Munich — ARQIS advi­sed Munich-based AI startup OCELL on their seed finan­cing round. With an opera­ting system for digi­tal forestry, OCELL helps forest mana­gers operate more effi­ci­ently and sustain­ably. Busi­ness angels from the BayStartUP inves­tor network are now inves­t­ing a high six-figure sum in this tech­no­logy under the leader­ship of Andreas Kupke (Finanz­check) and Wolf­gang Seibold toge­ther with the TUM Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors. The capi­tal injec­tion is supple­men­ted by a grant of over 500,000 euros. The capi­tal is to be used to improve products and quality and to expand the commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, marke­ting and sales departments.

The startup OCELL around the foun­ders Chris­tian Decher, David Dohmen and Felix Horvat has deve­lo­ped the “Dyna­mic Forest” app. It provi­des forest mana­gers with the ability to make scien­ti­fi­cally sound manage­ment decis­i­ons and imple­ment smoot­her forestry opera­ti­ons through an opti­mal data foun­da­tion. In addi­tion to digi­tiz­ing custo­mers’ exis­ting analog data sources, OCELL relies on aerial imagery coll­ec­ted speci­fi­cally with highly effi­ci­ent ultra­light aircraft. OCELL relies on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to evaluate the forest areas.

OCELL is an AI Company specia­li­zing in the gene­ra­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion of aerial imagery. — With its network of profes­sio­nal pilots and sophisti­ca­ted camera module, OCELL gene­ra­tes the best possi­ble image data from the air. Here, the quality is far beyond the capa­bi­li­ties of satel­li­tes and drones. As a data science firm, OCell focu­ses on deep analy­tics for its clients. For this purpose, know-how with data proces­sing, ‑filte­ring, photo­gram­me­try and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is applied.

The main custo­mer segment is forest mana­gers, helping them to better charac­te­rize, manage and protect forests from thre­ats. An addi­tio­nal market segment is infra­struc­ture moni­to­ring, where our capa­bi­li­ties in tree detec­tion and analy­sis help to avoid damage and delays.

“OCELL exci­ted us at ARQIS not only as a deep-tech topic, but also because we were able to provide very hands-on deal coun­sel for the seed finan­cing round with the foun­ding team and the expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels invol­ved,” says Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, who was OCELL’s lead advi­sor. “As part of this finan­cing round, we were able to put the GESSI contract struc­ture we helped deve­lop into prac­tice for the first time, largely without a notary,” he adds.

Advi­sor OCELL: ARQIS (Munich)

Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Mauritz von Einem; Asso­cia­tes: Louisa Graf, Benja­min Bandur, Anselm Graf (all Venture Capital)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.