From Tech
to Deep Tech
Fostering collaboration
between corporates
and startups
Arnaud de la Tour, Philippe Soussan,Nicolas Harlé, Rodolphe Chevalier,and Xavier Duportet

Executive Summary

4

Introduction: Deep Tech Is the New Tech

6

• The Shift Has Begun• Specifics of Deep-Tech Innovation• Toward a Well-Functioning Deep-Tech Innovation Ecosystem• Methodology and Sample

Deep-Tech Startup Challenges, Needs, and Key Partners

7
8
8
10

11

• Challenges: Time-to-Market, Capital Intensity, and Technology Risk and Complexity• Needs: Market Access, Technical Expertise, and Business Knowledge• The Broad Scope of Corporate Collaborations• Preferred Partners for Funding, and the Role of Other Partners- Public sector: Funding and market access- Business angels: Funding and business expertise- Venture capital: Funding and market access- Universities: Technical expertise, talent, and access to facilities- Accelerators and incubators: Business expertise, talent, and access to facilities• Startup Needs, Based on Maturity and Market Readiness- Potential quick wins
- Demand bets
- Development bets
- Technology bets
- Different countries, different ecosystems [box]

11
12
13
16

Designing a Platform for Corporate Collaboration with Startups

23• Define a Clear Mandate• Adopt an Agile Environment and Involve the Business Units- Ensure lighter, faster processes- Set up adapted governance to ensure fast-track decision making- Derisk the technology before involving the business operationally- Give startups easy access to corporate resources- Adapt KPIs to track long-term results, with a portfolio approach- Foster the right mindset• Initiate a Win-Win Relationship• Move the Collaboration to the Next Level- Set up a partnership to reach specific business goals- Weigh the value of an exclusivity-based relationship- Leverage corporate venture capital to reach financial and strategic goals- Key questions for corporate partners• Create an Ecosystem Around Your Projects• Questions to Answer Before Building a Collaboration Platform

18

25
25

28
29

34
34

Scouting Deep-Tech Startups

36

Appendixes49- Appendix 1. Interview list
- Appendix 2. Definitions and descriptions of the nine technology readiness levels (TRLs)- Appendix 3. Specifics of the French ecosystemExecutive Summary
Technological innovation is not new.
Over the past decade, however, a powerful
wave of innovation based on digitalplatforms and apps has arisen and become
synonymous with the tech industry.
Investors and companies are now looking
for the next source of deep technologicalinnovations (deep tech), which will fuelthe next industrial revolution. Deep-techinnovations are defined as disruptive
solutions built around unique, protectedor hard-to-reproduce technological orscientific advances.
Deep-tech companies have a strong researchbase. They create value by developing new
solutions, not only by disrupting businessmodels. Because they are advancing thetechnological frontier, they face uniquechallenges. In a survey conducted by Hello
Tomorrow and BCG, and answered by morethan 400 deep-tech startups, the challenges
that respondents identified most frequently
included lengthy time-to-market (27%), highcapital intensity (25%), technology risk andcomplexity (17%), and yet-to-be-developed
commercial applications (14%).
To address the challenges, deep-techstartups need go beyond funding (which
80% of the startups surveyed ranked among
the top three challenges they faced) to such
issues as market access (61%), technicalexpertise (39%), and business expertise(26%).
To access the resources that they don’t haveinternally, they rely on several stakeholders,each of which addresses specific needs.
Such collaborations are especially importantfor deep tech since it lies at the crossroadsof fundamental research and industrial
application. For any company—and especiallyfor a young one—performing multiple,
very different tasks in-house can be quitedifficult.
Universities, the public sector, businessangels, and venture capitalists may havecrucial roles to play in the development of
deep-tech startups, but corporates—whether
midsize, large, or enterprise-size companies—
are the only potential partners that canmeet all of the startup’s needs, combining
technical, industrial, and commercial visions
and skills. That fact explains why 97%
of deep-tech startups are interested incollaborating with corporate partners. Simply
applying the same methods and thinking
that corporates and startups use when they
partner to develop digital platforms andapps, however, will not work. Corporates
need to take into account the specificchallenges and needs of deep-tech startups
if they are to establish mutually rewarding
relationships.
Instead of following a standard formuladeveloped outside the deep-tech milieu,
corporates should define a clear mandate
for the startup collaboration, creating afavorable environment that brings agility,
ensures buy-in from top management (tovalidate key decisions), and involves wholebusiness units. The collaboration platform
may be a dedicated function or a simple setof adapted processes and key performance4

indicators. In all such efforts, corporates
should follow a few key principles.
From the outset, both sides should betransparent about their objectives andshould involve R&D and relevant teams incommercial and operational efforts earlyon. Doing so will encourage the partners
to check project’s alignment with strategy,
avoiding disappointment and loss of time on
both sides.
The right partnership model to use in setting
up a deeper partnership with a deep-techstartup around R&D or commercialization
depends on the corporate’s operationaland strategic interests and on the startup’s
maturity. It is not possible to definea standard process capable of driving all
collaborations. Nonetheless, corporates needto assemble a specific array of qualifying
questions—and have a set of main successindicators in mind—before entering the nextstage of the relationship.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global
management consulting firm and the world’s leading
advisor on business strategy. We partner with clientsfrom the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors in
all regions to identify their highest-value opportunities,
address their most critical challenges, and transformtheir enterprises. Our customized approach combines
deep insight into the dynamics of companies andmarkets with close collaboration at all levels of theclient organization. This ensures that our clients achievesustainable competitive advantage, build more capableorganizations, and secure lasting results. Founded
in 1963, BCG is a private company with 85 offices
in 48 countries.

To support the startup financially or togain a seat on its board, corporates cancomplement the startup partnership withcorporate venture capital. If the goal issimply to get a deal flow or financial returnon investment, an option such as becoming
a limited partner in external funds might bemore suitable.
This report is the first in a series
examining the dynamics underlying
deep-tech innovation. The series will offer
practical recommendations on how tofoster interactions between the different
stakeholders of the ecosystem (startups,
corporates, VCs, business angels, universities,
the public sector, and others).
This report has been prepared througha partnership between Hello Tomorrow,a global initiative with a mission toaccelerate the deep-tech innovation
through accelerating the connections in theecosystem, and Boston Consulting Group,a global consultancy.

Hello Tomorrow is a global organisation which gathers
together a community of thousands of the world’s
brightest talents, who leverage science and deep
technologies to create a better future. Hello Tomorrow
initiates and propels collaborations between theworld’s most promising projects and leading
entrepreneurs, executives and investors, to bringbreakthrough technology to market. The annual
Startup Challenge and Global Summit, as well as
numerous international events all around the world,
have become a unique platform to connect local deeptech ecosystems with a global innovation network.

5

Introduction:
Deep Tech Is the New Tech

Technological revolutions are not new tothe world. Instances include the emergenceof the steam engine at the end of the 18th
century, railway and steel in the 1830s,
electricity and chemistry during the late
1800s and early 1900s, automobiles andpetrochemicals in the early 20th century,and information and communication
technologies (ICT) at the end of that century.
Digital platforms and apps that arose during
the ICT wave are so closely associated with
the innovation hype of the past decade thatthey are often treated as being synonymouswith the tech industry.
Today, however, the main potential of
platforms and apps involves their wider
dissemination, rather than additional radical
innovations. Consequently, investors arelooking elsewhere for “the next big thing”—
the enabling technologies that will be at theheart of the next industrial revolution, solve
major societal and environmental issues,and drive economic growth by improving on
current products and services, creating newmarkets, and reindustrializing developed
countries.
Unlike existing digital platforms and apps,
future “deep” technologies will advance thetechnological frontier. Deep-tech innovations
are disruptive solutions built around unique,protected or hard-to-reproduce technologicalor scientific advances.
Deep-tech innovations lie at the crossroadsof massive shifts in demand led bymegatrends (such as global climate change,
demographic shifts, resource scarcity, andan aging population) and scientific progress(such as the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas
microbial adaptive immune system) and are
impacting all industries. (See Exhibit 1.)

6

Exhibit 1. Heatmap of deep-tech innovation intensity in each industry

The Shift Has Begun-

reality, space, and drone companies raised a
combined $3.5 billion in equity financing in2015 compared to $104 million in 2011.³

Investors and corporate have alreadystarted to move toward deep tech. In 2016,
total funding in biotechnology reached$7.9 billion compared to $1.7 billion in
2011.¹ Investments in environmental
equipment such as recycling, remediation,and environmental cleanup, as well as insolid waste technologies have increased
from $100 million in 2009 to $416 million in
2016.² For their part, augmented and virtualCompanies that began as ICTs and digitalbusinesses are increasingly reshaping theirinnovation strategies toward deep tech,too. Google recently created Google Life
Sciences, now known as Verily. In addition,
Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, andMicrosoft created a partnership in artificial
intelligence research. Uber is implementing
its driverless car services, as are both Appleand Google developing ones.

¹ “Financing in Biotechnology,” CB Insights. Last accessed on December 6, 2016 at https://www.cbinsights.com/search/² “Financings in recycling, remediation & environmental, cleanup & solid waste,” CB Insights. Last accessed on December 14, 2016, athttps://www.cbinsights.com/search/deals/.

³ “The Future of Frontier Tech: Analyzing Trends in Drones, Space, and AR/VR Technology,” CB Insights, 2015. Available athttps://www.cbinsights.com/research-frontier-tech-report.

