A little stress and a lot of motivation: this is the cocktail fueled by French startups as the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) approaches. Their goal: stand out among the more than 4,500 exhibitors from around the world at this annual high-tech celebration of technological innovation, to be held in Las Vegas from January 7 to 10, 2020.
They are now in the final straight of a preparation that lasted several months, a race against the clock to arrive at the show with an innovative product and especially concrete. Because technology is not everything, you must know how to sell it. A key step for which startups benefit from an accompaniment, like Kwit , an Alsatian application to stop smoking. "We are helped by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of our region, which provides coaching, training and shows us the good messages to convey," says the founder Geoffrey Kretz, at the microphone of Europe 1.
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Because the stake is of size. A successful CES can thus offer a spotlight to companies that know how to be noticed. The startup Nice My Keeper, the origin of an electronic box that allows including sending a geolocated alert to his relatives if you feel insecure, was in Vegas in January 2019. She has since boomed, to the delight of one of its members: "The CES last January has allowed us to win six months of development and triple our turnover in 2019," said Nicolas Demarchez, the general manager.
The CES also allows you to get a good idea of the technological ambitions of a country, and the number of stands it manages to gather on the show is an indicator. At two-and-a-half months of the kick-off, the preparation is therefore meticulous because it must allow France to hold its place in Las Vegas: the delegation tricolor is for some years the second largest at CES, after that of the United States. United.