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Female Founder Challenge
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00:00Good morning everyone!
00:02Welcome to the 7th edition of the Female Founder Challenge at Vivotech.
00:07Yeah!
00:09Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:11I'm Jeremy Navin, I'm the founder of TeachMyStartup
00:14and I'll be your host for this ceremony.
00:17So excited to be with you to celebrate female entrepreneurship here at Vivotech.
00:22Seven years ago, Vivotech and FifteenTech
00:27decided to join forces in order to launch the Female Founder Challenge.
00:32And today, in 2025, we're here for the 7th edition at Vivotech.
00:36Okay? So exciting!
00:38And to tell you more about this award,
00:40I'm glad to welcome and stage my dear friend, Olivia Hervie,
00:44Chief Ecosystem Officer at Vivotech.
00:47Olivia Hervie, everyone!
00:55I guess we're... Ah! It's working now. Thank you, Jeremy!
00:59Thank you all for being here. I'm super happy to be with you today.
01:05At Vivotech, supporting women entrepreneurs has always been very important to us.
01:12As, of course, you know, female founders are underrepresented among startup founders.
01:19And unfortunately, things are not moving as much as we would like.
01:25If we look at some data from last year, especially when it comes to funding,
01:32like, you know, because the number of female founders is growing.
01:36But if you look at funding, there is still a huge, huge gap between female funding companies
01:43and male-funded companies.
01:46If you look at some data from last year, female-funded companies received only 20% of VC funding globally.
01:57But if you look at a female-funded company only by women, this number drops to 1% only.
02:07So there is, like, a big, big urgency for all VC funds, and not just a few, to commit for
02:13a more gender balance.
02:15And so this is the reason why we are doing this, to urge VC firms to commit,
02:20and also to access, to help access to financing for female founders.
02:27So if we come back to this challenge, this year we received nearly 600 applications from 88 countries.
02:37So this is definitely a global challenge, a global startup competition.
02:43And before leaving you, I'd like to say a few thanks, of course, to our sponsors.
02:49For this, Mazar, Ailey, Baba, and GC Deco.
02:53And also to our two knowledge partners, for this, Mazar and Iris.
02:57They are our knowledge partners.
02:59So meaning that, you know, they have been through all the selection process
03:04and all the applications to make a top 30 finalists, and to choose with the jury the five finalists who
03:11will be pitching today.
03:12So good luck to the finalists. You know, you are amazing. You are already winners, for sure.
03:17And thank you, Jeremy, for doing this with us today.
03:22I'm glad. Thank you.
03:23Thank you. Olivier Harvey, everyone. Thank you.
03:27Okay, so now, it's my great honor to welcome on stage our sponsor.
03:32Please join me in giving them a big round of applause for Sylvain Freon,
03:38Partner and Executive Committee Member at Forvis Mazar.
03:42Cindy Hsiao, Executive Director and CEO of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Found.
03:48And Isabelle Marie, Director for Strategic Project, User Innovation at GC Deco, France.
03:53Welcome. Please take a seat.
03:56Cindy, yeah, please just here. Thank you.
04:00Hello. Glad to have you with us. It's amazing.
04:05Sylvain, let's start with Forvis Mazar. You've been with us for some time now.
04:10It's the third year in a row. Thank you for your commitment.
04:14Thank you, Jeremy. Yes. Thanks for having us today.
04:17This is something very important for Forvis Mazar, to be here with you, to sponsor Women in Tech, Women in
04:25Startup.
04:25And we are here today and we will be there with you next year for sure.
04:30Wow. Thank you very much.
04:31Thank you for this ongoing commitment. And you're a knowledge partner as well this year.
04:34Yeah. That's very important for us. Knowledge, why?
04:37Because we believe it's not only money we have to give, but we also have to provide knowledge to help
04:42and to sponsor
04:43development of women in tech and in startup in all the ecosystem.
04:48Thank you. Thank you, Sylvain.
04:50Cindy, really glad to have you with us today.
04:55It's the first time Alibaba is sponsoring the Female Founder Challenge.
04:59Thank you. Welcome to this stage.
05:02Can you tell us a little bit about the initiative you're driving in order to support female entrepreneurship all around
05:07the world?
05:08Well, thanks for having me here. So I'm based in Hong Kong and I do investments for startups.
05:15When people ask me what type of startups I'm choosing, I will always say I look at the value that
05:22they are bringing,
05:23especially the values that they are bringing to solve some of the pressing issues in the world, in our society.
