Finalists of the EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs / Fondation Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires competition!

Through its competition, the Fondation Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires has rewarded three innovative EDHEC start-ups who demonstrated the strength and originality of their projects, as well as the motivation and capacity of their future CEOs to create and develop a company.

“We support our entrepreneurs at a very early stage, as soon as the idea emerges: we then coach them towards successful project implementation. The three successful start-ups in this competition reflect the creativity and diversity of our EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs” (Jean-Michel Ledru, Director of the EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs incubator).

The Fondation Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires supports regional economic development by backing projects capable of creating value and local jobs. The foundation is aware of the actions of the EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs incubator and wanted to team up with EDHEC for its business plan competition: “Coup de Pouce Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires”. 

First prize: ZATS ME receives €10,000
Arthur Hirel, 20 years old, is currently on a gap year from the EDHEC Masters programme and being incubated in Lille. The money received from the Fondation Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires will be used to develop Zats Me, an application to manage address books and exchange contact details in a way that is quick and easy.

Second prize: MELLO PLOT receives €6,000
Chanthavy Tan, 25 years old, holds an MSc in Corporate Finance from EDHEC Business School. She is being incubated in Paris, where she has launched Mello Plot, an application that allows users to listen to musicians nearby and to match up with them for new musical encounters. 

Third prize: SMART EAR receives €4,000
Sébastien Llorca, 23 years old, graduated from EDHEC with a BBA in 2015 and is being incubated in Nice. He created Smart Ear, which provides deaf and hearing impaired users with a technological tool that captures the various sounds in their home, transcribes them and communicates them to the user via their mobile phone or auxiliary device.

A total of 7 entrepreneurs were selected for the final and yesterday delivered their business pitches to a jury made up of representatives from EDHEC Young Entrepreneurs and the Fondation Le Roch-Les Mousquetaires, as well as two EYE beneficiaries: Youness Lemrabet, founder of Everysens and the 2015 winner of the competition, and Laurence Thiebart, whose project Loïse is in incubation. 

The finalists were as follows:

• BeeShary, a knowledge exchange platform founded by Clara Baglione and Houda Behidji, EDHEC BBA graduates (2013)
• My Keeper,a community designed for mutual aid and security that relies on a mobile application and a series of connected objects, founded by Nicolas Demarchez, who graduated from EDHEC Business School in 2016 with an MSc in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and his associates
• Smart Pap, the first application to offer private lessons on demand, founded by Vincent Babin, an EDHEC Masters student on a gap year, and three associates
• MIP Robotics, a start-up that aims to bring robotics to the general public by offering affordable tools that are easy to use. It was founded by Gonzague Gridel, who graduated from EDHEC in 2008