At a time when incubators are seeking their place between tertiary real estate, venture capital and operational support, Euratechnologies is trying to redefine its role in the French ecosystem. Long perceived as one of the historical symbols of French technological decentralization, the Lille campus is entering a new phase of its development in a profoundly transformed context: slowdown in startup financing, post-Covid office crisis, rising issues of technological sovereignty and return of industrial logic around AI, defense or critical infrastructure.
Five months after his arrival at the head of Euratechnologies, Emmanuel Durand details his roadmap on FWMedia. Former manager of Snap in France, he intends to reposition the structure around a more selective model, more inspired by venture capital, with the stated ambition of creating future European technological champions from Lille. Behind this strategy, a conviction: French regional ecosystems can no longer function solely as machines for local economic activity. They must now become platforms capable of attracting international founders, major technology partners and startups capable of immediately thinking on a European scale.
When Emmanuel Durand talks about his arrival at Euratechnologies, he first speaks of an “underdog project”. A way of summarizing what the Lille campus has become in a French technological landscape now largely dominated in the media by Station F and the Parisian ecosystem.
“We have the impression that everything happens in Paris,” he explains. “I wanted to see if there was life after the ring road and to prove that an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship can exist independently of the Parisian networks.”
The challenge is significant, created in 2009 in a former industrial wasteland in Lille, Euratechnologies is one of the French pioneers of technological incubation. Well before the creation of Station F, the site had already been designed as a project combining urban planning, territorial reindustrialization and entrepreneurship. Behind this initiative, a strong political will supported at the time by Pierre de Saintignon and Raouti Chehih, the first historical leader of the structure.
Today, the campus represents several tens of thousands of square meters distributed between different sites in Lille, Roubaix and Saint-Quentin. Players such as Capgemini, IBM and Tata Consultancy Services also gravitate around the main building.
But behind this historic success, the economic model is now weakened.
Covid has called into question the model of innovation campuses
One of the most lucid observations made by Emmanuel Durand concerns the impact of Covid on major European technology campuses. Historically, Euratechnologies’ economic model was based on a relatively simple balance: the incubated startups gradually became resident, rented offices and thus contributed to the overall financing of the structure. Real estate income supplemented public financing and private partnerships.
“Since Covid, tertiary real estate has been in crisis. What was previously an aid has become a burden,” he admits. The subject goes far beyond the Lille case. A significant portion of European innovation hubs are today facing the same problem: how to finance heavy physical infrastructure when the relationship with the office has profoundly changed?
This change also had a more structural effect: certain incubators gradually shifted towards a logic of real estate management rather than entrepreneurial support.
“We can shift our focus from support to real estate and see ourselves more as a lessor,” explains Emmanuel Durand. “If we are not good at supporting businesses, everything else does not work.”
A logic closer to venture capital
To respond to this crisis of the historical model, the new manager wants to move Euratechnologies towards a much more selective logic. The idea is no longer to support as many startups as possible, but to concentrate resources on a few companies with high potential.
“I think we need to integrate a venture capital logic into this public service mission,” he explains. “We must accept the natural selectivity of entrepreneurship.”
This strategy is materialized in particular through “The Square”, a new acceleration program launched in the spring. Around a hundred startups applied. Only a few will be retained. “The only criterion is: does the team and the project have the capacity to become a champion?”
Each selected startup will benefit from individualized support structured around a “shadow comex” composed of very experienced mentors from different sectors. The model is inspired more by American accelerators or venture capital methods than by traditional public systems for supporting innovation.
Lille wants to play the European card
The other important transformation concerns the geographical positioning of Euratechnologies. For a long time, Lille presented itself as a regional alternative to Paris. Emmanuel Durand now wants to defend another reading: that of a naturally European platform.
“Lille is an hour from Paris, thirty minutes from Brussels, an hour and a half from London,” he recalls. “It is a natural barycenter of the northern European corridor.”
Above all, he believes that startups from small markets often develop a more international culture than those born in large domestic markets. He cites Stockholm, Tel Aviv and Ghent in particular as examples of ecosystems capable of producing global companies despite a limited national size.
“The companies that are born in these ecosystems immediately think international,” he explains.
This European dimension constitutes one of the central axes of its strategy: attracting more foreign founders, developing connections with other European incubators and using Lille as a gateway to the continental market.
Defense, AI, deeptech: the strategic shift
Another notable development: the refocusing towards technologically intensive sectors.
Historically very associated with retail and SaaS, Euratechnologies now wants to accelerate its presence in more strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure or defense. “We have a very strong ambition to develop in technologically intensive projects,” says Emmanuel Durand. “I am thinking in particular of defense.”
This repositioning reflects the current transformations of the European ecosystem: rise of sovereignty issues, technological reindustrialization, growth of investments in dual technologies and return of industrial issues.
The strengthened partnership with Microsoft is also part of this logic. The American group now supports only two French incubators: Station F and Euratechnologies.
According to Emmanuel Durand, the partnership goes far beyond the question of cloud credits or financing.
“They also provide advisory support and go-to-market. They have an ability to open doors that young startups do not have.”
A pragmatic vision of sovereignty
Asked about the tensions between European technological sovereignty and dependence on major American players, Emmanuel Durand adopts a relatively pragmatic line.
“Sovereignty should not be a mask to sell a less good product,” he explains. “But it must not be a mask for protectionism either.”
Its reading is based more on a logic of resilience and operational continuity than on a logic of technological autarchy.
“Our allies of yesterday can become the adversaries of tomorrow. We must prepare continuity plans.”
An approach which increasingly reflects the way in which European players today approach the subjects of cloud, cybersecurity or generative AI: no longer from the angle of a complete break with American platforms, but from that of reducing critical dependencies.
Basically, Emmanuel Durand is trying to reposition Euratechnologies around a simple idea: an incubator can no longer just be a physical place or a territorial tool. It must become a selection, connection and acceleration infrastructure capable of producing competitive technology companies on a European scale.
