FiveCo enters the medical sector and prepares to launch its own brand
Engineering. Based in Mont-sur-Lausanne, the Vaud firm will launch its own product line in December, named AroundFive.
Antoine Lorotte. CEO of FiveCo.
The R&D engineering firm FiveCo is expanding its field of activity. Based in Mont-sur-Lausanne, the company — which develops innovative concepts for watchmakers, industrial groups, and the automotive industry — is now tackling the medical sector. "We are working on a new machine concept," lets slip Antoine Lorotte, director of FiveCo. Beyond that, it is impossible to learn more, including the client's name, for contractual reasons.
Diversity of projects
Since its founding in 2002, the company has developed around one hundred projects, of which nearly one third are now on the market. Some of its clients include Nestlé, Alstom, and Maillefer. "But the name FiveCo never appears," notes Antoine Lorotte. The CEO remains discreet about the projects now available on the market. That said, among the remarkable objects the firm has designed, one can point to the cigar box for Imperiali Industries — an object containing an extraordinary amount of know-how, innovation, and technology. The box is autonomous, generating its own humidity and controlling the climate in which the cigars are stored. Also in FiveCo's portfolio is the X-Smart IQ application for endodontics, developed for Dentsply Maillefer, and the battery management system for Hyten SA, which enabled a Nissan hybrid vehicle to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. "It is precisely this diversity of projects that I am most proud of. Managing to reach several different sectors is quite an achievement."
The launch of AroundFive
FiveCo was founded by a group of engineers from the microtechnology programme at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Their first joint project was the interaction system for the RoboX guide robot at the Swiss National Exhibition in 2002. It was following this first acclaimed collaboration that Antoine Lorotte, Xavier Greppin, Gilles Froidevaux, Antoine Gardiol, and Mathieu Meisser embarked on their entrepreneurial adventure. As noted, the company cultivates an air of mystery, often due to confidentiality agreements on its projects. So, in order to step out of anonymity, it has decided to launch its own brand of objects: AroundFive. "In the past, we had already created two brands (ed.: Art of Secret and Mémoire du vin). With AroundFive, it is much more than a mere stylistic exercise. Through this original, 100% Swiss Made brand, we want to reject all compromises and push creative expression to its very limits." The new signature will be launched in December, with a first product brought to market: a table clock that displays the time in a highly artistic way. A crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform will follow the launch of this new product. The goal is to produce around one hundred pieces of this object, with a sale price set at CHF 1,000.
Primarily European clients
Today, the firm has around ten engineers — a deliberately small number chosen by director Antoine Lorotte to stay as close as possible to clients' needs. "Personally, I find it very difficult to work remotely. I believe we need to see the client, explain the problems to them, and address all the administrative and logistical questions. As an engineering firm, we have this educational role of explaining industrial and technological constraints. And when your client is on the other side of the planet, that is not easy."
