Public transportation was already facing many challenges before the pandemic broke out, such as budget constraints (high operating and maintenance costs with low investments), declining ridership (resulting from the emergence of new ride-hailing and micromobility offers) and a mismatch between the objectives and expectations of the authorities, public transport operators (PTO) and commuters.

The pandemic has accentuated the pressure on the sector, bringing passenger flows to a historically low level. Although commuters are gradually returning to using public transportation (see exhibit 1), the number of commuters remains lower than in other years, as does income. Despite the $25 billion provided to US transit agencies to respond to Covid-19, they are expected to face a shortfall of $23.8 billion by the end of 2021.

Impact of COVID-19 on public transit usage around the world (January 15^th,2020)

Source: Moovit

PTOs play a key role in containing the spread of Covid-19 by limiting coach capacity, monitoring social distancing in stations and ensuring that routes are optimized (i.e., shortest possible). In addition, in order to recover usage levels, PTOs are required to guarantee safe travel and restore passenger trust. Two categories of tools can help them do this: 1) flow regulation tools and 2) passenger monitoring tools. In fact, airports had already adopted some of these tools before the pandemic.

By taking a closer look at the flow regulation & passenger monitoring landscape, we have identified 6 areas where startups are flourishing:

• Demand Forecasting: startups that provide tools for route optimization, scheduling systems, also based on passenger demand and patterns. These tools enable faster changes to routes and schedules.
• Station Passenger Management: startups that develop tools for passenger regulation in stations, mainly to signal situations where passengers do not respect social distancing measures
• In Coach Passenger Management: startups that create solutions to manage and limit the number of passengers in coaches, to enable PTOs to enforce coach capacity thresholds
• Symptom & Mask Detection: startups that can help PTOs detect if passengers have symptoms and/or are not wearing masks. Solutions in this area are mainly camera-based systems, to automatically signal passengers who are ill or not wearing masks, to protect other commuters
• Horizontal AI & ML tool: technology providers that power the above tools

Even if we hope that Covid-19 will just be a memory, habits still need to be changed as long as the pandemic is around. For this, PTOs are obliged to invest into solutions to make public transportation safe enough for commuters to use their services.

Cracking the MaaS equation…

At Aster, we have been scratching our heads over the Mobility-as-a-Service equation for many years. Understanding how digital solutions can provide individuals with the best options for getting from A to B is an exciting yet complex topic. Over the last decade, proven alternatives have emerged to free a growing part of the population from car ownership. In our opinion, the growing number of mobility offers (in urban areas but not only, hello Karos 👋) combined with increasing environmental awareness is fertile ground for the emergence of new digital leaders aggregating mobility to serve individual needs.

In a nutshell, we now have more options to move than ever before, but this has led to a greater fragmentation of the mobility environment for individuals. This is also true for corporates and governments, as it has never been more complex to understand how employees/citizens move and how they want to be served.

For this reason, we felt there was a missing piece to this giant mobility puzzle. For years, we have been looking for companies that aggregate different mobility services to offer seamless experiences to commuters, without cannibalizing the underlying mobility offers.

And that’s exactly what Betterway is doing. Thanks to its mobility credit card, Betterway helps companies offer their employees flexible and green commuting options and financing schemes. This fintech approach to improving employee mobility is quite unique, and solves many of the common roadblocks typically encountered by traditional MaaS platforms:

• A seamless UX: Betterway is not just another mobility app. In fact, there is no B2C app at all
• A comprehensive coverage: Betterway’s credit card can be used to pay for any mobility service, and therefore doesn’t jeopardize any existing providers
• A robust Business Model: Betterway is free for end users and mobility providers, and instead charges corporates, which benefit from a clear ROI in terms of employee retention, reduced paperwork and positive CO2 impact.

More than that, we believe Betterway has laid the foundations of a mobility bank account for individuals and/or organizations, but let’s not talk too much about this for now 👀

…with an A-team…

It is not easy to build a fintech leader in the Mobility space. Success requires a good mix of vision, grit, management skills, and expertise about mobility ecosystems and tech organizations. We believe the Betterway team blends all of these qualifications together, and much more:

• Denis is a visionary and persevering entrepreneur with extensive experience at Uber & in the mobility space
• Alain is a caring tech leader who has scaled the operational teams of TakeEatEasy & Algolia over the last few years
• Clément is a passionate team player whose growth hacking & marketing skills have already been instrumental in Betterway’s success

In addition to their individual skills, we have been impressed by Denis, Alain & Clément’s listening abilities and willingness to progress together as a team, which has sped up Betterway’s learning curve over the few months.

