Portuguese startup makes buildings autonomous in 96 hours
Sapo Eco
· 15 Feb 2022
Boosting commercial buildings to operate efficiently, keeping spaces comfortable, detecting and notifying anomalies are some of the main objectives of Bandora Systems, a Portuguese startup, more commonly known as a Virtual Facility Manager, which runs the operation and maintenance of service/commercial buildings.
But the Portuguese start-up's functions don't stop there. The truth is that Bandora, rather than wanting cities to become intelligent, wants buildings to become 100% autonomous, i.e. not requiring human intervention to manage them.
This is because, although buildings are increasingly sensorised and manage massive amounts of data and information, the truth is that they still depend on the human hand, which serves as a support in processing this data. In addition, the facility managers themselves, who help in this management, assume the difficulty in operating the so-called smart buildings, and, in this sense, the building's autonomy would be the solution to the problem.
According to Márcia Pereira, CEO of Bandora Systems and mechanical engineer, the solution is to invest in artificial intelligence (AI). "New technologies such as artificial intelligence could play a fundamental role in the efficient management of buildings. The ability to process large volumes of information and take actions in real time, which would effectively reduce the energy consumption of buildings, creates a new paradigm. That was the idea that formed the basis for the creation of Bandora," she began by saying.
How does Bandora operate in buildings?
As a Virtual Facility Manager, Bandora connects to any IoT (Internet of Things) system already existing in the building and uses artificial intelligence to support the manager's decision-making, in order to optimise, continuously and in real time, its operation and its equipment, such as HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) and lighting.
In addition, the startup can also detect anomalous energy consumption, in order to reduce costly downtime and, consequently, avoid wasting energy. The main goal is to give the greatest comfort to building occupants, but with the lowest possible energy consumption.
"At the limit, it is as if we had an experienced facility manager who is an expert in the operation of a specific building, monitoring, correlating, optimising and making decisions every five minutes, for 24 hours for seven days a week, which is humanly impossible! But with the use of artificial intelligence, this is now a reality!" the CEO added.
Bandora Systems currently has no competition on the national market, but Márcia Pereira admitted that there are some solutions that can be confused with those of the startup, namely those that provide hardware and sensors to make the building smart. However, the mechanical engineer guarantees that "Bandora is on a different level, as it is the intelligence layer on top of any hardware, new or existing. Bandora buildings are no longer smart, but autonomous and work without any human intervention."
Even so, the competition in the international market exists and the person in charge of the Portuguese startup assumed that it is a competition "with financing rounds and stages of maturity way above Bandora". However, the fact that Bandora can turn any building into an autonomous building in 96 hours is an advantage that even this strong competition could not overcome, as it takes six weeks to do the same.
"Our approach in turning any building into an autonomous building in 96 hours is quite innovative compared to the six weeks required by the competition. Recently, we were even distinguished with the Recognition of Suitability to practice Research and Development Activities, by ANI, and this distinction proves not only our capacity for innovation, but also for execution, and our contribution in turning Portugal into a knowledge HUB", revealed Márcia Pereira.
The pandemic as a driver for betting on AI and the support funds
The need to innovate became even more notorious after the world was faced with a pandemic that locked everyone in their homes and forced companies to take on new ways of working and new business models.
When asked about the possibility that companies that do not bet on technology could risk losing their place in the market, Bandora's CEO did not hesitate to say that the market will only have room for companies with "greater capacity to adapt and resilience".
"Those companies will undoubtedly be the ones that can present themselves more competitive, more efficient and faster. And, in this sense, Artificial Intelligence is an enabling element for companies, as it allows them to replace human resources in the performance of repetitive and monotonous tasks, solve process optimisation problems, even with massive amounts of data and no apparent correlation, in a faster and more effective way, and also allows them to make the most of current IoT systems," she emphasised.
But if, on the one hand, companies feel pressured to make this change to ensure their survival, on the other hand, we still see some resistance from some companies who associate that it will require a large financial outlay to make this bet on AI and feel they do not have the capital for it.
For this reason, Márcia Pereira guaranteed that the disclosure of support funds that financially help these companies "is fundamental". In this scope, Bandora has established a partnership. "We are working in a large national consortium, with relevant companies and entities of our scientific fabric, for the decarbonisation of the residential segment. We are talking about an investment of approximately 2.3 million Euros for Bandora, which will be entirely used in specialised human resources", she said.
Besides this consortium, Bandora has also had initiatives that aim to make artificial intelligence a more accessible reality for any company. One of the initiatives is related to the startup's annual subscription, without any start-up, customisation or other costs.
"The subscription value is directly indexed to the size of the building, through 4 levels: Shop, Office, Building and Campus. This way, companies have access to our technology through very competitive operational costs and adapted to their needs," said the CEO.
In addition to this, Bandora is also working on a seed investment round in order to develop more features within the company, create a fully dedicated Commercial and Marketing department and work on its European expansion. "The goal is to be more and better for our customers," concluded Márcia Pereira.
