Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourself.
Konfuzio: We, Christopher and Florian, met while studying for our master’s degrees in Finance and Information Management at TUM and won diverse hackathons. It was during that time that the idea for our AI-software Konfuzio came to be as the “Swiss Army knife for processing complex business documents.” We have been working together in a growing team for our corporate customers since 2016.
Konfuzio automates the processing of unstructured documents, such as insurance contracts, exposes and invoices, by using artificial intelligence. To do that, our software recognizes the type of document and then extracts all of the relevant information.
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Konfuzio not only makes back-office processes faster and more cost effective, but also reveals a wealth of data in real time that would otherwise go undetected. Annual reports that have been prepared in a structured manner make it possible to precisely select new corporate customers and provide a comprehensive list of topics for sales staff. Konfuzio provides the information that is relevant for customer acquisition, which used to be buried in hundreds of pages of annual reports.
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box!
Konfuzio: Konfuzio processes documents regardless of their layout. It completely eliminates the need to manually create and update rules, as has been common practice. The Konfuzio algorithm learns how to understand documents, even those it has never seen before, on its own It works with photos, scans and digital documents.
Challenge: Winning over their first customers
Munich Startup: What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Konfuzio: In the field of B2B software, finding your first customers is known to be difficult. With Siemens, various WWK Versicherungen subsidiaries, a large real estate fund in Frankfurt, a bank in Munich and various SMEs, we have shown that we can make modern technology practical for both major corporations and Germany’s SMEs for everyday use.
Munich Startup: Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: How is business going?
Konfuzio: We have a mid-range double digit number of paying customers from the insurance and finance sectors. Our profits have been continuously invested since our founding in 2016.
Well situated in Europe’s “insurance capital”
Munich Startup: What does Munich mean to you?
Konfuzio: As Europe’s “insurance capital,” Munich gives us direct access to our largest group of customers. InsurTech Hub Munich in particular allowed us to get in contact with the right people in (nearly) every large German insurance company. By participating in the DIA (Digital Insurance Agenda) Conference, we even reached insurance companies abroad from here in Munich. Programs like Xpreneurs from UnternehmerTUM and offers from the LMU Entrepreneurship Center have helped us make the right decisions in the early founding stage and establish contacts with other founders.
Munich Startup: How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we be seeing you at an Epic Fail Night soon?
Konfuzio: The potential provided by our AI-based access to unstructured data for insurance companies and financial service providers is huge. Transferring the relevant key data from an eight page document to an IT system, for example, generates costs of eight euros and leads to an average of three transmission errors.
The learning process of the Konfuzio algorithm is not limited to specific languages or industries. We also expect that, in an increasingly networked world, the amount of unstructured information that is exchanged will continue to increase.
Munich Startup: Beer or Prosecco?
Konfuzio: Beer.