Eurazeo : Neovia Venture fund announces its first investment in the equine industry

Press release

29 July 2016

NEOVIA Venture, today announces an equity investment in the French start-up Equisense, which specializes in connected objects for the equine market. Launched on 8 July 2016, the Neovia investment fund (formerly InVivo NSA) is dedicated to innovative projects and companies. This is the fund's first investment and it demonstrates its ambition to act as an accelerator for open innovation and a start-up incubator in its new global innovation centre: We'nov.

Founded in 2014, Equisense develops connected objects for the equine market that help develop interactions between riders and their horses via touch sensors. They also give the opportunity to improve horses' health as well as the use of new digital tools that enable better performance monitoring and interaction. "As part of our fundraising, we are very pleased to be able to count on the strength of Neovia, our sole industrial investor on this market. This support will allow us to accelerate our development in France and internationally," says Benoit Blancher, CEO and Co-founder of Equisense. The collaboration between the Lille based start-up and Neovia should also quickly bear fruit with the announced creation of a solution (sensor and applications) for accurate analysis of the performance of competition horses, which translates the horse's activity data into a nutritional diagnosis.

Leader in equine nutrition in France, Brazil and Mexico, Neovia has unique know-how: over 40 years' expertise, 10 national brands and an international brand (Royal Horse) combined with a presence in 11 countries. With over 6 million horses in Europe, the equine and competition horse market represent one of the major growth and innovation levers for Neovia's petcare activity. As an illustration, the French horse industry alone represents a total turnover of 14 billion euros.

Launched on 8 July 2016, Neovia Venture signed its first investment in an innovative French company. With 5 million euros, Neovia Venture aims to take minority interests in innovative companies, related to its 5 priority innovation fields: interactive petline, smart farming, intensive aquaculture, optimization of resources and functional ingredients. Hubert de Roquefeuil, CEO of Neovia, emphasizes that, "this investment in Equisense accompanies the natural evolution of the pet market with greater digitalization and the increasing use of connected objects. Through our various global operations, in particular in Brazil - the 2nd largest equine market in the world - we hope to accelerate the development of business and technology partnerships in order to offer an increasingly innovative range of products and solutions."