The variety of technology companies on display at Expo Real shows how bright ideas are being put to work by some of the biggest and best property owners and investors.
One such example is Digital Spine. CEO and founder, Simon Vestner, is a third-generation family member of an elevator business – his grandfather founded his company in Munich in 1930.
But three years ago, Vestner saw potential to set up a spin-off company to digitalise lifts, the idea being to instal hardware and software to capture technical information about each elevator. As the data is capable of detecting potential faults, property owners can head off issues before waiting for breakdowns.
There is effectively no limit to the number of customers as the product works in every brand of elevator, no matter how old it is and who maintains it.
Each elevator has one controller which digitalises the lift. Artificial intelligence and algorithms then take over by assessing data sent to the cloud to see where issues will likely cause a breakdown in a few weeks’ time. Digital Spine will then order a maintenance company to fix the issue.
The startup has so far built up 150 clients, the largest of whom is Blackstone. Customers pay a monthly fee for the product and management in their properties.
Vestner said this is his second time at Expo, the idea being to find new clients but also maintain good relations with existing customers, which include the likes of Patrizia, Columbia Threadneedle, and Hines.
‘These big players are here, and we can talk about our own brand and what we can do in the future with them. All of them are rolling out their complete portfolio with us. At the moment we are just in the DACH region, but of course our clients are asking us when we will come to London, Amsterdam and so on, but for the moment we are focussing on our local markets.’
