Lower Normandy’s incubator has just celebrated its 7th birthday. To date, the incubator boasts 23 created businesses and 120 new jobs. A review by its Manager, Laurent Protin.

7 years of activity in a few figures | A network of European experts | New skills | Young creator under incubation | “Benevolent support to the project”

7 years of activity in a few figures
• 39 selected projects, 36 of which were effectively coached, out of a total of 150 project initiators met (26 %)
• 19 projects resulting from public research, and 20 closely linked
• 7 projects resulting from an EP2I (Etape de Pré-Incubation et d’Innovation - Pre-Incubation and Innovation Stage)
• 23 businesses still active, one of which is in the open market
• 10 projects currently under active incubation
• 69 % project/business conversion rate
• 120 jobs created for 22 businesses; i.e. 5.45 jobs per business
• 25 theses presented
• 27 months - average incubation period

A network of European experts
Normandie Incubation is a member of the European incubator network NENSI (North European Network for Services of Incubators Interreg). Each member contributes its experience and its expertise to benefit the network. A NENSI guidebook entitled “How to build an incubator?” is due for publication in March 2008. This network offers project initiators a targeted opportunity to establish partnerships or commercial relationships with other European players.

New skills
Patrick Berenguer, project manager from 2004 to 2007, left Normandie Incubation last October. He was appointed Development and Industrial Relations Manager by the group HEC in Montreal. Consequently, since last November, Rina Andriamanalijaona has joined the Lower Normandy incubator. A doctor in biology, she studied towards her thesis at Caen University in the localised conjunctive tissue laboratory (CHU). Rina is currently preparing a Masters Degree in Business Administration at the Caen IAE.

Young creator under incubation
“A year full of encouragement!” Yanis Souami has just joined the incubator, well aware that the time has come to transform his idea into reality.
Trained as a halieutic engineer, Yanis Souami has taken full stock, at his very first professional experience, of the vast potential that exists for improving interactions between fishermen and marine mammals. “The first innovation in this field, is the ability to provide tailor-made solutions to meet specific needs. And that’s precisely what I have to offer: an approach and an analysis perfectly adapted to each situation, followed by the development of specific products.” His freshly created company, Sinay, officially launched on the 2nd of January, is firmly established within this niche.
The key to Sinay’s development lies in its official integration within the incubator.
“I had previously benefited from a helping hand to launch the product: winner of the Lower Normandy Défi Jeune (Young Challenge) and sustainable development prize. And last year’s OSEO-ANR competition, in the “Emergence” category, decisively established the project. Since my admission within the incubator last November, the project’s acceleration is evident. I have been offered constructive working conditions, a reimbursable advance of 40,000 Euros, I feel as if I’m being genuinely coached… And to top it all, the “allocation jeune créateur” (young creator’s allowance) of which I am the third beneficiary, provides me with a year’s salary. For the next 12 months, I need to work hard, make the most of all this encouragement and get the company’s turnover going!”
Just one small shadow on the horizon; banks have to date refused the personal loan required to buy a car to enable Yanis to go to meet his first clients. Making his way to see a fisherman in Quiberon by bike may well prove to be a hurdle… Even with increasingly improved and tailored support schemes, the paradox of young innovative technology business creation remains.
Yanis Souami- 06 86 53 94 06 - souamiyanis@hotmail.com

“Benevolent support to the project”
Following two years of incubation, the Zero to One Technology project is ready to go it alone and to enter into its precommercialisation phase.How can we objectively analyse the performance of a professional trader during negotiation and, at the same time, offer him suggestions for improvement? Philippe Hamel, associate professor specialised in marketing at the Caen University Technical Institute, and Jean-Paul Audrain, a lecturer at Caen University, both know from experience that tools for working on the operational phase of negotiation are far from abundant. The system they have developed within the incubator since December 2005 - along with their two associates, both PhD students in computer science, Pierre-Sylvain Luquet and Eric Faurot - is today opening totally novel perspectives in the sales sphere.
Within the studios of their new company, baptised Zero to One Technology, trainees are placed in real-life situations facing clients. Each player is filmed with a close-up view of his/her face - at a speed of 25 images per second - and images are then thoroughly scrutinised. Each and every variable, verbal or non-verbal, is measured by specially designed software, developed by Zero to One Technology, and aimed at highlighting the negotiator’s strengths and weaknesses, with complete objectivity. Thus, over a one-day session, the trainee faces a number of different situations and can concentrate on proposed improvements.
Concurrently to the precommercialisation of the Comscope system, Zero to One Technology’s management is targeting sales teams from all sectors of activity throughout France, with a priority on banks, insurance companies and the automobile industry. A specific tool for recruiting sales staff is also being developed, along with a training system for use in the sector’s higher education institutions.
Nevertheless, only 3 years ago, Philippe Hamel and Jean-Paul Audrain were feeling somewhat helpless and alone with their idea of developing a sales negotiation analysis tool. “We were looking for skills in the field of sound and image. If the project exists today, it’s thanks to the incubator, the Lower Normandy Regional Council and OSEO*. The incubator has offered benevolent support to the project, but it also severely tests it and we are regularly accountable. And when we succeed in transformingour ideas into reality, we know our presence there is not a matter of pure chance.” * Zero to One Technology has twice received support from OSEO and the Lower Normandy Regional Council: Precreation then post-creation by means of a reimbursable advance associated with the company’s innovation project.

