Battery performance monitoring firm charged up by The Nucleus

Online service, dox, sees opportunity with the rise of electric vehicles

A new online service called dox that aims to help businesses keep on top of their battery consumption, is entering a venture building programme called The Nucleus, supported by The UK Lebanon Tech Hub (UKLTH) a joint initiative from the UK government and Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s Central Bank. dox helps firms track their battery usage, and show when batteries about to fail or need to be replaced. Currently, dox is in the middle of a private beta, in which companies can join the program and test the product for themselves. The company anticipates expansion into other significant markets, such as the automotive and drone industries. With the continued emergence of electric vehicles and the rapidly increasing uses for drones, battery management systems with software for the numerous fleets likely to grow with the increased use of EVs, dox states that there will be a significant demand for battery management systems.

Dox says that its systems can save time through its management tool with access to the fleet of batteries anywhere, anytime while displaying battery analytics. Inventory cost reduction can be achieved via the software’s ability to determine exactly when to order new batteries instead of ordering batteries and spending money on space and battery sulfuration. These benefits can give the edge to companies using fleets of vehicles such as e-bikes or other industrial equipment run on batteries, as individual battery performance can vary and unexpected failures prove costly and inconvenient. Using an online dashboard, dox customers can see their vehicles or other equipment locations in real-time, monitor power consumption and performance, and predict when maintenance or replacement is due.

Nicolas Jamal, CEO of dox, said: “Batteries are the core for these businesses. They are spending too much time taking care of their batteries, and still, failures might occur. Our predictive platform will ensure that these businesses spend their time on what matters instead of taking care of their batteries.”

Dox consists of three key components:

• Mobile application for task management and notifications;
• Battery management platform (web platform) for predictive analytics and management;
• Application Programming Interface (APIs) that will integrate with already existing solutions.

Today the global battery is large and expanding year on year; it is currently predicted to be worth $17.26 billion by 2021. For that reason, dox has chosen to start targeting a niche market at first; the e-bike sharing industry in Europe. It has already validated its product with two different companies in that sector and is improving and upgrading persistently, based on the user feedback. dox also takes into account the environmental impact of battery manufacture and recycling. As demand for batteries faces continuous growth for many years to come, and since dox’s software predicts battery failure which leads to the reduction of unwanted inventory, much of the battery waste will be cut down, leaving a positive impact on the environment.

UK Lebanon Tech Hub support

The dox team (l-r): Adnan Hamdan, lead R&D; Fred Hatem, business development, co-founder; Nicolas Jamal, CEO, co-founder

Dox has been selected as one of seven projects from a pool of 176 applicants to be supported by The Nucleus, a scheme run by The UK Lebanon Tech Hub (UKLTH), allowing it to pursue global ambitions. It is backed by the UK government and the Central Bank of Lebanon for fostering entrepreneurship and research & development in Lebanon. The Nucleus start-ups benefit from an investment of US$20,000 in cash and US$30,000 in services, in return for the UKLTH taking up to a five per cent equity stake in the business.

Fred Hatem, co-founder of dox, said: “The consequences of not getting battery management right are of course very serious and include explosions that can injure people and damage equipment, sudden failures which can have a critical impact on real-time applications, battery waste and associated environmental issues, all leading to eventual loss of money and reputational damage.

“We’ve put a lot of effort and technical knowhow into an out of the box solution, so that we can prevent those things happening and to give businesses both operational assurance and peace-of-mind.”

In-service benefits for entrepreneurs during a 12 week period include developing their product with an in-house core technology team and building a business model with C-level executives. During the 12 weeks they will also benefit from a host of practical workshops on finance, legal structures, organisational culture, raising capital, pitching, marketing and sales.

Every company will be assigned a board involving top industry experts, relevant academics, media experts and potential buyers. Three monthly board meetings will be held throughout the programme to ensure a business roadmap is set and followed for every start-up.

The Nucleus entrepreneurs will also have access to office space, support with Legal and Auditing services for company registrations, in addition to HR management. On product completion, UKLTH will continue to support all the start-ups by helping them tap into their international networks, garner partnerships and help them raise potential investment from investors.

Nicolas Jamal added: “We are a very new company, with our first product version under development and the alpha version due for delivery. Our pilots will run exhaustive testing and product enhancements until January 2018.

“Then we launch the full product in January 2018. Things like our marketing strategy and other key behind-the-scenes components and business strengthening will be developed within The Nucleus program. By the time we have completed that we will be in a good position to take on the world.”