05:29And, yeah, like wealth, the gap, big wealth gap, aging population, and also the environment.
05:39So, yeah, so I would always, you know, try to support startups that can have a good course to help
05:47us solve some pressing issues in our society.
05:49But more so, if I see a female founder, I would be really excited because, as we all know, it
05:58is really underrepresented, especially in terms of getting the funding.
06:03But I think that if we want to have a better, you know, society for everyone, we need the brings
06:10from not only the men, but also the ladies, right?
06:14So, glad to be here and I will continue to support the challenge.
06:18Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you, Cindy.
06:23Hello, Isabelle. You're back. You were already here on stage last year in 2024.
06:28Exactly. I loved it last year. So we're back this year.
06:32I'm very proud to be a co-sponsor of the Female Founder Challenge.
06:36To me, it's one of the best challenges at VivaTech, definitely.
06:40And it's an issue where you need to push in every direction.
06:45So it's about pushing for more women on executive committees.
06:50At JC Leuco, we have an objective, like many companies, 40% everywhere in the world, in 80 countries.
06:57It's a challenge. Female entrepreneurs, it's a challenge.
07:00But it's also about how you drive your innovation roadmaps.
07:06So the objectives. We want innovation for everyone. Very inclusive.
07:11So it's about the objectives. And it's also about the way that you innovate.
07:15Who you work with. Having very diverse teams of people.
07:19For example, it's what we did this year with the Software Republic.
07:23I'm sure you've seen the beautiful red fire department car over there.
07:27A very balanced team of innovators, both women and men.
07:31And that's definitely the way forward.
07:33Very much looking forward to hearing the five finalists.
07:37Who have already won.
07:40I'm very glad for them to be there.
07:42And very proud to be, again, a co-sponsor this year.
07:45Okay. Thanks a lot, Isabelle.
07:46Thank you.
07:47And thank you to the three sponsors.
07:49Thanks a lot for your ongoing commitment.
07:52Sylvain, Cindy, Isabelle.
07:53You're staying with us, you're also part of the jury.
07:56Please join me in welcoming the other members of the jury of this FFC FCC 2025.
08:03Please welcome on stage Caroline Ramad, founder and CEO of 15Tech.
08:08Caroline, Julien, David, Nilege, managing partner at Iris,
08:12and Tatiana Jama, founder and managing partner at Sisterfunk.
08:16Thank you. Thank you for being with us today.
08:27You'll get a mic as well.
08:28Oh, it's here. It's already waiting for you. Okay. Amazing.
08:32Glad to have you with us.
08:34Thank you for your ongoing commitment.
08:36Thank you.
08:38So let me tell you how it's going to work today.
08:42We're going to go a little bit, again, over the process.
08:45Olivia told you, more than 600 applications, 536 to be precise, 88 countries,
08:56all the tech sectors, all the sexiest tech sectors,
09:01from health tech to clean tech to mobility and beyond.
09:05Those 536 applications were reviewed by our knowledge partners, Iris and Forvis Madal.
09:11You've done a great job. You went from 536 to 30. Amazing startups.
09:17And they all deserve to win. But we had to narrow this down to five.
09:22And we have one, two, three, four, five amazing female founders today.
09:28They should win. Oh, come on. Let's give an award to all of them.
09:31Let's give them a big round of applause.
09:40Unfortunately, they can be only one grand winner of the female panel challenge in 2025.
09:48And the winner will have an amazing reward package.
09:52Let me tell you about it.
09:53So it's fundraising coaching by Iris,
09:55a startup corner at VivaTech 2026 for the 10th edition,
09:59a three-month business development mentoring program with Mazar X-Factory,
10:04NVIDIA GPU credits, I'm going to say it to you,
10:07NVIDIA deep learning workshop,
10:09and a full conference pass to attend NVIDIA GTC 2026 in California.
10:15Yeah. So, you know, now you know what's at stake.
10:19Okay.
10:20Now it's time for the big moment you've been waiting for, the pitches.
10:25Our five finalists, they come from all across Europe,
10:28and they represent some of the most exciting sector today.
10:31Women's health, climate tech, biomaterial, AI, and mental well-being.
10:36They will have three minutes to pitch and three minutes Q&A with their jury.
10:40And the winner will be announced later today
10:43at the VivaTech global award ceremony at 5.45 on stage one.
