Startup of the Day: Trusted Twin, Poland’s developer of data collaboration platform

Trusted Twin was launched in 2021 by Krzysztof Malicki, Michał Szymański, Marcin Kowalski, and Jan Wyrwiński. Its platform for secure operational data sharing enables companies to build new digital products through real-time, cross-company data collaboration with data ownership and data governance controls. The solution is powered by so-called Digital Twins. They are virtual representations of physical objects used for simulation or creation of new services.

In the Startup of the Day column, co-founders of Trusted Twin share more details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

“The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.”

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Trusted Twin enables companies to build new digital products through real-time, cross-company data collaboration with data ownership and data governance controls. All mission-critical aspects are covered (infrastructure, data model, integrations, data ownership, data governance, workflows, security, compliance), so that the customer can start developing the business logic and applications from Day 1 with no initial investment.

We think of Trusted Twin as the data collaboration platform that allows companies to unlock value by rapidly developing new products, new services, and new processes based on data.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Krzysztof, Michał, and Jan had worked together before, successfully taking a startup to IPO on the Warsaw stock exchange in 2011. In mid 2020, Krzysztof met again with Jan, who had been working in VC at the time, and told him that he wanted to start building a tech company one more time and that he had this idea for a digital register / digital ledger for physical objects — i.e. how to effectively store and share data around a single object that is handled by multiple entities? His friend Michał was willing to join. Jan has challenged the idea during multiple meetings over a course of a few months. Michał and Krzysztof worked on the fundamentals of tech and architecture.

In Q1, 2021 we got the conviction that there is something truly significant there, and we joined the Startup Wise Guys acceleration program in Tallinn (lasted from 05.2021 to 09.2021). In the meantime, Jan introduced Marcin to Krzysztof and after a few meetings Marcin decided to join the founding team mid 2021. We incorporated in July 2021, and closed the pre-seed round in February 2022.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took around nine months to go from founding the company to building our MVP. The technology behind Trusted Twin is complex, and we had to invent the specific ways that we could combine many different, cutting-edge cloud computing technologies and figure out how to make these work together seamlessly.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We launched the v1 of the product in the summer of 2022.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Trusted Twin is an API-based platform and the business model is based on usage. We have various plans depending on the scale of the customer’s project.

What are your target markets and consumers?

There are so many potential use cases and customers for this technology. We really believe that this type of digital architecture is the evolution of cloud computing, which we all know has completely changed business forever. We avoid using the word “revolution” here, but data sharing and data collaboration especially are going to be major areas of new value and new growth for businesses in the next decade, starting now. Accenture, for example, is bullish on data collaboration, and in a recent report they estimate that cloud platform spend will reach $1.3 trillion by 2025!

Although there are many use cases for a data collaboration platform, we see that today it is the real-time profiles in e-commerce, telecom, adtech and financial services that are getting the most attention. Customer profiling would be a great example: hugely important in telecoms and insurance (amongst many other industries), real-time collaboration on customer profile data is both a major headache and a major opportunity. The regulatory and data privacy considerations of cross-company customer profile collaboration are major roadblocks that cause delays and can kill potential new business.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have nine people on the team right now, and we are looking for an SDR and a Content Creator.

Check us out here:

• SDR: https://trustedtwin.homerun.co/sales-development-representative/en
• Content Creator: https://trustedtwin.homerun.co/content-creator/en

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

In September 2022, we announced the raising of $1 million in pre-seed funding led by ff Venture Capital, with participation from Presto Ventures, Movens Capital, RKKVC, Startup Wise Guys, and several high-profile angel investors.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We are very focused on sales and business development right now, particularly on building repeatable sales in those industries that are getting the most traction for us. We are also expanding the team and improving our compliance to work with large enterprises more effectively.

Product development is also an ongoing adventure, and we are currently focused on becoming multi-cloud. Fundraising is also a continuing goal, and we are hoping to raise our seed round in 6–12 months.