Back in 2011, Paris-based eFounders brought forth a novel approach to entrepreneurship, that of a startup studio. Not quite an accelerator, not quite an incubator, rather, the eFounders model is one centered around building companies in parallel and as a team.

This unique approach struck a chord, particularly in the B2B software sector, and paved the way for the launch of over 40 companies including household names such as Front, Aircall, Spendesk, Swan, and Yousign. 

However, in 2022 eFounders founders Amaury Sepulchre, Quentin Nickmans, and Thibaud Elziere decided it was time to expand the scope of its model and created the fintech-focused studio Logic Founders and web3-focused outfit 3founders. The triumvirate would all operate under a holding company to be known as Hexa.

Having raised approximately €5.5 million in 2015 and an additional €5 million in late 2016, today, Hexa has announced a significant milestone in the company’s history with the raise of €20 million. 

The influx of capital was received from entrepreneurs, including Hexa alums such as Luc Pallavidino (Yousign), Adrien Van Den Branden (Canyon), Paul Vidal (Collective), Arnaud Schwartz (Marble), and a number of family offices. 

With Hexa responsible for the launch of some 40 companies over the past 12 years, now armed with a significantly larger purse, the organisation is setting an ambitious goal — one that aims to launch 30 companies per year by 2030.

In order to achieve this goal, Hexa says that it plans to add healthtech and AI verticals to its studio lineup soon and is investigating further avenues that include climate, education, proptech, agritech, and cybersecurity.
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Hololight, a software maker focused on AR and VR enterprise solutions, has raised $12 million in funding to expedite the development of its XR streaming platform, Hololight Hub.

The investment aims to propel the Hololight’s XR streaming technology empowers enterprises across various sectors, including product development, manufacturing, training, and service industries.

The Hololight Hub, an enterprise streaming platform, caters to immersive applications such as virtual reality and augmented reality. Helping to enable global availability and easy deployment of XR applications, Hololight Hub has proven to empower enterprises as they use XR to improve their industrial processes.

“We went directly to industry customers as we were coming from the industry,” Susanne Haspinger, chief operating officer, said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We knew that we could speak their language. And by working with them, we figured out the problems, like not having enough processing power or how hard it was to integrate security when dealing with sensitive data on mobile devices. We just thought we can solve all these issues by streaming and putting everything on the server, leaving your secure data safe.”

Hololight in a manufacturing plant.
This strategic investment aims to fuel the expansion of XR streaming capabilities, facilitating future-proof XR infrastructures and fostering innovative collaborations and digital workflows in three-dimensional spaces.

The Hololight Hub can streamline global deployment of XR applications, addressing the unique challenges in industrial environments related to computing, data, and security. The platform achieves this by streaming entire AR or VR applications across local servers and the cloud, enhancing content quality, accessibility, security, and management while simplifying deployment.
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Christopher Hoffmann, Partner at Flatz Hoffmann, said in a statement, “Our strategy is to identify emerging European champions with ambitions for technology leadership and resource efficiency. Hololight is a perfect fit, competing successfully in the global XR market and shaping the industry with Hololight Hub. We are also highly impressed by Hololight’s inclusive management culture and strategic resilience in building a leader in spatial computing. Flatz Hoffmann looks forward to supporting the team as it scales from venture to growth.”
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And Marc Umber, head of investment at EnBW New Ventures, said in a statement, “We believe that this strong team and its groundbreaking technology have already begun to change the way we work in the future when it comes to industrial design, construction, engineering, services and quality assurance. The team has created something truly spectacular for industrial use cases. With the increasing penetration of next-generation mobile networks, XR streaming will also change the way we interact with our environment in our daily lives. Hololight has grown remarkably over the past few years, which is a testament to the trust and credibility they’ve built with their customers and partners, and we share that confidence without reservation.”

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A semi-dark room, curved aluminum walls and a large neon sun radiating the colors of dawn. This is the interdisciplinary installation Il Resto dell’Alba, created by artist Patrick Tuttofuoco (1974), in collaboration with Pininfarina Architettura, for the MAN in Nuoro. A subjective experience that, in the words of curator-museographer Maddalena D’Alfonso, “places the visitor at the center of what for us is one of the possible landscapes of art, where we move in search of ourselves.” A timeless and atypical dimension in which past, present and future coexist. Despite its form, which in terms of its realization may appear futuristic, the work invites viewers to imagine an environment “from now on,” with an awareness of the past and without imposing a dystopian or utopian vision, which is increasingly common in contemporary art imagery. In more descriptive words, Il Resto dell’Alba is like an ellipse with its two fires looking to the sun as a representation of the real and the possible but at the same time looking to the past, here embodied by the small Nuragic sculptures dating back three thousand years and lent by the National Archaeological Museum of Nuoro and Cagliari.

