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Amir Kotler, Veego CEO: ISPs need full visibility into their customers’ home networks, devices and beyond
August 2019 by Marc Jacob
Founded in 2018 in Israel, Veego offers a platform for the detection, analysis and resolution of problems in smart homes. This solution targets telecom operators and ISPs. Amir Kotler, CEO and co-founder, explains his strategy. For him, the connectivity revolution will never cease. ISPs will need visibility into their customers’ smart-homes including devices and services to be able to build and maintain loyalty.
GS Mag : Can you introduce your company ?
Amir Kotler: We founded our company in 2018 in Israel. We have already attracted EU4.5 million with the support of three impressive VC investors. Our company’s 25 employees, all located in Israel, are responsible for all functions of the company. To date, we have created a solution that can discover all smart devices in the house while it detects, analyzes and repairs any problems encountered by their smart-home users—those who have a router or a smart-hub. We created Veego especially because of the rapidly increasing number of connected devices and services such as streaming movies, games, and security cameras. These devices may use different versions of the same communication protocol or even totally different protocols all of which adds a new level of complexity to the support organizations to whom customers turn to solve the many problems they encounter today and will encounter in far greater numbers in the future.
GS Mag : How does your flagship solution work?
Amir Kotler : Our solution, also called Veego, works by putting a tiny agent – a small piece of highly intelligent software – in the home router. The solution does not require any sort of software to reside in the devices that homeowners buy. Therefore, all the services of Veego can be provided from just the router. To our ISP customers, our solution delivers full visibility of all the devices and services present or occurring in the house. But it goes a lot further than that – it also enables analysis of the problems between the router and the devices and services, as well as between the devices, inside the smart home, checking that all connected device devices – IoT, smartphone, television, etc. – are operating correctly. When they are not operating correctly, Veego can often fix the problem atuonomously. The Veego solution comes out of my experience as a founder of Promisec and as President for three years at Secdo, a company that specialized in the field of cybersecurity using signature detection before its acquisition.
GS Mag : What is your marketing strategy ?
Amir Kotler : We are targeting the Telecom and Internet Service Provider (ISP) market – those responsible for the router in the home. The Veego solution gives them the eyes and support capabilities that they currently lack. As the number and complexity of smart devices in each home increase, this visibility will become exceedingly important. Our ability to autonomously detect and repair problems and to help the support staff do it much faster and more accurately will prove extremely valuable to our customers.
We are specifically addressing the European market and are exhibiting our capabilities at the 2019 Broadband World Forum, taking place in Amsterdam 15-17 October.
GS Mag : What is your message to our readers ?
Amir Kotler : L The connected home revolution is on its way and will not stop for anyone. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and other technologies must be developed and implemented to enable service providers to understand where problems are occurring and how to promptly and correctly fix them. This is how service providers will be able to ensure that they can provide a good level of customer experience in millions of homes in France and Europe. People want a smart home that works. Veego is making sure it does.
