Alexandra de la Fontaine A driving passion

Alexandra de la Fontaine describes her background as “pretty much standard”. Her ambition had always been to work as a doctor, so she embarked on a medical degree. But after years of hard work, her dream ended in failure. “I couldn’t do what I’d always wanted, so I had to retrain,” she explains.“I decided to move into finance because the job prospects were promising.” Keen to do something useful and enjoyable, she pursued her passion for the medical sector, spending several years working abroad for major pharmaceutical firms—first in Vietnam and then in Malaysia. In total, she spent seven years in Asia before heading back to Europe.

A taste for entrepreneurship

After 15 years in employment, Alexandra began thinking about starting her own business. “When your career isn’t progressing any more, you have to be able to create your own opportunities,” she says. She set her sights on buying an existing small business, resigned from her job and went back to school—opting for an Executive MBA at emlyon business school. “I had to make sure I was ready to take on this new challenge. I chose the Executive MBA at emlyon business school—a 10-month, full-time, fast-track program that gave me chance to immerse myself in my project and gave me the best chance of succeeding. The program’s content, which focused on startups and SMEs, also really appealed to me.” In September 2015, she uprooted her husband and children from Paris and moved to Lyon to study and begin working on her business idea. Alexandra found that the philosophy of the program—a friendly atmosphere, team spirit and a strong emphasis on personal connections—really suited her. During her studies, she registered with an organization that helps entrepreneurs take over existing businesses and carried out some consulting work for a company that needed to rethink its strategy.

A chance encounter

“Many of the things I learned in the program—like corporate finance, fundraising, and how to bounce back after failure—have proven really useful,” she says. “I still apply a lot of what I learned each and every day.” While studying, Alexandra continued working on her business idea. She attended the Salon des Entrepreneurs, where she met biological pharmacist Thierry Basset and engineer Elodie Loisel. The two were in the process of launching a startup to develop a robot—known as “Joe”—that helps children with asthma manage their own treatment. The device reminds young people when to take their medicines and rewards them if they follow their course regularly, thereby making it much less likely that they will need hospital treatment. For Alexandra, it proved to be a winning formula. The company was working in the medical sector and the partners were looking for someone to help them manage the business, strategy and finance side of their operations—a role that was a perfect fit for her abilities.

Ludocare was launched in September 2017 and is currently in the growth phase, with a fundraising round planned for late 2018. Joe is currently being trialed with several families. The company plans to market the device in France in 2019 before going global soon after. The same principle could also be applied to other chronic conditions.