 Hi Really excited to be here and speak about scan it and our journey from the lab to the market that we've experienced over the last 14 years So 14 years ago on this day. We actually found it the business So it's quite a memorable moment for me to reflect about some of the early years and What we've learned from moving again out of the lab and figuring out how to go to market how to sell our product So besides speaking about this journey a little bit. I'm also going to be speaking about how during these early years We've been able to leverage the academic environment how we've been able to leverage that Ecosystem that at the time 14 years ago. It certainly wasn't as developed as what I'm staring at now And certainly not where we founded the business in Switzerland I will also speak a little bit about Some of the finer aspects technology transfer as an example that clearly for any More deep tech focused company are important And then I will also have some thoughts and reflections on how to making sure there is good alignment Not just at the beginning, but then over time between the founders that ultimately Are driving the business forward so With that I'd like to start with a quick video to help you guys Understand what it is. We're actually doing at scandin. It's all played us right now So as you guys saw in the video what we do at scandin is all about empowering Frontline workers consumers and the businesses behind these organizations With what we call smart data capture solutions, which is a fancy term for machine learning and computer vision based Algorithms or models to help recognize the identity of an object a barcode a price label and thereby Enabling interaction with physical goods in retail or logistic settings As I mentioned at the outset we we found it scandit just 14 years ago in 2009 actually As a spin-off company of it yet Zurich and before that My two co-founders had already been working crest of a Christian the guy on the Black shirts question our C2 MVP product The guy with the fancy white blue shirt is crest of who heads up our engineering organization So those two guys have already been working on Research projects in the domain of ubiquitous computing and internet of things and From there the foundation was established that then later on became What scandit is today all three founders remain in the business active parts of the leadership team today Now again if we fast forward to today, we're fortunate enough to be able to serve Many of the leading retail and logistics companies worldwide. We have more than 2,000 customers worldwide with a team of more than 400 talented individuals across Seven office locations globally now It wasn't always like this right and so the next 10 minutes or so I'd like to briefly give you guys a sense for how we managed to go from vision to reality So I mentioned our beginnings at ETH Zurich and specifically the Place where it all began was the ubiquitous computing lab at ETH Zurich were both Chris of and Christian my two co-founders Got their PhDs from In those times there was a research project That was focused on a big idea the idea was to leverage a mobile phone the things were called mobile phones at the time not smartphones to enable interactions with physical objects and There were different ways On how this could be accomplished that From from from the perspective of those days on the one hand and you see that behind me There was one idea that would have people put RFID chips on physical objects for example consumer products in retail stores on toys in a kids In a kids room and then you would touch the toy or the product with the phone and Start to interact with it for example the toy would start to talk to you another idea Was to use visual markers you can see that on the other side on the slide and Then use the camera of the phone to recognize the marker and thereby start that dialogue Now reading a visual marker as I indicated before was actually something brand new Nokia had only just launched a camera phone just some years earlier and the iPhone had not happened yet So that was sort of the time and context when we started a big question that quickly emerged though was Why instead of these visual markers? We wouldn't just use the barcodes that were naturally already applied on products and that triggered a first Additional research project and initiative that would look into building Dedicated algorithms that would help the Phone become a phone that can read barcodes Regular one-dimensional barcodes that you find on any consumer product around the world So after a while the first algorithms have been developed that could accomplish just that namely Read a barcode on a one megapixel camera without another focus and do that somewhat reliably and with that the team went to work to Look into different applications for example applications to do price comparison in store by holding the phone against a product and see Where that same product can be bought for a cheaper price or to access sustainability related information Or information about Elegance that you might find in product. So that was the time when we started Now the technology itself as you realize quickly when we started to test us in the field didn't work that well in those days For example We could only recognize a Couple of thousand codes with the algorithms that we had in the early days or the algorithm would produce Fault results which naturally isn't quite quite valuable Nonetheless as we continue to build out the capability of the product the technology We were starting to wonder how to bring the technology to market, right? And as you can see on the slide behind me, we were looking at different potential business models and routes to market one route being Licensing the technology to smartphone vendors Directly another route being licensed in the technology to application developers So they could incorporate scanning into all the different apps that they were thinking about and another idea was to Launch our own apps that would then be differentiated with better technology from others So that's what we started with in the end after a lot of reflection. We thought with Really good differentiated scanning great product information and Cool way of tying in social into this Product we could launch a mobile price comparison at the mobile shopping companion application ourselves and so we did and in fall 2010 Tech crunch disrupt in San