Munich Startup: What does Initics do? What problem do you solve?
Julian Kowatsch, co-founder and managing director of Initics: With our EDI software initdata.io We ensure that electronic data interchange (EDI) is also used by small and medium-sized businesses. Many companies spend a lot of time every day typing documents such as invoices or delivery notes, accepting orders, and sending quotations. With the help of our solutions, we automate recurring document processing processesWe can handle this traditionally via EDI. But other methods have often proven more efficient, such as handling order acceptance using a streamlined B2B ordering app. Or simply scanning PDFs using OCR (Optical Character Recognition, German: optical character recognition, editor's note) and transfer the data back into the company's software system in EDI format.
Initics aims to optimise electronic data exchange for companies
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Julian Kowatsch: Yes, it's been around for a long time. EDI has actually been around for ages. The first "EDIFACT" standard was adopted back in 1988. This brings us to the problem: The technology developed before the advent of the Internet. EDI connections are still complex to set up and often still use outdated technologies and structures.
With modern solutions, we've made it our goal to replace traditional EDI processes wherever it makes sense. And yes, OCR solutions and ordering apps are also plentiful... but many who have used them have discovered that there's a lot to adapt and optimize. As a company, you don't want to take on the twentieth IT project and spend weeks or months setting up software; you want to benefit from IT solutions quickly. That's exactly what we do. We onboard our customers within one day with our solutions that meet the company's exact needs.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Julian Kowatsch: We, the four founders Sebastian, Anton, Stefan, and Julian, previously worked for a Munich-based ERP system provider and had some contact with EDI during this time. The projects were sometimes laborious and took a long time. This was primarily due to the legacy structures and exchange processes we had to work with. This prompted us to tackle the topic of EDI.
Self-financed, and proud of what we have created
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Julian Kowatsch: We are self-financed, meaning we don't have any external investors. The biggest challenge was developing a comprehensive and modern software solution while simultaneously cross-financing the entire project with IT consulting. We've now reached a point where we're proud of the products we've been able to develop during this time.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Julian Kowatsch: We're currently trying to minimize cross-financing from areas other than the actual EDI projects, and we're making good progress in that regard. Our goal is to generate all of our revenue from our core business next year. We enjoy getting to know new industries and identifying optimization potential in document processing for each industry. Therefore, we haven't set ourselves the goal of exiting in the next five years. Rather, our goal is to broaden our reach and serve additional industries with our innovative solutions for automated document processing.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Julian Kowatsch: We haven't been heavily involved in the startup scene yet, so we can't really say much about Munich as a startup location. But we love Munich as a city and everything it has to offer.
Munich Startup: Public transport or bicycle?
Julian Kowatsch: Definitely a bicycle. Even in winter.
