How Vlerick helped Grégoire and Rayan’s drone start-up, ADLC, take flight

Grégoire Moreau and Rayan Quintaes, Co-founders of ADLC, Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2020

“If you come to Vlerick with ambition – they will multiply it by ten. If you want to learn quickly, Vlerick is the place to do it.”

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Grégoire Moreau and Rayan Quintaes have known each other for more than a decade. They both studied engineering at Université Catholique de Louvain – with Rayan specialising in mechanics and aeronautics and Grégoire specialising in software and AI.

Now they’re co-founders of drone logistics start-up ADLC – a business they started on the Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship programme at Vlerick.

A desire to learn business

“I had ambitions to create a company one day,” says Rayan. “But I had no idea what I wanted to do and how to go about it.”

Grégoire had similar thoughts. He says: “I was interested in business – not necessarily creating a company but learning more about it. I decided to join the Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Vlerick – and when I told Rayan, he decided to join too.

“When we started, we weren’t thinking about starting a business together. But we both wanted to get that knowledge and understanding.”

And this is exactly what they did. Rayan describes the Masters programme as a steep learning curve. “I didn’t know anything about business – my engineering degree was at a very technical level,” he says. “But it was easy to learn at Vlerick. It was a special environment and we really learned a lot – not just about business but about entrepreneurship.”

The birth of a start-up

It was during the programme’s entrepreneurship project that Grégoire and Rayan started thinking about business ideas.

“The idea for the company was driven by the programme,” says Rayan. “For the entrepreneurship project we had to talk to people and come up with ideas. Because of our backgrounds, we were interested in the same type of projects – and together we came up with drone transportation.”

“It was at the cross-section of our knowledge and skills – aerospace and software,” says Grégoire.

The right timing – and the right team

Rayan and Grégoire started developing their idea at a perfect time. The EU had just introduced legislation that made drone transportation legal. Vlerick assigned them a mentor – serial entrepreneur Marc Kegelaers – who later became their co-founder at ADLC.

Rayan says: “We had Marc on board, who was already in the industry – so we had the perfect team and perfect timing. We knew where the gap between research and reality was – what didn’t exist yet and what we believed was possible. Drone delivery wasn’t new, but it wasn’t really being practised. We decided to offer drone transportation in a B2B context.”

The team moved rapidly – drafting their business and financial plans during the programme. With the help of Marc’s network, they identified a potential customer before they’d even launched the company – global organisation SGS. And this became the use case for their In-Company Project.

Grégoire says: “What Vlerick do very well is they push you to generate opportunities. But you have to seize them yourselves. We seized every opportunity we could generate.”

Anyone can create a company. But if you don’t have the foundations in place, you can run into trouble. Vlerick gave us the knowledge we needed to avoid some of these pitfalls.
Grégoire Moreau and Rayan Quintaes
Co-founders of ADLC, Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2020

Tapping into a vast network

Vlerick’s network proved invaluable to Rayan and Grégoire, both during the programme and after.

“Networking at Vlerick is very powerful,” says Rayan. “We were able to talk to a lot of people who were well placed in the industry. And our mentor Marc eventually became a co-founder in the company.”

And Marc wasn’t the only valuable connection they made. They met lawyer and Executive PhD participant Luc Wynant at a Vlerick event. His firm helped them to incorporate their company – and is still helping them today. “Without Vlerick, we would never have made this connection,” says Grégoire.

Understanding the risk, embracing the opportunity

After they graduated, Rayan and Grégoire had to decide whether to take the leap and officially start the company.

“Rayan has always been more optimistic,” says Grégoire. “I had my doubts, but in the end I decided to take the leap – I knew it was the right moment.”

“We pushed each other,” adds Rayan. “That’s the benefit of working in a team.

“Vlerick gave us the final push to make a go of it. We were able to use the campus as an office for eight months, so we could incorporate the company and get contracts signed. It all went very quickly from there.”

Sky-high ambitions

Grégoire and Rayan have big plans for ADLC. Their aim is to be the first company in Europe to carry dangerous goods by drone in port environments on a daily basis. But to achieve this, they need resources – which is why their next mission is fundraising.

‘Our longer-term goal is to expand into Europe – and then the world,” says Rayan. “Our client SGS is active in almost every port in the world, and together we have a joint ambition to scale.”

There’s lots to do – and the team are drawing on their Vlerick experience to help them succeed.

“Vlerick gives you business knowledge. But on top of that, it gives you the tools to create a company,” says Grégoire. “You learn about shareholder agreements, getting contracts in place, protecting your IP.

“Anyone can create a company. But if you don’t have the foundations in place, you can run into trouble. Vlerick gave us the knowledge we needed to avoid some of these pitfalls.”

“What you learn at Vlerick is a very organised way of doing things,” says Rayan. “The right way to do business plans, building lean and efficient operations. You also learn what’s going on outside – for example, we work with a big company and we know how they work internally, know how to read annual reports. We understand strategy.”

Taking the leap

Both Grégoire and Rayan recommend the Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship without hesitation.

“It’s a great way to learn about different types of business,” Grégoire says, “But you need to go for it fully and make the most of every opportunity.”

Rayan adds: “You need to come with ambitions. If you do – Vlerick with multiply it by 10. If you want to learn quickly – Vlerick is the place to do it.”