Munich Startup: Who are you and what does Pipeforce do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Pipeforce: With Pipeforce, we've developed a cloud-native workflow and integration platform specifically optimized for SMEs. The platform allows business processes to be digitized, automated, and encrypted across systems, if necessary, without any programming knowledge. Pipeforce was founded by Stephan Niedermeier and Simon Ochs in Munich in 2019.
Stephan holds a degree in computer science and is a serial entrepreneur. He brings over 15 years of experience in developing enterprise software in the cloud. His most recent VC-backed startup (Editor's note: FTAPI Software) He successfully sold it to a TecDAX company in 2014.
Simon originally comes from a management consulting background and spent many years at Accenture. His focus was particularly on the optimization and digitalization of business processes in medium-sized and large companies in Europe.
Although we have different backgrounds, we are driven by the same question: Why do digital business processes in medium-sized companies always have to be implemented through complex, lengthy and expensive projects that constantly reinvent the wheel?
All-round digital workflows instead of isolated solutions
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Pipeforce: Medium-sized companies currently have a huge need to digitize and highly automate their business processes. This is due to increasing international competition, new customer expectations, and increasingly decentralized workforces. By digitizing workflows, costs can be reduced, process runtimes shortened, and overall competitive advantages can be expanded.
Since SMEs generally don't have their own development departments, digitalization projects must often be outsourced to expensive external service providers. The result is a slow and expensive implementation of business processes using customized software and integrations. This makes the company's local IT infrastructure more complex with each new process. On the other hand, some SMEs are increasingly turning to vertical SaaS solutions, which, however, only cover part of the process chain and can only be customized to their own individual needs to a certain extent. Both approaches often lead to isolated solutions. Compliance, security, data protection, and process lifecycle management pose additional hurdles for companies.
This is precisely where Pipeforce comes in: We combine the security and flexibility of customized project solutions with the simplicity and cost advantages of SaaS solutions. The result is a serverless workflow platform for the automation and end-to-end encryption of customized business processes.
Individual, simple and encrypted in the cloud
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Pipeforce: At first glance, yes. Of course, there are already solutions for planning and implementing business processes. However, most of these solutions can only be implemented in conjunction with expensive integration or onboarding projects, or, as SaaS solutions, they only cover a very limited area of a business process. In both cases, companies will sooner or later reach their limits. Be it due to technical or compliance limitations, for example, or due to a lack of a 'meta layer' to consistently link all processes.
With Pipeforce, we're pursuing a completely new approach in which we democratize business processes to a certain extent. This means that medium-sized companies and their long-standing partners are enabled to implement business processes themselves using low-code, without any programming. Process templates are available for this purpose, which can be adapted to individual needs with minimal effort. The resulting business app is then installed on our backend-as-a-service platform with just one call and thus put into operation. Our system takes care of providing the necessary services fully automatically, allowing our customers to concentrate on implementing their processes.
Our customers and partners can therefore rely on one of the world's most modern and flexible platforms for automating business processes without having to learn programming.
Focus instead of 'nice-to-have'
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
Pipeforce:
- Find the first corporate customers who will use the platform productively and, of course, pay for it right from the start.
- Continue to focus on the target group until we arrive at a very specific customer problem.
- We will continue to consistently develop our platform to solve this customer problem and put the many 'nice-to-have' features on the back burner for now.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Pipeforce: We're noticing everywhere that our thesis is working, and that the topic of intelligent process automation is gaining momentum. We're constantly working on making our platform even better. Strategically, we have a lot planned for this year and are currently in various discussions with partners and investors. We're not revealing what those plans are yet. We'll let you know when it's ready.
Within the next five years, we aim to become the world's leading cloud-native backend-as-a-service provider for the automation and integration of business processes, especially for midmarket companies. Our mission is to democratize business processes and make their creation and operation as simple as possible.
Pipeforce: Supported and promoted by the Munich ecosystem
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location?
Pipeforce: We are very satisfied with Munich as a location. The startup ecosystem is excellent, and there are a number of measures that provide excellent support to young companies in the city. For example, we received extensive support from the very beginning. Plant1 and also from Baystartup We are very grateful for their support. Furthermore, we have just recently six-figure funding from the Free State of Bavaria As part of the Baytou research project, we are working on the autonomous coupling of systems and processes on our platform. Using artificial intelligence, the systems and process steps connected to Pipeforce find themselves, partly independently, to exchange information with each other. This is a kind of intelligent system integration.
Munich Startup: Bicycle or e-scooter?
Pipeforce: Cycling! A little exercise doesn't hurt!