7

Facebook is also investing in Artificial
Intelligence, drones and virtual reality.
Accelerators that once had a narrow digital
focus are opening their doors to deep-techstartups as well. Y Combinator formerly
emphasized software-centric partnerships
with startups such as Dropbox and Airbnb;
but it is now incubating a commercial fusion
reactor startup and a startup that produceschemicals from natural gas. In fact, of the
192 startups included in Y Combinator’s 2016batch, 32 were from deep tech (including
nine in biotech, four in drone development,
and three in advanced hardware).¹

Specifics of Deep-TechInnovation
Companies today can start, test and scale
their solutions with fewer resources andconsiderably faster than ever before.
Deep-tech innovation also benefits
from technological advances that havesubstantially lowered the costs of startinga company. Even so, a deep-tech startup isslower and more expensive to get off theground than a digital startup, for several
reasons:• Strong research base: In deep tech,product development depends on
fundamental research and/or advanced
R&D, which require support from a strong
set of advanced skills, knowledge, andinfrastructure, and lengthen the products’
time to market.

• Heavy industrialization process: Asidefrom deep tech based on ICT, mostproducts in this field are hardware—often based on advanced materials andresources—requiring highly developed
industrial skills to procure, manufacture,and scale. Such products are much moredifficult to scale than products associatedwith internet and mobile technologies
tend to be.
• Large investment needs: The
infrastructure, skills, and resources
needed by a deep-tech startup require
substantial funding capacity over an
extended period.
• Yet-to-be-defined commercial
application: The end productspecifications may be undefined well into
the process. The blockchain developed
as a specific technological solution for
Bitcoin, for example, opened the door to a
new market in finance that its developers
did not foresee.

Toward a
Well-Functioning
Deep-Tech Innovation
Ecosystem
Research has established that innovation
depends on smoothly functioning innovation
ecosystems—combinations of people,
companies, infrastructure, and government
policies linked through informal and formal¹ “Y Combinator Companies.” Last accessed January 9, 2017. Available at https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/.

8

networks.¹ Collaborations are crucial to theconcept of Open Innovation, which—unlike
closed, in-house innovation processes—
requires that companies source andcollaborate with others.²
Open innovation is not a new paradigm.
Already a number of established companies
have created strategic partnerships witheach other to develop new, innovative
solutions.³ On the university side, techtransfer centers that seek to collaborate withbusinesses have almost become the norm.
The most notable rising trend, however,is the growing role of startups and theirincreasingly important collaborations withcorporates. Startups today bet on long-termand high-risk deep-tech innovation—such as
storage of information in DNA, or antimatter
propulsion—that used to be the prerogativeof public research. Collaborations between
startups and corporates began in ICT andbiopharma but are now spreading throughall industries. BCG’s report, “Corporate
Venturing Shifts Gears” (BCG article, April2016) noted that among top 30 companies
in seven industries, the percentage ofcompanies using CVC rose from 27% in 2010
to 40% in 2015. During the same period, thepercentage of companies using acceleratorsand incubators surged from 2% to 44%.
(See Exhibit 2.)

Exhibit 2. Use of CVC, incubators, and accelerators by top 30 companies in seven industries¹ See Victor Mulas, Michael Minges, and Hallie Applebaum, “Boosting Tech Innovation Ecosystems in Cities” (2015), available athttps://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23029, for a review of innovation ecosystems and innovation districts.
² See Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003).
³ See the review of different industry collaborations in Theresa Turner and Susanna Cros, Co-Business: 50 Examples of Business

Collaboration, 2013.

9

The role of startups in the innovation
ecosystem is increasing, especially within
the field of radical innovation. Collaborations
between corporates that tend to implement
incremental innovation and academic centersthat focus on radical innovation can becumbersome due to strategic misalignments.
Interviews conducted by Hello Tomorrow
and BCG indicate that collaborations withstartups offer a way to externalize the highrisks associated with implementing radical
innovation products, enabling corporates toinnovate faster and at far lower risk.
Collaborative ecosystems and open
innovation are crucial in deep tech. Thisis due to the aforementioned specifics ofdeep-tech innovation, which pose daunting
challenges for a young company. Becauseof those specifics, corporates and otherstakeholders need to apply new approaches
to the task of accelerating deep-techinnovation.
This report examines the dynamics ofdeep-tech innovation and provides practical
recommendations on how to foster
interactions between different stakeholders
in the ecosystem. The first section
addresses the challenges and needs faced
by deep-tech startups; the second focuseson collaborations between startups andcorporates, offering practical advice on how
to help ensure that these efforts succeed.

Methodology andSampleWe collected the data in two stages: firstfrom a survey of deep-tech startups, andsecond from in-depth interviews withdeep-tech startups, corporates, investors,
and support organizations.
As a first step, Hello Tomorrow and BCG
conducted an in-depth survey of deep-techstartups that participated in the Hello
Tomorrow Global Challenge.
This survey took place from October 1
through October 31, 2016. A total of 400
startups took part in it. Of these, 25% were
early-stage, 45% were middle-stage, and
30% were late-stage startups, representing
ten different sectors in more than70+ countries:• Aerospace• Air quality• Beauty and wellbeing• Artificial intelligence and data sciences• Energy• Food and agriculture• Healthcare• Industry 4.0• Transportation and mobility• Water and waste
The survey asked 50 questions about thestartups’ needs and challenges, as well
as about partnerships. Researchers thenconducted in-depth interviews with key
ecosystem stakeholders to learn their views
on and experiences with deep-tech support
and partnerships. (See Appendix 1 for a fulllist of the people interviewed.)

10

Deep-Tech Startup Challenges,
Needs, and Key Partners

Challenges: Timeto-Market, Capital
Intensity, andTechnology Risk
and Complexity
Based on the survey results mentioned
above, we concluded that startups’ mostcritical challenges involve time to market,
capital intensity, and technology risk andcomplexity. (See Exhibit 3.) Uncertain
commercial application and regulatory
framework are additional importantroadblocks.
The time to market that deep-tech startups
face is usually longer than that for otherstartups because their products are basedon a new technology that requires a longdevelopment time. For example, they may
have to conduct years of clinical trials inorder to turn a new molecule into a legal
drug.

experimentation and prototyping often relyon specific and costly equipment (such as a
DNA sequencing machine) that is not needed
in developing, say, a mobile app. Testing andscaling are also more costly for hardware
than for software.
Technology risk and complexity arise fromthe fact that deep-tech startups often use
technologies at a low technology readinesslevel (TRL, as defined in Appendix 2). After
proving a technology in lab conditions, astartup still faces a long road in turning it
into a demonstrated and tested solution.
Often, stakeholders in the ecosystem—
including many deep-tech startups
themselves—do not properly anticipate
the heavy demands on them. Half of all
deep-tech startup founders who thought
they would reach market in less than
three years now acknowledge that they
underestimated the time required.

The high level of capital intensity
arises not only from having to develop
products over extended periods, but also
from the expensive infrastructure. Early

11

Exhibit 3. Key challenges faced by startups

Needs: Market Access,Technical Expertise,
and BusinessKnowledge
Funding is the most important resource;
but market access, technical expertise, andbusiness knowledge are crucial, too, startups
say, when asked about the resources theyneed most. (See Exhibit 4.)

as crucial, 39% cited access to technicalexpertise and knowledge, and 26% named
business expertise. Although only 22% ofstartups listed talent acquisition as critical,
investors emphasize it when choosing
where to invest, and one-third of corporates
view it as one of the biggest challenges indriving innovation. As Appendix 3 details,
the perceived hierarchy of needs varies fromcountry to country. Moreover, as individual
startups move from one level of maturity to
the next, their needs change significantly.

Approximately 60% of the deep-tech startups
that we talked to identified funding as theirmost critical resource, and 80% ranked
it in their top three. But 61% of survey
respondents ranked market access(a distribution network, for example, oraccess to a database or customer base)12

Exhibit 4. Most critical resources

The Broad Scopeof Corporate
Collaborations
Deep-tech startups look for key resources
through their interactions with venture
capitalists and angel investors, universities,
accelerators/ incubators, government, andcorporates. On the deep-tech startups’horizon of needs, each stakeholder has a
specific role to play. (See Exhibit 5.)
Still, corporate partners can help startups
across the widest range of activities.

Startups view corporates as potential
funding channels, but they don’t consider
access to funding to be their primary appeal.
Rather, the high value that corporates haveto startups is due to their being the only
actor that combines technological, market,
and industrial expertise and capabilities,
which deep-tech startups need to gain as
early as possible but rarely possess in-house.
In cooperating with corporate, deep-techstartups are aiming for access to the market(via the corporate’s data, distribution networkor customer base), and technical expertise.
More than 95% of startups in the survey
wish to develop a long-term partnershipwith a corporate, and 57% of them havesuccessfully established one.

13

Exhibit 5.
Preferred partner
for each resource

However, about 25% failed to turn
discussions into real partnerships. (SeeExhibit 6.) The main obstacles to suchpartnerships include lack of confidence inthe technology and/or its maturity (which
can be addressed through efforts to clarify
the value proposition, application, or proof ofconcept), misunderstanding of the parties atthe outset (owing to insufficient alignmentof vision, or of business, knowledge, or HR
objectives), misalignment of timing andprocesses (complex and slow decision
process, or startups lost in the corporate
organization), lack of a high-level sponsor
within the corporate, or lack of buy-in frombusinesses.

Exhibit 6. 97% of startups are interested in a corporate partnership, and 57% have established one

15

Interviews revealed that establishingpartnerships is easier through indirect
recommendation at early stages becausethat arrangement enables both parties tobuild trust in the relationship by engaging infree discussion, without consideration of any
immediate commercial application.
Other stakeholders have more-specific areasof specialization and appeal.

