Bpifrance Digital Venture portfolio companies that are helping amidst the crisis
This global health crisis was unforeseeable. As many other VCs are experiencing currently, some companies in our Bpifrance Digital Venture portfolio are suffering deeply, whereas others are thriving in the new world we live in and providing new solutions to the concrete problems we face.
Health sector
It goes without saying that the health sector is profoundly impacted by the COVID pandemic. Its staff are overwhelmed by the influx of patients whether in general practice or in hospitals. In this context, automation, alongside innovations in areas such as telehealth, will continue to make inroads in healthcare. It will allow to reduce workload and improve the quality of data that can be captured and the accuracy of data analysis.
Byond has developed a platform allowing laboratories that are testing patient samples to provide results that are more understandable for these patients and more pertinent for their doctors. Through gathering information from biological testing and then applying deep learning algorithms, Byond helps clinicians and biologists in the interpretation of clinical testing results and diagnosis.
In this pandemic, Byond closely works with health institutions and doctors. The company collaborates with laboratories and hospitals to help identify and understand the different factors affecting the virus and its evolution through allying biology and AI. This could help for an earlier and faster diagnosis of patients and ultimately provide a more accurate prognostic, increasing chances of survival.
Gleamer offers an AI solution to help radiologists analyse and interpret traumatic radiographies. Gleamer allows professionals to gain productivity by industrialising X-ray interpretation through AI.
Although all non-urgent medical consultations or exams have been postponed by hospitals to deal with emergencies linked to the pandemic, traumatology still represents a significant part of emergency admissions. BoneView by Gleamer provides emergency doctors and radiologists a tool to treat those cases faster in order to focus on COVID admissions.
Ambler is a platform for Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) aiming at facilitating interactions between medical institutions (public and private hospitals as well as retirement homes) and small transport companies. Ambler provides productivity gains for medical staff when ordering transport and enables significant cost reduction through streamlining transportation networks.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Ambler has developed new products to support the work of emergency ambulance services (SAMU in France) by taking on less urgent cases that do not necessitate immediate hospitalisation.
Ambler is also working with several hospitals to organise the transportation of health personnel between work and home.
Finally, Ambler enables doctors consulting remotely on online platforms to transmit prescriptions for medical transportation directly to drivers.
Collaboration solutions
Some companies have already made use of remote work in their organisation for many years. But most had to adapt quickly following lock-down decisions.
For all companies, remote work should not and does not mean either the end of team work or the degradation of productivity. More and more tools are allowing companies to overcome and even leverage distancing constraints to increase flexibility, collaboration and efficiency. In this new context, employees can choose when to work in live meetings and when to work asynchronously.
Klaxoon is a SaaS platform facilitating team and remote work. Thanks to online tools such as digitized whiteboards (Brainstorms), quizzing options (Quiz), Surveys and Questions, team meetings are more productive and efficient whether held in person or remotely. Klaxoon is already a favourite amongst thousands of teams in France and internationally, from SMBs to Enterprises. In fact, 90% of France’s CAC40 (the 40 largest companies on French stock market) are clients!
Over the past few months, and especially the last couple of weeks, the company has seen a massive surge of inbound leads and decided to offer a 3 month-free trial for teams interested. Volumes of data exchanged on the platform and simultaneous users have also skyrocketed, without impacting the uptime or the security guaranteed by Klaxoon.
Livestorm is a SaaS platform for webinars and videoconferencing that has been adopted by thousands of users around the world. In the context of mass confinement, the company offers the perfect solution for clients to keep exchanging with broad audiences through trainings, onboardings, internal/external communication, webinars, etc.
Over the past few weeks, many events and meetups have had to go online. Livestorm has facilitated this process, offering a freemium version for interested first-time users.
Harvestr provides a SaaS platform that helps product managers use customer feedback and data to build better digital products.
Harvestr also allows its clients to build digital products remotely. The company just published a “Guide to Remote Product Management” which includes many valuable tips to help companies face challenges related to building digital products remotely. This guide presents everything companies need to know about the culture, the processes and the tools to successfully run a remote product team.
HR Solutions
Hiring and learning are still mostly undigitized processes, mostly because human interactions are at their core. Some companies have built tools and products that combine the best of the physical and digital world in order to: 1) help companies hire better and faster during the lock-down; and 2) support individuals in learning and training more efficiently.
OpenClassrooms is the leading online course platform in Europe, with more than 3 million users accessing the platform every month. OpenClassrooms offers flexible access to courses and trainings and gives the opportunity to earn state-recognized diplomas in the digital sector.
Thanks to OpenClassrooms, millions of people can pursue trainings. The company is supporting schools and universities during this pandemic by giving them a free access to Spark, its online course platform. Spark allows educational institutions to ensure pedagogical support for students enrolled in online courses. More than 120 000 students in 1 200 institutions already seized this opportunity! In the coming months, OpenClassrooms will have a major role to play by helping people seeking job opportunities match with companies seeking job candidates with digital skills.
Easyrecrue is a Talent Experience Platform for companies and universities. The platform includes 4 modules: 1) Engage, a module for candidate prequalification via a chatbot; 2) Interview, a module that allows on-demand and live video interviewing; 3) Assess, a module for skills assessments, including certified language assessments; 4) Develop, a module that facilitates internal mobility.
During this crisis, universities must adapt to be able to assess applicants and students remotely. Easyrecrue has for example helped a French business school network (FNGE) create an online admission exam.
Bruce provides a 100% digital short-term employment platform. Their digital tool and app allow companies to have access to the most suitable candidates for their recruitment needs. Moreover, the whole recruiting process (candidate screening and interviews, contract signing etc.) can be conducted remotely within the application.
During the COVID crisis, some companies, especially in the industrial or logistics sectors, face important short-term recruiting needs. Bruce helps them hire temporary workers quickly and remotely.
Conclusion
This pandemic is clearly accelerating the digital revolution. In every sector of our economy, digitalization will accelerate due to people working from home under distancing obligations. Many processes, such as teamwork, management, hiring, learning or training, will be reinvented through cloud-based technologies.
In the healthcare sector, we believe that the current crisis calls for a deepened alliance between human expertise and technology, from telehealth, to automation and AI in healthcare services.
Tech startups have proven their agility and inventiveness to build relevant products and services, contributing greatly to solve challenges engendered by this crisis. In a post-Covid world, they will play a key role in the transition towards a more efficient and sustainable economy.
