Beneath the noisy casino halls, behind the themed restaurants where XXL trays of fries rub shoulders with delicate maki, hides a parallel world: that of the Consumer Electronic Show, the largest and most extravagant world event dedicated to technology which takes place held annually in Las Vegas. A bizarre and labyrinthine place where the space of a few days intersects startupers with long teeth, brilliant inventors, eccentric magicians and tired executives dreaming of fortune in front of slot machines. The rise and fall of humanity concentrated in 352 km2 of concrete and neon, in the middle of the Mojave desert.
For start-ups around the world, CES in Las Vegas is the opportunity of a lifetime, the moment of truth, where they show their innovations to the world, and try to win over customers and investors. But, for them too, Sin City can be a dangerous and difficult place to navigate. Not all people interested in great innovations are well-meaning. And the first risk of trade fairs for start-ups… is to have their ideas stolen there.
“We carefully sort out the information that we include in our pitches and that which we keep confidential. All exchanges at the show must be mastered, you must not reveal anything to just anyone”, confides Janik Added, co-founder of Moovance, a mobile application which analyzes the transport used during a trip (bus, car, bike, walk) and rewards users when they choose the greenest modes. The whole difficulty is to find the right mix, in order to seduce customers and investors without revealing a strategic manufacturing secret.
Start-ups must also protect themselves from more aggressive forms of industrial espionage. “A living room is a candy store for some hackers. The place concentrates a host of innovations in one place. We know that malicious actors sometimes come there with professional spy equipment,” says an event specialist.
“We never leave our computers unattended”
The French start-ups present at the CES in Las Vegas had also been made aware of these risks for a long time. “We never leave our computers unattended and the devices we take only store data and files that we want to communicate to the public. There is no confidential information on it”, explains David Chquiry CEO of Green Tech Innovations, who presented at CES 2023 a smart luminaire equipped with high-efficiency photovoltaic cells. The company’s team also refrains from using hotel WiFi and giving details of its manufacturing processes or the names of the components it uses.
“Ahead of the show, we carried out intellectual property audits of the French start-ups that went there”, specifies Eric Morand, director of the B2B events department of the national agency Business France. Filing for a patent is an effective way to protect your innovation, but it is a double-edged sword. “A patent costs 5,000 euros per year per country, so the cost is not negligible for a young company. And if you patent too early, on a reduced list of countries, this reveals certain manufacturing secrets to competitors who may have the ability to consolidate their offer faster than you”, confides David Chquiry, whose company has filed several patents. .
Timing is therefore key. “The best way to protect your invention, however, is to go international quickly and have a complex solution to copy,” said Bertrand Jomard, CEO of the company Keymo, which presented at CES 2023 a device the size of a USB key for making secure electronic signatures on all types of documents (contracts, etc.).
Opportunistic copiers aren’t the only pitfall of these big shows. The CES, spread over several sites and hotels in the city, constitutes an infernal labyrinth that more than 100,000 visitors wander through. To avoid being overwhelmed on D-Day, start-ups must prepare months in advance. “We coached them for fifteen weeks on how to optimize their time, make an attractive stand, manage meetings with different profiles: investors, media…” explains Eric Morand of Business France. First rule: book rooms months in advance and as close as possible to the site where your stand is located. Then, come with a sufficient team to ensure business meetings and exchanges at the stand. The start-ups surveyed see 200 to 600 people pass through their counters a day.
Suitcases filled with business cards
“We get up at 4 a.m. to prepare the stand and we keep in mind that until the end of the day, every minute counts: each person with whom we exchange can prove to be a decisive contact”, specifies Janik Added the co-founder of Moovance. The veterans of the show who have already experienced one or more editions have learned their lessons. “We shortened our pitch to better manage the influx of visitors, and we have placed TVs on the stand which broadcast videos of our product. This transmits useful first information to visitors who wait,” explains David Chquiry CEO of Green Tech Innovations.
