Adrien Poggetti and Anne Pruvot: the stakes of the partnership with La Cantine

Why is this partnership important to you?

Anne: Entering into a partnership with a local player as powerful in the ecosystem as La Cantine x La French Tech, fully resonates with our purpose of 'innovating to make sustainable mobility accessible to all'. SNCF Connect & Tech therefore has two major goals: to be involved on a daily basis in tech-related innovation; and to develop its commitment to working closely with local communities. Strengthening our local roots in the Pays de La Loire region with La Cantine is an undeniable asset in achieving our goal.
 

Adrien: This partnership perfectly illustrates the association's mission to bring together startups and major corporations, as with the 'Je Choisis la French Tech' programme. Convinced of the benefits of combining talents, we aim to connect companies and their employees with La Cantine's ecosystem to create mutual prospects and opportunities. In addition, the power of an organisation like SNCF Connect & Tech enables us to identify experts on key subjects to help spread knowledge within the community.

What makes Pays de la Loire an attractive region for the technology sector?

Adrien: The region is a real hotbed for technology for several reasons. For example, there are talented entrepreneurs who share their experiences, and powerful school networks that help train thousands of students every year who will then feed into the business world. I'm also mindful of an ecosystem made up of incubators, accelerators and support structures such as La Cantine, Icilundi and ADN Ouest. Not to mention the investors who support this dynamic. Nantes is a resolutely dynamic and attractive city, combining quality of life, proximity to the sea and cultural wealth, all driven by a genuine culture of teamwork. Here, the ecosystem is based on solid human relationships and a unique ability to unite the strengths of all stakeholders to create a powerful collective effort and produce remarkable results.
 

Anne: Pays de la Loire is a strategic location for our development. We already have 500 employees, and we've expanded our teams significantly between 2022 and 2024, with over 200 new employees in this period alone! Renewing our partnership with La Cantine strengthens our long-term commitment and enables us to develop our connection with the rich pool of talent in the Nantes region, which is home to many innovative schools and companies.

What do you see as the challenges facing the technology sector in the future?

Anne: Cybersecurity comes to mind first, it's a constant concern for us. This is all the more important given that our entire cybersecurity team is based in Nantes, where it benefits from a local network of experts in this field. The second topic we care about is digital responsibility of course, for which SNCF Connect & Tech is a pioneer. In fact, we were awarded Level 2 of the 'Label Numérique Responsable' in 2024 for our commitment to digital responsibility. The third topic is obviously AI, which is one of the major trends in tech that we've been working on for a long time. Our aim is above all to make it tangible, practical and useful for our customers and all our users.
 

Adrien: I agree with Anne on the subject of artificial intelligence, which has been around for many years, and which has seen a major turning point with the arrival of ChatGPT, making this technology more accessible than ever. While its uptake is skyrocketing, the challenge remains to democratise usage. Another future revolution that comes to mind is quantum computing. These supercomputers, capable of executing billions of operations at unprecedented speed, promise to solve scientific problems that have until now remained unsolvable.

A major challenge - and not the least - remains inclusion. For the technology sector to explore and deploy its full potential, it needs to attract talent from a wider range of backgrounds and horizons.

Adrien, you've been director of La Cantine for 16 years. How would you sum up your experience to date?

The Nantes ecosystem has changed a great deal over the last fifteen years. We've supported three generations of entrepreneurs, resources are more readily available and the fact that we can rely on seasoned entrepreneurs automatically leads to higher quality projects. 

Training courses are better structured, profiles more qualified, access to financing easier than a few years ago, and the arrival of new technologies better understood. Nantes is now one of France's leading tech cities, and La Cantine has succeeded in federating these efforts, growing the ecosystem and acting as a catalyst, a role we hope to cultivate and develop in the years to come. Obviously, over the past two years, the context has been a little more difficult for everyone, but Nantes is doing than just holding on, and we're getting moving at La Cantine x La French Tech Nantes to push ahead with programmes and services designed to help our companies get through this period.