NM moved closer to its ambition of serving the global B2C market and have FoodiniPro become a common kitchen appliance in all the kitchens in the world.
The objectives of the project, both from the point of view of the company and from the point of view of the EU have been achieved. New qualified jobs have been created, new European technology and IPR has been generated and NM has contributed to generate an ecosystem in Europe,generating partnerships with companies and creating customer-provider relationships with bigger brands.
NM has been the only European company selected in some events and collaboration opportunities and many collaboration opportunities envisioned by the companies participating. PoCs are being conducted with companies in Japan, China, USA, Mexico and Europe.
Having factory prototypes in such short period of time was an ambitious goal, but thanks to the approach of leveraging previous developments, NMhas been able to create the new devices with laser cooking technology and conduct some pilots with customers in a satisfactory way.
The appearance of COVID-19 has posed a major challenge, not only to NM but to most of the startups worldwide. However, we foresee new opportunities coming from the need of the population to get services that help them with safety, health and wellbeing, where NM is providing a compelling solution.
During the execution of this project (2018-2020) the goals have been reached reagrding IPR, Quality management, Design and development, Dissemination and Communication activities and Business development among others.
The main objectives were #1: manufacture prototypes to the new FoodiniPro model, #2: complete certification process and set up pilots with target customers,#3: set up Chanel partners and presence in events to help with dissemination activities and gain traction and #4 launch Natural Machines customer support platform to automate trouble ticketing and customer inquiries.
Achievements:
O1:FoodiniPro Prototypes in place and pilots conducted with customers:
● All new Systems in place and the firmware and software supporting it working
● AI capabilities in place
● AV capabilities in place
O2: Factory tests and certification process completed for EU (CE stamps) and USA markets:
Pilots have been conducted with selected customers. Due to COVID-19 crises, some customer priorities have shifted, but other customer opportunities have emerged.
O3:
● NM has shifted commercial focus to Chin. For the USA remains a priority to set up a newtwork of dealers.
● Discussions have been held with major kitchen appliance brands (Samsung, Bosch, Electrolux, SEB Groupe)
● NM is participating in shows in which we can get exposure at a reduced cost, like NRF 2020 (NYC, USA) and others
● NM has opened commercial offices in USA (NYC), Italy (Milano/Torino) and China (Beijing) to deal with local customers. Local licenses in place in China
O4: Scaling-up of the customer service:
● NM has rolled out its customer support platform.
● NM is in the process of integrating IA chatbots and adding virtual agents to its structure providing 24x7 multilingual support.
● NM can provide local support in the EU, USA and China, through local presence
