VoxelSensors’ Two-Market Strategy: How to Build Technology for Both Consumer and Industrial Customers

Serving multiple markets with the same core technology is notoriously difficult. On Category Visionaries, VoxelSensors CEO Johannes Peeters revealed their architectural approach to this challenge: build a universal foundation, then specialize higher in the stack.

The Universal Foundation “Think about a camera,” Johannes explained. “In the camera, you have a sensor. On the sensor, you put a lens, your optics, and then the lens defines the field of view of what you can see. So those lower layers you can keep kind of universal for multiple industries and multiple applications.”

This layered architecture allows VoxelSensors to maintain a single core technology while serving radically different markets. The key is understanding where to standardize and where to specialize.

The Specialization Layer “The higher you go in the technology stack, the system, and that includes in the lens, the PCB, the software, if you want to detect anti-collision for a robot versus the augmentation of an object in AR, of course, those algorithms are very different,” Johannes noted. This is where market-specific optimization happens.

Managing Distinct Customer Types The two markets couldn’t be more different in how they approach technology adoption. “In consumer electronics with the big tech companies, whether they’re American or Asian, they’re used to try things out and have big budgets for that. So they can spend a few million to do a trial and see if that works.”

Industrial customers operate differently: “In the industrial space, those budgets aren’t there. You see much more that people use what’s available on the shelf and they’ll try the best they can with that.”

The Balancing Act With just 16 employees, VoxelSensors has to carefully manage these distinct needs. Johannes explained their approach: “You need to deal with those kind of different types of customers, different mindsets, different requirements, different budgets. Make a mix which is manageable as a startup company.”

The solution? “Find a way that it’s manageable by the startup without being swung by your customer and ideally servicing more than one customer or more than that one industry.”

Results That Validate the Strategy The approach is working. VoxelSensors has secured partnerships with major consumer electronics companies while simultaneously working with JBL, one of the world’s largest contract manufacturers, on industrial applications.

Their technology solves critical problems in both markets:

• For consumer electronics: enabling AR experiences where “digital renderings are indistinguishable from the physical world” without massive batteries
• For industrial applications: allowing wider field of view and longer range sensing while maintaining safety standards

Key Lessons for Multi-Market Strategy

1. Build a universal foundation that serves multiple markets
2. Clearly define where market-specific specialization begins
3. Understand and adapt to different customer buying behaviors
4. Create separate engagement models for each market
5. Maintain focus despite serving multiple segments

VoxelSensors’ experience shows that serving multiple markets isn’t about building different products – it’s about architecting your technology and company structure to handle distinct needs while maintaining a unified core.