Ep. 32: Spotting circular knitting defects with Smartex Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 32: Spotting circular knitting defects with Smartex

In this episode of The WTiN Podcast, we talk to Gilberto Loureiro, CEO and co-founder of Smartex – a technology company that has created a solution to spot textile defects in circular knitting machines.

Jessica Owen
Hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I am the Deputy digital editor at WTIN, and this is the WTIN podcast. For this series, I'll be talking to startups and other new brands across the textile and apparel industry, from sustainable swimsuits to jackets inspired by NASA technology. We talk about products, the highs and lows of starting a business, and advice for others interested in entering this space. This week, I am joined by Gilberto Loureiro, who is a CEO and co founder of Smart X, Gilberto talks about working with circular knitting machines in his school holidays, his defect identifying technology and his approach to running a business. Well, hello and good morning, Gilberto. Welcome to the WTIN podcast. Thank you very much for joining me today. And how are you?

Gilberto Loureiro
Hi. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm doing fine. I hope this is going to be very interesting for both parties, and I can teach you lots of things about this brand new technology.

Jessica Owen
Yes, well, that that is the aim. It'd be great to sort of learn more about smart X and everything that you guys are doing. Okay, so let's get started then. So from what I understand, essentially, your company is sort of first to develop a solution to detect defects within circular knitting machines. So I'd like to talk more about the technology in that in a bit. But first of all, just tell me why you decided that there was a need to sort of set up this company, smartex.

Gilberto Loureiro
That's a great question. So starting from the very beginning, I was born and raised in the middle of the textile industry. I grew in textile factories. All my family works in textile factories. They are textile operators in general. They work in textile manufacturing process across the globe, especially north of Portugal, which is a relatively large textile hub in Europe. And since I was a kid, I was helping my parents my brother operating circular needing machines. And that was not a very easy job, as you can imagine. It was quite tough and one of the summers, because I usually work in the summers, I was working in the inspection stage. So basically, I stand for like eight hours per day inspecting fabrics that were already produced in order to detect defects that almost looked the same despite the type of fabrics that they were being produced. And I was okay. This is a very tough job. I was blind after 15 minutes of inspection, and that was the motivation I was looking for to run away from that place and go to college where I studied physics. And then when I was studying physics and optics and programming cameras and a lot of different technology, as well as with also some techniques of artificial intelligence, I realized that it would be a massive opportunity to create an automated system to inspect textiles right away inside circular knitting machines. So it would be even better than having a person, because a person can't be inside a circular needing machine. The person needs to wait for the role to come out. So we could actually compact all of those processes, the knitting and the inspection and collapse them in only one and have the real time inspection inside the machine. So that was the click idea, and we have been working on it so far, right?

Jessica Owen
Well, so interesting, actually, because one of my questions was going to be like, did you have a background in textiles? And actually, you just grew up your whole life, and it just all sort of fell into place with regards to college and yeah, it just seems like it was meant to be,

Gilberto Loureiro
and I was trying to run away from that, right? And here I am, and that's my I'm getting all my days and all my time inside textile factories installing and selling these new technology. So I guess the the idea of running away was not quite successful, but I guess it was for good reasons.

Jessica Owen
Yeah, you were drawn back in clearly. So tell me about the rest of your team. Then I think you are one of the co founders. So who else is involved in this and how big is the company at the moment?

Gilberto Loureiro
So we are three co founders. We used to live together during college. We are physicists, engineers, software developers, and when we founded company, we knew from the beginning that we needed to develop our hardware and our software from scratch, because simply, you can't find these types of cameras and technology in the market. So we decided to move to China. To Shenzhen in the beginning of 2019 and we spent one year in there developing our hardware and get ready for fundraise. Right now, we raised nearly 5 million US dollars, and we have a team of 15 engineers in Europe and some people also helping us in China and in the US. But the team is growing every month, especially in the commercial side and technical side for now, 

Jessica Owen
well, it sounds like you've done quite a lot in such a short space of time. Let's have a look at your technology. Then try and sort of sort of simplify how it all works. Take me through sort of the steps and how it all sort of fits in together,

