On October 21-22, the European Innovation Council (EIC) announced 72 new deep tech scale-ups joining the prestigious EIC Scaling Club at the Scale 100 Forum in Athens, Greece. This vibrant community of over 120 promising European scale-ups is carefully curated to drive growth, innovation, and impact across multiple critical global sectors. The EIC Scaling Club unites some of Europe’s brightest minds, including scale-up founders, corporate innovators, investors, and industry leaders, with the shared goal of fostering the growth of companies primed to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.
At 33 years old, Lucie Kriegshauser is an accomplished scientist and entrepreneur who has always been passionate about science, discovery, and learning new things. Initially aspiring to become a veterinarian, she discovered a strong interest in plant biology and phytochemistry while studying at university, which shifted her focus entirely. During her PhD at the Institute of Plant Molecular Biology in Strasbourg, where she studied biosynthetic pathways of specialized plant metabolites, the seeds of entrepreneurship were already planted in her mind.
After completing her PhD, she ventured beyond academia, working in sales at a lab equipment supplier, followed by a postdoctoral position at INRAE Paris-Saclay, where she focused on genetic improvement of a perfume plant for a private company. But her desire to create her own venture never disappeared. In 2022, she joined the Entrepreneur First program at Station F, where she met her co-founder, Omar Dekkiche, and together, they launched Amatera Biosciences, a sustainable platform that accelerates the evolution and selection of perennial crops, starting with coffee, to enhance climate resilience and meet the growing global demand for these essential varieties.
As CTO, she applies her expertise in plant biology leading a team of 1o technical professionals, she oversees all R&D efforts to create the coffee varieties of tomorrow through a unique combination of tissue culture, molecular biology, and creativity.
Idris in a nutshell: passionate about people, deep foodtech, agritech and sports. He works at Hello Tomorrow on the European Innovation Council Corporate Partnership Programme project, as well as in the BU Startups Programme and Innovation Engine. Alongside with Capucine Grandsir and Mikael Pereira, Idris serves as FoodHack Ambassadors in Paris, where he helps foster connections within the Parisian FoodTech community by organizing engaging events.
Carlos Morales is the technical manager of the R&D Accelerator Network, enabling the teams to get new products to market in 6 months. He has 30 yrs of experience in the FMGC Industry working on innovation across more than 70 different countries and supply chains in P&G and Nestlé. Since 2019 he has been part of the team that develop and run the R+D Accelerator of Nestlé, he has coached projects to ensure they can bring ideas to shop in 6 months, and supported the establishment of accelerator network globally.
Capucine Grandsir is a biological engineer specialised in food science. She is often described as curious and stubborn. She can spend hours trying to understand a complex subject, especially if it deals with food. The projects she evaluates and the entrepreneurs she meets make her optimistic about the evolution of consumption patterns.
French, 28 years old, alumni of the Quebec University of Montreal (UQAM) and French Institute of Fashion (IFM). From his first job as Marketing & Communication assistant for the Chalhoub Group between Paris and Dubai, where he helped overseeing fashion shows, PR campaigns and content production for Ingie Paris, a luxury brand founded by Ingie Chalhoub. He is now the Head of Marketing & Communication at Bon Vivant, a French startup specialized in alternative dairy proteins production through precision fermentation, so a totally different world from my fashion and advertising background ! His work now consist in building a strong brand for Bon Vivant, reinforcing legitimacy and expertise as a B2B DeepTech company, while also making the brand and tech accessible to a broader audience, with a lot of pedagogical content.
Did you hear the news? French foodtech Gourmey have just submitted applications to UK and EU regulators for the authorisation of their cultivated foie gras. This groundbreaking move marks the first novel food application to the EU’s European Commission for cultivated meat. If approved, Gourmey’s foie gras could soon be available across all 27 EU countries!
