About Arize
- Founders: Aryan Behrazi
- Founded in: 2018
- Employees: 17
- Money raised: 1.3 million
- Ultimate goal: To become the market leader in their segment
You want a new couch. In the shop you are immediately overwhelmed by the offer. In the corner is a beautiful velvet sofa, which might fit nicely in the living room. But how do you decide? You don’t just take a sofa like home just to see if it fits. Start-up Arize lends a helping hand. They make a 3D model with just a few photos. And with the help of augmented reality, you can see how the sofa looks in your living room. Founder Aryan Behzadi tells more about it in this installment of start-up of the day.
What exactly does Ariza do?
“We offer a service that allows 3D models of certain products to be viewed in a different environment via augmented reality. We also make 3D models if you cannot supply them yourself. Imagine you want to see how a flowerpot looks on the windowsill before you buy it. Our software then ensures that you can project a full-size 3D model of exactly that flower pot on your windowsill.”
How did the idea behind Arize originate?
“I have been working in the IT industry since I was twelve. There I became fascinated with augmented reality. I wanted to make this technology available to a large number of people. When I found a partner who shared this passion, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. In 2018 we founded Arize. Finally, in 2021 we had our E-commerce customer. There was still a lot of thinking that preceded that.”
A lot of thinking?
“The ambition was high from the start, which is why we thought it was important to do everything well thought out. We wanted to build a service based on our five core values. First of all, we want to deliver quality, but also keep it simple for the customer. We want to be disruptive and continuously adapt to customer needs. Our technology is also constantly changing with us.”
Do you have an example of that?
“The simplicity is strongly reflected in the creation of a 3D model. All we need is the size of the product and some photos. The beauty of our software is that photos taken with a mobile phone are good enough. This helps companies enormously because they do not have to go to a photo studio to have photos taken. We also distinguish ourselves by the speed with which we can create such a model. For example, photos of a sofa are converted into a 3D model after just four hours.”
And what sets you apart from other companies?
The simplicity of making the 3D model is just one differentiator. I think that the integration of augmented reality is also very distinctive. The customer can immediately see how the sofa looks in his living room without installing any apps. In addition, our software is built in such a way that there are no loading times or delays. I think the fact that no customer has stopped using our service yet shows how much we pay attention to quality.”
Was it difficult to finance this idea?
“I think that funding is always difficult. But there seemed to be a lot of confidence in our idea and business model. In the end, we managed to raise around 1.3 million euros. This allows us to build a new platform to really help the company move forward. Apart from the shares of the two founders, we have not issued any shares, so the company is in our own hands.”
Where will Arize be in five years?
“That’s a tough question. I would like to say, we should be a unicorn by then. But that might be a bit idealistic. I think I would be very happy if we reach half a million people with our augmented reality in five years.”
