A scientist can prove that something works and still struggle to find anyone who will buy it. The result sits between two institutions: a laboratory rewarded for discovery and a business expected to justify expenditure. Hello Tomorrow works in that awkward interval. Its proposition is disarmingly social: find the people who can move an invention forward, and give them a reason to meet.
- Scientific founders get recognition, introductions and routes to industrial partners.
- Companies buy help defining opportunities, finding startups and organising collaborations.
- A reported Repsol project went from 104 assessed startups to two pilot agreements in 90 days.
The attention problem
The origin was a complaint about where attention went. In a 2019 interview, co-founder Arnaud de la Tour recalled scientists watching digital platforms collect money and enthusiasm while inventions remained in laboratories. He and synthetic biologist Xavier Duportet had started Hello Tomorrow in 2011. They wanted business to look more closely at science.
De la Tour also described an instructive change. Early applicants were drawn by prize money; later, visibility and connections became the attraction. A competition could recruit the inventions. A carefully assembled audience could help them travel. That distinction explains why Hello Tomorrow grew beyond awarding a cheque.
Today its offer spans events, startup competitions, consulting and acceleration. The customers include industrial companies and public institutions; the participants include researchers, founders and investors. These groups need different things from the same encounter. A founder needs a buyer. A buyer needs evidence. An investor needs a business that can survive both.
The founders’ backgrounds help explain the emphasis. De la Tour studied the photovoltaic industry and worked at Boston Consulting Group; Duportet came from synthetic biology. Those disciplines pose very different technical questions, yet both face the problem of transferring knowledge into a company. Hello Tomorrow’s team sits close to that translation task, where a scientific result must become a proposition another organisation can evaluate.
104 prospects, two pilots
Consider critical minerals. Repsol wanted technologies for recovering and recycling materials including lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. Hello Tomorrow’s account of the assignment begins with a specific industrial asset and its physical and economic constraints. This matters. “Find interesting science” is a request for an enormous reading list. “Find something that can work here” permits a decision.
The team assessed 104 startups across eight targeted technologies, shortlisted six and connected two selected companies with Repsol for proof-of-concept projects. It reports signed pilot agreements within 90 days. A signed pilot is a useful intermediate result: an organisation has agreed to test something. It remains a considerable distance from a profitable deployment.
The consultancy’s expertise lies partly in making these distinctions early. Its scouting connects technology searches to business needs. Its ecosystem maps identify the actors around an opportunity. Its collaboration work brings internal stakeholders, founders and experts into a proposed project before management commits more time. The glamorous invention gets a less glamorous companion: a decision process.
The prize is only the front door
The Global Challenge, running since 2014, is the public entrance to this network. Selection as a Deep Tech Pioneer brings recognition and opportunities to meet investors and corporate partners. The current call closes on 30 November 2026, with finals scheduled during the Amsterdam Summit on 2-3 June 2027.
For investors, Investor Day makes discovery more deliberate through booked, one-to-one meetings. The event page includes a Dendra Systems CEO testimonial crediting Hello Tomorrow with the introduction to a lead investor. Such a connection is precisely the product. The room has value because somebody has already considered who belongs in it.
“We found our lead investor through Hello Tomorrow.”
Dendra Systems CEO / Investor Day testimonial
Hello Tomorrow also works with DeepBright Ventures, an investment platform targeting pre-seed and seed companies with distinctive intellectual property. This adds capital to the network’s capabilities. The activities are related, but entering a competition and accepting an investment remain different decisions.
What access costs
Application to the Challenge is free, and applying does not oblige a startup to surrender equity. The 12th edition advertises a €200,000 investment prize from DeepBright. Founders should read that word carefully: investment comes with terms. Older descriptions of cash awards should not be carried forward into a new edition.
The paid side is visible in event passes and consulting. For its 2026 Summit, Hello Tomorrow advertised corporate tickets from €1,250 excluding tax; a combined investor Summit and Investor Day pass was listed at €1,490. Those are historical advertised prices. The current legal operator is a French SAS, alongside the organisation’s widely described nonprofit origins.
Alternatives depend on the need. Tech Tour also organises investor access. HAX combines investment with hands-on hard-tech development. Hello Tomorrow’s particular combination joins scientific discovery, corporate consulting and curated encounters. Its appeal is strongest when a team needs a commercial counterpart as well as technical advice.
That combination also creates a useful standard for judging the service. A large guest list tells a founder little about whether the right industrial specialist will attend. A technology report tells a corporate manager little about who will run the experiment. The valuable output is a next step that both sides understand. Readers can judge the network by the specificity of those next steps, rather than the size of its audience.
A different room in Amsterdam
In 2026, the Summit moved from Paris to Amsterdam. Hello Tomorrow’s announcement highlighted ASML and the Dutch research and startup community. A venue change can change the available partners. The first Amsterdam edition took place on 11-12 June.
The organisation keeps working between gatherings. Its July 2026 reports examined semiconductor startups and the obstacles to deploying dual-use technology. They extend the same question from an individual company to an industry: who has to act before a promising invention becomes useful at scale?
Borrow the brief, then book the meeting
The Repsol example suggests something readers can copy: define the operating problem, spell out the constraints, screen broadly, then design a bounded test with a responsible decision-maker. Hello Tomorrow’s collaboration offer explicitly recognises technology, market, economic and cultural risks. An introduction cannot remove those risks by itself.
For a founder, that means arriving with a precise request and evidence a counterpart can examine. For a corporation, it means bringing someone who can commit resources. Without either, the encounter may produce a pleasant afternoon. With both, the conversation has somewhere to go after everybody takes off their badge.