It has been our ambition since the creation of Possible Future in 2016. Today, our start-ups bring specific expertise to our innovation projects and our corporate clients, while at the same time our Innovation Bureau supports and enriches our start-ups. Possible Ventures is a start-up studio that joins together the talent of its founders, the striking force of its large partner groups, and our expertise in innovation.
At Possible Ventures, we bring together our talented founders and our large corporate partners around startup ideas that we have previously vetted thanks to our innovation methodology. The right idea, the right team: the adventure can begin!
We use our entire network and skills to ensure that our start-ups focus solely on what is most valuable: their product and their development.
Ariane trained as an engineer before spending 5 years in a digital strategy consultancy where she developed her superpower: finding the best business models to ensure our innovations and startup projects have real business potential! During her time off, Ariane turns into a raw adventurer: 15 days alone in Iran and Turkmenistan staying with locals, one week by herself at the North Pole… On a windy day, you can find her roaming the Northern beaches of France between two kite surfing sessions.
Before joining us, Noël worked for almost 10 years with many agencies and startups (Deezer, Lunchr, Viadeo etc.) as a UX / UI Designer. He also released his first website when he was 12 years old. At 19, he created a magazine on soccer fans with two friends that was available all over France. Noël tries to travel as much as possible and always seizes the opportunity to discover a new stadium during soccer games (already 104 so far).
In addition to being curious and eager to tackle new issues, Ousmane wants to lead projects that have a real impact on society. After graduating from SciencesPo, he worked as a policy officer on circular economy for the Île-de-France region, where he processed public subsidy requests for innovation and growth during his 2.5 years there. With Possible Future, he is looking forward to building upon his experience by investigating new impact topics and launching social impact and circular economy projects.
The third Alexis at Possible Future (but the first engineer Alexis!), the one we quickly nicknamed Bartouilh graduated from Centrale Paris before joining a digital strategy consultancy to develop luxury internationally. Shortly after, he decided to go live in San Francisco to discover the startup world and surf Californian waves. Alexis needs to constantly be challenged: after years of squash competitions, he started running and finished 5th in a 50K race. Bartouilh is a vehement advocate for a pragmatic use of technology: technology should only be used when it makes sense.
She could easily write “serial entrepreneur” on her LinkedIn profile but she doesn’t dare. Claire has launched several entrepreneurial projects, from an app to facilitate access to medical care in Cambodia, to a new hearing aid concept, to a startup trying to reuse waste materials from industry. She joined Possible Future to launch even more projects! She dedicates her free time to Thai boxing, which she practices almost daily, and to her passion for kite-surfing, which makes her want to move forever to the Bay of Somme.
A game to restore coral reefs
We have launched a start-up aimed at accelerating the restoration of coral reefs through play: Cryptocorals.
It all started with passion from a member of Possible Future. For two years, this diving aficionado worked with the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and coral reefs’ deterioration worried him. In some areas of the globe, corals may become extinct by 2050.
Degraded corals are bad omens for the entire ocean ecosystem as well as for humans who directly depend on them. This is why Possible Future had a strong urge to put its experience on challenges and innovation for the benefit of coral reef restoration. And we did!
CryptoCorals is Possible Future born and bred. No client for this project, but the initiative of two of our members, encouraged by the opportunity given by Possible Future to launch projects that we are passionate about. Our startup studio was crucial as an investor and incubator of this grand idea.
From September 2018, two distinct objectives were clear. First, we wanted to provide this crucial, yet often ignored, cause more visibility. The second leitmotiv on this project was more pragmatic: the goal was to generate a system capable of raising funds to restore damaged reefs and compensate the lack of funding for these actions. Our vision : replanting 1 million corals by 2021.
The project is elaborated exactly as it would have been if briefed by a client: after an in-depth immersion and exploration of the opportunities (how the gaming market and the donation ecosystem work, coral reefs problematics …), the team started a designing and conception phase before moving on to beta testing with real users.
They quickly identified the channel to give life to their ambitions. Saving coral reefs will be:
Transparency is indeed the major concern of potential users, so it will have to be profoundly rooted into the design of the system. Anything involving donations involves information… That’s precisely where blockchain, as an open book that anyone can verify and that no one can modify, appears to be the obvious technology.
In December 2018, four months after the beginning of the project, 200 sea-friendly gamers started playing and testing the first beta version.
The idea is simple, the user adopts one or several cute corals for about 10 dollars each. He or she can then play with their CryptoCorals, breed them with other corals to create super corals with incredible genetics (and real good looks!). Specialized marine researchers work in the same way on real-world reefs. Online, the virtual corals are created thanks to generative design logics, capable of generating an infinity of unique corals. That’s why each time a coral hatches, it’s unique and specific to its user.
And of course, the money paid to adopt virtual corals is used to plant a live one. Behind the fun interface, blockchain operates to transfer the funds to qualified NGOs, working relentlessly to restore coral reefs. CryptoCorals’ first partner is Secore International who has divers working on rescuing endangered reefs in the Caribbean and the Bahamas.