Gilberto Loureiro
sure. So basically, there are a couple of technologies that were democratized some years ago. One of them is machine learning and computer vision technologies. So only recently, you can use models that are used for self driving cars or facial recognition. You can use those models and reprogram them to detect textile folds. If you think about it, textile is a very complex material. You have 1000s or infinite combinations of textiles that you can produce if you vary the color, the yarn thicknesses, the yarn structure, the number of yarns, etc. You have a plethora of variables where you can play with so you can simple program it from scratch to detect a particular type of folds. We actually need to go a little bit more than that and use machine learning and neural network technologies in order to have like a human behavior when you are analyzing textiles. So that's one of the technologies that we use regarding software, and then we have the hardware. So we are using super fast shutter speed cameras. We are using UV lights, white lights, and many other wavelengths for analysis to have a proper analysis of the textile. And so when you look to our product, it looks basically as a bunch of cameras, a camera bar that we install inside the circular knitting machines. And the cameras just stay there inside, filming everything that is being produced. But what happens inside is way more complex than that. And of course, we need to have super powerful computers to have all of these processing locally and in the cloud. So we provide our clients the hardware, the cameras, of course, but also we provide to them a cloud infrastructure where they can log in, they can see quality standards of their production, of their stuff, of their machines, of their yarn suppliers, so they can have several insights about production standards. Of course, they also can see the production in real time, working more or less like a vigilance camera system that you usually have in your home, but now you're having your textile machines. So they can also check the quality in real time if they want. But the inspection usually happens automatically. The main action point that we do here is when they are producing defective fabrics, which happens to be periodic. Many times, we stop the machine, so we also intervene in the production, and we send others to the employees. On the other hand, if they are just producing tiny holes or oil spots or like radishes that are not periodic, we don't actually need to stop the machine. We need to alert them, and we need to tell them that that's happening and create the role map, the x and y coordinate role map that we also provide, which is also super helpful for them, especially for the garment stage, where they need to cut the roll in certain specific areas.

Jessica Owen
So essentially, then let me see if I've got this right. You have these cameras, you install them, and essentially, they're just scanning all the time for an abnormality as such. And then it sends, like a warning system, or it stops the machine, and then sort of the company can go and fix it and work out what's going wrong. Yep,

Gilberto Loureiro
exactly right. Okay,

Jessica Owen
right. So I wanted to ask then, I mean, this technology is as quite a few people adopted it. I mean, you've only been around for a year or so. So have you had many companies sort of shown an interest? I mean, what's the feedback been like so far? Yeah,

Gilberto Loureiro
we are very lucky that these products is super easy to explain and to sell. We were super lucky from the very first time to get the participation of lenzing fibers in Hong Kong, we used lensing fibers facilities at Hong Kong to test our devices, because they have several circular knitting machines in there, one of the last circular knitting machines in Hong Kong. So we were very lucky by that time to develop that together with them. So. But on top of that, we are surrounded by amazing partners, amazing mentors and amazing investors, such as fashion for good that is helping us a lot, with pilots, with caring, with PDH, with CNA, Adidas, etc, that we have been preparing them so far. And in Europe, we have already clients using the full device, companies like thin text textiles or polo PK, one of the largest manufacturers in Europe, is also, is also start to use our devices. We have interest from many companies in Turkey, Brazil, India, unfortunately, this year has been quite weird for us to operate in there, in those countries, but I'm very confident that in the beginning of the next year, we are going to have already distributor channels closed on those countries, and then we can operate normally, because the main the main step here is to create a relationship with distributors that already distribute other machines, and that's the those are the distribution channel that we are opening for these countries. However, in Europe, Italy and Portugal and Spain, we can do it directly. That's what we have been doing. Let me tell you, in the clients that are already using our full device, the machines, where they have it installed, who there is no, no existence of defects anymore. They still inspect it once in a while, just to make sure that everything is okay. But everything is all the images are stored. All the images are saved. You can analyze them wherever you want, and and we have this guarantee of 0% defects in the in the silicone machine, something that didn't happen before.

Jessica Owen
I mean, that's quite a significant impact then that you're having. I mean, I went on your website, and you've got a case study on there with the company tintex, which I think is also in Portugal. And I was reading some of the sort of facts and figures saying that the companies might just save over 50,000 liters of water, because the defective roles aren't going to the dye house and even CO two and financial say things as well. So it's, I mean, this is, this is quite a good piece of technology for these companies. I mean, not only are you helping to reduce waste and add to that sort of sustainability aspect, but I mean, the money savings as well is always like, there's always something that people widen their eyes to,

