New Blog
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
KONVOI Helps with AI and Sensors to Prevent the Theft of Truck Cargo
Each year cargo is stolen from at least 26.000 trucks each year in Germany, worth 2.2 bn Euros.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
Tune in to our Internet Radio Station here:
Subscribe Here
Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, or listen to our internet radio station here:
… there is organized crime stealing from parked trucks. … We want to be preventive, before the theft happens.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
Media Partnership
This podcast is in media partnership with the Hamburg-based startup blog Hamburg Startups (https://www.hamburg-startups.net/). They keep you up to date on the local startup scene in Hamburg, they organize regular events (in normal non corona times) AND they do have a special section on food startups as well. Even if you are not able to speak German, a visit with an auto-translate is worth it, since they also have an extensive directory of local startups on their website.
Our solution will be a combination of hardware and software.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
The Founder
In this interview, we talk to Heinz Luckardt (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heinz-luckhardt-a77a351a0/), Co-Founder of Hamburg-based startup KONVOI. He is originally from Frankfurt, but his studies took him to Hamburg University, where he met his co-founder. But Heinz has already traveled the world, he studied in Milano (Italy), he has been a sales intern in India, as well as working with Fraunhofer Institute. At Fraunhofer, he was working on salt-based 3d printing.
The vision is later to go deep into predictive analytics, like generating heatmaps for truck thefts.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
The Startup
The startup was set up already in times of corona, in October 2020. Theft of truck cargo, literally from the back of a truck, is a big problem for the trucking companies, as well as all companies using this mean of transport. So KONVOI (https://www.konvoi.eu/) provides a combination of hardware and software to prevent these thefts. Right now, they are working on the first step of the solution, but the vision is to go deep in predictive analytics.
We are looking for innovative trucking companies in Germany, to give us feedback.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
Venture Capital Funding
KONVOI is currently not actively looking for external investors. They are currently on a government grant, funding the company at least until end of 2021.
We are not focusing on one technology. We are working with radar, as well as ultra-sonic sound at the moment.Heinz Luckardt, Co-Founder KONVOI
The Video Interview is set to go live on March 4th, 2021 17.00 CET (Frankfurt/Paris/Zurich)
The Audio Interview
You can subscribe to our podcasts here. Find our podcast on your favorite podcasting app or platform. Here are some of the links to subscribe.
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Castbox
Global Podcast Network (Formerly NY City Podcast Network)
Good Pods
Further Readings / Additional Resources
Milan, Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan
Frauenhofer Institutes are organized in the Fraunhofer Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society
Feedback
Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA
The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
Follow us
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/startuprad.io/
Transcript
Intro
[0:00] Music.
[0:08] That I owe you were podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.With News interviews and Live Events hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio die I hope your startup podcast and YouTube blog from Germanyand as of today today’s 18th of February we are the world’s first 24/7 internet radio station dedicated to startups and tech companiescheck your preferred way to consume internet radio station and ask or look for startupradio an Alexa school will be out soon as well and I do havehere so to say.Expert in media cooperation with Hamburg startups we do have Hines from the Hamburg based startup konvoi here with us but actually.
[1:03] Welcome Hines and you are actually a Frankfurt boy right.
[1:08] Yes originally from Frankfurt and now yeah for long and Hamburg.Oh I can totally see that Frank that handbook has also its charms as well as Frankfurt.
Heinz — The World Travelling Entrepreneur
[1:21] I’ve been stalking you on LinkedIn and as always everybody who would like to learn a little bit more about you or reach out to you directly you can go down here in the show notes there is a linkto your LinkedIn profile and there one can see that you really traveled the world so to say you studied in beautiful Milano you’ve been the sales internin India and a research assistant at flower fraunhofer Institute and then what really surprised me with,in times of Corona in October 20 20 is set up konvoi that is really interesting so.Can you take us a little bit on the journey that actually took you there first most important question how was the food in Milano.
[2:08] Obviously amazing so I spent several months there and having a great time.Um yeah great food great culture and actually the wetter the weather way better than Hamburg.
[2:24] I remember vividly from my time in Milano that at one point you can at one point of the city you can see the ocean.
[2:32] Almost and but on the other side you can totally see the Alps it’s a very amazing City totally worth a trip.And how did you get from there to being an intern in India because that’s quite a distance and almost.
