The interview started barely two minutes ago and already, Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana interrupts us. “I’m not comfortable with being put forward,” says the entrepreneur, afraid of “becoming a public figure”. On the Internet, the articles about him can be counted on the fingers of one hand; the biographical elements are fragmentary. “I had to respond once or twice to interviews on tech, because it still seems important to me to show that you can be a woman and work in this field”, she justifies.
If Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana remains in the shadows, this is far from being the case with Ledger, the company she co-founded with Nicolas Bacca, David Balland, Thomas France, Eric Larchevêque, Cédric Mesnil, Joël Pobeda and Olivier Tomaz in 2014. Based in Vierzon, in Cher, this start-up specializing in ultra-secure cryptocurrency wallets has become, over time, a reference on the international market, to such an extent that its valuation now exceeds 1.5 billion dollars, making her the fifteenth French “unicorn”. “When I saw this success, I felt very proud, but also a feeling of vertigo. Because Ledger is above all a story of friendship, explains the young woman. We gradually went from eight to several hundred people in the company. As it grew, I left my marketing and communication activities to devote myself to the administrative part. As I am not a ‘work animal’, I felt less in my place, and I left in 2019.”
“The luxury of having time”
Despite the success, the entrepreneur was never interested in luxury. “From a personal point of view, it’s the antithesis of the person that I am. There are certainly very beautiful things that are done in the fashion world, but I am not a consumer”, affirms- she. Before adding: “Many fantasize about the lifestyle of those who succeed, but I do not live in opulence. I do not have a cleaning lady, my children go to public school, and my house is big enough that I don’t need to change it.” However, for professional reasons, Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana admits to taking a close look at the luxury sector. “There are some very innovative approaches. Last August, the jewelry house Tiffany & Co, for example, sold unique pendants for the holders of CryptoPunks, one of the oldest collections of NFT. With this kind of initiative, we’re starting to enter Web3.”
Web3 is precisely the heart of the new project launched by Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana, alongside Joël Pobeda, David Balland and Nicolas Bacca. Soberly called “Le Centre”, it takes place in an old disused factory in Vierzon. “The idea is to make this place an immersive cultural hub. We will model it in a metaverse, and people will be able to access it via virtual reality interfaces, like VR headsets,” she explains. . On the program: concerts, exhibitions of plastic or digital works and NFT. “We have already selected nine local, national and international artists who will come to perform in the center, and other calls for projects have been launched. Ultimately, we want to address an audience that does not necessarily master these technologies.” The opening, scheduled for 2023, does not seem to worry Vanessa Fara Rabesandratana: “With the Ledger experience, I finally acquired an enormous luxury: that of having time.”