10:54I will remember you later.
10:56So now, you're ready?
10:59Yeah.
10:59So let's hear it for a startup.
11:01They've been really working really hard for this moment.
11:04So give them some love, please.
11:06And please welcome on stage the first startup today,
11:10Jasmine Tagerson, co-founder and CEO for Mona.
11:15Woo-hoo!
11:25Jasmine, the study is yours.
11:27All right.
11:28Hi, everyone.
11:29I'm Jasmine, COO and co-founder of Hormona.
11:32Hormonal health sits at the very center of women's health,
11:35impacting every aspect of our life on a daily basis.
11:38Today, 80% of women suffer from a hormone-related issue,
11:42which in turn affects our menstrual, reproductive and menopausal health,
11:45as well as our general well-being.
11:47But the biggest problem of all,
11:49hormonal conditions are impossible to diagnose with a one-off blood test
11:53due to their individual fluctuations.
11:56Hormona is revolutionizing hormone health through AI and at-home testing.
11:59Thanks to our pan-penning innovation,
12:01women can easily measure, track and optimize their hormones from home.
12:05Our easy-to-use urine tests are the first fully quantitative
12:08at-home hormone test for estrogen, progesterone and FSH,
12:12the three most essential biomarkers for women's health.
12:15Simply dip your test in the urine sample, scan it with the Hormona app
12:18and receive your lab-grade results within 15 minutes.
12:22By combining an individual's hormone levels with their logged symptom
12:25and cycle data in the Hormona app, alongside effective treatment options,
12:29we offer the world's first end-to-end solution for hormone health.
12:33Through innovative testing technology, computer vision and AI,
12:36we have developed the first at-home diagnostic tool for hormone health.
12:40Hormone health is a rapidly growing market
12:42that affects over 1.4 billion women worldwide,
12:45resulting in a massive untapped market opportunity.
12:48Even if Hormona only captures a fraction of the total market,
12:51with just 1% market share in our selected focus areas,
12:54hormonal imbalance and perimenopause,
12:56we're looking at a sum of over $800 million.
13:01Perimenopause in particular is very interesting
13:03because it's one of the most disruptive and disturbing phases we women go through.
13:08Stretched over a period of at least 10 years
13:10and filled with debilitating symptoms, inadequate information and treatment options,
13:15it leaves women feeling confused, overlooked and often desperate for a relief.
13:20That's exactly why Hormona has decided to put focus here.
13:23Women need better tools, insights and support through every stage of their hormonal health journey.
13:29Our business model is direct to consumer subscription and our tests are initially sold by our website.
13:35We've seen strong organic growth since the launch of our app with 130,000 registered users
13:40across over 190 countries and a 20% month-on-month growth rate for paid users.
13:47Understanding our users and their behavior is at the cornerstone of the development of Hormona
13:51and our data tells us that our customers love our product.
13:54With a 12-month retention rate of 88% in comparison to industry average of 35%,
13:59we're on track to become leaders in this space.
14:03After 30 years of friendship and as serial entrepreneurs,
14:05myself and Carolina knows what it takes to grow something out of nothing
14:08and have successfully built a team that possesses critical skills and passion required to effectively scale Hormona.
14:15We're not just disrupting an industry, we're pioneering a future where women will have the tools they need
14:20to optimize their health every single day.
14:23Thank you very much.
14:30Dear Jerry, are there questions?
14:38Caroline, you had a mic.
14:42So congrats for that, thank you as a woman for creating Hormona.
14:47So how do you ensure medical reliability since that's very sensitive field with AI?
14:53So I would like to know more about how you do that at scale.
14:59No, absolutely.
15:00First of all, excuse me for pitching with my back against you, that feels weird.
15:03But we've done rigorous testing both in lab and we've been in beta testing for over eight months
15:11to ensure that the AI is working as expected.
15:14We're also doing a clinical study at the moment and progressing with our CE marks.
15:19So obviously all of those things are helping to provide that, you know, accuracy and trust.
15:24And it's super, super important to make sure that this is working as well as it possibly can be.
15:29And our data shows that we have over 90% accuracy across the entire clinical range,
15:34both in a lab setting and in at home.
15:38What is your partnership strategy? Health is getting holistic.
15:43You have people providing apps for, I don't know, your night's sleep,
15:47people following you throughout the day.
15:49How do you intend to connect to this wider ecosystem?
15:53Yeah, I think you're right.
