Bienesis

Bienesis is a French agritech start-up. Its canopy deploys automatically over the vine rows to protect them from extreme weather, then folds back into a built-in box. The system is remote-controlled and leaves room for farm machinery.

The mechanical system existed. What was missing was the material: a textile able to last for years outdoors, for a use nobody had really specified before.

Bienesis asked SME to formalise the need, find candidate materials and qualify them.

• Translate mechanical and climatic constraints (hail, wind, rain, UV, frost, heat) into measurable textile criteria.
• Severe, repeated folding: a sheet of roughly 6 × 1 m that has to fold into a compact box, again and again.
• A long outdoor service life, with a recyclable material.
• Industrial, available materials, compatible with volume production.

We first wrote a material specification from the system's constraints: mechanical strength, folding behaviour, UV and heat resistance, recyclability.

Several candidate materials were then sourced from European manufacturers, and compared on datasheets and in tests.

A validation plan was drawn up, and the best candidates went through a test campaign in a specialised laboratory.

The outcome: a textile specification, a validation plan and candidate materials assessed in the laboratory, to inform Bienesis's industrial choice.

CES Innovation Awards 2026 (Las Vegas): Best of Innovation. SITEVI Innovation Awards winner.

The product: bienesis.fr

“Benjamin first helped us structure a demanding specification, integrating complex technical parameters […]. He turned our needs into a clear framework.”François Lemaire, CEO and co-founder, Bienesis (translated from French)