Choosing an incubator in Toulouse starts with cost, and each program puts its pricing in a different place on its website. The regional incubator Nubbo charges a deferred monthly fee of €1,200 excl. VAT, on top of a repayable advance of up to €50,000. The impact incubators, Incoplex, Première Brique and Alter'Incub, are free and take no equity. The school incubators, TBSeeds and Le Semoir, keep their places for their own students and graduates. And the city's most-cited accelerator, Airbus BizLab, has stopped running open cohorts since Airbus folded it into Airbus Scale in November 2021. This guide compares each program on cost, audience, duration and what you give in return, using the figures each one publishes.
How to choose an incubator in Toulouse
Three criteria settle the question before you even read the individual profiles.
Cost and what you give in return
None of the Toulouse programs in this guide takes equity. The real split is between free and deferred-payment. Incoplex, Première Brique, Alter'Incub, the Incubateur du Barreau and the school incubators charge nothing. Nubbo charges for its support, €1,200 excl. VAT per month, and you only start paying one year after the program ends, spread over 36 months. You leave Nubbo with a support debt of €14,400 excl. VAT for twelve months of incubation, plus the repayable advance if you take it. The arrangement stays non-dilutive, but it weighs on your cash in year three, right when you are preparing a raise.
Ties to a school or a sector
TBSeeds takes students and graduates of TBS Education, Le Semoir those of the École d'Ingénieurs de Purpan. The Incubateur du Barreau accepts anyone building a project that helps lawyers. Incoplex, Première Brique and Alter'Incub require a demonstrated social or environmental impact. Nubbo requires a B2B model and a base in Occitanie. If none of these fit, your options are Nubbo's pre-incubation or a platform like La Mashine.
Stage
Nubbo publishes three entry points: a free two-month pre-incubation to test an idea; a twelve-month incubation to land your first paying customers; and a six-month acceleration reserved for companies that have already closed a seed round and are generating revenue. Incoplex also splits its tracks by maturity: ideation, companies under three years old, and companies over three years old. Apply at the stage you are actually at. A jury assessing a project pitched one level too high sends back a rejection with no useful explanation.
La Cité and French Tech Toulouse
La Cité, in the former Latécoère Halls in Montaudran, brings together 13,600 m², 280 coworking desks and an 850 m² fablab. The Occitanie Region opened the site on 2 March 2020 at a cost of €37.2 million. The Nubbo teams and the regional agency Ad'Occ both have their offices there. A startup incubated at Nubbo therefore works in the same building as the agency that processes regional funding applications.
French Tech Toulouse runs Le Monthly, a monthly breakfast where startups, investors and support programs meet, with registration required. For a founder arriving in Toulouse without a network, it is the first event to book before applying anywhere: program managers attend, and an application that follows a conversation lands better than an anonymous one.
Tech and deeptech incubators
Nubbo, the regional incubator
Nubbo is the Occitanie Region's incubator, based at La Cité, and presents itself as the first French incubator with "société à mission" (purpose-driven company) status. It reports 398 projects supported, an 85% five-year survival rate and €1.57 billion raised by its startups.
Incubation lasts twelve months. You can request a repayable advance of up to €50,000, interest-free, with no personal guarantee and no equity taken, deferred for one year and then repaid over 36 months. The €1,200 excl. VAT monthly support fee follows the same deferred schedule. Nubbo requires a B2B model, a proof of concept and a base in Occitanie.
Acceleration lasts six months and targets the Series A: Nubbo requires a completed seed round, revenue, six months of runway and a three-year financial plan. A second advance of up to €50,000 is available on the same terms.
Upstream, pre-incubation lasts two months and costs nothing; a deeptech pre-incubation of twelve to eighteen months exists for research-based projects.
The 2026 incubation cohort has five startups: Kepplair Evolution (water bomber aircraft), Swan-H (low-carbon ammonia), Vecteur (AI-assisted space design), Alyzai (AI for industry) and Practicle.ai (AI-powered compliance). Five companies selected for a cohort is the order of magnitude to keep in mind when you apply.
