Hexa (company)

eFounders then Hexa

Hexa was founded in Brussels and Paris in 2011 under the name eFounders, by the Frenchman Thibaud Elzière and the Belgian entrepreneur Quentin Nickmans.^[1] It is a startup studio: the principle is to launch a startup by providing the founders, recruited directly by the studio, with the idea, initial funding, and strategic and operational support.^[2] Its activity is therefore similar to that of a business incubator, with the notable difference that the founders are provided with a turnkey project.^[2] eFounders raised five million euros on two occasions, in 2015 and 2016.^[3] The first time was with Oleg Tscheltzoff, co-founder of Fotolia with Thibaud Elzière in 2004, and the second time with forty angel investors and European family offices.^[3]

The startup studio crossed a symbolic threshold in 2018 with a total sum of €100 million euros raised by six of its startups: Spendesk, Aircall, Forest, Front, Slite, and Station.^[4] These capital increases were negotiated with well-established venture capital firms, such as Index Ventures, Accel Partners, and Sequoia Capital.^[5] It was also in April of that year, in April, that eFounders sold its first startup, TextMaster, to Technicis.^[6] Other startups, such as Front, also joined the Y Combinator program.^[7] The following year, eFounders replaced Yousign's existing investors.^[8] This was the first time the startup studio had invested in a startup it had not launched itself.^[8] The valuation of the twenty-five startups eFounders had launched reached 1.5 billion euros in 2020, up from 1 billion the previous year.^[9]

Opening of new verticals and name change

In 2022, eFounders ratified its reorganization into several studios, renamed "verticals", and changed its name to Hexa, in reference to the hexadecimal system, which is comprehensible to both humans and machines.^[10] Thibaud Elzière and Quentin Nickmans were joined by Amaury Sepulchre, who became co-founder of Hexa.^[11] The eFounders brand was retained for one of its components, the historic vertical dedicated to softwares as a service, while a second vertical, named 3founders and dedicated to Web3, was created.^[10]

By then, the startup studio had launched some forty startups and had a portfolio valued at five billion dollars, with around 2,800 jobs created and 700 million euros raised.^[2] Hexa's aim is to launch several verticals capable of scaling several startups a year, whereas eFounders alone could only scale one or two per quarter.^[10] Hexa raised a further 20 million euros in 2023, to launch thirty new startups a year by the end of the decade.^[12] Like the first fundraise in 2011, it was done with entrepreneurs and family offices.^[12] On this occasion, Hexa also announced the opening of its Paris office, named la Cristallerie.^[12]

Hexa Scale, an initiative to support mature startups financially, strategically, and operationally, was launched in 2023.^[13] Its function is similar to that of growth capital or private equity funds, but on a smaller scale.^[13] Hexa takes a minority or majority stake, and intervenes directly in the startup's day-to-day operations.^[14] The aim is then to trigger a new phase of growth, with support over twelve to eighteen months, during which the startup's founders can sell part of their shares and a new CEO be appointed.^[14]

The following year, after Hexa AI, a vertical focused on artificial intelligence, Hexa launched Hexa Health, a vertical dedicated to improving the healthcare system.^[15] Julien Méraud, a former Doctolib board member, joined the studio to create it.^[16] The organization of this vertical differs from the previous ones: a physician is recruited to become its full-time medical director, while each startup is launched jointly by an experienced doctor and a future CEO.^[16]