X-HEC Entrepreneurs Program Highlights
At the crossroads of HEC Paris’ entrepreneurial spirit and its ambition to drive change, the Master of Science X-HEC Entrepreneurs stands as one of the School’s most distinctive learning experiences. Jointly run by HEC Paris and École Polytechnique, this program offers students a unique practice-based approach to entrepreneurship education. This one-year timeline examines how its academic foundations, fieldwork, and innovation-driven learning experiences equip students to navigate complex entrepreneurial environments.
Ecole Polytechnique - HEC Paris program of entrepreneurship
The MSc X-HEC Entrepreneurs equips students who aspire to become founders or to build a career within the world of start-ups by combining École Polytechnique’s scientific rigor with HEC Paris’s venture-building expertise. It offers a unique springboard for transforming ideas into market-ready ventures, or for thriving in a wide range of entrepreneurial and innovation-driven roles.
The program’s learning by doing pedagogy places students at the center of real entrepreneurial practice, enabling them to develop skills through building, testing, and refining solutions in direct contact with the startup ecosystem. From this immersive experience to the initial development of their venture project, the following points outline the program’s key highlights.
A renewed academic leadership
Since September 2025, the MSc X-HEC Entrepreneurs has entered a new phase of evolution under the direction of its newly appointed Academic Director, Guillaume le Dieu de Ville, himself a serial entrepreneur. Building on the program’s strong foundations and entrepreneurial DNA, this new leadership focuses on refining and elevating the learning experience, strengthening its structure and coherence while remaining deeply anchored in real-world entrepreneurial practice.
With a clear emphasis on excellence, relevance, and close alignment with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Guillaume’s ambition is to guide the program’s continued evolution, enhancing its impact and consistency across the student journey, while preserving what has made X-HEC Entrepreneurs one of HEC Paris’s leading flagship programs in entrepreneurship.
Welcome Seminar 1 (Ent'Raid)
The entrepreneurship program begins with a five-day welcome seminar, a true collective adventure designed to build strong cohort cohesion from day one. This formative experience lays the foundation for a supportive community that accompanies students throughout their entrepreneurial journey. This year, the seminar took place in the Jura mountains (France), near La Chapelle-des-Bois, where students spent five days immersed in nature, participating in social and outdoor activities.
“There's nothing better than walking for hours in nature to get to know someone. (...) What I liked was that we met nine new people every day. By the end, you had talked to everyone, and above all, you had shared some great moments with them. What I found beautiful was seeing that many of us have this flame, this desire to do something that truly reflects who we are.”
- Pacôme Richard, student of the MSc X-HEC Entrepreneurs
Phase 1 - Learn: the foundation for action
From September to December, students master the key approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation through the practice-based classes taught for each mission. Throughout this four-month period, they also receive expert guidance during two juries that help them shape and refine their startup project. X-HEC Entrepreneurs students follow consecutively two missions:
- “Mission Start-up: Exploration”: Student teams face a genuine strategic challenge provided by a company or research project. They address this challenge using a field exploration approach inspired by customer discovery.
- “Mission Restructuring”: Focused on real business turnaround, this mission requires students to work on a recovery case to develop their skills in critical thinking, strategic assessment, and financial analysis.
Then, throughout the first semester, they take 2 elective courses amongst the 10 offered in order to deepen their expertise in a specific industry (Retail, Hospitality, Health, Neurosciences, Fintech, Energy, etc.) and a specific technology (Blockchain, Digital, AI, etc.).
In parallel, students participate in a series of hands-on immersive experiences, including:
- Darty Seminar: during the intense Black Friday period, students take part in a 5-day immersion within Darty franchises across the Île-de-France region, with a clear objective: to sell as much as possible.
- Digital Products & GenAI Seminar with Le Wagon: from UX research and AI-powered prototyping to RAG systems and intelligent agents, teams transform simple ideas into functional digital products in just two days.
- Open-Source & Low-Code Banking Hackathon with BNP Paribas Private Bank, powered by BivwAk!, enabling students to develop real-world innovation skills by building open-source and low-code solutions.
- AI Hackathon with H Company: in just a few hours, students design and build a product aimed at solving a concrete business problem using AI agents.
These experiences are a cornerstone of HEC Paris’s learning by doing pedagogy, allowing students to develop advanced technical, product, and problem-solving skills in real conditions.
Phase 2 - Test: time to take your project off the ground
For the next three months, students choose a specific track tailored to their entrepreneurial goals, unlocking a wide range of opportunities while we ensure they’re placed in the best environments to pursue them. Each team will work on their project, in Paris, or overseas, either in the United States or in Asia.
