Meet Tvarit — Hidden Industrial AI Champion making manufacturing sustainable
Executive Summary
The industrial ai startup Tvarit is focused on optimizing the process of casting metals. This process is abundant for parts in robots, cars, all kinds of machines, and heavy equipment. With their approach they help their clients save up to 18% of their energy bill, increase production quality and lower the wastage of the process. Tvarit has raised almost 3 million in funding since our 2019 interview and is looking for their Series A funding. Suhas founded 17 startups prior to Tvarit, with this being startup №18, for which he sees the potential to become a unicorn. We’re excited to see how Tvarit will develop industrial ai further and help factories across the world save money and produce better quality products.
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The Video Interview is set to go live on Thursday, October 20th 2022 at 15:00 CET
The Audio Interview
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The Founder
Suhas Patel (https://www.linkedin.com/in/patelsuhas/) is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 18 startups, including his last one Tvarit in Frankfurt. Tvarit is an industry 4.0 AI startup that Startuprad.io has been following since 2019. Suhas is an engineer by training (ISEP in Paris). Suhas has worked for more than 12 years for Qualcoom and other companies before becoming an entrepreneur. He has been (co)founding industrial companies and startups in Europe and India already in the past, so this is nothing new for him.
In this interview we focus more on the development of Tvarit, for everyone who likes to learn more, we will also link the October 2019 interview in our blog post.
The Startup
As industry 4.0 and the industrial internet of things (IIoT) continue to evolve, so too does the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing. Manufacturers are already using AI-powered robots for tasks like welding and fabricating, and the technology is quickly being adopted across the industrial sector. One area where AI is making a big impact is in metal casting. By analyzing data from the casting process, Tvarit (https://www.tvarit.com/) can help to optimize production and improve quality control. As a result, factories that adopt AI-powered metal casting solutions are able to produce parts more efficiently and with fewer defects and less energy. Tvarit is one company that is leading the way in this area, and its industrial AI software is helping manufacturers around the world to improve their operations.
Venture Capital Funding
Tvarit announced in May 2022 that they raised in total 2,8 M € in seed funding. They are now preparing their Series A funding.
Tvarit is Hiring
You can learn more about the open positions at Tvarit here: https://www.tvarit.com/careers
Tune in to our Internet Radio Station here:
2019 Interview with Suhas
You can learn more here:
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Topics Discussed in this Interview
In this interview we are talking about metal casting, metal casting parts, industry 4.0, industrie 4.0, industrial internet of things, ai, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, energy efficiency, energy savings, quality control, quality improvement
Automated Transcript
[0:00] Music.
[0:19] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startuprad.io your startup podcast and you to block from Germany as well as the founder of the world’s first tech entrepreneurship radio
dot radio today I have a returning guest here hey so how are you doing.
[0:38] Great thank you very much Joe for having me here to interview I’m looking forward to discuss the ideas which we have been bringing in the market in this interval.
Thank you yes I do believe most of our audience
since we’re growing so crazy is not aware that we did an interview because we published it back in October twenty nineteen point you’ve been still with the same company which was
Incorporated in 2019 and it’s called tvarit will soon get to the minute you can explain it and
we do an update because you had a successful fundraising this
content is therefore sponsored by investing hessen and you can learn more about invested hessen our sponsor and your opportunities to invest in the German state of hessen
in the link down here in the show notes so as I said October 2019 and there we already learned you are a Serial entrepreneur.
[1:42] We confirmed before the recording but you have started 17 startups and tvarit so this is number 18 what you’ve learned so far and what can you tell us about you
sure so as you mentioned qualities that 18 startup for me so.
Having this journey with multiple startups gives me a tremendous experiences of failure.
[2:09] I learned how not to fail and that’s what we I’ve limited inquiry.
This is in my opinion start up and I see that the results are coming over so it worried as you mention be completed more than thousand days we have multiple customers more than 20 customers because they are serving in the manufacturing industry.
Who has like more than 200 tons and this growth.
