Digitalisation & Technology, 16 January 2025

"With the ERGO ScaleHub, new technologies can be efficiently tested"

Interview with Carim Chenna, co-founder of rhyno solutions

Photo: The founders of rhyno solutions: Fabrice Bircher (from left to right), Nils Tosoni, Carim Chenna, and Felix Anderegg.

The founders of rhyno solutions (from left to right): Fabrice Bircher, Nils Tosoni, Carim Chenna and Felix Anderegg 

During the Startup Week Düsseldorf last year, ERGO introduced the scale-up program "ERGO ScaleHub." Together with the Düsseldorf Economic Development Agency and TechHub.K67, the insurer has since been specifically supporting scale-ups in the fields of health, finance, and insurance in the Düsseldorf economic region. One of the first scale-ups participating in the program is rhyno solutions, headquartered in Switzerland. Co-founder Carim Chenna presents the emerging young company and its technological approaches in this interview.

Hello Carim, could you please give us an overview of rhyno? What did you set out to do and when – and what problem do you solve for your customers?

Of course, I’d be happy to! We have been around since 2017, founded by my three co-founders Fabrice Bircher, Nils Tosoni, Felix Anderegg, and myself; we all met during our studies in Business Informatics. Today, we have more than 25 employees and offer innovative software products in the HR sector, primarily our travel expense reporting solution "Edi – Expense Intelligence." With this, we are replacing the traditional travel expense reporting process – collecting physical receipts, analog signatures, postal dispatch, etc. – with a modern, digitized approach. Our name rhyno originally comes from the Swiss phrase "em rhy no," which translates to "along the Rhine" in German. This then evolved into "rhy-no." However, since the river's course as a logo was not very practical, we decided on the enduring, strong, and stable rhinoceros – also referred to as "Rhyno" in English – and we have not regretted it so far!

Exciting, and now you can also operate – down the Rhine – from the "Home of ScaleHub" here in Düsseldorf. More precisely: from the premises of our partner TechHub.K67...

Exactly (laughs), we are really happy that the ERGO ScaleHub is also located along the Rhine – just that makes us feel settled here! In fact, we not only have ERGO as a customer here, but we can also count on a fine base of regular customers in the Düsseldorf metropolitan region. And when you think about North Rhine-Westphalia – the federal state is twice the size of the entire Switzerland! That is quite humbling... Due to this sheer size, there is also a concentration of interesting trade fairs and industries. Building proximity in this regard is particularly supported by the Düsseldorf Economic Development Agency, which is, of course, a great help to us.

What attracted you to participate in the ERGO ScaleHub?

What we specifically hope to gain from the ScaleHub is already being realized today: support in the rollout for additional business areas, networking with other large companies and start-ups, and a supportive role in terms of testimonials for potential customers. In other words: The ERGO ScaleHub is a very good example of how efficiently new technologies should be tested and utilized in large companies. Starting with one organization and then consistently rolling out best-practice approaches after a successful go-live is ideal from my perspective! Especially as a scale-up, there is an opportunity to learn and explore new avenues in other countries. To tap into new markets like Germany – without venturing – it makes sense to establish this on stable partnerships. For Germany, we can count on a large, globally operating integrator starting January 2025 – and this as the first non-SAP product! Building such partnerships, of course, benefits from being part of the ERGO ScaleHub and being able to list and mention ERGO as a satisfied partner.

Let’s return to your product offering, especially its technological aspects and your experiences with high technology at the customer level…

In general, we like to use pioneering technologies as "inspiration tools" and start with a pilot project at the customer’s site to showcase new possibilities and solve their individual problems. For example, we rely on Generative AI and link it, depending on the product, with more "classic" approaches such as NLP – natural language processing – or OCR – optical character recognition technologies – to ensure a pleasant user experience. Regarding our travel expense tool "Edi," we are often asked how we achieve such strong image and text recognition of the documents. Of course, I cannot reveal the solution and the hybrid approach we use in detail. However, the core of our application, in our view, is the data architecture behind it – it gives us the necessary flexibility and scalability to operate in a company with ten employees as well as in a corporation with thousands of employees worldwide in a very short time.

Interview: Ingo Schenk

 

Read more

Through the following links, you can learn what motivated the three founding partners ERGO, the Düsseldorf Economic Development Agency, and TechHub.K67 to collaborate within the framework of the ERGO ScaleHub, as well as an interview with the very first participating scale-up: CamCom.

Do you also…

… have a company you founded – and could you imagine utilizing the network and other advantages of the ERGO ScaleHub to grow further? Then take a look at what we offer or what we expect from you: scalehub.ergo.com


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