Moved a few hours after the helicopter crash on the roof of the BNP Paribas building where the ceremony was to take place, the 11th French American Entrepreneurship Award (FAEA) organized by the Club 600 finally took place at the FIAF, Monday, June 10th.
Four finalists contested this award, which rewards each year two start-ups founded by French in the United States, in front of a crowd of entrepreneurs and personalities of the French-American business world. After a timed pitch, each start-up answered questions from a panel composed of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, vice president of cybersecurity at Capgemini America, Jonathan Cherki, founder of ContentSquare, and Matt Turck, partner of the FirstMark Capital venture capital.
In the first place: the start-up Elsi, founded by Elsa Jungman, who proposes to reinvent dermatological products. "We are tackling the problem of sensitive skin with a very scientific solution. It helps to understand all these good bacteria that we have on the skin, the "microbiome", by reducing the number of ingredients applied to the skin., introduced the Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, with a broad smile on her face and a trophy in her hand. Since the creation of FAEA, this is the first time a woman has won the first prize.
Elsa Jungman and Theodora Vanhaecke, Elsi's business and marketing manager, are already planning a first fundraiser and are counting on this victory to take off. In addition to a $ 10,000 reward in cash, they will receive a special coaching of the Foreign Trade Advisors of France, a return flight between Paris and the United States, six months of access to a free workspace by Corporate Suites and one year of subscription to the FrenchFounders network.
On the second step of the podium: AlgoExpert, a platform that offers to train developers to often ruthless job interviews of major tech companies, such as Google, Uber or Facebook.
Behind the scenes of the start-up: Clément Mihailescu and Antoine Pourchet, two childhood friends who met at the French-American School of New York. With a prize of $ 5,000 and the same benefits as the first prize winners, the young entrepreneurs plan to continue their growth.
"Every edition is always a great surprise for me to see the creativity, the" niaque "of these young people. Their future seems really bright because they have a lot in their belly, they have well prepared plans "concluded Bernard Parisot, CEO of JCDecaux and guest of honor at Club 600. He applauded the presentations, not only of the winners, but also those of other start-ups: Beewake presented by Jérémie Catez and dedicated to the management of spaces and Replika Software co-founded by Karen Mallet to boost retail sales on social networks.