Airbus BizLab and Airbus Scale
Airbus launched BizLab in Toulouse in 2015, then in Hamburg, Bangalore and Madrid. The group's published results: more than 90 startups accelerated, nearly 70 internal projects and seven spin-outs valued at €104 million, through a six-month program that mixed external startups and intrapreneurs.
That format no longer exists. In November 2021, Airbus created Airbus Scale, a unit combining internal innovation, startup partnerships and the creation of co-funded subsidiaries. Airbus Scale starts from Airbus's own needs and looks for partners; it does not recruit cohorts through open applications. If you are building technology for aerospace or space, the way in is a commercial or technical contact with an Airbus team, since there is no accelerator application form. Any page that still presents BizLab as an open program dates from before 2022.
Impact and social economy incubators
Incoplex Toulouse
Incoplex Toulouse is the accelerator run by INCO Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization, for projects with social or environmental impact in Haute-Garonne. The program is free, with no exclusivity requirement and no equity taken. Three tracks run side by side: Émergence, six months, for projects at the ideation stage; Création et développement, twelve months, for companies under three years old; and Croissance, twelve months, for companies over three years old. Support includes an initial assessment, monthly masterclasses, monthly check-ins with partner experts and a workspace in central Toulouse. Incoplex has run three cohorts, in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Première Brique
Première Brique is the social innovation incubator jointly run by Toulouse Métropole and France Active MPA Occitanie. Support is free and the program reports more than 150 people supported since it started. The full track lasts eighteen months: six of pre-incubation followed by twelve of incubation. The 2026-2027 call for projects closes on Monday 2 November 2026 at midnight, with information sessions in September and October. The metropolitan backing matters for any project targeting local authorities as its first customers: the program's co-sponsor is also the region's public buyer.
Alter'Incub Occitanie
Alter'Incub is the network of social innovation incubators backed by the cooperative movement. In Occitanie, two branches cover the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. The program is free and lasts nine months, with three calls for projects a year since 2025. Since 2007, the Mediterranean branch has supported nearly 300 projects, 140 of which led to a company being created. The program is open to entrepreneurs, collectives, non-profits and career changers building a project that serves the common good.
School and niche incubators
TBSeeds, TBS Education
TBSeeds is the incubator of TBS Education, open to the school's students and graduates. The published program includes 50 hours of support: 20 hours with a professional coach from the project's sector, 10 hours with a TBS professor and 15 themed workshops. Incubated founders compete in the Level Up Contest and the women's entrepreneurship award, two annual prizes run by the school. For a student torn between finishing a degree and launching a project, TBSeeds removes the dilemma: the project becomes part of the coursework.
Le Semoir, École d'Ingénieurs de Purpan
The École d'Ingénieurs de Purpan launched Le Semoir in autumn 2018 for its students and recent graduates starting companies in agriculture, food or life sciences. The school hosts the incubated founders, its faculty researchers support them on marketing, science, finance and management, and they get access to the labs. A fifth-year student can devote their final thesis to their project. The school does not publish how many projects it has supported.
L'Incubateur du Barreau de Toulouse
The Toulouse Bar Incubator has existed since 27 March 2017. It accepts any innovator, whether a student, non-profit, law firm or company, provided the innovation concerns lawyers or their practice: document automation, access to justice, practice management tools. Applications open every year and close on 19 September at midnight. The winner receives a cash prize, legal advisory services and support from the incubator. Volunteer lawyers also hold free drop-in sessions for founders at the Maison de l'Avocat, though they do not draft legal documents.
La Mashine
La Mashine, based in Labège, is an entrepreneurial execution platform: an online workspace that structures the project, prioritizes tasks and keeps a record of decisions, sold to entrepreneurs and to the organizations that support them. It works differently from an incubator in the traditional sense of a cohort with a physical space and a jury. It publishes no number of projects supported, no pricing and no duration. If you are looking for a management tool rather than a program, that is where it fits.
