Very active in supporting entrepreneurs, the Greater East region, for the third year, has supported a pool of 12 companies incubated within its radius at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
by: Silicon Luxembourg
photo: Région Grand Est
featured: Syslor’s team at CES 2020
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Out of the 300 French companies present at the CES (a figure that is decreasing since they were 420 in 2019), 12 startups in Metz, Nancy, Reims, Meuse region and Strasbourg made up the Grand Est delegation. They gathered at the Grand Est regional stand under the FrenchTech label within Eureka Park, a space reserved for startups selected by the show’s organisers.
Three of them (Myfood, Vivoka and Divacore) took part under the Business France banner, a delegation of 19 handpicked national companies. Myfood installed a connected greenhouse, a system allowing urban permaculture on small spaces, on the stand. Vivoka, a specialist in voice recognition, presented its new AI system dedicated to the high-end hotel industry and the Voice Market platform for which it won an Innovant Honoree Award (to be distinguished from the Innovant Awards Best Of Innovation, which at CES is a rarer commodity). Divacore, the first startup from Lorraine, to have crossed the doors of Las Vegas 3 years ago and the manufacturer of ultra-mobile audio solutions (speakers, headphones and wireless high-tech headphones) presented a marvel of miniaturization: Antipods, the latest generation of wireless headphones which react to the voice.
How were candidates selected?
A call for tenders launched in April via the regional incubator network Semia, CCI International Grand Est to university laboratories and the public. Successful candidates were relatively mature companies who were ready for global development.
How much does it cost to attend the CES?
The Grand Est region covers the representation costs (on-site coaching and stand) for an estimated amount of 4000€ but travel, accommodation, and costs related to the delivery of demonstration materials remain the responsibility of the companies. For a 2-3 person startup, going to the CES in Las Vegas will cost roughly 20,000€. In total, the Grand Est region has allocated 58,500€ to support the CES 2020’s business delegation.
Great East, Land of startups?
The Greater East has roughly 180,000 companies (including 5,500 innovative high-tech companies) and 6 competitiveness clusters focused on biotechnology and life sciences, mobility and vehicles of the future, green technology and sustainable buildings, the water sector, agro-resources and the bio-economy, materials and industrial innovation. Startups are incubated within the Incubateur Lorrain (Nancy) or SEMIA (Strasbourg), the flagship incubators of excellence in the Grand Est region. Some bear the Lorn’Tech label, the Lorraine version of the FrenchTech label, such as Bliiida (Metz), Quai Alpha (Epinal) or Thi’Pi (Thionville).
AI at the heart of pan-European initiatives
Last June, the Greater East region adopted a plan aimed at creating cross-border synergies and competitiveness for “AI” skills in companies. This plan is part of a wider European initiative, in conjunction with Germany (Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate), Walloon Belgium and Luxembourg, to federate companies and academia and create a European valley of Artificial Intelligence.
The 9 startups present on the Grand Est pavilion at CES 2020 were:
- MOON uses artificial intelligence to help diabetic patients on a daily basis via a real-time medical telemonitoring platform.
- KWIT is developing an application to stop smoking based on games and behavioural and cognitive therapies.
- BEEGIFT offers a tool for analyzing purchasing behavior in cities in order to generate gift vouchers.
- GOWORK&CO offers a prepaid pass to digital nomads and teleworkers for meeting spaces and a range of other exclusive services.
- TRANSCHAIN offers a B2B blockchain solution to digitize processes in industry via a tool called Katena.
- SYSLOR is developing an augmented reality solution for visualising buried networks (electricity, gas, water, etc.) to enable the detection of anomalies (public works, military engineering, local authorities, etc.).
- PASSCARE has designed an exportable application for individual medical data, in the form of a virtual health record.
- CYBERDETECT develops the cyber security software GORILLE based on morphological analysis, a breakthrough technology in the field of anti-virus (binary code analysis).
- THE EUROPEAN INSTITUTE OF ANTIOXIDANTS has designed a digital platform that works with the first biomolecular sensor detector.
