Since 2022, the government has financially supported startups and innovative SMEs with an industrial vocation as part of the “First Factory” call for projects. ». Objective: to facilitate the industrialization of innovative and strategic production on the national territory. This system, managed by the General Directorate of Enterprises and operated by Bpifrance, has already supported 66 projects with 293 million euros in public support, and 900 million invested in total in productive equipment.
On May 23, a new round of ten winners was revealed for 42 million euros in aid and 121 million invested overall. Including two in the West and only in Pays de la Loire. Among them is Huddle Corp (which means both melee and partnership) founded by Abdeslam El Harrak and César Crétel and specialized in animal nutrition.
From Fos-sur-mer to Bourges, the list of ten new factories announced by Macron
Innovative encapsulation technology
This deeptech created in Clermont-Ferrand in 2018 moved to Nantes in 2020, first within the Technocampus Alimentation before moving two years later to Saint-Herblain, east of the city of the Dukes of Brittany , to invest in a 1,500 m2 site which required an investment of 1.4 million euros. At the origin of this creation, an observation.
“ At the time, innovation in nutrition mainly came from the arrival of new ingredients and did not relate to transformation and formulation processes. Hence the desire to innovate on these aspects to better promote historical ingredients and those in the making. »
After four years of research and development, the young company has therefore developed a new technology for formulating food for livestock, making it possible to increase the quality of animal proteins, improve the condition of breeders and the sustainability of breedings. Marketing began in early 2023. “We provide complementary and alternative solutions to the products currently on the market and developed by players like the Groupe Le Gouessant (Côtes-d’Armor) and Cargill (Paris La Défense). »
Today, aquaculture (reproduction markets and young animals such as shrimp) is the first area invested by Huddle Corp and this, at the International scale. After Europe, Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia) and Central and Latin America, it is developing in the Middle East. The company is also interested in pet food (dogs and cats). And, among its areas of diversification is the human nutraceutical (vitamin, mineral) market.
Boost production capacities
Already winner of France relaunch, supported by the Demeter fund (1.5 million euros) and by Bpifrance (1.5 million euros), and of the i-Lab innovation competition (200,000 euros of aid) financed through the Future Investment Program, Huddle Corp has this time secured funding of 2.2 million euros as part of the “Première Usine” government call for projects. New financial support which will allow it to move to the industrial stage and “ increase production capacity ». This is the whole challenge of the project called “Huddle Factory”, sequenced over four years, the overall budget of which is estimated at 10 million euros. The rest of the investment will be financed by bank loans and through equity fundraising. “between 4 million euros to 6 million euros », which should be finalized at the start of the second half of 2024.
Today, the 1,500 m2 facility (which houses offices, industrial activity and the physico-chemistry and microbiology laboratories) has a capacity of 10 tonnes per year. “But this tool is saturated”, according to César Crétel. The objective is to “push production to 300 tonnes per year by the end of 2028, which will correspond to a turnover of around twenty million euros”. As part of this project, an industrial line will come into service at the beginning of 2026.
Double the workforce
If this contribution of 2.2 million euros will allow the company to finance part of the equipment (around 3.5 million euros overall), it will also help to strengthen the workforce.
“We are going to increase recruitment to double the teams by mid-2025. »
Concretely, they will go from 10 people to around twenty employees then to around fifty by 2028. Among the profiles sought: industrialization engineers, people responsible for commissioning the production line or even production technicians. It is also planned to boost commercial dynamics of the company and its marketing department.
