Comet sees offices as places for collaboration and socialising, and is revolutionising the corporate real estate sector by offering a complete ecosystem combining services and initiatives. The sky's the limit!
Victor Carreau, an HEC graduate and former strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company, and his partners Maxime Albertus (COO) and Nicholas Findling (CFO) decided to set up Comet Meetings while brainstorming at the PJX10 think tank run by Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet (ex-Priceminister) and others, with the firm intention of disrupting the corporate real estate market.
"We live in a world that distances us from each other, teleworking gives us a lot of freedom but isolates us, and at a time when talented people are leaving their companies more frequently than ever before, this organisation represents a huge risk for employers", he notes.
While there is no question of turning back the clock, it is crucial for companies to take care of their corporate culture. "That's our raison d'être: teams see each other less often, but they see each other better in places that focus on their needs and create links", insists this entrepreneur. Or how to think about the "Future of work".
Well-being
Comet Meetings offers a new kind of meeting and seminar venue, with a host of associated services. The aim? To become the market leader in corporate events and seminars. To date, seven buildings have opened in Paris, offering on-site catering and technical support.
"We know from our experience in the consultancy business that for a meeting to be successful, the setting is not enough, you have to act on the content", explains Victor Carreau. That's why Comet is expanding its range of organisational support services (expert intervention if necessary, wellness session, etc.)". Devoting a quarter of an hour to a wellness session, inspired by meditation and yoga techniques, working on breathing and a few simple gestures, helps to break the ice at the start of a meeting or re-energise teams after a meal, in short to put participants in the right frame of mind", he comments.
With some €40 million raised in 5 years, Victor Carreau is investing in his core business, Comet Meetings, which is expanding into Belgium (Brussels, 2021) and Spain (Madrid, 2022), looking to increase its territorial coverage and looking to Germany and Italy.
Diversification
A second area of development comes from another model, that of Hospitality by Comet. "We don't come from the office property sector, but from its customers, and we've noticed that large buildings lack flexibility and services reserved for their users. So we help owners to rethink their property assets so that they meet real needs," he explains. Hospitality by Comet manages around ten sites in Paris, including two floors of the Alto tower in La Défense. It also deploys its expertise in services and events.
Finally, in January 2023, Comet launched a third teleworking office: Workplaces. This new offer - deployed in the Lumières building in Bercy - enables companies to benefit from workstations to accommodate their face-to-face employees, taking into account peaks in office presence and integrating new uses centred on collaborative working.