5.5.2 De la création d’une startup à l’entreprise cotée en bourse : l’exemple de Cellectis 2/2

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En provenance du cours de École Polytechnique

Créer et développer une startup technologique

238 notes

École Polytechnique

Créer et développer une startup technologique

238 notes

Ce cours vous permettra d’identifier et d’évaluer des opportunités de création d’entreprises technologiques et d’en comprendre les principaux enjeux humains, techniques, commerciaux, environnementaux et financiers. Vous aurez ainsi des bases solides pour créer votre entreprise high tech ou décider d'en rejoindre une. Décider de créer ou de rejoindre une entreprise technologique dans ses premières années est la promesse d’une aventure hors du commun mais ce n’est pas un acte anodin : il faut être capable d’accepter que toutes les « bonnes » idées ne conduiront pas au succès, que seule une minorité de projets débouchera sur un immense succès. Il faut aussi renverser votre rapport à l’échec, qui est une source d’expérience et doit être géré selon la logique de la « perte acceptable » : l’entrepreneur aime l’incertitude, pas le risque démesuré. La création d’entreprises technologiques vous offre une réelle occasion de contribuer à changer le monde mais nécessite que vous adoptiez un certain état d’esprit et que vous puissiez acquérir des savoirs, des savoir-faire et des savoir être, ainsi qu’une expérience la plus large possible. Vous aurez l'occasion de côtoyer des personnes passionnantes et passionnées issues d'horizons très différents. A partir d’une vision et d’une technologie de pointe, ces femmes et ces hommes ont souvent bâti des entreprises d’envergure mondiale. La trajectoire de développement d'une entreprise technologique est pleine d’imprévus qui vous demanderont à la fois de l’agilité et une préparation importante pour partir d’une idée forte, sélectionner votre marché, développer votre offre, réunir une équipe à la hauteur des enjeux et trouver des financements. Ce cours se compose de sessions méthodologiques ainsi que de témoignages d'entrepreneurs et d’acteurs emblématiques de la création d'entreprises technologiques. Vous pourrez ainsi vous familiariser avec les dilemmes essentiels auxquels sont confrontés les créateurs d'une entreprise high tech, à commencer par la décision de créer sa propre structure, qui représente un véritable choix de vie. Vous verrez également que la création d'une entreprise technologique est davantage une aventure collective qu’un parcours individuel.

À partir de la leçon

Modèle économique, plan de développement et exemples de modalités de valorisation

Le développement d’une technologie, la constitution d’une équipe et le financement du démarrage ne sont pas les seuls défis auxquels vous et vos collègues seront confrontés. L’élaboration d’une proposition de valeur crédible et d’un business model scalable et rentable nécessitent de nombreux allers-retours avec le terrain car les clients et les modalités de commercialisation de votre offre seront souvent très différents de ce qui était initialement envisagé.Pour convaincre des partenaires financiers, vous serez amenés à présenter l’essentiel de votre projet d’entreprise au sein d’un business plan dont nous vous présenterons les principales composantes. Enfin, vous bénéficierez à nouveau du témoignage d’entrepreneurs ayant créé leur entreprise sur la base de leurs travaux de recherche. L’un d’entre eux a cédé son entreprise et l’autre a réalisé plusieurs augmentations de capital avant d’introduire sa société en bourse pour accélérer son développement.

5.1 Introduction0:58

5.2 Passer de l'académique à l'entrepreneuriat : témoignage d'un chercheur-entrepreneur22:38

5.3 De la technologie à la proposition de valeur et au business model13:58

5.4 Le business plan : importance et limites pour les créateurs d’entreprises innovantes.26:32

5.5.1 De la création d’une startup à l’entreprise cotée en bourse : l’exemple de Cellectis 1/210:26

5.5.2 De la création d’une startup à l’entreprise cotée en bourse : l’exemple de Cellectis 2/213:53

Rencontrer les enseignants

Romain Beaume
Chargé Mission chaire MIX
50% Ecole polytechnique + 50% ParisTech
Etienne Krieger
Affiliate Professor
Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The main business development stages: the business has first been through

the acquisition of the required assets for its development,

the technology, and so on.

then through the financing,

the construction of a technological platform, to carry out the engineering

of any genome; and then the transition between the use of that platform to

the products which were going to be directly directed to

different sectors of application: therapeutics, etc.

The six first months of the business have then been dedicated to the

negociation with the Institut Pasteur for the exclusive licenses on the

princeps patents, the most important in genome engineering; a lot of them

have been André Choulika's invention but a number of them came from other

inventors who where associated to the business and this strengthened

our approach with the Institut, which in turn had positive regards on the

implication of researchers in the creation of a spin-off; then

start-up within its premises.

