Start-up: Cassiopay is over

The start-up, which had set up an externalisation formula of the social management of companies, has not been beyond the observation period authorized after the liquidation.

That’s over for Cassiopay which had started a ASP formula (Application Service Provider) by setting up a very elaborated system of service plat-form rental intended to chartered accountants and companies. The liquidation has been validated by the commercial court of Cannes in the end of September.The start-up founded by Jean-Luc Dupré early 2000 and set up in the Cannet-Rocheville, had nevertheless been authorized to go on early July. The Atelier de l’innovation, which entered as a shareholder on June 1st 2000, had accepted to pay while the company has filled its petition in bankruptcy mid-April and had got an observation period of four months. But the investor had asked the president to quit his post (see the article "Start-up : Cassiopay can leave...without its founder"). At the head of the company, he had been substituted by Julien Hervet, the judicial manager of the Atelier de l’innovation.“We have financed a first part of the observation period”, Julien Hervet thus says.But, after a busy summer, we have realized that there was still a lot of work to be done…and financed. Thus, we have decided not to go on. We regret it because it was a very beautiful project we have had in July in a dangerous situation. The Commercial Court has named someone in charge of the liquidation.” As a consequence, the eleven employees who had worked during the observation period are now on the job market.What can we learn from the failure of Cassiopay ? It was too early for this kind of model. The bet, for Jean-Luc Dupré, a specialist of the wage externalisation, had been to create a company able to go beyond the simple wage service and able to bring an solution to externalise the whole social management for European SMEs. The ASP formula which faces problems to become a major solution in France, the fear of companies to externalise main services, the broadband access problems which don’t encourage the development of this kind of services, have slowed down the marketing of the system. And they have postponed the threshold of profitability. Investors have decided to quit the adventure.