Why We Invested in Focalx

Why we Invested in Focalx

If you’ve ever rented a car, you’ve probably worried about being fined for a scratch you didn’t cause; one the rental company may have missed before handing you the keys.

But missed vehicle damage isn’t just a rental car issue. It happens across the entire automotive supply chain. From OEMs shipping cars between logistics centers to dealerships receiving new inventory, vehicles move constantly. To catch damages, inspections are set up at key handoff points, often before a car even leaves the factory. In fact, a vehicle typically goes through ten inspection points in its first year alone.

Yet, most of these inspections still rely on pen and paper; if they happen at all. Maintaining a reliable source of truth is difficult, not just because documentation is manual, but because human error is inevitable. We miss things.

The result? Tens of billions of dollars lost annually due to vehicle damage disputes, impacting both businesses and consumers.

Enter Focalx

Focalx’s AI-powered platform completely automates vehicle inspections, helping rental companies, logistics providers, and OEMs prevent revenue loss from damage disputes.

Founded by Isabella Merrild Agdestein, Pritam Bolenwar, and Nishchith Uchil, the team combines deep technical expertise with strong commercial acumen, drawing experience from companies like Implement, Maersk, and ALLT. Both Isabella and Pritam had encountered the problem firsthand and knew there had to be a better way.

With Focalx, customers can quickly inspect vehicles, detecting scratches, dents, cracks, and more with precision. Their platform creates a digital source of truth, allowing businesses to track damages throughout a vehicle’s lifecycle; ensuring full documentation for every car being imported, exported, or rented. The platform, powered by Focalx’s own foundation models, identifies damage faster and more accurately than humans, making manual inspection errors a thing of the past.

Why Now?

More cars are in transit than ever, with EV exports from China as a key driver. As a result, the need for accurate inspections in the U.S. and Europe has never been greater. Ensuring proper handling at every stage is critical to preventing costly disputes.

At the same time, recent advances in generative AI have made it possible to create high-quality synthetic data, even when real data is scarce. For Focalx, this, combined with their proprietary data, has created a data flywheel that has allowed them to build one of the most advanced models on the market; one that continuously improves.

Why we’re Excited

Beyond backing an ambitious and diverse team, we’re incredibly impressed by what Focalx has achieved as a new player in the space. 

The strength of their model, combined with their easy-to-use platform, is already delivering results. They’ve secured partnerships with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Enterprise, Sixt, and Europcar, and have doubled their revenue in the past quarter alone.

We couldn’t be more excited to join Focalx on this journey, alongside angels from our byFounders community; including Leapwork founder & CEO Christian Brink Frederiksen and the four Uizard co-founders Tony Beltramelli, Henrik Haugbølle Nørbæk, Ioannis Sintos and Florian van Schreven, to name a few.

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