…executing at the speed of light

As mentioned above, kickstarting a company in the mobility jungle is complex. Embedding your product with a certified physical credit card is also complex. Signing real contracts with large corporations (Allianz, Vinci) and leading tech companies (BackMarket) in the first few months seems crazy. Doing all this in the context of a global pandemic seemed impossible.

Yet Betterway has done all this in just under 9 months, while attending exhausting investor meetings (sorry). It is uncommon to achieve product-market fit so quickly, and although Betterway’s journey has only just begun, we have been truly impressed with the team’s achievements so far.

At Aster, we believe product management plays a crucial role in the long-term success of a startup. Having partnered with more than 70 startups, we have seen firsthand how founders and product managers can face hurdles in deciding how to allocate resources to:

• Ensure a continuous alignment between ideas added into products and the overarching company strategy
• Optimize or launch new products based on usage data and customer feedback
• Build and scale product teams as the company grows

To help founders and early-stage product managers tackle these challenges, Aster decided to host a webinar with three product experts who shared their insights on how to become more product-focused:

• Meredith Bordoni, Head of Product at Swiftly
• Marc Negre, Co-founder and Head of Product at Kraaft
• Sarah Setti, Chief Product Officer at October

This webinar was our first AsterOps workshop, an initiative at Aster to support early-stage startups both in our portfolio and across the broader ecosystem. AsterOps provides a platform to learn from experts on how to approach and address the common operational challenges that startups face.

Here are the key takeaways in case you missed the webinar!

“I believe there is no recipe for success for building a product roadmap,” says Meredith. “If there was a recipe, then there would be many more successful startups out there,” Meredith adds.

Many would define a roadmap as a set of features to get from A to B, but Meredith highlighted that a roadmap can be viewed as a “path to an imagined destination”, which should adapt over time with market validation. Meredith also prefers to think of a product roadmap as an investment map, as it is mostly a set of actions a team will invest time on.

Meredith also shared a “Hows and Whys” framework, which borrows from the 5 Whys for root cause analysis, to help startups align their product investment map with their overarching company vision. At Swiftly, Meredith implements this framework across two processes: first, by setting a top-down vision of what the company wants to realize and addressing the “hows” – using the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) method – and then, asking the “whys” of what you are doing using a bottom-up approach.

“Asking is good, but shadowing is better,” said Marc, highlighted the importance of supporting qualitative user interviews with actual quantitative data on how the product is used to help eliminate bias. Pre-market fit, he typically suggests spending days taking inventory on all user actions to understand their real pains.

 Marc provided valuable advice on how to use product data from inception to product-market fit, and shared additional lessons he has learned at Kraaft on how to become more data-driven in product management. Marc stressed the importance of quickly bootstrapping a first ‘hacky version’ of the product to put it in the hands of the user and see how it is used.

Once product-market fit is achieved, Marc suggested that product teams should then track “one simple success metric and have weekly interactions with customers about this metric” to help prioritize product initiatives. At Kraaft, Marc tracks Net Promoter Scores, and has calls with users on a regular basis to gather feedback about product releases and determine their overall satisfaction.

Marc also strongly recommends other founders and product managers to read about How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit, which highlights how product leaders can analyze customer feedback and optimize their product/market fit accordingly.

Sarah highlighted three of the four stages in a startup’s product lifecycle, and addressed the different objectives and required product profiles for each stage:

• The creation of a product: The first product managers are generally the founders at this stage, and are responsible for testing hypotheses, recruiting beta testers, designing interfaces, and overseeing the recruitment of developers and technical members of the company.
• The pre-product/market fit phase: A minimum viable product MVP has been developed. The appropriate profile to recruit at this stage is a full-stack product manager who can manage strategic and tactical aspects of the product. In other words, this product hire should blend expertise in business (market knowledge, monitoring customer data, creating business plans), UX (design pattern knowledge, user research, prototyping tools) and technical dimensions (architecture, data models, APIs, etc.).
• The post-product/market fit phase: The product has achieved market fit and strong user traction, and now requires more development to innovate and address user issues. Product managers needed at this stage are generally passionate about optimization, analytics and growth marketing, and are more specialized on the part of the product they are in charge of.

Sarah also warned the audience about scaling, which can sometimes give the impression of diluting ownership and accountability, leading to a negative impact on employee motivation and retention.

Sign up for our next AsterOps workshop!

Interested in learning from founders and experts on how to approach and address the common operational challenges that startups face? Then come join our next AsterOps workshop! To join, please sign up here.

About Aster

Aster is a leading European venture capital firm based in Paris with offices in London, San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Nairobi. Aster has raised €520 million through multiple funds with major corporations and institutional players. Specialized in digital transformation and new industrial models, we fund companies that are transforming the way we consume and move around, how industries manufacture, and how people work together.

