial insect cocktails to protect crops from pests. Their approach promotes sustainable agriculture by leveraging natural predator-prey relationships to reduce chemical pesticide reliance, ensuring safer and healthier crop production.
Replacing synthetic pesticides, Innofenso offers a mix of beneficial insects to protect crops from pests.
Founder: Christophe Vasseur
👉 Follow the company
Osiris Agriculture 🤖
Meet Oscar, the New best friend for farmers
Osiris Agriculture has developed an autonomous robot that optimizes irrigation, fertilization, and crop protection for potato and vegetable farmers. Their solution secures yields, reduces environmental impact, and helping farmers better manage their time and resources like water and energy.
Founders: Henri Desesquelles, Léon Guyard, Rodolphe Cockenpot
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Kanop: Building Sustainable Partnerships
Kanop has announced a partnership with Cecil, a leading platform that simplifies access to nature data for analysis. Cecil’s mission is to streamline nature data workflows, helping teams integrate environmental data into sustainability strategies. This collaboration will make nature data analytics more accessible, empowering organizations to gain critical insights for carbon markets, sustainability reporting, and conservation efforts.
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Discover Accessi+
With 90% of websites lacking accessibility compliance, Accessi+ fills this critical gap with comprehensive digital accessibility solutions. But the best person to talk about it is still its founder. Discover Adina Teleuca now!
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Zephalto: A stratospheric journey
On october 11th, Zephalto achieved a historic performance with our latest flight ascending to 6000 meters in a pressurized capsule lifted by a reusable hydrogen balloon.
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Discover Vikit.ai
Video is one of the most powerful media, but also one of the most complex to produce at scale without breaking the bank. 💸
Fortunately, Vikit.ai is here!
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Incubateur HEC Paris: our new Program Lead 🔥
"Better Call Tarik" 📞
Tarik is an entrepreneurship enthusiast who doesn’t bother with half-full or half-empty glasses… he’s all about filling it up 100% 🥛
With a rich background in startup studios and fundraising consulting (Series A and B), he’s now hopped on his bike to join the Incubateur HEC Paris and manage our historical program.
👉 Discover his profile
How can large corporations effectively adopt AI solutions? ✨
Incubateur HEC Paris organized a new DoersToDoers at STATION F, in partnership with Capgemini, Microsoft, and Fnac Darty.
Collaborating on an AI project with a large corporation offers a valuable opportunity for a startup, but it’s crucial to keep a few key considerations in mind :
Having strong internal sponsors and owners on both sides is crucial.
Adhering to legal, regulatory, cybersecurity, and operational standards is essential and non-negotiable for contract approval.
It’s essential to involve the client’s technical team from the start of the project.
Demonstrate the real value the startup brings to the client.
Are you excited about contributing to an innovative space tourism company, creating unforgettable experiences for explorers? .
Join Zephalto
Do you want to be part of the next generation of hearing care services?
Join kesako
Are you ready to gain hands-on experience by working with founders transforming the fashion industry?
veeton
The Customer is King: When Users Redefine Product Usage
The series of photographs by Tomiyasu Hayahisa, capturing a ping-pong table used for everything except playing ping-pong, beautifully illustrates how an object can be reinterpreted by its users. This table becomes, by turns, a resting place, a play area, or a perch for animals, symbolizing how people appropriate an object based on their real needs, regardless of its original function.
Similarly, an entrepreneur may design a product or service with a specific intention, but once launched on the market, it is the users who determine its true utility. This situation underscores the importance for entrepreneurs to listen to their market and remain flexible. Instead of stubbornly imposing a specific use, it is often wiser to observe how users naturally interact with the product and draw insights to evolve it.
Concrete examples illustrate this phenomenon:
• Play-Doh: Transformed from a wallpaper cleaner into children’s modeling clay after users discovered its playful potential.
• Post-it Notes: An initially ineffective strong adhesive led to the creation of widely used repositionable notes.
• Instagram: Shifted from a complex geolocation app to a platform centered on sharing photos with filters, in response to user preferences.
• TikTok: Designed for short musical videos, it became a platform for a variety of content thanks to user creativity.
• Pinterest: Evolved from an online product catalog to a visual inspiration board for personal projects, adapting to how users actually utilized it.
“Every time I made a decision that was best for the planet,
it turned out to be the best decision for my business”
Yvon Chouinard
(founder of Patagonia)
