EZ Factory, supplier of mobile apps used in production environments (located in hub Beta of Twice Eindhoven on the High Tech Campus) has secured a second capital injection of 720,000 euros! The investors see great potential in the innovative startup, which already has well-known clients such as Heineken, FrieslandCampina and FN Steel. Especially the focus on the user perspective appeals to the investors. With this investment, the company expects to break even by the end of 2020.
EZ Factory has been around since 2017. Founders Randy Appiah and Robert Bouwman come from the industry themselves and often saw the same problems there: breakdowns, cumbersome procedures, delays and lots of paperwork. They could do better. They developed EZ-GO, a digital application that facilitates the operator in autonomous maintenance, work instructions, checks and audits. As a result, work becomes safer and more efficient, operators can make their own improvement proposals, and results are available in real time in a dashboard.
From user developed
Randy Appiah: "We believe in a bottom-up approach. If you want to realize improvements in the production process, you involve the operator. They know the work inside out. When developing the app, we listened very carefully to the operators, in addition to team leaders, quality managers and production managers.' Robert Bouwman adds, 'The app makes paper unnecessary, shows only what is needed and works a lot with photo and video. It makes performing standard tasks such as starting up a line, changing raw materials and cleaning or inspecting a machine very easy. Moreover, the app has been developed in such a way that people can create new procedures and work instructions themselves after a one-hour training. That leads to more involvement and, above all, a better process.'
Funding
In the summer of 2019, the entrepreneurs already raised 530,000 euros from a number of angel investors who invested private capital. That money was mainly used to build up the team and bring in-house development capacity. This allowed the further development of this and subsequent apps to take place entirely in-house. At the time, the company already knew that another round of investment had to follow this spring, says Robert Bouwman: "We thought carefully about the amount of 720,000 euros. You can bring in huge amounts of money and grow too fast, but we believe in focus and structure, no matter how difficult that is for us as entrepreneurs sometimes. We first want to market the EZ-GO app even better and further strengthen our market position. We already have some very nice clients and are in talks with other big names. By the end of this year, we expect to break even and definitely outgrow the start-up phase.
Confidence
Among the investors are some of the angel investors from the first hour, who continue to invest. They have confidence in EZ Factory's approach, says Randy Appiah: "They see that the scalability of the app has a lot of added value for large international customers with multiple locations. The fact that such companies have already chosen EZ-GO underscores that. In addition, the investors believe in the market potential, the easy rollout and the technology roadmap that puts end users at the center.
About EZ Factory
EZ Factory develops innovative and user-friendly apps to support operational teams in factories. With these bottom-up tools, operators work more efficiently and can continuously improve processes. Checklists, work instructions, autonomous maintenance tasks and audits become much easier and more visual, and results are immediately available in a dashboard. The EZ-GO app is used by renowned companies such as Heineken, FrieslandCampina and FN Steel, among others. EZ-GO simplifies the work of operators and boosts the safety, quality and productivity of production. EZ Factory believes in the power of the people who make the products and always develops apps from their perspective. The motto is therefore: power to the operator!
