SenzMate’s Jey, John and Miller started the journey in 2013 to solve a specific post-war local problem. Before they knew it, their solution quickly propelled their startup to phenomenal heights globally. The AI-IoT platforms and devices they build are used globally to power agriculture farms, cold supply chain, motor insurance, farm-to-fork traceability, medical technology, and more. In this interview, they talk about their journey, aspirations and plans for the future.
From automated sprinklers for farmers in Jaffna to high-end AI-IoT solutions for an international clientele. How did that happen?
We began our journey in 2013 with just two software engineers after we developed an automated sprinkler system as grad students for local farmers that garnered international recognition and awards for its transformational impact on farming. The success we had building digital irrigation automation for a post-war challenge of going to the field to switch on motors at night – at the time, Jaffna had power supply for two hours a day, between 10 pm and midnight – opened our eyes to global possibilities. We especially wanted to prevent thousands of people from stepping on unplugged landmines in the dark. The upheavals caused by the Industrial Revolution 4.0, with the Internet of Things rapidly disrupting and transforming everything around us, made us realize that we could potentially turn our agri product into an AIoT platform to serve different sectors and solve problems on a global scale.
Nearly a decade later, SenzMate has grown to a team of 80 tech professionals based in Sri Lanka, Delaware and London. We have spun off our two successful products, SenzAgro and Mosurance, into separate ventures, catering to sector-specific intelligent verticals, precision agriculture and usage-based insurance. We raised funds for SenzAgro in two rounds of investments from one of Sri Lanka’s biggest listed companies, John Keells Holdings and the former Managing Director of Citibank.
Nearly half a million digital nodes across several industries in 17 countries worldwide, including leading blue chips in Sri Lanka, are powered by our AIoT Platform.
We have the best AIoT spectrum in the game. Our team comprises carefully handpicked embedded, machine learning and software engineers.
They go through rigorous training and skills development with international experts. Most Sri Lankan tech companies focus on outsourcing and full-stack development. Very few companies can work with complex IoT-driven big data and machine learning at scale like SenzMate.
We are unique because most of our AIoT core modules are open source. That enables anyone to customise our solutions to suit their needs. Not many small-scale AIoT platforms can handle enterprise-scale environments as we do.
Can you give us examples of some of the solutions you provide?
We build our solutions on top of our core AIoT platform called SenzMatica.
SenzMatica platform consists of multiple modules like IoT hub, Intelligent Device Management, and Quick ML core to support any AIoT application. The platform creates a digital twin of day-to-day objects that matter to any enterprise and generates real-time business insights. It uses AI and machine learning to convert IoT-driven data into business intelligence. For instance, in Canada alone, over 400,000 4G routers are connected through our platform, and we manage the entire insight of the devices.
With one of our flagship products, SenzAgro, we help farmers create the ideal conditions for their crops with crop-based intelligence. For example, crops are known to increase their yield of fruits before a drought, so we can generate that water stress by reducing water to create those conditions and trick a plant into increasing its yield of fruits. Agriculture enterprises in Sri Lanka and six other countries use SenzAgro.
Another product, Mosurance, is a usage-based insurance solution that aims to improve driving behaviour in Sri Lanka. The idea is to incentivize better driving by reducing insurance premiums, depending on a driver’s behaviour monitored via our sensors installed in vehicles.
Beyond that, we have SenzMate Polar, a farm-to-fork traceability solution used by blue-chips, supply chain and warehousing companies in 11 countries. Our sensor-based Environment Management System can monitor, predict and automate the control of temperature, humidity, moisture levels, and pressure in storage facilities, warehouses, and logistics heavyweights like Keells supermarkets and Aitken Spence Logistics are our clients.
We have also built different solutions for customers in Med Tech, Sports Tech, renewable energy Tech and more, using SenzMatica to receive sensor and visual inputs to generate customer-specific insights.
What is your vision for the company?
Our vision is to become a global leader in AIoT and connect at least 100 million nodes by 2030.
Nodes are the data-centric points like smartphones, Bluetooth devices and wearables like watches. According to new research, the number of nodes surrounding an average person will double within this decade: the average number of nodes within a 0.5-metre radius of any person at any given moment will increase from 26 to 56 by 2030. So, the growth potential is tremendous.
To achieve our vision, we have launched an AIoT Launchpad Program so any enterprise anywhere in the world can connect their nodes through all AIoT-related R&D work from ideation through to product prototyping, minimum viable product development and commercialization. That will give us the impetus to grow our presence in Europe and the US. Global tech enthusiasts and tech business consultants can become our lead partners and join a very appealing win-win synergy.
For more information, please get in touch with us at [email protected]