Regulatory News:
NextStage (Paris:NEXTS), an investment platform listed on the Euronext Paris regulated market (ISIN: FR0012789386; Symbol: NEXTS), is pleased to announce an investment supporting international development in YSEOP, an Artificial Intelligence gem and one of the world’s leading firms in the field of Natural Language Generation (NLG).
Created by Alain Kaeser in 2007, on the basis of research he began at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure (ENS) Cachan, YSEOP is a key player in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and one of the world’s leading NLG specialists, working primarily with Fortune 500 companies. Following investments in YSEOP made via its unlisted vehicles in 2017 and 2018, NextStage AM has decided to continue its support for the company’s development by reinvesting, via its listed platform NextStage, in the amount of €8.3 million.
NextStage AM’s previous investments have enabled YSEOP to structure the company and accelerate rollout of its NLG solution, particularly in the banking and financial services market. The human species has created more data in the last year than since the beginning of human history, making processing and returning relevant results all the more important. YSEOP has seen a real acceleration in the use of its flagship tool and is already working with major financial institutions in France and abroad, such as BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and the financial rating agency Moody’s.
YSEOP has also moved into the pharmaceutical market. At the recent VivaTech trade fair they announced a global strategic partnership with Sanofi to deploy NLG within the Group in view to automating the regulatory documents required when bringing new drugs to market. Given the positive initial feedback, YSEOP is looking to extend its solution to other stages of drug development.
YSEOP’s successful entry into the pharmaceutical market illustrates the ability of its next-generation NLG platform to capitalize on customers’ business knowledge and implement AI best practices to provide an accelerated response to specific use cases.
YSEOP now has close to 80 employees, mainly in France, the United States and Colombia. Begun several years ago already with strong support from Craig Vachon, Senior Partner at NextStage AM in the United States, development on the US market will be accelerated thanks to this new round of fundraising. By 2022, YSEOP expects to generate nearly half of all revenue in the United States.
“We are impressed with all the work the YSEOP team has done under the leadership of CEO Emmanuel Walckenaer and founder Alain Kaeser. We also appreciate the company’s strong growth and accelerating rollout of its NLG solutions, which make sense in a world overwhelmed by data. We are proud to continue supporting the ambitions of this French tech gem, and its development on the American market. Like the financial industry, the fast-changing healthcare market also holds significant potential for YSEOP, even as the company continues to forge significant partnerships such as the one established with Oracle,” affirmed Grégoire Sentilhes, Chairman and CEO of NextStage AM.
“We are proud of NextStage’s confidence in YSEOP and the continuation of our shared adventure. The understanding NextStage shows of the challenges at play on the artificial intelligence and natural language market, as well as their knowledge of the US market, confirm that they are the right partner to support us in our entrepreneurial journey. Artificial Intelligence is a technology that transforms the approach to markets for companies and their organizations. We intend to continue to honing and deepening our expertise in this field on behalf of our key accounts in order to realize the market potential of transforming data into natural language,” explains Emmanuel Walckenaer, CEO of YSEOP.
About YSEOP:
YSEOP is an international company specializing in Artificial Intelligence, and a pioneer in natural language text generation (NLG) technology. Founded in Lyon, with headquarters in Paris, it is present in France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Colombia. YSEOP’s patented software combines business process automation and natural language data translation to generate highly personalized, relevant text and dialogues. Applications of the solution focus on customer relationship intelligence and enhanced business intelligence.
YSEOP optimizes the extraction of meaning from data generated by large companies, increasing its value to improve dialogue and provide added value for customers. Thanks to better comprehension and greater responsiveness to customer needs, YSEOP responds to requests from the very first interaction, boosting customer satisfaction, sales and the effectiveness of customer relations more generally.
YSEOP’s solution also complements business analytics tools, automating data extraction and making it meaningful in a language that is clear and understandable to all.
YSEOP bridges the gap between Big Data and human interaction by enabling machine-to-machine and machine-to-human dialogue through the integration of Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Natural Language Generation (NLG) and Ontology technologies.
It is rapidly gaining traction with some of the largest companies in many domains, including the financial sector (Credit Agricole, SG, Moody’s, BNP Paribas…), the pharmaceutical industry (Sanofi…), and the technology sector (Oracle), both in Europe and in the United States, as well as maintaining partnerships with strategic players such as Cap Gemini, Accenture, LTI and more.
About NextStage
NextStage is an investment platform created in March 2015 and listed on the Euronext Paris market (Compartment B) since December 2016. Specialized in long-term investments in Medium-Sized Companies exhibiting growth and innovation, it thus grants access to an unlisted and often inaccessible class of asset that drives growth, job creation and financial performance. Its holdings are equity investments made with little or no leverage over an unlimited time frame to fund the growth of MSCs and their capacity to innovate in their core businesses alongside visionary entrepreneurs. NextStage is backed by the know-how and stability of the asset management firm NextStage AM, founded in 2002. NextStage is governed by the tax laws for SCR.1 Its capital is held by prominent shareholders such as Téthys, AXA, Ardian and Amundi. NextStage has built a novel and ambitious approach whose aim is to accelerate the growth of top-flight MSCs around four long-term trends of the Third Industrial Revolution, namely: the economy linked to the value of our emotions and customer experiences; the on-demand and sharing economy; the industrial internet; and positive growth (or green growth).
NextStage is listed on the Euronext Paris Compartment B regulated exchange (ISIN: FR0012789386; Symbol: NEXTS). www.nextstage.com/sca/en
PARTICIPANTS:
Yseop : Alain Kaeser (founder, director of strategy), Emmanuel Walckenaer (Chairman)
NextStage AM : Grégoire Sentilhes (Chairman), Craig Vachon (Senior Partner US), Michaël Strauss-Kahn (Principal), Jérémy Ballet (Associate)
Avocat Société : Villechenon (Amélie Maindron, Morgan Hunault-Berret)
Avocat NextStage : Volt Associés (Lucas d’Orgeval, Guilhem de Courson)
For more information, visit info-investor@nextstage.com
1 SCR: Société de Capital Risque (Venture Capital firm)
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