Interview: Isabelle Guillaume, General Manager, Minalogic

 “Our goal is to turn more projects into commercially-viable products”

The French government is pushing the country’s clusters to make the transition from “project factory” to “product factory.” What does this mean for Minalogic?
As a member of the national competitive cluster system, we are aligning with this objective. We started by assessing the 46 Minalogic-certified R&D projects that have been completed since the cluster’s inception. A year after the projects were completed, we tallied a total of 600 jobs created, €100 million in revenue, 150 patents filed, and 400 articles published. And we estimate total annual revenue to reach €400 million six to ten years out—that would be a nine fold return on the initial investment.

And where can Minalogic do better?
First, we are recruiting more business- and market-oriented experts to sit on our project selection committees—people who really know the markets and applications our technologies target. Second, we are setting up meetings between large corporations seeking innovations and the local businesses that can provide them. Air Liquide has been the first corporation to benefit from this initiative.

Minalogic recently expanded its scope to software. How is that working so far?
We are currently in the process of certifying several software-only projects, some of which are led by software-only companies. So, our expanded scope has enabled us to successfully reach out to new businesses. At the same time, we are working with more than 300 other members of the local software community to boost Grenoble’s run for the French Tech label, which would further raise the local tech ecosystem’s international profile and open the door to new sources of growth funding for start-ups.

Contact: isabelle.guillaume@minalogic.com

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