Munich Startup: What does Ballgaze do? What problem do you solve?
Fandi Hartl: We help companies identify early on which technical decisions create risks, increase complexity, or lead to technical debt in the long term – and where the efficiency and quality levers lie. Because in technical systems, projects rarely fail due to people, but due to missteps that nobody sees.
Ballgaze analyzes complex technical systems and shows teams at a glance:
• where hidden risks emerge,
• which decisions have unexpected consequences,
• how to reduce complexity and where the greatest leverage for efficiency lies.
Our target audience is everyone who needs to make decisions under technical complexity: developers who want to spot hidden complexity, prioritize technical debt early, and make better technical decisions; research teams who want to make risks visible, narrow focus areas, and communicate transparently with quantitative KPIs; systems engineers and project teams who want to understand cross-domain dependencies, identify bottlenecks early, and execute projects more effectively; project managers who want to visualize high-risk areas, uncover compliance issues, and prioritize decisions based on facts; startups who want to make scalable decisions, enable growth, and strategically position themselves through benchmarks; and companies who want to reduce complexity, increase quality, and manage technical debt across teams and regions in a measurable, transparent, and future-proof way.
In short: We evaluate technical decision-making and bring clarity to where there was previously only intuition.
Why Ballgaze approaches complexity differently
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Fandi Hartl: When someone tells us “that already exists,” we take a step back and ask specifically: Exactly where? For which systems? And with what impact? Sure, many tools exist in the research field of ‘technical debt management’ – but hardly any of them are designed for mechatronic systems. Most solutions come from the software world, and that’s usually where their perspective ends. Ballgaze steps in here and connects three areas that have rarely been thought about together: the psychology of decision-making, systems engineering, and data-driven decision models.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Fandi Hartl: I’ve examined over 150 technical systems. And I found patterns that nobody likes to see, but everyone should understand. As a researcher at TUM, I analyzed technical systems from more than 20 companies in my master’s thesis and later in my doctoral dissertation – in automotive, automation, additive manufacturing, food engineering, and more.
The same patterns kept appearing everywhere: decisions made under certain conditions create long-term negative effects, often completely unnoticed. This can be explained psychologically, structurally, and systemically. I received two faculty awards for this work. At some point, I asked myself: Why do these insights remain in research when industry needs them so urgently? Ballgaze is my answer.
Translation into practice and team building
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Fandi Hartl: The biggest challenge was never the research. It was translating it into practice.
We didn’t want to build an academic tool that shines in PDFs but fails in reality. We wanted a tool that developers and managers actually use. Whether in everyday work, in projects, under stress, or in conflict. The second big step: building a team that fits not just professionally, but also humanly, value-based, and synchronized in terms of life stage and startup stage. That’s harder than it sounds.
Expansion into further industries
Munich Startup: How is business going?
Fandi Hartl: We’re in the most exciting phase right now: when research meets real customers.
We’re currently working with our first paying customers. We accompany projects, analyze decision-making processes, and continue developing the tool directly with the users.
For next year, our goal is clear: Ballgaze software for companies as a SaaS solution. In five years, we want to be the leading standard for technical decision analysis
and expand into further industries.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Fandi Hartl: For us, Munich is the optimal location: here we meet strong industrial partners, excellent universities, and a politically stable funding landscape. At the same time, there’s a mature yet continuing to innovate startup ecosystem – and an environment that balances work, life, and family well. For a deep-tech startup like ours, this mix is truly worth its weight in gold.
Understanding risk instead of avoiding it
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Fandi Hartl: I don’t believe in blind risk. I believe in conscious risk.
Risk only arises where information is missing. That’s why my principle is clear: information is king. The more information you have, the less risky a decision feels.
At Ballgaze, we analyze, measure, and evaluate risks systematically. Security doesn’t come from avoidance. Security comes from understanding risks. That’s exactly what we help our customers do.
