UNI-ELECTRONICS × Midas

Partnership discussion

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UNI-ELECTRONICS × Midas
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UNI-ELECTRONICS × Midas
Partnership discussion

Shelf labels that
think like software.

A Japanese electronics trading house wants a partner to bring industrial electronic shelf labels (ESLs) to Asia — and asked whether Midas would build the software side. This is what the project is about.

August 2026 Hong Kong Internal · discussion draft
The one-sentence version

What's on the table.

UNI-Electronics distributes VusionGroup's industrial shelf-label hardware across Asia — and is looking for a partner to provide the label-design software and the management backend. That partner could be Midas.

In Japan they already sell this into the used-car market, with a major telecom company acting as the system integrator. For Hong Kong and the rest of Asia, that integrator seat is open.

This is our reading of Konishi-san's first email — to be confirmed together at the first meeting.
The counterpart
UNI-Electronics

Who is UNI-Electronics?

A Tokyo trading house for electronic components — small team, long history, heavyweight parent, and a Hong Kong branch on our doorstep.

Uni Electronics Inc — Tokyo, est. 1966
Electronic-components trading company (~40 people) in Shinagawa, with an Osaka office and logistics in Tokyo. Overseas: Hong Kong (sales & logistics — our contact, Konishi-san, in Sheung Wan), Singapore, US, and a Taipei office opening. Clients include Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Sharp, KDDI, Docomo and SoftBank.
0+
business accounts in Japan — six decades of client relationships
Backed by O-Well Corporation
Parent company est. 1943 — ¥71bn consolidated sales, 637 staff, 46 sites in Japan and 11 abroad. This is a small counterpart with a large balance sheet behind it.
Why they came to us
They hold the authorized distributorship for VusionGroup's industrial ESL products in Asia. Hardware and logistics they have. What they don't have outside Japan is a software and integration partner — different language, different market, different regulations. That's the gap they're asking Midas to fill.
The product
VusionGroup / PDi

E-paper labels, updated over the air.

E-paper displays from 2.6″ to 12.2″, managed from the sepioo® cloud platform. Three ways to connect, depending on the deployment:

2.4 GHz + access points
The classic dense-site setup: local access points serve fleets of labels across a warehouse, plant or showroom. Sizes 2.6″–12.2″, button interaction, about a year on cell batteries.
NFC — no battery at all
Batteryless 2.6″ labels written by tapping a phone. Zero infrastructure, zero maintenance — for labels that change rarely but must never die.
NB-IoT — no infrastructure
4.2″–12.2″ labels on the telecom network — no on-site infrastructure, no site survey. GPS and rechargeable batteries; car-dealer models add IP65 and motion & temperature sensors. Works in a car park as well as on a shelf.
CE · FCC · Telec certified ~12 months battery at 2 updates/day 100% RESTful APIs Cloud or on-premise
The differentiation
VusionGroup / PDi

Industrial by design — not a repurposed price tag.

Supermarket ESLs assume a label lives on one shelf rail forever. These assume the opposite — and that changes what you can build on them.

Labels that move with the thing
The architecture is built for label mobility: move a bin, a pallet or a car, and the displayed information updates immediately. The label follows the asset, not the shelf — and that single property unlocks every use case beyond the supermarket.
Fast screen refresh
Rapid e-paper refresh designed for operational workflows — job status, stock counts, work instructions — not just a price that changes twice a season.
API-first platform
Robust external API integration is the point, not an add-on: display content is driven by data exchange with whatever system runs the operation — ERP, WMS, DMS, POS.
Knows where it is
GPS, RSSI and BLE locating built in. A label isn't only a screen — it's a tracker: find the asset wherever it went (car-dealer models even wake on motion for test drives).
The markets

Anywhere a thing needs a label.

UNI's brief is explicit: not limited to supermarket shelves — any retail market, any warehouse. Where the platform plays:

Manufacturing & logistics
Bins, kanban, pallets, work orders
Healthcare
Consumables, batch & expiry tracking
Car dealerships
Windshield price displays, GPS on test drives
Building management
Meeting rooms, desks, signage
Retail logistics
Crates, back-of-store, click & collect
UNI's own beachhead is the used-car market — already selling in Japan today.
Proof, not claims
VusionGroup / PDi

Already working — at 3,500-display scale.

STARKE Automobilgruppe (Germany) runs 3,500 windshield displays across 10 dealer sites and 8 car brands — priced and updated from one platform.

0%
less manual work on pricing — no more printing and swapping paper on every windshield
+0%
sales increase — prices stay current and consistent, online and on the lot
−0%
cycle time — cars sit for less time before they sell

And the model repeats: in Japan, UNI sells the same hardware into used-car dealers with a major telco as the system integrator. The playbook exists — Asia outside Japan is simply unstaffed.

