The PaperChill Story

From augmented reality pioneer to paperwork facilitator: Why I gave up my job as a director in Silicon Valley to start a company that would finally put an end to the endless piles of bills, forms and the often annoying bureaucracy of everyday life.

By Peter Meier

It was September 3, 2020. I was sitting at my desk staring at a form called "confirmation of accommodation provider," intended for "submission to the registration authority in accordance with Section 19 of the Federal Registration Act." For what felt like the twentieth time in the past few weeks, I was asked to enter the names and dates of birth of my family members on a form. It somehow felt like you had to enter your address and account number every time you ordered from Amazon. And for every single product in your shopping cart.

All my life I have been what you would call a doer: I like to build and develop things. It started as a child, when I was fascinated by robots, computers and machines. After studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich, I founded the software company metaio in 2003 together with Thomas Alt. By 2015, we had registered over 200 patents in the field of augmented reality and implemented major projects with IKEA, Toyota and Lego. We had even developed a mobile chip and employed so many talented employees that in 2015 something happened that most founders probably dream of: Apple bought our company. After that, I spent four years at the headquarters in Cupertino - to help integrate augmented reality into the Apple world. A great time.

But at some point, after years in California, I realized that I wanted to return to Germany with my family. So I quit my position as a director in Silicon Valley and we moved back to Tutzing, south of Munich, in 2019.

And suddenly there was this annoying thing that spoiled my everyday life: bureaucracy. I was constantly receiving unpleasant mail: registration of residence. Insurance. Property tax. Business registration. Vehicle tax. Tax tax. Each time there were forms and their attachments that were worded in such a way that I only understood half of them. With terms like "landlord" (not to be confused with "homeowner") or "trade tax assessment notice" (not to be confused with the "trade tax assessment rate").

In our first few months in Germany, I felt like I had barely accomplished anything other than filling out forms. Sure, it's important to pay taxes, keep track of your finances, and only take out the insurance you really need. But these positive aspects of administrative work are quickly lost in the inefficiency.

Probably everyone who owns a property still remembers the evenings when they were desperate because of the property tax reform, wondering whether they might be the "joint receiving agent" of a "fractional community" without knowing it. And before they can submit the application, they have to go to a geodata portal provided by the state to download data about the property. Only to then upload this information again to another portal - even though the authorities should actually know it according to the land register.

Can't artificial intelligence please take over this? Why should chatbots only ever write poems, compose songs or generate images? Aren't these the things we humans should actually be doing? So: Can't we maybe swap places? Artificial intelligence does the paperwork and we humans devote ourselves to the nice things.

And there it was, the idea for a new startup: With an app called PaperChill, I wanted to help myself and others to do paperwork as easily as possible with the help of artificial intelligence. The vision: an AI helper that feels like the perfect private secretary. And - hence the name - turns annoying paperwork into something like simple PaperChill. There is actually no reason why this assistant cannot do almost all the tasks that a person has to do today in the future. And in doing so, it respects privacy as much as a discreet butler.

I have a great team at my side to somehow defeat the paperwork monster. And we achieved an important goal in January 2024: The app is available in the app store and just two months after the launch, over 20,000 people were already using us to digitize and automatically categorize their documents. Thanks to an AI we developed, the app can immediately recognize what type of document it is. A scan is enough - and PaperChill can recognize whether it is, for example, a telephone bill or a catering receipt. The AI that recognizes all documents runs on the device and not in the cloud, so my data is optimally protected.

This means that you can now compile all the receipts for a utility bill or tax return with just a few clicks. And PaperChill will of course automate a lot more in the future. Many more functions will be added in the coming weeks and months.

We want to make professional filing possible for private individuals and families who have previously collected their receipts in shoeboxes (like I used to, of course). We are only at the beginning of our vision of a personal digital assistant. But we have already laid a solid foundation for a kind of bureaucracy-free holiday home. In other words, a place where AI takes care of the paperwork and we can chill. We would be delighted if you could join us. And if PaperChill helps you as much as it helped me.