Munich Startup: What does Knowron do? What problem do you solve?
Knowron: We have made it our mission to counter the skilled worker shortage. To do this, we want to fundamentally change the way service technicians work in the manufacturing industry by increasing their productivity and taking tedious work off their hands. We achieve this through an AI-controlled personal assistant that fits in every shirt pocket. An app that bundles complex machine expertise in one place and eliminates hours of searching through NLP-supported search functionality.
At the same time, we offer detailed analytics for managers to identify knowledge gaps in the workforce and optimize processes. Our solution has, on the one hand, a knowledge management aspect so that no knowledge is taken into retirement by workers. On the other hand, young workers can be trained more quickly and also have an “experienced colleague” on hand even for complex tasks. This way, we avoid knowledge loss and also significantly simplify access to this knowledge. We have observed productivity increases of up to 25 percent among mobile workers. Because solutions to problems are quickly and easily found through the AI-supported search of the assistant, no time is lost on hours of searching.
Knowron assistant as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) on a subscription model
Munich Startup: But that’s already existed for a long time!
Knowron: Our software is a platform that is quickly scalable. We developed it in close collaboration with companies like ASMPT and Voith to always ensure a ‘problem-fit’ and to develop the best possible user experience. We offer the virtual Knowron assistant as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) on a subscription model. We can onboard new companies quickly thanks to standardized tutorials and bulk uploads. Additionally, data security for our customers – and thus also for us – is our top priority. We often work with sensitive company data that requires the highest security mechanisms in our software.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Knowron: Before we founded Knowron, Ali, Arturo, and Fabian worked partly independently from each other, but also together on various projects for renowned mechanical engineering companies such as Kuka, Siemens, and BMW. In these projects, everything revolved around developing solutions to support skilled workers in their work. Through our extensive work on these use cases and our research in the natural language processing (NLP) field, we recognized the connection between the problem and the solution. Particularly in light of recent advances in NLP with transformers and similar technologies, it became clear to us that there is great potential for our use case.
In 2020, we finally founded our company and initially received support through a funding program from the Federal Ministry of Economics. Subsequently, we decided to participate in the accelerator program of ‘Alchemist Accelerator’ in Silicon Valley. This support gave us financial freedom to implement the first ideas and build an impressive network, including valuable input from other startups.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Knowron: Well, where do we start… It’s always a back and forth – especially when you work with demanding AI models. It probably lies in the nature of things that you simply have to do ‘trial and error’. Besides, we’ve certainly made some other mistakes. For example, developing something too quickly, simply because we could and felt like it.
Trial and error lie in the nature of things
Munich Startup: Where do you want to stand in one year, where in five years?
Knowron: Now that we have confirmed our product-solution fit with customers from the semiconductor industry, we want to expand our customer base in the coming year and adapt our software to further industries. We find the renewable energy industry particularly attractive, for example. Wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric power plants need to be regularly maintained by mobile service technicians. The market is growing rapidly and the demand for technicians continues to rise. Therefore, centralized and accessible knowledge management and the associated high productivity and quick onboarding provide a significant competitive advantage.
Where do we see ourselves in five years? Our first goal is to be present with our customers and users. We are determined to make Knowron the standard solution for knowledge management in the worker sector. We want technicians to love our product so much that they convince their companies to adopt Knowron.
From a strategic perspective, we see a lot of room for innovation to support workers without a desk in all areas. The so-called AI revolution has largely overlooked them. This is particularly lamentable in Europe due to the acute skilled worker shortage. We believe that Knowron plays an important role in making work as a technician more accessible to everyone, especially qualified immigrants.
Internally, we want to keep the startup spirit alive regardless of the size of our company and attract and retain talent through the combination of growth opportunities and a positive work culture.
From Silicon Valley back to Munich
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Knowron: Although we initially had the opportunity to found via the ‘Alchemist Accelerator’ in Silicon Valley and two of our co-founders had already conducted research in the USA (Stanford and MIT), we consciously decided against this option. We are convinced that Munich has an excellent talent pool and provides us with excellent access to world market leaders in mechanical engineering.
Munich is invaluable to us as a founding location also because we have the network around CDTM, TU München, and UnternehmerTUM here. The unique, supportive ecosystem here enables lively exchange among ourselves. We can learn from other founders who have already successfully completed certain phases.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Knowron: Since we want to turn the knowledge management market for companies that employ service technicians on its head and address pressing issues such as the skilled worker shortage and improving the onboarding of foreign workers through multilingualism, we are definitely a shooting star.