Gilberto Loureiro
yeah, when the first, the first time when I learned about the prices of the fabrics and the speed of production and the liters of water and energy that are used to dye the textile roll, I was super impressed about the numbers. They are very big, and in case of Team techs and all the other customers, we are usually intervening in their production lines, like five times per month, up to 10 times per month. And every time we intervene in the production line, stopping the machine, it is because they are producing a periodic defect. So if no one intervenes, that role will become garbage. The thing is that that never happens. No one intervene in the exact moment the role gets full of defects. But because they do not inspect 100% at the kneading stage, because it's super fast, they just keep it going to the next stage, and then the effective role is dyed. Sometimes go to the garment stage. And then when they are found, it's like 10 times more expensive than in the previous part in the knitting. And in meanwhile, we spend lots of money, time, water, energy, and this is the savings that we are we are creating by avoiding these roles to proceed in the textile chain. And that's the most impactful part of the process for the particular production that think the exact house produce, we know the average price of their roles. So that's where we came up with that calculation. And for just one single machine per month, we are saving around 1000 US dollars per month. And then all the other variables, the environmental variables that you have in the case study as well. So it's super impactful for these companies with only one silicon machine. Now you can imagine a factory that owns 200 silicone machines, or sometimes 1000 silicone machines that already exist in China. Mainly, you can imagine the impact for these big factories as well, right? Definitely.

Jessica Owen
So you've mentioned that this is mainly for circular knitting machines. Is there any sort of possibility in sort of adapting this software and technology to other types of knitting machines, or even weaving machines, for example, yeah,

Gilberto Loureiro
we have received, we have been receiving some invitations from several parts of the of the world, even for manufacturing industries outside the textile world. But to be honest, that's not our strategy. We are later focused on the circle. Mini machines is our sweet spot is where we have a lot. Of experience. I work in these machines for 10 plus years and and we know very well what we need to do to win these these markets. Just for you to have an idea, the textile production is more or less divided by 5050, weaving and knitting. Okay, it's not quite that, but is approximately and only in the knitting stage we can find in a world working around 300,000 circular knitting machines. So if you multiply the savings that we create and the prices that we practice for 300,000 circular knitting machines, we have a massive, colossal opportunity here to grab where we have nearly no competition. So we are laser focusing on these markets, and then after we have some some stability, we can consider and expand to other industries. Because if you think in the factory of the future, if you think in really long term computer vision inside textile factories. It is important. I would say it is inevitable. In the future, we are going to have super automated factories. You are going to buy your T shirt online, and suddenly a bunch of robots will start to produce it in a factory that might be in Boston or in New York, because you won't have that labor costs, because everything will be automated. So you can imagine that cameras and machine learning and computer vision will play an essential role in many parts of the textile chain. So we are positioning ourselves to prepare for that brilliant future. But for now, the short medium term, we are going to be laser focused on the silicon in the machines.

Jessica Owen
Well, it sounds like you've got a good plan there. And, I mean, like you say you're only one of the well, there's not many others doing this. I mean, why do you think that there are such few solutions out there? Considering the issue with defects in sort of wasted production is quite a big problem. Oh, yeah,

Gilberto Loureiro
that's very good question. That's the why. Now, right question, yeah. So only recently, in the past three or five years, you can see phenomenons like like you have Wi Fi spread all over the world, even in remote places where usually text out factories are located, where you can access to fairly good Wi Fi, which is mandatory for these types of technologies and cloud based processing, only recently we have access for these type of hardware and cameras and these types of technologies that became a commodity, mainly because of these technology war between Apple and Google and Samsung, the camera industry is becoming more and more advanced and more and more cheap, let's say, and available everywhere in the world. So the hardware is also a very important step for this technology to exist. And the third one is the machine learning technologies that are now democratized and everyone can consume from them. So I guess the combination of these three factors make these technology only possible to exist now. And if you ask me why Smart Text is the first okay, I can give you many reasons. I would say that one of it, it is, it is very rare for you to join a very experienced person in textiles with physics, optics and and programming skills and then software in general. Usually these worlds don't touch each other, especially the textile for history reasons, for the culture, reasons of textile industry is usually dominated by or by small companies or by family groups. Usually it's not super connected with the universities and technologies. You can also see by textile background that the main textile trade shows, like ITMA, happens from four and four years. So new machines and new technologies and new sensors and new devices are released many times in four and four years, it's like the Olympics, right? So this gives you, gives you an idea about the pace of these industries, not is not that fast as we wish. And so I guess all of these combination of factors and cultural reasons and the technology and parts allowed us to be the first ones getting there, and we need to be fast. That's why we focused from the very beginning in venture capital funds, venture capital investors, to be as fast as possible getting in the markets and spread it into the market, because we knew that this is one rare opportunity of creating a technology that can create such a massive impact with zero competition for now.

