With residential and business buildings increasingly connected to the web, this Montpellier-based company is offering a new service to developers and builders.

Fact sheet
Head office: Montpellier
Date of creation: 2016
Workforce: 8 employees
Website: https://getlono.io

There is a trend towards smart buildings. Founded in 2016 in Montpellier, Lono offers a new speciality in this market: defining and strategizing the digitisation of residential and business premises. This sector has evolved with the development of new buildings, which now increasingly incorporate new communication technologies: fibre networks, heating/air conditioning systems, roller shutters, etc. However, the regulations concerning these are change very quickly.

« They are extremely complicated, restrictive and therefore often difficult to implement », explains Angelo Blot, the company’s CEO and co-founder along with Jérôme Barthez. What’s more, technology changes just as fast. It’s hard to keep up, unless you’re really on top of it. That’s what Lono does.

Today, the company’s clients include nearly 60 property developers. In Montpellier, it is working on the Higher Roch site, the high-rise tower being built by VINCI Immobilier and Sogeprom-Pragma. Lono provides connected solutions for the homes it serves.

On the strength of these initial successes, the company’s directors want to take things to the next level and raise €1.5 million in funding to do so. « This will enable us to position ourselves in the home care sector for the elderly. This is a real issue in Occitanie and beyond. And the market is huge, because housing programmes, retirement homes and nursing homes will need to be equipped », explains Angelo Blot.

During the initial stages of its growth, Lono was supported by the Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée Region through the START’OC PROcess scheme, as well as an AFT (aid for technological feasibility) and an ATC (aid for commercial feasibility). It has just applied for a PASS relaunch and is benefiting from AD’OCC’s support for its fundraising.

« The Region and the Agency have always been by our side to help us fast track our development », says Angelo Blot.