Paris, 21 November 2019 – Anticipating its clients’ innovation needs, engineering group SEGULA Technologies is launching today its own international startup hub. Dubbed HeXplora (www.hexplora.io), this hybrid platform has the twin aim of supporting the development of innovative young companies and accelerating innovation at SEGULA.

Opening of the first edition of the HeXplora programme

From today, active startups in SEGULA’s key areas of focus can upload their applications for the 2020 edition of the HeXplora programme. After examining their potential, the selected startups will receive support designed to assess their technical needs in more detail, identify possible use cases, and demonstrate the value proposition of their innovation in trials.

Working directly with the appropriate SEGULA business divisions, the startups chosen to take part in the HeXplora programme will have the opportunity to tap into SEGULA’s expertise, skills and technical resources, particularly when it comes to design, digital structural calculations and simulations, topological optimisation, prototyping and industrialisation. Moreover, SEGULA will give them access to its portfolio of over 300 industrial clients and help them with financing innovation and with fundraising.

A win-win-win contract

With more than 200 research and innovation projects a year, the Group regards innovation as a major driver of its strategy and nurtures open innovation practices by collaborating with a wide range of players, such as clients, laboratories, schools and universities, SMEs and startups.

Working with this ecosystem is a major source of inspiration and enables SEGULA to suggest innovative, marketable, competitive solutions to its clients. It is also a way of accelerating innovation: these collaborations have already enabled SEGULA to save several years of research and development.

The launch of HeXplora will put the Group in an even better position to explore and remain vigilant to the most recent technological trends in order to add value to the proposals it makes to its clients.

“It is a win-win-win contract”, says Stéphane Parpinelli, Open Innovation Director at SEGULA Technologies. “Startups taking part in HeXplora will have access to our client portfolio in order to smooth their entry into the market; SEGULA, meanwhile, thanks to the added value brought by startups, meets its aim of being constantly at the cutting-edge of technology, while our clients will be offered much more compelling solutions thanks to the innovations developed as part of HeXplora”.

SEGULA has so far partnered with a dozen startups based in various countries (France, the United States, the Netherlands, Czechia) in areas relating mainly to the digital transformation of industry, but in other sectors too (healthcare, mobility, energy, etc.). The launch of HeXplora should make it possible to enter into many more similar partnerships in a larger number of countries.