TOULOUSE, France — When Mélanie Lehoux spent years managing procurement at Eiffage, one of Europe's largest construction and infrastructure groups, she kept running into the same problem: the software vendors building tools for companies her size seemed convinced every client had the patience and IT staff of a Fortune 500 enterprise.
So in 2016, she started IBAT—later rebranded iSYBUY—with a straightforward pitch. Mid-market companies, the French call them ETIs, need procurement digitization too. They just don't need nine-month implementations.
That thesis, it seems, has found traction. In July 2024, the Toulouse-based startup closed a €10 million funding round led by Eiffel Investment Group and SWEN Capital Partners, with participation from earlier backers IRDI Capital Investissement and PRO BTP Innovation. The company claimed at the time more than 100 clients—including rental giant Kiloutou, hotel group Honotel, and construction player Spie Batignolles—along with a 98% retention rate and 70% year-over-year revenue growth in 2023, according to trade press coverage at the time of the raise.
Whether those metrics hold as the company scales remains to be seen. But the bet iSYBUY is making speaks to a broader tension in enterprise software: what works for Unilever doesn't always make sense for a €500 million manufacturer in Lyon.
The Speed Argument
iSYBUY offers what it calls a full Source-to-Pay suite—supplier relationship management, contract sourcing, purchase-to-receipt workflows, invoice processing, analytics—but packaged for what Lehoux has described as "marketplace-like" simplicity. The company has pointed to two-month deployment windows, a figure that would raise eyebrows among enterprises accustomed to year-long rollouts with the Coupas and Ivaluas of the world.
That speed claim comes with caveats, of course. Rapid implementation assumes clean data, willing stakeholders, and integrations that cooperate. Still, iSYBUY has built connector partnerships with ERP and e-invoicing platforms including Sage X3, Cegedim, and Yooz, and signed consulting alliances with firms like KPMG, PeersGroup, and AXYS to smooth the process.
The company has also leaned into a piece of external leverage: regulatory deadlines. France's phased e-invoicing mandates, which began rolling out in 2024, and the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive—set to hit mid-sized firms in 2025—have created what amounts to a compliance tailwind. Companies that might have deferred procurement modernization now find themselves on a clock.
Headcount, Geography, and the Usual Expansion Playbook
The funding is earmarked for the predictable growth levers. iSYBUY plans to roughly double its team from around 30 employees to 60 over the next year, expanding sales, marketing, IT, customer success, and support functions. International revenue currently represents about 10% of the total, drawn from Benelux, Spain, and Switzerland, with further European expansion in the works.
The company had previously raised €2.1 million in 2021 and roughly €2.4–€3 million in 2019, according to regional media reports. It operates out of Village by CA, a co-working and innovation hub in Toulouse, and has not announced subsequent funding beyond the July close.
Originally focused on construction—a vertical Lehoux knew intimately—the platform rebranded from IBAT to iSYBUY in 2021 to signal a broader sectoral ambition. The shift appears to have worked, at least in terms of client diversity. The roster now spans hospitality, equipment rental, and industrial services.
Margin Improvement, or Just Marketing?
One number iSYBUY has circulated is worth scrutinizing: the claim that clients unlock "six points of margin improvement" through better procurement. That's a substantial figure in industries where a few percentage points can separate profit from loss. But margin gains depend heavily on baseline inefficiency, contract discipline, and whether companies actually enforce the workflows the software enables.
In other words, the tool is only as good as the team using it—a caveat that applies to every enterprise software pitch but bears repeating when vendors promise double-digit ROI.
Still, the retention rate offers a useful signal. A 98% renewal figure, if accurate, suggests clients are finding enough value to keep paying. Or at the very least, that switching costs are high enough to discourage churn.
What remains unclear is how iSYBUY will navigate the inevitable squeeze as it moves upmarket. Smaller clients offer faster sales cycles but lower contract values; larger ETIs bring revenue scale but start to demand the customization and hand-holding that erodes the "fast deployment" promise. Threading that needle—serving mid-market pragmatism without drifting into enterprise complexity—will determine whether the company's growth trajectory continues or flattens.
For now, though, the bet is that a lot of European companies in the middle are still waiting for procurement software that doesn't feel like overkill. And that window, at least for the moment, appears to be open.