[2:50] Almost half cross the world so tell us a little bit but story yeah I guess it’s a longer story so India is already.Several years ago and was part of my.Back that slurs practical training and I had a chance so I had a contact in India and yeah my.My decision was more focused on get to know this country because I heard so much.Interesting things about it and yeah then I had the chance I took it and then I spent some time there and I have to say like three months.In India change definitely my view about many things so it was great experience at that time.And yeah in the end the big turn also to other stages yes.
[3:48] Honestly I’ve never been to India but it’s also on my bucket list like after Corona and I think when you said many things in your world view,I’ve change when you’ve been to India I thought he okay a lot about software and also you’ll be now able to eat a really spicy food right,yes I practiced a lot and so I would say ayemore or less became a real Indian eating food properly and you have to say that after a while this all goes back so the level I would say normalized German level.Why ccccc and.Actually from there it took you to be in research assistant for frown Hoover we may add that fraunhofer is one of the many institute’soff a research in Germany more applied research so from an.From studying in Milano enjoying the Italian lifestyle to being an intern in India selling software to being in a.Well regarded International research institution at research assisted how did this happen.
[5:11] Yeah the point is like as you did like stalking my LinkedIn page.Shows that I’m I’m a person interested in many things and,actually there’s maybe no real Focus the yeah the great thing is at that time I was really interested in 3D printing and Iwrote my bachelor thesis about a salt based 3D printing technology.Where the fraunhofer Institute developed on and I at that time I was really interested in that and I got some different knowledge there so there was always kind of a change I would say.
[6:00] I see very interesting stuff and you’ve been.You’ve been selling software you’ve been 3D printing with salts.That is that is quite interesting and smiled did this lead to a logistic startup called konvoi.
[6:23] Yeah this actually new turn I would say once I started studying in Hamburg I got to knowto my now co-founder Alexander yellow and he’s a really,a logistics expert so we started talking about the one time setting our own business togetherand then we brought a lot of ideas and yeah his expertise in logistics yeah.Was really to start I would say yeah to talk more and more about it and right now the the outcome is konvoi.
[7:08] How did you develop this idea recently it appears that developing started ideas at least from my interview guests always involves friends and a lot of wine was it the same case.
[7:21] UmYes Alex and me were friends before and we were all we were also drinking drinking before together the the funny thing is that it,obviously helps like discussing discussing things.And I also have to say it’s over time so we kept talking and talking over the over the months and years and.Yeah it says officially that we are founded in October 20.But obviously the idea is now I had for about 2 years now.
[8:00] We’ve always talked about konvoi and the idea can you now spill it out what it is because our audiences actually I do believe at least a little bit excited little bit curious about what you guys are doing.
Konvoi The Startup Preventing Theft
[8:15] Of course so at konvoi we are developing a test prevention system for parked trucks.There’s a real problem of thefts in German trucks,on the German Autobahn and so on the parking spots are really rare sometimes so due to high trafficthe the whole situation is complicated and there’s no no real chance for securingand on the other hand they are actually yeah organized yeah it’s organized crime.
[8:58] And the real problem is there is no.Preventive solution in the market which stops before something happens to the truck and that’s what we want to do we want to be preventive and want to know right before.Theft will happen so let’s first take a little bit step back because likethey like two-thirds of the audience have most likely never been to Germany so let’s do a little bit explainer you may know the German Autobahn and you could drive as fast as you want in some parts as long as you’re not driving a truck but thetruck driver is they have a very tough life because they have to stick to certain rest periods and those rest periods theyspent a big parking lots where they just drive off the Autobahn.Rest are they sleep a little bit as I say a little bit it’s not a lot and then they tried again so I assume you’re referring to those.Parking lots where just a bit another big truck pulls up at night open opens the truck and then just unloads and reload their own truck and they’re gone when the driver wakes up.
[10:13] Absolutely correct so we have I would say several problems the on the one hand we have the,we have to ya organized crime situation we have the problem of parking and that they’re actually not enough parking lots.Next to the highway.And yeah and then also the combination of an industry which is under pressure yeah it’s not like.Maintaining or improving the situations in general and yeah this is a general problem we want to touch with Conway.So what do you guys actually offering is it like a physical product is as like a software so that forecast service.
[11:01] Our solution will be a hardware and software solution may include several services.Um right now we developing the sensor system which will help us to detect the thieves.And later on obviously the vision is to go in deep into Predictive Analytics and.Yeah to create heat Maps analyze situations on different parking lots and so on so I can really promise that.We can create a lot of value to different parts or different players in that industry.
