Optocycle was one of the standout winners of the 8th Smart Building / Smart Construction Innovation World Cup®. To learn more about their vision and technological breakthrough, we spoke with the team to gain deeper insights into their success story.
1. HOW DID IT ALL START?
Optocycle was founded in 2022 in Tübingen with a clear vision: a world where every piece of construction waste becomes a new building material.
Interestingly, we didn’t start in construction. Initially, we were building AI to recognize fruits and vegetables at supermarket checkouts. The pivot came when a contact from the recycling industry highlighted a much bigger problem: construction waste is still classified manually—slow, subjective, and inefficient.
We realized that the core issue is missing data. That’s why we built Optocycle: combining optical sensor systems with AI to create a reliable, real-time data layer for material flows—and enable true circular construction.
2. WHAT ARE THE KEY MILESTONES YOU HAVE REACHED SO FAR?
We’ve made strong progress in a short time:
- Founding in 2022.
- 2023: Development of our core technology: AI + multispectral sensor systems for real-time material classification and First pilot with Heinrich Feeß, one of Germany’s leading recyclers when it comes to green technologies
- 2024: Expansion to 10+ pilot systems an six awards won.
- 2025: Series and market-ready product; 30+ systems installed; 20 employeesMost importantly: we’ve proven that our system works in real-world, harsh environments—not just in theory.
3. WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU HAVE FACED?
One of the biggest challenges was building our own machine learning model from scratch—specifically for a domain where hardly any structured data exists. At the same time, we had to deeply understand a very complex and traditional industry.
We learned that success doesn’t come from technology alone, but from truly understanding the customer. That meant spending a lot of time on-site, learning the processes, and identifying the real pain points—not the obvious ones.
If I had to start again, we would actually do almost everything the same. The only thing we might adjust is planning growth a bit more realistically—we scaled faster than expected and outgrew our office space very quickly.
What we would never change is our approach: building the solution directly around real customer problems and integrating it deeply into their operations.
Our advice to startups:
Stay focused on solving real customer problems. Don’t get distracted by too many ideas—relevance comes from depth, not breadth. That’s how you build a product that creates real value and gets adopted.
4. WHAT IS COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
Our immediate focus is on organic growth—especially scaling sales and expanding our customer base across Europe. After successfully validating our technology in pilots, we are now moving into broader rollout.
We already have our first customers in France and Spain, and more international markets will follow. This is a key step towards building a truly scalable, cross-border solution for the industry.
At the same time, we are continuously advancing our technology. We’re currently developing a new extension that is highly innovative and will be very relevant for the industry—but we’re not ready to share details yet.
What we can say: it will significantly expand how data is used in construction and recycling. Stay tuned.
5. DESCRIBE YOUR JOURNEY IN THE 8th SMART BUILDING / SMART CONSTRUCTION INNOVATION WORLD CUP® AND BEING THE TOP TECHPRENEUR?
The experience was extremely valuable. What impressed us most was the combination of deep tech and real industrial relevance across participants.
Being recognized in the 8th SMART BUILDING / SMART CONSTRUCTION INNOVATION WORLD CUP® confirmed that we are solving a fundamental industry problem—not just building incremental innovation.
Key takeaway: It was great to see how far we’ve already come and that we are on the right track. The strong resonance from both the jury and industry confirmed that we are addressing a highly relevant problem—and that the industry is ready for solutions like ours.
6. WHAT ARE YOUR THREE TIPS FOR UP-COMING STARTUPS
- Build for reality, not for demos – your product must work in complex, messy real-world environments
- Focus on economics – sustainability only works if it’s profitable and creates clear ROI
- Own your value chain – building deep value creation in-house creates real differentiation and long-term competitive advantage
Are you ready to become the next Top Techpreneur? The 9th Smart Building / Smart Construction Innovation World Cup® is now open for submissions! Don’t miss the chance to showcase your innovation. Participation is free of charge: https://www.innovationworldcup.com/smart-building-smart-construction-iwc/