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Get support to
develop your innovative start-up project!
OPEN APPLICATION
Contact Incubateur Descartes to introduce your project! A business developer will call you back within 3 working days to better understand your needs and motivations.
- In order to be called back, first download the contact form and send it back completed via email.
- Once your eligibility is confirmed, you will be invited to fill in an application form and to send a draft business plan, which will mark the beginning of the appraisal process.
- This appraisal includes external expertise scientific and/or business & tech.
- You are then scheduled for the next sitting of the selection committee. It meets as many times as necessary to decide on applications and includes a 10-minute project presentation by the candidate, a 20-minutes question-and-answer session with jury experts, followed by a closed debriefing session. This committee of experts is made up of economic development institutions, academics, financiers and entrepreneurs.
ANNUAL COMPETITION
The 13th edition of Incubateur Descartes annual competition is over!
Incubateur Descartes will launch its 14th annual competition from 13 October to 18 November 2025. The competition is opened to innovative project idea or start-up incorporated, dealing with one of the three areas of focus of Incubateur Descartes:
- Greentech Sustainable city,
- New digital service,
- Health & Society.
Schedule
- 13/10/2025: opening of the Competition
- 18/11/2025: application deadline
- 21/11/2025: preselection
- 28/11-01/12/2025: selection committee
CLIMATELAUNCHPAD
The 2025 ClimateLaunchpad competition will open since the 02 April 2025!
Since 2018, Incubateur Descartes is the sole French national relay for the ClimateLaunchpad (CLP). CLP is an international competition run by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), Climate-KIC and supported by the European Commission.
Its objective? To help individuals or start-ups with innovative climate change solutions take off!
Who can participate? All persons, start-ups, SMEs… in their first year, resident or established in France. In addition, you must submit an innovation that has a positive impact on the environment, in one of the following 6 themes: Adaptation & resilience, Circular economies, Urban solutions, Clean energy, Food systems, Sustainable mobility, Blue economy, The Next Best Thing.
Our corporate partners, sponsors of CLP24: Bank of America, Crédit Mutuel Île-de-France, GA Smart Building, Orange, Phoenix Contact, SUEZ Eau de France and our funders Communauté d’Agglomération Paris Vallée de la Marne, Région Île-de-France, Gustave Eiffel University et Communauté d’Universités et Etablissements Paris-Est Sup.
Schedule – France
- 02/04/2025: opening of the ClimateLaunchpad 2024 competition
- 12/05/2025: Application deadline
- 22 to 23/05/2025: Boot Camp
- 06/06/2025: National Final
THE AGGREGATOR
The Aggregator is paused!
This competition identifies and rewards start-ups/SMEs working in similar sectors and/or developing similar products and services, which are candidates to become a molecular startup.
A molecular startup is a company built as an aggregation of two or more companies/start-ups and of their products and services. Addressing the same market, they can co-develop new solutions to better answer their client needs.
If you are interested in external growth, in joining forces with a partner and expanding internationally without the need to open a branch, this opportunity is for you!
The 2020 edition was organised with partners in India and Africa. The 2021 edition of The Aggregator organised by Incubateur Descartes was in partnership with Hatch Incubator from Sri Lanka.
Read our dedicated article on the announcement of the 2021 winners