Montpellier: the start-up Lookup Geoscience wants to facilitate the exploration of natural resources
|Sébastien Lacaze, co-fondateur de la start-up Lookup Geoscience. DR – DR
Recently created in Montpellier, the start-up Lookup Géoscience wants to make its contribution to the field of renewable energies. To do this, it has created a "Google Maps of the subsoil", which aims to facilitate the exploration of natural energy resources, such as natural hydrogen.
The energy transition is accelerating, and with it, new opportunities are emerging in the field of renewable energies. It is in this context that Sébastien Lacaze founded Lookup Geoscience with his partner Ehssan Mesbahi, a Montpellier start-up that wants to facilitate the exploration of underground energy resources.
“The company Lookup Geoscience aims to help accelerate the energy transition by providing software to explorers of new energies in the underground” explains Sébastien Lacaze. The company focuses primarily on two promising areas: natural hydrogen and geothermal energy.
Natural hydrogen, the holy grail of renewable energy
Natural hydrogen, a little-known but potentially revolutionary resource, is at the heart of Lookup Geoscience's innovation. “Natural hydrogen, in fact, is linked to the circulation of water in the subsoil and to contact with iron-rich rocks” explains Lacaze. This phenomenon, called radiolysis, causes a fracturing of the water molecule, thus releasing hydrogen that naturally rises to the surface.
The start-up develops software tools to facilitate the detection and exploitation of these resources. “Today, there is no suitable tool. “The existing ones are too expensive, and not adapted to this renewable industry,” the founder emphasizes.
Lookup Geoscience's goal is to democratize access to these exploration technologies. The company aims to offer software solutions at prices well below those practiced in the oil industry. “It should be between 10 and 20,000 euros per year. This represents a cost almost 10 to 20 times lower than that of existing software, which mostly comes from oil” specifies Lacaze.
A universal viewer of subsurface data
The challenge is considerable: integrating various geophysical methods, aggregating heterogeneous data, and creating what Lacaze calls “the Google Maps of the subsurface”. The start-up is currently working on a prototype of a universal viewer, scheduled for launch next year. “We will propose, next year, a first version. It will be a viewer, a universal visualizer, a sort of Google Maps of all the data, in an easy-to-use environment. This program will represent our flagship product”he announces.
The complete product, integrating risk analysis and subsoil modeling, is planned for 2026. This will constitute the heart of the start-up's commercial offering.
The company, although still young, has already assembled a solid team. “I gathered talents around me, including the two co-founders. This represents a team of six people, mainly technicians” explains Lacaze. The team is expected to grow to around ten people by 2025.
Lookup Geoscience is part of a strong growth dynamic, driven by the urgency of the energy transition. “The geothermal challenge, hydrogen, and other renewable fields benefit from the strongest growth curves. “Demand is the strongest in this field” says Lacaze.
The start-up already benefits from the support of local players, having been approved by the SATT AxLR, and has just signed its approval with the BIC incubator in Montpellier.
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