Waldek Technologies on the groundbreaking digital twin tech advancing the future of industry

Waldek Technologies founder, Yoshiharu Sato, and his team are at Techstars Berlin ‘24 developing Gauzilla Pro, an AI-powered and no-code web editor for 3D and 4D digital twins.?

Gauzilla Pro enables a range of industries to build virtual models of physical objects, systems, or processes that are updated in real-time with data from their real-world counterparts. And the best part? It can build these complex models from input data as simple as a video taken on a smartphone.?

We sat down with Yoshi to learn more about this incredible product and what we can expect from Waldek Technologies.?

Hi Yoshi. Can you please introduce yourself and give a few details about your professional background?

I'm Yoshi, the founder of Waldek Technologies, an Estonia-based AI and 3D startup. I was born and raised in Japan but have lived in Europe for many years. Back when I was in high school in Tokyo, I started my first venture — a small 3D software business. From an early age, I got interested in computer graphics and started learning computer programming so I could develop 3D games by myself.?

After that, my main interest shifted to financial markets — quantitative trading in particular — and I’ve worked for quantitative hedge funds and trading firms where I did R&D on AI/ML applications for trading as well as blockchain.

Wow! Can you briefly explain what you’re working on now?

At Waldek Technologies, we’re developing Gauzilla Pro — an AI-powered 3D/4D digital twin solution that enables you to generate a fully-interactive, photorealistic 3D environment from a short video captured on something like a smartphone, flying drone, or a 360 camera. You can then edit the 3D on Gauzilla Pro for broad applications like AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction), e-commerce, agriculture/forestry, gaming, AI/robotics, fashion, and many others.

Today, videos are one of the most abundant data sources because everyone can shoot one anytime, anywhere using their phone. Thanks to the rapid advancements in 3D reconstruction technology, anyone can now generate a high-fidelity 3D model from a phone video. A true revolution is taking place in the space of reality capture.

Gauzilla Pro is a fully web-based solution. You don’t need to install anything on your computer nor do you need to upload your data to an external server. That means 100% data privacy.?

Where did the idea come from?

In 2023, French and German researchers jointly came up with a groundbreaking machine learning-based 3D reconstruction technology called 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS). It allows you to generate a high-fidelity 3D reconstruction just from a short phone video.

Since 2023, 3DGS has been exploding across global academia; new research papers extending or improving 3DGS come out daily. As a DeepTech startup, one of our goals is to bridge the gap between the latest and greatest advancements in the 3DGS technology and user-friendly 3D solutions for practical applications.

Can you give an example of a use case?

One of the main features of Gauzilla Pro is fully interactive 4D time-lapse. This 4D feature is a game changer for the AEC industry because it allows construction companies and real-estate developers to record, visualize, and analyze the progress of their construction projects with precision and quality in a cost-effective and time-saving fashion.?

They can quickly identify and assess deviations from construction plans and schedules, as well as adjust project timelines as necessary. They can easily make a 4D time-lapse on Gauzilla Pro by shooting quick aerial drone videos of their site periodically and generating an as-built 3D model from each of these videos, and concatenating the models in the time domain on the software.?

In the 4D model they can inspect any section of the construction site from any angle in the scene in a time sequence because the underlying representation is a fully interactive "radiance field", a photorealistic 3D environment. Gauzilla Pro therefore gives them an enhanced tracking capability for project risk management which reduces the risk of costly reworking.

Gauzilla Pro's vision AI also lets them segment, annotate, and highlight specific sections or parts of the building for BIM (Building Information Modeling) or VDC (Virtual Design and Construction). As such, Gauzilla Pro is a great tool for AEC firms to share the historical and up-to-date detailed progress of their construction projects with stakeholders.

We made a PoC utilizing these AI & 4D features of Gauzilla Pro for Tesla Giga Texas, where they did an expansion project at the EV Gigafactory earlier this year. We have also partnered with Skender, a Chicago-based premier construction company, and created an interactive 4D visualization of their construction project in a downtown location. We are also in talks with other AEC firms globally in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.?

Where are you now in the development process?

Currently, Gauzilla Pro is in early beta. We have around 300 companies and businesses registered on the waiting list, and we released the first Closed Beta of Gauzilla Pro in the last month. Based on the feedback that we received from test users, we are currently working hard fixing bugs and issues. We are planning to release a public beta after that.

What has the reaction of potential investors and customers been like?

Most investors I've talked with are excited about the broad potential applications as well as the rapid advancements in 3DGS.?

Customers are especially interested in utilizing the interactive 4D time-lapse feature of Gauzilla Pro because it provides a completely new and unique user experience.?

Do you have any key milestones you're aiming to achieve during Techstars?

One of our key milestones for the program was to start paid pilot programs with corporate clients, which we've already started with some of the closed beta test users. We're also aiming to build a team of founding engineers.?

We're a remote-first company because I guessed that it would be very difficult to find great candidates in one city given the cutting-edge nature of the 3DGS technology, which is at the intersection between AI and 3D and people who have expertise in both fields are rare.

What is one thing you found surprising about founding your company?

Naval Ravikant, the co-founder of AngelList, said earlier this year that "Networking is overrated... Do something great and your network will instantly emerge".?

I've found that to be true. I didn't have any business network in industries like AEC before I started Waldek Technologies, but ever since I started sharing on LinkedIn what my new startup is building, a surprising number of people came up and helped me advance the venture.

What’s one major goal you have for the next 12 months?

We're aiming to release the first public beta within the next 6 months. Readers of this post can register themselves on the waiting list at https://www.gauzilla.xyz. Thank you!

Thank you, Yoshi! Best of luck.