15:55Our health is becoming more proactive and this is another data pointing.
15:59I think this is a huge one though because our hormones affect every single system in the body.
16:03So we are in discussions with Apple Health.
16:06We work really closely with them.
16:07Or as well as someone we'd want to look at to bring in more data points.
16:12We believe that our solution is unique because we are focusing on hormone health
16:16throughout the entire life cycle of a woman, not just a specific phase.
16:20And that makes us reliable.
16:22We can feed back into some of those other solutions as well.
16:24So, you know, how are your hormones doing?
16:27What are we expecting there?
16:28And that could feed into other apps and solutions too.
16:31Last question.
16:34Thank you very much.
16:35I was wondering because the application world is still a very costly world in terms of downloads.
16:42Have you explored any relationship with WhatsApp, with Instagram to be within apps versus to have your app that's download
16:52on a standalone basis?
16:54As of now, we haven't.
16:56Obviously, that's a great idea.
16:57I think what we've seen has worked really well for this is a word of mouth and, you know, referral
17:03system rather than kind of using another provider and work with them.
17:09But at the end of the day, you know, any successful way for growth is worth exploring.
17:14And so thank you for giving me that little nugget.
17:16I'm going to go back and think about how we can do that.
17:19Thank you. Thanks a lot. Jasmine Tagessan from Mona.
17:26And now it's time for a second finalist.
17:29Please welcome on stage Aron Zazu Karamon Arbueso, co-founder and CTO of Parallel Carbon.
17:34Please.
17:42My four-year-old daughter Emma has a lot of trust in her artistic abilities.
17:47One afternoon, I set her up in the living room and I gave her a white paper and some water
17:52-based space.
17:53And I had to step out of the room for a minute.
17:56When I came back, the paper was intact.
18:00But she decided that our coffee table will become her canvas.
18:04Swirls of colors every way.
18:06She looked at me with so much pride and excitement, pointing at her work of art.
18:11I just sighed, looked at her, and went to fetch a sponge to try to undo some of the damage.
18:19Humanity has behaved a little bit like Emma in a way.
18:22Being free to create so many amazing things.
18:25Cars, planes, plastic, AI.
18:28Without realizing the enormous impact that we have in the atmosphere.
18:33Far worse than my coffee table.
18:35But the main difference is, is that Mother Nature won't be as forgiving as I was with Emma.
18:41We have reached a point where reducing emissions is not enough.
18:45There's far too much carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
18:49And scientists agree that we need to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide to avoid a climate disaster.
18:56This is where direct air carbon capture comes into play.
19:00It's like a sponge for the sky.
19:02We can remove all of the CO2 that is present around us.
19:07At Parallel Carbon, we're designing a brand new type of carbon capture system.
19:13Our patent pending process uses a mineral sorbent to capture CO2 from the air.
19:19Like that specific sponge that I was telling to you.
19:21And we regenerate that sorbent using acids and bases that we produce in our proprietary memberless water electrolyzer.
19:31The main thing is that we can have not only the carbon removal.
19:36But we're also producing clean hydrogen.
19:39Which is a vital gas to the carbonized industries.
19:42Like shipping, aviation and a variety of industries.
19:48The main thing is that because we have this single system that we can produce two main products.
19:53We can really cut down on costs and provide a solution for e-fuel producers.
19:59That desperately need these low carbon feedstocks in order to make these alternative fuels viable.
20:05We have an amazing team with a variety of skill sets that will allow us to make this a reality.
20:12And we're just getting started.
20:14We have already pre-sold $240,000 of carbon credits.
20:19And we're looking to partner with e-fuel producers across UK, US and Europe.
20:26In a world where we have been as carefree as my daughter Emma.
20:30Living in a big carbon mess around the atmosphere.
20:33We have to take responsibility of that.
20:35Parallel Carbon is transforming that sponge into a scalable climate tool.
20:40Where we can give Mother Nature something that she hasn't had in a long time.
20:44Hope. Thank you.
20:49Thank you.
20:51Now, let's turn to our jury.
20:53Do you have any questions?
20:55Maybe I can start.
20:58Great pitch.
20:59Thank you very much.
21:01Could you please elaborate a bit more on your strategy in terms of partnership with leaders in the industry of
21:08gas, like air liquid, German companies and so on?
21:11How do you see it?
21:12Yeah, exactly.
21:13So we see ourselves as co-locating to these partners.
