Munich Startup: What does Point Twelve do? What problem do you solve?
Flore de Durfort: Point Twelve is an IoT and SaaS platform that enables manufacturers of energy-intensive goods to easily and continuously certify their production as “green”. For manufacturers of sustainable fuels, gases, chemicals, fertilizers, and materials such as steel and cement, Point Twelve promises a time saving of 90 percent across the entire certification processes for low-carbon products. We initially focus on manufacturers of a product that is at the center of industrial decarbonization: hydrogen.
Our solution makes it easy for these producers to demonstrate the renewable origin of their energy, dynamically quantify carbon emissions based on operational data, obtain government-recognized certificates, and achieve the highest environmental premium from them.
All of this happens cost-effectively and predictably. And not as before with manual, costly, opaque, unpredictable, and non-scalable certification and verification processes.
Point Twelve combines knowledge of energy markets with tech know-how and product design
Munich Startup: But that already exists, doesn’t it!
Flore de Durfort: Indeed! It’s about embedding sustainability into the technology stack of a company’s production facility. That’s a real challenge. Our “unfair advantage” probably lies in our team – a diverse and competent team at the intersection of “Reg” and “Tech”. We offer a good mix and combine knowledge of energy markets and regulation, technology development, and user-oriented product design. This sets us apart from pure “Tech” or “Tech-first” teams, which we believe cannot succeed without industry expertise. It’s not (just) about building complex technology. Rather, it’s about solving an industry-wide problem where boundaries and solutions lie in regulation.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Flore de Durfort: Point Twelve is a 3P story: People, Purpose and Passion! It’s the story of three French people based in Munich who are passionate about the energy transition and highly motivated to “decarbonize” industry faster. It’s a story of being “in love” in the professional sense, as we founders got to know each other through joint data and technology projects at E.ON. And ultimately, it’s also the story of three people who met at the edge of the war in Ukraine and took on the challenge of putting all their energy and abilities in the service of a meaningful cause: industrial decarbonization, energy security, industrial leadership in sustainability.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Flore de Durfort: Starting completely from scratch! Because we wanted to have the most comprehensive understanding possible of the challenges we wanted to solve. We did this by the book and conducted 80 customer and expert interviews before we wrote a single line of code. We are big fans of the “Lean Startup” methodology.
Green certification should be dynamic, continuous, and transparently embedded
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, and where in five years?
Flore de Durfort: Our goal is to show that green certification can be designed dynamically, continuously, and transparently and can be embedded in the company’s production operations.
We initially focus on an important part of industrial decarbonization: hydrogen. In one year, we want to have deployed our SaaS solution at so many hydrogen production facilities that we can demonstrate how we transform complex supply chain data into understandable, verifiable sustainability reports backed by government-recognized certificates. And all in a way that is as rational and automated as possible for manufacturers. Within the next year, we want to prove that by solving this challenge for hydrogen, we simultaneously solve a cross-cutting problem.
In five years, we want Point Twelve to be the reference technology for tracing and verifying the decarbonization of industrial products. Like TÜV, only better, faster, technology-enabled, and agile!
Munich: caring and challenging
Munich Startup: How have you experienced the Munich startup location so far?
Flore de Durfort: A healthy mix of “caring” and “challenging”. Although we are not from Munich, we found an extremely well-suited ecosystem here for our growth. We were at the Technical University of Munich in the Xpreneurs Accelerator. Here we not only found great talent and a lot of expertise on the energy transition, but also numerous industry partners and startup allies.
And because a startup is first and foremost the people who drive it forward: Munich proves to be a very good place to raise children! Point Twelve was founded by three young parents and nature lovers who strive to balance family and work. If we were in Paris, would we be able to drive to the Alps almost every weekend to recharge? Certainly not!
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Flore de Durfort: Shooting star!
Update from January 2024: The startup was renamed to “Atmen”.
