Cédric Favier has an entrepreneur and investor profile. After creating two startups, he worked for more than 10 years in the venture capital sector. “These years made me want to return to entrepreneurship,” he says. In 2021, he crossed paths with Emmanuel Gounon and Eric Angelier from the Waoup studio and they began working together to build the foundations of what would become 4Elements.
“The principle was to find concrete solutions to combat the problems linked to the climate transition. We wanted to address all sectors, whether mobility, construction, agri-agro or even energy”explains Cédric Favier. At the same time, they begin to build a community of scientists, entrepreneurs, sector experts, and future customers.
A studio dedicated to impact
4Elements aims above all to create impact. Every six months, the studio organizes sprints with its ecosystem on specific themes. “We like to have a technological differentiator in the approach to projects. Our subjects are 80% hardware, because we believe that science is the answer to the major challenges of climate transition”indicates Cédric Favier. “At the moment, we are working on geothermal energy and new materials to store CO2”he adds.
When the initial idea or technology is found, the studio assembles a team, develops a first product and begins selling to reach the milestones that will justify a first institutional fundraising. “Then we exit the project. We really focus on the 0 to 1 phase which goes from ideation to a multi-million fundable startup”comments Cédric Favier.
Today, six people cover all the specific needs of a project at different stages and provide technological and sectoral expertise to respond to entrepreneurs' issues. Among the projects resulting from the fund, we find Bluefinswhich aims to decarbonize maritime transport, Cedrus Solutions, a project linked to the decarbonization of the real estate sector, or even Net Carbon, the principle of which is to be able to scale all natural carbon sinks.
-Raising 27.4 million euros
In three years, four companies were created. “During this initial phase, we tested our model and provided evidence that it worked”says Cédric Favier, who built with his partner Jean-Baptiste Goffart, who came from Waoupa solid team, recently reinforced by Cédric Boisart. To get started, the studio had raised 2 million euros as part of Greenpact. It has now completed a fundraising of 27.4 million euros and is becoming independent.
The European Investment Fund, which is investing for the first time in a startup studio, is the lead. Several family offices and Bpifrance, via its French Tech Accelerator fund, and historical investors, also contributed. “Seed and pre-seed rounds began to grow in size and become institutionalized. But we remained convinced that beyond financing, what was missing for these projects was human capital. The interest of a studio, which combines human capital and financial capital, is therefore to de-risk projects upstream”says Cédric Favier.
4Elements does not have defined standards regarding capital ownership. “For some companies, we have 80% of the capital, for others, we only have 20%. It all depends on how the project went. In any case, post-seed, we become the minority”shares Cédric Favier.
The fund is Article 9 SFDR, therefore aligned with the impact investment approach. The carried interest, for example, will be partly indexed to the impact objective. With these funds, 4Elements aims to create around ten startups in five years.
