Apply at
Request a demo
Be called back
AdvanThink celebrates 35 years of innovation in artificial intelligence with a series of initiatives, starting with an exclusive portrait of its leader, Brice Perdrix.
At 35, he heads Europe's fastest and most efficient data analysis company. AdvanThink, one of the world's pioneering 100% self-financed AI companies, detects fraud in real time and supports 90% of French banks. Brice Perdrix is proud of his love of competition and the pursuit of excellence, both for himself and for others. Meet a man of values and passion, a former top-level sportsman who is always aiming higher while keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
Some have a blue house leaning against the hill, others have a blonde stone farmhouse sitting on the edge of the Plateau de Saclay, France's "Silicon Valley". There's more to both than meets the eye. The AdvanThink (ex-ISoft) adventure began almost 35 years ago on this sturdy former farm, which is why CEO Brice Perdrix carries its image (and memory) with him everywhere he goes. It was 1990, another century - incidentally, the year of his birth - the Moulon farm was a business incubator and his father, a brilliant scientist, was launching ISoft. Artificial intelligence was still in its infancy, and a group of researchers had the brilliant idea of offering data mining tools with interactive AI. Today, the company, which became AdvanThink in 2023, has changed its name, but not its DNA, and has become Europe's leading French software publisher for payment fraud detection and real-time risk prediction.
Ambition for excellence
"It's amazing how far we've come. I'm both proud and immensely happy," confides Brice Perdrix from his office in Saclay's Parc des Algorithmes. This brilliant thirty-something, a graduate of the Ecole des Mines and father of two, has the art of saying complicated things in simple words. He's not one for tricks, or logorrhea just to send out glitter. Yet he could be, given his flattering track record. He runs a 100% self-financed company, securing more than 60 billion euros a day in real time, and maneuvers teams that bring together the crème de la crème of the AI world. They also include a handful of human genome specialists and a PhD in astronomy. What does this have to do with data and data analysis? Passion, excellence and the desire to go ever further by thinking "out of the box". It may sound incongruous, but for me, it's perfectly coherent," laughs Brice Perdrix. That's how you distinguish yourself and reach the top. There's nothing worse than dwelling on the obvious. I'm looking for curiosity, intelligence and ambition, wherever they may be, the little sideways step that will help you stand out from the crowd.
Family first
"Consistency" and "excellence" are two words that often recur in the discourse of this passionate man, who is also a former top-level sportsman, having qualified as a badminton coach and played the sport competitively. You'd be forgiven for thinking that you'd have to add "high standards" and "performance" to the four cardinal points of his personality. And don't forget a fifth, just as essential: "common sense". The company director, who has been hanging out with the same childhood friends since his student days, seems to make it a point of honor not to forget his roots. Between the plague and the big head, we can guess that he'd rather catch the former. "When you come from the terroir, you have this culture of hard work, this desire to never stop in order to keep moving forward. What's more, I take a long-term view in everything I do: I didn't bet on an investment fund in three years' time. It's my house that I'm building with AdvanThink, with the whole family".
Read more here.