[2:35] Is achieved from my last learning what we achieved from what I what I received from my past experiences in different startups,
can you tell us first I would like to make a little disclaimer so you have 20 clients which is already really big we’re talking not about a b2c,
relation here where you start to get excited with 100,000 customers as you said 20 clients 200 plans like really,
big manufacturing plants that is something completely different will soon get to why this is so awesome for you and what kind of startups did you do before and what did you do before you started all the startups.
Yeah so before I started my journey in the startup I was working in a companies like Qualcomm Intel providing them consultancy for the low-power devices.
In there are any Department in my startup journey I had start up into digitalisation I’d start up into many sectoring and also selling
compressors and pneumatic Parts most importantly what is what give me give me the big experience is my,
startups in the manufacturing field I started one Factory into the metal processing.
A second Factory into packaging machine manufacturing and a third Factory into densification of the biofuel.
[4:01] And when I walked into this manufacturing field I understood the basic problem what they are having on a day-to-day life.
And those problems are impacting their profitability.
This is where you know I got idea to combine my experiences into manufacturing industry with.
My co-founder who was having experienced into NASA into into Ai and Analytics,
bringing those analytics to the manufacturing field was the trigger point to start worried for me.
[4:35] And as you ask you know I go back to the previous question you mentioned about what it what does it mean 20th is a Sanskrit word which is 3,000 years old.
It means fast,
people people I do believe already smiling because you used such a lot of specific words or we can already tell from your training you’re an engineer,
in our 2019 interview youth set tvarit has the potential to become a unicorn and
you said you’re looking to be the first unicorn in Frankfort now unfortunately clocked out the E became the first unicorn at Frankfort are you said they did achieve your goal.
[5:18] Of course as I said no be want to be the first unicorn in the industrialized space.
Banquet is known for the final fintech there are many fintech companies and other fields are also there and then there are currently many unicorns are coming.
We are still on our path to be the first friend first base industrial air unicorn.
[5:40] I’m so far would say you’ve been you’ve been doing pretty good I’m since our last interview you want prices including the startup award
a digital future conquerors you’ve been one of the top five companies in Germany reeving receiving the factory of the your wood so it’s always
not necessarily all the fancy startup words but the words that counts towards your client where they see you and,
let us talk now a little bit about what tvarit,
actually this because we know from the people who are listening to this so hers is in front of a TV it reads
tvarit smart zero trying trying is a train.
[6:27] No driving the word to word sustainable zero waste man 40s manufacturing exactly statement that is an awesome mission statement and.
Can you explain what
tvarit actually does in manufacturing because you know industry 5.0 yeah and there’s a lot of data and you do some Ai and that should be awesome but most people don’t have an idea would you actually offer what I can do with it
can you,
can you tell us a little bit what you doing because I have been researching it for the last time and this time and I would say either you could describe your company as an AI Control tool
for quality control or as the solonius of manufacturing processes which one would be more true.
[7:21] I would say that it is more related to Quality and process Improvement but let me go back to the history of worry.
If you see you know 2019 when you are discussing we were discussing about the AI platform which had 160 plus algorithmic module to give the prediction based on the manufacturing process.
We wanted to go into the market we talked with the clients manufacturing client and we understood that there are no data scientist in the manufacturing plant who can use our platform.
So that’s that the journey started so the whole AI platform was the was a backbone for us to start a journey to get Niche so we started that Journey from a data science platform.
And now we are focusing on casting industry so using that platform as of the backbone,
we are serving the casting customers worldwide your engineer can you explain like in layman’s terms what casting really means for everybody who has no clue like me happy to do that so casting is a.
The process where a molten metal is poured into the mold and a part is manufactured.
[8:32] So for example a gearbox when it is manufactured.
Then aluminum is molten aluminium is is poured into the mold and a and gearboxes manufacturer,
you have this aloe felger the aluminum wheels they are manufactured using low pressure die casting that’s a casting process,
so there are many Automotive components like breaks tells his part Wheels there they are they’re casting,
not only is the most important industry in the also in the Machinery is also many parts are CrossFit.
[9:09] So this is our Niche area wherever the molten metal is.
Is poured into the mold and taking the different shape we focus in this area to reduce three things.
Energy scrap and much into machine downtime.
