R-Pur, the antipollution mask made in France // LISAA Alumni
Flavien Hello, 2009 graduate of the Animation & Video Game School at LISAA Paris, co-founded R-PUR, an anti-pollution mask made in France designed especially for two-wheeled vehicles. We interviewed him.
LISAA: WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR R-PUR COME FROM?
Flavien: I met Matthieu, my partner, in Asia. We became aware over there of the impact of air pollution on breathing. We already knew about pollution in Paris, on the ring road, when your nose runs and your throat itches, but we saw another level in Asia!
When we came back to France, we tested the masks available on the market but nonewere good enough for us: either the metal ring fixed to the nose made it feel like we were suffocating, or the fastening around the ears hurt or didn’t work. Basically, there was no serious solution suited to wearing a helmet.
And that was when wedecided to design the mask that we would have dreamed of finding at that time: R-PUR.
WHAT WERE THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PROJECT?
In the beginning, at the design stage, we both had full-time jobs and we wanted to be sure that there was a real market for this before launching. So we met with shops selling motorbike and bicycle equipment and asked them the awkward questions: how many monthly sales? At what price? Why? Etc.
We wanted to be sure that there was a real market for this before launching.
Flavien Hello, LISAA Paris alumnus and co-founder of R-PUR
We saw that there was a niche and that people were beginning to be interested. So we decided to dive in and go into it full time.
We then joined a “Pépite”, a university community which groups together to create an entrepreneurial programme. We were subsequently contacted by one of the members of the Pépite’s judging panel, the director of the Arts et Metiers incubator, who encouraged us to apply – and we were successful!
With the support of the incubator and the Pépite, our project quickly gained speed. We were accompanied by financial partners – our bank, BPI France, the region, and so forth. On the 6th June, we launched our funding campaign on Kickstarter. It continues until 5th July, so feel free to participate!
WHAT WILL THE MONEY FROM THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN FUND?
The Kickstarter campaign will finance the industrialisation of the product, the launch of the first production and delivery to our contributors as an exclusive preview. It will also serve to show that there is a demand for our product and to check that what we are doing is liked.
I think that the welcome we received on Kickstarter proved that our product has succeeded in appealing.
Flavien Hello, LISAA Paris alumnus and co-founder of R-PUR
WHAT’S NEXT ?
The launch of national commercialisation before the end of the year and then the development of a summer collection for 2018. After that, rapid internationalisation in Europe and Asia in 2018 in order to start protecting the lungs of our users around the world!