His teams, who came with suitcases full of business cards, also made a point of making solid breakfasts and eating on the go at lunchtime. “There are too many important visitors at lunchtime to afford to be absent,” he confides. The period following the show is also key. Start-ups must maintain and nurture the contacts made on occasion. “And those who have physical products must prepare to move from the prototype stage to the production of small series, if they get their first orders during the show”, points out Eric Morand of Business France. The agency also puts them in contact with entities able to help them manufacture in France.
As exhausting as it is, a show like the CES remains a unique opportunity for French start-ups to show their innovation to the world and to interact with a host of international players (clients or potential investors). France has also considerably increased its presence at CES in Las Vegas over the years. It was she who held the largest foreign pavilion this year in the Eureka Park area with 170 start-ups. “For the first time, France is included in the ranking of innovation champion countries established by the CES”, welcomed Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister Delegate in charge of the Digital Transition and Telecommunications during his visit to the France pavilion on January 5. .
A visibility that seems to bear fruit. French start-ups now generate more than 30% of their turnover abroad and 67% of them have an internationally oriented activity from the first year. And the large American investment funds with large pockets are now much more interested in tricolor nuggets.
“A start-up that only does business in France puts itself in danger”
However, French Tech should not be intoxicated by these first successes, especially in this period of turbulence for global tech. While investors are increasingly selective, the time is no longer for lavish spending but for savings and the search for rapid profitability. This requires us to think more carefully about the foreign markets that we are opening up. “Of course, you have to prioritize. If you do not have large production capacities, for example, there is no need to try to launch yourself in the United States. We help French start-ups to identify the markets suited to their product and their capacity. Even in times of crisis, we must continue to think internationally. A start-up that only does business in France puts itself in danger”, analyzes Didier Boulogne, Deputy Managing Director for Export of Business France.
However, the tricolor nuggets do not think of themselves early enough in a global way, notes this public agency responsible for the international development of French companies. “From the start, you have to offer your documentation in English and integrate international profiles into the team”, recommends Eric Morand, director of the B2B event department of the national agency.
Americans make it rain dollars
France must also advance its pawns more quickly on certain key technologies. In continental Europe, in parallel with the vast research program on nuclear fusion ITER, there are only three start-ups in this field (including Renaissance Fusion in France). The United States lists more than 20! Health is also a strategic market. “France has a card to play in this area, because we have a very strong tradition of medical research,” analyzed Minister Jean-Noël Barrot during the CES, to L’Express. Thanks to its highly centralized social security system, France is, moreover, sitting on a wealth of health data that many countries envy us. The project to build a data hub in the field to advance research and innovation is unfortunately slow to materialize. Meanwhile, the United States is advancing quickly and raining dollars on this sector. “Over 80% of fundraising in the biotech, medtech and digital health sectors is done in the United States”, confirms Frédéric Rossi, director of the North America zone of Business France.
Financing hardware in France also remains very complicated. “It presents more challenges, it’s true. Two months ago, we weren’t selling any units yet, today we have contracts for more than 10,000 pieces, and in a year I hope to sell 100,000. to meet demand, without creating oversized stocks. A problem that software start-ups do not have to manage and this is what makes some investors hesitate. But with its population of engineers, France has formidable assets for developing hardware. It’s no coincidence that the smart card was invented here”, argues Bertrand Jomard, CEO of Keymo.
An aversion to risk that is found more widely at European level, while the growing tensions between China and the US plead more than ever in favor of the emergence of a European Tech as a third way. “The Scale Up Europe initiative that France has carried out will bring out ten to twenty European funds which will be endowed with more than one billion euros and will therefore be able to carry out much more ambitious rounds of financing”, points out the Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. An emergency because if the herd of French and European unicorns has grown nicely in recent years, that of the “pentacorns”, these companies valued at more than 50 billion dollars, is for the time being still desperately empty.