This year’s VivaTech event, held by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, has been ongoing since May 24th and will be host to more than 80,000 participants. VeChain was invited to attend the event as one of 30 startups selected out of more than 800 applicants from around the world to compete in the LVMH Innovation Award. The selected finalists were active in 17 categories, including retail, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, social media, the blockchain, anti-counterfeit solutions, and sustainability.

VivaTech continues to break down the barriers between global leaders and grassroots innovators. At this event, it is common for stakeholders of innovation to bump into others with complementary or contrasting ideas in every business sector. VivaTech proved to put startups and established companies in the same room for themed, high-energy open innovation.

This event has grown into one of the largest platforms to catapult innovation forward with participants such as Emmanuel Macron (President of France), Mark Zuckerburg (CEO of Facebook), Satya Nedela (CEO of Microsoft), and Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Uber).

Jerome Grilleres, VeChain Europe GM, and Sarah Nabaa, VeChain Singapore GM, were in attendance to represent VeChain. This event indeed turned into an opportunity to network with the innovation elite in attendance.

Jerome was given the opportunity to pitch VeChain to a panel that consisted of:

Angela Ahrendts — Senior Vice President of Retail, Apple

Alexandre Arnault — Co-Chief Executive Officer, RIMOWA

Sébastien Bazin, Chairman — and Chief Executive Officer, Accor

Stewart Butterfield — Founder of Slack

Tony Fadell, Inventor — and investor

Kirsten Green, Managing Director — Forerunner Ventures

Natalie Massenet — Entrepreneur, Imaginary

Nas — Artist and Investor

Daniel Zhang — Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba

The pitch was met with great interest and intrigue that carried to the general VeChain booth, which was often overwhelmed with people waiting in line to talk with Jerome and Sarah. These conversations were valuable and will have a long-lasting impact on the rapid integration of VeChainThor.

As a result of the LVMH Innovation Award, we are pleased to announce that VeChain finished as one of two runner-ups. VivaTech and the LVMH Innovation Award process has proven to be fruitful for our continued work with LVMH and the surrounding participants.

VeChain continues to work hand in hand with multiple LVMH brands to bring a collaborative and trustless ecosystem to some of the worlds most innovative companies.