Startup of the month: Prewave

Hi Harald, let's start with the basics: could you please describe what Prewave is all about and give us a brief company description? ‍

Prewave was founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the University of Technology Vienna where co-founder Lisa Smith started working on the AI technology behind Prewave as part of her PhD research in 2012. 

That’s interesting! So you both founded the company right after Lisa had finished her PhD? 

‍Yes, after Lisa had concluded her PhD thesis in 2017, we founded Prewave together. But actually we have known each other since 2002 when we both started attending a technical high school for computer science in Vienna. In fact 6 of the first 8 employees at Prewave all attended the same high school.

‍Okay, let’s go back to the product: which problem does Prewave solve for its customers? 

‍Supply chains become increasingly more complex and intransparent. The recent Coronavirus pandemic has shown just how fragile supply chainsactually are. We help our customers to stay informed of any risks and developments in their supply chain, so they can react right away should a problem arise. On the sustainability side there has also been a lot of pressure coming from consumers and the legislative, such as the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Law, which holds companies responsible for human rights violations in their supply chain. We enable our customers to screen their suppliers for incidents and make sure they don’t miss any violations in case they do take place.

‍And that is achieved through your technology, right? Can you elaborate a little bit on our USP and core competence here? 

‍Our technology is at the heart of Prewave and it has been developed and evolved over the last 9 years. We often have customers benchmarking our technology against competitive solutions, and we continuously come out ahead in terms of the quality of data we deliver. Our customers receive few, but highly relevant and specific alerts and are kept clear of all the noise of irrelevant, duplicate or low-quality alerts that competitors would pick up.

‍And what is then your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)? Can you provide some reference customers already using your product? 

‍Our ideal customer has more than 500 suppliers, a complex supply chain and is conscious about their sustainability impact. Our current reference customers are for example Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen or Yanfeng.

‍Supply Chains and the pandemic’s effects on them is one of the most prominent topics right now. What is your take on that? How did the pandemic and its consequences affect Prewave? 

‍The pandemic has clearly shown the fragility of today’s supply chains. Shortages shed a light on inefficiencies and the dangers of trends such as minimizing stock in production facilities. Prewave plays an integral part in making tomorrow'ssupply chains more resilient, as we enable our customers to uncover the depth of their supply chains and react to changes in real-time.

‍Right now - you already mentioned it - there are also multiple regulatory changes planned in Supply Chain Management. Germany published its Supply Chain Due Diligence Act and the EU discusses new Supply Chain Laws as well. What are your thoughts here? Does that put Prewave in an even better position?

‍It absolutely does, we are uniquely positioned to be a one-stop service provider for compliance with the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. We have used the last month to further develop our product offering to meet exactly this demand for compliance solutions. With the upcoming European Supply Chain Act we are also looking very positive into a future of more sustainable and transparent supply chains.

‍Thanks for elaborating on that and thank you for the interview. It was a great pleasure and we are excited about what the future holds for Prewave!

And to our readers: check out Prewave's checklist for the German Supply Chain Due Dligence Act to learn more about the latest regulatory changes.