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Skello expands to 6 countries as AI, robotics and energy redraw wealth
Briefing
Skello pushes European HR expansion
Skello said it now operates across six countries, underscoring its ambition to become a European leader in HR software for frontline work. The company was launched 10 years ago by chief executive Kitri, 34, with co-founder Emmanuel. Its focus is employers whose staff must be physically present, including hospitality, retail, healthcare, cleaning, manufacturing and construction. The pitch is a tighter operating system for hourly teams whose staffing needs fluctuate throughout the day.
Frontline scheduling remains Skello’s wedge
Skello centers its product on planning, availability, leave requests and shift swaps for hourly employees. It is built for workplaces where demand changes by the hour, from lunch rushes in restaurants to variable staffing in pharmacies and care settings. The software also supports hiring-related administration and work organization. That positioning targets a large segment of employers still relying on fragmented or manual processes.
Payroll data links strengthen Skello
Rather than processing payroll itself, Skello prepares and transmits payroll variables to specialist payroll systems, then retrieves payslips. That makes payroll interoperability a core part of the product without forcing customers to replace existing payroll providers. The approach is aimed at reducing administrative friction for small and midsize employers. It also places Skello in a practical workflow where scheduling decisions directly affect compensation data.
ChatGPT’s scale reframes AI boom
The AI cycle is increasingly being treated as an industrial shift rather than a speculative fad. ChatGPT reached 1 billion users in four years, compared with roughly six years for Facebook, highlighting the speed of mainstream adoption. The argument now rests less on future possibility than on present revenue, widening margins and visible demand. Shortages in compute, chips and electricity are reinforcing the view that the boom is already hitting real-world capacity limits.
AI profits spread across the stack
The strongest gains are not confined to consumer chatbots or model makers. The market is increasingly described as a layered value chain spanning application firms such as Harvey, model providers including OpenAI and Anthropic, cloud and neocloud operators, and the chip and energy suppliers beneath them. That structure has created multiple profit pools from software interfaces to server racks and data-center cooling. The implication is that investors may find durable winners well beyond the most visible AI brands.
Dell emerges as AI infrastructure winner
Infrastructure vendors are capturing a disproportionately large share of the current AI spending wave. Dell, historically associated with personal computers, now gets about 40% of its business from AI-related products such as servers and cooling systems. That shift illustrates how enterprise hardware suppliers are being re-rated by demand for model training and inference capacity. It also shows that the AI trade increasingly extends into industrial equipment and data-center plumbing.
Nvidia, chips and power dominate
Beneath the software layer, semiconductors and electricity are becoming strategic choke points. Nvidia remains emblematic of the upside as demand for accelerators and supporting systems continues to surge. But the story now extends to power generation, cooling and physical data-center capacity as AI workloads strain infrastructure. In practice, that means the next winners may include companies far removed from end-user apps.
Robotics, defense and space gain urgency
Beyond AI, investors are increasingly grouping robotics, energy, deeptech health, defense and space among the main engines of future wealth creation. The common thesis is that critical technologies with hard infrastructure or sovereign relevance are moving to the center of capital allocation. In that framing, the biggest risk is not overexposure but remaining a passive user of the next platform shifts. The debate is shifting from whether these sectors matter to who captures the upside.
Videos covered
Pourquoi a-t-elle levé 200M€ alors qu'elle n'en avait pas besoin - Quiterrie Mathelin-Moreaux
- •A decade-old HR platform for frontline work
- •Planning and payroll data at the core
- •Built for “shifted by the hour” employees
Les 5 révolutions qui vont créer les fortunes de demain
- •AI has moved beyond hype
- •The AI value chain extends far beyond chatbots
- •Infrastructure suppliers are capturing outsized gains