What are the gems of the Côte d'Azur Business Network?

This Tuesday, July 1st, at Ademe in Sophia Antipolis, it was the Laureates' Festival of the Entreprendre Côte d'Azur network. The association, whose goal is to promote the creation and preservation of jobs by promoting and supporting entrepreneurship, presented its 16 laureates from the 2024 and 2025 classes from the various support programs: Start, Impact, Innov, Reprise and Booster...

Online pastry courses ( VoilàChef ), a data platform dedicated to airports ( Daia ), a distance learning apprentice training center in the field of digital marketing-communication and e-commerce ( Immersia Business School ), non-collective sanitation and water management ( Paca Environnement )..., the winning entrepreneurs come from various sectors.

Reducing waste in parapharmacies

It's impossible to name them all, but the Eco editorial team was captivated by two projects. The first favorite is Pharmagreen . Based in La Roquette-sur-Var, the 2024 Start Impact winner is fighting waste in the pharmaceutical and parapharmaceutical sectors.

The eco-responsible platform connects pharmacies and associations to give a second life to unsold parapharmacy items. "In France, every year, nearly 150 million euros of basic necessities—creams, shampoos, etc.—are thrown away," explains Arnaud Morel, co -founder of the impactful startup with Laurent Sala.

The proposed solution: software directly integrated into the pharmacy's management software notifies customers of products that are struggling to sell or have reached their expiration date. Pharmagreen is responsible for collecting these unsold items in an eco-friendly manner: using an electric or biogas fleet, a cargo bike, etc.

They are then donated to charities such as Secours Populaire, which distribute them to people in precarious situations. Pharmacies receive a tax deduction (up to 50%) for in-kind donations, and Pharmagreen takes a 25% service charge on the amount donated. A win-win situation.

More than a thousand pharmacists and 150 associations are already partners of the startup and "we have been able to save 30,000 products," says Arnaud Morel. He wants to tackle waste in pharmacies by 2026: "the equivalent of 1.5 billion euros is thrown away in France every year." Hence his idea of ​​working upstream of the manufacturing chain and therefore manufacturing fewer medicines. This involves better anticipation of medicine sales to pharmacies "but we will be able to use the data that we collect from our partners," explains the entrepreneur.

An alternative to microplastics

LifeScientis, a 2025 Booster winner, is the editorial team's other favorite. Since its founding in 2019, the company has been developing eco-designed biomimetic processes to offer an alternative to the microplastics found in shampoos, sunscreens, and household cleaning products.

While European regulations have limited the addition of synthetic polymer microparticles to certain products since October 2023, " The first real bans will come in 2027," explains Franck Chuzel, founding president of LifeScientis. "We have implemented processes and filed patents to offer alternatives to the various industrial sectors concerned. We are six scientists based at the AromaGrasse technology center, and the objective of the Booster program is to accelerate our business and commercial development."

LifeScientis is also preparing a fundraising round to support its commercial development.