She is the absolute winner of GoBeyond 2022, the contest created by Sisal which rewards startups with a high impact on the community and the local area. In Italy every 30 seconds a quantity of drinking water is wasted equal to that of 3 Olympic swimming pools. Pipein has created Shark4, a robot equipped with artificial intelligence that in less than 6 hours inspects the state of health of water pipes, reducing the risk of breakage and increasing the average life of the pipes.
Tech4Italy
Sisal: the bet of open innovation
by Lorenzo Fantoni
Conceived in 2019 by a team of very young engineers graduated from the Polytechnic of Turin (average age 25), Pipeline is a deeptech startup that was born from a crucial fact: in Italy 40% of drinking water is wasted due to poor maintenance of the pipes. In practice, every 30 seconds an amount of drinking water is wasted equal to that of 3 Olympic swimming pools. “The problem of maintenance, he explains to us Alessandro Minori, 24 years old (co-founder and CEO of Pipein), is a challenge common to many sectors: from aqueducts to oil pipelines, to pipes that carry fuel and hydrogen. This datum deeply impressed us and convinced us to start our business project by making use of our common engineering background. So we created Shark4, a robot that travels inside the pipes and captures their state of health through the sensors. It collects the data and sends it outside, where it is analyzed by an artificial intelligence algorithm”.
Pipein’s predictive approach
The robot named Shark4 inspects a pipeline in less than 6 hours and is equipped with a series of sensors which allow a complete analysis of the state of health of the pipes. Thanks to its flexibility, it is able to integrate different types of sensors that can be replaced according to the field of application, moreover its design allows it to easily overcome incrustations and obstacles.
The data collected by the probe are processed in post processing through a AI predictive algorithm and provided to customers in a final report. The great flexibility of the solution proposed by Pipein allows access to various markets including penstocks, aqueducts and maintenance of Hydrogen and Oil&Gas pipelines. The breakage of an Oil&Gas pipe can lead to leaks of hundreds of thousands of liters of oil, causing damage to the environment with a waste of energy which involves the emission of tens of tons of CO2.
Oil & Gas still represents over 50% of the energy produced annually in the world. It is therefore essential to optimize transport to avoid environmental disasters and waste of natural resources. Pipein’s innovative approach is made possible by a software platform and a hardware device and allows to reduce the risk of breakage by 14% and to increase the average life of the pipelines by 20%. Pipein offers a B2B service consisting of a call solution or a long-term service contract, which also offers full predictive capacity.
Pipein’s story
Pipein was born from the idea of four engineers from the Turin Polytechnic who decided to launch themselves into the world of innovation and use their skills to create something that could offer a concrete solution to the waste of natural resources. Water, oil, natural gas, hydrogen. “These are some of the most important resources that our planet makes available to us. Today more than ever it is necessary to use them in a sustainable way, avoiding waste and environmental disasters at all costs”.
In just a few days in September of 2019, Pipein takes shape from the fusion of the ideas of Alessandro Minori, Marek Murgia, Antonio Misuraca and Gabriele Luzzani. The starting point was a fact: in Italy 40% of drinking water is wasted due to the poor condition of the water supply pipes in our cities. All this results in a huge waste.
This problem is not only confined to aqueducts, but also oil, gas and hydroelectric plants are showing signs of age. In many cases the plants are more than 50 years old and a new approach to maintenance is necessary to build a sustainable and safe future. “In fact, to date, the control of the pipes is up to specialized workers, using obsolete instruments and in unsafe working conditions, obtaining insufficient and too variable data to implement effective strategies that solve the problem. Not having the correct data prevents us from intervening at the right time and place to avoid environmental disasters and waste”. Explains the CEO Alessandro Minori.
“Since the beginning, Pipein’s goal was to find a solution close to the safety and reliability needs of companies that manage the natural resources we use every day to lead our lives. Pipein took shape from this principle by introducing a new concept of predictive, automated and effective pipe maintenance into the world of services”. Pipein offers an integrated solution: a hardware device and a software platform make it possible to significantly increase the life of the pipes, reduce the risk of breakage and prevent costs due to accidents.
How does it work?
“The hardware is an automated device that inspects the pipes from the inside. It is equipped with a series of sensors that completely analyze the conduct whatever it is thanks to a compact, modular and versatile design. The collected data is then processed by an artificial intelligence system and finally delivered to the customer in a final report. In this way, managers can optimize maintenance operations by reducing time and costs. Pipein wants to enter various sectors: penstocks, aqueducts and Oil & Gas with the belief that the project can well adapt to multiple markets and offer a safe, reliable and scalable solution”.
Next goals?
“Right now we are working to conclude a new capital increase, which will allow us to grow the team and therefore continue technical development over the next year. Our goal is to have a product ready for our first reference market (the hydroelectric industry) by the third quarter of 2023. Having achieved this goal, we plan to increase the fields of application and expand into foreign markets”.
GoBeyond 2022 Winner
Pipein has just won the first prize in the call for ideas GoBeyond 2022 with a grant (equity free) of 50 thousand euros.
Now in its sixth edition, GoBeyond is the contest created by Sisal to encourage the development of new business ideas and to reward startups with a high impact on the community and the local area. The initiative was born with a pure purpose of social responsibility, aimed at generating value for the benefit of the community, young entrepreneurs and startups. GoBeyond awarded Pipein as the overall winning startup of 2022. “We have awarded people who saw a problem and chose to take action to find a solution. Thanks to GoBeyond’s support, the winners turned their ideas into reality. These are their stories.”