‘White-gold’ leather start-up wins place on LVMH programme

11/04/2018
‘White-gold’ leather start-up wins place on LVMH programme
Paris-based start-up Daumet, which offers leathergoods brands a special gold coating technology, has secured a place on a new acceleration programme that luxury group LVMH has set up.

LVMH has established a dedicated 220 square-metre space in Paris for companies on the new programme, with work stations for up to 89 businesses. The new space, which LVMH has called La Maison des Startups, is at Station F, an existing business-incubator site in the south-east of the French capital.

Daumet was founded in 2016 by a team of scientists with a background in working with gold alloys. Chief executive, Cyrile Deranlot, describes himself as an inventor with 18 years’ experience of using gold in chemistry and microelectronics. The heavyweight scientific team behind the start-up includes no less a figure than Dr Albert Fert, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 2007.

It claims its technology will allow tanners or leathergoods manufacturers to use alloys of gold and tungsten to produce “white gold-plated leather”.