Participated · Equity · Oct 2023

Wirepas develops software that enables millions of devices to autonomously connect and communicate directly with each other, allowing construction of ultra-resilient, large-scale networks for industrial IoT use cases such as energy grids, factories, buildings and cities. At the core of its technology is an open 5G standard called NR+ that aims to support millions of devices in the same network with high reliability and low energy use. The company plans to accelerate development and deployment of its technology across Europe and beyond. The newly announced €24 million EIB venture debt will bolster R&D activities in Finland and France and support business growth. The company was presented as contributing to Europe’s digital sovereignty and sustainable industrial transformation.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2021

Crate.io develops CrateDB, a scalable distributed database that combines NoSQL with standard SQL and is optimized for containerized environments. CrateDB is designed for IoT and machine data workloads and can run on premise, in the cloud, and at the edge. The company offers CrateDB Cloud, a fully managed CrateDB-as-a-service, and recently launched CrateDB Edge to extend managed capabilities to remote and offline locations. Crate.io intends to use the new funding to accelerate its commercialization efforts. The company has now raised approximately $31M in total funding. Crate.io was founded in June 2013 and operates from offices in Berlin and Dornbirn, Austria, with presence in San Francisco and a remote-friendly model; leadership includes CEO Eva Schönleitner and co-founder/President Christian Lutz. Crate.io builds an SQL-based database platform optimized for ingesting and analyzing IoT and machine data. The company launched the Crate Machine Learning Platform, a hosted offering on Microsoft Azure that handles scaling (via Kubernetes), backup, archiving, role-based security, real-time analytics and workflow/alert rules. It also released version 3.0 of its open source product, claiming up to a 100x performance increase for some queries. Crate has grown to over 30 employees and about 30 paying customers, including Skyhigh Networks and ALPLA. The company has surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue and plans to use new funding to expand marketing, sales and its core engineering team. Crate.io has developed CrateDB, a distributed SQL database that enables users to store and analyze massive amounts of machine data in real time. The company offers a NewSQL solution designed for real-time analytics of machine-generated data. It will use the €2.5m seed funding to expand its new headquarters in San Francisco and to increase development and sales efforts. The round was led by Vito Ventures with participation from Dawn Capital, Draper Esprit, Speedinvest, and Sunstone Capital. Crate.io was co‑founded by Christian Lutz, Bernd Dorn, and Jodok Batlogg and is based in Dornbirn, Austria and Berlin, Germany. The raise follows a $4m round closed in March 2016. Crate Technology is an open-source, masterless distributed SQL database that combines the scalability of NoSQL with standard SQL access. It is built for containerized environments and targets ad-hoc queries and dynamic schemas for use in IoT, security and web hyper-growth applications. The product is generally available and has been downloaded more than 350,000 times in the last six months. Crate production clusters reportedly process billions of daily inserts and serve real-time search and aggregations on trillions of documents. The company plans to use new funding to continue aggressive growth, add more features and support its growing community of users. Customers and partners cite Crate’s simplicity, high availability and suitability for microservices and distributed database containers as key advantages. Crate Data offers an open-source SQL data store designed to scale using a shared-nothing architecture that supports tens of thousands of concurrent real-time queries. The software is free to download and install, while Crate charges per-cluster support fees with discounts for startups. The system emphasizes easy parallel reads and writes, self-configuration, and self-healing to reduce the need for expensive DBAs and complex backend glue. Crate claims a single cluster can handle tabular data, unstructured documents, and binary objects, simplifying developer infrastructure. The company is Austria/Berlin-based and was founded by Christian Lutz, Jodok Batlogg (CEO), and Bernd Dorn. It recently raised funding to accelerate product development, client integrations, team growth, and community expansion.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2020

IQM Quantum Computers is a Finland-based developer of quantum computing technology. The company is preparing for public listings on Nasdaq and the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Ahead of those listings, IQM secured $146 million in PIPE financing tied to a SPAC combination with Real Asset Acquisition Corp., including a new commitment from Ilmarinen. IQM plans to use the funds to advance its technology and scale commercial operations. The financing strengthens the company’s near-term financial position as it moves toward becoming a public company.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2020

