Lisy is a French startup which has created an order management tool which tends to simplify the daily lives of professionals, thanks to an intelligent mailbox, which allows administration to be digitized. The startup recently announced fundraising of 800,000 euros. Business Cool spoke with Sébastien Hubert, co-founder of Lisy, to learn more about the future objectives of this company.
Everything you need to know about Lisy
Who are you ?
Sébastien Hubert, co-founder and director of Lisy. Lisy, it started with 2 friends, myself, who was at Lidl and Olivier who was immersed in the world of Tech startups in Paris. Passionate about subjects related to food (for the enormous impact it has on health, mentality, the environment, animals and even geopolitics!), we wanted to do our part to boost a subject of the future: short food circuits, particularly in BtoB.
Today Lisy is 12 passionate about the subject who, like all self-respecting startupers, want to “make the world a better place”, what else?
What is Lisy doing?
Lisy is a tool as simple as an email box, accessible free of charge, which allows any producer or supplier to digitize the administration linked to order management.
The concept is simple: you create an account in 2 minutes, you import your product catalog. You can then enter your orders yourself or offer your customers an optimal interface so that they can enter them directly. Lisy automatically generates purchase orders and deliveries, product history and traceability (all this in the free version). For those who want, Lisy also generates invoices (for €9 excl. VAT/month), tracks stock, personalizes offers per customer and helps disseminate its offer for those who wish to make themselves visible on the internet (49€ excl. VAT/month) .
It’s the perfect tool for getting started in direct sales or ordering from small producers near you! In 1 year, more than 350 professionals have adopted the tool and are giving us great feedback.
Lisy’s fundraising
Why did you raise 800,000 euros?
The initiative started from Nantes, notably supported by a call for projects from the Pays de la Loire Region, very involved in short circuits and thanks to which the free version of the tool is super complete! The money raised allows us to deploy Lisy nationally and broaden our scope: short circuits are not just in the food industry. We have producers of essential oils, soaps, utensils and others who have adopted the tool.
Anyone can now start a short circuit without having to worry about administration: Lisy does it for them, and it’s operational for free and in 10 minutes. Digital is good sometimes.
Why did you choose to bring business angels into your capital?
Lisy is a collaborative project, we want to surround ourselves with as many committed people as possible to help us carry out the project. This is why we integrated different structures: the CNRA (National Committee for Food Resilience), Entrepreneur for the Planet, the Digital Farm, the Entreprendre Atlantique Network, the Village by CA, Atlanpole, Smartfood Paris&co, Valorial… It’s just great to be part of a thriving ecosystem!
Short circuits have long been a simple fashion effect, today there is a real societal change that has taken place. We hear that with the crisis it is hard discount which is taking over, this is false, we have plenty of counter-examples. It’s simply that short circuits experienced such an explosion during covid that the figures at the end of 2022 are less good, but comparing yourself to 2021 makes no sense! We have resumed the pre-covid trend: +15% per year.
What will Lisy look like in 5 years?
We have a crazy project, that of creating the food channel manager. Quesaco?
To develop short circuits, two obstacles must be removed: the administrative burden generated by direct sales for producers who have neither the time nor the desire to manage it. Good news, they now have Lisy at their service. And you also have to sell to professionals, it’s practical (fewer customers, more volumes), but you have to deliver them. It takes time, money, and it pollutes…
We now want to provide the solution to the 2nd point by making something magical simple and accessible to all: logistics pooling. Easy, just make common roadmaps to organize the tours! Except that buyers each use their own tool to place orders (email, marketplace, cash register system, website, management tool, etc.) and producers each have their own system to process them (management tool, accounting tool, Excel, a notebook, etc.). ). How do we centralize orders?
With a “channel manager”: Lisy is like a mailbox, those who do not have a tool can use it to manage their orders directly, and we connect to existing tools to collect and redistribute orders. And by the way, we generate the famous roadmap, the Holy Grail of logistics pooling. In addition, thanks to this, producers will be able to distribute their offer on the web in 1 click to make themselves visible and boost their sales!
