Amélie Campino (CEO) | Vincent Baccam (CTO)

Nix provides technology for wildlife & ecosystem monitoring. Our AI-enabled platform facilitates wildlife tracking, risk analysis and conservation resources’ allocation.

01. Describe the problem/the industry that you are trying to  mediate (and precise the UN SDG-s you are solving). 

Biodiversity is the most underestimated asset we have, and it is disappearing at an alarming rate: we have lost 70% of animal species over the last 50 years. The main drivers of this loss are changes in land and sea use, overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. Understanding and addressing the underlying causes of these drivers is essential for effective conservation, restoration and sustainable use of nature.

From an economic perspective, it is estimated that $10,000 billion of global GDP could be lost by 2050 if ecosystem services continue to decline. New models for managing our planet's natural capital are needed. With Nix, we intend to provide the necessary monitoring tools to conservation area managers and scientists, thus contributing to SDG 15 - Climate Action, and SDG 17 - Life on Earth.

02. How did the idea to create the company come to mind? How did your team come to be? 

In 2019, Amélie was traveling to Patagonia taking some time off her previous job in consulting for public actors and governments to get closer to nature. Upon return, she met with renowned French biologist Olivier Behra who reported on its recent loss of endangered lemur species in Madagascar : his team could not set up field missions for 18 months due to COVID pandemic restrictions and lost track of activities in the reserve. 

That’s how she decided to start an entrepreneurial journey to prevent biodiversity loss by bringing new tools to the conservation industry. She was actively searching for a CTO when she met Vincent at a public meeting on aerial surveillance in 2020. Vincent had just left his job working for a military contractor on embedded systems and was looking for a new challenge, willing to leverage his 20 years of experience in advanced technologies with a purpose-driven business. He was immediately seduced by the idea and Nix Air Solutions was officially incorporated in March 2021.

03. Why did you choose to participate in the Techstars Sustainability Paris Accelerator program?  

In October 2022, Amélie met Baptiste Fradin, investor in residence for the previous cohort of Techstars Sustainability Paris at the Greentech innovation event organized by the Ministry of Ecological Transition in France. We immediately thought joining Techstars was a unique opportunity to build a sustainable venture at international scale thanks to one of the top early stage startup accelerators worldwide. 

The proven track record of Techstars’ team in identifying growth levers and supporting founders to stay out of pitfalls was our main incentive to get into the program. We are looking forward to contributing to the power of Techstars’ global network and to growing into this community of amazing entrepreneurs.

04. What are you the most proud of in your initial journey with  your company? 

Looking in the rear-view mirror, we are really proud of our achievements in the past 2 years. We built an expert team and strong partnerships to support us in our innovation program mixing cutting-edge technologies in both hardware and software industry. We received an innovation grant from the french public investment bank as a first recognition of our efforts.

Most of all, we are really happy with the way our first product is being received by the conservation industry. We are in touch with amazing wildlife conservationists in France and worldwide telling us how much they need to know more about wildlife and ecosystems to protect them, eager to discover our solutions. Joining Techstars last April was a great achievement for our team, inspiring hope for the future. 

05. How do you plan to measure the positive impact of your  company in the next 5 years? 

Nix is a purpose-driven company. All our solutions must contribute to our main objective : wildlife conservation and ecosystem restoration. The main metrics we will track to ensure alignment to our mission statement are the number of animals monitored, and thus protected with Nix, and the surface of preserved areas covered through our solutions. Feedback from conservation organizations report that monitoring solutions can reduce poaching by up to 90% and speed up team intervention times to less than 10 minutes.

We are also designing an ESG strategy that we want to integrate from the ground on. Keeping track of our carbon footprint, pushing innovation forward to reduce energy consumption, improving the lifecycle and recyclability of our products are part of it. We’re also glad to see new solutions emerging such as the amazing French start-up Greenly to help us monitor our achievements, limit carbon footprint and make sure we’re doing the best we can for the planet and the people.

Follow our page on Linkedin to stay updated on our journey.

For the latest news on our applications, please visit our page.

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