Industrial Software: Why We're All-in

At Ventech, we believe Industrial Software is one of the most exciting opportunities of the decade and a cornerstone of Europe’s reindustrialization to catch up with the global Industry 4.0 race, which is a strategic battlefield for Europe.

But first, what do we mean by Industrial Software?

For us, it covers any technology from hardware to software, designed to improve the productivity of industrial and logistics operations radically. This spans safety, operations management, internal communication, speed of execution, and even HR. You name it.

Why now?

Between 2000 and 2010, most engineering and entrepreneurial talent flowed into digital-first businesses: SaaS, marketplaces, mobile apps, etc.

But the urgent need to reindustrialize Europe is changing the game. This requires massive investments, and more and more SMEs, mid-sized companies, and corporates are mobilizing. This comes at a time when their workforce is aging, labor shortages persist, and profit margins on core products continue to decline. There is a clear and urgent need to embrace digital transformation, or you simply risk becoming irrelevant very quickly.

Market opportunities are booming, and experienced entrepreneurs are rising to the occasion. And in this deep-tech-heavy sector, experience truly matters. It’s not like enterprise software, where knowledge can become commoditized quickly.

What’s more, current technological breakthroughs are unlocking vast new areas of innovation:

• Artificial intelligence
• Machine-to-machine IoT
• Robotics
• Data infrastructure & Cybersecurity
• Defence Tech & SpaceTech

These startups require significant capital, especially those with hardware components, given the long sales cycles.

A new generation of role models is fueling ambition: Samsara in the US, Exotec in France, and many more to come.

Our investment thesis at Ventech

We see two main types of Industrial Software opportunities in Seed or Series A:

1. Hybrid startups that combine hardware and software:

• Software drives margin; hardware drives stickiness.
• Like Treon: a Finnish portfolio of ours, enabling industrial, logistics and smart building leaders to deploy massive IoT networks with best-in-class sensor and edge technology.

2. Pure software players:

• Like Drimco: the requirement management platform powered by LLM & agents to address non-conformance costs of large industrial projects.
• Like amberSearch: empowering teams to access internal knowledge easily, across systems, media, and languages. All through an intuitive Google-like search and AI chat.
• Like Firecell: bringing Private 5G connectivity to enterprises, unlocking a new wave of secure, ultra-reliable industrial use cases.

In both models, we look for companies with:

• At least a few million in revenue or
• If pre-revenue: founding teams with deep industry expertise and commercial insight

The ultimate must-have? Regulatory tailwinds.

Take Prewave, the Austrian-originated supply chain intelligence platform, for instance: its AI-driven platform addresses sustainability and resilience challenges of companies, turning regulatory burden into better transparency & efficiency of supply chains.

What we’re seeing at Ventech

Our deal flow is strong and balanced across our three core geographies: France, DACH, and the Nordics. That said, we’re seeing a clear concentration of Industrial Software startups emerging from Europe’s blue banana, stretching from Hamburg to Turin.

Hot sectors we’re tracking closely:

• Machine-to-machine IoT: Industrial on-the-ground productivity improvement
• Robotics: with usage in the supply chain, workflow productivity improvement
• Data infrastructure & Cybersecurity
• Defence Tech & SpaceTech

We’re just at the beginning. Industrial Software is becoming the foundation of Europe’s reindustrialization, and we’re here to back the visionaries building it.