Comparison table: cost, duration, equity, audience
| Program | Duration | Cost to the founder | Equity | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nubbo, pre-incubation | 2 months | Free | None | Idea to test, Occitanie |
| Nubbo, incubation | 12 months | €1,200 excl. VAT/month, deferred, repayable advance up to €50,000 | None | B2B startup with proof of concept |
| Nubbo, acceleration | 6 months | €1,200 excl. VAT/month, deferred, advance up to €50,000 | None | Seed round closed, generating revenue |
| Airbus Scale | Case by case | Not published | Co-funding of subsidiaries | Airbus industrial partners, no open call |
| Incoplex Toulouse | 6 or 12 months depending on track | Free | None | Social or environmental impact, Haute-Garonne |
| Première Brique | 18 months (6 + 12) | Free | None | Social innovation, Toulouse metropolitan area |
| Alter'Incub Occitanie | 9 months | Free | None | Social innovation, social economy |
| TBSeeds | 50 hours of support | Free | None | TBS students and graduates |
| Le Semoir | Not published | Free | None | Purpan students and graduates |
| Incubateur du Barreau | Annual, closes 19 September | Free | None | Projects that help lawyers |
| La Mashine | Not published | Not published | None | Any entrepreneur, online |
Preparing your application
Three elements come up again and again in the criteria published by Toulouse programs.
Evidence that you have already met your market. Nubbo asks for a proof of concept and a B2B model; Incoplex starts with an assessment. An application that cites customer interviews and a first quote, even a rejected one, reads better than a copied-and-pasted market study.
A team of at least two people with distinct skills. A solo technical founder will have to explain who handles sales. Juries ask that question in the very first interview.
A financial plan covering the length of the program. Nubbo requires a three-year plan and six months of runway for acceleration. For incubation, show at minimum how you will fund the twelve months, deferred fee included.
Apply to several programs in parallel. The calendars differ: Première Brique closes on 2 November 2026, the Bar Incubator on 19 September, and Alter'Incub opens three times a year. A rejection from Nubbo has no bearing on Incoplex, since the two juries share neither criteria nor members.
FAQ
How much does incubation at Nubbo cost?
Nubbo charges a support fee of €1,200 excl. VAT per month, or €14,400 excl. VAT for the twelve months of incubation, payable on a deferred basis: repayment starts one year after the program ends and is spread over 36 months. The repayable advance of up to €50,000 follows the same schedule, with no interest and no personal guarantee. Nubbo takes no equity.
Does Airbus BizLab still accept startups?
No, at least not as an open accelerator. Airbus launched BizLab in 2015 and accelerated more than 90 startups, then merged these activities into Airbus Scale in November 2021. Airbus Scale starts from the group's needs and works with identified partners, with no public call for applications. An aerospace or space startup gets into Airbus through a commercial or technical contact rather than an application form.
Which Toulouse incubators are free and take no equity?
Incoplex Toulouse (six or twelve months depending on the track), Première Brique (eighteen months) and Alter'Incub Occitanie (nine months) are free and take no equity, provided your project has a social or environmental impact. TBSeeds, Le Semoir and the Incubateur du Barreau are free for their respective audiences. Nubbo's two-month pre-incubation is free; Nubbo charges for incubation and acceleration on a deferred basis.
How do you get into Nubbo?
Nubbo recruits through calls for projects: a written application, a shortlist, then a pitch in front of a committee. For incubation, it expects a B2B model, a proof of concept and a base in Occitanie; for acceleration, a completed seed round, revenue and six months of runway. Nubbo publishes the dates on nubbo.co. The 2026 incubation cohort has five startups.
Further reading
To place Toulouse's programs in the national landscape, our guide to startup incubators and accelerators in France covers the selection criteria that apply in every city. A Toulouse founder targeting the national market often compares with Bordeaux, two hours away by train, where Technowest plays Nubbo's regional role, and with Lyon, whose school incubators more often accept external applicants. If your project needs direct access to seed funds, the guide to incubators and accelerators in Paris lists the programs that also host startups from outside the capital.
