Luxembourg startup Dropslab wants to accelerate growth of its hands-free Augmented Reality solution among industry and health customers, as tech giants Meta and Microsoft work on similar technology.
The hands-free intelligent assistant space has become busier since the German-Luxembourg startup was part of the first cohort of Gener8tor Luxembourg accelerator programme in 2022.
“It’s not a niche technology. Microsoft is developing similar technology for the military financed by the Pentagon for $26b. And yesterday, we found out that Mark Zuckerberg has come up with an assistant for consumers that goes in the same direction,” explains Meysam Minoufekr, founder and managing director at Dropslab.
Dropslab’s technology combines artificial intelligence and situation inspection with guidance delivered through smart glasses. The startup currently serves industry and medical sectors, but can effectively be used by any frontline worker in whose hands are occupied, such as automotive and machine building.
“Our system tries to understand what the user is going through and tries to infuse additional information to make that job easier and better,” Minoufekr explains.
“Our system tries to understand what the user is going through and tries to infuse additional information to make that job easier and better.”
Meysam Minoufekr, founder and managing director at Dropslab
Funding journey
The startup has successfully raised €100k of dilutive seed funding from Gener8tor in exchange for a 7% stake. Added to that they secured €150k from the Luxembourg Fit 4 Start accelerator programme and grants for four research projects in Germany with a fifth pending. One project is with the University Hospital Aachen for surgical procedures. Another is with Deinwerk, a German social impact company working with people who have mental impairments like depression or Alzheimer’s and require guidance in processes like food preparation or machine manufacture.
“From a development point of view, it is super interesting because beside the fact that you are helping people, you also have the opportunity to hard test the project. Because if the user interface is not intuitive enough for those people, you can directly work out how to improve it,” says Minoufekr.
Accelerating sales
The projects are not lacking, however, now that the startup is ready to accelerate growth and wants to raise €1.5m, it has hit a snag.
“You have to have a certain amount of annual recurring revenue or ARR in order to sit with VCs at the table. We have to have more licence sales,” says Minoufekr, who comes from a research background and reckons he neglected that aspect at the start. “I think we do a good job of pitching but we need to hire more salespeople to generate more sales.”
Dropslab is working to increase the ARR, positioning themselves for expansion into France, Benelux, and the US
