Startup Spotlight: Dessia Technologies
In today’s rapidly evolving aerospace industry, innovation is key to staying ahead of the curve. Dessia Technologies is addressing this challenge through its generative engineering software to facilitate complex design trade-offs. In this issue, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ossian Heulin, Head of Business Development at Dessia Technologies, who shared his experience in the industry, discussed how Dessia is addressing sustainability challenges and reflected on his journey in the Aerospace Xelerated programme.
Explain your software in one sentence. What problem is Dessia solving in the aerospace industry?
We are a generative engineering software that facilitates complex design trade-offs. We solve the problem of design efficiency by proposing workflow automation and knowledge management.
Tell us about your background and why you decided to join Dessia.
It seems important to mention that I’m an engineer by training but drifted to business development and sales. I worked for Dassault Systèmes for five years, where I realised that the transition to new technologies for traditional PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) software companies is very complex, given the legacy technology stack behind them. Furthermore, they propose very closed environments, where the ability for customers to develop their own applications or manage interfaces is limited.
In that regard, startups are more agile in proposing new technologies to manufacturing companies than corporates. I quickly concluded that I wasn’t going to be able to answer my customers’ requirements as fast as someone in a new engineering startup would.
That’s why I joined Dessia. Dessia facilitates the use of AI and customer application to optimise engineering processes and is the leading company in France to do so. The company is on a mission to facilitate the creation of AI-driven applications in manufacturing-driven companies.
How are you addressing sustainability challenges in the aerospace industry?
Our business sustainability goal comes as an enabler. Since we help companies automate complex trade-offs, we help them find optimal solutions at different levels. For instance, when we improve the products’ performance for an aircraft manufacturer, say in terms of weight, it enables greater savings at the level of fuel consumption and thus better considerations of their carbon footprint.
We worked on a more ‘sustainability driven’ project with the CNES, the National Center for Space in France, where we built a program design tool enabling program managers to assess different scenarios and take structuring decisions with an understanding of the associated carbon cost. In essence, we help engineers take sustainability metrics into account in their design trade-offs. This is a major evolution from the status quo, as today the only sustainability-related action taken by engineering organisations is reporting.
How has your experience at Aerospace Xelerated been so far? What are some of the highlights?
I’m very impressed by the level of commitment of the industry partners of the accelerator. The AX programme gives us an unfair advantage over other companies that looking to connect with the programme partners. The industry weeks helped us dive into exactly what their pain points are, who are the key decision-makers, and how to reach them. The biggest highlight so far is the quality of the people we’re being connected to.
What are the next steps for you and the team?
Transforming the industry is not an easy task. It takes brains, commitment, money and time. Hence we are preparing for our next round of funding, and as such need to accelerate (1) scaling in our existing customers, (2) acquiring new customers at a fast pace, and (3) building a foreign customer base.
As we are a technology-minded company, 80% of our team works in the R&D department. Our incoming hires will be focused on this unit and on the product side, to keep performance, accessibility and useability at the centre of our roadmap.
Finally, since we are an industrial software company, it’s very important for us to foster partnerships with IT and engineering consulting companies. This will help us scale our sales capabilities and also the delivery side, as our customers will need support in scaling the application of our software to their many business cases.
Follow Dessia on LinkedIn as they continue to disrupt the aerospace industry.
Aerospace Xelerated is a 3-month funded program for exceptional startups to accelerate the sustainable growth of the aerospace industry, led by Boeing. Learn more about our work in our FAQ or book an Office Hours call to chat with the program team.
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