Julien Bruneau

Transcript

My name is Julien Bruneau. My background is in computer science — I hold a PhD — and it was following this doctorate and my thesis that my business partner, who was also working on his thesis alongside me, and I embarked on the IQ Spot adventure. We created IQ Spot in 2015 with the idea of bringing technology to buildings to improve their performance. This led us, one thing leading to another, to the point where in 2025, when we sold IQ Spot, we were offering the investment real estate sector a solution that allows them to monitor energy consumption in real time and reduce it without having to carry out any work on their building portfolios. The company was founded in 2015, and there have been several stages and several rounds of funding — two main funding rounds during this journey. Development wasn't always straightforward, as energy impact wasn't necessarily a major societal issue in 2015. However, it became much more important towards the end, with COVID and the war in Ukraine raising the stakes for energy. So there was very significant development, albeit somewhat late, around 2020–2021, when all the work done before — between 2015 and 2020 — began to bear fruit with very strong growth over the last five years. When we reached a turning point — were we more focused on fundraising or on finding an industrial partner? — among the firms we met to support us was Inflexion Point Technology Partners, which was exactly aligned with where we were at the time, and we joined forces with them at that point. We chose IPTP, I would say, for two main reasons. The first was the partner we met, who knew Daniel Pilot of DT Translation very well — our main shareholder and board member. We met Hubert Catanese, and his entrepreneurial spirit meant we understood each other much better than when we met people with more financially oriented profiles at other investment banks. That was point number one: the entrepreneurial human fit. The second point is that we obviously did our own due diligence on the investment bank. By talking to CEOs who had been advised by IPTP and who spoke very highly of them, the choice ultimately became quite simple. When we chose IPTP, it did generate some debate at the time of selecting an investment bank, because they weren't the cheapest option. But when I look at the result we achieved a year after that selection, I have no regrets about going with IPTP, even though the proposal wasn't necessarily the most financially attractive at first. During our collaboration with IPTP, there was a significant initial phase focused on truly understanding our business, our clients, and our team. This allowed us to develop a tailored pitch deck adapted to each potential acquisition target, enabling us to present a truly impactful value proposition regardless of the type of buyer. This is what allowed us, all the way through to signing the Letter of Intent with the final buyer, to have several potential deals in the pipeline and to leverage competition in the early stages of negotiations. Having several potential targets in discussion in parallel at the start of the process allowed us to thoroughly assess the strengths and weaknesses of each industrial partnership, but also to increase the valuation. This process with multiple targets of different types ultimately allowed us to choose the project that seemed most impactful for the future of IQ Spot — and to secure the best possible offer, which we had no idea about when we first embarked on this process. In a deal of this type, valuation matters of course — it's part of it — but there are many other parameters that IPTP helped us navigate: exit clauses, what would become of us within the project going forward. A whole host of parameters where IPTP guided us to optimise the offer we ultimately received. We often think that the Letter of Intent is the finish line — the hardest part is over — but not at all. Due diligence begins, and IPTP was a huge help in navigating those months of the process, where you have to be extremely responsive, send the documents they want, and format them correctly. We never would have managed that on our own without IPTP's support. During this due diligence phase, a key role for us was clearly the lawyer — a law firm to support us throughout the entire process right up to the final signing. IPTP recommended several law firms they worked well with, we chose Didier Avocats, and we were extremely satisfied with their support and the complementarity with IPTP throughout the entire process. IPTP isn't one of the big investment banks with big names. It's more of a boutique firm, human-sized, which suited us perfectly for a company like ours with 30 people. Being with a small but highly specialised technology boutique meant that their support was always very responsive. We had a direct and excellent relationship with Hubert and Jean-Christophe, who guided us through this case, and at every high or low, they were always there. No matter the circumstances, always 100% committed to supporting us every step of the way.