Grand Prix ACF AutoTech is now the leading competition in the automotive industry. Since 2018, the Automobile Club de France and ESSEC Automobile Club have been promoting, rewarding and supporting the most innovative French and international startups in automotive use, commercialisation, manufacturing and design.

Featuring a high-profile panel of judges made up of leading entrepreneurs and top figures from the automotive industry, this large-scale event acts as a springboard and accelerator for new technology and transport.

Three awards to win

For startups in the most advanced stages of their development

For the youngest startups, in the early stages of their development (seed stage)

For the finalist startup with the most eco-friendly product

Key dates 

Organisations eligible to enter the Grand Prix ACF AutoTech: Automotive service and technology development companies that have registered their business activity on or after 1 January 2011 in any country worldwide, with at least 50% of the share capital owned by one or more private individual(s).

Applicants compete to win one of the three awards and prizes (worth a combined total of more than €200,000).

Competition organisers announce the six startups selected for the final round of Grand Prix ACF AutoTech 2021. These finalists will receive guidance from the consulting firm Humeaning in preparing their speech, developing business relationships and promoting their image at the awards ceremony.

The final round and awards ceremony will be held at the Automobile Club de France on Place de la Concorde in Paris. In attendance will be jury members, finalists and 300 guests from the automotive, high-tech and digital industries, business and media leaders, as well as partners joined this year by Michelin and La Tribune.

Jury  – Grand Prix ACF AutoTech 2021

Louis Desanges, President of Automobile Club de France

Thierry Peugeot, President of ESSEC Automobile Club

Anne Asensio, Vice-President Design of Dassault Systèmes

Patrick Blain, Former Executive Committee member, Renault-Nissan

Yann Bodéré, Managing Director of IoT.Bzh, Grand Prix ACF 2020

Eric Bourdais de Charbonnière President of the Automobile Club de France Endowment Fund

Félicie Burelle, Managing Director, Plastic Omnium

Béatrice Duboisset,President of Humeaning and Founder of Paris TedX Women Champs Elysées

Patrick Koller, CEO of Faurecia

Gilles Le Borgne, Executive Vice President Engineering, Renault Group

Elisabeth Lecuyer, President of Paris Business Angels

Frédéric Mazzella, President-Founder of BlaBlaCar

Christian Peugeot, Vice-President of Automobile Club de France

Alexis Poinsard, Corporate M&A Partner, Fidal

Romain Stutzmann, President of France AutoTech

Press

Valérie Leseigneur – Tel: + 33 (0)6 68 80 37 35 – valerie@agencevlc.com

Joy Lion – Tel: + 33 (0)7 62 59 65 86 – joy@agencevlc.com

Richard de Cabrol – Tel: + 33 (0)6 51 38 16 38 – richard.decabroldemoute@essec.edu

If there is one silver lining from the pandemic, it is that it helped to reveal the vulnerabilities in global supply chains on a scale never before experienced. As China produces 20% of global goods, the impact on global trade has been devastating and was compounded by the European lockdown: 14.8% decline in transaction volume in Q2 compared to Q1 2020. Players have been forced to reinvent their supply chains, which has boosted the adoption of supply chain risk management and procurement solutions.

Supply chains were already undergoing huge transformations before the pandemic. In the context of globalization, large companies had redesigned their processes to increase flexibility and reduce costs. But the pandemic revealed the weaknesses of such a system:

• Fragmentation of supply chains, leading to more complex patterns, communication issues and greater exposure to risk
• High vulnerability to supply and demand shocks due to the lean manufacturing strategies that involve minimizing the amount of inventory
• New customer expectations demanding higher environmental, social and transparency standards

Despite this huge disruption, Covid-19 has also accelerated some trends and created new business opportunities.  According to Gartner, at least 50% of the world’s leading companies will be using AI, advanced analytics and IoT in their supply chain operations by 2023.

At Aster, we have taken a closer look at the field of supplier risk management in large-scale industry and manufacturing and identified 3 areas where startups are flourishing:

• Procurement diversification and risk prediction. As supply chains are increasingly global and complex, companies are using advanced analytics and risk prediction platforms to mitigate the risk of supplier failure and ensure business continuity in the event of a shock. B2B marketplaces are also expanding to diversify sourcing.
• Supply chain management optimization. AI, advanced analytics, IoT and blockchain technologies are massively disrupting supply chain operations, from planning and inventory to customer service or back-office tasks. Automation and digitization are gradually enabling companies to improve supply chain efficiency, increase service quality, decrease operational costs, and need for safety stocks.
• Transparency and eco-responsibility management. With stricter environmental, social and sanitary regulations and higher customer expectations, a CSR framework needs to be integrated into supply chains. This is boosting the demand for tools that enable stakeholder authentication, regulation compliance, environmental impact measurement and supply chain end-to end transparency.

