Daniel Raj David, CEO, Detect Technologies |Raised $45M, Building Industrial AI Across 20+ Countries

[00:01:39] Detect Technologies: What do they do and global presence

[00:04:12] AI Intervention in Industrial Safety: What does Detect do here?

[00:09:50] GUMPS: Detect Product in industries

[00:12:32] Why Detect: Origin and Development

[00:17:24] IIT Madras: Daniel’s student life and early exposure to industrial challenges

[00:26:25] Company Incorporation: How it happened and why

[00:28:58] Early Days of Detect: Then vs now and the pivots that led here

[00:31:44] The Pandemic Period: How it affected Detect

[00:34:38] Moving into Global Portfolio: Transition from Indian to Global companies

[00:37:24] Industry 4.0: What is 4.0 and what came before this?

[00:39:32] OSHA: How has it evolved?

[00:41:33] National to International: The leap from 1 country to 20 countries

[00:46:30] The Funding Journey: Potential for additional degrees in the BS Program?

[00:49:05] Students and Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Daniel’s advice to pick a problem to solve

[00:55:08] Ecosystem and Mentorship: Role of IIT Madras in Detect’s growth

[00:57:08] Closing thoughts 

[00:09:53] IIT Madras

[00:05:40] OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] has set out rules for Industrial Safety based on past incidents and scenarios

[00:21:25] Professor Krishnan was Dean of ICSR when Daniel first approached him for guidance

[00:23:02] The first sensor of Detect was built in CFI, IIT Madras

[00:40:08] IOGP [International Association of Oil & Gas Producers] works like OSHA, but in the Construction sector

[00:49:30] The Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Foundation was founded to create an environment for industrial exposure for students

[00:55:28] The Detect team initially worked out of the CNDE lab at IIT Madras

[00:13:15] Tarun Mishra Detect’s Co-Founder was working in an industrial facility when Daniel met him. 

[00:17:49] Divanshu Kumar from Involve is also an alumnus of the Intelligent Manufacturing course

[00:20:14] Harikrishnan A.S. was Daniel’s classmate in his Intelligent Manufacturing course and was a part of Raftar

[00:21:12] Daniel emailed Professor Krishnan Balasubmramanian for guidance on building technology with real-world impact

[00:23:04] Karthik is one of the founders of Envisage and worked on the electrical engineering portion of the first Detect sensor

[00:28:02] Tarun Mehta from Ather Energy and Kedar Kulkarni from Hyperverge are some of the successful leaders from IIT Madras who had started their own companies

[00:43:02] Shekhar Kirani from Accel and Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala encouraged Daniel to fly to international countries to study the industrial conditions and standards

[00:46:43] S Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal are the founders of Axilor Ventures

[00:48:27] Manu Iyer is the Founder and Managing Partner of BlueHill Capital

[00:50:13] S Gopal advised the Detect team on Finances and bringing ROI

[00:04:58] Gartner and McKinsey publish statistics on Industrial Safety.

[00:13:44] Google Photos was popular at the time that Daniel started thinking about a system to detect risk factors in industrial facilities

[00:13:46] Hyperverge was working on vision tech when Daniel was working on projects in IIT Madras

[00:22:27] Tarun Mishra was working in Reliance Industries before he joined Detect.

[00:29:21] BPCL, Adani, Vedanta, Aditya Birla and HPCL were some of the companies that were working with Detect even before they were incorporated as a company

[00:33:38] Daniel mentions NVIDIA while talking about the future of technology for sensor cameras

[00:34:44] Shell was the first international client of Detect Technologies

[00:42:47] Amrut mentions Halliburton during the discussion on safety measures in international companies

[00:46:42] Axilor Ventures was one of the first companies to invest in Detect Technologies

[00:46:53] Bharat Innovation Fund and Elevation Capital are some of the companies that have invested in Detect Technologies

[00:47:11] Accel and Shell Ventures invested in Detect in 2021.

[00:48:11] Prosus invested in Detect Technologies in their 2022 funding round

[00:48:26] BlueHill Capital has been an investor in Detect Technologies from their inception in 2017 

[00:56:11] The Vice Chairman of the Murugappa Group gave them access to its facilities in Coromandel

[00:09:52] Gumps [Guided Ultrasonic Monitoring of Pipe Systems] is a technology invented by Detect Technologies is the world’s first high temperature monitoring system that can tolerate heat upto 350 degree Celsius and detect leakage as well as rate of corrosion