Villa Blu Newsletter #11
Regular updates on a unique hub in the historical heart of Grasse dedicated to accelerating natural innovation 🌱
Another big milestone reached for Villa Blu by Robertet as we held the Investment Committee for our 5th Batch 🌱
Villa Blu News - April ‘25
💙 Already our 5th Investment Committee
Time has flown here at Villa Blu by Robertet and just as we’re celebrating our 2-year anniversary, we will be selecting the entrepreneurs who join our 5th Batch. This time, we were happy to see even more applications from all around the world, as 12 entrepreneurs and their teams travelled to Grasse to pitch to our Investment Committee composed of Robertet experts & Villa Blu partners.
Stay tuned for the results and our onboarding week beginning of June 🎓
🇬🇧 An innovation eye-opener in the UK
Two innovation hubs collided during a UK trip to the booming and recent Norwich Research Park in East Anglia, where we were guided by Alexander Larter from the Tastebuds Collective through an impressive visit of the Quadram Insitute, leading research center in microbiology, and the stunning infrastructures of the entire park connecting entrepreneurs, researchers, students, investors and corporate actors.
A new node in our ecosystem for our more scientific startups 🔬
👨🍳 🍸 Different kinds of entrepreneurs
After Mathieu Nutrastream in the natural supplements industry, we’re continuing our partnerships with unique types of entrepreneurs. Our work here at Villa Blu is bringing us closer and closer to incredible personalities like Big T, the king of barbecue or Emanuele Balestra, the Zinedine Zidane of mixology and Head Barman of the Group Barrière, who kindly share their knowledge and stories with our team and entrepreneurs.
With exceptional know-how and highly engaged communities on social media, they’re taking entrepreneurship to another level 🚀
Portfolio News
🌸 Jane in stores near you
The commercial teams of Jane are pursuing their campaign in putting Jane beverages in retail across France & Europe. While you can still find your favorite Jane drinks online on their website, they will be more and more present physically in supermarkets, restaurants, train stations, airports and corporate offices (eg. Meta, Selecta).
Keep an eye out to discover their innovative natural & functional drinks 🍸
🖼️ Maison Nolte, perfumes from bottles to walls
Léa Steyer, our youngest founder who created Green Touch, a perfumery waste upcycling business, and recently launched her niche perfumery brand Maison Nolte at Notes Shanghai in September, is now diversifying her upcycling techniques and products with unique, olfactive paintings that not only decorate your walls, but also bring a distinct scented universe to your home.
Reach out to her or Villa Blu if you’re interested in discovering her artwork 🎨
Investment News
Some news about fundraising for our entrepreneurs 💸
Another beverage, but a completely different vision for health, Symbiose Kefir, is working on delicious probiotic drinks with a focus on natural gut health. They’ve closed over €1.5M over the past two years and have just finished a €400K bridge round 👏
Frozmetics, a biotech developing the Cryoserum™️, a new technology to preserve active ingredients in liquid form at freezing temperatures, has closed their Pre-Seed round at €200K and will be opening a Seed round next year 👏
Final Notes
Announcing our 5 selected startups for Batch 5, a few unique visits and a big onboarding week…
See you all next month 🫡