L.E.S.S. SA raises CHF 14 millions to accelerate the industrialization of their products in the automotive market.

04.07.2019 14:06, Guillaume Tinsel

In our interview, Yann Tissot, CEO of L.E.S.S. SA, tells us about his innovation and its future steps and also gives young entrepreneurs pieces of advice on how to chase success.

L.E.S.S SA, a high tech company manufacturing a new generation of ultra-bright and ultra-thin lighting systems, announced yesterday the closing of a CHF 14 million Series B financing round to accelerate the industrialization of their products in the automotive market. The round was led by new private and existing investors from the venturelab community and the venture capital firm VI partners. The new nano-active fiber technology developed by L.E.S.S. has proven itself as a disrupting alternative to the LED technology setting a new standard of lighting quality.

How will L.E.S.S change the future of automative market?
L.E.S.S. has developed an ultra-thin, ultra-bright lighting technology based on a nano-active fiber that we adapt depending on the market and verticals we are active in. On the market of inspection lighting, our customers benefit from a high quality light, very precise and extremely uniform lighting products while in the market of automotive lighting, our customer can create external lighting units with almost unlimited design options, low power consumption and low weight.
The market of automotive lighting and the market of automotive in general is in full transformation and we intend to be a key player of this transformation. Therefore, L.E.S.S. enters a fast-growing, exciting phase to prepare this market entry.
In 2017, the revolutionary potential of the nano-active fiber technology has been displayed for the first time on a demo car at the Geneva International Motor Show. Since then, we have been working tightly with different players of the car industry to reach the necessary milestones to enter the automotive market. This substantial financing round is closed at a perfect time. It will consolidate our current collaborations and strongly support the industrialization and the production ramp-up of our products for the automotive market.



How will the 14 million investment help achieve your next steps ? What are the key development we can expect ?
Our technology has already been shown on different demo cars and you can be expect to see it on serial cars soon. This implies that we are pivoting from a start-up structure delivering innovative, high-end products to a structure where the operational excellence is key given the volume and quality constraints demanded by the automotive industry. The investment will be used for accelerating the industrialization and the production ramp-up of our products but also to strengthen the operations in phase with the automotive constraints and demands.
One of the key challenge was to find investors that understand and are sensitive to these constraints and we are glad to have found new investors coming from the automotive industry as well as keeping on board precious early investors that strongly believe in our vision from the beginning.
Another key challenge ahead will be to keep our innovation and fast pace culture within a stricter operational skeleton.

What does it take to build a company active in the automotive industry and what is your piece of advice to “young” entrepreneurs ?
When you ask companies active in the automotive industry (including former startups that have succeeded in this field): “What would be your advice for young companies entering this industry?” They will all reply : “Don’t go there !”. However, they all forgot that at some point they were a young company and that although the path has been rough, they succeeded.
But to be honest, if a young company decided to go in this market, I trust they understood they won’t sell ice cream in the park next door (don’t misunderstand me, I like ice cream a lot).
This is an extremely difficult market where innovation means change and change means high risks that can kill any supplier. You face well established customers with extremely well running operational structure, harsh purchase departments and complex processes. For sure, this is not the easiest market or path to follow !
My advice would be : work hard, adapt fast, work harder, adapt faster and keep your vision on a daily basis that you, your team and your supply chain will succeed. Then of course, you will need luck and timing but these alone unfortunately won’t bring you success.

How would you value the different programs offered by Venturelab in your journey as an entrepreneur ?
It’s been a long time since our first interaction with the enthusiastic team of venturelab. Among different Swiss initiatives, I must witness this program is of great value and looking back at it, I think it has been particularly valuable for us as early education and tremendous network.
First we participated and won Venture Kick very early in our journey. That helped us maturing our idea to a business in a structured way, benefiting direct but constructive feedbacks along the process of building the business.
Second we participated to Venture Leaders US and China. The network of entrepreneur we built during that time is tremendous and I still use it today. You can share challenges with similar entrepreneurs in an open and constructive way as they faced or are facing similar experiences. In addition, some of our investors are part of this entrepreneur circle that strongly supported us in financing. I would advise any young entrepreneur to participate as early as possible to this program.