The Munich-based startup Cesonia aims to conquer the market with a collaboration solution for product development. We interviewed the young company as part of our '7 Questions' series.
Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do?
Cesonia: We are Cesonia and offer a collaboration solution that enables efficient and secure requirements management in cross-company development projects. We bridge the gap between different requirements management systems, creating a single point of truth and seamless workflows across company boundaries. We offer a secure and efficient collaboration option, especially for industries such as automotive, aerospace, or mechanical and plant engineering, with high information security requirements on the one hand and a widespread supplier network on the other.
This ensures the seamless and end-to-end encrypted exchange of sensitive data between companies, regardless of the requirements management system involved. The benefits lie in a uniform data view across end-to-end processes and full data sovereignty for all parties.
Cesonia was founded in early 2018 by Johannes Lohrer (33) and Daniel Kaltenthaler (35), and myself, Korbinian Sontheim (32). Johannes and Daniel earned their doctorates at the Chair of Database Systems and Data Mining at LMU Munich, while I worked in business development and project management in the automotive industry after completing my mechanical engineering studies. We met through my wife, who is pursuing her doctorate at the same chair as Johannes and Daniel.
Seamless flow of information
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Cesonia: That's partly true. Collaboration platforms have existed in various areas for some time, but hardly any in the area of product development. Regardless of existing platforms, the coordination and coordination of requirements with partners is characterized by outdated methods and many manual steps, which usually leads to inefficiency and security issues.
With Cesonia, we offer a way to connect decentralized organizations and their diverse requirements management systems, allowing information to flow seamlessly between the various stakeholders. Data sovereignty and control remain with the data owner, and our web interface creates much-needed transparency for all stakeholders. This also enables collaborative editing, commenting, and versioning of requirements, thus shortening feedback loops from several weeks to just a few days.
Munich Startup: What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Cesonia: We developed Cesonia as an application-open technology platform that can be used in a variety of industries and for a variety of use cases. This offers significant growth potential, but requires a clear target market with a clearly defined product at the outset.
This focus, together with the way in which a technically complex product is communicated so that it can be quickly understood by everyone, is a special challenge that we face every day and are constantly learning from.
Munich Startup: Let’s get to the point: How is business going?
Cesonia: We finalized the core components of our platform in the middle of this year and have already successfully tested them in several paid pilot projects. In the coming year, the focus will be on further PoC (Note d. Editor: Proofs of Concept) to further develop our product with direct customers.
While there were only three of us at the beginning of the year, we have since expanded our team to 12 employees.
Dream location Munich
Munich Startup: What does Munich mean to you?
Cesonia: The three of us founders all come from the Munich area, so Munich has always been our home. We really enjoy having a global metropolis right on our doorstep, yet still being able to find the peace and quiet we need.
In addition, the framework conditions for us as B2B startup Perfect. With a focus on the automotive industry, Munich offers us the opportunity to be close to our customers and develop our product. Therefore, Munich is a dream location for us, both from a company perspective and personally.
Munich Startup: How can your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
Cesonia: Well, global collaboration networks are playing a more important role and must also support ever shorter product development cycles. Furthermore, many industries now have very high information security requirements. The tools currently used to organize this collaboration between partners often date back to the 20th century and are therefore clearly no longer up-to-date.
Little chance of a place at the Epic Fail Night
We see Cesonia as a modern tool that helps companies realize their full potential in a connected and data-driven world. With an API-first strategy and Cesonia as a standard solution for integrating and exchanging data across company boundaries, we view Cesonia as an ecosystem that enables customers and developers to implement their own applications and services based on our decentralized data infrastructure. We're truly capturing the potential of an increasingly changing and data-driven business world and therefore see enormous potential and, therefore, little chance of a spot at Epic Fail Night.
Munich Startup: Helles or Prosecco?
Cesonia: Well, that definitely depends on the occasion. For a cozy evening with friends, a cold beer is definitely the order of the day. But for a relaxing summer day in Italy, a glass of Prosecco—or even three—is better.
