As we turn the page on 2023, it's time to celebrate the successes and fundamental transformations our company has experienced in 2023, which was in many ways a pivotal year for Olfeo.
We've had an unprecedented year, marked by innovations, expansions and successes that not only reinforce our strategic choices, but also confirm the excellence of our products.
With new product launches, expanded teams, new customers and a new visual identity, 2023 saw the strengthening of our cybersecurity offering to help our customers cope with the wave of cyberattacks.

Launch of our Olfeo Saas offering

Olfeo has been providing a benchmark on-premise web security gateway solution to secure our customers' web traffic for nearly 20 years.
A key moment in 2023 was the launch of our SaaS-based web security gateway in March 2023.
This innovative solution offers robust protection against online threats, while being incredibly accessible and easy for our customers to deploy. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption of this product by the market has reassured us of our vision.
For Olfeo, this meant rethinking our business. In record time, we had to add SaaS expertise, and all that implies from a software point of view - multi-tenancy, server operations, high-availability management, redundancy systems, security, performance monitoring, finops, etc. We had to build up a SaaS culture, and we had to make sure that our customers could benefit from it. We had to build up a SaaS culture, but also hire technical experts who enabled us to make faster progress on these issues.
With over 40 new SaaS customers and no major incidents, we're pleased and satisfied with the uptake of this new product.
More and more existing customers and new prospects have expressed interest in switching their web security gateway to SaaS. There are many reasons for this: simplicity first and foremost. The SaaS approach enables customers to benefit from Olfeo protection without having to deploy, operate and maintain dedicated servers. Then there's cost optimization: fewer dedicated resources to operate the solution, both in terms of people and infrastructure, plus clear visibility on billing.

With this strong trend, 2024 will undoubtedly be the year of acceleration for our Olfeo Saas product.

New design for Olfeo Awareness

Cyber security awareness is more crucial than ever. That's why we launched a cyber risk awareness product in October 2023, designed to educate and empower users in the face of digital threats. Our interactive and engaging training program has been acclaimed by customers for its practical approach and significant impact on reducing cyber risks.
With over 150 varied contents, covering all aspects of cyber security, not just phishing, employees are better educated to avoid the classic traps deployed by cyber criminals.

Expansion of teams (+50%)

2023 also saw a significant expansion of our teams, from 40 to 60 employees. This growth is mainly due to hires in our technical teams, reinforcing our ability to innovate and meet our customers' growing cybersecurity needs.

New customers

Our growth has not only been organic; it has also been reflected in our ever-expanding customer base. This year, we welcomed a record number of new customers, testifying to the market's growing confidence in our solutions and expertise. The retention rate also reached a record 99%, illustrating the quality and durability of Olfeo products.

New visual identity and website

To kick off this incredible year, we launched a new visual and brand identity, symbolizing our evolution and future vision. Our new brand reflects our commitment to excellence, innovation and trust, reinforcing our position as a leader in the cybersecurity industry.
More modern, coherent and centered around cyber security, the new identity is expressed through the 4 product lines we have launched in 2023: Olfeo On-Premise and Olfeo Saas for our web security gateway offerings, Olfeo Awareness for our cyber awareness solution and finally Olfeo OEM, our white-label URL and SaaS application database access offering.
We have also launched a new website, whose visuals and messages reflect our latest developments.

2023: the year of AI

If you have to define the year 2023 in 2 letters, it's hard to say anything other than AI.
Open AI, with its ChatGPT service, has paved the way for a whole series of products and services based on generative AI with unprecedented quality.
Opening the door to an infinite number of new services and use cases, adoption of ChatGPT and its ilk has been rapid and massive.
Given the scale of the phenomenon, many of our users have told us that they need to be able to control and regulate access to these services. Indeed, depending on the use case (e.g. education, research) or the sensitivity of their company's activity, using tools such as ChatGPT can represent a risk.
We have therefore deployed a new category covering sites and domains related to generative AI products to enable our users to authorize or deny access, or simply measure the risk of employee exposure to this type of service.

Conclusion

In many ways, 2023 was an exceptional year for Olfeo. A year in which we reshuffled the deck and stepped out of our comfort zone. We invested, we experimented, we learned, we made a few mistakes too, but our results confirm our strategic choices and enable us to approach 2024 with confidence, motivation and the certainty that we're heading in the right direction for healthy, profitable growth that will have an impact on our customers and partners.

A very happy new year to you all!