EFS: The EIC Accelerator Chlorine Probe That Is Still Called New

E.F.S. SAS, an electronics and instrumentation maker in Montagny, south of Lyon, won an EU grant of €1,424,675 in the 5 June 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, for CENSE: a single probe that measures free chlorine, turbidity, conductivity, temperature and pressure inside drinking water pipes. The total project cost was €2,035,250, and EFS was the only beneficiary, according to CORDIS and the European Commission's list of June 2019 winners, which names EFS alone for CENSE. The project ran from 1 November 2019 to 31 August 2022.

The probe exists. EFS sells it as I-CENSE and listed it in trade guides in 2022 and 2024. But in May 2026 the company was still presenting it at IFAT in Munich as "notre nouvelle sonde", its new probe, according to its own website. No water utility has been named as a customer. On 2 July 2026 the economic activities court of Lyon opened a redressement judiciaire, the French receivership procedure for insolvent companies, with 1 June 2026 as the date on which EFS stopped paying its debts, according to the official gazette BODACC and Societe.com.

Where EFS Stands Now

EFS is insolvent and trading under court supervision. The judgment of 2 July 2026 appointed Selas Anasta-Aura (Marc Chapon) as administrator, with the task of assisting management, and Selarl MJ Synergie as creditors' representative, according to BODACC. In a redressement judiciaire the company keeps operating while the court looks for a recovery plan, a sale or, failing both, liquidation. As of 7 October 2026 no later judgment, such as a plan, a sale or a liquidation, appears in the register extracts. No press coverage of the proceedings could be found, and EFS has not commented on them on its news page.

It is not the company's first insolvency. The register shows a court-approved recovery plan (plan de redressement) published in November 2007, after a statement of claims in October 2007, according to Societe.com, and North Data lists a recovery plan judgment in January 2008.

A Contract Engineer With Its Own Products

EFS is not a start-up. It was registered in Lyon in 1980, originally under the name Electronique F Schmidt, according to North Data, and the French business register gives 1980 as its creation year and a staff band of 50 to 99 employees in 2024, according to Annuaire des Entreprises. François Schmidt chaired it from 2004 until June 2017, when the holding company Abiedor took over as president, according to Societe.com. Abiedor, founded in March 2017, is chaired by Franck Barrère, the CENSE project coordinator named by CORDIS and the director of publication of the EFS website.

The company designs and builds mechatronic equipment in series of 10 to 10,000 units a year for start-ups, mid-sized firms and large groups. It calls itself the world leader in test benches for fuel injection systems, with more than 80 benches installed, a claim that could not be checked independently. Water quality probes are one line among several, next to power electronics, flowmeters and a man-overboard distress beacon, according to its company page and its list of projects.

The Technology: Chlorine on a Chip, Inside the Pipe

Drinking water in most European networks carries a small dose of chlorine to keep it free of microbes. CORDIS cites a target range of 0.3 to 1.0 mg/l, enough to disinfect but not to harm. Utilities measure it in two ways, according to the project's final report. The reference colorimetric method (ISO 7393) is accurate but costly and needs monthly maintenance with hazardous chemicals. Electrochemical (amperometric) sensors are cheaper but measure only one chlorine species, depend on pH, temperature and flow, and must be calibrated against the colorimetric method.

EFS shrank the colorimetric method onto a microfluidic chip. The probe is screwed into a live pipe through a 40 mm tapping collar, without cutting the water supply, measures every five minutes and runs for more than a year on a battery, using a few millilitres of reagent a year, according to the product sheet in the 2022 EIN technical guide and the I-CENSE product page. Data go out over a 4G, LTE-M or NB-IoT modem to the utility's own server, which the final report presents as a selling point against rivals that store readings on their own platforms.

The sources differ on what the probe measures. The CORDIS objective lists five parameters. The results summary, published in January 2023, lists six, adding flow rate, and the product page now lists free chlorine, turbidity, conductivity, temperature, flow and pressure. The flow measurement is marked with an asterisk on the product page without an explanation.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

The CORDIS objective promised a market launch in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, a rollout to the rest of the EU from year 3 and a global launch from year 5, through direct sales and EFS's distributor network. In an interview in the December 2019 issue (no. 427) of the trade magazine L'Eau, L'Industrie, Les Nuisances, EFS sales director Alexandre Huchon said the company planned to sell the probe in France and then Europe in 2021 and to "amplify" sales in 2023, with production and assembly in the Rhône-Alpes region and a larger team. He said Suez had already validated the sensor on a closed test loop, and that a one-and-a-half-month field trial had confirmed the technology.

The final periodic report, for November 2021 to August 2022, lists 12 representative prototypes, a prototype production line, four probes tested on three sites, a frozen design, updated prices and costs, a marketing manager hired and a stand at the Pollutec trade fair in 2021. The results summary instead speaks of a batch of 15 probes built for laboratory and site tests, says three patents were "being secured", and puts the start of sales "before the end of 2023". That was already two years later than the 2021 launch EFS had announced in 2019. In March 2022 the Solar Impulse Foundation labelled I-CENSE an efficient solution and rated it at technology readiness level 6 to 7, a full-scale prototype, according to the foundation's listing.

1. All-in-one probe with chlorine lab-on-chipDeliveredDesign frozen in 2022; sold as I-CENSE (product page).
2. Field tests with water operatorsDeliveredFour probes on three sites (CORDIS); Suez loop test (EIN).
3. Market launch in France, 2021, later "before the end of 2023"PartlyOn sale and at trade fairs, but still called new in 2026 and no sale announced.
4. Launch in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, then the rest of the EUNot achievedNo customer or distributor outside France announced; IFAT Munich 2026 is the only foreign water fair on its news page.
5. Three patentsUnverifiedNo patent on the CENSE probe could be matched to EFS.
6. Production in Rhône-Alpes and a bigger teamUnverifiedStaff costs flat at about €3.3M from 2017 to 2023.

The Money

EFS publishes only some of its accounts. Revenue rose from €5.83 million in 2017 to €7.82 million in 2022 and €8.57 million in 2023, with a net profit of €473,000 in 2023, according to the filed accounts summarised by Xerfi; Societe.com gives the same 2023 revenue and profit. Over the same period financial debt rose from €50,000 to €2.70 million, while equity grew from €3.51 million to €5.34 million.

The accounts for 2019, the year of the award, and for 2024 were filed with a confidentiality declaration, according to BODACC. For 2024 only the net result is public: €127,339, according to the government's company directory, down 73% on 2023, as Societe.com also shows. Societe.com puts cash at €161,400 at the end of 2024. BODACC records no filing of accounts for 2020 and 2021, the last two years of the project, and North Data lists none either. What caused the collapse, how much the probe cost the company beyond the grant, and how many probes it sold are not public.

EFS appears in neither of the EIC's equity channels: the CENSE award was grant only, and the company is not among the roughly 315 organisations on the EIC Fund portfolio list, checked on all 16 pages. A CORDIS search found no other EU project led by EFS. No outside funding round has been reported.

Why Europe Should Care

The recast Drinking Water Directive (EU) 2020/2184 asks member states to take a risk-based approach to water supply and, under Article 4(3), to assess leakage levels at large suppliers and report the results to the Commission by 12 January 2026, as the International Water Association notes. The Commission is to set an EU-wide leakage threshold afterwards. Cheap probes that report chlorine, pressure and flow from inside the network fit both goals: they show where disinfection drops and where water is lost. The CORDIS results summary says 20% of drinkable water is lost along the distribution chain. That case for the technology stands. Whether EFS will still exist to sell it depends on the Lyon court.

The Verdict

EFS, its administrator and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.