France’s 13 regional tech transfer offices have now launched 370 spinouts since 2012, after adding another 112 new companies last year.
Réseau Satt, the French network of regional tech transfer offices, revealed the cumulative figures for its first six years of operation yesterday, showing its 13 outposts had established 370 companies by January 2019.
The spinouts have raised more than $426m in funding between themselves and generated 1,361 jobs.
Formed in 2012, Satts are tasked with commercialising research emerging from publicly-funded research at universities and institutes. The offices evaluate, market and license technologies thanks to a $960m commitment from the government to be deployed by 2025.
The offices have identified 11,636 projects and secured 2,596 patents, licensing a total of 841 to companies.
The numbers mean that over the course of 2018, the Satts founded an additional 112 spinouts, analysed 1,551 new projects, secured 362 patents, assigned another 151 licences to corporates and generated an additional 256 jobs through its portfolio companies.
The figures also follow a decision by the French government last month to inject a total of $165m into the original nine Satts as part of a third tranche of financing.
This broke down to $24.7m for Satt AxLR, $22.4m each for Satt IdF Innov and Satt Ouest Valorisation, $21.3m for Satt Lutech, $20.1m for Satt Nord, $17.9m for Satt Sud-Est, $15.7m for Satt Aquitaine Science Transfer, $12.9m for Satt Conectus and $7.9m for Satt Toulouse Tech Transfer.
The remaining Satts – Linksium, Pulsalys, Paris-Saclay and Sayens – will be evaluated later this year as their current funding runs through to 2020.
Thierry Heles
Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