21:16So basically taking advantage of some of the space that they might have available and then become a gas supplier
21:23to them.
21:24So basically generate our CO2 gas stream from the atmosphere, the clean hydrogen, and then provide it directly to them
21:30so they can utilize it in e-fuel production mainly.
21:33At the moment we're exploring a lot of partnerships for sustainable elevation fuels mainly because we know that in the
21:38UK there is this SAF mandate that is asking that by 2030 a lot of the planes already have to
21:44be flying with sustainable elevation fuels.
21:47So if you are using the space, right, you're occupying the space, so is there any bottleneck that you have
21:58to overcome in order to expand?
22:01Well, that's a great question.
22:03I think that mainly is this being able to find the partner that has, number one, the availability of space
22:08with the need of these both things.
22:10And of course where we can locate our own intermittent renewable power, that that's a very important thing for our
22:16system.
22:16So I would say that that's the main challenge, to find the partner that has the available space.
22:21But we already located that there's some exciting opportunities like, for example, in Estonia, there's a huge development happening in
22:29Kenya right now.
22:30So there's a lot of opportunities that we hope that will allow us to overcome this big challenge.
22:35Thank you.
22:38Last question.
22:39If I understood well, you are like doing carbon credit in your business model is like getting some subsidies and
22:47carbon credit.
22:49So we saw with Tesla that when you are treating not well, the government can cut this credit.
22:55OK, so that's very.
22:57So how you plan to be really a central in this carbon supply chain and how to be not so
23:05much dependent of carbon credit?
23:07That's a great question.
23:09Actually, the carbon credits are a secondary source of revenue for us.
23:12The main source of revenue is supplying the gases, mainly the CO2 and the hydrogen.
23:17And that's where we have a lot of play and exciting play with the economics, because by providing the hydrogen,
23:22basically we can pay for electrolyzer itself.
23:24And the carbon credits will be an additional source of revenue in case we can have also like a location
23:30where we can inject underground or put it in concrete or cement.
23:33But that's a secondary thing that I think that that's the main differentiator of us compared to another director capture
23:39company that we can really diversify that business model.
23:42Really great.
23:43Thank you.
23:43Thank you.
23:44I'm sorry.
23:45That's all for the question.
23:47Brilliant.
23:48Perfect.
23:49Thank you so much.
23:50Aaron Zazu.
23:51Thank you.
23:54So now let's keep the energy going for our third finalist today.
24:00Please welcome the stage Elisa Brunato, founder and CEO of Brilliant Matter.
24:05Elisa.
24:08Hi, everyone.
24:12Brilliant colour is everywhere, but it is destroying our planet.
24:16For those of you that have been to a Taylor Swift concert lately, we'll have seen the field demand for
24:21colourful sparkle.
24:22But it's not just pop culture and clothing.
24:25These types of colour effects touch each and every part of our daily lives.
24:30The problem is that there's no sustainable options to produce these colours in industry.
24:35We're seeing this for a variety of reasons on the screen.
24:39We're also seeing that new legislation is coming into place to ban the use of these materials,
24:44because governments are becoming more aware of the scale of the problem.
24:491.7 million sequined garments are sent to landfills annually.
24:54Glitter is the third most common particle type that's found in wastewater treatment plants.
24:58And the cosmetics industry uses over 5,000 tonnes of microplastics annually.
25:04At Radiant Matter, in order to find a solution, we look to nature.
25:09So what you see here on the screen is examples of structural colour in nature.
25:14Now, structural colour is where the nano architecture of the material aligns in a way that refracts light
25:20to create what we perceive as metallic shine.
25:24And this underpins the fundamental innovations at Radiant Matter,
25:29where we make structurally coloured materials from cellulose.
25:33So these are 100% plant derived.
25:36They can even come from waste sources.
25:38They're biodegradable.
25:40They're zero metals, minerals, dyes or pigments or plastics,
25:45whilst achieving this incredible metallic shine as you see on the screen.
25:49They're colour-fast, lightweight, non-toxic and we can even tune the properties.
25:54The industries that are in need of this type of technology is luxury goods, packaging, textiles, cosmetics.
26:00We even see demand from the automotive industry.
26:03And this represents a £70 billion market that we are ready to disrupt with our scalable and accessible solution.
26:12We have an optimal team balancing science and industry expertise ready to deliver on this.
26:18And this is why we were backed by leading million-pound funding round.
26:23We also showcased our material technology.