Jessica Owen
I mean, you mentioned it mar there, and it only comes around, like every four years, and I think it, I think it was last year in Barcelona. So we've got three more years yet to the next one. Do you reckon that there'll be more companies like you're sprouting up and that company, you will have to sort of work harder because of more COVID. Petition, or do you reckon that you know you've sort of claimed this space, and hopefully you'll be sort of the forerunners.

Gilberto Loureiro
We are prepared for everything. I've been in it last year in Barcelona, and it was a great experience, and we didn't see anything similar, as I told you. We are preparing ourselves in several directions, with lots of patterns, of course, lots of trade secrets, of course, lots of strategic partnerships with with very strategic groups like the OEMs, the manufacturers of silicon machines, or with players like the fashion brands that also also present a very important and central role on the way that the industry adopts technology. So we are trying to prepare as much as possible the the entrance of new player, but we are creating a structure in the market that whoever wants to get in needs to partner with smart x, or at least, at least needs to have some activities together with smartx to get in there is not that trivial.

Jessica Owen
And another thing that I wanted to sort of talk to you today about is COVID 19. This is sort of a subject that the whole world can't seem to escape. And so I was just wondering how your company has been dealing with that. I mean, have you had to sort of slow down? Are people now having to work from home, and are you able to make as much progress as you've been wanting to at this time? Or how's the whole situation been for you guys,

Gilberto Loureiro
to be honest, didn't affect as much. Actually, we grew our team during the pandemic period. We hired more engineers, we hired more consultants, so we started more activities and more partnerships. The only thing that changed was the business is a little bit more digital in terms of presenting the product, we need to create more videos and more digital materials to be easier to sell it online. But nevertheless, it was always important to get a real touch with the customer, to visit their factories and to I would say, shake hands, but we can shake hands, but we close deals without shaking hands. So for us, it is not being a problem is being smooth. The product is way better because our engineering team were more focused in developing some new features, instead of being in the streets installing it. But I would say that it didn't change a needle in our plans, to be honest.

Jessica Owen
Oh, that's good to hear anyway. At least say someone who's sort of doing okay at this time, and I guess as well, like you mentioned there, and actually several other people I've spoken to in the last few months have said that COVID has actually sort of pushed this whole digitalization sort of movement, and also sustainability. People are more aware of that, and actually maybe this is a good time to sort of change our ways and become more sustainable and well, your products, I mean, can really allow people to do that? I mean, think again. I read on your website that something like there's 80% of total textile defects could be avoided. 5% of that is sort of due to waste, sort of damaging textile factories, and something like $33 billion is like lost every year, and these facts are really quite something. And yeah, I guess you guys could really help with this sustainable and digitalization movement.

Gilberto Loureiro
Yeah, I guess we have several interesting flags for our customers, usually the needing factories, they work with very tight gross margins, and if they have one or two or 3% of defective waste, that's a lot for their pockets. That could mean like 1/3 of their profit goes away only because of this problem, and we can reduce this problem to zero. Of course, the environmental part is also very strategic and very important for the companies, for the brands as well. Now more and more, the consumers are aware of the importance of being sustainable and green, and the brands are going after that behavior as well. So the brands are helping us a lot, integrating this technology in their suppliers, tier one, tier two, tier three, and ultimately, the digitization of the process is also very important, because if you are a sourcing director of a fashion brand or a sourcing director from one of the middlemen that exist in the world agencies you might you might like to have in your hands, in your pockets, in your mobile phone, the information about the quality procedure, procedures of your suppliers. You might want to know if that textile mill produces more or less defects than the other, and you might want to know how is your order going. Is going is going well? Is going wrong? Are your roles Class A, B or C? And when your supplier deliver to you a bunch of textile roles, you would like to have some QR codes on them, just to double check if they have defects. Inside or not. So we can also provide those QR Code Systems, and when you scan it with your phone, you can see, okay, this role is Class A, is brilliant, is excellent, zero defects. That role is Class B or C because it has, like, 10 meters of Lycra defect. So you might don't want to buy that. So these three arguments, the cost reduction, the digitization and the sustainability are very good and strong arguments for us with our clients, and that's one of the reasons why I believe this is the perfect product to sell,

Jessica Owen
definitely. And like you said earlier, it's such an easy sort of concept as well, like you can just explain. I mean, I have got no idea about machine learning and things like that. But you've explained it to me, and I get it like you don't need to really know all the ins and outs, as long as you know roughly what it does and what it can do for you. Yeah, definitely.

