Every day, new technologies are emerging in the hope of having a greater impact on society and changing the situation, or even saving human lives. This is the case of the solutions developed by Aguila Technologies, French pioneer of the Internet of Things (IoT). Based in the Izarbel technology park, in Bidart (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), the company has been offering embedded electronic technologies in the medical and industrial sectors as well as the transport of goods and people since 2009. “ The origin of Aguila was to be able to develop technologies to make systems communicate with each other, and with the aim of ensuring the safety of people. », Testifies Hubert Forgeot, founder and CEO of the Basque company. A reason to be designated, by its own initiative, under the name “Tech for Life”.
Tech for Life, the watchword of Aguila Technologies
Until 2018, the company’s main activity was that of an electronics design office. A few years ago, Hubert Forgeot, also president and co-founder of La French Tech Pays-Basque, decided to implement a pivot. The objective? “ Complete the activity while maintaining an efficient and open R&D team in terms of applications and technologies. » In short, preserve its original transversality and continue to open up to different sectors. This is how the company decided to launch two verticals, one dedicated to road safety, which will come to fruition today through the Breakee solution, and the other in maritime safety with the Gaal system. (for “Guardian Angel of All Life”) dedicated to export and more particularly to the African market. “ With global warming, we have observed a change in the locations and conditions of artisanal fishing in West Africa.specifies Hubert Forgeot. The story started in Senegal, where daily fishing turned into one to two weeks of fishing at sea, with accident rates that skyrocketed. » Faced with this combination of climatic and human events, Aguila has developed a technological device to be integrated into fishing boats in order to facilitate, by satellite, land-sea and sea-land dialogues. Via its solution – marketed directly to States, government agencies or ministries – the Basque company contributes to the digitalization of maritime surveillance and also rescue at sea. It is this vertical which then pushes the company to integrate the 1st promotion of the Bpifrance Sea Industries Accelerator. An acceleration that came to an end last spring, but which pushed Hubert Forgeot to immediately activate additional missions with the entrepreneurs’ bank. “ It worked so well that we wanted to continue the support“, he admits. Long-term support that will allow Aguila Technologies to continue to overcome industrial gaps and reinvent itself. “The accelerator precisely provides this capacity to involve the entire company, all the teams. »
Breakee: a solution developed in close connection with Road Safety
In September 2024, the Basque company officially inaugurated the production line for its new solution, Breakee, which makes it more intuitive and faster to break the glass of emergency exits in transport (bus, coach) in the event of an accident. “The starting point was the Puisseguin accident in 2015», confides the business manager. 43 people died in this bus accident in New Aquitaine which shook the whole country. Caught in an unbreathable atmosphere and engulfed in flames, the victims were unable to break the vehicle’s windows in time. As Hubert Forgeot points out, tests conducted show that victims of this type of accident generally lose their bearings within 45 seconds and die in less than three minutes. A catastrophic situation which marked the beginning of Aguila’s reflection on a technology capable of automatically breaking the vehicle window and evacuating smoke in the event of an accident, and thus saving as many lives as possible. In 2017, the company launched an ambitious R&D program dedicated to replacing the red glass breaker hammers usually found on buses. “To break a single glass, you can use a number of techniques, but to break a double glass, it is much more complicated », notes the entrepreneur. It therefore required a long phase of iterative development, testing and research with numerous public (including Road Safety) and private partners to develop the best possible technology. Engaged in 2018 in the regulatory work which, four years later, resulted in the evolution of the international standard and made the traditional icebreaker hammer obsolete, Aguila immediately positioned itself with an operational system meeting the new requirements in terms of security. “Breakee meets all the new technical requirements which will come into force from September 2026 for all new registered vehiclesexplains the CEO.The regulatory evolution could not have taken place if it had not been shown that the technology was capable of meeting new requirements . »
Breakee is already attracting carriers
To finance this long-term project requiring a lot of experimentation time (a phase too often neglected, according to the manager), the company based in Bidart, which mobilized around 3 million euros for this project, was able to count on public funding for its R&D phase, as well as funding from France Relance on the industrial side, and even bank debt. “Breakee can be installed on any brand of vehicle. It is extremely rare in the bus and coach sector to have equipment that is homogeneous», notes Hubert Forgeot. Its new technology has barely been launched, Aguila has already concluded a first major contract with the transporter Keolis, equipping a fleet of around 150 existing vehicles and bringing its total of Breakee devices sold to a thousand units. “The challenge is to continue, with existing vehicle fleets, but also with manufacturers», specifies Hubert Forgeot, who hopes that his solution can soon be integrated into vehicles at the factory stage. Innovative from a technological point of view, Aguila is also innovative from a managerial point of view: “I always wished that my teams did not all come from the same seraglio», Confides the CEO, who capitalizes on the differences in experience of his employees and encourages initiative. “It’s important to confront real life, to have perpetual back and forth, to truly be in lean innovation», he notes.
Made in France, CSR: Aguila Technologies, a committed company
A committed entrepreneur, the president of La French Tech Pays-Basque very early on took up the issue of local industrialization and production. “It’s a real subject for us to work in New Aquitaine», Testifies Hubert Forgeot, who insists on the fact that the Breakee device is made in France, right down to the battery. “What I like to point out is that we can certainly do very clever things, but above all it requires a lot of common sense. But when we go to produce things in China that we know how to produce close to home, it is a cruel lack of common sense.», Says the manager. Indeed, the latter could very well relocate its production to Asia and make drastic savings; but Hubert Forgeot is not the type to choose the easy solution, nor to put his convictions aside. The founder of Aguila thus campaigns for good industrial sense throughout thesupply chaininvolving working hand in hand with local partners and trying, collectively, to be more efficient. “We also favor suppliers who have impactful CSR practices, we will work for example with SCOPs or with adapted companies which employ people with disabilities», adds the entrepreneur. Aguila’s objectives are now to ramp up: within two years, the company aims to produce several tens of thousands of Breakee units per year, to double its workforce and to expand its premises. “Although we may be a tech company, we must be in the long term. We talk about impact, CSR, eco-design :if we sign up for a 12-month cycle, we put ourselves completely outside of these subjects», Finally affirms the CEO of Aguila, who recalls in passing the importance of a community such as La French Tech in the links between territory, large groups and innovative companies. “A company is nothing without its ecosystem», he concludes.
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