26:27Sorry, that's not meant to sound.
26:31Anyway, this is a video of our material technology where we showcased our first product biosequin
26:36with Stella McCartney for the textiles industry.
26:40We also had our Vogue image showcased on the LVMH landing page,
26:46which really marked a pivotal moment in the biomaterials landscape.
26:51At Radiant Matter, we're revolutionising the colour effects market across multiple industries.
26:57Thank you.
27:00Sorry to have that back to you.
27:02Thank you.
27:04Dear jury.
27:06Thank you very much.
27:07A very inspiring pitch.
27:09I've learnt a lot.
27:11I was wondering who your clients are today and how do you count on distributing the technology?
27:18Are you a patent holder selling your technology or are you building another type of company?
27:24Where do you see it going?
27:25We see ourselves as, so we have a patent and we're building patents, so we're very IP heavy.
27:33We also see ourselves as a company that will be producing the materials that may be with partners or ourselves.
27:39We're going down the route of partners to start with and then we will be distributing the materials to different
27:44manufacturers.
27:46Perhaps rebounding on that question, how aware are your potential customers of what's at stake?
27:53How much does it cost them today?
27:55And how much of an improvement do you provide on price or processes?
28:00Yep.
28:01The industry is very aware.
28:04We've had all the organic traction that's come in from all the industries.
28:07The reason why I started the startup is because of all the demand that I was seeing coming from industry.
28:13And I realised that it wasn't just when I created the first samples, I wasn't just creating a problem that
28:18I saw in the industry when I was working, but also it's a global problem.
28:23So very aware of the issue.
28:25The materials that are used right now are quite cheap and that's, you know, they're made from plastic that is
28:31subsidised.
28:32What we see though is it's a small amount of the product, but it makes a big impact.
28:36So it can also be used in a way that it's not dramatically increasing their price when they use these
28:43types of materials.
28:46Congrats.
28:47It was really beautiful and very inspiring.
28:50Never saw something similar.
28:52I was wondering a little bit what Julien David was saying.
28:55Can you tell us a little bit more about the pricing?
28:58Like curious to understand your pricing and how that works.
29:01Yep.
29:02So we see our pricing as cost competitive within the market.
29:06It will never be as cheap as the subsidised prices that you see currently.
29:11But we're working with the partners that we have engaged with to understand if it's a price that they can
29:17afford.
29:18What we also see is that there's cost savings within the manufacturing process because it's such a simple material.
29:24So where the price might be a bit more expensive, we're seeing that they can actually have that cost saving.
29:28Do you have an idea of how much? I mean, is it 20%? Is it 10%? Just to
29:33understand the competitivity of the pricing.
29:35Yeah, it's about sort of like 20%.
29:38Yeah.
29:40Okay. Thanks a lot. Elisa Brunato.
29:42Thank you so much.
29:43From Radiant Matter. Thank you.
29:47Now it's time for our four finalists.
29:50Please welcome on stage Hélène Brion, co-founder and CTO of Verlet. Hélène, welcome.
30:01Hello everyone. So today I will discuss about proteins.
30:05You know that proteins, it's about one third of your daily diets and they are absolutely necessary to live.
30:14So here we are cracking the code of the dairy proteins, but know what? We are producing sustainably.
30:22In the 19th century, we were only 2 billion on Earth. We will become 10 billion in 2050.
30:29And the demand for proteins will double in a short time.
30:33In the last decades, only chemicals have been able to feed us.
30:38The next century, biotech fermentation will be able to feed us.
30:44However, we need complementary sustainable solutions.
30:48You have the traditional farming, which has done an amazing job.
30:52You have plant-based, and tomorrow you will have precision fermentation being able to deliver dairy proteins.
31:00And the good news is that precision fermentation has been helping us for many years.
31:05Invented by Pasteur, it has been developed to preserve our food, to produce your wine, produce your beer,
31:11and tomorrow it will be able to deliver dairy proteins.
31:15It's already in our diet, for vanillin for example, and Verley has been cracking the technology with 9 patents to
31:22deliver dairy proteins more
31:24nutritive, more essential, and more functional.
31:29And thanks to our technology, we are able to address one of the fastest growing markets.
31:34And starting from babies nutrition, infant nutrition, active and sport nutrition.
31:40And we go even beyond, if you look at supermarkets, the high protein trends, which is dried by GLP-1.
