A work accident led Juanfe Cifuentes to meet people who had suffered serious injuries while working, such as major falls and amputations. Coming into contact with this reality was the spark that led him to explore how to materialize a master's final project on occupational safety devices, which an acquaintance had promoted with two other colleagues, and which has resulted in what is now Siverus.
Seven years after that accident, the company has now been commercializing its device for a year, a technological accessory that is placed on any personal protective equipment (PPE) and turns it into an intelligent element for the prevention of occupational risks. Thus, equipment such as helmets and harnesses begin to issue warnings in cases of falls or heat strokes, and to allow communication with the operator in case of emergency, among many other advanced functionalities.
Now, as Cifuentes highlights, they are approaching 100,000 euros in revenue in the months they have been on the market. "We launched a year ago; product development was very long," he emphasizes. In this process, the pandemic played a decisive role, arriving precisely when Siverus was being established as a company. "We mounted our sensors on masks on construction sites in Viladecans and Sant Boi, and it was a great validation of our technology and the market," Cifuentes points out. With the masks converted into smart devices, they allowed verifying that operators were using them and that safety distance was maintained, among other factors that allowed construction to continue despite the pandemic, while guaranteeing what they consider a priority: "The protection of people."
After continuing to develop its technology, Siverus is now focused on coupling it to helmets and harnesses, although it doesn't stop there, as the rest of the PPE "will come in the future." Through their devices, they can detect if the equipment is properly placed, if a worker suffers a fall or if they may suffer a heat stroke, as well as communicate in case of emergency. In addition, through a radar system —more precise than AI and with no margin of error—, they can detect if an operator gets too close to a machine that could run them over or hit them, and warn them in real time to prevent it from happening.
In this way, Siverus' technology—which earned it an award from Nit Cecot—goes beyond that of fall alert devices, as it allows "to verify that it is an emergency situation with a call, and also allows to verify that the person is using the helmet correctly," something that other companies do not do, as well as launching alerts in cases such as heatstroke. In fact, this is a risk against which the Generalitat intensified its prevention actions during the summer. And it is that, through the Department of Labor and the Catalan Institute of Safety and Health at Work, the Generalitat plays a key role in the prevention of occupational risks, offering training; coordinating information systems on working conditions, and supervising prevention services and auditing entities, in order to design effective preventive policies that avoid work accidents.
Based in Vallirana, Siverus has gone through Wayra's acceleration program, and has collaborated with Leitat for the development of its technology. Now, the startup aims to continue advancing in the commercialization of its device, an objective for which it focused on the local ecosystem, but with which it is quickly going further: "We started with local companies, but those with infrastructures abroad are taking us far," highlights Cifuentes, who aims to continue growing in this process and for his technology to continue evolving with a differential solution.