TFN joined founders from across the continent at Antler’s recent European Founders Conference at London’s Mansion House recently to find out more about their startups and plans following the Antler programme. In the latest of our interviews, we spoke with Ingrid Sofie Øvrum Sem, the CEO and co-founder of Shapemaker, which automates the civil engineering process. She told us about her journey as a founder, Shapemaker’s growth, and where it will be going next.
Watch the full interview below:
Daring to become a founder
Sem told us she did not start her life in the tech sector. “My background is in business and economics,” she said, “after doing my masters in Madrid, I returned to Oslo where I was a consultant with EY.” However, she felt that she wanted to build something, which she couldn’t do from consultancy. Her problem, however, was a lack of a network to support her.
Addressing that led her to Antler when they launched in Norway, although it almost didn’t happen. “I got a spot in their first cohort, but I was too scared to resign from my corporate job,” she said. Getting a second, and final, chance a year later, her perspective changed: “then I got too scared not to take that chance! And I’m very happy that I did.”
It was there that she met her cofounders, Balazs Kisfali and Evan Ramenskiy. They both had civil engineering backgrounds, and the product idea that was to become Shapemaker, but needed a more commercially minded co-founder, a role Sem was able to fill.
“They had seen that the [civil engineering] process was very time-consuming, very manual, and error-prone,” Sem explained. “And also that towercos and telecom companies all around the world have a huge backlog of rollout and upgrades.” Shapemaker addresses that by providing a platform that can undertake the analysis, design, and reporting that goes into the design process.
Bridging tech and civil engineering
Despite its wide applicability, Shapemaker has started by focusing on serving the telecoms sector.
“We are structural engineers,” Sem explained, “and we use the latest technologies to ensure that our towers or infrastructures are the lightest possible but also according to build standards, and other safety factors.” Their platform is capable of providing designs that meet the unique demands of where they are sited, analysing the needs of the customer and also the challenges those structures might face in during its working life.
“We gather site-specific weather data from all over the world,” Sem told us. “So for us, it’s not different to build a tower in an unusual or more urban area.” They even test for extreme weather events, future-proofing their designs for the changing climate.
Their initial focus on telecoms has met with success. “We have raised three rounds of capital,” Sem told TFN. “In total, we have raised about €4 million.” Emphasising their current telecoms focus, around €2.5 million of that came from a Nordic telecoms company.
Shaping the future of civil infrastructure
Sem sees Shapemaker building from their foundations in telecoms. “We have already identified that our technology can be used for other infrastructure, such as power transmission lines, solar panels, wind offshore and onshore,” she said.
Although they see the company remaining focused on telecoms for the next year, they are starting to plan their expansion into other sectors. Sem pointed out the importance of infrastructure to our lives. “We believe that shaping it will significantly support faster and better rollout of infrastructure promoting a more sustainable world,” she said. One example she gave was power transmission lines, which have similar structural and technical requirements to telecom towers, but an industry that, Sem believes, needs a major upgrade.
Shapemaker is an example of a startup solving a real problem. Although advances in technology are often celebrated, the infrastructure that supports that is taken for granted. Part of Shapemaker’s inspiration came from the backlog for new telecoms towers — many parts of the UK will have experienced the wait for upgraded cellular networks — and Sem believes Shapemaker will be part of the solution to that problem, helping us update our infrastructure: “our mission is to reinvent civil engineering for a sustainable future.”
This article is part of a media partnership with Antler. For partnering opportunities, contact [email protected] or [email protected].
