If Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana remains in the shadows, this is far from the case with the start-up she co-founded in 2014. Ledger has become the fifteenth French “unicorn”. Although she left in 2019, the entrepreneur remained faithful to Vierzon, where the company was created, to carry out her new project.
L’Express: Why did you set up your business in Vierzon?
Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana: This is the city where my friend Joël Pobeda – with whom I co-founded Ledger in 2014 and, recently, Le Center – lives and works. It was also there that he met David Balland, another member of the team. There is therefore a special attachment, a common history with this city. Vierzon also has a double advantage: the rents are much cheaper than in Paris, and the support received at the time of the creation of Ledger from the municipality, the department and the community of municipalities had been extraordinary. . Finally, we really fell in love with the old steel wire manufacturing plant located in the city: not only is the surface area gigantic (6,000 square meters), but above all the “wasteland” atmosphere makes it easier to immersion of future visitors. It is moreover the discovery of the place that inspired us the project, and not the reverse.
What is the purpose of the Center?
For now, it’s in the laboratory stage, but the idea is to create an immersive cultural hub during 2023. Artists will come to this place to perform performances, which will then be modeled in a metaverse. People will be able to access it through virtual reality interfaces, like VR headsets. This digital platform will also allow other creators to share their work. For the time being, we have selected nine local, national and international artists, but other calls for projects have been launched. Crypto keys will also allow the public to access exclusive content, and we are already thinking about making-ofs of the services provided. Finally, we do not rule out the establishment of several partnerships with players in the cultural world. On April 23, for example, we teamed up with the Printemps de Bourges to offer all festival-goers NFT tickets. The entire architecture of the Center is designed around Web3. In the short term, we are targeting a niche audience, since it represents owners of a VR headset. In the longer term, however, we hope to address those who do not necessarily master these technologies so that they can appropriate them.
How will this contribute to the attractiveness of the city?
Even if Vierzon is an average city, which has not taken the post-industrial turn, it welcomes more and more technological projects. For example, there is Algosup, a school launched in 2019 by Eric Larchevêque, another co-founder of Ledger, intended to train software developers. In September 2023, a start-up incubator, once again led by Eric Larchevêque, the community of municipalities and Crédit Agricole, will open its doors to accommodate around ten companies over a two-year period. The city is therefore in the process of developing, of attracting more and more innovators, and we believe that our Center will accelerate this process, even if it is not its primary vocation.