Exotec: new ‘Imaginarium’ headquarters dedicated to growth and innovation

Retrofuturist hub combines development and production departments

French robotics manufacturer Exotec is moving into a state-of-the-art headquarters in Wasquehal near Lille (FR). The retro-futuristic hub brings together the company's development and manufacturing departments with one goal: to continue to play a lucrative pioneering role in the rapidly automating logistics market.

With 25,000 square meters (including just under 9,000 reserved for the production of Exotec robotic systems), the manufacturer brings 700 employees from the design, production and support departments together under one roof. Not a superfluous luxury, as the company's rapid growth meant that Exotec was now spread across seven different sites in its French cradle of Lille, which made working together unnecessarily complex. In the new ‘Imaginarium,’ all those departments now meet physically again. The layout of the building, which Exotec is renting from BMG Group for twelve years, has been developed in such a way that the design, production and support departments are close together and literally bump into each other around a central ‘village square’. With its red-brick walls and retro-futuristic design, the facility is also conceived as an homage to the industrial past of the northern French region.

High Tech

Then again, there is nothing retro about the operations that take place in the ‘Imaginarium. The site also includes a state-of-the-art production department on just under 9,000 square meters, within which no fewer than 11 Exotec systems support the production, testing and optimization of Exotec products. As proof of the company's belief in its own technology, that can count. Incidentally, there is still room for expansion of production capacity within the ’Imaginarium.“

Exotec originated in a Parisian incubator as the brainchild of CEO Romain Moulin and CTO Renaud Heitz, but the company settled in the Lille area soon after its founding in 2015. The company quickly experienced international growth - including launches in Japan and the U.S. - and by 2022 was the first French “tech unicorn” valued at more than a billion dollars. Meanwhile, a total of 14,000 Exotec robots drive around warehouses around the world.

Anchored in France

The French anchoring of this innovation and production hub does not seem the most obvious choice. Think of the geopolitical challenges, the high labor and energy costs in Europe or the fickle tariff policies of the United States, for example. Still, designing and manufacturing in France is the preferred option, emphasizes ceo and co-founder Romain Moulin. “With high-quality and high-tech products, industrial production in Europe certainly remains a possibility,” he echoes. The good social support and relatively favorable investment climate for start-ups also kept the founders in France at the time. And what's more, the country continues to produce world-class engineers. 

Nevertheless, the company's expansion is international. In 2026, for example, Exotec plans to launch in South Korea. In a rapidly changing market, Exotec must also be able to move quickly to maintain its pioneering position. The company holds more than 400 patents worldwide and develops new products with the increasing demand for performance and flexibility in logistics in mind.

As far as concrete prospects for new products are concerned, the founders of Exotec are not showing their cards at the presentation of the Imaginarium. It is clear, however, that they are not keen on the current ‘humanoid’ hype. “The less complex a robot is, the more reliable it is,” says Heitz. “In an autonomous car, there is no humanoid robot driver behind the wheel, is there?” So the innovations will mainly continue to build on the 3D robots with which Exotec first came to market, whether or not driven by software that optimizes routes and processes based on AI.