Its name is Covision Media, it is based in Brixen/Bressanone and makes three-dimensional scanners that are proving very popular with manufacturers, e-commerce platforms, retailers and game producers.
“What we are doing,’ Franz Tschimben, CEO and co-founder together with Burkhard Güssefeld and Harald Oberrauch of the start-up, explains to Startupbusiness, ‘is employing artificial intelligence-based algorithms that we developed during our research and development period in collaboration with the Vision computing and learning lab at the University of Bozen/Bolzano to make three-dimensional scans of all kinds of products that are suitable for applications such as e-commerce and gaming.
The digital twins that are produced by Covision Media’s scanners are unique because the start-up has developed an innovative light reflection system that guarantees very high quality and fidelity compared to the original three-dimensional object, so much so that the scanners that the company has sold have been purchased by large multinational groups such as the Inditex Group, which manages among others, the brands ZARA, Berhska, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius and then Adidas and Nureg, Meta Reality Labs, Gore-Tex, DMT Cycling (Diamant srl) which makes the shoes of Tadej Pogacar, the cyclist who won the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, Quad Graphics Inc, one of the largest full service marketing companies in the United States, La Sportiva.
“We have two different scanner models to make digital twins,” the CEO continues, “the first one has a starting cost of 280 thousand euros or can be rented for 15 thousand euros per month for a minimum period of 12 months, the second one, which is larger, costs 350 thousand euros or 18 thousand euros per month, to these costs our customers then have to add the cost per scan which varies from 85 to 150 euros which is the service part, each scan takes about 12 minutes to complete. 3D scans are of the highest quality and therefore allow all types of images to be created from 3D scans, such as classic 2D photos, videos, contextual photos and videos, but also 3D virtual proofing and augmented reality applications. 3D scans and their derivatives find application in a variety of customer organisation needs, from e-commerce, marketing, B2B sales and manufacturing, bringing significant efficiencies and cost savings. Each scanner is set up to produce thousands of 3D scans per year in an industrial manner with objective and measured 3D quality’.
The start-up, which officially came into being at the beginning of February 2024 and which also already has an office in New York, has therefore created a technology, product and business model that allows it to already be able to post multi-million euro turnovers, has raised EUR 1.5 million in the form of a convertible note from various business angels mainly from the South Tyrol area, northern Italy and Austria, and aims to open a EUR 4 million round in the autumn.
“To date we have sold about ten scanners and we have a staff of 10 people working in the company at the moment, today about 40 per cent of our turnover comes from the sale or rental of scanners and the rest from service activities, but in the future the recurrent turnover from services will also grow because we want to create a network of partners capable of providing the 3D scanning service to third parties so as to make our technology accessible to an increasing number of companies and customers and we also want to complete the process of patent protection for our technologies. (photo: Covision Media website)
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