In june 2000, with the Institut Pasteur, we have thus signed for these licenses,

incubation and a number of other additional elements.

From then on, the concern was to get the business financed.

And so we started to seek for a business angel, a family office

who is still stakeholder in the business, his name is Camille Vest,

and he knew the Institut Pasteur well, so the connection was rather natural

and he started to invest the first funds as early as November.

Then, we launched a fundraising for the venture capital.

The strategic mistake we might have made then was to think that we could

postpone the fundraising a little and we only took off in April 2001

to get enough time to collect scientific, commercial results,

sign the licenses, etc. thinking this would mean a better

position to go negotiate with the venture capital.

We ended up raising funds in a

particularly twisted period: from September 2001 on,

the venture capital markets became very difficult, we had lots of trouble

and it wasn't before May 30th, 2002 that we succeded in arranging our first

venture capital round table, with a Danish investor, BankInvest,

and French investors: AGF, Odyssée Venture and Edmond de Rothschild,

for a total of 16 million euros which had been agreed on part by part.

The timing we had calculated was not so fortunate.

We had dedicated the six first years of the business, to work from

these tiny molecular scissors that are the meganucleases found in

nature, to the development of a true custom molecular scissors

engineering plateform and be in capacity of,

when receiving someone saying: "I want to target this

gene in the human genome or in the genome of that other species" to

produce a custom molecular scissors for this very gene and this gene only.

This ability is the result of the absolutely remarkable work of our

scientific Director at that time and all his teams, Frédéric Pâques.

This led to 2006 when we were able, by the means of a long work,

by way of substantial expenses, but in a few months time we knew how

to produce molecular scissors, we had the platform, we had the ability.

The question was hence to know how to go from this platform and to

the product: were we to finance it with venture capital, again?

Or were we to switch to a financing mode such as the stock exchange?

This time we reflected backwards from the timing, we made the mistake

for the venture capital and we didn't have to replicate the mistake.

Instead we thought: is there a window for an initial public offering?

Is there an opportunity?

If so, let's assess if we can make it or not, rather than saying: let's

refine our project and wait for the next window if it ever happens.

We made a good decision and it was to hire the new financial manager then,

Marc Le Bozec, who had been a biotechnologies entrepreneur before,

he thus knew the subject, besides his recognised HEC and financial pedigree.

So we managed to list the business very quickly:

He joined in October 15th, February 7th we were listed on Alternext, in Paris.

It allowed the venture capitalist's exit which was good for them after all,

but also to enter a entirely new category and finance the business

on the stock exchange, in a much more flexible way.

With the stock exchange's hazards too,

and we live with it; That's what it's like to marry the stock exchange.

From this moment, the businss has rather worked to apply its

technology to where it coud make a strategic difference,

and where it could create huge value: in which case would the genome

engineering of a cell or a species set up a new deal?

So there is the therapeutic area,

production of very important therapeutic sub-tools.

There is the agricultural area: where we realised that being able to remove the

genes rather than just adding transgenes to the plants would change things;

then were the scopes of application for tools and services more focused on

research as well as on material,

production, energy, which used to be more ancillary.

The business development at that time was about exploring areas in

which were going to be able to apply this technology, and how this platform

was going to deliver the products or services, and to which clients.

We went very far in the exploration: for the tools and services for instance

we went as far as purchasing the historical European leader in stem cells,

Cellartis in Sweden, then we tried applying this

technology in that very area to, well, combine

genome engineering with global cell engineering.

The company had been distributed, almost even scattered if I may say,

over many areas to try

to find in which we would stand out

and get products with high added value.

In 2013, there was a pretty violent turnaround on the tools and services

area, which caused our investments to no longer be profitable

on a short term, but to fall into a very long term logic.

We felt a real shock in this branch of the business

and we retired from this area at the end of 2013

to focus on two other areas, which concurrently had begun

to work very well and have had true successes: the area of

the immune system cells engineering to cure cancer,

the cancer immunotherapy; where our Americain competitors had

gotten spectacular results over the year

because they had a different approach in genome engineering from ours,

and were intrinsically a little limited,

whereas we were having a much more powerful medication approach,

in our viewpoint at least, and which nature was, potentially,

to set a new, longer and more difficult deal, but this really did transport us.

In the plants area, we have had outstanding first results,

with on fields results on soya, potatoes and other species.

Late 2013, we retired from the sector of tools and services

and the company had finally found its path.

It has found the way to apply this technology on a short term,

its main focus; naturally there may numerous other applications,

but we chose to start up on this one.

