Automating Functional Safety Engineering: Why We Invested in Modelwise
We are excited to announce our Seed investment in Modelwise, the Munich-based company providing an AI-based software tool for functional safety engineering.
We all want to feel safe in our daily lives, whether it’s while boarding a plane, driving a car or simply using an electric toothbrush. Functional engineering focuses on all critical tasks related to safety. As an important part of the product development process, it ensures that products and systems can function without causing harm to people or the environment. It is particularly important in industries where a failure could have serious consequences, such as transportation (e.g. cars or airplanes), medicine or energy production.
Unfortunately, the current methods used by functional safety engineers are largely manual and extremely time-consuming. This represents a bottleneck for the development of new products — especially in a broader context where the complexity of electronic systems is increasing and functional safety engineers are lacking. Modelwise provides a solution for this: an AI-based software to automate functional safety analysis, allowing companies to accelerate their development of new products while maintaining high safety standards.
Here’s why we invested in Modelwise.
A large and growing market opportunity
In many industries, functional safety engineering is mandatory and regulated by law and standards. However, the current methods used by functional safety engineers are inefficient and can take hundreds of hours per component.
Market demand requires more efficient processes given the increased number of electronic components in complex systems (e.g. cars now have over 150+ electronic components, compared to around 50 in the 1990s). This, combined with the fact that there are currently over 20,000 open positions for functional safety engineers in Europe on LinkedIn, means that there is massive potential for AI to transform the sector.
Modelwise is well-positioned to address this opportunity with a solution that is more convenient and automated than any existing solution — among them being Microsoft Excel or tools with limited automation.
Clear value proposition demonstrated by impressive industry collaborations
Modelwise has developed an AI-based software tool that automates nearly 90% of functional safety analysis, reducing the required engineering effort by over 10x (from several weeks to a few days). Additionally, it enables companies to increase the quality of their functional safety analysis, as current manual approaches are prone to errors.
The tool has passed a concept review from TÜV SÜD (an accredited certification body) that validates the integrity of the tool and the trust that can be placed in the correctness of its outputs, and therefore in its suitability for safety engineering in safety-critical industries.
Four industrial customers are actively using the tool, including Pepperl+Fuchs (one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electronic sensors), who has used Modelwise to conduct functional safety analysis on several new products that have now passed certification by accredited certification bodies such as TÜV Rheinland.
A strong team with a bold vision
Modelwise founders Florian, Arnold and Iliya have over 15 years of combined research experience in software engineering and functional safety engineering automation, mainly earned in the Model-Based Systems & Qualitative Reasoning research group of TU Munich. It was there that they developed the technological basis for Modelwise.
The team members also have significant domain knowledge in functional safety, illustrated by their involvement in the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies — a body responsible for developing and adopting standards and safety specifications in electrical engineering, electronics and information technologies.
Together, they share the ambitious vision to make Modelwise the world’s leading tool for functional safety engineering.
Want to know more about Modelwise? Visit their website or get in touch with us.
