Roadmap

How we started

5+ years advising major stakeholders, analysing the Vending and Coffee Service European market, and understanding fundamental pain points - from field operations up to group reporting – is actually the starting point and the driving force behind our journey: we are convinced data is pivotal – we mean high quality, full range detailed, 24/7 data - and we must bring our contribution to help the industry streamline their operations. This is not only about data related to the machine and the way ingredients are being supplied, processed and consumed, but also the way they are being sold and paid.

Consider first connectivity solutions were made available to the Vending Machine industry more than 20 years ago. Still, and besides rare innovation-driven actors (essentially new entrants not bound to their old legacy setup), IoT or technologies connecting and supporting data exchange from and to the machines is hardly gaining momentum among mainstream vending operators.

This is when the ideation process began - lots of brainstorming, sleepless nights, cups of coffee, doubts and many questioning, ...

The Plan

Here we are: the full team is set! We’ve got the technology expertise and the industry experience and know-how onboard.

Inspired by numerous open source initiatives, our vision for the industry is straightforward:

• A harmonized ecosystem made of connected machines delivering standardized data at a lower cost, made available essentially to trigger actions.
• An efficient cashless world – and this is the perfect timing.
• A unique payment solution (wallet-based + usual credit/debit cards) shared by all participants, disregarding current high CapEx physical payment devices installed on the machines themselves.

Standardization is a must: retail-compliant data sharing and harmonization is the way to go. We promote a mutualized standard solution whereby all concerned stakeholders – from machine makers up to operators or ingredients suppliers – are incentivized to participate.

Prototype stage

We wanted to prove that our vision was right: words are fine, but acts are even better, and our goal was to bring evidence and proof of concept via a prototype. This is our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) phase 1, spread over 3 to 4 months.

Main topic on our agenda: partnering with a few machine makers and self-financing the prototype required budget. And we did it! Our VEETAMINE prototype was delivered as scheduled and right ont time, as of February 1st, 2022.

Then we started showcasing our beta version to partners, committee advisors, associations, and key industry stakeholders who share our attractive and distinctive approach. This took us up to the end of April 2022.

Consolidate footprint

Right after prototype showtime, spring was about consolidating our footprint with partners and supporters, and increasing our visibility within the industry.

• We onboarded our 7th machine maker (!) and started working on tech. specificities and API connection.
• VEETAMINE joined the incubator of the Ark Foundation for Innovation in Valais, Switzerland. This is a solid recognition of our innovative initiative.
• We started collaborating on firmware, SDK and M2M messaging protocols with renowned Swiss engineering school HES-SO in Sion.

Where we are now – Pilot stage

What is even greater than prototyping? When it comes to industry recognition and business functionalities coverage, launching a pilot with first-hand partners is the way to go. This is a unique and “down-to-earth” proof of concept stage, in other words THE privileged way forward should we want to accelerate time to market for our solution.

We are thrilled to share the news two key vending stakeholders, a renowned coffee machine maker and a tier-1 vending operator decided to trust us and accepted to run a VEETAMINE pilot on a set of machines in Switzerland. And this is the first one as we may add a second pilot right afterwards (“wip” mode for now – more good news to come). This whole operations-level focus will be spread over 4 to 6 months.

Next steps – key milestones

Fundraising

In order to launch the Production stage, we need additional financial resources. And this leads us to 1st external Financing Round A: we have a unique story to share with investors and we are confident the ones attracted by our vision and our transformative next-generation solution (to tackle current frictions) will join us.

This is a significant turning point for us. We have been busy consolidating knowledge, market research, VEETAMINE distinctive model and unique selling proposition, financial projections, up to valuation figures in a single pitch deck describing and synthetising our business, team, funding goals, and plans.

Needless to say our main agenda will be around scouting, finding, and selecting the right investors from or outside the industry to help us and support VEETAMINE growth.

Production stage

Once fundraising is secured, we will naturally be dealing with our production agenda or phase 2: the full IoT infra, API, and dashboard development phase.

The tech. scope is large and includes translation layers, extended data architecture, administration dashboard, APIs, mobile App, performance optimization, testing, … The 1st stable version is to be set up and running within 12 to 18 months. Rapid time to market is fundamental for us: we'll ensure full collaboration with our partners to constantly focus our development effort with latest update in terms of market functionalities and capabilities coverage.