A "Hub" is being created in Fréjus for innovative projects

What more beautiful setting to launch an innovative structure than that of Château Gallieni, in Fréjus?

This beautiful historic building, home to the Maison de l'économie, has always had the vocation of supporting the local economy, since it was acquired by the very young Communauté d'agglomération de Fréjus Saint-Raphaël (CAFSR) at the end of 1999 – a business incubator and incubator, networks of entrepreneurs, economic chambers...

And since the first days of this month of July, a new lever of economic development for the territory has seen the light of day: welcome to the ''Hub Innovation Est Var'', also called ''Hub Innovation Var Est'' to be able to use the acronym Hive, which means "hive" in French.

Its mission? To support innovation, and therefore entrepreneurship and economic attractiveness. Open to both startups and established businesses, the Hive offers personalized support, mobilizes financing, connects local stakeholders, and creates favorable conditions for the emergence of innovative projects.

A successful start-upper from Adré at the head of Hive

This gateway for project leaders is supported primarily by Estérel Côte d'Azur Agglomération, and also benefits from the involvement of a network of founding partners (Brand Silver, Nereis Business, Domitille & Thomas Lemaire, Wever), as well as the economic workshop of the Agglo Development Council (Codev).

Wever – a mobility solutions platform – is the successful start-up of Thomas Côte, born in Toulon, who studied and worked in Nice for a long time, and currently lives in Les Adrets-de-l'Estérel.

And this little genius is now the president of the Hive, inaugurated last Wednesday in the company of the president of Estérel Côte d'Azur Agglomération, Frédéric Masquelier, as well as Malik Dahman, president of French Tech Toulon Var, and many other guests from the regional economic world.

"With this hub, we are happy to be able to enrich our meetings, you can never have too much intelligence. We are of course interested, and even to form new partnerships. [...] It is in terms of complementarity that I see the creation of this hub , enthused Frédéric Masquelier. Innovation constitutes an essential lever for emancipation, job creation and economic transformation. In Saint-Raphaël, as in the entire Estérel Côte d'Azur Agglomération territory, we have chosen to make it a clear and assumed priority. The Hub responds to a real need to structure our entrepreneurial fabric, still insufficiently united around innovation."

Although Nice, Marseille, and even Toulon attract the majority of innovative entrepreneurs in terms of regional economic attractiveness, Thomas Côte had the intuition, despite everything, that something could be achieved in the Est-Var: "I told myself that, within our territory here, we have everything: many successful companies with talent, innovation, everything is ready for it to take off, and yet, we have the impression that we are in a blind spot - Toulon on one side, and the Alpes-Maritimes on the other. However, this territory deserves to be an extremely visible antenna. [...] So quickly, the project of a hub made its way to the Codev of the Agglo. Confidence and support were immediate and very strong. Thus was born the Hive, and Agnès Luque Smit will be our permanent. And only twelve months after the initiative of our Hub project, we are already here, to launch a tool that, I hope, will support the greatest number of people."

House of Economy, Château Gallieni, 313 avenue du Château Gallieni, in Fréjus. Telephone: 04.94.82.64.45.