The Venture Codex

Led · Seed · May 2025

Kickscale provides a revenue intelligence platform that uses AI to capture, analyse and organise real and virtual sales and customer conversations, turning conversation data into actionable insights. The product offers automated note-taking, key-moment detection and rep performance tracking, and it aligns sales with marketing and product teams. It is built for European SME and mid-market needs, with multilingual support and GDPR-forward architecture to address regional business cultures and privacy requirements. Since launching in 2024, Kickscale has acquired over 100 B2B clients across the UK, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. Customers report up to a 24% improvement in sales closing rates and an average of 40 hours saved per sales rep on routine and administrative tasks. The company plans to scale across Europe first and later expand into the Middle East and Asia. Kickscale offers an AI-supported sales coach that automatically analyzes sales conversations, extracts customer statements relevant to purchase decisions, generates conversation protocols and highlights sellers' strengths and improvement areas. The platform claims an average 32% increase in win rates and time savings of over 30 hours per month per employee. Kickscale serves B2B customers including Finway, eCommerceDB, Symvaro, Walls.io and ContractHero. The fresh capital will be used to further develop the AI and software, build aggregated analyses, integrate into third-party systems, and expand distribution. Kickscale was founded in 2020 and operates with roots in Carinthia and locations in Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt. Prior to this round the company was financed with founders' own funds and support from KWF, the Vienna Business Agency and the Chamber of Commerce.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2024

Tree.ly develops forest climate protection projects across Austria, Germany and wider Europe, working with forest owners, municipalities, corporations and citizens. Its core offering combines geospatial engines with ML-powered stock measurement, species detection and stock-change modelling to design and monitor projects. Projects are third-party certified and annually audited by TÜV, and Tree.ly says its scientifically proven methodology is ISO-certified to ensure additionality, prevent leakage and manage permanence risks. In its first year the company secured contracts covering 105,299 hectares and storing over 2.8 million tons of CO₂. Tree.ly positions itself as a fast-growing technology company in voluntary carbon markets and plans to use new funding to accelerate growth in European markets, strengthen technological leadership, and develop new forest-based climate protection offerings. Founders named in the article are Jodok Batlogg and Christian-Lutz.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2024

Innerspace is an Innsbruck, Austria–based startup that provides software and virtual reality solutions for risk assessment of production processes and standardized cleanroom training for pharmaceutical personnel. Its offerings include a proprietary “Frame-by-Frame Risk Profiling” method and a standardized cleanroom simulator delivered in VR. The company applies psychological insights and innovative technologies to minimize human errors and reduce process risks in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Innerspace serves the pharmaceutical sector and is an official partner of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA), helping develop and implement industry training courses. The company raised €5.7M to support product development and international expansion. Management plans to use the proceeds to expand its international market presence and further develop its Frame-by-Frame technology. Innerspace develops psychologically based training solutions for critical applications in the life‑science industry using its DeepTraining approach implemented in virtual reality. The platform prepares cleanroom operators for key moments of their work, allowing regular virtual practice to deepen behaviour patterns and understanding of production in critical areas. Innerspace already supplies numerous international pharmaceutical companies with its VR training products. Founded in 2017 and led by CEO Sebastian Scheler, the company is based in Wattens, Innsbruck, Austria. It raised over €1m in growth funding and plans to use the proceeds for global expansion and to double its team to approximately 50 employees.

Led · Series A · Nov 2023

HeartBeat.bio is a Vienna-based biotech developing a human organoid cultivation, screening and AI-supported data analysis solution for cardiac drug development. Its cardioid drug discovery platform relies on self-assembling, highly reproducible cardiac organoids that recapitulate human physiology and enable modeling of heart diseases not achieved with other in-vitro systems. The company is currently focused on drug-induced and various subtypes of genetic cardiomyopathies, with additional programs planned in diabetic cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction and cardiac remodeling/fibrosis. Led by CEO Michael Krebs, HeartBeat.bio intends to use the funds to complete its cardioid platform for proprietary and collaborative drug discovery programs. Financially, the company closed a €4.5M Pre-Series A round. The platform combines organoid biology and AI-enabled data analysis to accelerate development of therapeutics for heart failure and related indications. HeartBeat.bio is a Vienna, Austria-based spin-off of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) developing a high-throughput 3D screening platform for heart diseases using self-organizing human cardiac organoids called Cardioids. The Cardioid technology, invented by the Mendjan lab at IMBA, enables automated, reproducible, and cost-effective large-scale generation and analysis of cardiac organoids suitable for high-throughput compound screening. The company intends to use the €1.5m seed financing to establish operations, build an experienced team over the next 12 months, and develop Cardioid into a platform solution for compound screening. Its drug discovery program will focus on heart failure, cardiomyopathies, and cardiotoxicity studies for new drug candidates. HeartBeat.bio has signed an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with IMBA and will closely cooperate with Sasha Mendjan's research group to further develop the technology. The company has also received financial support from AWS via the AWS Pre-Seed Program and from Vienna's INiTS AplusB Scaleup Program.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2023

Shopstory is a Vienna-based, AI-driven online shop marketing software founded in 2020 that helps small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses optimize advertising and drive more traffic. The company provides a no-code platform that enables online stores to automate processes that deliver performance. It is preparing to launch Shopstory Flowbuilder (formerly Project Pulse), a drag-and-drop no-code workflow builder to automate repetitive e-commerce marketing tasks with pre-made and user-generated flows. Shopstory raised €2.0M in equity in October 2023 and will use the capital to expand across the European market and to finalize development of the new product. Investors in the round include venture funds and a group of business angels, supporting the company’s planned European expansion and product rollout. Shopstory provides a no-code SaaS platform that uses AI to automate marketing tasks, keyword research, Google Ads and SEO optimization for online shops. The product is positioned to replace marketing agencies, reduce costs, and improve profitability for eCommerce merchants. Shopstory centralizes data into a large data hub to drive automated growth and performance improvements. The company operates in four European countries and has stated plans for further expansion. With the newly secured capital, Shopstory plans to expand its team by recruiting experienced leaders. The company was founded in 2020 by Sebastian Schwelle and Robert Böhm; Schwelle serves as co-founder and CEO. Shopstory offers a SaaS product that acts as an intelligent performance marketing assistant for online retailers, using AI to boost sales, profitability, visibility and competitiveness. The tool supports SEO and search advertising (e.g., Google Ads), automates keyword research, monitors competitors, provides campaign and content input, and generates intuitive performance reports. The startup says its customers achieved over a 20% increase in return-on-advertising-spend (ROAS) despite an overall ecommerce market decline of more than 40% in the first half of 2022. Shopstory was founded in 2020 (previously known as boomerank) and is led by CEO Sebastian Schwelle alongside cofounders Robert Böhm and Roman Schweiger. The company plans to use new capital to further develop its software in business intelligence and to pursue geographic expansion.