Sylvamap

Sylvamap provides a digital platform for forest management, targeting private forest owners and managers who are required to maintain a Sustainable Management Document (DGD), such as a Plan Simple de Gestion (PSG), for properties over 25 hectares. The company was founded in 2011 near Nantes, France, by Alban Le Cour and Jérôme Batisse. The founders, both with over a decade of experience in land expertise and a background at Veolia, identified the constraints of traditional paper-based forest management plans and the specialized skills required for cartography. They created Sylvamap to bridge this gap, aiming to transform the legally required management document from an administrative burden into a dynamic and accessible tool.

The company's business model is subscription-based, with a service fee averaging €1.20 per hectare per year. Sylvamap digitizes a client's forest management plan, superimposing forest stand maps onto cadastral and aerial photography backgrounds from the IGN (French National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information). This creates an interactive, web-based platform where users can track silvicultural operations, monitor budgets, and view the economic potential of their assets. The platform is collaborative, allowing owners to share access with managers, experts, and heirs to ensure continuity and preserve the forest's history. Key features include a mobile application for fieldwork without an internet connection, tools for automatically generating administrative documents, and reminders for key deadlines. In a significant milestone, Sylvamap partnered with the National Center for Forest Property (CNPF) to enable the direct digital submission of management documents. The company raised €470,000 in July 2017 to expand its reach and further develop its digital forestry tools.

Keywords: forest management, forestry software, digital forestry, sustainable management plan, Plan Simple de Gestion, GIS, cartography, silviculture, forest owners, forestry management tool, geomatics, DGD, timber tracking, forest asset management, land management, France, CNPF, sustainable forestry, forest mapping, conservation technology