Three start-ups to beat the winter fatigue

 

Petit Côté, the leading brand of sweet cakes made with vegetables, is an alternative to the current offer of take-out snacks that are often highly caloric or frustrating if they are more dietetic.

 

To let you hit your sweet spot, the start-up created in 2019 by Julie Morel and Capucine Epagneau launched a range of three recipes (lemon-zucchini, hazelnut-sweet potato and spices-carrots) in which vegetables replace oil or butter to make less fatty cakes.

 

Juliette is currently training as a professional pastry chef thanks to the food company Michel and Augustin challenge "Pass your pastry chef VTC (vocational training certificate) with us" won with a chocolate cake made-up with avocado as fat.

 

Cooked with French organic vegetables, Petit Côté cakes are sold in single portion, wrapped in 100% recyclable packaging, in salad bars located in business districts, via delivery services such as Foodcheri or by in-house catering services. 

The start-up won a challenge last fall organized by the retail group Casino, enabling it to reference its products in one of the group's banners.

 

Petit Côté successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign via Ulule in June 2019 which raised 12,000 euros. The start-up is hosted by the HEC incubator at Station F in Paris.

 

The two co-founders, who met in the HEC women's rugby team and found each other in the X-HEC Entrepreneurship Master, were inspired by the sport for their brand name. “Petit Côté” is the french equivalent of the “weak or blind side” in the english rugby glossary. Taking the blind side at the end of the scrum is choosing a narrow passage to the touchline, or to put it differently take risks, just as when you launch your own business.

 

 

Petit BamBou, which offers guided meditation resources online and via a mobile application, is the main player on the French market.

 

Created by Benjamin Blasco (X96) and Ludovic Dujardin, the company launched its app in January 2015. A standout among a group of websites and apps trying to capitalize on the current frenzy for all things mindful, Petit Bambou says it has 4.4 million users who listened to 21 million sessions since the beginning of 2019. 

 

Its initial offer of guided meditation programs was gradually supplemented by tools for cardiac coherence, stress relief, as well as soundscapes.

 

The application contains more than 60 programs classified in different themes: stress, letting go, work, sport, children, parenthood, eating mindfully, mourning, smoking and mindfulness.

Petit BamBou has also published a book, Meditating with Petit BamBou, as well as an ephemeris My year of meditation with Petit BamBou.

 

 

Two other French players are present on the market: Namatata and Mind. Unlike world leaders Calm, who arrived in France last year, and Headscape, which raised $ 116 million and $ 75 million respectively, Petit Bambou has no investors in its capital. The company is still controlled by its founders and employees who look to the future with even more ... serenity.

 

 

Children who live in cities are very often cut off from nature. This is the initial observation made by the two co-founders of the start-up Les Décliques, Camille Renard and Thibault Pinsard, who met during their X-HEC Entrepreneurship Master.

 

Founded in May 2019, Les Décliques organizes fun and educational extracurricular activities in the wild for young Parisians aged from 6 to 14 ...but down the block in the neighborhood green areas.  

 

Once a month, the children gather with their band of friends for an unforgettable getaway in natural playground close from home. On the program for each outing: an emotional intelligence workshop, a great thematic cooperative game, free play time, and a living discussion on sharing and exchanging feedback with others.

 

Carefully selected educators are trained to help children develop their physical, social, emotional and cognitive skills, all while having fun.

 

To get started, Les Décliques has selected a few neighborhoods in Paris to host the first bands in early 2020. It offers all parents the opportunity to create their own neighborhood bands by registering on its website and then takes over to organize the kids’activities.

 

Inspired by the Scandinavian forest schools, where children play freely in a forest and interact with their environment, the start-up does not intend to stick to Paris. If there are more than 2,000 schools and day camps in the forest in Germany, there are less than a handful in France!