This article is a translation of Noshaq’s original article in French: https://noshaq.be/lhistoire-sans-fin/
What do your TV remote, computer mouse, and hallway smoke detector have in common? They all run on batteries that tend to die at the worst possible times. But what if, instead of occasionally changing the batteries—which you probably don’t have on hand—these devices could operate independently? This is the promise of e-peas, the Walloon semiconductor company now supplying major companies from Samsung to GAFA and Cartier. We met with Geoffroy Gosset, founder and CEO, who shared the secrets of e-peas’ “battery of the future.”
Louvain-la-Neuve on a Sunny Monday Morning
Peripheral boulevards, luxury cars, and hockey fields contrast with the bucolic Brabant landscapes, a countryside torn between tractors and startups. Beyond the university life, lecture halls, and student parties, the new city has long expanded, now presenting a tech ecosystem reminiscent of Silicon Valley.
On Boulevard Baudouin 1er, halfway between the Cercle du Lac and the Skate Park, we meet Geoffroy Gosset in the science park, where he has established his offices in the brand-new 10,000m² ING building, featuring an expansive interior patio that feels like an international airport. With design sofas, coffee corners, and security badges, the place embodies a certain Zeitgeist: a low-energy space, bathed in natural light, with rainwater recovery and solar panels. Originally designed before the pandemic, it has since turned to third-party companies to occupy surplus spaces left vacant by the rise of remote work. A boon for e-peas, which now occupies a large floor here, a relief for Geoffroy, whose company has almost as many relocations as anniversaries. This fortuitous meeting perfectly embodies his project: recovering and optimizing ambient energy to power devices in (almost) autonomy. There are no coincidences, just appointments.
E-pe-peas, Hooray!
If you’ve ever used a solar calculator, the concept of an autonomous device isn’t unfamiliar to you. This solution is as effective at a daylight, losing its relevance in the dead of night. Now, imagine that this calculator is equipped with a storage battery and a device that connects it to its source, the small photovoltaic panel on your calculator. Now you have a calculator that works day and night. This, in essence, is the idea behind e-peas, applied to more complex devices.
Geoffroy Gosset, an industrial engineer graduated from ECAM, continued his studies at UCL, and pursued a PhD in electronics. From his brilliant academic career, he developed the conviction that there is too much untapped expertise in labs and the ambition to contribute to the valorization of knowledge. After obtaining his doctorate, he received a 2+1+1-year spin-off grant to study market needs and develop a first product, followed by pre-seed funding from The Faktory to finalize the first product and launch its commercialization: e-peas was born. Its mission? To develop and market power management chips that extract energy captured by an ambient energy harvester, adapt to the characteristics of this harvester to charge a battery, and ensure maximum energy extraction with the highest efficiency while protecting the battery.
Real-Time Adaptation
Whether photovoltaic, thermal, powered by vibrations or radiofrequency waves, harvesters offer varying amounts of energy depending on the environment. The e-peas chip adapts in real-time to extract maximum power while protecting the battery from overcharging or excessive currents, for example.
Shrinking the Batteries
Among the applications of the neo-Louvain company, it relies on some blockbusters, such as a solar remote for Samsung and, soon, a wireless keyboard for a major tech company whose name must still be kept secret. These devices speak to the general public, even though the applications are almost endless.
“If you take a computer peripheral like a keyboard or mouse, assuming you work in an illuminated environment, even artificially, you’ll benefit from a minimum light source of at least 500 lux, which is enough to power the device, which is ultimately used very little. On average, a keyboard only operates for half an hour a day, even if it’s spread over many small interactions.”
Remote controls, solar watches, digital price tags for retail, livestock tracking tags, container tracking tags, thermostats… the e-peas chip integrates into any battery-operated device, hence the “battery of the future” label, even though Geoffroy and his team do not actually manufacture batteries. For e-peas, the challenge is to understand the use cases and seasonality of their clients to provide an optimal solution based on the harvester and storage element. This requires constant dialogue with a galaxy of partners: clients, battery manufacturers, and energy harvester producers. Depending on the energy needs and possible sources, a solution is found. And if, in some cases, this necessarily involves recharging the device from a direct source, the result is always to extend the battery life.
“If it’s a device that works with batteries changed infrequently, like every six months or once a year, or even every five years, it has low consumption, and we can look to compensate with ambient energy. For a smartphone, however, it’s impossible because the needs are much too high.”
Environmental Impact
This approach saves time and energy and is also a blessing for the environment, which benefits greatly from fewer single-use batteries with a considerable ecological footprint. Even if these batteries power low-consumption devices, small streams make big rivers. “We have a real impact, this isn’t greenwashing. If we assume a TV remote contains two batteries and the average lifespan of the TV is seven years, that’s 14 batteries. If we can reduce that by the number of TVs out there, it starts to add up…”
Made in Wallonia
With 40 employees, e-peas has built a solid reputation as a market leader. From Ottignies, it designs chips produced by TSMC in Taiwan, a key player in the value chain with which e-peas negotiates jointly with Imec until it reaches a critical mass to negotiate independently. Once designed, the chips are sent worldwide to equip various electronic devices, sometimes in unexpected items like the solar version of Cartier’s iconic Tank watch, which no longer needs recharging. Pure luxury. Who knows, you might already have a bit of e-peas at home…
The company plans to continue its momentum. After recently raising nearly 18 million euros and bringing in two new private investors—Otium Capital and Noma Invest—and the European Innovation Council, the company is well-positioned to advance its commercialization and development strategy. Confident, Geoffroy speaks of a 400 to 500 million euro opportunity over the next four to five years: “Since COVID, we’ve seen an acceleration following an environmental awareness among GAFA, leading to an operational desire to reduce their carbon footprint,” the CEO rejoices, proud of the journey. “Of course, we have competitors, but none offer such high performance while remaining competitive on price. If we are the leader today, it’s because we stay focused on our core business, allowing unmatched customer intimacy, which is the basis of our success today.” This success is also due to the flexibility of e-peas’ solution, which integrates into existing devices without modifying them or changing user behavior but providing a substantial autonomy gain.
Future Developments
e-peas plans to expand its robust offering with two new product lines in 2024 and 2025: a very low-power microcontroller and the world’s lowest energy-consuming image sensor in its category. This will complement and strengthen e-peas’ overall offering. “Our chip allows a device to recharge autonomously, but to have a positive balance, the initial energy consumption must be as low as possible. Reducing it to the maximum is the other part of our mission. Our long-term goal is to become a one-stop shop for high-efficiency, low-consumption solutions.” This could, for example, establish dominance in the security and maintenance sectors. Geoffroy also extends a hand to the rest of the Walloon ecosystem: “We’ve had several discussions with I-Care, which haven’t yet materialized, but it will happen.”
The CEO and his team must continue their mission of continuous education, as old habits are perhaps the main obstacle the company faces today: “In each market segment, there’s an educational effort. It always takes a first client who believes in it for others to realize the relevance of an innovation. In some sectors, batteries have always been used, and people don’t see why they should change.” Fortunately, to convince them, Geoffroy is fully charged.