And today it's a company which applies its technology to immune system

engineering to cure cancers

and which maintains its activities in the plants area as we developed it.

And all through the second phase fundings are made from the stock exchange

through secondary offers or offers from private equity.

In 2014, this acceleration has materialised in an outstanding way:

we have signed two agreemets with pharma industrials which, again

have taken us to the next level; in February, we signed up

with a French business with which we had longstanding relationship

the Servier laboratories, to develop cancer immunotherapy

products, approximately on their targets; and in June, we signed with Pfizer,

is a global giant, to develop products with them and this is historically

the second biggest pre-clinical deal of all times ever signed

between a pharma and a biotech. They invested a 80 millions dollars funds,

additionally they purchased a stake, they finance our R&D and development.

There lies a real drive to apply technology.

If we want to anticipate further and try to envisage what this

will look like in ten years, we must be able to develop our products

portofolio in a clinic, and even onto the market.

Will this be achieved via our partners who have the required finances

to support the most costly up front developments, or will it come

from our own choices and fundings, either in raising additional funds

or using the money our partners

will pay us to do it on our own for one, two, or three products?

I could not tell, but in any case there is one sure thing: in 10

years, we will have gathered a true, shelved, cellular products portofolio

capable, in our viewpoint, of changing the future of tumors particularly

leuckaemias, lymphomas, very dangerous things,

or especially agressive cancers, and which will go through

clinical development but will also already have marketed products.

This is our vision in 10 years.

Tips for the creators of a technological business: I will refrain

from advising or lecturing because I believe every story

and each entrepreneur follow an individual path, which can be

collective, yet be a different path.

What I may do is share my experience on some points, some elements which

were important to me or to us in our particuliar case.

You are all welcome to choose,

get inspired, criticise or to not feel reflected in what we achieved.

To us, what was really important in the end was

the timing management: we lacked it and have then progressed through it.

The venture capital fundraiser we initiated had started too late:

the assumption that taking time to make the opportunity, present as early

as 2000, more acceptable in the future was a mistake; indeed,

when the opportunity is there, it's there.

You'd better seize it while it's there, even if it's not perfect.

Because the opportunity doesn't necessarily comes from the content,

creation and assets you produced.

A large part of the opportunity comes from the general weather,

global appetence for technology,

for biotechnology which is a part of technology.

In this respect, you must be humble and know to watch the

greater elements, the cosmic elements which surround us,

and seize the opportunity.

This is what we did for for the stock exchange list,

where we thought backwards thinking: is there a window?

Is there appetence for biotechnologies?

Yes, let's grab it and we will see... if our format,

our maturity can still integrate the progression of a stock investor;

and it did.

The timing is essential, in my opinion.

And finally understand that the environment plays a great

role in the opportunity.

So seize the chance while it's there.

A second thing, a lot more personnal: the lesson I drew

from this is: that the technologies we develop are risky;

the products we design may always fail.

They are a lot of failures in the clinical phase: you need five products

in the clinic to market one; in certain medical

specialities it's much more than this.

So you need to be humble and think: maybe it shouldn't work,

or maybe the first technology will fail, but the second,

or the third product will, you never know.

The project must not solely depend on that.

I believe that my personal project, is to think the aim lies in the path.

The aim is to have fun, to heal people for sure,

to earn money, yes, but in the end having fun is very important;

because these years spent, and it has been 15 years for me in the

company, are years that are spent not doing anything else in the meantime.

So it must be fun, we need to experience things,

not always simple things but experience intense things

and with people with whom we like to work.

We are there to like one another, and I think that people are absolutely

central in this adventure: whom we create with and what we create.

Now have we succeeded or not?

Did we have the right cards?

We don't know, we will see.

But what matters is to have tried the best we could

and to have managed to push our own limits, with the people,

and to have experienced it.

So the aim lies in the path.

The third thing which I find utterly essential is,

that you must maintain your vision: we have a vision,

we plan on the long term, with the idea that one day

the course of events will follow this direction, the living, engineers'

objects and we will make these big entities which will apply the living

to its various compartments: therapeutics, agriculture, et cetera.

So I believe, you must always refer to your vision and be capable of

sticking to it while being an opportunist: we can't be in love with the technology.

today we are working on a new technology which has been designed by

the scientific Director of our plants branch, the same since 2010; the

ancestral technology André Choulika had invented,

is much less used, but it doesn't matter, it was not the goal.

The goal is the vision you have, and where this industry,

this area will head; in this projection.

So you need to stick to this vision and be humble, while being able to

seize the opportunities as they come.

It's not exactly what was planned,

the envisaged progression; not a problem.

And maybe the last insight I could share is: that no matter

what happens you must make you dream live.

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