Beyond corals, CryptoCorals is the first step of rethinking donating – making the most of blockchain technology – and promoting biodiversity in our economy, thanks to playful interface. We believe at Possible Future, that leveraging technologies, such as blockchain, can help us tackle today’s environmental challenges and we want to steer our investments in projects going the same way.
Les Ripeurs du Bâtiment
We imagined and tested a site waste management and recovery service for building craftsmen which resulted in the launch of a start-up: Les Ripeurs.
With a rapidly evolving building renovation sector, the role of the craftsmen is changing: end-users who are becoming prescribers on their building sites, a need for more and more advice, regulatory changes to be aware of, digital devices settling in … For La Plateforme du Bâtiment, this led to having to rethink the support they offered to craftsmen. This is reason why La Plateforme du Bâtiment asked us to imagine a new innovative service, aimed at their craftsmen clientele.
During our exploration phase, we identified a key pain point in the daily journey of craftsmen: managing waste on construction sites.
Evacuating rubbish, cleaning construction sites, and bringing bags of rubble to rubbish dumps are painful, expensive, and time-consuming tasks for craftsmen, which prevent them from focusing on their core business. Some services exist for the evacuation of rubble, but they are not always adapted: not flexible enough, and not adapted to the constraints of urban renovation sites (waste in rubbish bags, often high up on building floors).
Existing solutions are so unsatisfactory that craftsmen are turning to illegal disposal solutions: it is estimated that 40% of waste produced by construction sites ends up in wild dumps.
Based on this insight, we imagined, prototyped and tested the service Les Ripeurs. A rubbish bag disposal service for building professionals, ultra-flexible and ultra-responsive: intervention on demand, in less than 3 hours.
After 4 months of project, we had:
At the end of our mission, together with La Plateforme du Bâtiment, we decided to launch this service as a startup. 2 months later, the startup “Les Ripeurs” was born, offering its service in the distribution network of La Plateforme du Bâtiment, in Paris and in the suburbs.
For its first year of operation, the startup accumulated a turnover of 350k€,which represents 1700 tons of waste collected. 40% of this waste has been revalued. As proof of its potential, the incubator Paris&Co selected the startup in its 2018 Social and Solidarity Economy cohort.
Our ambition doesn’t stop here! In 2019, we want to:
8
tons of wastecollected in 1 week by the team during the "in-vivo" test, during the prototyping phase.
4:30
AMTime at which the team woke up to get rid of the rubble for the first customers during the prototyping phase.
17
people hiredin one year of operation of Les Ripeurs to support the growth of the activity.
600
clientsmainly construction professionals.
Direct, traceable and local carbon offsetting
We support the start-up Inuk: a service for companies to offset carbon footprints in a direct, traceable, local and impactful way.
Accompany the development of the start-up from its first POC all the way to commercial success.
2
contracts signedin the first 2 months within the studio
B-Corp
introduction to the communityand support in the network integration
Coaching intrapreneurs towards success
We assisted Société Générale's in-house entrepreneurs in launching their startups.
At the end of 2017, Société Général launches an Internal Startup Call : an operation designed to foster entrepreneurial momentum within its teams. The call mobilizes a total of 15,000 people. 114 starts are pre-seletcted during the Pitch Day, on February 16 2018. More than 60 projects are finalists, then grouped into 3 classes.
Among these 60 projects, Société Générale entrusted Possible Future with 4 start-ups, to provide them support during 6 months. The objective? At the end of the program, launch a new product in the form of a startup, or re-integrate the projects into existing business units. In parallel, train and embark the teams in the Possible Future methodology, which will boost the projects and take them to the top.
“The Internal Startup call is for us a great opportunity to question our management methods, even as we work to develop new ways of working in the Group, to stay more agile, more collaborative, more horizontal” Frédéric Oudéa, CEO of the Group.
Operations are conducted in two stages. Two projects are carried by our teams from June to December 2018. The next two start in September 2018 and extend until the end of March 2019.
The support provided to Société Générale’s internal start-ups consisted in two main aspects:
In total, to support those 4 beautiful projects we mobilized a group of 15 people with a wide range of expertise: user research, strategic planning, engineer, software, branding, product and service design, UX/UI…
At the heart of the method, the personalized support. This depends on the stakes of each project and each team, in order to give them all of the necessary tools and information for a successful launch.
At the end of 6 months of coaching, there is real future for the 4 projects : all of which are still under development today at Société Générale, in the form of side projects or within business units. For our coaches, the adventure continues as many of them are still integrated today in the strategic decision-making committees of these promising startups.
This project demonstrates the relevance of the Possible Future methodology to hatch entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial projects, whether from a corporate program, or directly from the teams themselves within large groups.
For Thomas Chappuis; director of the Internal Startup Call, “Possible Future has offered a high quality support unanimously recognized by the supported startups.
2 specifications : tailor-made – 1 coach appointed per startup – and à la carte – thematic workshops chosen directly by the intrapreneurs according to their needs. This adaptation, as close as possible to the need, is a key factor in the success of the approach and has made it possible – a rarity among the 17 partner acceleration programs – for the 4 projects to be continued”
15
internal expertsfrom the Possible Future studio mobilized on the projects.
100%
of transformationfor these 4 startups incubated by Possible Future following the support program.
6
monthspersonalized support for each project.
