Akidaia 

Offline secure access system

This Nice start-up aims to revolutionise the secure access industry with an all-French solution that is (almost) infinitely scalable.

by Eve Chatelet

This Nice start-up aims to revolutionise the secure access industry with an all-French solution that is (almost) infinitely scalable.

Gaël Lededantec and Ouajdi Babay Rouis met as students at the Supinfo computer science school in Nice. “Tech was my passion, but I couldn’t see myself working on the technical side, so I went off to the Toulouse Business School to do a thesis on innovation management,” says Gaël Lededantec. “After that, Ouadji and I started our first business, NFCOM, where we spent ten years developing some great projects, innovative mobile apps for sport, tourism, events, health and transport. That adventure was great fun, with our first successes and mistakes. We built on that business experience to create Akidaia, a sound project in both technical and business terms.” The duo was joined by a third founding member, Nazim Lahlou, to handle the operational part. The idea was to create an access control solution that was easy to install, reusable, required no Internet access, and could be installed even in remote areas. “When we saw that all access solutions had been functioning in the same way for 30 years, with an identifier and a reader installed on a door and always needing a network connection to check the list of authorised persons, we thought we could shake up this ageing industry,” adds Gaël Lededantec. At first, Akidaia was hosted by CEEI, the business incubator and accelerator in Nice. It won an Innovation Award at the 2024 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. It now has 100m2 of space to itself and is preparing a fundraising drive.

Secure access for businesses and institutions

How does Akidaia’s secure access system work? “Keys are generated from a cloud platform, and the user who wants access just needs a phone. The keys are encrypted digital keys passed through the mobile network. Once received, they work even if neither the phone nor the box is connected. We’re dealing here with very highly coded communications. No data are stored in the box on the door. It’s a scalable solution, meaning that it’s the same principle whether you’re installing one box or a thousand,” says Akidaia’s delighted managing director. Instead of using fobs, QR codes or biometric recognition, Akidaia has decentralised access rights and created boxes that can be installed in five minutes, with no risk of cyberattack and no storage of user data. Gaël Lededantec concludes: “We have patented our solution, and it has been on the market since last summer. After the first sales in Europe and Côte d’Ivoire, we’re beginning to achieve international visibility. We have customers in manufacturing, services and the construction industry. And we have received official backing from GICAT, which represents the French defence Industry; that opens new horizons for us.”