Five years of innovation: IVM Technologies' journey in subsea inspection
From a resilient startup to a pioneering force in subsea photogrammetry, IVM Technologies has transformed underwater inspections with , driven by a passionate team and a vision to the .
5th anniversary celebrations
IVM Technologies recently celebrated its fifth anniversary at an event bringing together all employees and co-founders. This milestone is an opportunity to look back at five years of innovation in the subsea inspection industry. From a start-up to a key player, we have introduced a time-saving technology to a demanding market where every minute counts. Today, we stand among the pioneers of subsea photogrammetry.
Versatility is our strength, and we care deeply about it.
We design products and continuously reinvent them through research and development. Half of our team is dedicated to exploring new solutions and new ways of working. Over the years, we have contributed to various research projects across multiple industries, including defense, renewables, and offshore wind energy.
This anniversary was the perfect occasion to reflect on our journey — and what better way to do so than through the words of our founder?
Vincent Chiaroni, CEO of IVM Technologies, sat down with us to share his thoughts on IVM Technologies’ growth and evolution over the years.
What inspired the creation of IVM Technologies five years ago?
“IVM is about resilience and trust in the future through creativity. In 2020, during the Covid19 first lockdown, when everyone and every economy was trying to figure how to make it through turmoil, we decided with a few colleagues – now partners – that we wanted to transform ordeal into opportunity. We had previously spent a few years answering the increasing demand for a high added value computer vision service solution. It was time to make a move, and turn into a technology provider, with the mission to make our technology easily accessible to inspection service companies, so they could have an impact on the overall optimization of subsea inspection costs.”
How does IVM Technologies stand out in the field of underwater inspection using photogrammetry?
“Photogrammetry is nothing new, we all use it every day on our smart devices, to navigate through 3D maps for example. It is widespread in civil engineering as well as video games. All these aerial use cases made photogrammetry a well-accepted industrial technology over the last decades, which can only be confirmed by the number of actors, both in service and technology.
But as soon as you get underwater, the challenges you face are considerable. Lighting, floating particles, hyperbaric environment, access to computing resources, connectivity, heat sinking… I could go on. Yet the market needed all the advantages of photogrammetry and more, to be available subsea. This is where IVM comes in, bringing years of vision development and integration expertise into what originally was the first high accuracy, easy-to-use product for subsea inspection service companies.
Subsea inspection represents nearly a quarter of the offshore O&M market. With the increasing cost of energy, many stakeholders are looking for efficient ways to reduce the cost of these tasks. You can generate a digital twin with your smartphone, and the result looks outrageously good. However, industrials need more than an appealing 3D model. They ask for a reliable high accuracy tool delivering valuable data, easy enough to deploy so that they will save hours, days or weeks of underwater operation.
Through field experience and technological expertise, IVM team strives so our customers can thrive on fast, accurate and reliable subsea vision, enabling precise inspection by all sorts of vehicles.”
Can you tell us about a particular achievement that IVM successfully completed?
“As a company, our role is to satisfy our customers’ requirements and provide them with the best experience possible all while maintaining profitability. This is made achievable by sharp organization: from administration, sales, research and development, operations and production. Having started from scratch, we literally had to build the company in parallel of designing and delivering the first units.
Although we have worked with numerous customers on exciting and singular projects throughout the years, I like to see it as a whole. From the early small office and workshop with a handful of team members – admittedly overworked – to a full-size industrial company where organization and management ensure our goals are met, including the opportunity for balance between employees’ jobs and personal lives.”
What are your ambitions for IVM for the next five years?
“The race for cutting down subsea inspection costs is undoubtedly on but it has just started. The market is constantly looking for new features, pulling all actors towards simplicity in efficiency. As we keep enhancing the ability to generate accurate 3D models, embedded real time data processing for SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) is an opportunity for autonomous vehicles. More than 80% of IMRs (Inspection Repair and Maintenance) are still performed with conventional ROVs. AUVs are advertised everywhere but very few are effectively deployed in operations for everyday work. With strong and constant investments in its R&D, IVM is bringing new solutions to the AUV market, aiming to enable these vehicles to access the last meters separating them from close-range autonomous inspections.”
What makes you the proudest in IVM’s journey?
“Many years ago, at the end of college, I had challenged myself to a quite long hiking trip over a few months outside of France. I had left with the simple yet ambitious objective of reaching the end of the trail. When the taxi, who was used to drive other travelers, dropped me at the starting point, he said: “remember, it’s all about people”. I will admit I naively did not understand at first. As the weeks and months went by, I could tell the objective was still there and very important, but the trip itself and all the people I met on the way, all the stories, experiences, little adventures and memories, were becoming more significant every day.
IVM had four employees at the start, today the team counts over twenty members. Our client base keeps growing larger, and we have built many partnerships. While the objective is still ahead of us and we progress towards it every day, while some days may be easier than others, I cannot stop thinking that the entrepreneurship journey is made amazing thanks to all the encounters along the way. Because in the end, it really is all about people.”