Francisco. We launched our very own scented mobile shopping application focused on electronic products with really good scanning great integration into Facebook and Twitter X today and We had this big launch and then we did see some reasonable adoption People downloaded the app started to use it etc. What we didn't see was the exponential hockey stick development However, what did happen was that a lot of developers started to reach out to us and inquire about Whether or not they could be using our technology in their app So the other option that we have been contemplated and so quite quickly We went back to this idea Started to build out the licensing platform that would allow developers to trial Learn more about and then finally purchase our software development Kits and and and barcode scanning libraries and from there we went on to launch a proper online licensing offers at the next upcoming disrupt conference in spring 2011 now with that initial success and some first licensing business that started to come to us of Course we started to wonder now. Okay. How do we take this forward? Where do we focus because as you may have realized? There are a lot of use cases a lot of potential applications where barcode scanning could be useful and As any startup at the time we were just a few people it's hard Right, you can't focus on anything everything at once So we needed to find the areas in the market that we could focus on So what we did was we started to look at the main market segments the key use cases within those segments and Started to ask ourselves three key questions first How many end customers and how many end users within those end customers? exist second and What's the value of this use case in regards to scanning? We quickly realized that scanning frequency is quite essential to be able to judge that and then third of course We needed to look at the capabilities to scan performance robustness of our Algorithms at the time and find the perfect match So find the use case that are large and valuable enough that we can solve for that have a real customer need That we can address so that's what we did and that's how we ended up Starting a more practical marketing approach to consumer-facing shopping applications That at the time we were able to serve with a differentiated product From there we then went on to selling the same capabilities to retailers who were in response to the many independent mobile applications Starting to build their own mobile shopping apps So we started to successfully sell into the retail ecosystem and from there We started to tackle harder and harder and more valuable use cases for scanning and associated Data capture capabilities within those established customer accounts So that in a nutshell was our path to market that we have been following ever since so over the next ten years really we've been doing more of that and stuck to those systematic ways of segmenting the market looking for value and Building out our product offering to match the needs of the pertinent use cases within the industries that we've been serving So on the product side that meant we moved from being a single product focus barcode scanning company to a much more broadly To to a much more broadly focused Multi-product portfolio company that has barcode scanning ID capture Fasings detection smart label capture and so on that retailers could use or logistics companies required to improve their processes We also moved from a single device focus focus on smartphones only to a Set of a broader set of camera equipped smart devices some of which you've seen in the video Next on the go-to-market side as I mentioned as we moved from the independent Early movers in the mobile app economy the independent consumer app developers to the retailers We started to dip our toes into the enterprise software licensing market and we quickly realized that Not only are the business problems the workflows more complex But there is also more value more value to be captured and created on that front So we focused on moving upwards into the enterprise market segment And at the same time we also started to turn around I'll go to market approach from a very inbound content marketing focus to a very outbound Accompays marketing focus approach and then last to support this Transition and journey of course we needed to build the organization To be able to grow and support the product development alongside so That in a nutshell is our journey from going to the lab to the market Now in the next few minutes what I'd like to touch on are four areas That have been useful to us in those early years specifically and that really have helped us either Be smarter about how we go to market be more resourceful from a cost and funding perspective and Also bet in the right amount of optionality to make sure that How we're spinning out of this context and how the technology? That we've built in the academic environment still is Accessible and ultimately Beneficial not just to us, but to all parties involved So first I'd like to briefly talk about how we've been able to leverage the academic environment during those early years as mentioned In the early years coming out of this academic context and environment both of my co-founders Christian and Christoph still Had some ongoing research project work that they were delivering against and Initially not so consciously but then very consciously we just decided to keep to keep these research projects going on the one hand to make sure we can continue to tap into the economic environment we can access resources such as space Equipment we can access talent on engineering talent specifically by offering master thesis Semester thesis or even PhD work To professors and in return Continue to benefit from that ecosystem Second we continued by keeping these close relationships with our professors were able to tap into joint R&D projects that not only helped us Advanced the harder issue the harder technological problems that we were looking to solve on the computer vision side But at the same time it also came with some part-time funding that we were able to tap into and then last Coming from this academic context also gave us exclusive access to some programs and networks That was only accessible at the time to spin outs of academics institutions such as dedicated market entry camps for North America for example that we were able to leverage or The ability