Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Ocell: We are Christian Decher, 29, who studied aerospace engineering; David Dohmen, 31, who studied electrical engineering and information technology; and Felix Horvat, 31, who studied mechatronics and robotics. Felix and David were colleagues for several years at another Munich startup (BragiChristian and David know each other from their mutual circle of friends. We came together because we all wanted to build something together that is meaningful, creates efficiency, and allows us to put our learned skills to work in the best possible way.
“Pen & Paper, fax and telephone are the standard tools in forestry”
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Ocell: The forestry industry faces many challenges. Forests are suffering from climate change, management costs are high, and there's a shortage of young professionals. The industry's existing tools are outdated, inefficient, and non-digitalized.
In the day-to-day business of forestry, a lot of energy, time, and money is lost because important information is either not available at all or only in poor/outdated form. Furthermore, information flows inefficiently between forest managers, foresters, forest workers, external service providers, and timber buyers. Pen and paper, fax, and telephone are the standard tools, and these are completely unsuitable for conveying location-specific information, such as stand parameters, forest damage, or planned measures. The Ocell approach to digitizing the forest is based on three pillars:
- The collection and utilization of high-quality data such as our own aerial photographs as well as diverse data sources from the ground/forest.
- AI analyses and statistical evaluations to extract the most important information from a forest. Our computer vision systems identify and classify each individual tree. Tree heights are precisely measured, and wood volumes and bound CO2 are calculated.
- The Dynamic Forest app, which makes all information accessible and usable for all stakeholders in the forest, making day-to-day business more efficient and targeted. This app can be thought of as a hybrid of Google Maps for the forest and Asana project management for the forest. Naturally, everything is synchronized via the cloud and runs with a strong focus on UX on both Android and iOS, as well as on the desktop computer in the forest manager's office. Our vision for Dynamic Forest is to become the standard operating system for digital and sustainable forestry. We are currently establishing interfaces that are important to our customers. ERP systems, forestry offices and regional tax directorates, forestry engineers, external contractors, and, in the future, CO2 certifiers – everything will be integrated to optimize communication.
Ocell wants a “holistic, comprehensive solution” instead of isolated solutions
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Ocell: There are isolated software solutions out there, each solving a small sub-problem. Often, these programs are outdated, developed by individuals, and not flexible enough to address the diverse needs of customers. What they're looking for is a holistic, comprehensive solution, and that's exactly what we're building.
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
Ocell: The all-time classic is, of course, German bureaucracy in all its excessive over-regulation, complexity and slowness as a constant source of joy.
But of course, there are other challenges as well. Finding product-market fit was the biggest challenge in our initial phase. We're happy to have found a very exciting market where we're now finding a ready-made solution and have a significant lead in terms of customers and technology. Since markets are constantly evolving, we will, of course, always pay attention to further developing and maintaining this product-market fit.
Ultimately, company building is a very important and challenging topic. Building the right company culture, creating an effective working atmosphere, and finding the right employees and collaborators have a major impact on the long-term success of our company. Therefore, these aspects are of great importance to us.
“We are passionate about what we do”
Munich Startup: How are things going?
Ocell: Many of Germany's largest private forest owners already work with us, but we want Dynamic Forest to be the standard software for as many companies as possible. A great way to gain traction for our SaaS solution is digital forest management, where we undercut existing offerings in terms of price and outperform them in terms of quality. Since our offering has been so well received, we are working hard to process all customer requests. We are hiring more team members who are successfully automating more and more work steps, thus increasing our throughput.
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location?
Ocell: We've never founded a company in another city and therefore have no basis for comparison, but our impression of Munich as a startup location is naturally extremely positive. The fact that there are already many other startups in Munich motivates many young people to want to start their own. The support from networks like TUM + UnternehmerTUM, locations like Werk1, advice from Baystartup, and, of course, several top-class universities have been and continue to be influential and valuable factors for us.
Of course, the city itself is also highly attractive and we simply enjoy living and working here!
Munich Startup: Quick exit or long breath?
Ocell: We want to build something large and sustainable and transform an entire industry internationally. This requires not only sprinting skills, but also endurance. We're passionate about what we do and feel no need to rush out of the baby. Nevertheless, we strive for rapid and aggressive growth to achieve the greatest possible impact in a short period of time. If that involves an IPO, we certainly won't complain!
