The genesis of Gobilab
In 2010, Florence Baitinger, Samuel Degrémont, and Xavier Moisant founded Gobilab, with the ambition to eliminate the use of disposable products in businesses. As pioneers and committed environmentalists, the co-founders sought a sustainable solution to avoid the 6 billion plastic bottles discarded annually in France. One year later, the Gobi water bottle was launched. Manufactured in France using health-conscious materials and assembled by individuals with disabilities, the water bottle made its way onto the desks of companies. It was in 2015, during COP 21, that the Gobi was thrust into the limelight by equipping the 36,000 participants of the international conference. Since then, the production of Gobi has soared, and the company’s revenue has seen significant growth. Over a million Gobi bottles are now in circulation. Last year, the company rose to the challenge of expanding its product range from 1 to 6 products, all while adhering to a strict set of specifications.
When operational needs take precedence over strategy
The projects are numerous and the days are full for the twenty employees of Gobilab. Xavier Moisant dedicates a significant portion of his schedule to steering the company’s strategy and managing its finances. He prefers not to waste precious time on low-value tasks such as daily banking operations. Xavier and the head accountant struggle to navigate the technical constraints of their two mutual banks’ interfaces to manage accounts and settle various suppliers.
Technical constraints accumulate as growth accelerates
The expansion of the product range has led Gobilab to source and work with new suppliers. The company now handles the recurring payment of invoices from about thirty suppliers. However, the 72-hour validation delay for transfers and the manual entry of each beneficiary in the interfaces of traditional banks slow down and complicate Gobilab’s daily banking management. For payroll management, for instance, the accountant must manually enter the name of each employee. The growth of the company highlights the technical limitations of banking interfaces. Xavier has been keeping an eye on the launch of Memo Bank: he is attracted by Memo Bank’s promise of speed and modernity and opens an account at the end of 2020.
Two hours saved each week with Memo Bank
Xavier and his accountant quickly adopt the Memo Bank interface and estimate a time saving of two hours per week. These are two hours that they reinvest in more strategic issues such as treasury management. The granularity of the permissions assigned to account users gives the accountant more autonomy to prepare transfers. The accountant can import a file of supplier and payroll payments, which he simply drags and drops into his Memo Bank space. In just three clicks each week, the transfers are ready for Xavier to validate. This simple and secure validation process is approved by the co-founder using his smartphone, without the need to enter multiple codes. The instant search bar in the interface allows access to the entire history, facilitating the reconciliation of banking and accounting records.
An organization of accounts that reflects operational reality
Gobi is distributed to businesses but is also sold online to individual consumers. Recently, Memo Bank has introduced the ability to easily create secondary accounts in addition to the primary account. Gobilab plans to allocate the flows from its online store to a secondary account. All payments received for this activity are then redirected to this account. This feature simplifies bank reconciliation and offers an organizational view that is closer to the ground reality.
Quality support for both regular management and financing
The account opening process at Memo Bank is smooth and conducted online, yet it remains personalized: a business manager supports Gobilab over the long term, from initial engagement through to regular management and the evaluation of financing requests. There is no need to recap the context or previous discussions with each new contact initiated. There is genuine follow-up and it is efficient.
Until now, Gobilab has funded its development through its own growth and surplus cash flow. The addition of new suppliers and the extension of payment terms linked to major account clients have naturally led to an increase in the need for working capital. The company has approached Memo Bank for the financing of its working capital requirement. The granting procedure is considered by the company to be particularly straightforward and swift, without unnecessary back-and-forth, postal document exchanges, or excessive collateral requirements.
Gobilab intends to shift more of its transactions to its Memo Bank account in order to save on banking fees and avoid transaction commission charges—already included in the Memo Bank subscription.
