Inns­bruck — The Inns­­bruck-based tech start-up Inner­space, which uses soft­ware and virtual reality (VR) to enable the risk assess­ment of produc­tion proces­ses and the effec­tive trai­ning of clean­room person­nel at leading phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, can conti­nue its growth trajec­tory follo­wing a very successful finan­cing round. US inves­tor River­side inves­ted in the Tyro­lean company back in July. A few days before the turn of the year, Inner­space fina­li­zed a substan­tial seed round with the new lead inves­tor Matter­wave Ventures. The three exis­ting inves­tors MAD Ventures, aws Grün­dungs­fonds and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds also inves­ted again.

“The great inte­rest shown by inves­tors natu­rally encou­ra­ges us to be on the right track. Digi­tal twins for process design and trai­ning are essen­tial for criti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses. We alre­ady count seve­ral of the world’s largest phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies among our custo­mers and will multi­ply both sales and the number of custo­mers in the coming years,” says Walter Ischia, CFO of Innerspace.

“Inner­space enables its custo­mers to avoid quality problems and mini­mize conta­mi­na­tion risks inher­ent in produc­tion. We were impres­sed by the team’s accu­mu­la­ted exper­tise in one of the most highly regu­la­ted indus­tries of all. The tech­no­logy enables signi­fi­cant process impro­ve­ments and, as a result, very substan­tial custo­mer bene­fits,” explains Bene­dikt Kron­ber­ger, Part­ner at Matter­wave Ventures

Inner­space will use the fresh capi­tal to expand its inter­na­tio­nal market presence and further deve­lop its unique “frame-by-frame” tech­no­logy. In future, the Tyro­lean company will focus even more stron­gly on the large growth market of America. Nume­rous well-known compa­nies from the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try world­wide alre­ady rely on the company’s expertise.

“The care and precis­ion requi­red in the produc­tion of medi­ci­nes has so far eluded simple digi­ta­liza­tion approa­ches. We break this barrier with our proprie­tary frame-by-frame approach. Design, further deve­lo­p­ment and teaching of any type of manu­fac­tu­ring process can now be carried out in the digi­tal twin. This saves an enorm­ous amount of time and money and also increa­ses process relia­bi­lity and quality,” explains Sebas­tian Sche­ler, co-foun­­der and Chief Metho­do­lo­gist at Innerspace

Inner­space also achie­ved another mile­stone in its young company history in the past finan­cial year: the global Paren­te­ral Drug Asso­cia­tion (PDA), which has more than 10,500 members, and Inner­space announ­ced a long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ship for the deve­lo­p­ment of globally reco­gni­zed PDA trai­ning cour­ses. This close coope­ra­tion includes the use of Inner­space tech­no­logy, i.e. VR simu­la­tors with frame-by-frame risk profile crea­tion func­tions in the PDA’s stan­dard trai­ning cour­ses. The aim of this part­ner­ship is to offer a range of trai­ning cour­ses globally for profes­sio­nals in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and biophar­maceu­ti­cal industry.

The cour­ses contain essen­tial VR modu­les that are much more effec­tive and immersive than tradi­tio­nal methods, but also provide a wealth of data on what people find harder or easier to learn and where there are risks that can be opti­mi­zed through more trai­ning or process redesign.

About Inner­space

The Austrian company Inner­space focu­ses on the risk assess­ment and effec­tive trai­ning of clean­room person­nel at leading phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies. Through the targe­ted use of psycho­lo­gi­cal insights and inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies, Inner­space aims to mini­mize errors in phar­maceu­ti­cal proces­ses and reduce risks. Both the speci­ally deve­lo­ped “Frame-by-Frame Risk Profil­ing” method for compre­hen­sive risk assess­ment and a stan­dar­di­zed clean­room simu­la­tor for trai­ning staff in virtual reality are used. In its role as an offi­cial part­ner of the Paren­te­ral Drug Asso­cia­tion (PDA), Inner­space is actively invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment and deli­very of high quality trai­ning cour­ses for the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. https://innerspace.eu

About Matter­wave Ventures

Matter­wave Ventures is a Munich-based venture capi­tal company that has specia­li­zed in deep-tech inno­va­tions with indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons for many years and is active with invest­ments throug­hout Europe. As an early-stage inves­tor, the focus is on early-stage compa­nies and includes soft­ware and hard­­ware-based busi­ness models. The aim is to build leading global compa­nies that drive the future of indus­trial value crea­tion, prima­rily through resource effi­ci­ency and digi­ta­liza­tion. The vision is to regain more tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, produc­tion capa­city and energy and raw mate­rial auto­nomy in Europe. The team has inves­ted in more than 60 compa­nies over the last 20 years and invests “full-stack”, from mate­ri­als and compon­ents to complete systems and soft­ware solu­ti­ons. With over EUR 250m of capi­tal under manage­ment, Matter­wave typi­cally parti­ci­pa­tes in seed and Series A finan­cings across Europe with initial invest­ments of between EUR 1–4m. Inclu­ding follow-on finan­cing rounds, over EUR 10m can be inves­ted per port­fo­lio company. www.matterwave.vc

About the aws start-up fund

The aws Grün­dungs­fonds is an Austrian venture capi­tal fund with a fund volume of approx. 70 million euros. As a seed inves­tor, he supports start-ups from the initial growth phase through further follow-up finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) to the exit. The fund sees itself as a long-term, stable part­ner with a hands-on menta­lity and supports the foun­ding teams as an active spar­ring part­ner. Since 2013, the aws Start-up Fund has inves­ted more than EUR 500 million in 45+ invest­ments toge­ther with natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal co-inves­­tors and has been able to realize nume­rous successful exits.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemi­cals and rela­ted busi­ness areas. To date, exter­nal inves­tors have inves­ted around 5 billion euros in the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 follow-up finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 170 companies.Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of sectors.