After 7 years of coaching, covering some 36 innovative business projects, the time has come for a return on investment for Normandie Incubation. For the Ministry for Research, the Regional Council, the GANIL, ENSICAEN and the University of Caen Lower Normandy too. All of the above partners were already firm believers in economic development through research ⁽¹⁾ as early as the year 2000. By late 2007, the number of jobs created by companies leaving the Lower Normandy incubator had reached 120. The forecast for 2008 estimates some 160 jobs and a cumulated turnover for incubated companies of 8 million Euros.
“The incubator has reached a turning point. We can now see how the various investments in the projects are finally bearing fruit,” explains Laurent Protin, Normandie Incubation’s Manager. “Setting up an incubator 7 years ago was a genuine challenge. Today, not only have we gained the confidence of local authorities, but this type of structure has also proved that it is macroscopically viable. Next year, the wealth generated by businesses having developed within the incubator will exceed the public funding provided for their incubation.” The newly created companies are increasingly prosperous. For 2008 alone, their turnover will exceed that of the 7 previous years cumulated. And it is perfectly logical to suppose that the phenomenon will now continue on an exponential scale.

60% of the budget devoted to project support

A further advantage; the businesses now also have sufficient resources to begin reimbursing the advance they received upon entry within the incubator. This support, on average around 41,000 Euros, aims at financing the elements which guarantee the viability of this type of project: intellectual property, partnerships with research labs, market studies, marketing, purchasing of specialised software, development of prototypes… And if the project meets with success, the company can start reimbursing without, of course, jeopardising its development. In 2008, Normandie Incubation will, for the first time, register 40,000 Euros of income resulting from reimbursements from incubated companies. In other words, 6% of its budget.
“It is important to note that over 60% of our budget is devoted to project support. This is not always the case in similar structures,” highlights Laurent Protin. Since its creation in 2000, the incubator has itself expanded, its initial staff of 2 progressing to 5 employees today. Similarly, the incubator’s host surface area, devoted to welcoming project initiators, has grown from 90m2 to 500m2 in 2007. Thanks to renewed confidence and increased contributions from its key financial partners ⁽²⁾, the incubator has succeeded in its own development whilst maintaining a priority of project support.

A new recruit to offer commercial coaching

Although the incubator has reached a key phase in its development, it has not yet achieved its ultimate dimension. Feedback from each experience generates new ideas to improve the incubator and to become even more efficient in supporting project initiators, like the implementation of the EP2I plan (Etape de Pré-Incubation et d’Innovation - Pre-Incubation and Innovation Phase) in 2004 ⁽³⁾. “Next spring, we plan to recruit a new project leader devoted to commercial coaching, during and after incubation,” explains Laurent Protin. “This new service has been acknowledged by the SRDE ⁽⁴⁾ as a useful initiative for the incubator.”

Similarly, the previous budget enabled the incubator to monitor 5 to 6 projects per year. Its third convention d’objectifs (objectives agreement) for the 2007-2009 period, provides for support for a further 7 to 8 projects each year. Among the abundant development possibilities, the incubator plans to welcome innovative projects which, at least initially, will not necessarily be linked to public research.
The incubator unquestionably has many fine prospects and interesting challenges ahead. To start with, the possibility to improve business dispersal throughout the Lower Normandy territory. 77% of created businesses have, to date, been established in Calvados, a great majority of them in the town of Caen. “Improved business development in other Lower Normandy départements* will inevitably require more regional partners. We’re working on that!” highlights Laurent Protin (*more or less equivalent to counties).
Hence, two specific branch offices for the horse industry are due to be created at the Haras du Pin and in Dozulé ⁽⁵⁾. Projects aimed at offering closer links with the Alençon plastics hub and with aquaculture professionals in Manche are also underway. Not forgetting the close links which are gradually developing with competitiveness clusters. Eight incubated companies have now been certified by the TES cluster, one by the horse industry cluster and two by the automobile industry cluster. Furthermore, Mov’eo will become an associate member of the incubator in 2008.

