Founded in April 2020, Amrax (the technology platform behind Metaroom) has a goal of exploring new digital ways to digitize and design spaces. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Amrax CEO and co-founder Martin Huber to learn more.
Martin Huber’s Background
Huber has a diverse background within various industries but predominantly the technology and healthcare sectors. And Huber said:
“I have a keen interest in new technologies, especially AI, computer vision, and automation, which is, of course, a perfect fit for Amrax, the 3D modeling and spatial data capture start-up I co-founded in 2020.”
“I am also CEO and co-founder of DMU (Dental Manufacturing Unit GmbH), a position I have held since June 2014. Before venturing into the dental automation industry, I was the CTO and co-founder of the healthcare company CADstar from September 2007 to April 2014, where I contributed to developing and managing the company’s technology.”
“My career began in the media industry, where I started as a Broadcast System Engineer at ORF in 2001.”
“Education was and still is an important part of my journey and so I hold a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from HTBLuVA Salzburg, a Digital Transformation Master’s degree from SMBS – University of Salzburg Business School and I have also attended Technische Universität Graz where I studied computer software engineering.”
Primary Responsibilities
What are Huber’s primary responsibilities? Huber continued:
“I see my role externally mainly in business development, building and onboarding new partners into our ecosystem.”
“Ultimately, however, my great passion is the product itself and the team that works on it closely and with great dedication. The aim is to find the best solutions, there are often many paths to take and yet only one can be taken. In such situations, I try to be a sparring partner and support in making decisions.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Huber explained:
“Through Amrax we offer fast, inspiring, and user-friendly solutions for space planning and interior design. Our app, Metaroom, goes beyond the conventional limitations, expanding our abilities and opening new doors of possibilities. The spaces we inhabit, from our homes to our workplaces, are not just functional entities but reflect our personality and ethos. Recently, the importance of comfort, aesthetics, and efficiency in these spaces has grown exponentially.
“With Metaroom, we offer the ability to not just visualize but to reimagine these spaces, with individual 3D visual support. It is a tool that cultivates creativity, allowing everyone to shape their environment according to their preferences and needs. Moreover, our technology upholds our collective responsibility towards the planet by promoting energy-saving solutions and driving efforts towards decarbonization in building design.
“Metaroom Studio enables users to access all their scans from the Metaroom App, preview them in a web viewer, and export the desired models for further work.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Huber reflected:
“For me personally, and I think for many of the team, it was the finish line for this summer’s Multiroom release. We’ve rebuilt our entire infrastructure in 3 months and worked almost completely through the last few days – with a precision landing on Monday morning, almost all systems were running smoothly and it felt very relieving to provide this to our valuable customers.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Huber faced in building the company? Huber acknowledged:
“In my view, this is true for all companies, but especially in the deep-tech sector, where there is a global search for talent. We have to invest a lot of energy in this area and find new ways to compete with the big tech companies by offering them a more attractive package.”
Evolution Of Amrax’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Huber noted:
“Our technology stack is quite broad, ranging from sensor interpretation on mobile devices, to high-performance cloud infrastructure, to new data models for collaborating with digital twins in 3D, to multiple consumers such as mobile apps or browsers.”
“I think the way we store and interact with data in the cloud has changed fundamentally. I see the seamless movement between 2D and 3D data as being at the heart of this, and also the biggest step forward.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Huber cited:
“I would like to make three points here:
“Launch: After three years in stealth, we successfully launched our product in June 2023 and convinced over 7,000 corporate accounts to take a closer look at our solution.”
“Proof of market: We were able to show that it is possible to cover different industrial use cases, such as lighting and network planning, with consumer hardware.”
“Team (most important one!): We were able to build an incredibly talented R&D team, flanked by a rapidly growing operations team. The recruitment of these people and to work with them in such a harmonious team is a great pleasure for me every day.”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Huber about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“There is a wonderful project in Norway in which the so-called donor buildings of the 356 Norwegian municipalities, such as schools or other public buildings, are digitized before they are demolished. The aim is to document which parts of the buildings can be reused for other projects. These parts are then listed and are available for other new buildings. I think this is a wonderful approach to sustainability and a model that we can contribute to with Metaroom’s 3D Technology.”
Funding
After asking Huber about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“We have received a lot of support from Austrian research funding and also from the Austrian Development and Financing Bank, as we are able to strengthen the location as a highly innovative project in the long term.”
“Some American incubators like NVIDIA Inception and Microsoft for Startups are also supporting us, as well as Amazon’s AWS Cloud team.”
“We have a strong investor on board who supports our journey and shares our vision. For that, we are incredibly grateful.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Huber assessed:
“We estimate the global market for 3D scanning services for commercial buildings to be 35 million commercial buildings worldwide. This translates into a total global footprint of 60 billion square meters and a TAM of €6 billion.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Huber affirmed:
“We do not offer 3D capture, but complete solutions. All our competitors offer their customers the option of reworking or exporting the data, but we go one step further and create ready-to-use projects that can be opened in powerful industry applications.”
“For lighting design, for example, we not only supply the geometry, but also build the project tree, generate measurement surfaces and reflection values. We utilise all possibilities to keep the time savings in these workflows as optimal as possible for our customers.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Huber concluded:
“Now that we are quite successful in some industrial sectors, if I may say so, we are looking at the really big tasks, such as the Building Information Model in connection with operations and facility management. There is an extremely high level of movement here, driven by the desire to save energy, including from a regulatory perspective (ESG). Our goal is to become the market leader in this segment of data acquisition.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Huber concluded with a quote by the Dalai Lama:
“If it can be solved, there’s no need to worry, and if it can’t be solved, then worry is of no use.”
