Win MS: monitoring cables thanks to its dedicated technology

Win MS is the result of a meeting in 2011 between Arnaud Peltier, an alumnus of Université Paris-Saclay and co-founder of French Tech Paris-Saclay, and Marc Olivas, a researcher at CEA-List, during the HEC Start-up InVitro event. The event was designed to bring together graduates with entrepreneurial aspirations but without a project, and researchers with technologies to commercialise but who did not necessarily wish to become entrepreneurs. The two men then decided to become partners and founded the start-up Win MS in 2012.

This CEA spin-off utilises a technology designed for monitoring electrical cables, which has already been validated by numerous patents and over ten years of research. “We had the technology, but no idea yet for its applications. We conducted hundreds of interviews to understand the market’s needs. That’s how we began working on aerospace maintenance and production,” explains Arnaud Peltier. The fault detection and precise localisation solutions developed by the start-up thus ensure the reliable operation of equipment.
Civil and military operators, as well as manufacturers, have adopted the solutions offered by the start-up. The founding duo of Win MS also developed a product for monitoring railway cables as part of maintenance and anti-theft measures. Despite a high-performance system, the commercial launch was not a great success and Win MS abandoned this venture.

Nevertheless, from the outset, the start-up managed to generate revenue. In 2013, it made its first sales in the Middle East (United Arab Emirates and Qatar) and, in the following years, opened subsidiaries in Singapore and Atlanta (United States). Following an initial funding round in 2014, Win MS continued to grow until 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, prompting a restructuring to focus on development. In 2024, a spin-off called SPRKTech was launched, specialising in embedded systems.

“Since then, we have been striving to build trust whilst driving our growth through new products based on various technologies. With our portfolio, we have established a reputation that enables us to engage with professionals and provide them with solutions,” explains the co-founder.

A technology based on reflectometry

The technology developed by Win MS relies on reflectometry. “We inject a pulse into a waveguide, i.e. the cable. Each pulse that encounters a change in impedance will reflect part of the energy. It is this signal that we capture to characterise it, determining the time between the injection and the return in order to locate the fault,” adds Arnaud Peltier. For these products, Win MS uses MCTDR (Multi-Carrier Time Domain Reflectometry) in particular. Rather than pulses, this method sends a series of sine waves. The advantages are numerous: the signal’s frequency can be adjusted and positioned within appropriate measurement ranges. Certain frequencies can be excluded or reduced so as not to interfere with surrounding systems or disrupt the measurement. “It’s a versatile reflectometry technique,” says the co-founder.

Thanks to this technology, it is possible to analyse and monitor cables more quickly. Indeed, conventional measurement systems involve using a multimeter alongside a visual inspection, without actually determining where the problem lies. “Components have to be dismantled to access the connections and find the source of the fault. And then they have to be reassembled afterwards. Our product, when connected to one end of the cable, pinpoints the location of the fault. It also enables us to detect and identify brief faults that cannot be detected by other means,” adds Arnaud Peltier. Given that aircraft are equipped with several kilometres of hard-to-access cables, it is easy to see the significant advantage this technology offers, particularly as aircraft fleets must fly to remain profitable, or be operational quickly in the event of an emergency military deployment.

The start-up designs, manufactures and markets devices that are sold to operators trained by Win MS. “We offer products that do not use MCTDR, but rather other more conventional technologies such as FDR (frequency domain reflectometry) or OTDR (Optical Time Domain Reflectometer) for fibre optics. Our added value lies in our signal processing,” explains Arnaud Peltier. Win MS, which already uses artificial intelligence to boost its productivity, is beginning to integrate AI into its signal analysis solutions.

A supportive ecosystem

Since its inception, Win MS has been fully integrated into the Saclay campus ecosystem. “We worked closely with the CEA in the early days, then followed a traditional start-up path: we were incubated at IncubAlliance Paris-Saclay and supported by the Entreprendre Essonne network. We also took part in HEC’s Challenge Plus programme. We moved into Building 503 at the Institut d’Optique Graduate School, then to the CentraleSupélec premises as a scale-up,” explains the co-founder. Today, Win MS is based at the Ferme du Moulon, on the Paris-Saclay University campus in Gif-sur-Yvette, where it employs ten staff. It has worked in collaboration with the Paris Electrical and Electronic Engineering Laboratory (GeePS – Univ. Paris-Saclay/CentraleSupélec/CNRS/Sorbonne Univ.) and the company Innowide, which designs hardware. It also has access to CentraleSupélec’s fablab.

“We are deeply committed to the Paris-Saclay ecosystem, which fosters innovation, with a wide range of stakeholders and a vast array of opportunities. We are convinced of the value of the collaborative model that has been established. We have seen significant growth because we chose to get involved. There is an extraordinary scientific asset that needs to be transformed into an economic asset. The potential is enormous,” adds Arnaud Peltier.

Several areas of development

For the time being, the start-up has no plans to raise further funds, as it is managing to remain profitable and sustain its growth. Over the next few years, Win MS intends to focus on three key areas. The first is geographical expansion. With an existing subsidiary in Atlanta (United States), where it relies mainly on partners and freelancers rather than its own employees, Win MS is opening an office in Vietnam in April 2026 to target the Asian market. “The Covid-19 pandemic was a significant shock. But the first region in the world to recover was North America, and it is now in this region that we generate more than half of our turnover. Europe has also recovered well and growth is accelerating in Asia, which is why we want to establish a presence there,” explains the co-founder. The second focus is sector-specific. Whilst the start-up already supplies the commercial aviation sector and is expanding into defence, it plans to extend its activities into the naval sector for the production of surface vessels and submarines. Together with a Swedish partner, it is also entering the automotive market. Finally, the start-up will continue to develop its products to broaden its portfolio and target new applications.