2024-01-11 15:50:00
It’s a turning point. That of an industrial startup that is entering the data economy. This pivot is that of Louis, the Toulouse manufacturer of reusable, custom-made, wooden office furniture. “ In 2024, a third of our revenues will already be generated by our software platform », underlines Thomas Devineaux, the CEO and co-founder of Louis who projects a financial year close to 4.8 million euros in turnover.
For this new year, the Toulouse startup has decided to diversify its economic model with a digital platform, “Louis Tech”, aimed at major accounts, without abandoning its historic activity launched in 2018.
“This new tool should enable the circularity of office furniture for major accounts and measure the environmental and financial performance of these companies’ furniture stock. The carbon depreciation of an office is estimated at 80 years today. The idea is therefore to maximize the lifespan of the existing fleet, maximize their reparability, promote the circular economy and thus guarantee the quality of the fleet. We act as a trusted third party for this clientele,” explains the manager.
With this new product, the objective for Louis is to offer its customers the best possible financial projection concerning the furniture of the company in question and the associated measures. To offer such a service, the Toulouse startup will rely mainly on image processing with algorithms specially designed for this purpose, and the use of QR codes on the furniture concerned, in particular to report significant alterations. As a result, Louis plans to recruit around ten people in 2024 dedicated to this project.
After selling office furniture by the piece for five years, the young company is now moving towards the complementary economic model of subscription (SaaS), which is already finding its audience. “ Today, we have five confidential projects for the moment (a project for a client, editor’s note) to develop for 2024. With them, we should arrive at 50,000 tonnes of Co2 avoided by 2025 », welcomes Thomas Devineaux.
Thomas Devineaux wants to bring a data dimension to the income of Louis, today purely an industrial startup (Credits: Rémi Benoit).
Louis’ collaborators want to preach the good word
Beyond being an economic choice, it is above all a choice of impact which dictated this pivot by Louis. “ We have a great brand, which is stable and which will find the break-even point. From now on, we want to spread our know-how to others and not stay in our corner to have a much greater impact », Comments the entrepreneur.
As a reminder, Louis offers professional customers custom-made office furniture made from wood, sourced from eco-managed European forests, with a lifespan of 80 years. In five years, the industrial startup has put more than 3,000 coins into circulation. One of his latest flagship projects? The SME has fully equipped the new Cyber Campus in Paris with office furniture, with around 500 pieces delivered in 2022 just for this project.
According to him, this production of durable and reusable furniture made it possible to avoid the release of a few hundred tons of C02, but with his software solution, by acting on the consumption of furniture by large groups, the manager hopes to avoid the release of 200,000 tonnes of Co2 by 2027.
For Thomas Devineaux, this shift is also the materialization of his “Tech By Carbon”, a guide to good practices imagined by the entrepreneur and Louis’ collaborators with the aim of encouraging companies to make their transition. “ No one embodies this necessary transition in the business world », he believes, who wishes to publish it in the near future. With this future guide, which promises to be “ very down to earth », with good practices that are easy to implement, the entrepreneur does not intend to promote his products and on the contrary promises that this approach will be detached from the Louis company. “ We want to speak to all employees in as many companies as possible », adds the CEO.
Seduced by Louis’ market approach and vision, investors should soon integrate the capital of the young company which had already raised 1.5 million euros in the past. With this future contribution, the SME of 18 employees intends, in addition to financing the development of its new software, to considerably increase the automation of its wooden office furniture production line. “ We will go from 40% to 80% automation », concludes Thomas Devineaux.
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