Sunrise as a message of hope
The Remnant of Dawn thus proposes a scenario that seems to come from the metaverse, with shapes and colors to which we are still getting used, but which is meant to be as close to an imminent and imaginable future, in a certain sense unnatural but giving way to the combination of nature-technology. The very idea of dawn describes a moment of transition, from night to day, and for this reason it becomes “the moment of the possible.” It is here that the dawn gives shape to a message of hope, a way for the artist to become aware of the present in which we live and offer a vision that does not exist but hypothesizes a solution. Patrick Tuttofuoco himself says that today, more than ever, “is the time when we need to plan more than before and not just remember how bad our end will be, because it certainly won’t take us anywhere. On the contrary, it’s just a duty of culture, in a very broad sense, to try to reproject man in a future that doesn’t just follow dystopian instances suitable for TV series, but in a scenario where this drama is handled.”
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The Resto dell’Alba is a real space. An experiential place generated with virtual prototyping tools. In other words, the structure is composed of 539 aluminum strips (natural Prefa) designed with generative parametric design tools and then cut with the mesh clustering technique, a special process that optimizes the use of the material and therefore reduces its waste. In this sense, art, artifice, and human experience a coexistence that tells time in a different way, resulting in a space that is not rigid but rather malleable and hypothesizable by the individual, who is incredibly central here.
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28 November 2023 – Three companies with world-leading military training expertise have announced that they are working together to combine their unrivalled technology and experience to revolutionise training for the military forces of the future.

BAE Systems, PLEXSYS and Red 6 have agreed to explore the integration of Red 6’s augmented reality headset technology and immersive simulation from PLEXSYS into BAE Systems’ single synthetic training environment.

They will use BAE Systems’ Project OdySSEy, combined with Red 6’s Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System (ATARS) and the Advanced Simulation Combat Operations Trainer (ASCOT) from PLEXSYS.

The agreement, announced at the global simulation and training exhibition I/ITSEC 2023taking place in Orlando, Florida, will see them use the latest technology and decades of working alongside the world’s leading military forces to deliver the training required for warfare today and into the future.
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Sir Stuart Atha, Director of Training at BAE Systems, said: “This exceptional partnership exploits our combined expertise and opens up huge opportunities to ensure our customers maintain the mission readiness they require to meet the challenges of the future contested battlespace.

“We are already working alongside both PLEXSYS and Red 6 as we rapidly mature capability through Project OdySSEy and integrate technologies on the Hawk, the world’s most proven and trusted advanced jet trainer aircraft. Now we are further leveraging these relationships to push the boundaries of Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) training.

“BAE Systems trains more than 450 pilots every year from air forces across the globe and it is essential we have the right technologies and partnerships to ensure they have the world-class skills needed on the frontline.”

Ron Wiegand, CEO of PLEXSYS added: “PLEXSYS is excited to partner with BAE Systems and Red 6, uniting our advanced simulation capabilities with cutting-edge augmented reality and synthetic environments.

“The integration of our ASCOT technology into Project OdySSEy represents a leap forward in training realism and effectiveness. This synergy will provide unparalleled training solutions, preparing military forces for the complexities of the future battlespace with an unprecedented level of immersion and interactivity.
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European Union lawmakers have called on the 27-nation bloc to take a leading role in shaping the metaverse to support EU businesses and limit technological dependencies on other countries, CoinDesk wrote. The medium cited a report by the European Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection on risks, opportunities, and policy implications of virtual worlds.
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The EP Committee's activity follows plans for the metaverse that the European Commission published in July. While the committee did not propose any legislation, it did point out new standards for supervision of the metaverse were needed, as well as global governance.

