Trace.Space, a software startup for complex engineering product development, has raised $1.5M in pre-seed funding to build AI-enabled, API-first software for industrial and automotive product manufacturers. Trace.Space’s platform will offer AI-powered tools for managing 80% of the product development lifecycle, helping manufacturers build and deliver new products to the market faster. This funding round, the largest ideation stage investment raised by Baltic founders to date, was led by Fiedler Capital, with participation from Nebular, Tiny VC, Foreword VC, Microsoft’s former GM Charlie Songhurst, and Change Ventures. The funds will be used to grow the team and launch the first iteration of the product, scheduled for Q2 of 2023.
Trace.Space uses the latest technologies, such as the GPT algorithm, to help engineering project management catch up with the modern rate of innovation. The company is developing a bespoke requirements management tool that enhances and integrates all engineering disciplines equally well: software, device, mechanical, electrical, etc. This tool will help manage the more than five million requirements and specifications related to integrated software that a car today has. The market for Trace.Space’s requirements management tools is estimated to be around $1.5 to 2 billion, and when adding other related tools that cover a wider product development lifecycle, it could reach as much as $20 billion per year.
“We are developing a bespoke requirements management tool that enhances and integrates all engineering disciplines equally well: software, device, mechanical, electrical, etc.,” says Jānis Vāvere.
Trace.Space’s founders, Mikus Krams and Jānis Vāvere, previously worked at Lokalise, a startup for localisation process automation and translation management. Latvia has yet to see many cases of employees of established startups setting up their own companies, but the Trace.Space co-founders believe that it is natural for people who have several years of experience in large and successful startups to create their own companies. The combination of ‘complex and boring’ problems that Trace.Space is working on ensures that the company can create a solution to a pressing business problem and make a lasting difference to the way systems engineers work.
“Systems engineers are brilliant people who develop great products, but they often work with outdated software. They deserve to work more comfortably,” says Mikus Krams.
Trace.Space wants to offer a more comfortable working experience to system engineers who develop great products but often work with outdated software. They deserve to work more comfortably, according to Krams. Trace.Space’s requirements management tool will help companies produce both devices and software for them. The market for these tools is strong, and as more and more devices are equipped with software every day, the need for them will only increase. Trace.Space focuses on medium and large companies in the engineering and industrial products sector. Consumer products are less complex, so they do not have such a strong need for these tools. Aerospace, defense, and medical industries have many times higher requirements for which the product is not suitable, at least not yet.
“We all take for granted the world built around us. The planes you fly on. The cars you drive. The phone you’re probably reading this on. The Trace.Space team has taken one of the most exciting new technologies that will change the world, AI, and is building a tool for the hidden world of the engineers creating our future. I couldn’t be more excited to invest in them,” stated Robert Hegedues of Fiedler Capital.
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