Preferred Partners for
Funding, and the Roleof Other Partners
Deep-tech startups seek funding from awide range of stakeholders at different
development stages of the startup. Eachsource provides a different quantity offunding, is willing to take different typesof risks, and offers different resources in
addition to funding. (See Exhibit 7.)
Friends and family provided seed funding for
40% of the surveyed startups that raised lessthan €400,000 (approximately $430,500)
in equity funding, and the public sector
contributed such funding to 30%, with large
discrepancies between countries (from 45%
for French startups to 25% for US startups).
At the second stage, startups turntoward professional funders such as VCs,
corporates, and business angels: two-thirdsof respondents targeted them for future
funding. These sources bring businessintelligence, professionalism, network access,and credibility, along with larger amounts offunding. Business angels are known to accept
less mature (and therefore higher-risk)
startups.

Exhibit 7. Leveraged (previous) funding channels and targeted (future) funding channels

16

Public sector: Funding and market access
Deep-tech startups often seek government
support for initial funding, but less often formarket access. Yet the application procedureand potential benefits (besides financial
support) associated with public funding
contrast sharply with those of early-stagefunding alternatives such as angel investor
support.

Many angel investors actively advise young
entrepreneurs, too. As mentors and advisors
they provide valuable business knowledge,
and offer access to their networks.
Venture capital: Funding and market access

Although surveyed startups did not generally
view government as a go-to source of accessto markets, public policies can help shapelegislation and regulations that encourage
the market for innovations and advanceinnovation use in the economy overall,provided that the policies are adapted to thestartups’ business model and needs.¹
In many instances, governments also help
companies access the markets—throughexport support programs, for example.

In view of the high risk and massive
investment needs associated with deeptech, VC funding is a natural choice for many
startups. However, we found evidence of arecurring mismatch related to VC funding.
Among startups that have not received
any VC funding yet, 35% said that they
considered the possibility of misalignment
with regard to vision and objectives to be a
key roadblock to such partnering. Still, only
20% of startups that actually had received VC
funding experienced friction on the subjectof vision and objectives alignment. The
importance of transparency emerged as animportant issue in the survey.

Business angels: Funding and businessexpertise

Universities: Technical expertise, talent, andaccess to facilities

Angel investors are individuals who invest
in startups at an early stage, usually in
exchange for equity or convertible debt.
More than 20% of the surveyed deep-techstartups said that they had benefited fromangel capital, and 25% rated angel investors
as their preferred funding partner.

Deep-tech startups tend to view universities
as sources of tech expertise and talent, andto a lesser extent as places that provide
access to facilities.

As experienced entrepreneurs who have built
successful companies and want to remainin the scene, angel investors are familiar
with the field and may be especially good at
identifying potentially successful companies
at an early stage, having survived the ups
and downs of their own entrepreneurial path.

Universities have long pondered how toincrease the knowledge transfer from theirresearch. Today, the primary conduits aretech transfer centers; but universities canalso unite alumni with current students andresearchers. Accelerating those networks
and fostering interdisciplinary efforts canhelp ensure linkage between the university’s
expertise and people who are building
companies and looking for talent.

¹ See Innovation Policy Platform, “Innovation Procurement Schemes,” available at https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/content/
innovation-procurement-schemes; Elvira Uyarra, “Opportunities for Innovation Through Local Government Procurement” (NESTA, May 2010),
available as a PDF download at https://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/opportunities_for_innovation_through_local_government_
procurement.pdf; and NESTA, 2007, “Driving Innovation Through Public Procurement (NESTA, February 2007), available as a PDF download athttps://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/public_procurement.pdf.

17

Accelerators and incubators: Businessexpertise, talent, and access to facilities
Incubators and accelerators develop program
to help startups develop, in exchange for
equity or money. Incubators help startups
develop disruptive ideas into a businessmodel, while accelerators accelerate thegrowth of an existing company.
In interviews, startups identified visibility as
one of the main benefits of partnering withincubators or accelerators, especially famous
ones—a limited notion of their attractivenessthat may reflect a mismatch between
incubators’ value proposition and deep-techstartups’ specific needs. In the US, startups
prefer them across a wider range of activities(50% of startups for access to facilities, 30%
for talent, 25% for business knowledge, and
20% for technical expertise) than in France(50% for access to facilities, 30% for talent,
15% for business knowledge, and 5% fortechnical expertise).

Startup Needs, Basedon Maturity and Market
Readiness
We developed a framework to help potential
partners better understand the needs andchallenges of deep-tech startups, focusing
on two main dimensions: the technologicalmaturity of the startup, and the readiness ofthe targeted market.

As a deep-tech startup progresses from atechnology bet (with no product and noclear market) to a potential quick win (witha product ready for commercialization ona well-identified market), it goes throughdifferent stages of development, each with
its own resource needs and with a preferredpartner to best answer them.
To illustrate this journey, we can represent
startups on a matrix with two major
dimensions: technology or product maturity
and market readiness for the product ortechnology that the company is developing.
(See Exhibit 8.)
The maturity of the startup’s technology or
product, represented by its TRL, is of crucial
importance.² We can identify three mainstages: early, middle, and late. The early andmiddle stages are research stages (with theresearch focused on technology during theearly stage, and on the product and businessmodel during the middle stage).
The late stage is essentially an execution
stage. (See Exhibit 9.)
Market readiness reflects how close theproduct or technology is to commercial
application and how advanced its existingcustomer base is. To gauge market readinessaccurately, one must take into accountexpected customers but also external factors
such as regulation and industry trends.³
Our analysis divides market readiness
into high and low categories. High market
readiness exists when an established market,
surrounding infrastructure, and customer
base are already in place for the specifictechnology or product.

² See NASA, “Technology Readiness Level” (2012) at https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/engineering/technology/txt_accordion1.html.
Last accessed January 9, 2017.

³ We assessed a startup’s market readiness on the basis of its answers to two questions in the survey: “Is limited commercial application acritical roadblock?” and “Is market readiness considered as a key challenge?”

18

Low market readiness prevails when
the necessary market and supporting
infrastructure for the specific technology are
nascent or nonexistent,
and the customer base is limited.

Exhibit 10 provides descriptions of fourreal-world startups—two with a high levelof market readiness, and two with a low
level of such readiness.

Exhibit 8. Deep-tech startup archetypes

Exhibit 9. Startups maturity stages definition

19

Exhibit 10. Examples of high and low market readinessWe have identified four archetypes fordeep-tech startups of different maturity
and market readiness. These correspond to
the four possible combinations of the two
primary variables: late-stage maturity andhigh market readiness (“potential quickwins”); late-stage maturity and low market

readiness (“demand bets”); early- or middlestage maturity and high market readiness(“development bets”); and early or middlestage maturity and low market readiness(“technology bets”). As Exhibit 11 illustrates,
each of these four startup archetypes has
its own critical needs.

20

Exhibit 11. Critical needs of the four deep-tech startup archetypes

Potential quick wins
These are startups that have a commercially
ready product and a market that is readyto adopt the technology or product. For
such startups, the immediate challenge
is to scale up (to initiate large production
volumes, for example, or major PR andmarketing campaigns), and they need fresh
funding, market access, and talent. Among
startups in this class, 40% consider VCs
the preferred funding channel (versus 25%
overall). VCs bring more generous funding,which startups can use to scale up theiroperations. To develop the customer baseand the distribution network, startups
often turn to corporates, although only
25% of them expect to get funding outof this collaboration. They may expect toget visibility (25%) or credibility, businessknowledge, or technical knowledge (20%each).

Demand bets
These comprise startups with a productthat is mature enough to be launched butthat does not have a broad commercial
application yet. The main challenge forthese startups is to identify and create amarket for their technologies. The two key
roadblocks are lack of a distribution network(42% of startups in this class mentioned it
as a challenge, compared with 16% overall)and market resistance to change for (37%of them cited it as a challenge, comparedwith 20% overall). Besides funding, theirmost important resource needs are market
access (a customer base and a distribution
network) and business knowledge, for which
the preferred partners are, respectively,
corporates and VCs.

21

Development bets
These consist of startups that have identified
a market opportunity and defined a value
proposition, and are developing a technology
to deliver it, but have not created a marketready product yet. They are focused onaccessing technical expertise (critical forhalf of these startups, compared with 40%
overall) and overcoming technologicaluncertainty (expressed as critical by 25% ofthem). To obtain the technological expertisethey need, they consider collaborations
with corporates and universities; but lessthan half of such startups have actually
established partnerships with corporates(compared to 57% overall). Of thecollaborations that startups in this class did
establish, 60% were research partnerships
to share the costs and risk of R&D and toaccelerate the development of the productDifferent countries,
different ecosystems
Although the 400 startups that participated in our
survey do not exhaustively represent the deep-techstartup community worldwide, they do capture a few
trends associated with the types of businesses andtechnologies that have developed in different parts of
the world.

Technology bets
These are startups that have identified apromising (though not fully developed)
technology that as yet lacks a market
application. Their objective is to develop
a viable product and to ensure that it will
efficiently answer a market need. The twochief roadblocks that startups in this classface are long development time (a major
problem for 30% of them) and technologicaluncertainty (noted by 25% of them). Because
the attendant uncertainty makes funding
risky, the main sources tend to be universities
and public funding. Obtaining accessto corporate knowledge and support isrelatively difficult for this group of startups,
owing to the larger risk factor. Survey
participants from this class express stronger
needs on all dimensions. They need to turna technology into a solution for a problem,
and they need to develop a marketableproduct in order to reach the “potential quickwin” stage. This entails working on bothtechnology/product development and market
identification.

In the early-stage category, the US and the UK host adisproportionate number of startups that combine
developing technologies with high market readiness(40% in the US and the UK versus 20% in the rest of
the world). France, meanwhile, is overrepresented
by startups that have low market readiness. It thus
appears that France has been successful in facilitating
fundamental research and the creation of early-stage
startups, but has been less so in supporting the scaleup of those startups.