We focus on and these are the three things which is most important for a profitability of the company.
Any operation or operators who are working in the plant they can reduce they focus on Improvement of the processes and they can improve up to nine.
[9:47] But remaining 10% which a human cannot do that’s where our focus is if you imagine a manufacturing company has a profitability of around five.
[9:57] Now if you improve the processes and improve by Improvement if you increase the profit profitability by five to ten percent that is like double the profitability what they are having right now.
And we have achieved that we have we have a we have worked in the crafting process where we reduce the script by 33%.
Reduce their energy consumption by 18 percent in low pressure die casting.
And we are serving the client we are serving clients in worldwide we have called stands in America’s day of pads in Africa we have priors in Asia we have plants in Europe across Europe in Czech Republic Poland or Italy Germany
So within these three years by focusing on the particular process of casting,
ve ve ve ve we are recognized worldwide as the only solution provider for the customers
and for everybody who’s still not understood so if you make chocolate hot you have a form like a Santa Claus you pour it in your chocolate casting and people out there do it with way hotter and more interesting materials
I would say like iron steel aluminum is there something else out there that your clients are using.
Yes so yeah pandemonium as you mentioned think is also that magnesium is also that any metal which is taking 4 which is molten and taking another shape is the casting process which we have Focus.
[11:26] Mostly metals or Kenya also cast something else you working with Mona we have focused on metal Gothic and it’s a huge Market there are 60,000 foundries worldwide.
What we casting process mmm so everything that he have like,
in a car in a machine everything that solid metal and has a form that’s not natural there’s a probability that it’s either were welded or cast it right.
Yeah a complex shape is always casted like real.
The gearbox is breaks the aircraft.
[12:07] What comes to mind I have a little son and he’s a big fan.
Baga excavators and then just run through my mind only what you can see from the outside and so big machines
that is custard and I realized yeah there should be a few hundred parts there that are casted and likely they all come from different
manufacturing companies so we nailed out what it is bugger it what you can do with it so how do your client actually
use this the Tuareg Tools in their 200 factories.
It’s a software so when we have a before casting there is a melting there is a degassing there is a holding furnace casting and then you know x-ray where the tasting happen these are the processes.
In the whole process we provide the software which provides them a prescription.
So for example if a particular part which is being casted is not having optimal parameter and then the software will automatically alert them that this part will be rejected in your testing.
[13:20] Before it gets wasted it gets.
Use the prediction but it’s not only protection includes the prescription these are the parameter you need to change now in order to avoid the rejection.
[13:33] In the testing phase that means you do the quality control in the actual,
manufacturing process and not later on in the actual quality process it can you
spell like a few secrets between you and me and a few thousand listeners and her viewers of this interview
how you actually do it because you have on the one hand software and you have on the other hand a machine I do believe there needs to be some connection and some analytics going on on your side.
[14:04] Yes so basically the software is used by the operator.
There are different Persona so a machine operator is one Persona who gets the recommendation in who gets the prescription to change the machine parameter.
The second Persona is the plant manager.
He understands for the whole process from a promised shift wife on a day wise how it can be reduced and he gets the prey prediction in a prescription on the device,
similarly you know there is a there are maintenance people there there are operations people how to increase the profitability so the software is very nice for the casting process
But it includes the Persona from a machine operator to plant manager to maintenance manager to talk to the CEO level all kind of persona is included where they can,
our focus is to reduce waste and that wastage can be man-machine material in money.
And they provide they get the prescription how to save or decrease the waist.
[15:04] In software alerting side yeah but as you mention you know we don’t.
Give the input to the machine there is always human in Loop that human gets the prescription and he takes action.
So I was wondering zero waste is an important Target but right now we are recording this beginning of October,
20:22 would maybe a very cold winter and very expensive gas and gas head of us natural gas for heating and,
for example heating up Metals for casting do you also help your clients
to Safe energy here and how do you actually do this help reduce waste so so first a little bit the energy question and then how do you actually reduce waste.
[15:59] Bill so we help our clients especially in the casting comic foundries which are costing companies,
reduce energy as well.
