Unlocking Global Industrial Digitalization with Gizil
Gizil is an industrial SaaS company providing digital twin technology through its Virtual Plant platform. The solution enables asset-intensive industries, including oil and gas, chemicals, energy, infrastructure, and wastewater, to visualize, manage, and optimize complex facilities through advanced 3D environments, asset data integration, and remote collaboration tools.
Digitizing What Others Ignore
Founded by Esma Gulten and Ali Utku Can, Gizil helps industrial companies solve one of the biggest challenges in digital transformation: unreliable, outdated, and fragmented asset information. By connecting physical assets with technical documentation, point clouds, P&IDs, and operational data, Gizil creates the trusted digital foundation that industrial digitalization actually requires.
What Happened During the Program
Gizil joined the German Accelerator program to explore expansion into Latin America, with a focus on Brazil and Argentina. The program supported the team in validating the market, refining their go-to-market strategy, and building the foundations for entering a new and complex region.
The Challenge
As Gizil looked to expand into Latin America, the team faced a familiar but critical challenge: entering a large, opportunity-rich market with limited local knowledge and network access.
The team needed to understand how to approach major industrial players, navigate regional dynamics, and position a highly technical product in established industrial ecosystems. At the same time, Gizil had to clearly communicate its differentiation in markets where traditional technologies and conservative decision-making processes are deeply embedded.
In heavy industry, trust is often the decisive factor. Customers managing critical infrastructure need partners who understand their operational reality, not just partners with a compelling product.
How German Accelerator Helped
Gizil joined German Accelerator to explore expansion into Latin America, with a focus on Brazil and Argentina. Through targeted mentorship and hands-on support, the program helped Gizil build a structured approach to entering the region.
The team worked with experts to validate market potential, sharpen its go-to-market strategy, and refine its messaging for local industry needs. A keyshift was moving from a purely technical explanation of the platform to aclearer value proposition focused on what customers care about most: faster implementation, lower costs, reliable asset data, and a scalable foundation for future use cases.
German Accelerator also supported Gizil in approaching large corporates in the region and making operational decisions, including building local communication capabilities and establishing partnerships with regional representatives.
Outcomes & Achievements
First enterprise deployment in LATAM: Gizil secured a pilot project with TGS, Transportadora de Gas del Sur, one of the largest gas operators in the region, to digitalize an industrial plant in Buenos Aires.
Accelerated enterprise traction: Within three months of entering LATAM, Gizil secured its first customer in Argentina, shortening what can often be a 12 to 18-month enterprise sales cycle in traditional B2B industries.
Validated market demand: Gizil confirmed strong demand for faster, more cost-efficient digital twin solutions in LATAM, particularly in energy, infrastructure, and heavy industry.
Local market presence: Gizil established an initial footprint in Brazil, including a partnership with SENAI, the largest professional education and training network in Latin America.
Stronger regional foundation: Through hiring, partnerships, and local collaboration, Gizil built the capabilities needed to support long-term regional expansion.
Recent Momentum
Since completing the German Accelerator program, Gizil has continued to build on its international expansion strategy, demonstrating that the market entry approach developed during the program is scalable across multiple regions.
In Latin America, Gizil's first enterprise deployment with Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS); one of the region's leading energy infrastructure operators, has evolved beyond an initial project, with discussions underway to expand Virtual Plant to additional facilities. Building on this momentum, Gizil also established a strategic partnership with Tecpron, strengthening its local delivery capabilities and long-term presence in Argentina.
In Europe, Gizil successfully scaled its collaboration with VaroPreem from a single terminal to 13 terminals across Germany. Within less than six months, asset data was captured, validated, and integrated into the Virtual Plant platform, demonstrating a practical and repeatable approach to scaling brownfield digitalization beyond isolated pilot projects.
In the United States, Gizil secured its first Proof of Value project with Chevron, marking another important step in validating the platform across global industrial markets.
The company has also expanded its presence in the Middle East, where 4 Proof of Value projects have started in Saudi Arabia with critical asset owners.
Most recently, the core technology behind Virtual Plant was officially recognized by the German authorities as a qualifying research and development project under Germany's Research Allowance Act (FZulG), providing independent validation of the company's technological innovation.
Gizil Reflects on Their Journey
“Thanks to German Accelerator, we were able to enter LATAM with credibility and speed. Their support helped us build trust with key stakeholders and ultimately secure an important contract with TGS, the largest gas operator in the region, which is a strategic partnership with significant scalability potential. This experience revealed just how big the LATAM market is for our Virtual Plant, the fastest and most affordable alternative to legacy digital twins, and confirmed it as a strategic region for our growth.”
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