22

Designing a Platform for
Corporate Collaboration
with Startups

In recent years, corporate-startup
partnerships have become more numerous,
with mixed results. A survey conducted by
Mass Challenge and Imaginetic found that
50% of startups rated their experience ininteracting with corporates mediocre or
worse.¹
In this section we propose a set ofrecommendations to help corporates build
a framework adapted to collaboration withdeep-tech startups. (See Exhibit 12.)
We will go beyond generic suggestions
for cultural change (“bring a more
entrepreneurial mindset”) or communication(“send a signal of innovative company tothe ecosystem”) and focus on collaborations
that have a practical business goal (suchas turning an early-stage challenger into abusiness partner, or entering a new market
and business model by accessing external
specific skills and talent, or reducing R&D
cost or time to market).
This approach amounts to a long-term
journey that will improve incrementally, forcorporates that start small but continually

adjust and expand as they learn from earlier
experimentations. To enhance this learning
process, corporates should implement key
performance indicators (KPIs) and focus on
tracking results (such as number of proofs ofconcept co-developed), not only on actions(such as number of startups entering the
program).
The first step is to define a clear mandate
for collaborating with startups (A, in Exhibit
12). Once the objectives and R&D fields areclear, corporates need to develop their own
platform reflecting the relevant objectives
but also the internal resources and maturityof the organization, starting by creating an
agile environment and facilitating business
units’ involvement (B). The next step is toinitiate the relationship (C), emphasizing
from the outset the importance oftransparency on both sides with regard
to the objectives. At the next level, two
options are available: a partnership focusedon R&D or commercialization (D.1), or
investment through CVC (D.2). For thepartnership option, if defining a standard
process is impracticable, the corporate¹ See Imaginatic and Mass Challenge, “The State of Startup/Corporate Collaboration 2016.”
Available at https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1955252/SCC_2016/Startup_Corporate_Collab_2016_Report.pdf.

23

should identify key success factors for eachcollaboration stage before entering therelation or advancing to the next stage.
The CVC can turn the startup into a soundbusiness partner, and access publicly
unavailable information about the company
and the market. Finally, those collaborations

should aim to create an ecosystem and not
merely one-to-one relationships (E).
As for startup sourcing, many options exist
for accessing thousands of startups. The
more serious issue is how to cut through thenoise than how to access a large deal flow.

Exhibit 12. Framework to collaborate with startups

24

Define a Clear Mandate
To ensure sponsorship, it is important todefine the platform mandate so that it aligns
with corporate innovation strategy.
Companies interested in collaborating withdeep-tech startups must find an appropriatebalance between internal sourcing ofinnovation, using company’s own capabilities(R&D, internal idea contests, and innovationlabs) and external sourcing of innovation(including partnering with startups).
Four issues in particular need to beaddressed, through a mix of strong
leadership (to ensure consistency) anda bottom-up approach (to retain the agility
to adjust to unanticipated opportunities
on the field):• Innovation objectives from thecorporate perspective, which may
focus on one or more of the following:
strengthening the core business;
expanding into adjacent areas related
to current business; and exploring andpreparing for future entry into currently
unrelated business areas• Search fields and associated innovation
domain priorities• Maturity profiles of the startups that thecorporate entity wants to partner with(early stage, middle stage, or late stage)• Required resources (dedicated budget,
people, and so on) for delivering theplatform mission
Once the mandate objective is clear,corporates should develop a platform basedon this objective and on the existing internal
resources and maturity of their organization,
as to both hard aspects (such as processes
and KPIs) and soft, cultural aspects (such as
willingness to accept a solution invented
outside the company, to accept risk andfailure, and to collaborate with startups as
equals).

Adopt an Agile
Environment
and Involve theBusiness Units
Startup incubators (to help a startup identify
its business model) and accelerators (toaccelerate the startup’s growth) owe their
popularity in large part to the success of
Y Combinator and Techstars (founded in2005 and 2006, respectively); they reachedcorporate in the early 2010s. Successfulprograms in software companies such as
Microsoft helped spread the concept in thecorporate world as a way to engage withstartups, and today 44% of large companies
are using internal or external acceleratorsand incubators.
Corporate partners should be cautious,
however, about applying any turnkey
solution. The model works for large
international ICT companies that leverage
the scale effect of large batches of startups
following a similar development cycle,
requiring similar mentorship, and helping
each other. But the model is not suitable
for most companies, especially in the areaof deep tech, where different needs anddevelopment paths may prevent participantsfrom benefiting from the scale effect of large
batches.
Embracing a standard methodology may
also veil serious problems in need of fixing.
The better strategy is to focus on agility
and on engaging relevant people at the top
management, project management, andoperational levels. The optimal approachto take depends on your organization, yourobjectives, the number and profile of startups
you want to work with. You can delimit thisenvironment within your organization bytreating it as a special function. Alternatively,
the environment can be a set of transverse25

processes, KPIs, and identified pointsof contact for startups that also havedecision power, may be fully internal orrely on external organizations, and may
or may not operate in a coworking space.
Once in place, such a set-up can beleveraged as a place for “intrapreneurs”
to develop projects within the organization
but insulated from business-as-usual
processes and KPIs, and in contact withother entrepreneurs.
Ensure lighter, faster processes
To improve their interactions with small
and agile startups, corporates should tailor
their internal processes to handle more-agileinteraction, or they should create parallel
processes and dedicated staff so that the restof the organization can remain focused on

business units. The most important processes
to adapt are procurement (to register
startups as official suppliers, in order to pay
them faster, since cash flow is so critical
for them), legal (with the goal of signinga memorandum of understanding quickly,
to avoid burdening startups with legal
technicalities), and financial (once again,
to be faster).
Set up adapted governance to ensurefast-track decision making
Top management can oversee relationships
with startups when it has reached a criticallevel, to ensure that the framework aligns
with corporate goals and receives fullmanagement buy-in. (See Exhibit 13.)Engaging business—a critical task—
should be based on a network of identified

Exhibit 13. Examples of governance options for driving a program to collaborate with startups

26

and dedicated experts and champions
throughout the business who can serve
as project managers for the collaboration.
Immersion programs enable corporate
talent to work for innovative startups
temporarily. The startups benefit fromthe corporate participants’ knowledge ofstrategy, marketing, communication, andso on. Corporate, meanwhile, enriches
the curriculum of its young talent andfosters internal cultural change toward
entrepreneurship. Examples of such efforts
include Telefonica’s Open Future Programand Accenture’s Fintech Innovation Lab.
The ability to engage operational people
on top of their daily business KPIs promotes
the right level of commitment. Reviewing
HR policies to better take such specificobjectives into account within incentives(with no short-term profit-and-loss impact),
and to secure specific time slots for a target
population of managers is another positive
step.
Derisk the technology before involving
the business operationally
One aspect of insulating the deep-techstartup collaboration from business-as-usual
processes involves protecting the businessfrom the risk of the collaboration at its
earliest stage. One useful approach is to set
up a team to steer and derisk projects for adefined period without putting the wholebusiness at risk—until they can safely behanded over to the business.
Give startups easy access to corporate
resources
Corporate should identify the capabilities
it has that a startup can leverage throughthe cooperation (data, customers, network,business knowledge, facilities, mentors,
technical experts, cash flow monitoring,and so on), and when possible allow startups
to navigate relatively freely through these
corporate resources for a specific periodof time, under a protective data usage policy.
Besides helping a startup becomea potential business partner, giving it accessto internal resources can help spread anentrepreneurial spirit in organizationsand valorize sleeping IP, among otherpossibilities.
Adapt KPIs to track long-term results,
with a portfolio approach
Successful innovators use strong processes
to review projects in development andto ensure their timely completion. But
collaboration with startups requires different
processes and KPIs, and most corporates
struggle with this, especially when thecollaboration is tangential to the corebusiness.
The right balance between financial andstrategic metrics will depend on thecollaboration mandate and should reflect
the maturity of the startup (measuringknowledge acquisition in early technology
stages and financial impact in late maturity
stages). It cannot be 100% financial (suchan orientation would lose the innovation
objective) or 100% strategic (financial impact
must be considered at some point).
The KPIs should be clear from the outset,
and corporate should share the reportingwith the startup and within the company
through regular communication.
(See Exhibit 14.)
Foster the right mindset
Changing the hard side of the organization(governance, processes, and KPIs) is notenough. The culture and mindset of thepeople working with the startups mustchange, too, to recognize them as valuable
partners. Possibilities for fostering culturalchange (shared events, an ideas contest, anda mentorship program, for example) should
be discussed with the HR department
The cultural gap is different for every
company, but it makes sense to begin withan assessment of the current stage of themindset.

27

Exhibit 14. Examples of balance between financial and strategic metrics

Initiate a Win-Win
Relationship
Before structuring the relationship,
corporates should consider entering a lessformal relationship, with limited commitment
on both sides, leveraging the collaboration
platform so the startup can demonstrate its
potential as a business partner, clarify what
it has to gain in the partnership, and test the
team’s complementarity. This process should

function only as a temporary transition,
however. Clear, ad hoc milestones forassessing how and when to decide whether
further deepen the relationship should be
defined quickly, using a go/no go approachwith flexible timing. Several practices canbe very helpful:• Share a common objective. One major
pitfalls that both startups and corporates
report is the lack of transparency andalignment on a clear common goal fromthe relationship’s beginning, leading towasted time or painful renegotiations.
Both parties should be transparent about

28their real objectives, and if possible
they should jointly define the desired
endgame (who does what, who pays
what, and who owns what).
• Address IP rights and exclusivity
upfront. Ironing out who owns the IP,
whether there is any exclusivity, andso on, will establish the basis for a
successful future business relationship.
• Find short-term wins. Short-term
projects help parties quickly challenge
and improve the value proposition, test
the complementarity of the startup andcorporate teams when working in projectmode, and build momentum through ashort but intense period. It also helps
bring financial resources to the startup
prior to emergence of the final productand market.
• Agree on a common roadmap withclear milestones. Such a roadmap allows
parties to define together the mostefficient path to the common goal, andeach milestone offers the opportunity toconfirm or change the next milestone, go
to the next level, or stop the relationship.
• Review the target and roadmap
regularly. Agility is especially crucial
in exploratory relationships driven
by an opportunity (for example, bothparties want to explore the potential
applications of a technology) rather thana clear goal (for example, the corporate
wants to find a supplier for a specificproduct or service).
• Pay attention to startup cash flow. Bothparties must pay attention to cash flows.
We observed that many startups sankbecause of bad cash-flow planning.
• Design a suitable contract. The goal
is a contract that ensures alignment ofinterests and fair repartition of the value
created.