The EC's strategy on the metaverse and Web4 defines virtual worlds as immersive and persistent environments based on extended reality and 3D technologies. According to a BanklessTimes.com data analysis, metaverse users will surpass 600 million by 2026 thanks to Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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Pablo Arias Echeverría, who is backing the initiative, said:

Europe cannot afford to lag behind in the next digital revolution nor can we repeat past mistakes. As we step into Web 4.0 with the development of virtual worlds, we have to lay a foundation, rooted in strong EU digital rules, guiding principles and values. Europe has to lead this transition, placing citizens at the heart of our digital future.
The legislators also encourage a level playing field to boost European business and create an appropriate policy framework that involves other countries.
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PhysicsX, a startup bringing the power of generative AI to enable breakthrough engineering in advanced industries including automotive, aerospace, renewables and materials production, raised €29 million in a Series A round led by General Catalyst. Standard Industries, NGP Energy, Radius Capital, and KKR co-founder and co-executive chairman, Henry Kravis, also participated in the round.

The funding will accelerate PhysicsX’s growth across customer delivery, product, and fundamental research, so that the company can be an effective engineering partner to its customers, build out its product engineering arm, and expand its research arm to advance its AI models and methods.

As part of the round, entrepreneur Jim Baum, General Catalyst XIR (Executive in Residence), has joined the company’s Board, bringing over 25 years of experience growing and managing cutting-edge technology businesses including at Netezza, Endeca, and PTC. Jeremy Palmer, former Chairman and CEO of QuantumBlack and a former Senior Partner at McKinsey, will also join as Chairman.

Larry Bohn, Managing Director, General Catalyst, said: “PhysicsX expands engineering boundaries in crucial sectors, led by a team deeply skilled in simulation engineering and machine learning. With credibility, customer relationships, and technical expertise, we believe PhysicsX is poised to transform engineering in complex industries. This aligns with our vision for industrial transformation and positions PhysicsX with the opportunity to create a category-defining company in advanced industries.”
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Robin Tuluie, founder and co-CEO of PhysicsX, said: “Engineering design processes were transformed by numerical simulation and the availability of high-performance compute infrastructure. The move from numerical simulation to deep learning represents a similar leap and will unlock new levels of product performance and ways of practicing engineering itself. PhysicsX exists to help pioneer and enable that transformation, giving engineers and manufacturers superpowers in bringing new technologies to the real world.” 
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Renault Group’s supply chain division has partnered with École des Ponts ParisTech, school of science, engineering and technology, to explore the future of AI optimisation in the supply chain.

The carmaker has worked with the prestigious French school previously, partnering to use its advanced research and applied mathematics centre, known as Cermics, to expand supply chain operational research. The new five-year agreement was signed on November 24 by Denis Le Vot, chief supply chain officer at Renault Group and CEO of Dacia, and Anthony Briant, director of the École des Ponts ParisTech, to strengthen the partnership and accelerate innovation in the supply chain using artificial intelligence.

Anthony Briant, École des Ponts ParisTech (left) and Denis Le Vot, Renault Group (right) signed a five-year partnership to explore the future of AI in the supply chain

Working with machine learning, operational research and generative AI is essential to meet the challenges of digitalisation and to process massive volumes of data. Renault Group said the renewal of this partnership will make it possible to propose ambitious studies based on concrete logistics optimisation challenges.

The OEM said: “Renault Group has built a supply chain based on extensive traceability and decision-making tools, supported by artificial intelligence, aimed at creating more value for its customers while reducing costs, inventories and environmental footprint. This transformation is accompanied by new ways of working and a strengthening of skills.”
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Earlier this year, Jean-François Salles, vice-president of partnerships (then global vice-president of supply chain) at Renault Group, spoke at Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Europe, where he said technology such as the control tower, AI and digital twins helped put supply chain and logistics central to decision-making at the company. “This kind of tool gives an unprecedented ability to anticipate the risks of a shortage to collaborate with the different actors, including our tier-one suppliers and transporters,” he told delegates in Bonn, Germany. “Our transporters provide information and this gives us the ability to prescribe some solutions with the support of AI.”
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LONDON, Nov. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kabuni, a provider of immersive learning, today announced Kabuni WIZARD, an education technology Web3 platform that facilitates highly personalised learning aimed at children aged 8 – 18 years. By using spatial computing, artificial intelligence and Web3 technologies, Kabuni is driving safe and transformative evolution in the field of education. The company has also launched its utility token, Kabuni COIN, to encourage learn-to-earn concepts for both students and teachers.

