Jean-Christophe Mifsud is the archetype of French scientific excellence. After an engineering degree in chemistry from a business school at Essec, he came to deepen his knowledge with a post-doctorate in neurochemistry in the United States, at Princeton. Thirty years later, he crossed the Atlantic again to set up a subsidiary of his group Rubix.
Le Toulousain is an entrepreneur at heart: after creating his first company in surgical instrumentation in the early 90s, he managed and developed Alpha MOS, specializing in the measurement of human senses, for 23 years. The group markets electronic tongues and noses capable of analyzing the freshness of fish, the taste of drugs for the pharmaceutical industry or the smell of a cream for cosmetics. The company was floated on the stock market at the end of the 90s, and in 2015, Jean-Christophe Mifsud decided to continue in this direction with his new entrepreneurial adventure: Rubix, also based in Toulouse.
” I wanted to get out of the laboratory and offer this analytical capacity for every moment of our life, as a citizen, employee or even as a client,»He recounts. Rubix thus markets connected objects that measure sensory nuisance in real time and identify them, whether it is gas, odors, allergens or even noise. Its database has over 200 smells and 15,000 sounds. At the start of the year, the group raised 7 million euros, in particular from Airbus Ventures and ADP, bringing its collection to 12 million euros since its creation. And today opens an American office in New York, headed by Horacio Werner and which will quickly recruit salespeople.
“We are very present in indoor environments, such as shopping centers, offices, hotels and restaurants, where measuring air quality and noise becomes essential “. The group does not sell its products directly but has developed partnerships with large groups, such as Cisco for smart cities, Veolia for wastewater, Bouygues for construction and of course ADP, with its subsidiary HubOne. For Rubix, the Covid-19 crisis has been a tremendous accelerator since its products can monitor the healthiness of environments, detect the presence of detergents. The group thus followed the disinfection of the infamous Diamond Princess, this cruise ship that has experienced a wave of coronavirus infections and had to be placed in quarantine in Japan. Rubix supervised the disinfection.
Jean-Christophe Mifsud has the best hopes for his development across the Atlantic, which should quickly overtake France. After having recorded 1.2 million euros in order intake in 2019, he anticipates a tripling of activity this year. The objective is of course to constantly enrich its databases, but also to apply its technology to new connected objects. During the CES in Las Vegas last year, Rubix had for example presented a “smart watch” which analyzes the sweat and breath of an individual.
