PreIPO INTELLI™ Weekly Insights | Series 58
Friday, November 17th 2023 | Volume 1 Series 58 | Station F's Future 40 Startups and Ida's Grocery Efficiency
Greetings, everyone! As the week comes to a close, we have some exciting updates from the INTELLI™ team to share with you. Station F in Paris unveils the Future 40 startups, spotlighting founder-friendly initiatives and collaborations with major companies. Notable ventures like WeatherMind and Argil are standouts. Shifting gears, Ida, a French startup securing $2.9 million in seed funding, aims to revolutionize fresh product ordering in supermarkets through a tablet app and probabilistic inventory, reducing waste and streamlining operations.
Here are the leading 40 startups at Station F for this year
Annually, numerous early-stage startups opt to participate in one of Station F's startup programs, housed in the renowned startup campus in Paris. Station F recently unveiled its Future 40 selection, highlighting the 40 most promising startups. These startups engage in various programs, such as Station F's own Fighters Program and FemTech Program, addressing entrepreneurs with underprivileged backgrounds and those focusing on female health, respectively.
Additionally, startups join Station F through collaborations with third-party companies like Microsoft, Binance, LVMH, and a newly announced AI program with Meta and Hugging Face. Last year, Station F revamped its flagship Founders Program into a startup accelerator, inviting startups to workshops and classes in exchange for a 1% equity stake. Station F emphasizes remaining founder-friendly and actively engaged.
This year's Future 40 list is particularly intriguing as some startups are technically backed by Station F. Notable startups from the list include WeatherMind, using computer vision for assessing damages from natural disasters, and Argil, which enables the creation of AI assistants answering work queries based on internal data.
Here is the list of the 40 startups featured in Station F's Future 40 selection:
1. Bitstack - Bitcoin investment platform in Europe.
2. Differs - Predictive AI solutions for retailers.
3. Flippit - GenAI startup connecting brands with digital-native audiences.
4. Magma - Connects candidates with ambassadors for recruitment.
5. WeatherMind - AI-powered software for automated damage assessment in natural disasters for insurers.
6. Argil - Empowers teams with AI teammates for project collaboration.
7. Beavr - Automates CSR compliance and associated operations.
8. Kolverr - Career platform for the green workforce.
9. Nopli - White-label solution for launching second-hand marketplaces.
10. Scienta Lab - Uses AI to transform pharmaceutical R&D in immunology and inflammation.
11. Chift - Helps SaaS vendors integrate with most European software through a single API.
12. Dsflow - Modern Energy Portfolio Management SaaS.
13. Exwayz - Provides positioning software for mobile robotics using real-time 3D lidar data processing.
14. Optimiz Construction - Optimizes cutting and laying of materials for time, cost, and CO2 savings.
15. Qeels - Viral machine on TikTok for automated, performance-based influencer campaigns.
16. Jitter - Collaborative motion design tool on the web.
17. Louise - Uses AI to improve the patient journey and results in fertility.
18. Monde Singulier - No. 1 marketplace of exclusive collectible designs.
19. Pimento - Collaboration platform for creative teams with AI.
20. Spore.Bio - Develops microbiological detection devices using AI-based technology.
21. Explorz - App encouraging outdoor activities.
22. Inclusive Brains - Assistive tech platform improving psychological and physical safety.
23. Motion Society - Provides content creators with a smart optimization solution for video distribution.
24. Nelson - Data-driven SaaS solution for planning electrification strategies for car fleets.
25. Flagcat - Shapes the future of webtoons.
26. Quack AI - Assists large software companies in running efficient open source projects using AI.
27. Yacon & Co - Sells the healthiest and most natural sugar alternative, yacon syrup.
28. Sopht - GreenOps platform to decarbonize corporate IT.
29. ColibriTD - Building a Quantum as a service platform.
30. Finegrain - Makes it simple to apply generative filters on images and track user engagement.
31. Rools - Compliance intelligence for regulated industries.
32. Tracklab - B2B SaaS platform streamlining supplier management processes.
33. Carbonx - Procurement platform for permanent carbon removal.
34. Mindflow - AI-driven platform for enterprise hyperautomation.
35. Revyze - Provides accessible, personalized education through community-generated short-form videos.
36. Flowie - Multimodal SaaS platform streamlining B2B transactions.
37. Kenko - Tailorable health insurance for employees at no extra cost.
38. Reetags - Allows e-commerce merchants to broadcast videos with purchasable features.
39. Stabler - Offers webscraping solutions for data extraction.
40. Suzan AI - European AI governance platform automating AI regulatory compliance.
These startups cover a wide range of industries and showcase diverse applications of technology and innovation.
Ida employs artificial intelligence to mitigate food waste in grocery stores
Ida, a recently established French startup, aims to collaborate with supermarkets and grocery stores to enhance the efficiency of ordering fresh products like fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish. The startup secured a $2.9 million (€2.7 million) seed funding round from investors, including Frst, Daphni, Motier Ventures, and Kima Ventures.
Currently, grocery stores rely on error-prone order sheets with numerous columns representing the reordering schedule. This approach often leads to both food waste and shortages, impacting the financial performance of supermarkets. Ida seeks to revolutionize this process by providing a tablet app connected to a sales forecasting algorithm, offering guidance to grocers on when to reorder fresh products.
While initially focusing on vegetables and fruits, Ida has plans to expand its scope to include other perishable goods such as meat and fish. The startup addresses an underserved segment of supermarket inventory, where predicting demand for items like cereal boxes is more straightforward due to bar codes and connected points of sale.
Ida employs a probabilistic inventory approach, considering real-life scenarios rather than relying solely on point-of-sale data, which may not be effective for vegetables and fruits. The algorithm incorporates over a hundred different parameters and a minimum of three years of sales data to forecast demand, considering factors like weather conditions, seasonality, prices, competitor activities, and special offers.
The startup generates suggested orders based on this forecasting data, allowing stores to configure a safety stock to prevent running out of specific items without overordering. While Ida provides automated suggestions, staff members can manually review and adjust orders, with the startup estimating that 70 to 75% of its suggestions are accurate and align with grocers' preferences.
As Ida continues to develop its solution, it aims to streamline the management of fresh products at scale, joining other startups in this vertical like Guac in the U.S. The adoption of software solutions like Ida holds the potential to enhance supermarket profitability, reduce environmental impact, and optimize the ordering process for fresh goods.
As always, stay tuned for more updates and insights from the team at INTELLI™.