“We are going to die unless there is a miracle.” Two days ago, Audrey-Laure Bergenthal, founder of the company Euveka, specialized in a biomimetic robot mannequin for fashion professionals, sent out to the press and its community “an SOS to those who will be willing to reach out to us.” Andréa Gilet, marketing and communication director at Euveka, explains to Boudoir Numérique how the Drôme start-up, in urgent need of financial help to continue its activities, could close down, by the end of January.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

Le Boudoir Numérique : Two days ago, the founder of Euveka, Audrey-Laure Bergenthal, sent out a call for help, "the warning cry of a French Tech entrepreneur on the verge of bankruptcy», could one read in your start-up press release. What's going on?

Andréa Gilet, Marketing and Communication Director at Euveka : We are no longer able to find funding to continue our activities. We had the support of a leading investor who, last week, fell back on its commitment, which had a snowball effect on other investment funds. As a result, they too have been cautious about investing. On January 31, we will have no more cash to pay the 33 Euveka employees who will lose their jobs. We need to quickly find 2 million euros and, by the end of January, 300,000 euros to pay the employees. Now, Audrey-Laure Bergenthal spends her days meeting investment funds, she negotiates with banks but for the moment, we have not yet found a solution. It’s very frustrating because all our indicators are on green, in our French Tech and fashion tech innovative sectors.

What do you mean by that ?

We are frustrated, because we have designed a revolutionary product made in France, with real breakthrough potential to meet the challenges of the textile industry. Our robot mannequin is a product that works, whose customers are major brands. We generate money, 2 million euros in 2 years, we have won many awards, including CES in 2018 and yet we are unable to raise funds to fuel our growth. Besides that, startups without revenues, often mobile applications, easily manage to raise tens of millions of euros, when they do not need as much money to develop their solutions. We create a high-tech hardware product from scratch, not just on a computer, which takes time and costs money.

What’s the problem, according to you ? 

The industry scares investors. It's too slow, too expensive. They prefer to invest in software rather than in hardware solutions like us. There is a real funding problem in France. We lack large funds, suitable for industrial startups that require a long-term vision. However, we want to grow in France, favoring national investors, even if now we are also looking internationally. We want to keep our know-how in France, especially since in the event of failure, we know very well that, one way or another, our smart mannequin idea will be taken up abroad.

What is the state of mind of your employees at the moment ?

Obviously, it’s hard on morale, it’s complicated, especially since we question ourselves, we wonder what we did wrong. The small size of our teams allows us to know each other and to interact easily together. We are very tight-knit and we stick together. We try to keep on believing. Our HR department regularly communicate on what is happening. We would like to give good news to our employees.

If you had to make a last call for help, via Le Boudoir Numérique, what would you say ?

If you are an investment fund, contact us. Today the situation is critical. It is our last resort to call for everyone. All we need is money to continue the adventure. Finance us now!

* Euveka website is here. 

* To know more on Euveka, read this Boudoir Numérique paper : “Our smart mannequin reduces textile waste”.