Inria Paris welcomes 3 new Deep tech start-up projects

The Inria Paris entrepreneurship support scheme

The creation of a business by researchers or engineers represents an innovation and growth opportunity for the economy and society. While the core purpose of INRIA is scientific research, the Institute also supports entrepreneurial careers. More than 160 business creations have been registered in the last 34 years and in September 2019, the Institute initiated a scheme to encourage and support its entrepreneur researchers.

Launched in 2019, Inria Startup Studio is a tailor-made support scheme for deep tech project owners. The scheme is led by its directors, Sophie Pellat and Hervé Lebret, and the innovation teams of INRIA’s nine research centres in France. Project owners can join the programme which provides financial aid, hosting, access to specialised tools, logistic and technical support via close collaboration with the research teams, plus advice and moral support.

Since its creation at the Inria Paris centre, 19 digital deep tech start-ups have come into being. The core focus of their activities is machine learning, natural language processing, mobility and quantum computing. Projects tend to reflect, though not exclusively, the centre’s key research areas.

New projects to keep an eye on

• ScreenIA

After more than 20 years as Technical Analyst and Trader with two Parisian stock exchange firms, Cyril Baudrillart became an entrepreneur 2 years ago. Since September 2020, he has been working on the ScreenIA project, previously incubated by EuraTechnologies in Lille and inspired by his passion for data sciences and his experience in the financial sector, where he realised that fund managers are increasingly in need of advanced technological tools and interfaces capable of boosting their productivity and the performance of their funds.

He thus ventured into the world of entrepreneurship with ScreenIA, which aims to provide financial market professionals (management firms or family offices) with decision-making tools in the form of SaaS software. ScreenIA also develops trading algorithms.

• DeepTrust

Youssef Rafa has worked for more than 20 years in the field of technology consulting and the design and production of software systems for the financial and insurance technology sectors.

His startup project, DeepTrust, is developing digital trust technologies to help players of secure digital services strengthen their authentication ceremony with a B2B2C solution based on biometrics, powered by AI, secured by a privacy-focused channel and utilizing applied scientific research.DeepTrust aims to unlock a range of essential core digital services through long-term sustainable digital trust technologies. As an independent pure player, DeepTrust meets the need of the digital industry market to know how to evaluate the conformance, performance and interoperability of the use of digital trust technologies in digital services.

• DecorAR

Mohammad Rouhani developed a keen interest in mathematics and computer science from an early age, and studied Applied Mathematics at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, before devoting himself to Artificial Intelligence and a PhD at the Computer Vision Center in Barcelona. He has worked for small industrial companies in addition to Technicolor and Airbus, in areas such as autonomous taxi-take-off-landing (take-off and landing phases for commercial aircraft) or driver assistance systems based on artificial intelligence. He moved into interior design after realising that, once home after a day spent in front of his computer, he lacked the skills to design and decorate his own interior, something a machine could potentially help him to do. DecorAR was born!

His product sources millions of professional images of interiors from catalogues and magazines. This solution tries to detect each piece of furniture and learn colour and style harmonies between elements. Using augmented reality, it can then suggest the best decoration and interior furnishing products to match a space, drawing on a huge database.