Move the Collaboration
to the Next Level
At some point the corporate and thestartup must decide whether to move thecollaboration to the next level to reachspecific business or financial goals, or stop.
The relationship should remain in the
dedicated “agile environment” unless thestartup is mature enough to function as anormal business partner capable of handlingbusiness-as-usual processes. Consequently,
the corporate should continue to apply
all of the key success factors discussed
previously.
Several types of partnerships can beleveraged to reach specific business goals,
each complemented by investment throughthe CVC arm to help the startup growthfaster, and to participate on its board.
(See Exhibit 15.)
Set up a partnership to reach specificbusiness goals
Corporates can set up partnerships withstartups that identify a clear businessgoal for both partners. The nature ofthis partnership generally depends on
the objective and on the maturity of thetechnology or product that the startup
is developing.
At the earliest stage, consulting services
allow the corporate to pay for R&D andto derisk the technology before engaging
further.
When the technology or product becomes
more mature, corporates can more easily
assign internal staff to work on productco-development, where the corporate andthe startup join forces with a dedicatedbudget, a clear time frame, and clear goals.
Other product development models include
R&D outsourcing (in which the startup

29

Exhibit 15. Most frequently used partnership for each deep-tech startup archetypedevelops a product for the corporate) andvalorization of corporate knowledge in thestartup (in the form of out-licensing, spinoff,
or intrapreneurship).

and accelerate its revenues. A licensing
agreement permits the corporate to license
the startup’s IP while selling the product,or the other way round.

At the most mature stage, when the productis ready to be sold, commercial partnerships
are possible. A procurement partnershipallows a startup to procure products andservices from within the corporate to meetparticular needs. Such a partnership canenable the startup to scale up and get thecredibility to convince other corporates
to work with it. A distribution partnershipis an arrangement in which the corporate
leverages its marketing capabilities,
customer base, and marketing power to
distribute the startup’s product or service,

Once again, it is not possible to define astandard format or process from go/no go to
end game that is suitable for all situations,but corporates should identify a framework
for collaborations at each maturity stage,
including a checklist to help validate go/no
go at each stage gate, and a knowledge andskills framework for each stage.
The illustrative framework in Exhibit 16 is atool to help decision making, not a standard
process. Corporates should fined-tune it toreflect their objective and capabilities.

30

Exhibit 16. Example of framework that can be developed to guide collaboration with startups

Weigh the value of an exclusivity-based
relationship
Many deep-tech startups cite exclusivity
as a major concern. An exclusivity-based
relationship limits the startup’s exposure toother stakeholders in the ecosystem, hurting
their chances for success. Evidence showsthat more connectedness—with regard to
number of clients and number of partners—
correlates with greater success. The bestpractice might be to introduce the startup’s
solution to other (noncompeting) corporates;
the knowledge that the startup gains fromthese other organizations will often benefit
the original collaboration.
In specific instances, corporates that choose
to pursue an exclusivity-based strategy
should be prepared to limit the reach of
the exclusivity agreement to a specificmarket or geography and period, to condition
exclusivity on collaboration milestones,
to offer startups specific and advantageousconditions in return for accepting this modeof cooperation, and to focus such request
on late-stage startups.
Leverage corporate venture capital to reachfinancial and strategic goals
Many people consider CVC the cornerstoneof corporate efforts to access externalinnovation, although startups more often
look to corporates for market access andtechnical expertise, than for funding. CVC
funding can occur internally through a CVC
fund or externally through investments
in a venture fund not directly tied to thecompany. Financial returns are an importantfactor in both approaches, but the two
options’ strategic benefits differ.
Besides supporting a potential business
partner, the CVC model can be a powerful
lever for aligning the strategies of thestartup and the corporate, and for obtaining
otherwise unavailable information about

31

the startup and its market by establishingan intimate relationship with the startup’s
management team.
By sitting on the startup’s board, thecorporate can influence its strategic
decisions. It is important that those decisions
support the startup’s development—toadvance the startup’s financial and strategic
value and to enhance the CVC’s reputationof the CVC, which will strengthen its ability
to attract the best startups and co-investors.
Investing in a startup and having a seaton its board enable the corporate tocreate a more intimate relationship withthe startup’s management team, whichbecomes a sparring partner and a source of
information unavailable to companies thatinvest in external funds but have no direct
relationship with the management board.
CVC investment can create corporate
involvement during the due diligenceprocess prior to the deal, and afterward, bygiving visibility to the partnership internally;
but this should not be the primary objective.
The external model does not require special
in-house capabilities and is more relevant
when a company would like to explore
opportunities in new spaces that it has little
knowledge about. The model can apply
to a broad range of deal flows involving
limited partnerships, with the opportunity
to diversify in several funds using the same
total investment that would have gone intoa single CVC fund. It also allows thecorporate to leverage experienced VC funds’contacts and develop close ties with VC firms
to quickly gain access to deal flow
and become visible in the VC community.
Our survey results indicate that the needs ofdeep-tech startups go well beyond funding.
As investors, corporates can play a key role inhelping startups develop a robust businessplan. The corporate investor trains a businesslens on the startup’s product and identifies

a sustainable model to monetize it. Beyond
that, corporate may combine CVC investment
with one of the partnership models defined
above.
Key questions for corporate partners
The central question from the corporate
perspective is, “How can we make apartnership work?” But a thorough analysisof the situation will entail addressing thefollowing questions as well:• What are our objectives with regard
to CVC?
Strategically oriented CVC and financiallyoriented CVC have different operational
goals. In a strategic orientation, CVC
investments reflect the corporate’s
strategic goal (develop the core business,
extend into adjacent activities, diversify
into a new area, or source innovation
externally). In a financial orientation,
the primary focus is a financial return on
investment, as is the case with traditional
VCs. A recent BCG analysis (“Corporate
Venturing Shifts Gears,” BCG article, April2016) found that, in a sample of 83 CVC
units from major companies, 66% werestrategy focused—although positive RoI
remained a prerequisite—and 34% were
financially oriented. The latter often
involve late-stage startups with provenproducts or scalable.
• Who defines search fields within thecorporate?
Search fields may be defined by the
corporate center or by the company’sbusiness units. Definition at the corporate
level is appropriate for focusing
investments on innovations that could
create new businesses or significantly
disrupt core business. Definition at
the business unit level, in contrast, isparticularly suitable when the objective
is to reinforce current business lines
or to develop adjacencies.

32• Which entity should be theorganizational home for the CVC
unit in a direct CVC situation?
Corporates can base CVC units at
different levels of the organization, mostcommonly strategy or R&D. Generally,
the department that hosts the CVC unit
should possess relevant technology skills
and market know-how in the search fields
of interest and should be able to ensure
close cooperation with business units andkey corporate functions. Exhibit 17
presents different examples oforganizational structures that include
a dedicated CVC unit.

• How many deals do we want to source?
CVC makes little sense if the goal is tosource only a few deals. The corporate
must adapt its resource allocationaccording to this ambition—bearing in
mind that BCG analysis of various CVCs
has determined that, of all businessplans received, only 0.5% reached theinvestment stage. At that rate a corporate
would have to screen about 700 businessplans to close three or four investments.

Exhibit 17. Organizational structures of leading corporations with dedicated CVC units33• Can CVC be a way to prepare for
future acquisition?
CVC investment can pave the way
for future acquisition from the M&A
department. The corporate may buildin special rights, such as right of firstoffer or right of first refusal, to secure an
option for future acquisition, but again
the corporate must be careful to avoid
jeopardizing the startup’s development,
and the CVC’s reputation. In particular,
it should not use its right of first refusal
to reject all offers for other companies.
On such issues, a strategic misalignment
between corporate and startups caneasily emerge.
• When and how fast should we integratea startup within the core business?
If the startup is at an early stage andthe corporate wants to buy only the teamor the technology, it can do so without
delay. If the startup is still at the stageof searching for or refining its productor business model, however, it should
stay independent in order to retain its
agility—a crucial advantage at this stage.
Integration into the corporate should
occur only when the startup has reacheda stage of development at which thecorporate processes and organization will
be not a hurdle, but a lever to increase
the speed and quality of industrializationand commercialization. The corporate
must assess whether to integrate thestartup gradually or quickly. Interviews
with different stakeholders suggestthat integration should proceed at an
unhurried pace, with due regard for thestartup’s level of maturity.

Create an Ecosystem
Around Your Projects
A corporate should not limit its relationshipwith a startup to a one-to-one relationship.
Making it part of a broader community
engagement with other startups, companies(not direct competitors), investors, suppliers,
customers, and scientists will help build aconnected ecosystem that can accomplish
several things:• Balance the risks in a portfolio of many
startups.
• Increase the platform’s visibility in order
to attract key actors (including startups,
investors, public authorities, and others).
• Get a better understanding of theecosystem through a broad scopeof technologies.
• Enable startups to help and mentor
each other.
• Propose a more complete value
proposition to startups that will help the
corporate attract startups from a broader
range of domains, geographies, and levelsof maturity.
• Acquire enough weight in the industry
to impose new standards.

