Insens accelerates the reliability of its solution to convince new industrial partners and develops its financing strategy
Insens is a Belgian startup that develops a new solution, called RED, to eliminate production shutdowns and reduce energy waste in industrial plants. The implementation is simple; a sensor is installed in the electrical cabin of the machine and automatically analyzes its behavior. With 1.2M € support, Insens wants to expand the pilot tests in large production sites in 2023.
Insens was founded in 2019 by Guillaume Francaux, Nicolas Verbeek and Gautier Waterlot while they were sitting on the benches of the ‘Université Catholique de Louvain’. Eager to better understand the industrial market, they investigated the common problems industrial companies were facing to try and address these current issues. It quickly became clear that unplanned production machine downtime can be an industrial manager's worst nightmare, as it may represent a cost equivalent to up to 20% of the production capacity and generate losses of up to 200 000€/h. Being able to anticipate machine failures therefore allows industries to prioritize maintenance work and avoid costly downtime.
A single solution for two problems
Unlike other predictive maintenance solutions, RED is installed inside the electric control cabinet of the machine (and not on the machine itself), which makes it easier to monitor machines, even those located in hard-to-reach or dangerous areas. Moreover, the state of health of the machine is analyzed 24/7 thanks to the electrical signals of the machine, which is also unlike any other predictive maintenance tools. The algorithms developed by the company differ from the standard analyses performed by competitors and provide the company with significant operational and financial advantages.
Moreover, these machines are responsible for about 70% of the total electricity consumption of a factory. The current ecological and economic situation encourages industries to look for solutions to avoid energy waste.
Guillaume Francaux, co-founder of Insens: “When we know that industries are responsible for nearly 50% of the global electricity consumption, it becomes clear that the slightest energy improvement can have a considerable impact not only on the industry cost but also on a global environmental scale.”
Big companies already seduced
Big names in the industry have already shown interest in their technology and agreed to prove the solution over the upcoming year. Insens has recently signed pilot projects in various industrial sites, such as TotalEnergies, Lhoist and Knauf for example.
Their objective is simple: detect developing failures on several machines in order to avoid production downtimes and highlight possible energy improvements on these machines.
An organized structure and financing strategy to support Insens
With the support of the AECC and Start it @CBC, the Walloon hub of Belgium's largest startup accelerator Start it @KBC, the 3 entrepreneurs also succeeded in a first interesting financial operation by mixing different sources of financing. Indeed, Sambrinvest, Boost Engineering Fund and private investors accepted their proposal of convertible loans with a balanced distribution (50%-50%) between public and private. The Walloon Department of Research and Technological Development (DG06) was also seduced by the project and accepted their request with subsidies and recoverable advances. A total of €1.2M is now available to the team to continue the technical developments of their solution and convince new manufacturers to implement their solution. Insens will double its workforce by the end of 2023 to accelerate R&D developments, triple production capacity and provide the required support to industrial customers.
In this way, the young Belgian company wants to attract big industrial names to test their solution in the hope of providing them with a long-term solution.
Aurélien Troonbeeckx, Business Coach @Start it CBC:“What struck me the most with them from day one is their rock-solid mentality.” Maxime Vuckovic, business coach from AECC.“ An innovative & scalable solution, a complementary team and ambitions that come true: this is what perfectly sums up Insens."
The founding team succeeded in surrounding itself with competent people by creating an advisory board to help them make strategic decisions. Insens can count on the support of Pierre De Muelenaere (Past-President & CEO IRIS Group), Michel Hemberg & Thierry Levintoff (Founders and directors of LISAM) , Benoît Soenen (Director of Wanty), Daniel Deneyer (Director of LEPAGE), Serge Bassem (Past founder and CEO eWON). This mix of entrepreneurs with solid experience in Insens' field of expertise will help to eventually bring the company to an international level.
Pierre De Muelenaere - Past President and CEO IRIS Group: “With this fund raising, Insens has now secured the necessary financial means needed to conduct efficiently the first wave of deployment and testing of the RED solutions and prepare the next round of financing. Thanks to its advisory board, the management team of Insens will benefit from useful advices of experienced entrepreneurs in the field.”
What’s next?
The objective is clear: equip more production machines to improve the accuracy of their solution by collecting more data while continuing to expand the team to be able to launch their solution on the international scale late 2023. To do so and accelerate the acquisition of new customers, Insens aims at collaborating with well-known industrial companies.
Once the pilot phases are confirmed, Insens will prepare a larger equity financing round that will allow them to realize their ambitions. This step, carefully considered, is part of their financing strategy and is considered essential to continue future developments.
Gautier Waterlot, co-founder of Insens:“Our team is doing a great job, we are confident to achieve the objectives we have defined in our development timeline. We will also continue to make the team grow in the coming months.”
Guillaume Francaux
About Insens
Insens is a Belgian startup created in 2019 by Guillaume Francaux, Nicolas Verbeek and Gautier Waterlot. Insens' mission is to accelerate the transition of industrial players to industry 4.0, in order to maximize their productivity and environmental performance. To achieve this, the company has developed a technology called RED (Rotating Equipment Diagnosis), which optimizes the efficiency of rotating production equipment. RED is an easy-to-use-and-install end-to-end SaaS solution that eliminates unplanned production downtime and energy waste by analyzing the electrical signature of rotating machines.
About Sambrinvest
With 35 years of experience alongside entrepreneurs, more than 280 companies in portfolio and €180M under management, Sambrinvest is a major player in venture capital in the region of Charleroi Métropole, Wallonia, Belgium. More than an investor, Sambrinvest is the catalyst for local ecosystems development, such as Biotech, Digital and Engineering. Thanks to its expertise, it advises entrepreneurs at every development stage of their projects whilst respecting their management autonomy. For more information, please visit: www.sambrinvest.be
About Boost Engineering Fund
Boost Engineering Fund is a Belgian early-stage private equity fund striving to impact the engineering & technology industry by enriching the existing ecosystem. We invest in disruptive, high potential startups, spin-out, spin-off and SMEs in various fields, such as industry, mobility, energy, IoT, recycling or embedded systems.
About DG06
The Walloon Department of Research and Technological Development helps Walloon companies by financing specific projects. Companies must demonstrate the acquisition of new knowledge in terms of scientific and technical progress, i.e. the use of knowledge for the development of a product, a process or a service. The research project submitted may also enable the company to strengthen its scientific and technological potential.