Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups working in industry 4.0. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we want to share our insights with you. This time, we are taking a look at 5 promising steel technology startups.
Heat Map: 5 Top Emerging Steel Technology Startups
Using our StartUs Insights Platform, covering 1.116.000+ startups & emerging companies, we looked at innovation in the production and management of steel. For this research, we identified 104 relevant solutions and picked 5 to showcase below. These companies were chosen based on a data-driven startup scouting approach, taking into account factors such as location, founding year, and technology among others. Depending on your specific criteria, the top picks might look entirely different.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 5 startups & emerging companies developing steel technology solutions. Moreover, the Heat Map reveals regions that observe a high startup activity and illustrates the geographic distribution of all 104 companies we analyzed for this specific topic.
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S1Seven – Blockchain For Steel Supply Chains
Quality certifications for steel manufacturing start from testing iron ore to testing final products such as rebars and sheet metal. As end-users are becoming more aware of the environmental impact of steel manufacturing, they expect certain quality levels. As a result, manufacturers initiate the process of accounting for various quality certifications digitally. Startups and emerging companies use blockchain to digitize steel manufacturing operations and certifications.
Austrian startup S1Seven provides blockchain services for steel manufacturers to conduct transactions with a transparent supply chain record. Important steel manufacturing data such as carbon emissions, water consumption, and other industry-standard requirements, when recorded in the blockchain, provide the necessary transparency for quality certifications and accreditations.
NanoStal – Steel Heat Treatment
When iron ore is smelted at high temperatures to separate the iron from impurities, vast amounts of energy are consumed. Steel, being an alloy of iron, carbon, and chromium, exhibits physical characteristics such as toughness, hardness, ductility, and elasticity. Emerging companies develop innovative heat treatment solutions for steel manufacturing to overcome energy efficiency issues and to customize product characteristics.
Polish startup NanoStal develops customizable heat treatment solutions for steel manufacturing based on varying steel input characteristics. The startup equips the manufacture with specific nanostructures by employing customized heat treatments. Additionally, conventional thermal heat treatments like annealing, tempering, hardening services are also provided.
SteelTrace – Track & Trace
Construction, transportation, and heavy industries consume significant quantities of steel for buildings and structures, vehicles, aviation, and railways. Consumers want more transparency regarding the various quality checks and regulatory compliances involved in the manufacturing processes. As a result, startups develop tamper-proof blockchain-based solutions to record and access batch data, quality verification notes, and test results.
Dutch startup SteelTrace provides track and trace services for steel across the supply chain. Their Blockchain-based solutions enable stakeholders to track test data, digital signatures, witness signatures, and quality certificates at every stage of the supply chain. Consequently, this transparent tamper-proof data is available to all stakeholders including manufacturers, end-users, traders, labs, and other governing bodies.
Formetrix – Tool Steel Alloys For Additive Manufacturing
Advancement in additive manufacturing, such as the 3D Printing of spares on-demand and at the required location, enables organizations to maintain a lean inventory. This helps companies save on material costs and reduce energy waste. As a result, emerging companies work on additive manufacturing materials as solutions for various 3D printing applications.
The US-based startup Formetrix provides proprietary tool steel alloys for the manufacture of industrial components. Formetrix’s high-performance powders help with die casting and injection molding of components that require extreme hardness and toughness. Additionally, these powders are compatible with multiple additive manufacturing platforms.
RE3DTECH – Atomic Diffusion Additive Manufacturing
Prototyping enables recreating and optimizing legacy parts for any machine and at any size. With the help of 3D printing, producing smaller batch sizes at lower costs becomes possible. Besides, additive manufacturing enables customizing the physical and chemical properties of resultant materials. Using this potential, startups develop additive manufacturing solutions to replace steel with materials that exhibit the characteristics and functionality of steel.
The US-based startup RE3DTECH manufactures 3D printed metal parts. By combining layers of metal powder with plastic, 3D printed parts are processed and sintered in a furnace, where the metal powder fuses into solid metal. Subsequently, after post-processing, these final parts act as an alternative to conventional metal parts and are very similar in usability and performance.
What About The Other 99 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence so you can achieve your goals faster. The 5 steel technology startups showcased above are promising examples out of 104 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria, get in touch.
