New Investments: Doppelio – Creating a category of its own in testing connected products!
Prachi Malpani
New Investments: Doppelio – Creating a category of its own in testing connected products!
At Mela Ventures, we strive to find potential category leaders. These companies could either be disrupting an old category or creating a new category. Doppelio falls in the latter.
What is Doppelio trying to solve?
IoT is revolutionising multiple industries – with all equipment from coffee machines to automobiles becoming connected. IoT spending[1] is expected to surpass USD 1.0 trillion in 2026 with CAGR of 10.4% over 2023-2027 from USD 800 Billion in 2023. Software applications are increasingly driving the value and differentiation of these products. This brings with it the challenge of ensuring that the applications work and perform flawlessly, when connected in large numbers across different communication channels.
Take the case of the modern connected vehicle – which not only drives you from Point A to B, but is also connected to a centralized vehicle platform of the manufacturer. In this case, we have a new testing requirement before you can launch the product or release a new version of the application in the market like:
- Will the connected car vehicle platform handle the load of millions of vehicles?
- Will functions of the car, like remote maintenance of temperature, live tracking, etc. work smoothly through the application each time?
- Will these functionalities work even when the mobile network is patchy?
For the vehicle manufacturer, the consequences of any failures are serious, resulting in potential product recalls, servicing costs, and delayed launches, among others.
Doppelio enables testing of all these conditions without dependence on actual physical vehicles. In other words, the software releases can now be tested comprehensively and early to ensure a well-tested product is released into the market. Doppelio achieves this by letting you create virtual devices that mimic the data, network, and load behaviours of real vehicles.
In the example described above, we have used automotive vehicles. But similar scenarios exist for many other commonly used equipment from lift elevators to forklifts to generators and many more.
Doppelio software allows the creation of virtual devices, which are called Doppel (from the German word for “double” as in doppelganger). And yes, you guessed correctly, the company’s name comes from the word Doppel (Doppel + I/O) = Doppelio.
Currently, enterprises are compelled to build custom simulators, which is costly and time-consuming. Also, load and network testing cannot be done despite the investment, and IoT testing remains manual. Doppelio has demonstrated that 80-90% of the test scenarios can now be tested in the lab with a 10x reduction in time and effort required for device-based testing.
Why did Mela Invest in Doppelio?
- Category creating product: IOT testing as a separate category will evolve for various reasons, such as the heterogeneous nature of different IOT devices, the need for bi-directional communication, and the ability to handle an infinite load of devices with high-volume data.
- Founder-Investor Fit: The Doppelio team, in their prior avatars, served enterprises and built solutions for them. The first-hand experience of understanding the customer challenges and the insights gathered through the process of solving them was the genesis of Doppelio.
- Evolving Business Models of OEMs: OEMs are increasingly focusing on aftermarket service portfolio due to higher margins and superior customer experience. For instance, players like Johnson Controls have mentioned in their financial reports that “LTV value are transitioning from 5x to 10x due to connected production and digital platform”.
Mela believes that the resilient nature of the founding team, a must-have solution for enterprises, and immense ROI for customers will help Doppelio pave a path towards becoming a category leader.
[1] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS50936423