The first thing the driving schools did was sue. In April 2014, only weeks after Ornikar was registered in Paris, several trade unions took the start-up to court for unfair competition. In June the commercial court threw the claims out. It would not be the last time the establishment tried to shut the young company down.
The two men behind it had known each other since school. Benjamin Gaignault and Alexandre Chartier met at a private lycée in Rueil-Malmaison. Gaignault went on to KEDGE Business School and graduated in 2011. He has been described as impatient by nature, someone who preferred building his own company to climbing a corporate ladder. Years later the two would say they had not had the idea of the century, only an answer to a real need in an existing market.
What the unions failed to see was that every attack made Ornikar better known.
That need was easy to see. Getting a French driving licence was slow and expensive, and prices were hard to compare. Ornikar offered the theory test online and, soon, lessons with partner instructors at lower prices. In November 2014 Partech Ventures and Elaia Partners put in €1.5 million, and early angels included Xavier Niel, Marc Simoncini and Jacques-Antoine Granjon.
The pushback was fierce. In December 2015 a court ordered the company to stop giving driving lessons until it had received prefectoral approval. The approval arrived in March 2016, but the founders later said some traditional schools refused candidates who announced they had taken the theory test through Ornikar. Trade groups wanted the start-up closed.
What the unions failed to see was that every attack made Ornikar better known. Press from Libération to the BBC and The New York Times covered the fight over regulation, and student-age customers did the rest. Funding followed: €10 million in 2018, €35 million in 2019 and, in April 2021, €100 million with the American fund KKR joining.
By 2020 the company said 420,000 learners had trained on its platform, with lessons offered in more than 300 French cities. It added young-driver insurance in September 2020 and extended it to all drivers in June 2021. In 2025 its statutes added financing activities such as licence and car loans.
The lesson is uncomfortable. Entering an old industry means being treated as a threat before you are treated as a customer. Gaignault and Chartier survived because they kept obeying the rules the courts set, got approved, and kept building while the incumbents were busy in court.