Hexagon announces winners of third Sixth Sense cohort of advanced manufacturing start ups

Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has announced Flexxbotics and Zaptic as winners of its third ‘Sixth Sense’ cohort. Both were chosen as winners following a program for the eight cohort participants that culminated with a pitching competition at the Sixth Sense Summit at CodeNode in London. Acerta Analytics was named runner-up.

A panel of judges from Hexagon’s corporate leadership team awarded Flexxbotics as a winner for its technology that provides workcell digitisation for ‘robot-driven manufacturing’. Zaptic was awarded as a winner for its connected worker platform for manufacturing that digitises operations and accelerates operational excellence according to the company.

Canadian start up Acerta Analytics, runner-up in the cohort, leverages machine learning and AI to turn manufacturing data into actionable insights with its predictive quality software. MQ spoke to Acerta Founder and CEO Greta Cutulenco in January 2024 about the company’s technology and working with Hexagon.

The cohort winners will be given access to Hexagon’s resources for global expansion, including potential funding, worldwide office space, and the company’s suite of products and services.

The companies will also be showcased on Hexagon’s cloud-based digital reality platform for manufacturing, Nexus, which Hexagon says will provide visibility with world-class companies and the opportunity to connect to their systems and data to solve bigger challenges and deliver more value.

“We are thrilled to announce Flexxbotics and Zaptic as the winners of Hexagon’s third Sixth Sense cohort because both address critical automation and productivity challenges while pushing forward the digitisation of the manufacturing industry,” said Josh Weiss, President of Hexagon’s Manufacturing intelligence division. “Sixth Sense was conceived to identify emerging innovations and has succeeded in providing a platform for high-growth startups  such as Flexxbotics and Zaptic, granting them access to resources and customers that are typically beyond reach at this stage of their development.”

Tyler Bouchard, Co-Founder and CEO at Flexxbotics said: “Sixth Sense with Hexagon has been a tremendously valuable experience, and we’re thrilled to be selected as the Industrie 4.0 manufacturing robotics software winner of the program. We believe that the fleets of robots in the smart factory will run lights-out production, and that integrated inspection will be the critical ‘eyes & ears’ of autonomous manufacturing.”

“It’s an honour to be selected as a winner for Sixth Sense, and we’re thankful for the invaluable guidance and support we’ve received,” said Sandy Reid, Co-Founder and CCO at Zaptic. “As knowledge and skill gaps continue to widen, manufacturers desperately need a more efficient way to secure and build capability in the workforce. Partnering with Hexagon will allow us to meet this need at scale with Zaptic’s AI-guided connected worker solution integrated with Hexagon products and service, delivering guided machine operation, troubleshooting, and maintenance to end users.”

“Sixth Sense is honoured to be open to innovators worldwide addressing some of the planet’s most significant challenges,” said Milan Kocić, Head of Sixth Sense at Hexagon. “Across our three cohorts, we have witnessed how startup innovation empowers manufacturing leaders to confront society’s future challenges. We eagerly anticipate welcoming another new cohort with diverse backgrounds and solutions to the latest challenges.”

US-based Gelsight, which was named the winner of Hexagon’s second cohort in February 2023 for its 3D tactile sensing solution, announced a global partnership to develop and sell solutions with Hexagon in early 2024.