Questions to Answer
Before Building a
Collaboration Platform
Corporates should assess their situation
carefully before committing to building
a collaboration platform. The following
questions, in particular, are important toconsider:• Do we have the necessary internal
capabilities and market experience to34

support our collaboration platform, orshould collaboration proceed externally?
Developing a structure internally requires
know-how, reputation, and market
experience. Many companies preferto partner with existing incubatorsor accelerators, or provide simple
mentorship. When defining its goals,
a corporate must be aware of theorganization’s internal capabilities andcultural mindset.
• Which function should oversee
collaboration with the startups?
The answer to this question shouldreflect the TRL of the startup’s productor service, and its proximity to the corebusiness. Collaborations with low-TRL(not mature) startups far from the corebusiness might be in a dedicated function
such as R&D or open innovation, while
collaborations with high-TRL (almost
market-ready) startups close to corebusiness should be in the business units.

that have decided to develop an in-housecoworking space have opted to locate
it in a widely recognized innovation hot
spot, such as Silicon Valley, London,
New York, Boston, or Tel Aviv, putting
them in close proximity to vibrant startup
ecosystems. Other corporates haveconsidered geographical closeness more
important and have concentrated theircollaboration and acceleration activities
near their corporate R&D units or withincertain target markets. This physicalproximity facilitates a closer relationshipand easier interaction between thestartups and the core businesses. Eitherway, corporates should make an effort tosource globally, to improve the quality ofthe startup’s pipeline.

• Should we have a dedicated physicalplace (coworking space)?
Whether to set up a dedicated working
space depends how close you want thecorporate to be with the startups. If thetwo entities’ interaction will involve
nothing more than a few meetings
per month, you don’t need a physicalplace, although a short but intense
collaboration period might be useful tocreate momentum and build cohesion.
If corporate and startup staffs need
to work closely together (for productco-development, for example), a physicalplace is important.
• If we decide to have a physical place,where should it be?
When deciding where to set up a physicalcollaboration space, corporates should
focus on two key factors: a location where
the company can source many and highquality startups, and a location near thecompany’s office. A number of corporates

35

Scouting Deep-Tech Startups

When the goal of startup scouting
is innovation monitoring, the central needis to transform a large amount of data into
valuable information.
On the other hand, if the goal is to find new
business partners, the crucial task is notto access a large deal flow but to identify
the right startup—developing a solutionthat meets a business’s or client’s needs
by combining with a good team, a proventechnology, and a level of maturity that iscompatible with the corporate’s objectives.
Corporates have numerous opportunities
to learn about emerging technologies
and to scout startups, although few focus
on identifying complementary deep-tech
options.
Own network: Connections with peers,investors, incubators, and startup networks
offer an excellent (and natural) way tolearn about the most promising projects.
Having a central role in the relevant
ecosystems boosts this natural deal flow,
and communicating your challenges andstrategic objectives
increases the value of your position.
Startup challenges: Corporates can organize
competitions of this sort internally or

externally. Organizing your own competition
may be a useful way to initiate a culturalshift and to target specific topics. But large
independent competitions will attract
many more startups, since they can connect
startups with many stakeholders and canbring additional benefits such as cash andvisibility for the winners.
Events: These comprise deep-tech summits,
research conferences, meetups, andvarious training and private events. Every
opportunity has its own unique mix offeatures.
• Deep-tech summits: These gatherings
have the advantage of bringing together
a wide range of actors. They facilitate
opportunistic encounters for corporates
interested in reflecting on the futureof their industry, and in widening theirperspectives by identifying emerging
trends. Given the many people,
organizations, and topics at these events,
it is important to prepare meetings inadvance to ensure meeting the rightpeople.
• Smaller and more personal events:
Events with fewer than 100 participants
tend to be more focused, which makes
them more accessible to early-stage

36

companies that are ready to share theirideas with a limited set of people.
Online platforms: Startup platforms andprofessional networks are useful for
identifying specific people and organizations.
But the information that most platforms
provide is automatically crawled on public
sources—and that information tends not to
be detailed enough to allow corporates togauge whether to invest time in meetingthe startup, especially in the case of earlystage deep-tech startups. Rarely will digitalconnections alone lead to landing a deal.
Scouting services: Some actors that organize
competitions or events offer scouting
services as well, leveraging their knowledgeof their ecosystem to match corporate needs
to the most relevant startups.
Corporates use in-out sourcing or out-in
sourcing to scout for new ideas and forstartups to collaborate with. Each method
focuses on events and locales adapted toparticular sourcing targets. (See Exhibit 18.)

Exhibit 18. Events and places that match different sourcing targets

Conclusion
Often corporates are eager to get a collaboration
program rolling as soon as possible. But developing
a smooth-functioning collaboration is challenging
and requires careful, methodical attention to proper
assembly. The best advice is to start conservatively
and focus on the core business needs of boththe startup and the corporate; this ensures teammobilization from the outset and enables theparticipants to improve the setup progressively andto explore new territory as the business evolves andmatures.

On the corporate side, major elements of the processinclude assessing the startup’s needs (including,crucially, the maturity and market readiness of its
product) and designing a platform for collaboration
between corporates and startups (including
adopting an appropriate mandate, establishing an
agile environment to deliver operational support,
ensuring business buy-in, and setting up a flexible
end-to-end approach to monitor collaborations).
Startups, meanwhile, must carefully assess the typeof collaboration that is most suitable to their stageof development, and must ensure that their culture
and that of their prospective corporate partner arecompatible during the immediate process and long term.

37About the autors
Arnaud de la Tour is vice-president
and co-founder of Hello Tomorrow.
Before, he completed a Ph.D. in thephotovoltaic industry, and worked for
2 years at the Boston Consulting Group.
Philippe Soussan is a Partner and Managing
Director of the Boston Consulting Groupin Paris. He is very active in BCG’s Financial
Institutions practice across Europe, inparticular in the Digital and Innovation
space.
Nicolas Harlé is a Senior Partner andManaging Director of the Boston Consulting
Group in Paris. He leads the FinTech andBlockchain topics globally, as well as thedigital topic for the Financial Industry inWestern Europe and South America.
Rodolphe Chevalier is a Principal in the Paris
office of the Boston Consulting Group. He’sa member of the Public Sector and Financial
Institutions practices. Before joining BCG,
Rodolphe spent 7 years working for the
French Ministry of Finance.
Xavier Duportet is a deep-tech entrepreneur,
CEO of Eligo Bioscience which he founded
during a PhD at MIT and INRIA, and Presidentof Hello Tomorrow. He received several
international awards including Forbes 30
Under 30 in Science and Healthcare and
MIT TR35. He is also a Senior Advisor on
Emerging Technologies for French Ministryof Economics and Foreign Affairs.

The authors would like to thank Lionel Aré,
Senior Partner and Global Leader of the
Financial Institutions Practice, BCG
Partners leading the Corporate Venture
topic (Axel Roos and Michael Brigl) and
BCG Partners leading the Innovation Topic(Michael Ringel, Andrew Taylor and Hadi
Zablit) whose insight has been a precious
source of inspiration. The authors would
also like to thank Laurent Acharian,Amine Benayad, Nabil Saadallah, Anis Kara,
Matthieu Saint-Olive, Audrey Marzouk,
Steven Grey and Maxence Vanheuverswyn.
A special thanks to Massimo Portincaso,and Dan Coyne for their contribution
and support.
The authors would also like to thank thewhole Hello Tomorrow team for their
awesome work building a communityof passionate talents worldwide, including
Guillaume Vandenesch for co-managing
Hello Tomorrow with Arnaud de la Tour,
Sarah Pedroza for managing Hello
Tomorrow’s international development with
Elliott Rogers, Baptiste Fevre for setting up
the annual startup competition with Edgar
Ke, Jeannette Boulanger for creating a uniqueexperience at the Hello Tomorrow Global
Summit, Ségolène Husson improving Hello
Tomorrow’s operations, Anne Reid handling
Hello Tomorrow’s communication, andNadine Bongaerts and all the ambassadorsand curators who develop Hello Tomorrow’s
network internationally.
A special thanks to Pierre-Alexandre Carrière
for helping us design this report, and Elina
Gaillard who greatly contributed to its
content.
Finally thank you to Hello Tomorrow’s
network of deep-tech entrepreneurs who
accepted to answer the survey.

