6 YEARS, 18 COLLABORATORS & 70 JELLYFISHBOT LATER

A 6th candle blown out, a 60th robot delivered and the recording of the 70th order are all perfect occasion to look back on the key moments of IADYS’s story which began in 2016, with its founder Nicolas Carlési.

Passionate about the sea since childhood, Nicolas Carlési practices on regular basis nautical and underwater activities such as sailing and scuba diving. It’s during these activities and especially during a trip to Sicily that he was struck by the amount of waste in the water (fishing nets, plastics, bottles etc. …). Consequently, he decided to act by putting his knowledge and robotic skills to good use in a large-scale project and surrounded himself with a team of experts in robotics, electronics and mechatronics.

He started IADYS in September 2016, and very quickly everything came together. Only two years later, in 2018, the first Jellyfishbot was sold to Cassis harbour. This extremely compact and robust robot collects floating waste in ports by remote control. By acting as close as possible to the sources of pollution, it prevents the dispersion of pollutants into rivers, seas and oceans.

But the original idea is evolving as the Jellyfishbot meets its audience. Why restraining the type of waste collected and why limiting its use to ports and marinas? The offer is adapted, new nets are developed to allow the robot to collect not only macro-waste and oils but also invasive organisms such as duckweed, or micro-particles such as paint dust, right down micro-plastics!

The Jellyfishbot is now designed for all operators looking for clean up and maintenance solutions for water bodies in France and abroad.

Indeed, since its inception, IADYS has continuously expanded internationally. With this successful strategy, IADYS is proud to have extended its activity beyond the French borders, in APAC (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia), in Western Europe (Spain, Germany, UK, Finland, Croatia, Switzerland, Norway, Portugal, Monaco, Netherlands and Greece), in Tunisia, Turkey and more recently in USA.

Adopted equally by marinas, commercial ports, shipyards, private companies dedicated to waste collection such as SMA (Monaco Sanitation company) in Monaco, and by companies specialised in industrial sites’ depollution such as Serpol, the efficiency and reliability of the Jellyfishbot are no longer in question.

Lately, Research Institutes in France and abroad chose to acquire a robot to conduct research on microplastics. Finally, several theme parks and leisure centres have shown their living interest in the robot like Tokyo Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, which is already equipped, for educating and developing the awareness of their audience regarding the coast preservation, and for maintaining their water bodies.

Nicolas Carlési, IADYS’ founder and CEO shares his thoughts regarding the success of the company since the last years, “It’s a very proud moment as CEO to celebrate the 6th year of IADYS and to see how far we have come. What started off as a simple idea, 7 years ago, has now finally become a reality that is growing every day in France and is now being exported worldwide. These six years have not been a quiet river, we have experienced great moments of joy and victory but also many others of stress, dejection and sometimes disillusionment. It’s a daily struggle, but here we are today, celebrating our fiftieth Jellyfishbot deployed. Seeing the team grow, the network of distributors expands, the Jellyfishbot gain popularity, ear the trust of our investors and win new customers galvanises us all. As we receive feedback, we improve and adjust our offer, which gives us a direction and encourages us to keep striving to offer the best product possible. I look towards the future of IADYS with confidence and determination, and I look forward to presenting our next innovations for the preservation of the environment and water and celebrating our 100th order”.

2021 has indeed opened a new chapter in the IADYS’s adventure. The set-up of the autonomous mode, with detection of static obstacles, constitutes a major turning point in the collection of floating waste. From now one, the operator can let the Jellyfishbot sail in complete autonomy, by avoiding the obstacles on its way, in an area designed by GPS points directly on the remote control, and work himself somewhere else. In June 2021, another revolution took place, and this time directly within the start-up. After several months of discussion and intense work, IADYS closed its first fundraising of 1.570M€! With the funds, the company has reinforced its Business Development, R&D and Marketing & Communication teams and now has eighteen employees.