VISUS Industry IT: Financing from NRW.BANK and HTGF

Bochum — Grün­der­fonds Ruhr, NRW.BANK and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) invest a seven-figure sum in VISUS Indus­try IT. With its JiveX NDT test data and report manage­ment system, the start-up from Bochum digi­ti­zes indus­trial test proces­ses end-to-end; results can be archi­ved in a stan­dar­di­zed manner.

In quality assu­rance, mate­ri­als test­ing, inspec­tion and main­ten­ance of safety-rele­­vant compon­ents or systems, digi­tal work is still not used throug­hout. In many cases, test results are only available on paper or, in the field of radio­gra­phy, on analog X‑ray film. This important data about the inter­nal condi­tion of compon­ents or systems is ther­e­fore not available to further (digi­tal) systems.

This is exactly where VISUS Indus­try IT comes in with JiveX NDT and closes exis­ting gaps between inspec­tion plan­ning systems of quality assu­rance, main­ten­ance and inspec­tion. Images, test reports and test docu­ments are stored in JiveX NDT in an audit-proof, but above all stan­dar­di­zed DICONDE format. The struc­tu­red data pool in JiveX is thus a quali­fied basis for teaching arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence systems.

In a pilot project, JiveX NDT successfully trai­ned an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to evaluate welds. The cumu­la­tive detec­tion rate of multi­ple error types was over 90%. With the JiveX NDT system, VISUS Indus­try IT wants to support inspec­tors and testers in the daily evalua­tion of test results, inte­grate IT systems and test equip­ment, and be the audit-proof archive and data pool for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence systems.

About VISUS Indus­try IT GmbH
VISUS Indus­try IT GmbH is a spin-off of VISUS Health IT GmbH from the health­care sector. After evalua­ting the indus­trial market, VISUS Indus­try IT was foun­ded in Janu­ary 2018 and took over the soft­ware licen­ses for the JiveX system estab­lished in medi­cine from the parent company for use in indus­try. After successful adapt­a­ti­ons and exten­si­ons of the soft­ware, VISUS Indus­try IT has a product ready for sale. The inves­tors’ money will be used to invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of JiveX NDT and, in parti­cu­lar, in sales and marke­ting. Custo­mers from the energy, oil & gas, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and test­ing services sectors have alre­ady been acqui­red. More custo­mers, inclu­ding in the chemi­cal, auto­mo­tive and aero­space sectors, are expec­ted to follow in 2020.

About the Grün­der­fonds Ruhr
The Grün­der­fonds was initia­ted jointly by Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK and is the first private-sector early-stage fund in the Ruhr region finan­ced by regio­nal indus­trial and finan­cial compa­nies. The fund invests in inno­va­tive and tech­­no­­logy-orien­­ted compa­nies from the life science & health, digi­tal economy, chemi­cals & new mate­ri­als, energy & indus­try, and logi­stics & trade sectors. Prere­qui­si­tes are good growth and exit pros­pects as well as compe­tent manage­ment. As a multi-corpo­rate early-stage fund, it also opens up key indus­try access points for the respec­tive port­fo­lio companies.

About NRW.BANK
NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­­pha­­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. In its three promo­tion fields “Economy”, “Housing” and “Infrastructure/Municipalities”, NRW.BANK uses a broad range of promo­tion instru­ments: from low-inte­­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works toge­ther with all banks and savings banks in NRW on a compe­­ti­­tion-neutral basis. In its promo­tion acti­vi­ties, NRW.BANK also takes into account exis­ting offers from the fede­ral govern­ment, the state and the Euro­pean Union.

About High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF)
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of EUR 895.5 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 560 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.