31:48Today, we have been able to achieve in only three years with $23 million for contract of collaboration with main
31:56dairy industries.
31:58We are aiming for 10 tons of productions.
32:00We have secured capacity for production of 1,500 tons.
32:04And we are aiming to commercialize in the US first, in 2026, and then in Europe in 2027.
32:13And another positive impact, when you are reaching large markets, you can pretend to have big impact.
32:19And we are highly sustainable on water, land.
32:25So, for me, reimagine the way the food is produced is the job of every agronomist.
32:30But my job is to turn it into a sustainable business and commercial in only three years.
32:35And I'm proud of my team.
32:37I hired and attracted 50% of my team, which are women, PhD, researchers, and top-tier investors.
32:53So, dear jury, do you have any questions?
33:00Could you please tell us, and thanks for this speech, it's very impressive.
33:07Could you please elaborate a bit more on the markets that you are exploring in terms of region?
33:14We have a regulatory market in Europe on that topic.
33:16How do you see it?
33:18And how do you see other regions?
33:20Asia, the US?
33:22Yeah.
33:23So, US is our first market, because we have already got the regulatory approval in only one year.
33:29Second, it will be Europe, with two years' regulatory timeline.
33:33And then Middle East and Asia, where we are already submitting Singapore dossiers.
33:41So, can you share with us a bit more about the margin?
33:46I mean, how much more expensive or cheaper than traditional dairy?
33:50So, our aim is to leverage existing capex capacities existing, so co-productor and co-manufacturer, where we are able
33:59to reach at parity the price with whey protein isolate currently.
34:05And then we are aiming to reduce the cost down with our technology improvement and also our own future facilities
34:12later on.
34:15Thank you very much for the pitch. It's impressive, and the problem at the same time with all the good
34:20ideas is that there's a lot of people on the market.
34:22Maybe, what's your unfair advantage? If you could say, like, one unfair advantage, whereas your competitors, what would that be?
34:32Well, it's not an unfair advantage, because for such a huge market, which is the dairy industry, you need competitors.
34:40None of the dairy industry, Danone, lactalis of this world, will accept to have only one supplier.
34:44So, we need to be different, and we need to deliver superior nutritional value.
34:49This is where we fight on, in how our technology is functional, is beneficial for the consumer.
34:57How do you compare, in terms of integration, throughout the food chain, in terms of cost of implementation, as opposed
35:06to traditional matters?
35:07How do you compare to what's being done today?
35:10The big advantage here is that we have sugar sources, our main input, to feed our microorganism, to produce dairy
35:17proteins.
35:18And it doesn't compete with the actual farming, which is an advantage, versus insect farming, which was competing each other
35:25with animal farming.
35:28Thanks a lot. Thank you. Hélène Rion, from Berlin.
35:33And, last but not least, our fifth final lead of the day, I'm pleased to welcome on stage Lara Gervaise,
35:40co-founder of Virtuosis AI.
35:42Please, give her a big round of applause.
35:47Lara, the stage is yours.
35:53Did you know that your voice can tell a lot about your health?
35:58Yeah, that's true.
36:01Your voice, from a 30-second audio recording, we can tell over 20 health markers.
36:07We can tell if you are stressed, anxious, depressed, if you have respiratory health issues or neurodegenerative disorders.
36:14We can even tell if you have diabetes, hypertension, menopause or your menstrual cycle.
36:21This is possible thanks to voice biomarkers.
36:24There are audio features, like your pace, your tone, your pitch, which have been clinically validated through hundreds of studies,
36:32not just ours, as correlated with a disease or a symptom.
36:36This is a symptom that either impacts your brain, your heart, your lung or your muscles, which in turn impact
36:42the sounds you produce through your mouth.
36:45So this is an example of someone with depression.
36:48So you can see there are more pauses between sounds.
36:51This is just 5.5 seconds, by the way.
36:53You can also see in the spectrogram below that there is a lot of dark, which means there are a
36:58lot of frequencies that are not expressed.
37:00Because monotony is typical of dispersed speech.
37:04Now this technology can have a huge impact.
37:07It has already been deployed for diagnostic support and health screening via integration into leading telehealth platforms.
37:16It's also used for telemonitoring of patients and for prevention and early detection of burnout in the workplace via our
37:23Teams plugin and our web app.
37:25Finally, it's also used for safety, because through the voice, we can detect sleepiness.
37:31About the business, voice biomarkers are a $2.6 billion market.
