Category Visionaries Sercan Esen, CEO & Co-Founder of Intenseye: $93 Million Raised to Transform Workplace Safety Through AI-Powered Computer Vision
Intenseye is revolutionizing industrial safety by connecting to existing camera systems in manufacturing facilities and using AI to detect unsafe conditions in real-time. Having raised $93 million to date, the company has developed a platform that runs over 120 AI models analyzing 50+ safety use cases at manufacturing sites globally. In this episode of Category Visionaries, we spoke with Sercan Esen, CEO and Co-Founder of Intenseye, about his journey from software engineer to category-creating founder, and how his company is addressing the staggering problem of workplace fatalities – 2.4 million people losing their lives annually in industrial accidents.
Topics Discussed:
- Intenseye's origin story and mission to save lives in manufacturing
- How the platform transforms existing cameras into "24/7 safety supervisors"
- The challenge of creating a new category in industrial safety
- Building an account-based marketing engine from scratch
- The evolution from a proof-of-concept to an enterprise-ready solution
- Scaling from single facility deployments to managing 100+ site implementations
- How real-time detection differs fundamentally from traditional EHS platforms
GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:
- Learn directly from your customers on category creation: "We came up with those category names. We named those use cases and main categories and we expanded them under like 50 new use cases too... So I would say the number one thing that we do really well is relying on our customers, our users on the front lines, and how they use our platform and operationalize and what they call it." Sercan emphasized the importance of letting your customers help shape how you define and communicate about your new category, rather than imposing terminology on them.
- Immerse yourself in your customer's world: Sercan personally visited over 50 manufacturing facilities in the first two years and even worked production lines to understand the environment. "I was making ice creams for a week, cars for another week. And I was working right next to frontline teams to learn more." This deep immersion helped Intenseye build a solution that truly addressed the realities of their customers' environments rather than creating a theoretical solution from a distance.
- Iterate your go-to-market motion with the help of early customers: The Intenseye team originally envisioned a self-serve, product-led growth model but quickly realized enterprise sales was the right approach. Sercan recalls: "I remember my first call with the procurement leader from a largest customer and he was challenging me and I said, 'Look, this is the first time I'm doing this. Can you tell me how you guys want to buy this? You tell me and I will just figure this out.' And he gave me amazing insights." This willingness to learn from customers shaped their land-and-expand strategy and pricing model.
- Deeply understand stakeholder concerns to drive adoption: When implementing computer vision in industrial settings, Sercan's team anticipated potential resistance and built solutions proactively: "We are always aggressively cautious about the implementation of computer vision technology because immediate reaction might be 'Hey, this is Big Brother...' But these are all wrong. We spend a lot of time with unions, frontline teams, building anonymization around blurring the entire body at the camera level, thumbnail level, and everything... to earn their trust, earn their hearts and minds."
- Create targeted marketing content that demonstrates your exact solution: Rather than generic marketing, Intenseye built a video engine that could analyze customer video footage using their AI, showing precisely how their system would work in a prospect's actual environment. "I posted on LinkedIn, promoted in the region where I know that account could see our video... I remember couple hours later it was a meeting booked from the VP of Healthcare Safety with a note: 'Hey, I'm really interested about this solution.'" This approach of showing exactly how you solve the specific problem has become the foundation of their marketing strategy.
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Sponsors:
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