Berlin-based deep tech startup Staex has just picked up €1.65 million for its innovation in the industrial Web3 space. The pre-seed funding was led by Brandenburg Kapital, a subsidiary of the Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg, and Blockwall Capital. This round also includes highly experienced business angels, including Andreas Möller.
Founded in 2021, Staex is a software platform aiming to develop a unique bridge between the IoT industry and Web3. The vision is that by bringing these novel technologies to existing applications, Staex can improve complex device networking, large-scale deployment orchestration, and data security.
The disruptive team was ex-cubated out of the innovation lab of Deutsche Telekom and the product is based on a patented cutting-edge technology.
Dr. Alexandra Mikityuk, co-founder and CEO of Staex, said: “Connecting machines with a plethora of blockchain and DLT protocols will enable a global machine-to-machine economy, where machines will be able to securely execute value transactions. This machine automation will save time and money for existing IoT businesses”.
The IoT (Internet of Things) market is developing rapidly, and the corresponding tech applications just aren’t keeping up, today’s infrastructures are not ready for this tech of tomorrow. Heterogenous IT systems are inefficient and cannot efficiently scale for massive IoT and Web3 applications. In such an IT landscape consisting of public and private sectors, multiple vendors, and municipalities, all with a multitude of IoT devices, it’s almost impossible to harmonize the landscape with existing Cloud solutions.
Staex wants to solve this. By bringing modern Web3 technologies to IoT, the young company is rethinking the IoT industry and making such services more efficient, secure, and sustainable.
Markus Barnickel, Investment Manager at Brandenburg Kapital, commented: “These fundamental changes for IoT are becoming especially important with regard to European ESG goals, where we will create a huge impact through our investment into Staex. Additionally, we identified a great potential in orchestration software for distributed and heterogeneous IT infrastructures because collaborative business models and the end of the data silos era is close. We are convinced that Alexandra and Philip have the potential to develop Staex successfully and position the company as the international market leader”
Currently, available tools do not allow secure and transparent data flows across massively distributed devices and complex environments. Also, they do not truly provide simple and decentralized control. Staex provides a next-generation tool for IoT enabling a more lightweight alternative to orchestrating tools like Kubernetes, OpenShift, Nomad or Balena.
Staex also offers Web3-features as a full master-less management suite, fully decentralized networking and service mesh with up to 5 times lower software footprint for IoT in comparison to existing tools. Further, it supports any combination of infrastructure – whether it be on Cloud, on-premise or on a device and eases the management of IoT applications scattered across multiple locations and devices.
Through its peer-to-peer nature, Staex enables massive scalability for applications supporting hundreds of devices, a multitude of dynamic networks and a variety of networking segments. Unlike more centralized competitors, the platform completely eliminates single points of failure in a system and provides robust and resilient software by design. Staex also removes the need for centralized VPNs, providing efficient and low-latency connectivity to the devices allowing for more low-latency advanced use cases such as video streaming for IoT.
Right now, Staex is used by its customers in building future-proof infrastructures for smart cities and smart utilities – areas with huge market potential for Staex to tap into.
Staex co-founder and COO Philip Toepffer, said: “This investment will help us to move faster towards our vision of changing the IoT-landscape of tomorrow and simplifying integrations. We will enable our customers to focus on building the future instead of spending time on old and complex IT solutions. Our goal is to be the first choice when it comes to the creation of distributed infrastructure and integration of software for IoT. With this goal in mind we enable companies working closely together to create collaborative business models through shared services.”
