00:12:45 · Sebastian Johnson, Gianni Cuozzo
[00:12:45] S0: Amazing, yeah. I was interested about the M and A strategy side of things. What are you looking to buy? Is it product? Is it talent? Is it distribution? When you're assessing M and A opportunities, what's really important for you? [00:12:56] S1: I mean, I think right now, it's a little bit of a combination outside of tech, because we are particularly strong in technology development. I mean, this has been one of the, you know, top of the spear for for Exein for years because all of the technology... We are not dependent by anyone. Everything that is is part of the technology that we build is in a house is managed by us, so we are not depending by anybody... Anyone in that sense. What we are looking for is mostly talent and distribution. And of course, because right now we're living in a very fast paced market, and if you wait to build the distribution, it may be too... It take too long. Therefore, when you find a target that has the right amount of distribution, also the right amount of talent, because right now we are in a talent war and everybody's fighting for talent, you're trying to buy them, you know, and to expand. Sometimes you also buy new product that can complete the product offering that you have with your... For your customer, maybe company that you're already partnered with so that you can expand and better control what you can provide to your customers.
00:12:56 · Gianni Cuozzo, Sebastian Johnson
[00:12:56] S1: I mean, I think right now, it's a little bit of a combination outside of tech, because we are particularly strong in technology development. I mean, this has been one of the, you know, top of the spear for for Exein for years because all of the technology... We are not dependent by anyone. Everything that is is part of the technology that we build is in a house is managed by us, so we are not depending by anybody... Anyone in that sense. What we are looking for is mostly talent and distribution. And of course, because right now we're living in a very fast paced market, and if you wait to build the distribution, it may be too... It take too long. Therefore, when you find a target that has the right amount of distribution, also the right amount of talent, because right now we are in a talent war and everybody's fighting for talent, you're trying to buy them, you know, and to expand. Sometimes you also buy new product that can complete the product offering that you have with your... For your customer, maybe company that you're already partnered with so that you can expand and better control what you can provide to your customers. [00:14:09] S0: And you... You've been on this amazing journey round after round, extreme revenue growth. Now looking forward to sort of exploring new frontiers or doubling down on some new frontiers, whether it's physical AI, but also the West Coast Of America. Looking forward, six, twelve, eighteen months, what have you got to get right? Or what have you got to do to feel like you've been a success in the next year?
00:14:30 · Gianni Cuozzo
[00:14:30] S1: Yeah, of course for us success is to get more distribution here in US to starting to be the name for physical AI, you know, because we really believe that physical AI will be the next big bottle of AI because, you know, we are starting to see that code security, AI code security, AI vulnerability assessment, penetration test. It's a little bit of a solved market. It's already, you know, it's not as thrilled anymore, and where we really see the next big challenge and the next big, big battlefield will be on the security of those system that will starting surrounding us. And people will trust this evolution of market only if they trust those devices. And in order to build trust, we have to build inside the supply chain and pretty much doing again, we did in embedded, which was be part on every single supply chain, every single point of the supply chain. For us success is if we inject ourself in the physical AI supply chain from the silicon vendors to the foundational models, we already are there with the OEMs with OEMs and and the chipset manufacturers, but it's also important to us to be on the frontier labs and the foundational models that are being developed for the physical AI. So for us, it's really about... Success is really about on conquering the distribution, the supply chain, and then be the name when you think about a company that is doing physical AI. And because we're starting... We see that physical AI security... There is no CrowdStrike of Physical Eye yet. This is what we want to be, you know, being the CrowdStrike of physical systems.
00:16:14 · Sebastian Johnson, Gianni Cuozzo
[00:16:14] S0: Yeah, it's absolutely amazing. I think you've done absolutely phenomenal work. How big do you think this market is? [00:16:24] S1: Well, I think, you know, the market is endless when it comes to to physical physical eye systems, because first of all, it's not only about the device that we already starting... We already see now, and the device that most probably will be converted to physical AI system, because we are in the middle of industrial revolution, and typically when we are in the middle of industrial revolution, also all device will be updated with the physical like capabilities. So, you know, just thinking about the industrial machinery, right now you have a traditional industrial machine that is taking order and, you know, it's programmed in a specific way. Now we are starting to see conversion pack for this physical... For this system. So there is not only the greenfield, but there is also the brownfield that can be converted. So the the market is... It's it's really big. It's not only the new devices, but it's also the old devices. And there is also devices that we don't see yet on the on the... On on the market, delivery drones, humanoid robotics. We're starting to see a new class of devices. And if you are... Or... And that's why it's so important to win the supply chain because those new class of devices will be built by the supply chain that you already... You you you should inject to. That's why for us, it's really, really important to get in the sufficient because when those new devices will be produced, we will be already there.
00:17:49 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:17:49] S0: I wanna ask you one more question. When we when we spoke last year, we talked about how you had built this phenomenal business from Rome, which is not known as one of the thriving tech ecosystems of Europe. You said one of the advantages that building from Rome has given you is that you had to adopt this sort of global mindset from day one, and that enabled you to scale quite quickly because you were immediately thinking about products that could serve clients from, you know, US to APAC. What advice would you give to other founders in smaller ecosystems on how to have that mindset? What does that mean? What should they be doing to build a business that is global from day one?
00:18:27 · Gianni Cuozzo
[00:18:27] S1: So first of all, to choose a global problem to solve, one of the problems that we see sometimes is that people focusing on niche local problem. It's good to win a niche problem, but it should be a niche global problem, because if you don't have the push to go outside, you will never go outside, you know, because you will just waste time in your local environment and, you know, by the time you want to be global, somebody who already started with a global mentality will be already there. So for us at Exein, sell the first license of Exein in South Korea from Rome, you know, even though we had customers that can be ten minutes, walking distance from us, but we try to be global since day one. And I think this is an important lesson, especially right now in the AI world. I don't think geography really matters like before. Network matters. Being in the place where things happen in matters, but when it comes to solving a problem, every every founder right now has access to basically infinite tool. While when we started, you know, everything you can solve was only about what kind of talent you can choose. Right now, talent's global, problem are global, everything is global. So the first recommendation I will give to everybody who wants to start from a, let's say, not so known ecosystem and scaling globally is starting from a global problem and never have this mentality to say, okay, I'm from that region, so I cannot do it. I mean, nobody will look where you come from if you actually solve the problem they have. People are buying and spending money for products that solve them either a necessity or a problem. If you solve a problem, people will just not look at where you come from.