Isar Aerospace develops the Spectrum small-satellite orbital launch vehicle and positions itself as a commercial launch provider. Founded in 2018 in Munich, the company operates a 40,000 square metre production facility in Parsdorf designed to produce up to 40 Spectrum rockets per year, with vehicles three through seven already in production. Its launch manifest is booked through 2028 with customers including ESA, NOSA, ElevationSpace and Astroscale, and it operates from Andøya with a second launch site secured in Canada (Spaceport Nova Scotia). The company has pursued industrial partnerships such as a cooperation agreement with TKMS and received institutional backing including a €65 million NATO Innovation Fund extension in 2024. Spectrum’s qualification flight window opened June 15–21 after an initial March 30, 2025 launch that lasted under 30 seconds and several subsequent aborted attempts; reaching orbit is a milestone that would establish Isar as a commercial provider. With the recent financing, total funding across equity and debt is about €870 million, and capital is being directed at production scale-up, launch infrastructure, and executing its booked manifest.

Participated · Series C · Jan 2020

SimScale provides a cloud-native engineering simulation solution designed to remove the pain points of traditional computer aided engineering (CAE) software and enable engineering teams to focus on product design. The platform offers accurate, end-to-end simulations and real-time collaboration without hardware or maintenance investment. SimScale serves over 300,000 current users across R&D stages, applications and industries. The company plans to expand into new industries — including rotating machinery, electronics and automotive — by adding additional simulation capabilities and broadening its enterprise offering for larger customers. SimScale was founded in 2012 by CEO David Heiny and is based in Munich, Germany and Boston, MA. Financially, the company recently extended its Series C with additional funding to support its product and market expansion plans. SimScale provides a cloud-based computer-aided engineering (CAE) platform delivering computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation through a standard web browser. The SaaS platform eliminates the need for on-premises hardware and software maintenance by leveraging cloud computing and enables parallel processing of multiple designs to speed iterative workflows. SimScale operates on a subscription-based pricing model and serves over 150,000 users. The company plans to use its latest financing to accelerate expansion of the platform and grow global operations. SimScale closed €27 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners, reflecting investor confidence in its growth. Founded in 2012 with offices in Munich, New York, and Boston, the company aims to broaden adoption of simulation across engineering teams. SimScale provides web-based 3D simulation technology that enables engineers, designers and students to virtually test and optimize product designs directly in the browser. The platform offers high-performance 3D simulation accessible without local software installations. The company launched a Community Plan making its products available for free and allowing users to share simulation projects to foster knowledge-sharing. SimScale intends to use its Series A funds to bring its 3D simulation technology to designers and engineers globally. The platform currently has 55,000 users worldwide. Founded in 2012, SimScale focuses on improving product development processes through in-browser testing. SimScale offers a web-based platform that runs sophisticated 3D engineering simulations across structural mechanics, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and acoustics. The platform leverages 3D rendering technology, interactive collaboration features and connections to large external computing centers to enable cloud-based simulation workflows. Its solution is in productive use by customers worldwide across industries such as plant manufacturing, facilities engineering and pump and valve design. The company was spun out of TU München in 2011 and is based in Munich, Germany. SimScale has raised venture capital (amount undisclosed) and intends to use the funds to develop simulation functionality to address additional industries. No operating metrics (revenue/users) were disclosed in the article. SimScale is a web-based engineering simulation platform based in Garching near Munich, Germany. Co-founded in 2012 by David Heiny and four other mechanical engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians, the company provides engineers with web access to numerical simulation. The platform integrates a wide range of tools from fluid mechanics, structural mechanics and thermodynamics within a single user interface. Engineers can test the platform free of charge at www.simscale.de. SimScale closed a round of funding of undisclosed amount and intends to use the capital for further development of its platform.