octonomy AI from Cologne secures USD 20 million in seed round

Colo­gne — octo­nomy announ­ced the successful closing of a new seed round of 20 million USD. The Colo­­gne-based company offers an AI-based work­force that auto­ma­tes the support acti­vi­ties of highly quali­fied specia­lists — from tech­ni­cal support and product consul­ting to field service support — and is aimed at SME and enter­prise custo­mers. The company has thus secu­red one of the highest seed finan­cings in the last 24 months and is one of the most promi­sing German busi­ness AI plat­forms just five months after its market launch. — The round was led by Macqua­rie Capi­tal Venture Capi­tal under the direc­tion of Elmar Broscheit, accom­pa­nied by Capna­mic, NRW.Bank and the Tech­Vi­sion Fund. 

About octo­nomy

Tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion, product manu­als, main­ten­ance instruc­tions, SOPs and compli­ance guide­lines: While conven­tio­nal AI systems hallu­ci­n­ate when it comes to complex corpo­rate know­ledge, octo­nomy has deve­lo­ped a tech­no­logy that under­stands and applies even highly specia­li­zed exper­tise. For the first time, the start-up auto­ma­tes not only simple tasks, but also the acti­vi­ties of highly quali­fied specialists. 

With this seed round, octo­nomy is sending a clear signal of the success of its unique AI plat­form just six months after announ­cing its last pre-seed round of over USD 5 million. This brings octo­no­my’s total funding to 25 million US dollars just five months after ente­ring the market. 

octo­nomy is backed by an expe­ri­en­ced team of tech­no­logy and AI experts: Sushel Bijga­nath (CEO) and Oliver Trabert (CPTO) have alre­ady built up seve­ral tech compa­nies toge­ther with co-foun­­ders Thors­ten Grote, Markus Hans­lik and Thomas Bollig. The 70-strong team has exten­sive AI exper­tise, inclu­ding from Meta, Amazon, Aleph Alpha and unicorns such as Perso­nio, Staff­base and Sosafe. 

Digi­tal work­force instead of pilot projects

With the octo­nomy plat­form, AI agents can be deployed quickly and flexi­bly to assist custo­mer service teams and auto­mate sub-proces­­ses. octo­nomy goes far beyond simple auto­ma­tion. The plat­form can even process complex tech­ni­cal queries — from engi­neers or mecha­nics, for example. 

The plat­form is based on a tech­no­logy that proces­ses unstruc­tu­red data intel­li­gently and responds with high precis­ion. While stan­dard market models and provi­ders quickly lose context in complex envi­ron­ments and, accor­ding to our custo­mers, are only 50% accu­rate, octo­nomy achie­ves 95%1 — often above the human bench­mark. octo­nomy relies on a proprie­tary tech­no­logy that under­stands even complex specia­list know­ledge and relia­bly auto­ma­tes the support acti­vi­ties of highly quali­fied specia­lists; far beyond stan­dar­di­zed RAG solu­ti­ons. Even compa­nies in complex envi­ron­ments that were previously unable to use a relia­ble AI solu­tion bene­fit from measura­ble relief and increased custo­mer satis­fac­tion — in less than 20 days imple­men­ta­tion time. Thanks to hosting in Germany and full GDPR and EU AI Act compli­ance, octo­no­my’s plat­form also offers maxi­mum data secu­rity and transparency. 

“80 percent2 of all AI projects fail as soon as they become complex. This is exactly where we come in,” explains Sushel Bijga­nath, foun­der and CEO of octo­nomy. “Our agents deli­ver a proven 95+ percent response quality and signi­fi­cantly reduce the workload of teams. With Macqua­rie at our side, we are gaining an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner to make this strength available in Europe and the USA.” 

Capi­tal for expan­sion and product leadership

Just five months after its foun­da­tion, octo­nomy serves corpo­rate and SME custo­mers throug­hout Europe and North America from its offices in Colo­gne, Denver and New York. The funds from this new finan­cing round will prima­rily be used to expand the company’s market leader­ship and to extend its sales and marke­ting struc­tures in the DACH region and the USA. 

“octo­nomy has deve­lo­ped an AI solu­tion that auto­ma­tes complex know­ledge work at expert level. This is not just a further deve­lo­p­ment of the chat­bot, but a real AI revo­lu­tion, espe­ci­ally in the area of tech­ni­cal support,” says Elmar Broscheit, Global Co-Head of Macqua­rie Capi­tal Venture Capi­tal. “octo­nomy shows how complex busi­ness proces­ses with their own intellec­tual property can be auto­ma­ted precis­ely, secu­rely and scalably.” 

“Germany still has enorm­ous poten­tial in the appli­ca­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the corpo­rate context,” says Jörg Binnen­brü­cker, Foun­ding Part­ner of Capna­mic. “octo­nomy is buil­ding an indus­trial tool. They trans­late expert know­ledge into scalable, opera­tio­nal intel­li­gence and make expe­ri­ence produc­tive. This is exactly the kind of tech­no­logy Germany needs to bring AI from rese­arch into value creation.” 

Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher (photo © TVF), Mana­ging Part­ner Tech­Vi­sion Fonds: “Tech­ni­cal service today faces a double chall­enge: the systems to be main­tai­ned are beco­ming incre­asingly complex, while quali­fied specia­lists are hard to find. This makes it all the more important to complete assign­ments successfully on the first visit. A high first time fix rate is not only an effi­ci­ency factor, but also a decisive compe­ti­tive advan­tage. This is exactly where octo­nomy deli­vers solu­ti­ons that make the difference.”

Thors­ten Reuter, Head of the Digi­tal Economy & Tech­no­logy Divi­sion at NRW.BANK: “With octo­nomy, one of the most promi­sing enter­prise AI compa­nies in Germany is being estab­lished in Colo­gne. The company impres­si­vely demons­tra­tes that North Rhine-West­­pha­­lia is shaping the future as a strong indus­trial loca­tion and is also play­ing a leading role in pionee­ring AI technologies.”

About TVF

Tech­Vi­sion Fonds (TVF) is the leading early stage venture capi­tal fund from the Rhine­land in Germany with a focus on tech­no­logy start-ups in the pre-seed to Series A phase. TVF focu­ses on outstan­ding teams from the region, inclu­ding the neigh­bor­ing Nether­lands and Belgium. The TVF manage­ment has expe­ri­ence from four gene­ra­ti­ons of funds and curr­ently mana­ges over EUR 100 million in assets. The funds are supported by strong inves­tors such as NRW.BANK, eight savings banks from western NRW and more than 20 successful entrepreneurs. 

The TVF supports startup teams with proxi­mity, network and exper­tise and paves the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leaders. Through the S‑UBG Group network, the TVF offers unique access to over 150 successful compa­nies from various indus­tries and estab­lishes cont­acts between start­ups and their first custo­mers, part­ners and advi­sors. — www.tvf.vc