Our arrival at the ISS #1 Moving in

Today, we're not going to talk about development, but about our work environment. If you like this kind of post, we'll probably do other articles to tell you about our days and our workplace.

Our journey to the ISS

As we announced earlier, we joined the Inria Startup Studio in early November 2022. This coaching and hosting within Inria is for a maximum of one year. Beyond helping us in the startup creation process, being in the ISS also allows us to keep a foot in the research world, and gives us different opportunities (like participating to the video game event at Féru des sciences). Overall, the year of incubation by Inria includes:

• One year salary for two people to work on VirtualSociety (Jimmy and Nico)
• A one-year accommodation (offices, access to meeting rooms, and to the various services of Inria (internet, printers, canteen))
• A personalized support, with a weekly local follow-up of the project, and a national board every month
• 60 hours of training, and access to numerous workshops on business creation and its various aspects
• An operating budget dedicated to the project for travel and soecific expenses (e.g. borrowing equipment)
• The opportunity to obtain licenses for needed Inria technologies 

In compensation for this, Inria gets an option to participate in the company's capital, which will allow Inria to sell 5% of the shares of the future company when it wishes, which may allow it to make a return on investment. We are therefore very happy to have been selected by the Inria Startup Studio selection committee and to be among the incubated projects!

Our new offices

In mid-December, Loria and Inria decided to renovate their common space, the "Agora", to welcome ISS startups and create a new space for discussion and scientific mediation. We had temporarily moved during the renovation, and we are now back in the Agora with our new offices!

The whole space has been refurbished with motorized sit-stand desks, new chairs, a new "coffee" area, bubbles for visios and meetings and a relaxation area.

Our days at ISS

We are very happy to be able to stay another year at Inria (after having done our internships and theses). As we said, it allows us to remain in the research world, and we have developed many connections over the years. The atmosphere at the Inria Nancy - Grand Est center (which is also the Loria, Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherche en Informatique et ses Applications, the two labs share the same premises and work closely together) is very good!

We are several startup projects incubated in the same place, which allows us to share our experiences and to advise each other. This extra year at Inria also allows us to see regularly the PhD students of our former teams, and we still regularly play Avalon (a board game with hidden roles) with them at lunchtime, which we will miss terribly when we leave ISS!

We'll probably do some more articles to describe more precisely how we're doing, if you're interested!
Thanks for your support, and see you soon!