Banque Populaire Next Innov Prize: the finalists take center stage!
On Monday May 31, the 10 startups still in the race for the 4th Next Innov Prize took part in a remote pitch session with a dedicated group of panelists.
Shortlisted from more than 200 applications (up 86% compared with 2020), the candidates were given an opportunity to defend their innovative solutions in fields as diverse as HR, legal affairs, marketing, and business administration. They had just a few minutes to present their projects and convince the members of the selection panel comprised of market players and partners with considerable legitimacy in the innovation ecosystem: BpiFrance Innovation, Pramex, Seventure, Ticket For Change, Time for the Planet, Raise Lab, etc.
Champions of the future
Launched by Banque Populaire in association with the French startup magazine Maddyness, the Next Innov Prize has brought to light a great many BtoB startups since the competition was first launched a few years ago. Thanks to the support provided by the prize, some of the young companies have gone on to become true market champions. Examples include that of IPaidThat and Andjaro, winner of the 2nd Next Innov prize in 2020. IPaidThat, which provides a solution to simplify corporate accounting, has doubled the number of its employees and tripled the size of its customer base since taking part in the competition. Andjaro, winner of the first prize in the 2019 Next Innov competition, has already raised a significant amount of funds this year (13.4 million euros) and become a benchmark player in its field: personnel management.
Expensya, winner of the 1st prize in the competition’s very first year in existence for its expense report management solution – which, by the way, has already been adopted by the central institution of Groupe BPCE – completed a round of fundraising in May 2021 for a total of 20 million euros after initial fundraising of 4 million euros with Seventure. We could also mention Plast’if, a company developing machines designed to recycle the waste produced by employees and to transform it into spools for 3D printers.
Next stage: the public vote
This year once again, the public will have their role to play by voting between June 14 and July 5, 2021 on the website www.prixnextinnov.com. At the end of this 4th edition, three prizes will be awarded to the winners in three different categories: ‘internationalization,’ ‘public vote,’ and ‘impact.’ The names of the winners will be revealed on September 13th at an event organized in the premises of RaiseLab, a brand-new innovative working space designed to foster collaboration between startups and large corporations.
In the meantime, click here to discover the identities of the ten finalists!