Munich — Munich-based tech startup Metis­Mo­tion has closed its second round of finan­cing and recei­ved another €1.5 million in fresh capi­tal. As in the first finan­cing round in Decem­ber 2018, the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), BORN2GROW — a subsi­diary of the ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn — and the SIEMENS Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor (STA) inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to prepare the market launch of the patent-protec­­ted naXture actua­tor platform.

“MetisMotion’s core tech­no­logy is highly dyna­mic and light­weight, powerful actua­tors for auto­ma­tion appli­ca­ti­ons. Metis­Mo­tion has deve­lo­ped an actua­tor plat­form (compa­ra­ble to servo­mo­tors) that offers unpre­ce­den­ted, tech­ni­cal possi­bi­li­ties. — Imagine being able to replace pneu­ma­tic or hydrau­lic solu­ti­ons with great power poten­tial in exis­ting instal­la­tion spaces with highly effi­ci­ent elec­tri­cally opera­ted drives! This is usually not feasi­ble with conven­tio­nal elec­tric motors,” says Patrick Fröse, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MetisMotion

Based on the outstan­ding power density and effi­ci­ency of Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors, a network of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal pilot custo­mers has grown since the company was foun­ded in 2018, using Metis­Mo­tion solu­ti­ons to drive the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drive tasks.

With the capi­tal raised in the current finan­cing round, the tech­no­logy will now be made available to a broad custo­mer group. The launch of the naXture plat­form is plan­ned for late summer.naXture enables users to quickly and easily confi­gure indi­vi­dual actua­tors for the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. Actua­tor geome­try, available forces, speeds and travels, as well as the safety beha­vior are always based on the speci­fic requi­re­ments of the application.

“Metis­Mo­tion was alre­ady very close to the market and active in many appli­ca­tion areas at the time of the spin-off. Parti­cu­larly in the Heil­bronn region, the region of world market leaders, Metis­Mo­tion has alre­ady been able to win promi­sing custo­mers in the pilot custo­mer phase. The open­ness for inno­va­tion is obvious here and we are ther­e­fore looking forward to the further roll out. We see great market oppor­tu­ni­ties — not only natio­nally,” explains Thomas Villin­ger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn.

“The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of today’s inef­fi­ci­ent pneu­ma­tic and hydrau­lic actua­tors, parti­cu­larly in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, is an exci­ting growth oppor­tu­nity. Metis­Mo­tion can define a new segment here with its tech­no­logy! Exci­ting for inves­tors who are looking for disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies and want to parti­ci­pate in their success,” comm­ents Jens Baum­gärt­ner, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

“Metis­Mo­tion has proven with its launch custo­mers that it can design and manu­fac­ture high-perfor­­mance actua­tors for the most deman­ding envi­ron­ments. We are ther­e­fore convin­ced of the company’s poten­tial and look forward to conti­nuing to contri­bute to its success as an inves­tor and through our network within Siemens and beyond,” says Dr. Rudolf Frey­tag, CEO of Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH.

About Metis­Mo­tion
Actua­ting Inno­va­tions — Follo­wing the Genius of Nature. Accor­ding to this guiding prin­ci­ple, Metis­Mo­tion GmbH has been deve­lo­ping bio-inspi­­red actua­tor systems since 2018. The company is a spin-off from the Siemens Group and sets new stan­dards for the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drives with maxi­mum energy effi­ci­ency. Based on highly inte­gra­ted micro-hydrau­­lic circuits, Metis­Mo­tion is able for the first time to combine a parti­cu­larly high force density with ultra-dyna­­mic move­ments in the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. At the same time, Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors gene­rally require only a quar­ter of the energy compared to pneu­ma­tic solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple. Custo­mers include natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers from the factory and process auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and mobi­lity sectors.
The Munich site is curr­ently home to in-house deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring, marke­ting and sales.

About the ZFHN — Heil­bronn Future Fund

Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn has been one of the major venture capi­ta­lists in Germany. It prima­rily supports young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that are loca­ted in the Heil­bronn area or are prepared to settle there in the short to medium term. The Future Fund is priva­tely finan­ced and has equity capi­tal in the hundreds of milli­ons. It supports compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and cont­acts in the Heil­bronn econo­mic region. The goal is to further deve­lop Heil­bronn into a very successful tech­no­logy loca­tion. This also includes the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of clus­ters (MedTech, BioTech, Clean­tech) locally.

Since its foun­ding in 2013, Heil­­bronn-based BORN2GROW GmbH & Co. KG has been support­ing inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in the seed and start-up phase. The seed fund supports young compa­nies by accom­pany­ing them from the proof-of-concept stage to market launch. This early-stage finan­cing enables fast-growing tech­­no­­logy-orien­­ted start-up compa­nies to deve­lop their ideas and concepts. BORN2GROW, a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, coope­ra­tes with other venture capi­tal funds and busi­ness angels and makes fast and trans­pa­rent finan­cing decisions.Contact:
Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn GmbH & Co. KG. www.zf-hn.de

About the Siemens Tech­no­logy Accelerator
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH is a subsi­diary of Siemens AG and has been successfully commer­cia­li­zing inno­va­tive Siemens tech­no­lo­gies in appli­ca­ti­ons outside the stra­te­gic focus of Siemens busi­ness units for more than 20 years. This is done either by foun­ding venture capi­tal funded start-ups or by selling or licen­sing to estab­lished companies.Contact:
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH. www.siemens.com/sta

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 892.5 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 500 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the hard­ware, soft­ware, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors. More than €1.9 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in around 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has now successfully sold shares in 100 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de