Competitiveness clusters, breeding-grounds and business schools

Similarly, the time has come to bring the region’s breeding-grounds together: The emergence of the nautical incubator in Caen, due to open in May 2008, together with further incubators in Cherbourg, Saint-Lô and Alençon, without forgetting, of course, Plug n’Work whose official launch is scheduled next October. Aim: to work in synergy in order to offer the same services to project initiators and to help them to negotiate their departure from the incubator. Discussions are currently underway with public authorities for the creation of a seed fund to consolidate the fragile phase between departure from the incubator and the business’s first sales results. This new tool should see the light by the end of the year.
As for Normandie Incubation’s new contacts, the incubator should also be drawing closer to Lower Normandy’s business schools, in particular Normandie Management with which an agreement has recently been signed. Last year, students already worked on study missions, covering both marketing and legal aspects, on behalf of project initiators under incubation. The idea is also to select, each year, a Masters Degree student, either with a personal innovative business creation project or looking to join an incubated business project.
In the same vein, the general aim is to improve the balance between the projects’ technological sectors. With 15 projects in the ICT field and 14 in engineering science, the incubator is perfectly in line with the most highly developed centres of excellence within Lower Normandy’s laboratories. The life sciences, biotechnology and health have been honourably provided for with 9 projects supported over 7 years and two further projects ready to hatch. Nevertheless, diversification remains the name of the game. In particular, in the field of human and social sciences which, to date, have only generated one incubated project.
At the end of this consolidated assessment of the incubator’s first seven years of activity, Laurent Protin also highlights the importance of support from and the perfect working relationship with OSEO. “All of the created business have already or are due receive support from OSEO. The competition set up by the Ministry for Higher Education and Research to help innovative business creators has become, over time, a key added ingredient to the assistance we offer ourselves. Be it in the “Emergence” or in the “Creation-Development” category.” The confidence and the impetus generated by the different partners which are reunited around the Lower Normandy incubator are growing at the same rate as the structure itself. Normandie Incubation’s own gestation period is now a matter of history. The time has now come to perpetuate this innovative Norman body, whose results are already providing food for thought across mainland France.

(1) The GANIL, ENSICAEN and the University of Caen Lower Normandy are the incubator’s founding establishments.
(2) Ministry for Higher Education and Research, the European Union and the Lower Normandy Regional Council.
(3) Refer to Connexions n°23, November 2006
(4) Regional Economic Development Plan
(5) A national competition aimed at detecting innovative projects in the horse industry has also been created.

For further information: Normandie Incubation has recently revised its communication tools and its information system.
www.normandie-incubation.com

Quotations

Josette Travert, President of the University of Caen Lower Normandy
“The incubator has accompanied 39 project initiators since 2001, leading to the creation of 23 innovative businesses and 120 highly skilled jobs, including 25 young PhD graduates able to materialise their technological innovations. On the short term, these businesses should create 100 further jobs. Most of these projects, which are the product of over 70 collaborative partnerships between business creators and laboratories, are also the result of university research,hence bearing witness to its territorial foothold and its vitality.”

Eckart Thomä, President of the project selection committee
“The incubator has contributed to reinforcing applied research within Lower Normandy’s laboratories. It helps increase awareness among business creators of their projects’ economic demands and of the necessity to validate their feasibility. Finally, it brings together the specialists required to ensure project success and, more generally speaking, it provides a point of convergence for economic and scientific players.”

Sydney Galès, Director of the GANIL
“We have entered an era of knowledge economics. Our incubator is a fine example of a key link associating academic research and the economic world, via the creation of young and innovative start-ups. 160 jobs scheduled by late 2008 and 36 projects supported in less than 7 years have placed it among the best performers throughout France. Our region and its key players (political, research, university and economic) must now strive towards completing and developing this incubator, which is already a genuine success story!”

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