For the Rennes start-up AMA, the year 2023 will not have been more rosy than 2022. Specializing in connected glasses for industry and services, the company of the Breton Guillemot family, known for having created the video game publisher Ubisoft, is experiencing difficult times. The fault is a market that is developing less quickly than expected and the slowdown in business investment, dampened by inflation and geopolitical tensions.
In 2022, the start-up’s turnover fell by almost 35% while its net loss exceeded €21 million. A situation which forced the Guillemot family to reinject funds and led to 97 job cuts as part of a savings plan.
Over the year 2023, turnover fell further by 30% to stand at €3 million, according to data published at the end of April 2024. The net loss, on the other hand, was reduced to -8.1 million €, in particular thanks to the elimination of 11 additional positions. The workforce now stands at 76 employees, the vast majority based in Rennes.
In a press release, AMA explains that its cost reduction plan, implemented from mid-2022, “made it possible to adapt the group’s structure to the difficultly predictable pace of adoption of assisted reality, a phenomenon similar to that observed with other advanced technologies.
No clearing at the start of 2024
After these two complicated exercises, AMA hoped to get its head above water in 2024. In vain. Over the first three months of the year, sales stood at €0.7 million, a figure down 14% compared to the same period a year earlier. New “significant” cost reductions are therefore on the agenda, in order to adapt the company’s structure to the current market situation and enable it to return to profitability.
To bounce back, AMA is also banking on the integration of artificial intelligence into its connected glasses, called XpertEye. A partnership on the subject has also been established with Sopra Steria. “By combining artificial intelligence with XpertEye’s assisted reality solutions, AMA is well positioned to provide an innovative response to the challenges of digitalization for field professionals in the technical and medical sectors, thus creating new uses and added value considerable for our customers,” assures the company’s CEO, Christian Guillemot.
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