Lyon French Tech: Agreement Between Lyon and MassChallenge

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Oct 9, 2014) - Innovation and entrepreneurship: the focus of Lyon / Boston cooperation.

Lyon and Boston share common economic strategies: as international clusters in the life science sector, both cities value innovation and entrepreneurship. Today's agreement between the Greater Lyon / French Tech and MassChallenge will strengthen collaboration between the two cities in both the life science and high-tech sectors.

Already uniting Boston and Lyon, Sanofi / Genzyme have headquarters in both cities. Strategic contacts in these groups were instrumental in this new initiative. The Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, visited Lyon last September, further accelerating the link between Boston and Lyon. Thanks to the official visit to Boston by the Senator-Mayor of Lyon, Gerard Collomb, as well as a delegation of thirty start-ups and representatives of the clusters and the universities, a new stage in collaboration between the two cities has begun.

Win-win collaboration

The agreement addresses the pilot program "MassChallenge International Bridge," created to boost exchange and investment in entrepreneurship between the two regions, and will kick-off in 2015.

For Lyon, the region hopes to further accelerate start-up growth by facilitating access to the network of expertise and investment Massachusetts, and all of North America, symbolize. For MassChallenge, Lyon represents a door to Southern Europe in their international development strategy, further enhancing their already active position in London and Northern Europe.

Gérard Collomb, Senator-Mayor of Lyon and President of the Greater Lyon, shares, "MassChallenge is the ideal partner and world famous network through which we can continue our support of start-ups and our international strategy. This is a beautiful opportunity to be seized by the entrepreneurs of Lyon French Tech; Boston is a catalyst of innovation."

Press Contacts :
Emmanuelle SYSOYEV - +33.6.28.83.83.39 - sysoyev@onlylyon.com
Dalyce SUANEZ - 403-869-3259 - d.suanez@open2america.com

About French Tech:

The Lyon area, the nation's second largest digital hub, has over 4,000 digital companies providing no fewer than 34,000 jobs and EUR 3,5 billion in sales. Greater Lyon has just officially submitted its candidature to be named a "French Tech City" by the French Ministry for SME's, Innovation and Digital Economy, as part of the nation's Investments for the Future program. French Tech is a major collective mobilization to spur the growth and renown of French digital start-ups. The goal is to put France clearly on the world nations by fostering the emergence of true world champions.