The Munich startup Contunity enables other companies to use a software platform to rapidly prototype control unit development, even without in-depth electronics knowledge. Founded by brothers Alex and Tobias Pohl and André Alcalde, the startup is now based in Gate Business Startup CenterTobias Pohl answers our questions.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Developing your own electronics is very complex, time-consuming, costly and error-prone. Continuity changes that! Our software platform allows any technically savvy person to develop electronics without any specific know-how. At the same time, our platform allows previously developed and certified circuits to be reused.
Users simply describe their requirements via a graphical user interface—comparable to a graphical specification—and our algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) generate everything they need fully automatically. This allows the customer to go from a concept to a finished circuit diagram, board layout, and basic software code within just a few minutes.
The founders behind Contunity are my brother Alex Pohl, André Alcalde, and me, Tobias. My brother and I came up with the idea about four years ago because we couldn't believe how complex and repetitive the development work was. André joined the team in mid-2018 and brings with him many years of experience in the electronics industry. We now have an international team of 13 people from six countries behind us.
Contunity brings rapid prototyping into a new world
2. But that's been around for a long time!
No, our approach is fundamentally new in the area of board-level electronics development! However, it is true that our approach has been state-of-the-art in other development areas, sometimes for decades.
This was also crucial to the idea behind Contunity. One example of this is the area of software development, with which our entire team is closely connected. Software developers hardly ever write line by line in machine code anymore. This simply doesn't make sense in almost all applications and is incredibly time-consuming. But it's still the case in hardware development. Resistor by resistor, capacitor by capacitor, and wire by wire must be placed and networked individually. We're bringing the same advantages that have been common practice in software development for years to a new world.
Team, technology and network
3. What are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
The single most important ingredient for our success is our team. This cannot be emphasized enough. Technology can be copied, software can be rewritten, customers can be acquired, and money can be made. But our team is unique and crucial to who we are.
However, speaking of technology and software: A few years ago, Alex and I spoke with some people in the industry, and most of them were in complete agreement: Our idea isn't feasible. We can now show that this was wrong. It is possible, and our software demonstrates this impressively. For this reason, I would say that our technology is definitely the second most important ingredient for our success.
The third most important thing is our network. We operate in a very conservative B2B environment, where it makes a huge difference whether we engage in cold calling (Note d. Editor: cold calling by telephone from customers) to the right contact person or whether we have a direct contact path to the CTO. Our previous investor and organizations like Wissensfabrik, the LMU EC, and UnternehmerTUM are helping us enormously with this.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Our software is running, our team is growing rapidly, and the first pilot projects are underway. It's safe to say that we've made tremendous progress over the past few weeks. The first pilot projects are showing tremendous savings in development time. This allows us to achieve more than 90% time savings across all applications. In one case, we were even able to reduce development time from 160 hours to under three hours.
“Huge savings in development time”
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Munich is the place to be for high-tech startups. This is where the action is, especially in the area of complex, industrial applications. At the same time, a large part of our team studied here. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Contunity was founded here. From an initial idea in business plan seminars at UnternehmerTUM to where we are today. All of this happened in Munich.
6. Will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
Clearly a unicorn! The electronics industry is gigantic. Even though most people think of smartphones and PCs, there are hidden electronic systems everywhere. Every coffee machine, every vending machine, even most lamps have these systems built into them.
Someone has to develop all these systems! Currently, approximately 2.7 million engineers worldwide are doing this. Despite their large numbers, they are often overwhelmed and unable to implement everything. At the same time, demand is increasing dramatically, and there is a huge shortage of skilled workers. Contunity is the solution to this problem, and that creates massive potential.
7. Hiking or beer garden?
We place great value on diversity! Therefore, we strategically select the right people to ensure the broadest possible range of interests. Beer gardens and hiking are naturally part of that. The team survey showed 50% for beer gardens, 50% for hiking (and one abstention).
Jokes aside, that was pure coincidence.
