VISENSE raises CHF 750’000 for enabling industrial manufacturers to improve underperforming industrial machines and collaboration

According to Henkel, industrial manufacturers worldwide spend an estimated USD 50 billion annually on unplanned downtime. Thus, reducing downtime is a top priority for 82% of manufacturing companies. This pre-seed round provides VISENSE with the initial financial injection, enabling them to help their customers significantly reduce unplanned machine downtime. Senseye takes this even further and assumes that the Fortune Global 500 manufacturing and industrial firms are taking a near USD 1 trillion financial hit every year due to unplanned downtime. With a solution clearly solving such pain points, VISENSE has the potential to be used in various industries, including automotive, packaging, plastics, and many more, amounting to a USD 1.6 billion addressable markets.

The IIoT technology VISENSE, developed by the team, brings industrial producers a solution to the ongoing downtime issue. VISENSE’s solution uses industrial cameras and selected sensors to capture machine error-related data. Its software utilizes machine learning and computer vision to deliver error analysis through its dashboard and digitalizes central processes to enable data-driven decision-making. VISENSE has created the "Eyes" and "Brain" of a system that watches over and controls industrial robots and machinery in specific production environments.

Unlike other industrial computer vision solutions, they do not focus on product quality monitoring, product tracking, camera-based robot guidance, or employee movement tracking, but explicitly diagnose the machines' processes in order to understand them at their core. The solution replaces expensive and inefficient manual machine servicing by machine operators and planners. Furthermore, the solution is ready to use within minutes and requires no data integration. In addition, the solution can be used for different use cases for example for improving underperforming machines or accelerating the ramp-up process of new machines. Finally, all machine faults are autonomously documented visually to optimize communication between employees and other stakeholders. 

VISENSE was able to build up a broad customer base in a short period of time. Among others, they work together with a large German car manufacturer, in the packaging industry, piping system industry, and system integrators. Looking forward, the company will also benefit from the strong growth of the global industry 4.0 market, which was valued at USD 86 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 267 billion in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 20.7%.
“Manufacturers will be able to purchase products that provide necessary AI capabilities in a way that they may be used without outside support, saving them the cost of hiring external resources to oversee their AI-related projects. This is one of the fundamental presumptions VISENSE is working on in its product development. VISENSE has created the "Eyes" and "Brain" of a system that watches over and controls industrial robots and machinery in specific production environments. VISENSE is the first in line for this enormous leap in a future where machines would monitor their own work and that of other machines to ensure quality”, says Angelo Burgarello, Partner and Investor at AISI.

Since then, they have participated in various startup programs. In 2021 they won Stage 2 of Venture Kick, were part of the PwC IoT Scale program, HSG Entrepreneurial Talents program, and MassChallenge finalists.

We interviewed Christian Reich to learn more about his experience at Venture Kick and the origin of VISENSE.

Christian, how did Venture Kick help you lay the foundation for your growth and today's achievement?
Venture Kick was the initial point of contact for us to put our solution into practice. The process was simple, the feedback and quality of the jury incomparable, and the Kicker Camps with Jordi Montserrat and the other startups were priceless. Compared to other programs, the process is very lean and the time spent is proportional. That's why we especially recommend Venture Kick for any aspiring entrepreneur.

When, and what, was your inspiration to found VISENSE?
We were guided by the enormous complexity we found when entering an automotive shop floor for the first time. Everything is interconnected, working as fast as possible and downtimes are immensely costly. While the workers are highly competent in keeping everything running, the amount of manual effort in analyzing machine problems astonished us. Everyone does it a little differently, and not many generalized data-driven tools exist. This was the moment when we realized that there was a lot of room to improve the current state-of-the-art in error diagnosis for industrial machines and kickstarted VISENSE.

What is your advice for the potential IoT tech entrepreneurs launching companies in Switzerland today?
Our advice for future IIoT entrepreneurs would be to persistently stick and explore the problem they try to solve and find a good solution in accordance with your customer base. My co-founder Marvin Thiele emphasizes: “keep your solution as simple and convenient as possible so that it can be easily used by your clients. There are too many highly complex solutions today which require a large amount of effort to use. When you want to be successful in this industry, don't build the next big technical overarching tool. Choose one specific issue, solve it, and make it as easy as possible for the user to get value.” A further key factor is to have at least one large corporate supporting and being a fan of your ambition. This increases your credibility immensely and you have the chance to learn from the best.

Source VISENSE Press Release and Venture Kick Interview by Guillaume Tinsel