PSL Tech Seed, a funding mechanism for technology start-ups at PSL University

In order to support technological start-ups, in their post-maturation or pre-seed phase, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced in June 2018 the creation of a French Tech Seed investment fund endowed with 400 million euros from the Investments for the Future Program. To benefit from this, start-ups must first be detected and evaluated by Business Leaders, certified by Bpifrance. The PSL Tech Seed consortium, led by PSL University and including Institut Pasteur, was one of the first winners and was labeled in January 2019 as a "business provider".

PSL Tech Seed system will be open to all PSL and Pasteur start-ups, in all disciplines and fields of application. It thus allows a leverage effect on the private funding obtained by these start-ups, with a major impact on their development.

To be eligible, start-ups must be:

• created less than 3 years ago;
• carriers of a technology-intensive innovation;
• having carried out in the last 3 months (or having in progress) a first fundraising of at least 25K € from informed investors;
• accompanied by certified business introducers or winners (from 2018) of the I-Lab competition or other national innovation competitions from the PIA.

The co-financing provided by Bpifrance is between 50 and 250 k€, it complements an equity contribution from one or more private investors, in a ratio of up to 2 to 1.

Applications submitted to PSL Tech Seed are evaluated by a selection committee, composed of independent experts, chosen for their knowledge of innovation, and the support and financing of start-ups. On the basis of a quarterly meeting, the board will decide on the advisability of presenting a project to the French Tech Seed fund on the basis of the files, the hearings of the bearers, and the evaluation reports provided by independent experts, specialists of the domain and / or market concerned.

Four projects have been certified by the PSL Tech Seed for co-financing by BpiFrance, two of which come from Institut Curie

• Honing biosciences: Secretions of cell-drugs for cell therapy
• Skiagenics: Biomarkers and genomic signatures for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer 

PSL Tech seed is an excellent opportunity for start-ups to accelerate their first stages of development and thus gain faster access to more substantial fundraising, or to the marketing of a product

 said Jérémie Weber, Head of the start-up pole at Institut Curie.