Cyril Chiche launched Lydia in 2013 with only one goal in mind: to facilitate financial transactions while offering “ a single, simple, universal payment method » available at your fingertips, thanks to your phone. Focus on the journey of Cyril Chiche, co-founder of the famous startup Lydia, which is now part of the prestigious NEXT40 selection.
The journey of Cyril Chiche, founder of Lydia
Cyril Chiche graduated fromHigher Institute of Management (ISG). He holds a Master’s degree in International Sales and Marketing. During his three years of training, he spent a year abroad, where he went to New York and Tokyo, for a 10-month academic exchange.
Despite a very pronounced passion for the world of fashion, luxury and high-end goods, Cyril Chiche has never worked in companies operating in this sector. He has only evolved professionally in small structures.
In 1995, he joined Neartek, a startup specializing in computer data storage, where he started as an intern in the sales department. He was one of the company’s very first recruits. He then developed the marketing strategy as marketing director. He then became senior vice president of marketing and strategic development.
He thus contributed to the international development of the brand by signing strategic partnerships. His greatest pride during his 7 years of experience at Neartek was convincing Richard Egan, founder of Dell EMC, the famous software and storage systems company, to invest in the startup.
During his many years of experience, he has acquired several skills relating to the areas of business, marketing and human resources. He made observations that were of great use to him during the launch of his own project, such as the fact that in Africa and Asia, transfers were made almost informally and that transactions in the trading room were never instantaneous.
He explains to the Tribune : “There are around 300 payment methods in France, but none is universal in terms of usage. On the contrary, payment methods are segmented by use. » CIt was through this analysis that the idea of establishing a universal telephone payment system became obvious to him. “ With Lydia, we want to recreate a universal payment method,” he indicates.
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Lydia: The application that revolutionized mobile payment
Lydia: What’s wrong?
Lydia is a peer-to-peer mobile payment application launched in 2013 by Antoine Porte and Cyril Chiche. The startup now has more than 3.5 million users in Europe, mainly in France. According to figures communicated by the fintech, “ 25% of French people aged 18 to 30 now have a Lydia account. » The number of users is growing surprisingly, since every day Lydia has 2,000 new users.
Services offered by Lydia
The Lydia application was initially specialized in easy and quick reimbursements between individuals. Over time, it has expanded its scope by offering new services. Users now have the option to link their bank account with the app. They can make transfers, create prize pools, make permanent transfers or even pay with Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or by QR code.
In addition to these services, Lydia launched, in 2018, a paid version, Lydia Premium, allowing you to benefit from a virtual card for online payments and to have access to a Mastercard which replaces all other bank cards. .
Lydia has diversified its offers by offering home insurance in partnership with Luko or even consumer credit with Younited Credit.
By adopting this strategy, Lydia’s ambition is to become “ the first financial super-app in Europe ”, in the words of Cyril Chichecollected by the site Frenchweb. The goal is to transform the application into a “meta-bank”, thus making it possible to centralize all of its accounts and banking services in a single interface.
Lydia is not a bank, however, since it does not transform deposits into credit. “Our job is the front part of the bank. The idea is to bring excellence from the mobile world to finance. We are changing the experience, we are bringing new products, more fluidity and less complexity. » explains Cyril Chiche to Challenge.
Lydia’s banking partners
Lydia has partnered with renowned players in the banking sector in order to best support its users and ensure them quality service and an ultimate level of security.
Among its partners, we cite:
- The Financial Company of the Interbank Electronic Wallet (SFPMEI) which takes care of the management and guarantee of monetary flows
- Payline, in charge of the bank card section and payment procedures
- Treezor, a core member of the MasterCard network, for issuing cards
- Budget Insight, for connections with banks that enable account aggregation and transfer initiation
Lydia’s strengths
The strength of the Lydia service lies in its human-oriented philosophy and thinking. Through the app, users can send a sum of money not to a string of numbers but to a name in their address book. The advantage also is to receive the money immediately, “it’s understandable and much more humane. Human logic with the power of mobile. » specifies Cyril Chiche at the BPI France.
Lydia’s primary ambition is to humanize the bank and create proximity between the different players. You can create pockets of money on Lydia, name them, illustrate them with a photo, write down your expenses, etc. Since January, all Lydia Bleu and Lydia Noir users can choose associations to which the startup donates, at its own expense, the equivalent of 0.3% to 0.5% of their outstanding assets with Lydia.
Lydia’s other strength lies in her honesty. They want to be transparent and relatively clear about the fact that they are participating in a process of change which is not simple. They do not spend large sums on marketing and communicate in a humble and simple manner. They prefer to let people make their own opinions about the app and share their honest and authentic experiences with those around them.
“At the time, we had a phrase on our desk: “work hard, in silence, let success be your noise.”
Despite the coronavirus pandemic which led to the cancellation of all cultural, associative and social events, the application doubled the number of transactions between 2019 and 2020.
Successive confinements have had the effect of accelerating the dematerialization of money by favoring contactless, online purchasing and Click&Collect offered by stores. The pandemic has managed to transform the habits of an entire population in just 6 months. “Last year, even though we were affected by Covid-19, the pandemic accentuated the trend which led people to move from cash to contactless. » explains the founder of the startup. »
Fundraising carried out by Lydia in 2020
Lydia had started the year 2020 very well with a fundraising of 40 million euros, a sum collected from the giant Tencent, owner of WeChat, the best-known application in China and which has more than a billion accounts in the world. The initial WeChat project is very close to Lydia’s concept, that of money exchanges between individuals.
July 2020, Lydia raises 72 million euros thanks to Amit Jhawar, Venture Partner at Accel, one of the best-known investment funds in the world. He really liked the startup and he decided to focus on its success and development. Thanks to this fundraising, Lydia has the largest funding round ever recorded by a French fintech.
The funds will mainly be used to develop the application’s presence in Europe and to recruit new people to ensure this expansion.
The proximity strategy with Grandes Écoles, universities and Lydia
Lydia responds to a need for speed and lightness popular with students and which banks do not necessarily offer. It is therefore a service offering real added value in the eyes of young people.
Students quickly adopted the application and passed it from class to class. It makes it easier to pay for association events, purchases in the campus cafeteria or even expenses shared between students.
Bank transfers disappear in favor of a simple Lydia. Using the application thus becomes essential in school or university. The expression “I’ll make you a Lydia” is more and more present in the mouths of young people, to evoke transfers between individuals.
Cyril Chiche and the consecration of Lydia
Recently, Cyril Chiche made the news because Lydia was one of the few FinTechs to become a unicorn. The startup’s valuation now exceeds one billion dollars, thanks to a fundraising of $103 million.
From now on, Cyril Chiche’s ambitions for Lydia are great, like his unicorn. He wants to accelerate the European development of FinTech to reach 10 million accounts by 2025 across Europe.
Cyril Chiche also announced that these ambitions would be accompanied by a very significant wave of hiring. In fact, Lydia intends to welcome 800 new employees over the next three years.
How Cyril Chiche transforms Lydia into a banking super-app
Far from being satisfied with reimbursement between friends, Cyril Chiche has a goal for Lydia: to make it a super-app that goes beyond the scope of current account management. From now on, the entrepreneur offers an ecosystem of different services on his application, ranging from savings to microcredit, including trading! You can now buy Tesla or Apple shares from your Lydia application!
Cyril Chiche is also expanding the circle of his partners. A large part of the services offered by Lydia were created in collaboration with other players in the banking world, such as Bitpanda, an Austrian platform, for trading or Floa Bank, for microcredit.