How it fits together

Four boxes — one is missing in Asia.

Hardware and cloud exist. Distribution exists. What every deployment still needs is the layer that connects a client's business to the labels — that's the seat Midas is being offered.

The client's systems
ERP · WMS · DMS · POS — wherever prices, stock and jobs already live.
Any industry
Label software + management backend
Designs the labels, decides what shows where, syncs with client data, gives ops a dashboard. The integration layer.
Midas — proposed
sepioo® cloud
Azure-based platform by PDi Digital, 100% RESTful APIs, template & workflow engine, locating.
VusionGroup / PDi
Displays in the field
NB-IoT · 2.4 GHz · NFC e-paper labels — supplied and delivered across Asia.
UNI-Electronics
The ask

What they're asking Midas to bring.

"We hope your company can provide the software for creating the labeling and the management backend solution."

UNI-Electronics (Hong Kong) — first email to Midas
01

Label creation software

The design layer: templates and data-driven layouts for every label size — prices, specs, QR codes, compliance fields — rendered from live client data.

02

Management backend

The control room: which label shows what, where, and why. Integrations with the client's ERP/WMS/DMS, rules and workflows, a dashboard for the ops team.

03

Integration & delivery

The system-integrator seat for Asia: deploy per client, localize per market, support in English and Cantonese — the role a major telco plays for UNI in Japan.

The fit

This is the software we already build.

Strip away the e-paper, and the ask is familiar: connect business systems to an operational endpoint, add intelligence, give the team a dashboard.

An AI layer nobody else is offering
AI-generated label templates from a client's brand assets, dynamic pricing engines, anomaly alerts when a label (and its asset) moves where it shouldn't. Hardware anyone can resell; this layer they can't.
Backends we already build
Management dashboards fed by clients' ERP and operational data are our bread and butter — this backend is the same shape, with a REST API on the far end.
Recurring software revenue
Hardware sells once; the backend runs forever. Per-project integration fees plus a recurring software layer on every deployment UNI's hardware wins.
Hong Kong ground presence
UNI's HK branch is sales & logistics. We add the local technical delivery — same time zone, same city, meetings in person in Sheung Wan.
The shape of a deal

Three partners, three revenue streams.

Everyone sells what they're best at — nobody competes inside the stack. (Exact commercials to be shaped together; this is the natural split.)

VusionGroup / PDi
Hardware + platform
Supplies the displays and the sepioo® platform. Earns on devices and platform subscriptions.
UNI-Electronics
Distribution
Authorized distributor for Asia — supply, logistics, and six decades of Japanese OEM relationships. Earns on hardware margin.
Midas — proposed
Software + integration
Builds the label software and backend, integrates each client, delivers locally. Earns on integration fees + recurring software.
Every hardware deal UNI wins needs our software — every software deal we win moves their hardware.
Before we commit

Five things to ask at the first meeting.

Q1
Who holds the client contract?
Does the client buy from UNI with Midas as subcontractor, or does Midas contract the software directly? Shapes margin, liability and ownership.
Q2
What do we get access to?
sepioo® API docs, a sandbox, and a starter kit — kits exist, with 6 months' cloud access — so we can validate the platform hands-on.
Q3
Which vertical first, in Hong Kong?
The used-car vertical mirrors their Japan playbook — but HK's warehouses and retail logistics may be the faster local wedge. Pick one lighthouse.
Q4
Territory and exclusivity
Is Midas the integrator for Hong Kong only, or the Greater Bay Area / Southeast Asia? Is the seat exclusive while we invest in building the stack?
Q5
Corporate structure of the principal
The materials present sepioo® as a PDi Digital product within the VusionGroup ecosystem — confirm exactly who certifies, supplies and supports what.
Next steps

From email to pilot.

Konishi-san is back in Hong Kong. The path from here is deliberately small and cheap:

01

Meet

Sit down with Konishi-san in Sheung Wan. Confirm the ask, the model and the open questions — and let him correct this deck.

02

Touch the hardware

Get a starter kit and sandbox access. Within an hour of unboxing, the platform is live — validate the APIs against a toy backend.

03

Pick the lighthouse

Choose one HK vertical and one referenceable prospect with UNI. Scope the smallest deployment that proves the model.

04

Scope a paid pilot

A small, priced first deployment — labels on real assets, our backend on real data. Then decide how big this gets.

Thank you.

The label software and the management backend for Asia —
hardware from Japan, built together from Hong Kong.

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