Key learnings from VIVATECH by the Veepee Innovation team

In the innovation department, we give a lot of importance to keeping up to date with the latest news and tech trends, so we had the chance to participate in Viva Tech 2021 conference. Here are some key moments:

LVMH Innovation AWARDS

The LVMH Innovation Prize is open to any startup with a valuation of less than $100 million, fewer than 50 employees, and whose solutions are relevant to the issues addressed by the LVMH Group.

Each year, 30 startups are chosen as finalists and invited to be part of the LVMH Lab at the Viva Technology Show in Paris, which brings together the game changers who are driving the world’s digital transformation.

Here are the winners of the season :

• Data & AI category : Data&Data
• Employee Experience category : EachOne
• Media & Brand Awareness — gamification category : Aglet
• Omnichannel & retail experience category : Bambuser
• Operations & Manufacturing experience category: Hipli
• Sustainability category: Galy
• Global LVMH Award: Bambuser

There are 3 main ideas to remember from this award ceremony:

1. Data processing remains a key challenge for e-commerce players. It is a way to propose the most adapted offer to e-buyers, but also to make the link with the physical experience that it is necessary to preserve and continue to boost conversion. Note that in the particular case of the luxury industry, there are many opportunities in the second-hand market: it is essential to provide qualitative and certified data.
2. The renewal of the online customer experience is a fast-growing trend, and the sanitary crisis is no small part of it: it has acted as a real catalyst. Consumers are looking for new, more immersive and even humanized experiences when they buy online. Startups have understood this, and many have chosen to address the subjects of 3D visualization, augmented reality, conversational commerce or even live shopping. It’s no coincidence that the top prize in all categories was awarded to Bambuser, a B2B video streaming company with which Veepee has also been collaborating since November 2020.
3. CSR issues are more than ever at the heart of the concerns of major groups. Both at the social level, with initiatives on inclusiveness, and at the environmental level, with measures to reduce their carbon footprint. Companies are committed to accelerating their transition to a more sustainable model. For e-commerce players, the main issues are digital pollution and emissions linked to transport and packaging. Hipli’s reusable packaging solution meets this second challenge, and has been justly rewarded.

The payments revolution

Payment services have evolved a lot in the last few years. At Veepee, we have integrated more services for our members such as payment in several times by Credit Card with Facily Pay. About payment processes, Veepee is now working with ProcessOut, accelerated within Veepee Impulse in 2017. Thus, we were particularly attentive to the conference with Neil Pein, Head of BNP Paribas Axepta, Todd Clyde, CEO of Token and Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI Interim Company. The latter highlighted the instantaneousness and payment facilitators that meet consumer demand for the best, most seamless shopping experience possible. Indeed, the innovation department recently deep dived into the new payment & checkout solutions: this includes “buy now pay later” solutions such as Klarna and Paidy, which aim to boost online conversion rates, as well as platforms like Checkout.com and dLocal, which make it easier to accept international payments.

Inspiration by leaders

Knowing the vision of tech leaders is not only essential for our innovation mission at Veepee Group, but it is also very inspiring. So we were all tuned in for the talks by Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg expressed a lot of enthusiasm about the opportunities of virtual and augmented reality. According to him, Tomorrow, a hologram of him will be sitting next to the journalist and fully capable of answering the interview. Today, the gaming industry is taking advantage of these technologies, but tomorrow all industries will be concerned. For example in culture and art, where it is sometimes complicated and resourceful to create. Advertising will also be particularly concerned as well as working methods: why lose focus in a physical meeting room rather than immerse yourself in an environment conducive to reflection and exchanges? Web designers and creators are, for Mark, the professions of the future.

Concerning the interview of Tim Cook, we will mainly retain a quote: “I FAIL daily at something”: One of our mantras within the department.

Diversity, a challenge for everyone: from companies to start-ups and scale-ups

A debate between Axelle LEMAIRE, Mounir MAHJOUBI, Fleur Pellerin et Cédric O.

For the first time, former and current French digital ministers were reunited to share their views on the challenges of French Techs. A special focus was put on diversity. Still too few women are represented in the French entrepreneurial world, as well as few men from diverse backgrounds and few people from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Territorial diversity is striking as well: 76% of NEXT 120 companies were borned in the Ile de France region, which limits the capacity to create jobs throughout the country.

We will complete this topic with the intervention of Elodie Jarry from Google, Anne-Sophie Nomblot, Head of women at SNCF, and Jules Robert from Chloé (part of Richemont) gathered to exchange on the subject of diversity in corporate. Here are some examples of good practices extract from their intervention :

• The implementation of CSR KPIs at the group, team and even individual level ;
• The appointment of a dedicated person to the subject of diversity within the human resources teams ;
• Internal reforms on parenthood and birth leave ;
• Recruitment and communication announcements with inclusive alphabet or grammar ;
• Girl’s day in high schools to demystify certain jobs still seen as masculine ;
• Conference days with inspiring women within the company: authors, adventurers, sportswomen….

Since March 2021 at Veepee, some employees have been supporting the professional development of women in tech thanks to the SOCIAL BUILDER organisation and some projects to support diversity have been launched as well.

Next Unicorn Awards Ceremony

Each year, this award aims to promote digital champions born in Europe.

Viva Tech scoured the entire continent to find the most promising European scaleups that could become Europe’s next unicorns. Last few years, Europe has had spectacular growth. Even during the crisis in 2020, 41 billion was raised by European startups. But it’s just the beginning and we have to up our game as an entire continent to be able to really go head to head with the US and China said Kat Borlongan, director of the mission French Tech. There are the winners of the ceremony this year :

• Fintech and Insurtech : Second most dynamic sector after enterprise software with 32 unicorns in Europe. The winner of the season is Sum Up.

It makes our innovation department debate: if today we are developing mobility and especially autonomous vehicles, what will people do during their ride? Shopping? Should it be a new channel for us? Anyways it’s thanks to products like Sump Up developed that the buying journey is evolving: for the customer but also merchants.

• Marketplaces & e-commerces: 13 new additions to the unicorn club across e-commerce, marketplaces and on demand startups with this year winner Vivino. The app was first a community before becoming a marketplace.It highlights the importance of community in an increasingly open world where people seek a sense of belonging even in their consumption journey.
• Saas Sector which is the most active sector with 66 new startups this year including 21 unicorns. The winner of this category is Aiven. It democratices access to open source databases which makes a lot of sense in time of enterprise cloud transformation.
• Digital Media with a winner who does even more than just media because it’s also about deeptech: sorare. Indeed, you need to own a NFT to play this fantasy soccer game with your friends.
• AI, deep tech and big data : these new technologies impacted all sectors and particularly one : security. Thus it was not surprising that Tessian was the winner of this year. Tessian was also the winner of the main award of the ceremony : the most promising startup of the year.
• Jury coup de coeur award is a special award for inspiring scale ups with two main criterias: impact and resilience. EcoVadis is the winner of this award. It is a ratings platform to assess corporate social responsibility and sustainable procurement which is a big growth opportunity

Obviously we could write so much more about Viva Tech so do not hesitate to contact our department for further information through Twitter @veepeetech_ account.