#DealMonitor
+++ #DealMonitor +++ Kombo gets 25 million +++ Plato gets 14.5 million +++ happyhotel collects 6.5 million +++ Cognee gets 7.5 million +++ Custom Surgical gets 3.5 million +++ factorymaker collects 1.1 million +++
In the #DealMonitor For February 19th we will take a look at the most important, exciting and interesting investments and exits of the day in the DACH region. All deals from the previous days are available in a large and clear format #DealMonitor archive.
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INVESTMENTS
Combo
+++ The American investor Volition Capital as well as the existing investors Acadian Ventures, 468 Capital and Y Combinator are investing $25 million in Kombo. The Berlin startup, founded in 2022 by Alexander Kübel, Niklas Higi, Aike Hillbrands and Fabian Rothfuß, wants to help companies integrate every conceivable tool into their own company. A total of 30 million has now flowed into the young company. “The new funding will accelerate our ambitions to become the backbone of the workforce industry. We’ll go deeper across Talent Acquisition, HR, Payroll and IT systems, scale our team across New York and Berlin, keep investing in enterprise-grade reliability and security, and set the standard for agent-ready people data,” says the team. More about combo
plato
+++ The billion-dollar London backer Atomico, the Berlin backer Cherry Ventures, Discovery Ventures and D11Z.Ventures are investing $14.5 million in Plato. The Berlin startup, founded in 2024 by Benedikt Nolte, Matthias Heinrich and Oliver Birch, is positioned as an “AI operating system for wholesale”. Specifically, the young company “supports wholesalers in using their data and automating processes to increase sales by up to 15% without adding additional staff.” Cherry Ventures and business angels previously invested $6.5 million in Plato – including government support from the BMWi. Cherry Ventures most recently held around 17% of the company. More about Plato
happyhotel
+++ The Munich investor Reimann Investors, start-up BW Innovation Fonds, seed + speed Ventures and the family office Wecken & Cie. invest 6.5 million euros in happyhotel. The Offenburg startup, founded in 2019 by Marius Müller, Sebastian Kuhnhardt and Rafael Weißmüller, positions itself as revenue management software. The team supports hotels in optimizing their pricing strategies. The fresh capital will flow into the expansion and further development of a commercial AI agent. seed + speed Ventures, Wecken & Cie., Start-up BW Innovation Fonds and business angels recently invested 2 million in the company. Wecken & Cie and seed + speed Ventures most recently held 3.7% of happyhotel. More about happy hotel
Cognee
+++ The American seed investor Pebblebed, which includes former OpenAI creator Pamela Vagata, 42CAP, Vermilion Ventures and several business angels are investing $7.5 million in Cognee. The Berlin startup, founded in 2024 by Vasilije Markovic, is developing a “memory engine for AI applications and AI agents”. The team further explains the idea: “By combining knowledge graphs, semantic representations, and persistent memory, Cognee enables AI to retain context, reason over connected information, and operate reliably over time.” More about Cognee
Custom Surgical
+++ The French early-stage investor Ventech, ZEISS Ventures and other unnamed new and old investors are investing 3.5 million euros in Custom Surgical. The MedTech from Munich, founded in 2019 by Fernando Benito and Federico Acosta, focuses on the digitalization of diagnostic and surgical procedures in ophthalmology. “We enable doctors worldwide to record or take pictures of their microsurgery or slit lamp diagnostics with their own smartphones in a simple way,” says the team. More about Custom Surgical
factorymaker
+++ The Berlin venture capital provider 2bX and the Austrian early-stage investor XISTA Science Ventures are investing 1.1 million euros in factorymaker. The Viennese DeepTech startup from Vienna, founded in 2024 by Julia Reisinger and Maria Zahlbruckner, wants to “support industrial companies and planning offices across Europe in greenfield and brownfield projects”. The young company’s software “automates planning work that usually takes weeks.” More about factorymaker
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