DanobatGroup, a Gipuzkoan business group that has decisively promoted an internal digitization process in recent years, is now taking a new step by opening a new line of collaboration with startups to advance Artificial Intelligence-based solutions. Its aim is to optimize the use of the large amount of data collected by its machines so that it can offer a service with greater added value.

DanobatGroup's Innovation Manager, Nerea Aranguren, explained that this initiative will strengthen the intense R&D activity carried out by the business group and focus on research activities between 3% and 4% of annual turnover, always applied to manufacturing.

"Price competition is unfeasible; it must be technological innovation that sets us apart from those who compete with us," says Aranguren. Moreover, it works in the situation of DanobatGroup, in international markets and in sectors with high technological demand: such as aerospace, aeronautics, automotive or energy.

The continuous progress of this group, promoted by Danobat, Soraluce and Goim and the Ideko technology center in recent years, does not prevent it from maintaining a sustainable attitude towards innovation, and hence this new line of collaboration with startups.

Aranguren stated that they will receive proposals from these technology-based companies, whose conditions are real use cases and are in the middle between consolidation and an early stage. However, there are no limits to the proposals if they are limited to the field of Artificial Intelligence.

“Sometimes we see how a technology that was initially unrelated to our business is adapting to a new use, because in Artificial Intelligence it is one thing to know technology and another to apply it,” says DanobatGroup’s Director of Innovation.

Therefore, the business conglomerate is open to different solutions, even if the initial destination is other areas, "because we will look for an application for manufacturing," says Aranguren.

ieTeam Consulting is collaborating with the Basque team to select the candidates' proposals, which do not have to be Basque startups, but the international geographical area.
Solutions should be focused on modeling, analyzing, and processing data extracted from the enterprise group’s machines and production systems so that they can achieve services that “enrich and simplify their day-to-day tasks” for their customers.

Once the projects have been selected, the professionals from the companies that make up DanobatGroup will start working with these technology-based companies, in a relationship that is yet to be determined.

Different formulas

In this sense, Nerea Aranguren explained that in its digitization process, the team has taken advantage of different opportunities and in this case, there are "many formulas for collaboration" that will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis to determine the most appropriate ones according to the project.

In fact, since DanobatGroup began the process of digital transformation, it has experimented with many alternatives, most of which are still in place. One of them refers to the application of an innovative method of capturing talent among people who already work in group companies, as well as being an Ideko technology center that provides services to fifty companies.

They also tried another successful initiative four years ago, such as the incorporation of Savvy data monitoring startup capital, with which they have developed digitization solutions for the industrial environment, "with very good results for Danobat and Soraluce," says Nerea Aranguren.

Similarly, DanobatGroup founded the Bergara-based company Endity Solutions in 2020, which inspects high-tech parts for defects.
"We had a lot of businesses 10 years ago and we've been reorganizing them to focus on Soraluce milling and Danobat grinding," says Aranguren.

All this with the aim of maintaining its international recognition for its high level of innovation. "We are at the top, we are not small compared to the competition, which is very strong," says the director of Innovation, who puts Soraluce as a benchmark, "because it creates a range of products that no one can copy, which gives it an incredible competitive advantage."