With her start-up incubated in Chartres, she illuminates plants

The bioluminescence of the seabed

“I grew up in Normandy and I came to settle in Île-de-France, in Seine-et-Marne, where I created my company. I arrived in Chartres to develop the production part of my project after we have been in business for four years”, confides the young entrepreneur who had spent more than a year developing her process and trying it out. From the art of design to the domestication of plants, Sophie Hombert achieved this feat by forging a partnership with the Agrocampus in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) during her graduate studies.

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The concept of luminescent plants was born from the imagination of Sophie Hombert, founder of Aglaé

“During my master 1 in England, I worked on biomimicry, which means discovering how we can imitate nature to create innovation. It interested me a lot until I made it my dissertation the following year. I wanted to draw inspiration from the bioluminescence found in the seabed. Thus, thanks to the phenomenon of biomimicry, nature offers us alternative light sources, cold and natural sources. »

Research supervised by a doctor
in plant biology

Sophie Hombert put on a white coat for six months at the Agrocampus in Rennes, and she carried out her research, supervised by a doctor in plant biology. Without having followed scientific studies, she has always been attracted by art and design which push her to discover scientific phenomena around concrete experiences.

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“In six months, I created a first formulation which was functional but which did not yet meet all the toxicological and regulatory criteria that I wanted to impose before launching myself. Chemistry is everywhere and luminescence is found as much in stones as in plants. In plants, chlorophyll A is fluorinating,” explains the young startuper, who specifies that her process makes it possible to incorporate and reveal light invisible to the naked eye without any genetic modification, thanks to chemistry: “We don’t disturb not the plant or its metabolism or its way of life. The idea was to create a formulation that lives in symbiosis with the plant, whether it is biodegradable and biosourced. »

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Creating light on plants has thus become the object of existence and development of the Aglaé company, a pioneering company in a new economic market that did not exist until then.

Sophie Hombert is now at the head of a start-up that uses this technique for the event market but whose uses are diverse. As with the Coca-Cola brand, Aglaé’s formula is secret and risks remaining so in Sophie Hombert’s head and coffers for a long time, but the market is probably colossal.

The young Frenchwoman will create a branch in Montreal (Canada) and New York (United States). It employs seven people. His hope is to create a space for experimentation with Chartres en Lumières, which says it is ready to discover this product capable of completing this installation one day. “If this succeeds, Chartres will be the first city to test Aglaé’s invention, which enables streets to be illuminated without consuming electrical energy. »