[11:47] As he talked about heatmaps my first thought would be a would be our the police would be surely interested in that one but.I totally do understand that some secrecy is always helpful if you are providing security equipment but can you tell us a little bit about the sensors and what stuff you’re doing it doing if it,actually attach to the trailer or the truck or both and how long it may take I mean there are a lot of logistics startups andpeople entrepreneurs out there listening to us so that they can at least think.If in any way their tool they’re offering could be combined with yours.
[12:34] Yeah so right now as we are quite early in the process we are testing several Technologies.
[12:42] Um and also with customers or potential customers so right now we are also searching for trucking companies in Germany.Which are Innovative and want to develop the system together with us so we need kind of.
[13:01] Specific problem input and what are the customer needs precisely and building up on that,we can we can test our technology so it’s different,we are not focusing on one technology so for example we are using radar sensors we are also using ultrasonic.To actually find the best solution and the best solution means getting a fast MVP so minimum viable product ready with the customers,and also thinking about the long-term sustainable solution and obviously more complex solution may be built with radar sensors.I see when you talked about ultrasound that was one of my thoughts because,you may experience a lot of problems with like false alarm to put all the animals crawling around on those parking lot soyou can actually scare them away at least a little bit because I would assumesome cats some whatever squirrels or something they would be always present in those parking lots because they usually surrounded by Woods.
[14:17] Absolutely so the main or a maybe the game changer will be to detect moving patterns of people andto make or to make differences to normal you in human beings and also animals visiblethat is really important that needs a lot of training so training data and also simulations and this is what we are working hard on.Mmm I see we may add for the people out there who just listening to this that there truck parking lots out there where driversif they find one can actually take a rest thing is but they’re very close to each other so it’s not like you haveone truck on a hill and you can sell way everything around it but it’s basically very limited the space around you that you can actually survey and look at and actually a veryvery low distance that you’re actually have as a warning area.
[15:22] Yeah we are focusing on a really short distance yeah that on the one thingit’s definitely the positive aspect that we can be really precise and the false alarms can be reduced by that on the negative hand sideyes we have to be like really fast our algorithms have to be classifying potential thieves,um yeah.
[15:53] Pretty fast too and that is yeah it’s a big challenge we are focusing their but yeah we are definitely on our way to.To get this ready so basically your core product that isnot ready for shipping yet will be something like a little computer lead program inside the board computer of the trucks that recognizes the inputfrom the sensors of which some you may add some you may build and then all together are you’ll increase the security.
[16:29] At least of the goods and the driver significantly that’s my understanding right yes and those will be mounted on the truck to get a proper detection area around the truck.And the controlling unitour plan is to get this autonomous from the truck ready that it’s actually a mobile solution and also helpsif the for example energy or batteryof the truck is not available that could also help helps us to prevent jammingthat potential thieves could interrupt our connections our communication of the system so we areobviously also focusing a different challenges there but our plan is definitely to build a sustainable solution which,yeah which really helps and cannot be easily Disturbed.
[17:34] What came to my mind was actually an armored vehicle that Trend that is used to transport money from bank to bank what when you talked about that but I assume they’re likeother Goods you going to protect like truckloads full of cars literally like high-value electronics and stuff like this is this true.Yes they’re there are different value classes and when it comes to really really high values.There’s already a lot of security and so they are obviously willing to spend a lot on the on that security Topic in the middle range and in the lower range.There is almost nothing when it comes to security of a truck so as our solution hopefully.
[18:28] Can Target these segments then then yeah we can be successful and we canreally make an impact with a comparison cheap solution to the value of being Stone just to to give some numbers so 20six thousand trucks are every year in Germany impacted.And the value of the goods is about 2.2 billion Euro if you sum up the value of the goods the enter production losses and so on.
[19:12] From 26 thousand trucks each year in Germany goods are stolen that is that’s quite a lot of trucks as well as a lot of money for.Everybody who would like to learn more there is of course down here to Jonas just the usual question are you guys currently looking for external investors,right now we are notdirectly going towards investors we right now financed by a grant which was given by the German government andthis secures us the year.
[19:52] The point is also when it comes to production of systems and then you have to say that customers of us,half let’s say 10 to 20 or even more trailers want to be securedwhen this start so when the product will be ready we also know that it can be really fast that we definitely need external financing so right now we arealso talking to investors and the feedback is always really important for us but there is no current hurry in that.ICC and everybody would like to learn more go down here the show notes Heinz was a pleasure having you here.Best of luck for your for your program for your project for your algorithms to succeed and hope to hear back from you when you guys are finished with the product and are really successful already.
[20:58] Music.
[21:04] Events and interviews at www.startuprad.io
[21:10] Music.
댓글