Start-up Contest 8th edition

BPI France, Director of Investments, Creative Industries

Malik Adouani is Director of Investments at Bpifrance’s Creative Industries division, an equity investment team involved in seed to LBO financing, covering all sectors of French culture, creation and know-how: cinema, video games, VR creation, music, publishing, fashion, beauty and art of living.

Groupe Caisse des Dépôts, e-culture project leader.

After several years in the consulting sector for organisation and information systems, working with Cegetel, SFR, EDF, Ricoh and Bouygues Telecom, Gilles Duffau joined the cultural sector, as Director of new media for the Cinémathèque Française, and then as Head of the multimedia department at the Centre Pompidou. His key interests are digital technology and innovation for the entire cultural and heritage sector (conservation, publication, mediation, etc.).

He is currently working for the Investment for the Future Programme “Culture, heritage and digital” at the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (French Deposits and Consignments Fund).

Audiens, Digital project manager

Audiens is a group that provides social protection for companies in the cultural sector, communication and the media. They provide support for start-ups and entrepreneurs.

Aude Merlet is in charge of the digital market, and, in line with the values of the group, she manages the Culture & Innovation network (Digital initiative prize, Nursery, networking), and shares entrepreneurial support tools such as the portal mon-expert­ protection-sociale.org .

Dassault Systèmes, Director of Immersive Virtuality (iV) at the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab

Experience Designer, Creative Technologist, Business Minded lntrapreneur, David Nahon is a pioneer of the French VR software solutions industry, and he managed the development of the very first PC-based immersive room (the SAS Cube in 2001) and the first VR game development tool (Virtools VR Pack in 2003).

Since 1995, he has designed dozens of immersive experiences (the first one being Z•A.net) and has been actively involved in the scientific community for VR, providing him with an in-depth vision of this field. At the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab at Dassault Systèmes, David is working on new experiences based on VR, and aims to create added-value for the group’s 12 activities. For that, he is working alongside a network of developing technological partners, that he also manages.

Beaux arts & Cie, Director Beaux-Arts Consulting

A graduate of Science Po Paris, ESSEC and Paris I in art history, Laure Pressac has been working with cultural institutions for 20 years, including the Magnum agency, the Louvre museum and the Pompidou center. She was Director of Strategy, Foresight and Digital at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux from 2014 to 2019, where she launched the Heritage Incubator and developed innovative models such as the Hôtel de la Marine project. Laure is also a conference guide, and teaches at Sciences Po Lille and Sciences Po Paris on the subjects of project management and cultural entrepreneurship.

IFCIC, Deputy director – company loans

The IFCIC is a lending institution that aims to encourage access to funding for cultural and creative companies. Nicolas Trichet has always worked in the cultural sector. After working for an architecture agency, he was an artist/producer of electronic music at the beginning of the 2000s.

He graduated from ESSEC, and his role at the IFCIC focuses on the music and fashion sectors.

Crédit Coopératif, in charge of the culture sector in the development department of Crédit Coopératif & Director of IFCIC

After obtaining a DEA in Economics at the University of Paris II Panthéon Assas in 1995, Veronique Gomez worked as a business manager specializing in culture at Crédit Coopératif for seven years. Veronique Gomez then became Administrator of the DIVAN du MONDE and GLAZ’ART concert halls for five years, then Assistant Director of a Crédit Coopératif business center and management of a portfolio of cultural clients, for ten years. For the past five years, Veronique has been responsible for the cultural sector within the development department of Crédit Coopératif and a director of IFCIC.

Beaux Arts & Cie, Head of the SITEM

Cécile graduated from Montpellier Business School in 2011 and after working for a year at the events communication department at the Groupe Express-Roularta, she became a headhunter in IT systems and then a Business Senior Manager for financial markets within a consulting company. In 2018, after training in start-up development and Product management, she joined a start-up as Head of Marketing and Communication. In 2019,  she became project manager for the SITEM trade show.