How do we do that during that process there are various parameters who are consuming energy for example the metal has to be molten for example if you melt the aluminum at 700 degrees,
and you are taking that aluminum from the furnace.
[16:26] Who the casting machine in the ladder then during that time the the temperature decreases right so the there is an energy loss in that,
in the holding furnace there is a there are air jacks which which provides a pressure now if there is a air leakage that also impacts on the temperature of the aluminum,
now this small things,
are consuming you know or wasting a place like twenty to thirty percent of the energy which which we see that as a potential to reduce energy consumption in the casting process.
And we have done that for one of the clients you know eighteen percent reduction in that in that casting process energy
and for our us audience he’s talking very likely about 700 degrees Celsius which is almost 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit so DM
hot exactly at how do you help to reduce the waste there,
in this process the whole process it’s not only understanding about the process parameter but also,
the process itself so our experts not only understand the the casting process but also the the physics and chemistry behind,
so chemical composition of aluminum.
[17:45] The physics of a mold the the geometry of the mold we take everything into consideration to provide the prescription which is close to 100% accurate,
have you
so that would mean you can even spit out recommendation for example on really shape the mode that is basically what you pour the hot metal in shape the mode just a tiny bit that will give you 32,
four five percent more efficiency yep.
[18:17] Okay maybe more so last time we heard like as I mentioned 18 percent Energy bill we could reduce in the casting process using our software,
given the current prices for natural gas you believe that’s worth a lot of money for big Factory and.
Speaking about that you have a lot of manufacturing clients what is the possibility that excites the most were away where do they like
most to use tried what is huh I wish I have thought about that moment for your clients.
Our expertise into casting process so the moment we talked about optimization of any casting process or any Casting Company.
Daycare first click that the that these guys understand what they are doing our Niche is our strength.
[19:12] There is nobody in the world who is proposing on a casting process as a software,
and and for example like one hour before I had always one of the clients I was talking with their CEO,
and he could easily imagine I speak the same language what he speaks on a day-to-day life in his plan.
[19:33] They have 51 plus he immediately said that okay next next month in November we will have three days plant visit and we will sit together and how we can improve in our process they have.
Thirty to fifty percent projections and that’s a big pain for them.
The moment we start talking about processes and our needs they realize that Dorothy’s a company whom they want to work to optimize their.
[20:01] And to make sure the rejections mean either in their own quality control or in the quality control of their clients when they take in the parts they are no good.
It’s their own and talking about their own and apply might have additional digits and as well hmm,
exactly so today we are also talking about because you raise the 2.8 million viewers already this year congratulations on that and.
My question would be you have in total now approximately three million u.s. dollars in funding that is publicly available is that true.
[20:45] That is correct yeah and I’ve seen you have
more local investors so far are you open to talk to International investors somebody for example who could help you
jump to a different continent in two different industry into different geographic area.
[21:06] Yes yes so we are definitely open to speak with International investors in fact we recently started our in internationalisation Journey we recently got the client in u.s.
In South Africa and.
In America’s as well South America Israel so Mexico Brazil so for us it is very important to have investors from that side of the world who can understand the local market and help us grow in the that man.
[21:38] Would you also be interested to have a corporate Venture capitalists from this area.
Like in terms of Industry like casting industrial background.
[21:50] We have a few inquiries of course we are open to discuss with CBC as well.
So do you ask about how do we raise the funds we raise approximately 2.8 million in the last funding round to acquire more customers.
Our goal was to acquire each quarter plus to customers.
The blueprint content compared to previous quarter we acquired two more customers in the manufacturing phase.
Just to give you the note that a usual time to close one manufacturing plant is about 12 to 18 months which we have already decreased by.
By three to four months.
Our sales team is working is very much focused in this way within first five months of closing our last financing round we already warned 20 customers,
why are mostly Automotive component manufacturers.
And this is this is this will increase our power customer Revenue going forward.
Mel secondly we have recently closed oems our custom as our customers OEM psych folks wagon BMW Giants are buying casting parts from many suppliers.
And we can provide quality insights of the purchase costing part using our prescriptive quality module.
And we see a big opportunity for us to capture via this oems.
