How Lectra Uses Novable to Breakthrough Startup Scouting Bottlenecks

‍Lectra, a global leader in industrial intelligence solutions, partnered with Novable to accelerate its external innovation strategy. By turning to Novable’s AI-powered scouting platform and collaborative review process, Lectra successfully unlocked new startup opportunities on complex topics that had previously stalled internal teams.
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Key Highlights

• Initial Connection: Lectra first discovered Novable at the Web Summit in Lisbon, leading to an official partnership signed this year.
• The Core Challenge: Internal teams were struggling to locate the right startups for a particularly complex technology brief.
• The Process: A two-tier iterative workflow on the Novable platform using real-time feedback ("match" or "miss").
• The Result: Novable surfaced previously undetected, high-quality startups that Lectra successfully added to its innovation pipeline.

The Challenge: Overcoming Scouting Bottlenecks

While Lectra routinely performs internal startup scouting, certain highly complex topics proved difficult to navigate using traditional internal methods alone. For a key strategic brief, Lectra's internal search efforts hit a roadblock, leaving critical gaps in their innovation pipeline. Lectra needed a partner capable of casting a wider, more precise net to discover specialized startups that had eluded internal discovery.

The Solution: A Two-Stage Iterative Scouting Process

Following initial conversations at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Lectra formally partnered with Novable and launched its first scouting campaign:

1. Briefing & Discovery: Lectra submitted its initial complex brief to Novable, which delivered a first list of approximately 15 candidate startups directly on the platform.
2. Collaborative Review: Lectra reviewed the candidates, leaving comments and tagging each as either a "match" or a "miss" based on alignment with their exact requirements.
3. Refinement & Qualification: Leveraging Lectra's direct feedback, Novable ran a second iteration delivering a tighter, deeply qualified cohort of startups tailored to Lectra's exact specifications.

The Results & Impact: Expanding the Pipeline

• Uncovering Hidden Talent: The campaign successfully identified key startups that Lectra had been unable to discover internally.
• Pipeline Acceleration: Lectra successfully integrated these new startups into its active pipeline, filling critical technological gaps.
• High Client Satisfaction: Based on the success of this initial topic, Lectra is already preparing to brief a second campaign with Novable.

Client Voice (VivaTech 2025)

"It was a very complex subject where we had previously struggled on our end. Novable allowed us to uncover several startups that we hadn't seen on our side... We managed to get new startups into our pipeline, so the outcome is very positive." - Pierre Chrisostome, Lectra (speaking at VivaTech 2025)