The summer holiday season is coming to an end and, for many of us, it’s time to go back to work. But this year, will we return to the office (if at all) as if nothing happened?

During the lockdown period, the way in which companies conveyed their culture and ensured knowledge transfer was fully transformed digitally. However, the paradigm shift towards digitization was already underway prior to the pandemic with:

• The accelerating pace of skill obsolescence, creating a generation gap in organizations and increasing employee integration and training costs.
• Higher employee expectations, forcing employers to build competitive employee benefits packages to attract, engage and retain.
• Increasing UX standards, set by the tools we all use in our personal lives, leading to faster employee disengagement if the corporate tools were not relevant enough.

Covid-19 has only accelerated some trends and created new business opportunities. Since remote working became a norm during lockdown, the number of employees working remotely has increased. According to Gartner, the number of employees working remotely at least part of the timed jumped from 30% to 48% after the pandemic. Other trends are also reshaping HR management: the new focus on employee safety and well-being, the increase in contingent work, the expanded data collection on employee productivity, etc.

Looking at this topic more closely, we identified 3 fields where startups are flourishing:

• Digital employee onboarding, cross-boarding and offboarding. Even if we hope to not have to onboard employees entirely remotely in the near future, digital onboarding tools are a great solution to save time on employee onboarding paperwork, ensure employee integration through personalized onboarding journeys and accelerate employees’ learning curves.
• Digital employee training. With horizontal learning systems and content platforms, soft skill peer-to-peer coaching for white-collar workers or AR/VR training for blue-collar workers, companies can now efficiently measure the evolution of their workforce’s skills.
• Real-time employee engagement monitoring. With continuous sentiment analysis and peer-to-peer recognition tools, companies can reduce employee turnover, chronic stress, burnouts and increase productivity.

* LMS: Learning Management Systems

ZIZ has been leading the energy access revolution in the 5th largest country in Africa, with a 10% electrification rate, and is now expanding in Chad and beyond. EAV is proud to be backing an African team with an outstanding track record of executing in one of the world’s most fragile environments.

Founded in 2006 by Ibrahim Zakaria, a Chadian engineer, ZIZ rapidly emerged into one of the national leaders in electrical equipment distribution, EPC services, and energy services for secondary cities and commercial and industrial (C&I) clients.

Having successfully operated diesel-powered sites in several Chadian towns for the past decade, ZIZ is now developing MW scale ‘metro-grids’ by hybridizing these sites through solar and storage to extend their distribution network and increase population coverage and operating hours.

In addition, ZIZ is expanding its electrification efforts across new cities in Chad, North Cameroon and other Central African countries. The company is leveraging their 13 years of experience and profitability to lead the C&I, grid extension and rural electrification efforts in the region.

About ZIZ

ZIZ was established in 2006 by Chadian engineer, Ibrahim Zakaria, starting off as an electrical EPC company. The company quickly diversified into rural and urban electrification, electrical equipment distribution, EPC and energy services for C&I. The company has 60 employees and has been operating profitably. ZIZ also has a presence in North Cameroon where it provides electrification services.

ZIZ was advised by FieldFisher for English law documents, LPA-CGR Avocats, Kreich Avocats SCP and Venture Law Ltd for French, Chadian and Mauritian law, respectively. For more information, please visit www.ziz-energie.com

About Energy Access Ventures

Energy Access Ventures is an investment firm in Africa. With over 40 years of investment experience in Africa, EAV is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the emerging smart, distributed, cost-effective infrastructure market segment. EAV has carved out a reputation as a hands-on investor that works closely with its portfolio companies to capture the significant opportunity in Africa. EAV’s first fund (“EAV I”) was raised in February 2015 and is €75,000,000 in size with 9 investment professionals. The fund is sponsored by the leading French multinational Schneider Electric and is managed by Aster Capital in Paris. Its investors are CDC Group (UK), managing funds for the UK Department for International Development, the European Investment Bank, the Fonds d’Investissement et de Soutien aux Entreprises en Afrique (FISEA) held by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and managed by Proparco, the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial (FFEM), administered by AFD, Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), the Netherlands Development Finance Company the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and Schneider Electric. For more information, please visit https://eavafrica.com/

About Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is a European multinational company providing energy and automation digital solutions for efficiency and sustainability. It addresses homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries, by combining energy technologies, real-time automation, software and services.

For more information, please visit https://www.se.com