Through OVHcloud’s Startup Program, we support startups that tackle complex challenges with groundbreaking solutions.
Today, we interview Louis Dussarps, Co-Founder and CEO of Webcapsule, a platform designed to transform the development and deployment experience for engineering teams.

Can you introduce Webcapsule and its mission?

Webcapsule was born out of frustration. On a Friday night in February 2022, our developers were stuck troubleshooting a critical bug during a web app deployment. This moment of solitude made us realize there had to be a better way—a solution that would free developers from the endless cycle of deployment and infrastructure issues, allowing them to focus on building exceptional products.

Our mission is simple: eliminate deployment stress and empower engineering teams to reclaim their time and control. At Webcapsule, sovereignty and transparency are at the heart of our values. We enable businesses to govern their data while leveraging innovative tools to enhance productivity.

What challenges did Webcapsule face before partnering with OVHcloud?

The diversity of current web tools has made it critical for IT leaders to maintain control over where their data is processed without compromising team productivity. The rise of GenAI tools has amplified this need. Businesses require innovative tools while ensuring their data remains secure and sovereign.
Webcapsule solves this by transforming any SAAS service into a fully managed tool hosted on its own cloud. This approach eliminates data sovereignty concerns while ensuring productivity for tech and business teams alike.

We needed a sovereign cloud provider for long-term scalability. OVHcloud met these requirements with its robust public cloud offerings and managed services, making it an ideal foundation for building our Internal Developer Platform (IDP).
The introduction of AI endpoints further solidified its position as a competitive alternative to American providers. Additionally, OVHcloud’s reputation as a trusted institution among our clients added credibility to our solution.

Thanks to OVHcloud’s expertise and ecosystem, we set up and launched Webcapsule in just six weeks. Tools like Pulumi and the ability to rapidly consume managed services made this process incredibly fast and efficient.
We rely on managed Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Redis, Harbor, DNS zones, and AI endpoints. The introduction of AI endpoints was particularly impactful, allowing us to build AI agents within secure and sovereign environments. OVHcloud’s comprehensive ecosystem made it the most compelling choice among European cloud providers.

While we already had strong technical expertise, OVHcloud’s support went beyond technical assistance. It facilitated meaningful connections, such as our participation in the AI for Health event. This networking has been instrumental in advancing our mission.

What tangible results have you achieved through this collaboration?

For our end clients, the impact has been remarkable:
– 70% reduction in time-to-market for applications.
– 95% fewer configuration scripts required.
– 400% increase in average deployment frequency.

For regulated industries, working with trusted and sovereign partners is essential for long-term success. OVHcloud’s support and visibility through the Startup Program helped us unlock new markets, particularly in the healthcare sector.

What’s next for Webcapsule?

We aim to become the leading engineering platform that guarantees sovereignty across the entire development lifecycle while eliminating deployment challenges.

Our growth strategy focuses on building a community around key components:
– An open-source foundation, Orbits, to encapsulate CI/CD actions like Helm but for deployment pipelines.
– An engineering platform with extensive tool integrations and SaaS partnerships.

We want to be the go-to solution for teams seeking speed and control over their development and infrastructure.

Our main challenges include:
1. Evangelizing our solution: With so many tools available, we must convince the community of our unique value.
2. Integrating AI: As AI grows, data consumption and compartmentalization present new challenges. Webcapsule is addressing these as a member of HubFrance IA.
3. Adapting to evolving legislation: Cloud technologies are central to sovereignty debates, and staying ahead of regulatory changes will be critical.

What advice would you give to startups exploring cloud solutions?

The cloud is complex, but starting on the right foot prevents significant headaches later. That said, not everyone needs to become a cloud expert. With the right division of responsibilities, you can delegate all or part of your infrastructure needs and focus on delivering value.

Join the OVHcloud Startup Program

Webcapsule’s success highlights the transformative power of leveraging OVHcloud’s Startup Program.
Are you ready to take your startup to the next level? Join a growing community of innovators and benefit from tailored cloud solutions, expert guidance, and a global ecosystem.
Learn more about OVHcloud’s Startup Program and get started on your journey today!

OVHcloud spoke to three healthtech startups to find out the most important challenges faced by companies wanting to break into the healthcare market, and look at how the right technology partner can make all the difference.

Fragmented regulations

Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries, with large fines and even imprisonment faced by directors of companies that do not adhere to a diverse range of laws that dictate where health data can be stored, how it must be handled and who can gain access.

