Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Oliver Krieg, Roundpeg Technologies: We build robots, which feature AI-supported human recognition for industrial production. This makes it possible to deploy the robots in the middle of the production line and have them work alongside humans at high speed without a fence. Roundpeg Technologies is making it significantly easier to manufacture products.
If you rely on a highly automated production line with robots, completely enclosed and surrounded by fences, you require a huge investment and are extremely inflexible. If, for example, parts are unavailable or the market doesn't accept the product, it's difficult to implement changes. This is why a lot of manual labor is still used in manufacturing in Germany today, affecting SMEs as well as large companies. However, this type of production doesn't scale because it's difficult to automate small manual processes.
We want to fill this gap with our system by placing the robot in the middle of the production line, among the workers. We don't need a fence because our robot recognizes people and doesn't endanger them. This makes it much easier to further automate tasks in the factory and to implement new manufacturing concepts that are significantly more flexible and also much better scalable.
Etienne Eichstaedt: New products, in particular, generally require a higher level of manual production to maintain a certain degree of flexibility. If a product is successful, the incoming cash flow can be used to drive automation through the use of our robot and redeploy the workforce to new products. In times of skilled labor shortages, we use our robot to assist people with physically demanding or monotonous tasks, thus increasing not only product quality but also production volume.
With Roundpeg Technologies, collisions don’t even occur
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Oliver Krieg: There are no robots today that can directly recognize humans. Current concepts revolve primarily around so-called collaborative robots. These are designed to stop if they collide with humans. To avoid injuring anyone, they operate at a very low speed. We can completely avoid this, because our all-in-one system integrated into the robot A collision doesn't even occur. The big advantage is that the working speed is significantly higher, since the movement of our robots isn't regulated by a possible collision.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Oliver Krieg: I used to be responsible for product management at a large corporation. There, I saw that many ideas fail due to the high investment costs for production. Robots on production lines do reduce these costs, which is why the collaborative robot approach is fundamentally great. But they simply can't keep up with the normal production speed of a human. So you always have to build your production processes around these robots. I wanted to change that with a robot that doesn't collide.
Of course, you don't found a startup like Roundpeg Technologies alone. I've reconnected with old contacts, especially in my personal network. For example, I worked with my co-founder Etienne many years ago on the TUfast team for Formula Student at the Technical University of Munich and was able to inspire him for the world of robotics.
“A robot that just stands still makes no sense”
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Etienne Eichstaedt: The biggest challenge was definitely the Motek trade fair in October 2022. That was a major milestone in our schedule, and one we absolutely had to meet, because this trade fair was the ideal platform to present our system to the global public for the first time. And it's not enough to arrive with a few warm product ideas. You only get attention if you have a real product. A robot that just stands still doesn't make sense. That's why it was important to have a functioning product that attracts attention and also moves and stops when it's supposed to. We wanted to put a high-quality robot there, and accordingly, the workload beforehand was very high.
Oliver Krieg: The weeks leading up to the event were pretty tight, I have to say. But at the end of the day, people will only believe you if you can demonstrate how the product works in the field. We really wanted to take our MVP to the point where we could talk to customers at the trade fair about their problems, not just about our ideas. And those were actually a few shorter nights, but it was worth it: We even got to the point where we were able to take orders on site. What's also exciting about our solution is that people understand it immediately. When the robot is moving at high speed and then suddenly stops in front of you, you intuitively understand what that means. Then customers immediately start thinking about their problems and how we could solve them.
Roundpeg Technologies prepares for market launch
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Oliver Krieg: Our market launch is planned for next year, and we're currently preparing everything for that. We'll initially focus on Germany and Europe. Of course, we want to expand further, but we'll have to see where the journey takes us. We're definitely doing everything we can to ensure Roundpeg Technologies continues to grow and make it truly easier for producers to bring products to market.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Oliver Krieg: We're from Munich ourselves; we grew up here and studied here. It's simply a fantastic city with a high quality of life. When we finished our studies, UnternehmerTUM was still quite young, still a startup itself. Since then, a real startup ecosystem has developed here in Munich, which helps a lot. We turned to UnternehmerTUM early on after our launch, and they gave us tremendous support, as did Baystartup. Both helped us in many areas, which was incredibly valuable to us. Munich is also a good starting point for recruiting employees.
Etienne Eichstaedt: The startup density here in Munich is simply very high. You can exchange ideas and help each other. We have learned a lot about dos and don'ts from other startups. Through our network, for example, we met Fabian from Fazua He showed us how they build their own drives on-site, which is naturally very interesting for us. The exchange within the ecosystem simply opens up a lot of opportunities.
“You can’t reinvent the wheel all day long”
Munich Startup: Outsource or do it yourself?
Oliver Krieg: We actually like doing things ourselves because that gives us more influence over the final product. But the truth is: As a startup, you can't reinvent the wheel all day long. So, we primarily do the things ourselves that differentiate us in the market and that our customers will notice.
Etienne Eichstaedt: At a certain point, you just have to focus and prioritize. Then you simply have to outsource a few things. But we don't want to give everything away—as Oliver says, the goal is to still be in charge of many things ourselves.