Gilberto Loureiro
And the beautiful part of it, it behaves like a human in terms of learning and in terms of detection, so everything regard like regarding like melon yarns or stripes or dyed yarn or a crazy structure that you might want to produce. The system is just a learning based system, so it will behave very neatly of what a person would behave when the person sees a new textile, and then it can detect effects on top of it. So in that sense, no one needs to know about machine learning. You just need to know enough how to teach another person to detect defects, and that's that's enough to keep the system running

Jessica Owen
Exactly. So tell me more about what it's like then to sort of run your own company. I mean, what have been sort of the ups and downs so far? 

Gilberto Loureiro
So since we are very young, we have 25 years old. I knew from the beginning that I need to hire people with more experience around us. So we me and my co founders, we are the younger, youngest persons in the company, and we have the lowest salaries, because we know that we need to attract talented and experienced people, not just in textile world, but also in technologies, sourcing, supply, manufacturing, electronics, etc. So that was one of our first rules when we were in China. Of course, there were lots of up and down moments because we were we were trying to reach some milestones to raise money from investors. So I remember some times where we didn't sleep, like two days per week, something like that. Or remember times that we needed to travel to Hong Kong and change that back and forward to do tests of cleansing, and some electronics was broken or something, and we needed to fix it during the night. So there were lots of lots of challenging moments and lots of difficult moments in there, but it was necessary to build what we called, by that time, the VP and later on, go to San Francisco, California and impress investors with that technology. We have some demonstrations in San Francisco where lots of investors worldwide, top rated investors, were super impressed by technology. Actually, we were trying to raise a round of almost 3 million US dollars, and we got so many interests from some of the largest investors in the US that we got like three or four times more what we needed in the table by that time. Of course, we need to say we needed to select the best ones to come with us and to join and to join our company and and on in India in the end of the day, I wouldn't change a needle in our in our path right now we are, we are 15 engineers, but we are hiring more, and we plan to be around 2020, people by the end of this year, and 30 something by the end of the next one, and the secrets are at least, the way that I usually manage all the operations is being super humble and acknowledge my ignorance and acknowledge my inexperience. And always ask to everyone involved, to the experts involved, what do they think the best thing to do? And then I decide if I go with them or not, but at least it is so super important to to be transparent, humble. And I mean, in this industry in particular, you need to be fast as well. So so otherwise someone will pass you.

Jessica Owen
Well, I really like that, actually, that idea that you, you acknowledge that you're one of the youngest there and less experienced, and you've taken a smaller salary as well, I don't think, well, I mean, I've not spoken about it. Maybe others do do that. But I mean, you're the first that's ever come clean about it. So that's the that's really interesting, sort of take on business. And I think as well that sort of idea of age, I often get told I look very young and I'm very young. But if you've got an idea and you're happy to sort of look to people more experienced than you, then I don't see the reason why you shouldn't run with it. I think any age you've got some sort of experience to offer. And it sounds like you. Sort of done just that.

Gilberto Loureiro
I know it's just that the goal, our goal is in here, is way bigger than that, you know. And we are focusing all our attentions in getting the company as stable and as big as possible, with the largest market share as possible, and with the best partnerships as possible. And right now, super early, that's not our priority, and that's why we decided to do that. I'm not saying that it will be like that forever, but for these particular moments, it is. It is very important for us to attract the best talent in the world, the best engineers in the world, the best managers in the world. We could attract people from many countries to work with us, in Europe or in China or in the US, and this is part of a bigger plan.

