About Le Bijou
Challenging the big industry
Once, this was just a bold idea. We went all-in on it and became the market leader in tech-enabled hospitality.
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The best way to predict the future is to create it.
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Le Bijou is revolutionizing the high-end hospitality industry. It is a bold statement, but it was a bold idea: three young entrepreneurs from Switzerland seeking to deliver a new kind of hotel service to an underserved luxury consumer.
We didn’t come from a hospitality background, allowing us to see a market gap and create a solution that worked from a customer perspective. Our apartment hotel concept reinvents the entire white glove, five-star experience – and significantly improves it by delivering a much higher level of privacy and convenience than an ordinary hotel. We provide hotel guests, long-term residential tenants, and top-tier corporates with a unique experience they cannot find anywhere else.
As well as improving customer experience, we also improved the bottom line, reducing the expenses of the traditional hotel model and providing an impressive rate of return for investors that have joined us and are already benefitting from our collaboration.
Success has proven Le Bijou right: rates of return from which classic hotels and other companies can only dream of.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
2009
Alexander opens his first apartment.
Le Bijou founder Alexander Hübner sets up his first high-end AirBnB in Zurich, Switzerland, as one of the first Airbnb hosts in Switzerland. Establishing his vision to merge an apartment's privacy and exclusivity with a hotel's service and quality standards.
2010
The struggle to replace human work with machines
He quickly identified, that a hotel delivers excellent margins but the overhead costs often eat up the profit. After several attempts with Homematic and FileMaker®, Alexander seeks for help to make his vision of a fully automated 5* hotel alternative become reality.
2011
The impossible search for the computer genius
Exhausted from some rather strange meetings with hard- and software professionals, someone finally takes Alexander's hand, and he meets his first co-founder in unexpected circumstances: at the gym. Renato joins the team as the fittest nerd ever and implements the vision to create the tech-enabled accommodation of the future.
2011
A meeting beyond expectations
Madeleine was probably the only person Alexander didn't meet for a business purpose. Seeing Madeleine's out-of-this-world sales talent convinced him that Madeleine was the missing part of his team. It took him "only" two years to "sell" the idea to her. Madeleine is not only a gem herself but also came up with the name "Le Bijou" while she jogged around the Eiffel Tower in Paris together with Alexander (true story).
2014
The second apartment and celebrity guests endorsements
Le Bijou opens its second apartment, visited by Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, who calls Le Bijou "The most outstanding hospitality experience of his life." It was more than just a nice review, it was proof that we are on the right path. His tweet during the release of the apple watch even made our web hosting crash.
2014
Units 3, 4, 5, and more
We opened apartments three, four, and five and worked hard to make the business easily scalable, which was not easy after hearing the word "no" more than you could imagine. But as an old saying goes "“It always seems impossible until it is done.”
2015
We did it our way.
Growing a business is easy. You just go to a bank and ask for a loan? The answer is: Hell no! We onboarded our first investors with the help of lucrative yields and a bold vision to raise our bonds.
2016
Double-digit growth and the first big revenues
After pushing hard to open new large units, we could grow double-digits for the first time. The revenues quickly grew beyond CHF 1 M and would catapult Le Bijou to a rising star in Swiss hospitality.
2016
30 days or less; our 1 M bond issue
We raised the first significant external investment, and the Le Bijou Bond 01/2016 was born. It took us 30 days or less to raise CHF 1 M. The investors are still with Le Bijou and invested throughout the coming rounds.
2017
Further growth, the closing of the second bond
We opened a couple of new units and sold out the second bond issue. Le Bijou was covered in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Tages Anzeiger, SRF, National Geographic and more than in 10 other large-scale media.
2017
Credit Suisse and other co-investors
We closed the first property development deal with Credit Suisse, followed by other co-developments with two of the largest Swiss real estate companies.
2017
Attracting international luxury brands
After serving thousands of tourists in only a few years, Le Bijou quickly grew to a team of 60 people and expanded its offering to high-end events for customers like Google, Uber, UBS, Credit Suisse, Gucci, Rolex, Chloé, Adidas, Hugo Boss, American Express, Samsung and many more...
2018
Not everything is fake news: our increasing visibility.
Sunday Press writes, "A media coverage big hotel chains can only dream of," and it is true, we got covered in major articles from New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, CNN, USAToday, The Washington Post to local media like NZZ, Swiss Radio & Television (SRF), Tagesanzeiger, Blick, Bilanz, der Bund, Handelszeitung, and many more...
2018
Swiss Economic Award
After the second invitation and nomination to the Swiss Economic Award, we finally decided to participate and made it to the final.
2018
A holistic approach: The Le Bijou Owners Club
We are constantly looking for the next innovation. Giving our investors a more meaningful part of our business was a logical next step. We didn't know that this model would attract people beyond our beliefs.
2019
A successful model that continues
We believe that the community model is the future of Le Bijou. After quickly closing the fundraising for our Zurich franchise, we continued our expansion in Lucerne, one of Switzerland's highest-performing touristic markets and successfully raised more capital.
2020
"A Swiss Hotel Thrives in the Crisis" - Entrepreneur.com
Le Bijou's business model relies on three revenue pillars: tourists, events, and long-term tenants. Two of them were wiped out during the crisis. However, Le Bijou managed to make the best out of it and offered quarantine apartments to guests that got stranded or had to self-isolate. This offering received global recognition and was part of over 3'000 international news articles.
2020
Free "stress relief stays" for healthcare workers.
Le Bijou CEO Alexander Hübner donated his salary to let healthcare workers relax in our apartments free of charge. Other donors followed his example and donated stress-relief stays, which helped add to keep our units busy, maintain the jobs of our staff and protect the investor's capital.
2020
Global attention for the hotel of the future
Le Bijou's innovative approach with uber-like services, contact-less check-ins to a digital butler that fulfills every wish, has proven to be the future model.
2021
New locations and properties
We are looking for new properties and destinations in the largest Swiss cities to meet customer demand.
2021
"The young jewel has grown up." - SRF Eco
Madeleine Hübner, a co-founder of Le Bijou, had the great pleasure of giving the iconic SRF Eco exclusive insights during one of their last broadcasts.
2022
Extending our offer to investors
In the second half year of 2022, we unlocked many new investment opportunities for investors and introduced deal-by-deal opportunities.
About the founders and our fantastic team
Started by three entrepreneurial minds but made great by a unique team of outstanding personalities
Alexander Hübner
CEO & Co-Founder @ Le Bijou
Alexander is an entrepreneur since birth. Prior to founding Le Bijou, Alexander founded and ran a media & advertising company. Alexander’s endeavors in business have been widely recognized by international organizations such as EY Entrepreneur of the year (nomination) and the Swiss Economic Award (finalist).
Madeleine Hübner
CCO & Co-Founder @ Le Bijou
Madeleine is Le Bijou’s sales & communications superstar. She was widely recognized for her achievements with Le Bijou, appearing in Women in Business 40 under 40 (most successful women in business). She studied Art & Design at Parsons in Paris and is fluent in 5 languages.
Renato Steiner
CTO & Co-Founder @ Le Bijou
Renato has over 25 years of experience in delivering technical excellence with an unparalleled customer focus. Before Le Bijou, Renato worked for large corporates such as multinational banks and insurance companies. He studied at NTU (Taiwan) and speaks fluent Chinese.
Made in Switzerland but ready for the world.
Why invest in Le Bijou
The difference is obvious
