Welkeys, the Airbnb concierge service that was created by a KEDGE Alumna, has raised 900K euros

I joined Euromed in the "grande école" programme after doing a two year prep programme for HEC. I primarily followed classes on entrepreneurship, marketing, and digital technologies. I worked as Communications and Partnership Manager for the association le Citadingue, a reference guide for good addresses in Marseille and Aix en provence. My time at the school enabled me to develop an openness to the international sector, a desire to create my own company, and a network. For my gap year, I left to do a six months internship in the marketing department at a "grande école" (a partner of INSEAD) in Brazil, where I learned Portuguese and developed their entire digital strategy, SEO and SEM. Then I moved to London, where I worked for Ogilvy Action, a digital advertising agency, as Assistant Strategic Planner, then Singapore for six months with Young et Rubicam, still as Assistant Strategic Planner. I then returned to Brazil for an exchange programme with the University of Sao Paulo and worked in parallel as Digital Project Officer for Young et Rubicam in Sao Paulo. When I returned to France, I worked for Wunderman (digital subsidiary of Young et Rubicam) in Paris for two years before creating my company, Concierge Personal SAS, which was renamed Welkeys in March, 2015.

I had always wanted to create my own business and start a project from scratch. I just needed the right idea. I had a life-changing encounter in London when I was still working for Wunderman, a friend of a friend was launching a concierge service dedicated to Airbnb rentals with an expat client-base. It was an great idea and that could also work in France, since Airbnb was really taking off in Paris in 2014.

We completed two fundraising operations (900K€ in all) in 2016 and early 2017. Our objective for 2018 is profitability in order to raise more money at the end of the year and open up to other European cities. We have had quite a bit of press coverage, have appeared on BFM business a few times and won the Accor Innovation Award during the Vivatech 2017.

 

Go for it as soon as possible. Listen to your intuition and surround yourself with the right people!