At only 37 years old, Julie Chapon is at the head of one of the most successful startups in the French Tech ecosystem: Yuka. Discover 8 facts about this passionate entrepreneur, committed to promoting healthier eating.
An ordinary academic career
Born in Meulan-en-Yvelines in Île-de-France and the eldest of three children, Julie Chapon defines her childhood as “ happy » in a portrait published in Release in 2019. In 2007, she joined the École des Hautes Études Commerciales du Nord (EDHEC) in Lille, after completing her economic and commercial preparatory classes at the Sainte-Croix high school in Neuilly. She graduated in 2011, and then had to enter the world of work. But at the time, she was still far from the world of entrepreneurship.
Five years at Wavestone
It is ” out of spite » and without really knowing what to dedicate her life to, she quickly landed a position at Wavestone, she explains in an interview with Strategies. In this consulting firm, she spent five years supporting companies during their digital transformation. But although she earns a good living, Julie Chapon becomes bored in her profession and decides to resign.
The Hackathon trigger
In 2016, her best friend François Martin and her brother Benoît asked Julie Chapon to participate in a hackathon at Gaîté Lyrique in Paris. At these types of collaborative events, developers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and other technology professionals come together to create innovative solutions to a given problem. In this case, that of food.
The three friends imagine a connected object in the shape of a carrot, designed to analyze and decipher the labels of food products. This concept earned them victory: it was the birth of Yuka, and a revelation for Julie Chapon.
The development of Yuka
Very quickly, Julie Chapon, François Martin and Benoît Martin wanted to go further. Their initial project allows food labels to be scanned once the products are in the home. Developing a solution to decipher them even before purchasing them is all the more relevant.
The Yuka application was launched in 2017. The concept is simple and straightforward: users can scan the barcode of food products in supermarkets, which allows them to quickly find out their composition. Thanks to an intuitive interface, you can directly see if dangerous substances are present in the product. Cosmetic and hygienic goods have since been added to its catalog.
A score out of 100 points is assigned to each product, which is accompanied by a color code (green, yellow, orange, red) associated with it. Yuka relies on various sources for its evaluation, including open databases, Nutri-Score, official organizations (EFSA, ANSES, CIRC), and independent studies.
Yuka’s meteoric rise
It is a huge success for Julie Chapon and her colleagues. In January 2018, a year after its launch, the application already reached 1 million users. It is now present in 12 different markets, with 56 million users.
Such success allows Yuka to not only have a positive influence on consumers by encouraging them to purchase and eat healthierbut also on the giants of the agri-food industry. And that is indeed its strength. Large groups like Nestlé and Intermarché have modified the composition of some of their products to improve their evaluation on the platform.
For its part, Fleury Michon now refers to Yuka in its strategic speech, while Bjorg and Caudalie have made the application score a key indicator of their performance. Over the course of its history, the company has won three lawsuits against the deli lobby.
The American adventure of Julie Chapon
Julie Chapon is moving to the United States in 2023. Objective: to support the immense growth of Yuka in the country, a market with enormous potential where the application was launched in January 2022. The figures are impressive: the platform sees 20,000 new users Americans join her every day.
In 2020, less than 50% of the company’s revenue came from its premium version which offers, among other things, advanced search functionality as well as full access to Yuka’s database. Today, more than 90% of its revenue is generated by the premium version. A dynamic that can be attributed to the specificity of the American market, where consumers are much more inclined to pay subscriptions.
Another way of leading
Yuka’s management stands out for its originality in the world of startups. The company does not have a CEO. Rather, it is its three co-founders who make decisions jointly. On the other hand, it is Julie Chapon who is more highlighted in the media, the Martin brothers having favored a role in the shadows.
Co-writing a book
Julie Chapon co-wrote a book entitled The healthy eating guide with the nutritionist Anthony Berthou. Published on October 14, 2020, the book aims to explain the fundamental principles of nutrition in a detailed and educational way, in addition to the Yuka application. It contains 36 recipes adapted to the seasons as well as 400 images aimed at popularizing the information.