37:35We generated 1 million euros this year.
37:37It's recurring.
37:38We are the only voice biomarker technology certified as a medical device.
37:43And we're working toward getting reimbursed.
37:47I'm Lara Javes.
37:48I'm an engineer.
37:49A few years ago, I co-founded Virtuosist based on my research at EPFA in Switzerland.
37:54I co-founded it with Eduardo, who did an exit to General Electric.
37:59Our AI scientist did research at Harvard.
38:02And our tech lead scaled a tech startup to unicorn status.
38:07If you want to try the technology, you can just scan the QR code.
38:10You will try on mental health.
38:12And I want you to remember that soon, a simple voice test will matter as much as a blood test
38:19or an MRI.
38:20Thank you.
38:21Thank you.
38:24Thank you.
38:25Everybody's scanning the QR code.
38:26Lara, dear Jerry, I have a question.
38:31Oh, don't worry.
38:32I'll get it.
38:33I got it.
38:34How do you integrate the latest?
38:37Which LLMs do you choose?
38:39Sorry, not LLMs, but which technologies in terms of AI do you integrate?
38:43Voice to text or voice analysis?
38:47How have you made your choices in terms of AI technology?
38:50So initially, when I was on the research side in the lab, I conducted research using multimodal data approach.
38:58So using computer vision and facial expression, body language, text, and also paralinguistic.
39:05And paralinguistic only performs best.
39:07Because it's really both biomarker we're talking about because, for example, if you are depressed, in an MRI, you can
39:13see which part of the brain it impacts and why it impacts the sound you produce.
39:17So we don't analyze the text that is said at all.
39:20It's language agnostics.
39:21And it's exactly what I showed on the slide.
39:24This is this space.
39:26A lot is in the frequency analysis that we process and from which we are able to infer the health
39:31status.
39:35Thank you.
39:36It's both very interesting and very scary.
39:39But I had a question.
39:41Does it work in any language?
39:44That was the first question.
39:47And the second is more about your business strategy.
39:50I can see the benefits in a health and a controlled health environment.
39:56What I'm scared of is when, you know, it's embedded in everybody's smartphone.
40:01So as an entrepreneur, how do you see your company moving forward?
40:06Thank you.
40:07Yeah, you are exactly on point.
40:08So I mentioned through the QR code, you will only be able to access mental well-being inside because we
40:14are really careful in how we release the technology.
40:16We don't want people to either take the results like it's 100% accuracy, even if you have high accuracies.
40:23And we don't want it to be used just to publish on social media like we have seen for technology
40:29on ADHD, actually.
40:31And so it's mostly used under medical supervision.
40:36So even, for example, in the workplace, it's primarily driven by occupational health doctors when they do the health checkup.
40:44I have a question on competitors. I think I saw other startups doing that.
40:49So what is your uniqueness regarding the others?
40:55Sure. So on one side, so there is little competition, but there is competition, which is good.
41:02And so most of them focus only in one health area.
41:06So we started in mental health, but since then in 2019, then we widened what we're doing because it's the
41:12same audio recording from which we can infer all of that.
41:15So why not limiting ourselves? It's a lot of clinical study then.
41:20And then we only process the par-linguistic. So especially on the US side, but also on the French side,
41:27you have companies that use the text.
41:29And this is not a true biomarker because it depends on how expressive you are, and it really depends on
41:35the language.
41:35And then we have data. We trained it on data from all around the world.
41:38So it's really demographic agnostic. And then we are the only ones certified as a medical device.
41:44Okay. Great.
41:45Okay. Thank you.
41:47Thank you.
41:52And thank you to our finalists. You've done amazing work. Thank you for our pitches.
41:57Please give them a big round of applause.
42:00Thank you for our incredible journey. Great questions.
42:04Thank you for you to come with Mazar. Great job. Amazing startup.
42:08Thank you as well to the entire VivaVD team. Please give it for them.
42:12They've been working behind the scene. Amazing energy. Great work. Thank you.
42:18It wouldn't be possible without you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you one thing.
42:23You won't know the winners now. Okay.
42:27The winners will be announced later today at 5.45 on stage one for the global award ceremony.
42:35Don't miss it. Okay. Have a great day, VivaTech. Thank you.
42:39Thank you, everyone. And we'll invite on stage all the finalists and the jury for the group picture. Thank you.
42:47Feel free to take pictures as well.
42:50Thank you.
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