Kabuni WIZARD provides a solution for the education system that needs help to keep pace with rapid advancements seen in other industries. Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) and blockchain technology, the platform nurtures an active learning environment regardless of geographic location.

"Educational technology expanded significantly over the course of the pandemic and shed further light on the multiple issues that are plaguing the current education system including higher costs, lack of funding and restrictions in accessibility. Kabuni Wizard aims to democratise education and reward children and educators at the same time." said Nimesh Patel, Founder and CEO at Kabuni.

He also added: "NFTs and digital assets are part of the new digital world that's here to stay. Kabuni provides a safe space for children, parents and educators to understand the infrastructure of digital currencies and learn the ins and outs."
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"We are hugely excited to be partnering with Kabuni to provide a secure and purposeful education experience for both students and educators. Soon, we will be integrating Kabuni COIN to expand its utility beyond the Kabuni ecosystem. As part of the Uphold (the global multi-asset digital money platform) family, Optimus helps to bridge the gap between the metaverse and the high street."
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Ravikant Agrawal Director of Growth from Polygon Labs said:" We are delighted to be supporting Kabuni's 'learn-to-earn model' on Polygon PoS and look forward to enabling its eco-system to grow and scale safely."
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DUBAI, UAE, Nov. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Canon Middle East and Turkey has set its sights on robust growth, projecting 11% revenue growth in 2023. Driven by its commitment to serve the 'Customer of Tomorrow', the company anticipates double-digit growth in both consumer and business product segments in 2024.

Canon continues to invest more than 8% of its global sales in R&D annually, underscoring its commitment to innovation. The company's growth mirrors global economic trends, with thriving markets such as the Middle East showcasing a robust 4.8% growth rate, surpassing the global average.

These figures and projections were revealed during Canon's 17th regional Annual Partner Conference. Centred around the theme 'ONE', the recent event emphasized the importance of collaboration and innovation in the ever-evolving world of customer-centricity.

It also served as a platform to address the shifting industry landscape and respond to evolving customer needs across Middle East and Turkey.
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Venkatasubramanian (Subbu) Hariharan, Managing Director of Canon Middle East & Turkey, spoke passionately about the significance of this annual gathering in the region. He emphasized the importance of unity, innovation, and customer-centricity, stating: "Our commitment to our partners and our shared vision to be lifetime imaging partners, enhancing  the lives of the  'Customers of Tomorrow', has never been stronger. Canon's achievements in 2023 are testament to our resolute mindset focused on understanding customers and elevating our value propositions in the market."
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Canon showcased its forward-looking approach by addressing future customer needs in image capture, from crafting human avatars for the metaverse to enhancing live streaming and vlogging with improved kits. The company also outlined its commitment to businesses of tomorrow by embracing the digital shift, offering pioneering business applications for packaging and label printing. Canon's innovative products and software offer unparalleled workplace and remote connectivity solutions.

"As we emerge from the shadows of the pandemic, our growth journey evolves and phase two beckons. From 2024 to 2026, we embark on an accelerated growth trajectory in this new world, Subbu concluded.
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SK Telecom (SKT) has turned to Malaysian telco CelcomDigi, as well as two other Asian companies, to further expand the reach of ifland, its in-house developed metaverse platform.

The South Korean operator announced that it has struck new metaverse partnerships with CelcomDigi, Indonesia-based game developer Agate, and Philippine internet of things (IoT) platform provider Cosmic Technologies.

With these collaborative partnerships, SKT will focus its efforts on the areas that apply to all global versions of ifland, such as planning, operation and content creation. Its partners, meanwhile, will focus on boosting the metaverse platform in their local markets through activities such as providing localised content, marketing and primary customer support.
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“By signing agreements with three leading IT companies in South-east Asia, we will be able to carry out customised marketing in these countries,” said Yang Maeng-seog, VP and head of metaverse CO at SKT.

Global goals

Alongside the partnerships announcement, the operator unveiled plans to add Indonesian, Malay, Hindi and Spanish to the list of languages supported by the metaverse platform, to enable it to expand further into the global market. The company is also working on a curation feature that will recommend content based on individual customer characteristics and the region of access, and it is focused on enhancing “the overall global service quality”.

Its long-term vision also involves seeking additional partners in the US, India and Europe to speed up the global presence of ifland. “We will continue to do our best to provide ifland users with content and services that understand their culture and society by partnering with more local companies,” stated Maeng-seog.
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