ADVANCED AI BASED META-SEARCH PLATFORM IN PHOTONICS

Project Information

AdAIMeetOptics

Grant agreement ID: 101071854

DOI

10.3030/101071854

Project closed

EC signature date 21 June 2022

Start date 1 July 2022

End date 31 March 2023

Funded under

• European innovation ecosystems

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 75 000,00

Coordinated by

MEETOPTICS LABS S.L.
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AdAIMeetOptics (ADVANCED AI BASED META-SEARCH PLATFORM IN PHOTONICS)

Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Photonics is an essential tool in technology and research with a market valuation of $ 686 billion that provides services proportional to 13% of global GDP. Some of the fields of application of photonics that are in full growth are autonomous driving, virtual and augmented reality, processing of emerging quantum materials and technologies, causing a great demand for associated photonic components such as lasers, lenses, mirrors, polarizers, microscopes, among others. In addition, photonics has many other applications in all technological fields such as Medicine, for laser surgery, detection of diseases, aesthetic and therapeutic treatments...; communications, industrial processes, 3D printing, research, military applications, law enforcement, research, commercial products and so on.

MeetOptics is a disruptive solution, unique in the global market, being the first specialized search engine for real- time photonic components. Its meta-search engine highly specialized, thanks to the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and neural networks, allows the global scalability of help and professional and precise technical guidance in this market. Access to MeetOptics is online through a web platform and is accessible free of charge to users in order to facilitate their expansion of use. It makes it easier for expert photonics engineers to find new suppliers of highly specialized components in minutes instead of weeks, while less experienced engineers can find out which are the verified suppliers in the industry, understand how to use photonics in their applications and discover what are the most cutting-edge technologies of the moment.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Development of advanced AI algorithms

In order to improve the data quality of our optics database we developed algorithms to first semantically read the technical specifications and afterwards standardise them across the different products and manufacturers.
To analyse and verify the impact of the data quality improvement, we combined the created algorithms with a created tool to visualise our database repository for optics products with the users’ interaction given by google analytics. Thanks to this, we could create a monthly report that measures the visibility and user’s engagement for each supplier.

Design, usability analysis and user experience

Increase of our optics database thanks to the automation of reading product specs, and its standarization. This made us restructure the database structure from an SQL to NoSQL database, making it accessible via the elastic search. The number of products has also increased.
Finally, to improve the products accessibility and platform usability we developed a search completion and suggestion bar for our site search embedded with the elastic search, added more filters and filter units, changed the style of the search page to fit more rows with products; and ensured a visible Add to Cart button in every search page.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Business model validation in Europe and North America

Firstly, we had identified our early adopters and early majority, those with higher probability to converge as customers after being contacted. To shorten the sales cycle, we created a FOMO strategy based on promoting early bird discount only for companies joining at the Photonics exhibitions.
Finally, to increase virality, every time we integrate a supplier or a supplier renews the contract on MEETOPTICS we share it with our social media platforms, currently with 70.000+ professionals.

Thanks to the developed business strategy we experienced a boost of users going from 5,800 unique monthly users at the beginning of the project to 12,000 at the end. On the other hand, our monthly recurring revenue (MRR) went from 8,821 euros in June 2022 to 19,938 euros in March 2023, x2.2 instead of the expected x4. Leading to a closing of 203,499 euros in 2022 and the expected revenues of 650,000 euros in 2023.

Intellectual Property protection

From our provisional US patents, in 2022 we performed an FTO (freedom to Operate) in Europe identifying no risk on operation for our developed technically standardised and up-to-date database. In March 2023, we moved forward to apply for full patents in the US to protect our IP.
The developments of this project, specifically the algorithms and the increase of usability, let us with a family of trade secrets based on:
- The semantically read and standardisation of the technical specs across different formatting of data.
- The database structure that is accessed from the platform.
- The encapsulation of the platform for fast speed and its automatic indexation.
- The searchability of synonyms and product applications using our elastic search.