⚡ What if your bike helmet waited patiently on your handlebars? OBH made it happen.

In Lyon, we may not have the sea, but we do have ideas. And among the gems that make our tech & mobility ecosystem buzz, there’s OBH Mobility. A startup that turns an everyday object (often forgotten, unloved: the helmet 🫵) into a real ally of active mobility.

I met Elies, the CEO of this company full of common sense and innovation. And spoiler alert: we didn’t just talk about helmets, but also about people, clever design, industrial sovereignty, and how to make life simpler for everyone who wants to get around safely and well.

🚀 The OBH Kit: the tech object you didn’t know you needed

At the heart of OBH’s innovation is the OBH Kit: a helmet + mount/lock fixed directly onto your two-wheeler. Want to use your bike or your shared e-scooter? The helmet is there, ready to use, secured, certified.

And now you’re thinking: “OK, but does it really work?”

The answer is yes: it’s EN1078 certified, made of EPP (ultra-light, shock-absorbing), rain-resistant, and compatible with a wide variety of handlebars. Whether you’re team e-bike or city e-scooter, you’re covered.

Connected version? Badge, app or alarm. Simple version? A small, effective lock.

Installation in 5 minutes flat. And the battery life? Up to 3 months. Not bad for a “simple helmet”, right?

🚗 A more inclusive (and above all more practical) vision of mobility

What won me over, beyond the product, is the OBH philosophy. The helmet is no longer an obstacle, it’s part of the bike. It’s just there. No more excuses. And above all:

• You gear up without stress
• You reduce the risks
• You encourage the use of active mobility

And for professionals (local authorities, operators, company fleets), it’s a way to make users more responsible, while simplifying management.

💖 My big favorite?

The helmet is Made in Région Rhône-Alpes. So yes, my local pride is talking (and loudly 😅)… but wow, it’s really gorgeous!
Beyond the safety innovation, this project also embodies a real choice: betting on French reindustrialization. And that gives a lot of hope.

The icing on the cake: all the assembly is done at Grand Plateau, an emblematic venue dedicated to mobility and local industry. 🇫🇷✨

🌐 And tomorrow?

I won’t spoil the interview with Elies for you 😉, but you should know that helmet customization is definitely in the pipeline. Not for tomorrow morning… but rather for the day after. Be patient, it’s coming!

In the meantime, I’ll let you discover the 10 questions asked to Elies, founder of OBH: an exchange that’s both fascinating and inspiring, showing how an idea can become a real urban safety standard.

🎤 10 questions to ask Elies – CEO of OBH Mobility

1. Elies, if you had to pitch OBH to your grandmother in 30 seconds, what would you say?

   OBH is the solution that makes wearing a helmet as simple and natural as a seatbelt. We invented a system that lets you always have your helmet on board your two-wheeler, without it getting in the way day to day. The result: no more excuses not to wear it, and more safety for everyone.

2. Where did the idea of a helmet locked onto the two-wheeler come from? Observation in the field? A personal rant?

   It comes from a personal experience. I lived in Australia for two years, where helmets are compulsory. When I came back to France, I wanted to launch an industrial project. The problem isn’t that people don’t want to wear a helmet, but that they don’t always have one to hand, especially with shared services. So the idea was born: an on-board, secured helmet, with real thought given to built-in hygiene.

3. In your view, what still stops people from wearing a helmet in the city today? And how does OBH remove that obstacle?

   Mindsets are changing: commuting by bike makes people more responsible, helmet use is growing… but there are still obstacles: bulk, forgetting it, practicality. OBH removes these obstacles: if your helmet is already there, right under your nose, you’ll wear it.

4. Why did you choose to design a product that’s physical, tech and certified all at once? Isn’t that a bit of an industrial nightmare for a startup?

   Because we wanted to meet a real need with hardware innovation. It’s an industrial challenge, yes, but an essential one. On-board electronics also make it possible to fit the project into existing and future standards.

5. What were the biggest struggles in developing the OBH Kit? And the “aha” moment that made you say: OK, we’re onto something?

   The struggles: compatibility. Between bikes and e-scooters, nothing is standard, it was a real headache, with lots of prototyping and 3D printing.

   The “aha” moment? Honestly, it came late… on the very day we launched sales! That’s when we said to ourselves: OK, we’ve got a real product.

6. How did you design the product to be secure, practical, and compatible with so many bike/e-scooter models?

   With a huge number of iterations. Each prototype brought us closer to a universal solution. It was a big engineering job, but essential so that the OBH kit could adapt to the diversity of the market.

7. Who are you targeting today: local authorities, fleet operators, B2C? And why?

   Our main targets:

   • Local authorities and public bikes
   • Companies with their fleets
   • B2C in retail and a bit of direct sales

   Our ambition is clear: to become the new standard of urban mobility.

8. Where do you see yourself in 3 years? Will the OBH Kit be the norm on every bike-share bike in France? Or is there already a V2/V3 in the pipeline?

   In 3 years, the OBH kit will be integrated upstream by manufacturers. We’ll sell bikes directly equipped with the system. And we’ll already be developing versions 2 and 3. The idea is to become indispensable in shared mobility.

9. What user feedback has stuck with you the most? The one that moved you or made you burst out laughing?

   A customer told us: “Before, I never wore a helmet. Now that I have yours, I wear it every time. It’s so practical!”
   That’s exactly the impact we wanted.

10. If you had to give one piece of advice to an entrepreneur who wants to launch a “hardware” product, in France, in 2025: what would it be?

    Allow plenty of time. And above all, a solid funding strategy over 3 to 5 years, because developing an industrial product takes a long time. But it’s also very impactful, and necessary at a time when Europe is suffering from deindustrialization.