38

Acknowledgments

BNP Paribas,
Worldwide Partner“The Bank for a Changing
World” BNP Paribas encourages
and supports innovation in
all its forms. Technologicalinnovations are changing theway we work and how ourclients work and we believe
collaboration and co creation
with start-ups is key. Financing
the real economy means
understanding the world of
tomorrow and anticipating
our clients’ needs, in a very
fast changing environment, toinnovate and deliver simple,
helpful and effective products
and sustainable solutions forthe future. As a bank, as also alarge tech company, we need to
extract from all that ecosystem
ideas and approaches. We

like entrepreneurs and weare delighted to be Hello
Tomorrow’s Worldwide Global
Partner, exploring innovative
solutions together and building
the world of tomorrow.”
Jean-Laurent Bonnafé,
Director & CEO of BNP Paribas GroupBNP Paribas is a leading bank in Europe withan international reach. It has a presencein 74 countries, with more than 192,000
employees, including more than 146,000
in Europe. The Group has key positions in
its three main activities: Domestic Markets
and International Financial Services (whose
retail-banking networks and financial
services are covered by Retail Banking &Services) and Corporate & Institutional
Banking, which serves two client franchises:
corporate clients and institutional investors.
The Group helps all its clients (individuals,
community associations, entrepreneurs,
SMEs, corporates and institutional clients)
to realise their projects through solutions
spanning financing, investment, savingsand protection insurance. In Europe, theGroup has four domestic markets (Belgium,
France, Italy and Luxembourg) and BNPParibas Personal Finance is the leader in39

consumer lending. BNP Paribas is rollingout its integrated retail-banking model inMediterranean countries, in Turkey, in Eastern
Europe and a large network in the westernpart of the United States. In its Corporate& Institutional Banking and International
Financial Services activities, BNP Paribas
also enjoys top positions in Europe, a strong
presence in the Americas as well as a solidand fast-growing business in Asia-Pacific.
With offices in Paris, San Francisco &Shanghai, its prospective vision andextensive experience in understanding thedigital economy, L’Atelier BNP Paribas is
strategically placed to help the BNP Paribas
Group and its clients enable their digitaltransformation. Part of the BNP Paribas
Group for more than 35 years, L’Atelier BNP
Paribas is unique by its open architecture
approach that extends beyond the banking
sector, and its presence in three major
geographical areas that are key beds forinnovation: Europe, North America andAsia. Drawing on its prospective vision andexperience, L’Atelier BNP Paribas actively
promotes public debate (website, newsletter,radio, TV) and help the BNP Paribas Groupand its clients navigate through their digitaltransformation. As part of its open innovation
approach, L’Atelier BNP Paribas recently
created the Lab which brings together
disruptive innovators, corporates, resources
and support networks to accelerate thespeed of innovation.

The Boston Consulting
Group, Global Partner
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a
global management consulting firm and theworld’s leading advisor on business strategy.
We partner with clients from the private,public, and not-for-profit sectors

in all regions to identify their highest-value
opportunities, address their most criticalchallenges, and transform their enterprises.
Our customized approach combines deep
insight into the dynamics of companies andmarkets with close collaboration at all levelsof the client organization. This ensures that
our clients achieve sustainable competitive
advantage, build more capable organizations,and secure lasting results. Founded in 1963,
BCG is a private company with 85 offices in
48 countries.

Bloomberg,
Global Partner
Bloomberg, the global business andfinancial information and news leader, gives
influential decision makers a critical edge
by connecting them to a dynamic networkof information, people and ideas. The
company’s strength – delivering data, news
and analytics through innovative technology,
quickly and accurately – is at the core of theBloomberg Professional service. Bloomberg’s
enterprise solutions build on the company’s
core strength: leveraging technology to allow
customers to access, integrate, distributeand manage data and information acrossorganizations more efficiently and effectively

French Tech,
Global Partner“French Tech” is the term used todescribe the French startup community:
entrepreneurs, investors, engineers,designers, incubators, public organizations,etc. committed to the growth of French

40

startups and to their international prosperity.
This community includes champions such as
BlaBlaCar, valued at €1.2 billion, and Sigfox
and Devialet, which respectively raised€150 million and €100 million in 2016.
The French Tech Initiative is an innovative
public policy created in 2013. It is not about
the government imposing regulations andlimits; it’s about the government supporting
the startup community. As part of thisinitiative, €200 million of public funds havebeen set aside for business incubators andaccelerator programs throughout France.
La French Tech is also about being open
to the world and welcoming foreign talent.
The French Tech Initiative has a strong
international presence via its 22 French Techhubs across the globe that bring together
French startup communities overseas. The
French Tech Ticket Program for international
startups looking to set up in France isanother example of this international
openness.
The French Tech Ambassadors Program
helps finance private projects, such as Hello
Tomorrow, that promote the French Techecosystem internationally. The influencers
behind these projects greatly contribute to
the recognition of the French entrepreneurial
dynamic beyond France’s borders.

Air Liquide,
Industry Partner“We are very pleased to beonce again an Industry partnerof Hello Tomorrow. This longterm partnership contributes
to better understand societal
trends and identify newtechnologies in the field ofenergy and environmenttransition, changes inhealthcare and digitization
with tomorrow’s champions.
This initiative, part of our Openinnovation approach, also
aims to further strengthen ourinteractions with startups andhigh-potential entrepreneurs toaccelerate our customer-centric
transformation strategy. This isalso a way to offer these startups our expertise and concreteuse cases to acceleratebusiness impact.”
Olivier Delabroy,Vice President Digital Transformation,founder of i-Lab, Air Liquide GroupThe world leader in gases, technologies andservices for Industry and Health, Air Liquideis present in 80 countries with approximately
67,000 employees and serves more than
3 million customers and patients. Oxygen,nitrogen and hydrogen are essential small
molecules for life, matter and energy. They
embody Air Liquide’s scientific territory andhave been at the core of the company’s
activities since its creation in 1902.
Air Liquide’s ambition is to lead its industry,
deliver long term performance andcontribute to sustainability. The company’s
customer-centric transformation strategy
aims at profitable growth over the longterm. It relies on operational excellence,
selective investments, open innovation anda network organization implemented by theGroup worldwide. Through the commitment
and inventiveness of its people, Air Liquide
leverages energy and environment transition,changes in healthcare and digitization, anddelivers greater value to all its stakeholders.

41Airbus,
Industry Partner
The “start-up 2 partner” team within Airbus
Corporate Innovation is looking to build
successful partnerships with SMEs inselected domains. It aims to support startups working on new developments ina number of industries in becoming valuablebusiness partners through a collaborative
approach. The idea is that these partnerships
will of course benefit both the start-ups
and Airbus.
Embedded within the company, the team ishighly connected to the business and bridges
the gap by leveraging a dedicated approachwith start-ups. It can facilitate de-risking
and acceleration of the start-up’s technology
using the company’s own prototyping
spaces and expertise. These relationships
provide new ideas internally and add
external capabilities. Moreover “start-up 2
partner” allows start-ups access to a global
network of airlines, suppliers and selected
partners. Internally, it also promotes new,more flexible ways of working thanks to its
exposure to an entrepreneurial culture.
The start-ups and Airbus businesses work as
partners rather than adopting a pure capital
investment approach. So how does this work,in real terms? The “start-up 2 partner” team
begins by identifying start-ups that showhigh growth high business potential. The
team steers the project from ideation to
implementation setting up a cross-functionalteam of dedicated experts and applying
an agile approach. The success of a project
depends on the early engagement of asponsor to ensure buy-in from the business.
Since its creation in 2014, the “start-up 2
partner” team has screened an impressive
600+ start-ups, elaborated 30 projects
and currently has 10 partnerships in theportfolio.

The team recently collaborated with a
Canadian company that was looking to apply
a disruptive nanomaterial technology for
cockpit windshields to prevent laser attacks
coming from individuals on the ground.
The solution has now been introduced to
selected airlines to accelerate its entry into
the market and Airbus’ intends to offer it asline-fit and retrofit option.

Butagaz,
Industry Partner
Established in 1931, Butagaz is a major
French player in propane and butane gas
distribution, and the only one in France toown a research and innovation center. A teamof engineers and technicians test, create andinvent solutions to better meet its customer’s
needs. Butagaz provides innovative gas
solutions for individuals, communities andbusinesses. Butagaz has been developing
since 2015 a start-up accelerator program,
Zagatub, focused on smart and innovative
comfort. Butagaz is part of DCC Energy
Group, the largest and most active suppliersof LPG in Europe, providing the highest
levels of innovation and services acrossEurope. In addition to LPG, DCC Energy
now supplies Natural Gas, LNG, Aerosol gas
and renewable energies such as solar andbiomass.

Carrefour,Industry Partner
Carrefour Group is the leading retailer inEurope and the second-largest retailer in theworld, employing more than 380,000 people

42with more than 11,500 stores in more than
30 countries. As a multi-local, multi-format,
and multi-channel retailer, Carrefour is apartner for daily life. Every day, it welcomes
more than 13 million customers aroundthe world, offering them a wide range of
products and services at fair prices. Carrefour
has been a pioneer in food quality for 25
years and is continuing its work with four
new initiatives.

Carrefour, a global partner for wellfooding
locally

1. A program to accelerate the adoptionof organic farming practices, working
alongside producers: as the leading
general distributor of organic products
in France, Carrefour is introducing a
program that will involve contractuallysetting volumes and prices for periodsof 3 to 5 years. This program will beapplied to 300 farms by 2020.

Groupe ADP builds, develops and manages
airports, including Paris-Charles de Gaulle,
Paris-Orly and Paris-Le Bourget. In 2015,
Paris Aéroport handled more than 95 million
passengers and 2.2 million metric tonnes offreight and mail at Paris-Charles de Gaulle
and Paris-Orly, and more than 55 million
passengers at airports abroad through its
subsidiary ADP Management. Boasting an
exceptional geographic location and a major
catchment area, the Group is pursuing its
strategy of adapting and modernising its
terminal facilities and upgrading quality ofservices; the Group also intends to develop
its retail and real estate businesses. In 2015,
Group revenue stood at €2,916 million andnet income at €430 million.

2. An agro-ecology support plan, withthe deployment of new lines of products
made from animals reared without
antibiotics and from plants grownwithout pesticides: following on fromits “antibiotic-free” chicken launched in2013, Carrefour is now extending thisinitiative to new veal and rabbit farms
in 2017. At the same time, Carrefour is
experimenting with doing away with all
chemical pesticides on new fruit andvegetable lines, such as apples, peaches
and nectarines and potatoes, continuingwith the work it has been doing since2015 on tomatoes, kiwifruit, broccoli
and strawberries.
3. The introduction in 2017 of thefirst certification process for animal
well-being in France, working in
partnership with an independent
organisation, farmers and NGO Welfarm.
4. The introduction – for the first timein retail – of blockchain technology,
used to enable traceability of its animal
product lines, guaranteeing consumers
as much transparency as possible.

