EDHEC welcomes five new start-ups to the Act for Impact programme

During this introductory day, the entrepreneurs first had the chance to converse with the programme’s different partners. They met the teams from BivwAk! - BNP Paribas’s innovation hub, set up to foster connections between start-ups and the group’s various centres of expertise - Act for Impact - BNP Paribas’s initiative that has been providing banking and non-banking solutions to impact-driven companies since 2014 - and EDHEC Entrepreneurs  - EDHEC Business School’s network of incubators. They were also welcomed by Station F, the world’s largest start-up campus and host to the programme.

Entrepreneurs engaged with major societal issues

All in all, five start-ups were selected for this fourth annual Act for Impact intake. Each of them presented their project during the introductory morning.  

Colec focuses on equipment re-use, by making it easier to collect unused electrical and electronic equipment. Fluide deals with the issue of water quality through a filtering system for individuals. Fuzed supports the energy transition by providing infrastructure that combines solar production and electric vehicle recharging. Maa Biodiversity is working to protect biodiversity by developing forestry projects. And lastly, Sonaid is seeking to improve personal safety via a technology that uses sound signals to detect emergencies, particularly following falls.  

Despite their widely varying focuses, all these start-ups share a point in common: they are developing positive-impact solutions that satisfy the criteria demanded by the programme. All start-ups joining the Act for Impact programme have to demonstrate their ability to provide a concrete response to a societal or environmental issue, and possess a minimum viable product (MVP) tested with initial users and which shows the first signs of being adopted by the market.

Multiplying opportunities

The 12-month accelerator programme fosters synergies between the respective ecosystems of BNP Paribas and EDHEC Business School. Among other opportunities, the start-ups have the opportunity to exchange with BNP Paribas’s business-line experts and to take part in conferences, forums and networking events, while also having access to certain products and services developed by the bank. 

On the EDHEC side, the start-ups can exchange directly with the School’s network of experts and mentors, embracing alumni, MBA students and representatives of EDHEC’s corporate partners, and can also contribute to learning projects involving students and professors. Equally, they can take part in numerous events organised by the EDHEC Entrepreneurs incubator, the incubator’s network partners and the School. By anchoring the start-ups within two complementary networks, the programme accelerates their development and multiplies their opportunities for visibility and growth.

Bespoke support

The entrepreneurs also benefit from bespoke workshops tailored to their development needs, as well as customised support from two Programme Managers. The workshops can be designed for concrete issues such as choosing the right tools, establishing pricing strategy, incorporating artificial intelligence, organising human resources or preparing pitches. Other workshops are devoted to accelerating growth, notably through strategic diagnosis sessions designed to help the start-ups define their development priorities. Lastly, several modules are focused on measuring and evaluating the social and environmental utility of the start-ups’ projects, by identifying the main ESG issues, defining monitoring indicators and assembling an effective discourse for presenting the results obtained to partners and investors.