Extrusion International 5-2024

18 Extrusion International 5/2024 INDUSTRY NEWS Partnership with AI Start-up  Meraxis, a worldwide leading plastics distributor, and the AI deep-tech start-up POLYMERIZE have forged a strategic partnership. POLYMERIZE is a developer and provider of a materials informatics platform, which is specifically tailored to the research and development needs in the polymer industry. POLYMERIZE’s Software- as-a-Service platform allows converters, producers, and compounders to optimize their materials development and launch new – and more sustainable – products more quickly. This partnership aims to expand their range of services in the European market. Meraxis is also a share- holder of the Singapore-based start-up. POLYMERIZE’s platform assists research teams in han - dling data more effectively and developing newmaterial formulations more efficiently. This in turn drives down development costs for polymer processing companies and expedites the "time to market" for new products. Dr. Stefan Girschik, CEO of Meraxis, highlights: "The partnership with POLYMERIZE strengthens our role as a one-stop shop and driver of digital transformation in the polymer industry. We are firmly convinced that digi - tal solutions such as this one hold the key to increased competitiveness and sustainability. The AI-supported POLYMERIZE software allows polymer converters to con - siderably shorten their innovation cycles and accelerate the development of sustainable products. We have had very positive results when using the software ourselves." POLYMERIZE's deep-tech solution simplifies the up - loading and management of data from test series and analyzes it by means of artificial intelligence, automat - ed workflows, and statistical evaluations. On this basis, the platform optimizes the approach to new material experiments and precisely predicts the test results. The software utilizes AI to propose new formulations or alternative ingredients to produce the required prop - erties, such as a specific elasticity, hardness, or viscos - ity. In addition, POLYMERIZE minimizes the ecologi - cal footprint by helping researchers and formulation developers reduce resource consumption and create formulations with sustainable materials more quick- ly. Each user's data is stored in an isolated manner. POLYMERIZE deploys state-of-the-art security mea - sures that are audited at regular intervals. This ensures compliance with the ISO 27001 and SOC 2 TYPE II data protection standards and the GDPR conformity. Meraxis harnesses this strategic partnership to sup - port its customers and suppliers in systematically im- plementing and using POLYMERIZE solutions to ad - vance their sustainability initiatives. Kunal Sandeep, Co-Founder and CEO of POLYMERIZE, comments on the partnership: "With Meraxis as our partner, we now have access to European polymer converters and producers. This helps us to expand our position in this key market and further establish our platform in Eu- rope.” Co-Founder and CTO Dr. Abhijit Salvekar adds: “Working in partnership with Meraxis, we are driving digital solutions in the polymer industry to improve efficiency and environmental sustainability in the sec- tor." In 2020, the two founded POLYMERIZE togeth - er. Sandeep is an accomplished founder in the realm of software-as-a-service. Salvekar has a long-standing practical research & development experience in the polymers industry. Meraxis Group www.Meraxis-group.com POLYMERIZE http://polymerize.io Dr Stefan Girschik, CEO Meraxis (Source: Meraxis) Kunal Sandeep (left) and Dr Abhijit Salvekar (right), founder of Polymerize (Source: Polymerize)