According to the International Energy Forum and despite a general decrease in car sales during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the global sales of electric vehicles were rising 43% to reach 3.24 million dollars. The global shift and the rising adoption of electric vehicles raise the question of battery life which is dependent on usage habits and environmental factors; these factors are exclusive to users which limits battery manufacturers’ ability to test such scenarios in labs and field tests.
Dox Technologies, a startup that was founded in 2014, aims to reduce sudden failures, battery waste, and increased operational and maintenance costs to battery manufacturers and users through their battery predictive analytics platform built using a proprietary machine-learning algorithm with features such as battery alerts, battery analytics, automatic scheduling and REST APIS.
Energy Innovation Hub is a platform designed to combine game-changing ideas & innovative solutions in the energy sector. All in aim to help power Lebanon, by offering financial and technical support with partners, networking opportunities with industry experts and potential clients. dox Technologies, co-founded by Nicolas Jamal and Fred Hatem, is currently enrolled in our Energy Innovation Hub, winners of a $20,000 ticket and selected to move to the acceleration phase, to help bring innovation to the battery manufacturing and testing industry from Lebanon to the world.
1. What inspired you to establish dox Technologies? How did you come up with the idea?
Dox began as a university project back in 2014: we started with an autonomous drone system with docking stations to replace batteries and prolong the flight of drones. Since then, we faced many challenges and we decided to pivot our focus to the battery field. Today, and with the race to electrification, our drone project matured into a vision of creating green communities based on clean energy in the Middle East. We aim to bring the best technologies together, partners, and collaborate towards a brighter future for third-world countries.
2. What makes dox unique and different from other solutions within the market?
From the broad topic of batteries, we decided to start with battery testing as we think it is still very outdated, not standardized, and costs a lot of money and time. Our testing platform will revolutionize how batteries are being tested today. Current solutions require companies to pay around 300k per experiment and wait 1-2 years to get the results. Our solution aims to cut down the costs by 55% while saving 70% of the time. We are using Machine Learning technology to fuel our online platform and bring the intelligence of data to the battery testing industry. We are also very proud of the quality of people and talents that are driving DOX. Being a startup and working in an agile environment gives us a competitive edge because we are able to pivot, move faster and in a leaner way.
3. What are the challenges you faced while launching your business and how did you overcome it?
Working in this part of the world, we had a hard time finding expertise and experience in that field. This made us look for people from around the globe and currently, we have connections scattered everywhere. Maintaining a healthy relationship with those connections means working round the clock, juggling around time zones and continents. This can be draining in the long run (been tested) but is nevertheless a challenge that brought us many benefits in return, like broadening our horizons and expanding our reach internationally. On the other hand, the lack of funding and market availability in this region is another challenge we faced. With limited financial resources and market size, it was clear for us that we needed to start somewhere else, so we shifted to the US and the Australian market instead. Finally, despite our restricting financials and the living conditions in Lebanon becoming more and more unbearable, we were still able to gather 10 crazy people willing to fight, give from the heart and leave an impact.
4. In your opinion, what is the key to success? What advice would you give other startups in the industry?
The key to success in a startup is the people and the team. First and foremost, having a harmonious team sharing the same passion and vision is what makes our work exciting and fun. Setting small achievable goals and working hard towards them is also what made us become what we are today. Working in a startup environment can be stressful and all over the place. Never give up, stay humble, and learn from your mistakes.
5. What should we expect next from dox?
We are preparing for our pilot project which entails 3 companies testing our software and providing feedback. A lot of work is being poured behind the scenes and soon you will be able to enjoy the results. So stay tuned!
