Time stretches out on a chairlift, even in Courchevel, one of the largest resorts in the French Alps. But it only took 10 minutes during the winter of 2022 for Lalée Pinoncély to come up with the idea of Skiif.
“I was trying to explain to a friend on the phone how she could get to us. I had the map in front of me, and yet we couldn’t get there,” recalls the creator of this navigation app that, after being tested in Les Trois Vallées (Méribel, Courchevel, Les Menuires, Val Thorens) in December, launched on Feb. 10 in almost all French ski areas.
Pinoncély has been working in the technology sector for about 15 years now. Her achievements include a practical guide published in 2016 by Eyrolles, Premiers pas vers le digital (First steps toward digital), aimed at business leaders; the organization of the Journée de la femme du digital (Digital Women’s Day) in 2013; and the “Adopt the digital” bus, which toured the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Hauts-de-France regions in 2019. “The pandemic halted our momentum in 2020,” she recalls.
A busy life, but without a start-up, until this “Waze for skiing” (Waze is a GPS navigation mobile app) came about for this passionate skier who lives between Méribel and Lyon. In 2022, she set up a team with her own funds, a product manager and a developer, to create an application with ergonomics worthy of the best navigation apps, like Geovelo for cycling, Strava or Komoot for nature sports.
The frenzy of the download counter
“The digitalization of station maps is way behind schedule. Some operators have their own application, but there’s no general solution, and nothing that provides information on queues, ridership or accidents,” explains Pinoncély, who relies on opensnowmap maps, station information and user data.
Now a start-up businesswoman, Pinoncély, 47, is experiencing the frenzy of the download counter. “During the first days of the Christmas vacation, we registered several thousand users per hour. I thought it was a bug. Watching the counter rise is addictive,” she admits.
The start-up has raised 1 million euros from a pool of Lyon-based investors, supplemented by loans from Bpifrance. Skiif’s founder has also just received two grants: one from TotalEnergies, which uses data to optimize fuel consumption and snow groomer routes, and the other from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council, to support innovation.
As the application is free, Pinoncély will offer the data collected to the stations. A business model that has already proved successful for Geovelo, for example, which assists local authorities in the deployment of their bicycle itineraries.
