The role of French deeptech start-ups to achieve carbon neutrality of France by 2050
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Kemian tekniikan korkeakoulu |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2022-08-23
Department
Major/Subject
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Mcode
CHEM3062
Degree programme
Master's Programme in Advanced Materials for Innovation and Sustainability
Language
en
Pages
128
Series
Abstract
Global warming is a fact. In its latest report, the IPCC indicates that humanity has three years to reverse greenhouse gas emissions curve. After the European Green Deal, Europe has initiated a major transition policy that concerns all sectors and all economic activity on the continent. The main sectors concerned are energy production, transport, buildings, agriculture, and industry. Consulting firms have been commissioned to assess the development and maturity stage of technologies that will make it possible to achieve carbon neutrality. While some of the technology is already mature and available, McKinsey estimates that 15% of the technologies are only emerging, still in the research stage at the moment. In this context, many deeptech start-ups are emerging to meet the need for industrialization of new technologies. In France, a large support ecosystem is available allowing entrepreneurs to create their start-up easily and to accelerate the growth of their companies. If the place of deeptech seems to be well anchored in Europe's recovery and transition plan, they are struggling to scale. For entrepreneurs, it is sometimes difficult to find the right partners and the right mechanisms. Faced with these observations, Bpifrance, the public investment bank for innovation in France, wanted to understand what alternatives exist to consolidate the ecosystem supporting deeptech. This Master Thesis is also an opportunity to explore deeply and, on the field, a vertical of the transition plan. The goal is to understand what are the most promising technologies on which focus funding and support. Thus, the sustainable agriculture vertical has been investigated. Faced with a growing world population by 2050, feeding humanity is the greatest challenge of the years to come. A research was conducted based on the state of the art in the current literature and the realization of semi-structured interviews, in the field, to understand what the support needs of entrepreneurs are. It was also the opportunity to understand what the most promising technologies at the local scale are. Twenty-two stakeholders participated in building this study through their interview. Discussions were held with ten deeptech start-up leaders and twelve actors in the financing and support ecosystem. The results reveal that the most promising verticals in the sustainable agriculture sector are crop optimization, alternative proteins, methanization and carbon capture and storage. As these technologies are not yet mature, the main obstacles for an industrial scaling are political, regulatory and on public awareness. In addition, there are major issues of financing and investment orientation that sometimes disadvantage these deeptech models. Finally, the voice of entrepreneurs and the ecosystem expresses a strong need to optimize synergies between the academic scientific sphere, historical industrials and deeptech start-ups.Description
Supervisor
Järvilehto, LauriThesis advisor
Dal Zilio, LauraKeywords
deeptech, start-up, carbon neutrality, innovation