Axonaut, the French startup which offers an all-in-one solution for small business owners to optimize their daily tasks, recently raised 10 million euros in funding. Business Cool spoke with Nicolas Richard, co-founder and CEO at Axonaut, with the aim of learning more about this startup’s projects.
Everything you need to know about Axonaut
Who are you ?
My name is Nicolas Ricard and I trained as a computer engineer. I started as a developer in a subsidiary of the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) then I progressed to major account project manager within the same company where I stayed for 8 years. I met my partner Nicolas Michel during this first experience and we decided to embark on the entrepreneurial journey in 2014.
At the beginning, we worked on Unooc, the drug price comparator. It was during this first adventure that we discovered the difficulties of being a small business owner. We were wasting a lot of time on non-value-added tasks when it was vital to spend time on business development. So at the time we looked for tools to simplify our task. But we came across 3 types of software:
- Accounting software. It was very old-fashioned and complex. We just wanted to manage daily operational matters, the concrete, not work on our income statement.
- ERP-type software that did everything, but was still very complex. We wanted a simple and fluid interface, not 46 clicks to establish a quote.
- And then there were the Anglo-Saxon tools, very smart and very efficient, but only dedicated to one vertical. At the time, Hubspot was the reference for prospecting, but once the deal was won, there was no way to get a quote.
What does Axonaut do?
It is for these reasons that we decided to develop a tool to help us in our daily lives as small business owners. The objective was to have very simple to use software, which allows you to carry out concrete daily tasks and which is connected to our other tools:
- Prospecting synchronized with our calendars and emails, in order to share information automatically and avoid copying/pasting.
- Create a quote with powerful electronic signature functionality.
- Transform the quote into an invoice (deposit, balance, recurring billing) with online payment functionalities.
- Send a real registered letter to follow up on unpaid debts in just one click!
- Taking photos of restaurant receipts, transferring supplier invoices to Axonaut which will read the characters on its own to enter the supplier, VAT, date, etc. into your account.
- The reporting of your bank lines to be sure not to forget anything in your management: payment of your customer invoices and withdrawal of money.
Everything can be exported by your accountant via a dedicated portal. In fact, these features are obvious. Most SMEs, mid-sized companies and large accounts already have all of this. They even have a dedicated department (“sales administration”) that takes care of all this. But in the context of the VSE, it is often the business manager who carries out these tasks, most of the time in the evenings and on weekends, because, during the day, he is in the field!
Axonaut’s fundraising
Why did you raise 10 million euros?
The objective of the fundraising is mainly to promote Axonaut throughout France. We already have tens of thousands of users and there are still hundreds of thousands to introduce to our great tool! The second part of the fundraising will be used to perfect our tool in order to go even further in the assistance provided to VSE managers.
Why did you choose to bring these investors into your capital?
Axonaut has chosen to include The Moon Venture, Matmut Innovation, and Bpifrance in its capital.
The Moon Ventures has already participated in our first funding round. At the end of 2018, when we met them, we were generating 20,000 euros per month in turnover, it was very small and they trusted us, thank you to them! Thanks to our first fundraising at the beginning of 2019, we were able to increase this amount to 300,000 euros in turnover per month. It’s still modest, but they are very satisfied with what we have accomplished. So they trusted us to continue this strong growth and led this second round of funding. They were the ones who introduced us to Matmut Innovation. The BPI, for its part, has supported us since the very beginning of the adventure in our technological advances.
What will Axonaut look like in 5 years?
In 5 years, Axonaut will be used by hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs to save them as much time as possible! Businesses that use Axonaut will be more efficient, close less, be more robust with better financial health and benefit from colossal benefits.