[23:13] And going forward we will be raising series a in next couple of months and we are looking forward to talking to more investors in the future.
[23:24] Do you ask me what what is what is the next funding round so right now we are focused we will be raising the series a round in next couple of months.
And due to the high number of customer acquisition our Focus will be like 50% of the next funding round will be used in technology,
and product development 13% will be used in sales and 20% will be an internal operations internal operations like Finance operations and HR
well kind of activities,
but most of the part will be going into technology to to to scale our solution which we can provide to multiple clients within shortest period of time like two three months.
[24:09] And of course what do you usually do with the money you hire people are you currently hiring for tvarit.
[24:19] Yes so let me let me tell about the focus what we had in the last investment round so when we raise the funding crowd in a parade the focus is to get number of customers.
And in from April till now we have 20 customers who have 200 plants.
And we wanted to have 21 customer Within,
of one year post financing down so within six months we achieved our Target of 20 customers so that is that the big big achievement for us.
Um and during this stage we continuously hired more people to deliver because then you have
all of a sudden exploding number of customer who are in the manufacturing industry
and we need to talk with multiple stakeholders to develop the solution we had a big growth in the team size as well in last photo at self we had 20 people in our team.
Totally totaled right now we have around 62 people in our Joe you asked about.
P and hiring more people for us it is important that the people whom we take into the team.
Has a very good knowledge about the processes.
And regarding casting processes of course and an end Affinity towards the manufacturing.
[25:39] And most of the team members are coming from top-notch universities,
like to dance our PTW they are PhD from that IIT Bombay at the deli these are the people who are highly qualified who are for understanding the manufacturing processes.
[25:54] And providing prescription to our client.
And going forward will be hiring more and more people in this direction who will help us in patenting of our technology right now we have two patrons one in hybrid model and the second one into prescriptive prescriptive Analytics,
for transfer learning so hybrid model is like combining physics and chemistry of the casting process with AI.
And transfer learning patent is about once we develop the model for one casting machine we can use the same model for n number of casting machine not only save secretary but different sectors as well,
that brings the scalability of our solution worldwide plants who are in the casting side.
[26:40] And for that you also need additional funding when you are you looking to do the next fundraising or is there like an idea like rule of thumb something like this,
of course yeah so the interesting part is like the business model which we achieve so right now you know we have
we focused on acquiring more customers now the focus will be shifting from,
serving those customers into 200 tons so 20 customers 200 plants it’s a big number if you consider one curved one plant giving us a 200,000 Revenue per year,
in the subscription then there is a huge potential to achieve so this is the next funding round to serve those customers and an increase our Revenue so we’ll be raising Fund in next couple of months.
[27:32] What funding series will this be that sounds like a series a funding for you exactly yes,
hmm I see and there will be a lot of jobs we link down here in the show notes of course the careers website of tvarit I’m
we now talking for almost 30 minutes already and just just to wrap it up a little bit because this interviewed is sponsored by investing hessen you are one of the
none FedEx here in Frankfurt and
therefore what would be your wishes because a lot of political decision-makers are listening to our podcast what would be your wishes,
for them would they can do for startups especially industrial B2B startups here in Frankfort,
what would you like to address to them.
[28:26] Yeah I know more funding but besides that of course you know there are there,
better changing environment in the world right so the geopolitical situation is changing Ukraine war is that the corona just got over people are talking about recession.
We should think about manufacturing industry as a community because they are consuming high energy.
And now you know if they cannot sustain due to the increasing price of gas then there should be certain that a certain thing scientist needs to be given to the manufacturing.
So that this industry survives and grows in Germany in dark region in Europe getting there is very important.
[29:19] Understood so.
[29:24] It was a pleasure talking to you we are already talking for more than 30 minutes right now so wish to say thank you very much.
Best of luck and hopefully we’ll be back in something like three years and talk again maybe about your series B funding,
yeah thank you very much Joe for your time and it is again you know a big pleasure to talk talking with you and discussing the about worried,
I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities in the future to talk about Curry as it grows.
[30:03] Music.
[30:11] Www dot start a friend that I oh remember sharing is caring.
[30:17] Music.
