Startup of the month: NIMMSTA

This time we interviewed Andreas Funkenhauser, CEO and co-founder of NIMMSTA.

Andreas, for the beginning, please give us a short description of what NIMMSTA does?

We maximize human productivity in intralogistics by delivering efficient freehand workflows that increase efficiency by up to 50%.To achieve this, we combine smart and robust hardware with innovative software. Therefore, we are the executing link between the enterprise software (ERP/WMS) and the workers of our customers.

How did this all start? When and how came you up with the idea?

Based on our long experience in product development of industrial PC’s at our first foundation, the AFR Engineering, the idea of NIMMSTA came up in 2018, as we were looking for a wearable for one of our customers. We didn’t find anything on the market that fulfilled our requirements. So Florian sat down and built a prototype himself, with which we then went to Logimat in 2019. The enthusiasm was so great from all sides that we decided to found the startup NIMMSTA. In 2020 we were ready to sell.

That is a great story and already gives a glimpse into how you’re organized as a founding team. Nevertheless, can you tell us a little bit about your background and the people behind NIMMSTA?

Florian and I are the founders of NIMMSTA. Florian is the technical head and I primarily take care of marketing and vision. We met in college and both always wanted to do our own thing. Directly after our studies in automotive engineering, the market situation led us to start our own engineering company in 2009, which is still growing steadily. Then the problem fell into our hands, which we solve with NIMMSTA. Today at NIMMSTA, we are a team of 19 fantastic people. Florian and I are passionate about what we do, we believe that with the right people you can achieve anything. That’s why we are very proud of our team, without whom we wouldn’t be where we are today. And the best is yet to come, we are absolutely sure of that.

Back to the product then: which specific problem do you solve for your customers?

With conventional scanners, workers do not have their hands free and need different display and input devices for each workflow in the intralogistic.

This prevents an efficient and fast process, leads to errors and thus to inconsistent data. With NIMMSTA, we have developed the first industrial smart watch that solves these problems and transforms all processes into workflows.

What is your USP and the secret sauce behind all this?

The innovative NIMMSTA Industrial Smart Watch is 3 in 1: smart watch, industrial scanner and e-paper touch display for freehand workflows, which extremely simplifies work processes, especially in the logistics sector, and increases efficiency by up to 50%. The worker communicates with the WMS/ERP directly from the back of his hand. The entire process flow, such as scanning, gripping, reading information, correction and confirmation entries, is performed exclusively with the HS 50. In combination with the brand new NIMMSTA LIGHT TAG, a pick by light solution, the worker finds the storage locations even faster. In this way, NIMMSTA revolutionizes intralogistics and an incredible increase in efficiency of up to 80 percent is achieved.

Can you tell us a little bit about the companies that could potentially use NIMMSTA?

Our target customers are all companies with intralogistic processes across all industries. Our customers include, for example, Mercedes Benz, Rewe, ABUS, Rapunzel Naturkost and Lila Logistik.

Automation is a great trend in warehousing and intralogistics. Where do you see yourself positioned in a world where many people do see the future in robotic warehouse automation?

We are not at all at odds with advancing automation – on the contrary, we support it with NIMMSTA. Our HS 50 can be used to address tugger trains or AGVs, for example. In addition, certain work processes will always have to be performed by people. We digitize these processes with NIMMSTA and make the worker as smart as possible with our smart watch.

Earlier this year, one prominent German industrial wearable company was acquired which got huge media coverage? What is your take on that? Do you see that as a boost for the space or are you worried about the now even greater financial firepower of that competitor?

We strongly believe that competition boosts the business. I think it’s great that the market recognizes that wearables are the future. We and our competitors are promoting wearables together, so I definitely appreciate that. We are not worried because we have a different approach. For us, the focus is on communication between the worker and the WMS and a great usability.

What can we expect from NIMMSTA in the coming months and years? Will there be new improved scanner generations or do you think in other directions?

We always think holistically, i.e. we want to provide our customers with the best and most efficient workflows in intralogistics. That’s why this year we launched a pick by light solution, our LIGHT TAG. Our goal is not to bring different scanners to the market, we have something else in focus. Early/mid next year we have another awesome product coming, which is really exciting and offers extreme added value – always in combination with our hardware. You can be very curious about that.

We are for sure! Last question from our side for today: How is NIMMSTA funded?

Florian and I financed NIMMSTA ourselves with an investment of around four million euros. However, for the past month we have been joined by angel investors such as Prequel Ventures who are enthusiastic about our vision and our concept. We are very proud of that. Now we aim to close our first qualified financing round by the end of the year, so it’s always exciting at NIMMSTA.

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