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02/10/2018

Created by a Kedger, the Volpy app has already been downloaded 850,000 times!

A 1994 KEDGE graduate, Marc Simeoni, is the founder of the start-up Volpy, an app that remotely diagnoses your smartphone and automatically offers you its take-back value.

Who is Marc Simeoni and what is his background?

Before creating this popular app, the CEO of Volpy earned several degrees:

  • A PhD in Management Sciences, with a speciality in “Strategic Management”, at the University of Corsica, 1999;
  • Technical training in management and business financing, DEA, Banking and Finance at Aix-Marseille University, 1995;
  • Business and Management degree from KEDGE Business School

But his background doesn’t stop there. Since 1997, he has taught as a professor at the University of Corsica. Following that, in 2000, he created "Marc Simeoni Consulting", his consulting firm that he headed for almost 18 years. 

Between 2000 and 2002, Marc Simeoni returned to KEDGE Business School, but that time as a professor! He taught strategy courses to PGE students with Jean-Jacques Michelin and Olivier Pelazza in Marseille.

In 2003, he also began working as Legal Expert with the Court of Appeals of Bastia.  

Finally, in 2015, after already having had an amazing career, the idea of creating Volpy came to him, which he created with his partner Paul Miniconi.  “We started to work together on the project, which was radically different. We started by placing collection bins for mobile phones in supermarkets. We realised very quickly that, yes, we were doing it on the cheap, but that it wasn’t the best approach. After exploring every technical solution possible, and with the helpful advice of our mentors (first and foremost Pierre Noel Luiggi d’Oscaro) we identified that an app was, without a doubt, the most suitable mechanism for private individuals to exchange smartphones.

What is Volpy?

The observation was a very simple one. In 2016, 22 million mobile phones were sold in France, and smartphones are becoming obsolete faster and faster. For Marc Simeoni and Paul Miniconi, the aim is for owners to earn some money by emptying drawers that are full of smartphones, and - at the same time - slow down both the worsening pillage of our natural resources and the accumulation of electronic waste.

After installing the app, Volpy analyses the smartphone via several tests (touchscreen, camera, vibrator, volume, flash, GPS, etc.) to guarantee it works, and then Volpy proposes an appropriate take-back price. Volpy takes care of reconditioning the phone to put it back on the market or, if the condition of the smartphone is not good enough to be reused, to recycle it.

In only a year and a half since its creation, the app has already been downloaded more than 850,000 times! It will very quickly reach a million downloads! In the 20 months on the market, Volpy already has some 20 members on its team.


DISCOVER VOLPY

YOU ARE NOMINATED, YOU LAUNCH A PROJECT, A START-UP?

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