“Our vision is for a world where industrial machines are self-driving.”
These are the words of Camillo Ghelfi, co-founder and CEO of 40factory, a company founded in Piacenza in 2018 that develops digital solutions for the manufacturing world. A young team, average age 27-28 years, grown together with the company. “In summary, we have created apps that, when applied to a machine or an industrial process, collect the operating data of the machinery and produce a whole series of information that helps to work better with that machine, to be more efficient, save energy, do more effective maintenance, extending the life of the machinery, also with a view to sustainability”.
We are in the field of advanced Industry 4.0, as the name 40Factory suggests, and the main customers are the companies that build industrial plants, “because by applying our technology they make their objects connected and therefore they are then able to provide value-added services to customers, i.e. those who use the machines”.
In the added value there is also the aspect, today of primary importance, linked to environmental performance.
“There are two aspects of sustainability enabled by our solutions, the first of which is environmental. Let’s start by consciously measuring what are the elements that contribute to the generation of consumption, therefore what is the sustainability impact of an industrial line: we can measure the consumption of electricity, gas, water, depending on the type of system. But, Above all, I can correlate these measurements to the production context: what kind of product was I doing with that consumption? What is the most energy-intensive product? Which line operators have the least sustainable use of the plant?
The result is a sort of digital fingerprint of the sustainability of the machine and indications on how to be more sustainable. But while maintaining a satisfactory productivity rate.”
The advantages of UniCredit Start Lab
“The founders are me and Mattia Curatitoli. We both have a background in computer science and have gained experience in the manufacturing world, before founding 40Factory. Then in 2022 we concluded our first round, with an investment vehicle that brings together both industrial and financial entities.”
In the meantime, between one round and another, the company has grown a lot and in 2023 it was also selected by UniCredit Start Lab Lab for the Clean Tech-Industrial vertical, from which the opportunity to participate in the program with Corporate Partners was born.
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“The Corporate Partners program is very useful as a moment of exchange, but not only. – says Camillo Ghelfi. “In particular, for us, a collaboration with Fincantieri has begun, which is still going on and, I must say, is giving good results. Technologically, 40Factory manufactures two products: one is called Mat and is an industrial IoT application, the other is a virtual assistant based on generative artificial intelligence for the industry called Wilson. With Fincantieri we have started, starting from December 2023, a process for the introduction of Wilson within some departments of their company“.
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Starting to work with a company like Fincantieri, for a young company like 40factory, is not easy. We are talking about an Italian excellence, a public company, one of the most important shipbuilding complexes in the world, which employs about 19,000 people, has 20 factories on 4 continents, has commercial relations with the major cruise operators, the Navy and even the US Navy. It has a supplier base of about 3 thousand companies. A complex partner that can represent a turning point. In short, the meeting with Start Lab has borne fruit.
“Undoubtedly, the opportunity that Start Lab offers to meet Corporates and potential important customers is a great advantage. If it then takes the form of a project like with Fincantieri, it is the best. – continues Camillo Ghelfi. “However, we have also established relationships with other large companies, such as Cisco, with whom we have started a dialogue that is continuing. UniCredit’s initiative allows you to access a network with qualified players of a certain level, where being introduced by UniCredit Start Lab, overcomes all those barriers that can arise when you go to talk, as a startup, with important interlocutors. So, beyond closing contracts, I think it’s a very valuable experience.”
The company has already taken its first steps internationally, since last year, it has opened a commercial branch in Munich to promote the expansion in the German market, which today is beginning to bear fruit.
The competitor landscape is not extremely crowded, says Ghelfi, but above all the company can count on an original value proposition based on ‘actionable data’, i.e. raw data transformed into information; and on the dissemination of digital culture and sustainability, through consultancy, training and events.
“Creating a culture is very important for us to reach the market and enhance projects with our customers. Go to Market without an intermediary is very difficult for a startup, I think that the added value of Start Lab is precisely that of acting as an intermediary, an intermediary that selects supply and demand and facilitates dialogue between corporations and startups themselves, protecting them from many critical issues”.
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