NewSpace
April 24, 2024
To help tech players better exploit the formidable capabilities of AI while reducing their carbon footprint, Heex Technologies has developed a Smart Data platform, extracting only relevant data. The startup raised €6M from a pool of Deeptech investors, including Dutch fund SHIFT Invest and French fund Karista. This second round of funding follows a first round of €3.2M already led by Karista in 2022 through its Spacetech fund Cosmicapital, bringing the company's total funding to nearly €10M.
Heex was founded in Paris in the spring of 2019 after the founders returned from Silicon Valley, where the boom of new technologies based on AI has begun to show the limitations of Big Data. The startup has proved its value proposition by automating and optimizing the processing of only relevant data, thus accelerating technological development, and in parallel reducing their environmental impact. Heex Technologies initially focuses on autonomous vehicles, as the automotive industry is moving towards the Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) model, inspired by Tesla. Now, with new investments in, Heex will expand to adjacent industries like Smart Cities and Industry 4.0, as more and more companies are expecting to integrate AI and autonomy to increase their productivity.
Bottlenecks to exploit Big Data reliably, safely and sustainably
An astonishing 90% of data stored worldwide today was created in the last two years only. In the ever-increasing digitalization of industries, engineering teams collect a vast amount of unstructured data which is raising challenges in processing, exploiting but also in regulation. Autonomous vehicles are a good example, but these challenges hold for other automation use cases or big data applications like artificial intelligence and computer vision as well. The amount of data those autonomous vehicles process is enormous, with easily 5,000 gigabytes produced per vehicle per hour. The data is collected and often duplicated, for purposes of continuous software improvement, supervision of operations and sharing insights with stakeholders and governing bodies. However, in the ocean of data recorded, just a tiny portion is regarded as relevant. Cruise, the Silicon Valley startup co-financed by General Motors stated that only 1% of the data collected was useful for improving its autonomous driving system.
Heex help customers get to the 1% relevant data
“To continue to exploit the formidable potential of AI and automation, the goal is now to only extract the necessary data rather than accumulate it endlessly; development teams do not need more data, they need better datasets.” says Bruno Mendes Da Silva, Co-founder and CEO of Heex Technologies.
Heex provides customers with a platform that allows them to target the relevant data and share that with the right users, for purposes like supervision, system monitoring or continuous software improvement. Customers need to configure specific events that determine the conditions for extracting the associated data.
“In the example of autonomous vehicles, command centers might want to receive real-time notifications in case of a safety event like a near collision with a pedestrian. The platform allows them to just receive that snippet of data instead of constantly streaming all the incoming data. Simultaneously, the autonomous software provider receives other meaningful events data, like system performance issues.”, pursue Bruno Mendes Da Silva.
The main distinguishing factor that makes Heex different from the competition is that they are able to perform this data filtering “at the edge”, in real-time. Consequently, lower data packages are sent to the cloud, leading to lower connectivity costs, lower storage costs and higher speed of application. Heex technology is hard and software agnostic and adapts to the heterogeneity of sensors and software versions, making it easy to deploy for an entire fleet of systems like vehicles, drones, trains, boats and others.
Reduce carbon footprint of data processing resources
Digital technologies are responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and this is growing due to the increase in cloud and AI technologies. Cloud and data processing fall under scope 3, where listed European companies are obliged to report on under the CSRD as of 2025.
Heex can help customers determine what part of their data can be eliminated or be saved in less intensive (‘cold’) data storage, leading to ~60% less energy needed compared to storage in the cloud with continuous access. Existing customer cases prove that Heex can eliminate up to 95-99% of the data being processed, resulting in a lower energy consumption of data network transmission and datacenter workload.
Heex got certified by the Solar Impulse Foundation, which lists sustainable, efficient, and profitable technological solutions and with the entrance of SHIFT Invest, an environmental impact investor, Heex wants to professionalize further in this space and embed environmental features in their product offering.
A new €6M round to expand the technical team, structure the sales team, and expand the product offering
Heex technologies has raised a new €6M round of funding, led by the venture capital firms SHIFT Invest and Karista and backed by a loan from BPI France. Among other investors is Techstars, which is reinvesting after the startup went through its Tel Aviv accelerator in 2021.
Yvan-Michel Ehkirch, Managing Partner at Karista says: “Several market segments, such as transport, aerospace and energy, are already in the process of making better use of realtime data collected from space to earth, in a more sober and efficient way, to generate new revenue streams and provide new services. Heex and its Founders are already embracing the topic globally in France, Europe and the United States by launching an unprecedented technological solution”.
Heex Technologies already works with major automotive equipment manufacturers in Germany and Asia, as well as with the RATP and Nokia in France. In the United States, the company is working with the US transportation authorities on a five-year experimental project in California, aimed at retrieving relevant data from companies testing autonomous vehicles in order to improve the legislative framework and safety protocols.
"Heex caught our interest because of the huge impact potential on the footprint of data centers, while simultaneously they boost autonomous operations that we see as essential for a lowcarbon mobility system. " says Thijs Gitmans, Managing Partner at SHIFT Invest.
About Heex Technologies
Heex Technologies allows mobility players to acquire only the relevant data, thanks to a unique technological platform, capable of identifying and extracting these data in all circumstances. The company was co-founded by Bruno Mendes Da Silva, an entrepreneur who studied at ESSEC, and Arnaud de La Fortelle, a graduate of the École Polytechnique with a doctorate and former director of the robotics center at the ParisTech School of Mines for 15 years. Heex Technologies was the winner of the European Startup Prize in 2022, under the high patronage of the European Commission, and I-Nov 2022, a R&D competition organized by BPI France.
Cédric Landu - 07 86 57 51 56 - cedric.lan@rumeurpublique.fr
About SHIFT Invest
SHIFT Invest, founded in 2009, is a Dutch venture capital fund that invests in innovations in sustainable mobility and logistics, energy transition, food & agriculture and green industries. Through its investments, SHIFT aims to fight climate change, biodiversity loss and the depletion of natural resources, in addition to a financial return. Together with the partners in the fund, like KLM Airlines, NS Dutch Railways and Schiphol Airport, SHIFT offers entrepreneurs a broad network and knowledge of various sectors. SHIFT consists of a diverse and experienced team of investment professionals and entrepreneurs with a clear mission: turning investments into impact.
About Karista
Karista is an independent innovation capital management company specializing in the areas of Health, Technology and Digital. Since its inception in 2001, Karista has supported more than 100 start-ups in Europe and has generated sustained performance for its investors. As a strategic partner for entrepreneurs, Karista’s team is recognized for its complementarity and network. Karista is a signatory to the Sista Charter on Gender Equality.
Anna Casal - 06 50 61 55 71 - anna.casal@karista.vc
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