Groupe ADP,
Industry Partner-

As part of its “Connect 2020” strategic plan;
The ADP Group deploys its capacity forinnovation through a comprehensive andambitious program: “Innovation Hub.”
Today airport cities are nodes of connections
between passengers, airlines, employees, andterritories around a community.
In this context, the new challenge airport
cities face with, is to develop an efficient
ecosystem to imagine, draw and decline what
the airport of the future might look like.
Leveraging on its massive experience, the
ADP Group thus offers young innovative
companies, an exceptional territory,
expertise, visibility and financing capabilities.
The “Innovation Hub” program now embodies
this challenge of transformation and43

competitiveness by putting into perspective
the open innovation process carried out
since 2010.
This has led to the implementation ofprojects such as automatic luggage
drop-offs, a comparator service for transportmodes, and the digital mobile tool PRIMA,
which allows operational teams in the aiportto go ahead Passengers to inform them.

L’Oréal, Industry
Partner“Attending Hello Tomorrowonce was enough to convinceus, because we found an
attitude there that matches
our own: to innovate you haveto cultivate interdisciplinarity
and convergence. Encouraging
early-stage start-ups to design
inventions that are going tochange the world, by adopting
a less conventional line, creates
an area of freedom for boththem and us.
The fields that interest us
are those that will define thecontours of a different kindof beauty – fun, effective,
surprising and respectfulof cultures, people and theenvironment. A vast field that
ranges from systemic biology
to colour via augmented reality,
machine learning, connected
sensors, intelligent materials

and respect for water andbiodiversity. Everything that isbeautiful and makes someone
beautiful while doing good.
We are committed to
introducing the notion of
ethics very early on in our
relationships with start-ups.
There’s even a special section
for them in our Ethics guide,with three key words:• Respect for start-ups• Transparency about theaim of the partnership• Integrity in how we behave”
L’Oréal Research and Innovation teams
L’Oréal has devoted itself to beauty for over
100 years. With its unique international
portfolio of 34 diverse and complementarybrands, the Group generated sales
amounting to 25.8 billion euros in 2016
and employs 89,300 people worldwide. As
the world’s leading beauty company, L’Oréal
is present across all distribution networks:
mass market, department stores, pharmacies
and drugstores, hair salons, travel retail,branded retail and e-commerce.
Research and innovation, and a dedicatedresearch team of 3,870 people, are at thecore of L’Oréal’s strategy, working to meet
beauty aspirations all over the world.
L’Oréal’s sustainability commitment for 2020
“Sharing Beauty With All” sets out ambitious
sustainable development objectives acrossthe Group’s value chain. www.loreal.com

44Michelin,Industry Partner
Michelin, the leading tire company, isdedicated to enhancing its clients’ mobility,
sustainably; designing and distributing themost suitable tires, services and solutions for
its clients’ needs; providing digital services,
maps and guides to help enrich trips andtravels and make them unique experiences;and developing high-technology materials
that serve the mobility industry.
Headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand,
France, Michelin is present in 170 countries,
has 111,700 employees and operates 68
production facilities in 17 countries which
together produced 184 million tires in 2015.
(www.michelin.com)

Roche,
Industry Partner“Roche recognizes the greatvalue that startups havein the healthcare sector.
Since this is a particularly
challenging sector to enter, wehave developed a mentoring
program. This program isprovided to support startups
by giving them accessto experts in a variety ofbusiness units and the startup
remains independent of theorganization. In return, theRoche mentors are provided
with opportunities to learn

more about how entrepreneurs
function and valuable
exposure to the innovation
ecosystem which supports anentrepreneurial spirit within
our organization.”
Padraic Ward,
President of Roche France SAS
Roche is a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals
and diagnostics focused on advancing
science to improve people’s lives. The
combined strengths of pharmaceuticals anddiagnostics under one roof have made Roche
the leader in personalised healthcare – astrategy that aims to fit the right treatment
to each patient in the best way possible.
Roche is the world’s largest biotech company,
with truly differentiated medicines inoncology, immunology, infectious diseases,
ophthalmology and diseases of the central
nervous system. Roche is also the world
leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissuebased cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunnerin diabetes management.
Founded in 1896, Roche continues to searchfor better ways to prevent, diagnose andtreat diseases and make a sustainable
contribution to society. The company also
aims to improve patient access to medical
innovations by working with all relevant
stakeholders. Twenty-nine medicines
developed by Roche are included in theWorld Health Organization Model Listsof Essential Medicines, among themlife-saving antibiotics, antimalarials andcancer medicines. Roche has been recognised
as the Group Leader in sustainability within
the Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology &amp;
Life Sciences Industry eight years in a row by
the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI).
The Roche Group, headquartered in Basel,
Switzerland, is active in over 100 countries
and in 2016 employed more than 94,000

45

people worldwide. In 2016, Roche invested
CHF 9.9 billion in R& D and posted salesof CHF 50.6 billion. Genentech, in the
United States, is a wholly owned memberof the Roche Group. Roche is the majority
shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical,
Japan. For more information, please visit
www.roche.com.

Safran,Industry Partner
Safran is a leading international
high-technology group with three corebusinesses: Aerospace (propulsion andequipment), Defence and Security. Operatingworldwide, the Group has 70,000 employees
and generated sales of 17.4 billion euros
in 2015. Working independently or inpartnership, Safran holds world or European
leadership positions in its core markets.
The Group invests heavily in Research& Development to meet the requirementsof changing markets, including expendituresof more than 2 billion euros in 2015. Safranis listed on Euronext Paris and is part of the
CAC40 index, as well as the Euro Stoxx 50
European index.
Established in 2015, Safran Corporate
Ventures is the Group’s corporate venture
capital arm. It funds startups that havedeveloped breakthrough or disruptive
technologies or business models which
will help Safran to address the challengesof the aerospace, defense or security markets.
This new entity clearly reflects Safran’s
corporate strategy based on innovationand transformation.
Safran Corporate Ventures will help agile,
innovation-driven companies by funding
their growth. These companies will also
benefit from:• Access to an international network ofleading technology experts in Safran’sbusiness sectors.
• The global commercial and industrial
reach of Safran companies.
• Commercial and development
agreements to be implemented between
such startups and Safran’s own entities.

Sycomore,Industry Partner
Innovation. But what for? In ourconnected world - undergoingprofound changes, shaken up
by digitalisation, challenged by
the environmental and energy
transition, and with ever wideningsocial inequalities - innovation isa matter of survival. We all agree.
But what is the purpose of thisinnovation?
The intensity and diversity thatcharacterise the spirit of the Hello
Tomorrow initiative naturally
lead to a key question: what arethese innovations all about? Not
all innovation is good. We canno longer assume that “what I
undertake or what I do with mymoney has little bearing, since I
help to keep the economy going”
in a Schumpeterian cycle ofendless creative destruction. We
now know that GDP growth isa poor indicator for measuring
improvement in welfare, but is46

rather accurate in assessing thepace at which we use natural
resources, destroy the biosphere
and weaken the climate.
Therefore selecting or adjustinga start-up company’s mission,or defining a fund’s investment
strategy, becomes a founding act.
The societal and environmental
impact of a project, of aninvestment, is now a fundamental
issue – whether the company has
been recently launched or is alarge publicly listed corporation.
It is our job to question thereal advantages provided not
only to the clients but also
to society as a whole (users,
residents, employees, suppliers…)
and to the environment, fromthe very first euro we invest.
If there are no benefits for the
stakeholders, there can be no
success, no purpose and no point.
In this respect, the impact of
the business model on humanand natural capital provides ameaningful perspective, perfectlyaligned with the interests of thecapital providers.
Jean-Guillaume Péladan,
Fund Manager - Head of Environmental
Investments & Research and alumni
BCG 2001
Founded in 2001, Sycomore AssetManagement is an entrepreneurial
investment firm majority-owned by
its founding partners and employees.

Specialized in the analysis of European
stocks, Sycomore AM is a key player in the
responsible investment sphere. Rated “HighStandards” by Fitch Ratings since 2008,
Sycomore AM manages 5.5 billion euros inmutual funds and segregated mandates,
among which 30% in Sustainable andResponsible Investment strategies.

WDS
Aligned with Hello Tomorrow’svalues and mission, We Design
Services (WDS) shares its
passion to make innovative
ecosystems thrive. This reportbrings closer corporates, deep
tech startups and investors
by using strategic knowledge
gathered from the Hello
Tomorrow ecosystem andcontributors. Resulting in acollaboration framework that
better aligns such diverse
stakeholder’s intentions andobjectives, the report is a step
forward to better designed
collaborations. The great andchallenging journey from an
idea to a commercial successof a breakthrough innovation
won’t happen without an
extensive empathy between
those forward thinkers allneeded to bring tomorrow
to life.
Christophe Tallec,
CEO of WDS

47

Founded in 2015, WDS is a multidisciplinary
team that puts the talent of engineers, PhDs
in innovation management, designers anddomain experts all invested in clients andpartner’s ambitions.

BPI
The Public Investment Bank (BPI) is a public
group in the service of the financing anddevelopment of companies, and acts insupport of the policies implemented by theState and the Regions.
The Group’s corporate purpose is to:• Promote and support innovation,
particularly in the field of technology, andto contribute to technology transfer; and• Promote the development and financing
of small and medium-sized businesses.

48

Appendixes

Appendix 1. Interview list

Appendix 2. Definitions and descriptions of the nine technology readiness levels (TRLs)

Technology readiness levels (TRLs) are the components of a measurement system invented by NASAin 1989 to assess the maturity level of a particular technology. There are nine technology readinesslevels, TRL 1 being the lowest and TRL 9 the highest.

49

50

Appendix 3. Specifics of the French ecosystem

51

Contact
arnaud.delatour@hello-tomorrow.org
soussan.philippe@bcg.com

52