Jessica Owen
And so tell me also about the fashion for good, I think accelerator program. I think you mentioned it earlier on. But so how's that all working for you then? And how's that helped your business grow at all? Yeah,

Gilberto Loureiro
fashion forward is an amazing initiative, because usually the textile industry is not very understood and not respect, very respected by investors, the venture capital firms in the US and Silicon Valley. They they usually think that this industry is super boring or Kike, and actually they don't acknowledge the dimension of the Textile and Fashion Industry. But more and more, this is becoming different, and most, most of that because of initiatives like fashion for good, or the mills fabric in Hong Kong as well. And in specific case of fashion for good, they have several they have several activities in there. They are investment fund as well. So they they also participated in our investment ground. They are our investors, which is very strategic for us, for many reasons, from their network, because we believe that it is strategic to have them in our cap table, because we have direct access, access to their partners, like caring group, Adidas, PVA, etc. Many of these partners are helping us, doing pilots and installations and integrations in their in their suppliers, tier one, tier two, tier three. Some of these partners are actually paying for the technology to be used by their suppliers, which is something that I was very surprised when I first saw so they are helping us, not just getting into the market, but getting credibility from the suppliers, and getting money they will to convince their suppliers to use our technologies, which is very, very interesting, is also, is also useful and strategic and helpful In terms of communications, in terms of positioning of the brand, in terms of many things that we want to do, in terms of business and marketing aspects. And I couldn't be more happy with what fashion for would help us, especially in the beginning when we were only three co founders, and we have no money. So in general way they bring us to Amsterdam, or they run their acceleration program, and they introduce us to all the network who they got us the opportunity to visit lots of factories, to get in touch with lots of players and and in general way they did what they needed to do. And then we take it from there. They won't put us in the in the sky, you know, but at least they show it away and and now we go from there. We are still in touch with them in a monthly basis. Of course, they are our investors. We have also some duties with them. And, and I couldn't be more happy with what they did for us.

Jessica Owen
It does sound like such a great program, actually, for sort of startup companies. And I guess, I mean, anyone's listening who has an idea and wants to get forward, I think definitely, maybe look at them for help. I mean, I know quite a few companies now that have gone through their sort of program and have done quite well. So yeah, I also wanted to ask you, then, sort of moving away from that. I mean, what do your family think of everything that you've achieved so far? I mean, you said you sort of inspected the machines from a very young age, work there in the summer. So what do they think of all of this?

Gilberto Loureiro
I guess, I guess my my parents, they are very simple and humble people. Okay, when I told you that they were in textile factories, they are you. They were usually operators of the textile machines, and my mom operator on the garment machines. So I don't really think they know the dimension of what we are doing. I know that. They know that we are running a business, that we are in the television, we are in China, we are in Brazil, Turkey, us. They know that I travel a lot. Sometimes I call my mom and I'm in a country where she doesn't know what it is, and I know I feel that they acknowledge that we are doing something big, but they don't have the idea of the dimension of it. But anyway, super proud, always praying for our business and. And wishing the best for us. And of course, I still, I still talk with them weekly, and because I don't, I don't live in the city anymore. We are living now in Porto because it's more strategic, close to the airport, to universities, etc, but, but yeah, I guess they are super happy and super proud for all of these moments and changes, because I was the first one in my company, in my in my family, to go to college, and this was a big step from the beginning. And so everything that I do from there, it is like college stuff guy, things that the college guys do. I guess they feel like that, but, um, but yeah. In general, they are super proud and always, always praying for the best. Oh,

Jessica Owen
that sounds, sounds lovely. Well, better. I think we're running out of time. But before you go, do you have any advice for other people wanting sort of start a business in this area?

Gilberto Loureiro
Yeah, it's tough to raise money in the textile industry, okay, we need to very to get very close to smart people and smart mentors. I would highly advise to for someone at the stage where I was one year ago or two years ago, with the idea to get in touch as fast as possible with groups like the mills fabrica in Hong Kong, or fashion for good in the in the Netherlands or Alicante capital in New York. I mean that there are one or two places per continent that you should talk with if you want to at least validate your idea and try to get some traction from there. Another thing it is in the beginning, you definitely need to be used to work without money and to work without resources, and to prove as much as possible your technology without money. So our first proof of concept before going to China was a camera with glue tape inside a circular mini machine. And that was enough to show that the technology works, and that we can raise money and that we can build a commercial product from that we were not focusing on design stuff or beautiful stuff in the product. We were working on being functional, just like that. And those would be my two main advices. I try to be as close as possible from experts in textiles and business and second, try to prove your technology as fast as possible with few resources as possible, right?

Jessica Owen
Well, thank you for that. As I said, I think that's everything for today that I really wanted to ask you. I mean, it's been really interesting to have you on because I've not really spoken to many people in this sort of sector of the industry, so it's been really eye opening. So yes, thank you very much for your time. It's been great.

Gilberto Loureiro
Thank you so much Jess.