Digital innovation
SwipeGuide was founded in 2015 by Willemijn Schneyder and Daan Assen. The company developed a software platform that made the huge amount of paper instructions on the work floor redundant. On the platform, companies can easily create their own digital work instructions and then immediately optimize them. In this way, the company ensures fewer errors by employees and therefore less downtime of machines through better instructions.
Corona disaster
In 2020, the corona virus surfaced and demand for Swipeguide's services came to a virtual standstill. Finally, July 2020, a Corona Bridging Loan (COL) was applied for and received through ROM InWest. A variety of detailed information was requested for approval of the application, think a business plan and a feasibility analysis. The loan received is a major reason the company survived the corona crisis. Eventually, the loan was fully repaid by the end of August 2024 upon L2L's acquisition of Swipeguide.
ROM InWest as COL executor
The Corona Bridging Loan (COL) was created in 2020 for innovative companies and growth companies that were not eligible for emergency measures such as the BMKB-C and GO-C. With the loan, they were able to temporarily improve their liquidity position. The COL was partly responsible for the establishment of ROM InWest. A total of 350 million euros was lent nationwide, 79 million of which went to 285 start-ups and SMEs in North Holland. Four years later, a large part of this portfolio has been phased out and many of these entrepreneurs – including Swipeguide – have experienced significant growth.
Stormy growth
In April 2021, Swipeguide raised money in a new round of investment. This allowed the company to grow further on its own again. The desire to improve its services caused Swipeguide to enter the US and eventually merge with L2L. Swipeguide was looking for a partner that could broaden its offering, as customers asked if Swipeguide could also help with task allocation and identifying deviations in the production process. This is how the company ended up with L2L. They handle communication with machines. If a machine has an error message, it communicates it to a platform of L2L. With the swipeguide manual, they can then go back to the machine to fix it. So together, Swipeguide and L2L support the whole process.
Expand further
The merger will result in a company with 110 employees, of whom more than a quarter from SwipeGuide, and a turnover of more than 22 million euros. Schneyder is chief strategy officer at the new company and Assen is responsible for Europe. The merged company has plenty of growth ambitions. "In two years, I want us to serve 1,500 to 2,000 factories and grow to 1 million users," Schneyder said in an earlier interview following the acquisition. "We want to grow with new software products in both the United States and Europe. We will also look at Asia."
Vision of the future
Employees can now also provide feedback on instructions or report problems on the platform, which can be used to further optimize the process. In addition, the company measures how quickly employees pick up the instructions. It then sends this data to the creator, who can use the data to improve future instructions. The platform's AI-driven technology ultimately ensures that employees acquire critical knowledge more quickly. This further reduces dropouts, which is good for both employees and customers.
