Otis Worldwide, the US elevator and escalator maker, closed an agreement to acquire a majority stake in WeMaintain, a French start-up that maintains elevators, escalators, automatic doors and fire safety systems using connected sensors and AI. The companies announced the deal on April 13, 2026. Financial terms, including the size of the stake, were not disclosed.
WeMaintain described the deal as a strategic investment rather than a merger. It will continue to operate as an independent company, separate from Otis, and will keep offering its service and its IoT and AI tools for equipment from any manufacturer.
The company said customers' points of contact, dedicated engineers and service standards would stay the same. WeMaintain has more than 350 employees and operates across Europe and Asia.
What WeMaintain built
WeMaintain was founded in 2017 by Benoit Dupont, its chief executive, and Jade Francine. It employs its own technicians and combines their work with sensors installed on equipment and software that gives building owners and operators real-time visibility of how lifts and escalators are performing, along with reliability and efficiency data for their buildings.
The company is brand-agnostic, meaning it services equipment made by Otis's competitors as well as Otis's own. Although FrenchWeb covers it as a French company, Proskauer, the law firm that advised its financial shareholders, described the UK as its main market. It has been expanding in Asia, particularly Singapore and Hong Kong.
French company accounts reviewed by FrenchWeb show revenue rising from EUR 2.49 million (about $2.8 million) in 2020 to EUR 5.61 million (about $5.9 million) in 2022 and EUR 10.34 million (about $11.2 million) in 2023. The company was loss-making in those years, with net losses of EUR 3.6 million in 2020, about EUR 10 million in 2022 and about EUR 9.2 million (about $10 million) in 2023. FrenchWeb noted that staff costs had been higher than revenue since the company's early years.
“Service is the foundation of our business, and innovation in how service is delivered is increasingly important as customers seek greater reliability and better visibility into performance.”
Why Otis is buying
Otis maintains about 2.5 million customer units around the world, has about 72,000 employees, including 45,000 field professionals, says it moves 2.5 billion people a day and operates in more than 200 countries and territories. Service is the centre of its business, and the company said the investment supports its focus on improving service and service technology.
Judy Marks, Otis's chair, chief executive and president, said WeMaintain had built a strong technology platform and an agile operating model, and that Otis was confident in its growth potential. She said the investment should create long-term value for both companies.
Dupont said Otis's investment would allow WeMaintain to stay focused on what it does best while keeping close relationships with its customers. Proskauer said the deal is expected to support WeMaintain's growth in regulated markets and help secure its supply of spare parts.
The founders and the funding
WeMaintain raised close to EUR 38.8 million (about $45 million) since it was founded, according to FrenchWeb. Its backers included Eurazeo, through its former Idinvest funds, Bpifrance, Red River West, Financière Saint James and The Family. In its announcement WeMaintain also thanked RAISE, Verve Ventures, Groupe ADP, Italy's CDP and MTR Lab Company, among others.
Proskauer said the main financial shareholders, including Red River West, Eurazeo, Bpifrance Digital Venture, Raise Ventures, Saint James Innovation, Opera Tech Ventures, Verve Investment, Future M, Groupe ADP and CDP Venture Capital, sold their entire stakes. FrenchWeb reported that the founders remain significant shareholders.
A buyer moving into independent maintenance
The deal gives Otis, a manufacturer that installs and services its own equipment, control of a company whose pitch to building owners is that it will maintain equipment from any maker. Otis and WeMaintain said they would remain separate entities, and that WeMaintain would keep offering its brand-agnostic IoT and AI-based service to current and future customers.
Neither company said how much Otis paid or what share of WeMaintain it now owns.