HEC Paris Startup Launchpad
Ideal for students with a specific project, the Startup Launchpad is one of the leading accelerators for student startups. It uses a learning-by-doing approach to help students create and launch a venture in just 11 weeks, supported by a community of ecosystem experts. The program combines lean startups methods, customer discovery, prototyping, mentorship, and access to the broader ecosystem of HEC Paris Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute.
Berkeley Learn2Launch
Held at UC Berkeley, in the heart of Silicon Valley, this track offers an immersive approach to innovation, teaching students how to turn emerging technologies into real-world startups. Participants create and launch their own startup while benefiting from lectures, case studies, and insights from experienced startup professionals, including investors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs.
National University of Singapore
This track is designed for students interested in the Asian market or in fast-growing innovation hubs such as Fintech, Foodtech, or Urban Planning. Students are fully immersed in Singapore’s dynamic ecosystem and receive weekly coaching to advance and refine their project.
Entrepreneurship through acquisition
This track focuses on the full financial and strategic evaluation of a takeover target, including the analysis of its value, the design of a financing plan, the development of a negotiation strategy, and the preparation of an acquisition business plan, enabling students to perform (or meaningfully contribute to) each key step of the buyer’s process.
PHASE 3 - Consolidate: anchoring your skills
At this stage, the students reunite for a meaningful collective experience, one that deepens even more their connections, broadens their perspectives, and propels them into the next chapter of their development. This phase includes:
Leadership Seminar at the French Naval Academy
Students take on demanding physical and mental challenges in maritime and land environments, pushing their limits while applying pragmatic leadership grounded in rigor, ethics, and courage. Its core value lies in placing future entrepreneurs in real-life, high-pressure environments where leadership is tested, experienced, and embodied.
Learning Expedition to San Francisco
Co-organized with the students, the X-HEC Entrepreneurs San Francisco Learning Expedition offers participants a unique opportunity to engage directly with leading tech companies and immerse themselves in a world-class innovation ecosystem.
Students travel to Silicon Valley for an intensive week of exploration inside one of the world’s most dynamic tech hubs, meeting industry leaders and visiting renowned organizations such as LinkedIn, Google, Palantir Technologies, Meta, Salesforce, AMD, Uber, Plug and Play Tech Center, Salesforce, Snowflake, and Berkeley SkyDeck.
The learning expedition also included exchanges with high-growth startups, visits to cutting-edge research centers and top-tier universities, as well as discussions with visionary entrepreneurs, providing students with firsthand insight into the trends shaping the future of technology and entrepreneurship.
X-HEC Entrepreneurs Demo Day
After months of building, testing, and iterating, a selection of projects from the MSc X-HEC Entrepreneurs program pitch their ventures in front of a packed room of investors, entrepreneurs, and partners from the French entrepreneurial ecosystem.
For the 2025 edition, the Demo Day took place at the Mouvement des Entreprises de France, where 11 student startups took the stage and three standout teams were awarded.
- Best Pitch & Public Prize: Amarante, by Astrid Dischamps & Margault Lepeytre. The first social selling platform dedicated to second-hand fashion.
- Best Project: G LNK, by Ekaterina Peregudova & Alexander Gregoriades, aims to simplify collaboration for healthcare organizations and medical professionals.
PHASE 4 - Become: crossing the bridge from education to entrepreneurship
This final phase represents a key transition, bridging academic learning and real-world entrepreneurship, as students move into their entrepreneurial journey.
Launch your project or complete a CEO right-hand internship
During this phase, students fully immerse themselves in a professional entrepreneurial environment, choosing between two pathways. They may continue developing the venture initiated during Phase 2, moving towards launch by refining their strategy, strengthening execution, and engaging with real market conditions. Alternatively, students may undertake a CEO right-hand internship, working closely alongside an entrepreneur to gain first-hand exposure to strategic decision-making, operational challenges, and leadership in action.
Thesis
Concurrently to their professional experience, X-HEC Entrepreneurs students must also write and defend a thesis on a topic of their choice, ideally reflecting on the different phases of the master’s program and the insights gained throughout this journey.
Commencement Ceremony
The Commencement Ceremony marks the formal conclusion of the academic journey at HEC Paris, celebrating the achievements of graduating students as they transition from their studies into the next chapter of their professional and personal lives, ready to lead with purpose, drive innovation, and make an impact.
Listen to the inspiring address by X-HEC student Erik Fradet: “From Darkness to Light”.