There aren’t any global standards around patient data and individual countries constantly update and add new legislation. Some laws are specific to healthcare but others deal more generally with data protection and citizen privacy.

Understanding the market and ensuring your product, data storage and security practices are compliant with the relevant market is probably one of the most important aspects to get right, according to Mariana Caillaud, founder and CEO of Dolipharm: “It’s quite difficult to be a startup in the healthtech industry because the market is complex, fragmented and immature. This makes it difficult to understand and hard to predict.”

Dr Shanil Mantri from UK-based startup Miicare explains that in the UK, all health data is owned by the individual. “Even though citizens don’t have direct access to their data, they have a right to see it. And if they dispute it, they have the right to have it deleted,” Mantri said.

Once a startup has established itself in one country, expanding to another one can be a potential minefield, says Patrick Palacin, co-founder of Germany-based startup iAtros. The company wanted to operate in Switzerland. Although language wasn’t a barrier, the medical system was different.

“We are expanding into Switzerland where they speak German but they use different medication databases, different ICT10 databases and different data privacy regulations,” Palacin said.

iAtros had to adapt around 50 per cent of its product before it could consider the move. “No one size fits all in Europe. You will need to check 28 different sets of regulations for the 28 countries. Healthcare is far more difficult than other industries,” Palacin said.

Security, privacy and trust

The private nature of patient data makes it extremely valuable and a prime target for hackers. According to an article in Forbes from last year, healthcare data was increasingly under attack, with publicly reported hacking incidents affecting more than 31 million patient records in 2020.

Startups must ensure security practices are compliant with all their target markets, according to iAtros’s Palacin. “There is a huge catalogue of regulations for data security and it is different from country to country. Some countries say ISO 27001 is fine for cloud, others want [German privacy regulation] C5 certification. C5 has nothing to do with healthcare but healthcare companies are required to follow it.”

Palacin is hoping an EU-wide regulation for healthcare will be implemented at some point, but for now, it’s much easier to pass on that responsibility to a certified cloud partner. “It would be much easier if you could just host your data with a cloud provider that has this certification.”

Another risk is ensuring the data stored is correct and cannot be falsified, according to Miicare’s Dr Mantri. This is crucial to avoid inaccurate data being used to make a dangerous diagnosis, putting a patient’s life at risk.

“If you create a device that tracks movement, are you sure that data is accurate? If you provide it to a clinician, how confident can the clinician be that it’s correct?,” asked Mantri. “If you make the same mistake in non-healthcare industries they don’t carry the same risks,” he added.

Financing, investments and innovation

With so much attention on healthcare right now, there are plenty of investors, but innovation is the key, according to Dolipharm’s Caillaud. “It’s a good time to raise funding. Post-Covid there has been a wake-up call to improve health and create international solutions.” Caillaud points out that in 2021 venture funding for healthcare set new records, with investments raising almost $40 billion, more than double what was raised the previous year.

“It’s impressive and half the deals represent early stage startup development. This means the investors were looking for the next big innovation,” she said.

Unfortunately, with the market moving so quickly and products evolving at a rapid rate, trying to predict the type of products needed and the legal requirements for providing them is not easy.

How OVHcloud can help

OVHcloud provides reliable and secure cloud environments for innovative businesses. The company’s startup programme has helped thousands of small businesses grow rapidly and has a special commitment to healthtech.

As a member of the OVHcloud startup programme, Palacin said iAtros is impressed with the available level of technical support, especially for healthtech companies. “It doesn’t matter which cloud provider you use, you usually only get basic support,” he said. “It’s very, very cool that OVHcloud can offer such a high level of service to startups.”

OVHcloud has representatives in many countries that communicate daily with startup programme members. That is something the company will keep focusing on and expanding in the coming months and years.

OVHcloud can help you develop specific contracts in different territories to make sure you are compliant wherever you do business. And, as a European company, OVHcloud commits to not transfer any data to the US to ensure our customers are fully compliant with GDPR and other local regulations.

Healthtech is a fast-growing market with lots of opportunities in niche and specialised applications. OVHcloud will keep supporting healthtech companies — it is at the core of the company’s strategy

Do you want to know more?

To find out more about the OVHcloud Startup Program, or to sign up for free credits and technical support, go to https://startup.ovhcloud.com/