to access specific coaching or be able to compete in entrepreneurship Competitions that came with pretty hefty price money Which fortunately we were able to win and thereby access non-dilutive financing Which otherwise would have meant we would have had to raise seed funding that would have deluded the shareholder base, so That's the that's how we managed to leverage that economic environment in a mutual mutually beneficial manner Second I already indicated the importance that the Academic context had for us from a talent identification and access perspective so from the early years on we were able to identify key engineering talent early on by offering compelling masters or research project work to them and Ultimately testing the best talent and hold on to some of them And so not surprisingly our first full-time hire was an eth engineer whom we brought on to our team as the first full-time staff member Doing this also allowed us to state up-to-date on relevant research and keep that steady influx of key talent that would bring with them relevant research know-how So over the years we've hired tens of engineers from ETH Zurich and related academic institutions and in a environment where of course talent is scarce and I'm competed about This has been a great value add for us next IP transfer so again as for any Deep-tech focused technology startup or scale up it is Incredibly important to be able to protect your IP and not not only build out your IP but also Have a strategy on how to look after it In our case the challenge was that some of the IP that we had created we had created in a university context so we needed to find the right way to Negotiate how to Be able to leverage that IP for commercial purposes and the way we accomplished that was to negotiate Agreements for distinct Go-to-market scenarios So I spoke recently previously about the scenario of licensing to smartphone vendors or of licensing to developers So we ended up negotiating different types of licensing models for all these scenarios Which later on became handy as we finally figured out how to really go to market So again remember at the time when we spun out we didn't really have this figured out So retaining that optionality from a licensing perspective was essential to us and then further on down the path as we went through Several funding rounds and and started to look at also Acquisitions it became important that we were able to have full control over the IP and have some optionality To be able to accomplish that so very important point that at the time when you're Spinning out of an academic context clearly may not be that obvious and it may not be that obvious why that optionality might come handy But it certainly Makes it much easier if further down the road those scenarios arise so last point and That's of course not specific to the academic context And that's about founder alignment So clearly as with any founder team it is essential to maintain and align vision In Over time and not just at the beginning at the beginning everyone's excited Everyone starts out with that shared vision Otherwise you would not have decided to fund a company found a company But clearly as time elapses It's important to come back to that vision to debate it to realign on it and make sure That everyone stays aligned Second key point is of course on making sure there is some complementary Nature of how the founder team is Is is is is is coming together now clearly when you look at the image behind me These three guys don't look like a hyper diverse crowd Right, so nothing sadly we can do about this. It's just it was just what what the facts were however I'm not so surprisingly The three individuals that you're looking at actually have very distinct passions skills and Wants and by recognizing that we were able to make sure that the way we went about Defining our respective roles and how we then more importantly went about Defining the scope of everyone's roles made sense as the needs of the business Changed over time another key point that I believe is not to be underestimated in this context is Actually aligning the timeline of when a team Spins out fully or really get started right I oftentimes see Startups fail on this very point right because the three people come together or four people come together. They're all super excited about Starting up and building a company only to realize that after a year one or two guys They don't ever fully pull the plug They don't ever fully lean in and get going right because they maintain a part-time relationship somewhere in our case As I mentioned we made a very conscious decision to maintain for a while part-time research engagements at our at our alma mater However, it it was also equally important that at the right time we decided When that would have to stop and when we needed to free ourselves from those original dependency because the balance between the value we were getting and What we were giving up or the opportunity cost didn't feel right any longer so Also something to think about and then very importantly I believe it is very important to maintain a very good ongoing relationship in a founding team, right? If you operate like us in a founding relationship over 14 years, right? That's like being married, right? It really is a way to get to learn get to know someone right And there are many things you will not have imagined so investing in those relationships Spending time with each other outside of Defined agendas even if it's just going for coffee on a very regular basis I think pays back many times and helps address especially the finer the cultural issues And that's something I would heavily recommend So with that in mind so is it a good idea to start a university spin-out and can these be successful? Well judging from a single statistical run so far so good from a scanty perspective I cannot say it hasn't worked for us. However, of course Many others have started at the same time as we did and it did we're not as fortunate to get to this level so I Certainly want to recognize this so there is a key role of timing of luck along the way despite everyone trying their best Again as a quick summary what work for us is leveraging the resources in the academic environment Making sure we're identifying key engineering talent early on being very mindful of how we Managed our IP transfer and then looking after our founder relationships early on. Thank you