Company: HASE & IGEL GmbH, Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany
Company Description: HASE & IGEL is the company behind the NEUTRUM.AI, an Explainable AI platform empowering companies to decide faster & optimize ROI. The cloud products collect, integrate and analyze data from an unparalleled diversity of sources to predict trends, identify success drivers and optimize measures. Founded in 2018, HASE & IGEL serves over 200 clients and has won numerous product & innovation awards.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Company of the Year - Up to 100 Employees
 Nomination Title: HASE & IGEL
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the achievements of the nominated organization since 1 January 2022, OR written answers to the questions for this category? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this first question: Briefly describe the nominated organization: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 200 words used.
HASE & IGEL is the company behind NEUTRUM.AI. The cloud platform automates data collection and analysis with Explainable AI and gives forecasts, benchmarks and recommendations for faster, better business decisions. Companies can choose between multi-award-winning “plug & play” software not requiring any expert skills (Software as a Service), and a highly flexible range of microservices to build own solutions or integrate into other systems for smart AI automation (Platform as a Service).
Our SaaS solutions empower the whole value chain in marketing and sales: from demand forecasting and location analysis to positioning, targeting and media planning to the ongoing benchmarking and optimization of the marketing mix. For B2B use cases, lead scouting and scoring complement the portfolio.
With our microservices, IT-savvier clients empower their own solutions across a vast range of use cases – from purchasing to recruiting, from production to investment, from logistics to forensics.
Founded in 2018, HASE & IGEL generates massive, profitable growth entirely bootstrapped: Without VC backing, the Compound Annual Growth Rate is 66%.
200 clients from 7 countries trust in HASE & IGEL, including Avnet, Vodafone, Stihl, Schaeffler and Sparkassen Banks. NVIDIA and the German Economics Ministry support the company [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] .
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this second question: Outline the organization's achievements since the beginning of 2022 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 245 words used.
Having won Silver in this category in 2023 and Gold in the German Stevie Awards 2022, 2023 and 2024, it may seem presumptuous to compete for the coveted prize yet again. However, HASE & IGEL has not rested on its laurels but created substantial new milestones.
Explainable AI takes scenter stage. The Generative AI hype illustrates what makes our approach disruptive: In opposition to ChatGPT et al, the NEUTRUM.AI – developed inhouse including an own Language Model - is no “black box” but 100% Explainable. Our algorithms document and disclose the datasets, models and calculation paths leading to their results.
Having pursued this path from the get-go, we have massively expanded this Explainability from 2023 on: Our SaaS interfaces as well as the endpoints of our microservices actively disclose information regarding the data, models and their quality in easy-to-understand ways.
Simultaneously, we have greatly enhanced our Modeling Engine so that our algorithms scrutinize the quality of data and models even more closely, highlight problems and verify cause-effect-relations with high certainty.
The result: An AI you can actually trust – because it is accountable, consistent and verifiable.
This has caused quite a stir. In Germany, our CEO was invited to speak at the Federal Government’s 2023 Digitization Summit and eminent magazines covered the “leading forensic AI expert” (WirtschaftsWoche). Internationally, the company attracted global corporates like Avnet as clients, forged partnerships with worldwide providers like Bright Data and is in great demand for keynotes across Europe.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this third question: Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
A study by HASE & IGEL triggered debate with a delicate finding: The more people use AI the less they want to understand how it works. It is risky to depend on something you can neither comprehend nor review, particularly in business where decisions often have tremendous economical, ecological and social impact. Hence, enterprise users must not content themselves with the role of consumers at the mercy of suppliers, without the ability to identify flaws in the system before they wreak havoc.
This is why the EU AI Act emphasizes explainability. Companies using AI solutions unable to document their logic must take preventive action and may face more regulation.
However, none of the leading systems truly meet the Explainability criteria. Generative AI may even be fundamentally unable to comply, as European champions like aleph alpha, determined to make GenAI explainable, have fallen short of this claim despite enormous investment.
HASE & IGEL has developed its Analytic AI around the ethos of explainability from the outset, but until recently our obsession with accountability was regarded as a quirk by most. Suddenly, it has become a defining strength of the NEUTRUM.AI making the difference particularly for compliance-conscious industries like banking, telecommunications or energy.
Those who use NEUTRUM can explain and defend their AI-driven decisions. The CMO of a big U.S. corporation called NEUTRUM “our single source of truth”: a trustworthy navigation system for business that can also align and examine other kinds of AI like Generative AI or RPA.
- You have the option to answer this final question: Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 176 words used.
Please find attached
- [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]
- a link to the English-language website showcasing the SaaS products, use cases and case studies
- specific links to relevant case studies showing how companies use our Explainable Analytic NEUTRUM.AI to increase ROI
- a link to our forensic, explainable AI project for the German Economics Ministry (including coverage of our keynote at the government’s Digitization Summit)
- a link to a U.S.-German podcast on HASE & IGEL
- a link to an interview in Germany’s leading business magazine, WirtschaftsWoche, calling HASE & IGEL a “leading AI-forensics expert” (automated translation from German)
- a link to a guest article by our CEO in Germany’s leading marketing & sales magazine, Absatzwirtschaft, outlining how to create accountable AI systems (automated translation from German)
- a link to an interview with our CEO in the German edition of Scientific American on AI and Explainability (automated translation from German)
- links to coverage on international keynotes by HASE & IGEL
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