Dort­mund — Dort­mund-based start-up sovity has secu­red seven-figure seed funding to increase the effi­ci­ency and inno­va­tive capa­city of compa­nies through quick and easy access to data spaces. With the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of Europe’s leading seed inves­tors, and the Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­lo­gie-Trans­fer Fonds (FTTF), which has supported sovity since its begin­nings, two important compa­n­ions are on board. The new capi­tal will be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and the expan­sion of the market presence.

“We are very plea­sed that we were able to attract another well-known inves­tor in addi­tion to FTTF: HTGF also shares our vision of the market and the mission of our product around Data Space tech­no­logy.”, Sebas­tian Kleff, CEO and Co-Foun­der of sovity

“The market for Data Spaces is growing: compa­nies are now actively looking for solu­ti­ons that enable them to share data with part­ners as easily as possi­ble and without major tech­ni­cal hurd­les,” Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel, CTO and Co-Foun­der of sovity.

In Data Spaces, compa­nies can exch­ange and use data to measure the carbon foot­print of products, for exam­ple, or to gain trans­pa­rency about supplier requi­re­ments and capa­ci­ties. Data Spaces imple­ment prin­ci­ples of data sove­reig­nty — compa­nies retain full control over their data at all times. With sovity’s soft­ware — theCon­nec­tor-as-a-Service — compa­nies are offe­red the right solu­tion for this. This allows compa­nies to be connec­ted to a Date Spaces within ten minu­tes. Inde­pen­dent imple­men­ta­tion would take appro­xi­m­ately six to eight months.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, sovity has built a strong team of tech and busi­ness experts and curr­ently employs more than ten people. The team will use the funding to focus on further deve­lo­p­ment of the product. In addi­tion, the sales and marke­ting depart­ment is to be streng­the­ned in order to expand the market presence and acquire new custo­mers. On its website, sovity offers inte­res­ted compa­nies access to a trial version of its software.

“Sovity is very clear in their vision to make Data Spaces acces­si­ble to all busi­nesses. We see tech­no­logy as a rele­vant lever to enable compa­nies to exch­ange data with each other in order to opti­mize proces­ses and improve products and services,” Johan­nes Dier­kes, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

“Sovity enables the exch­ange of data while provi­ding full data control to data holders. Since its incep­tion, the team has made excel­lent tech­ni­cal progress and won important custo­mers as well as renow­ned part­ners,” said Tobias Schwind, Mana­ging Part­ner at FTTF.

Last but not least, exis­ting part­ner­ships with Data Spaces initia­ti­ves, such as Catena‑X, Mobi­lity Data Space and Gaia‑X, as well as with the Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces Asso­cia­tion (IDSA), are to be further expan­ded. In addi­tion to these initia­ti­ves, sovity is alre­ady working with a large number of indus­trial compa­nies on pilot or tech­no­logy projects.

About sovity

Foun­ded in Octo­ber 2021 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Soft­ware and Systems Engi­nee­ring ISST in Dort­mund, sovity offers data sove­reig­nty as a service. The start-up provi­des compa­nies with the tech­no­logy for Data Spaces based on stan­dards, inclu­ding Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces (IDS), Gaia‑X or Eclipse Foun­da­tion. Thus, sovity provi­des compa­nies with the easiest and fastest access to Data Spaces. Compa­nies exch­ange a wide range of infor­ma­tion via Data Spaces in order to opti­mize proces­ses or products and to deve­lop new busi­ness models. The mana­ging direc­tors of sovity, Sebas­tian Kleff (Co-Foun­der, CEO) and Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel (Co-Foun­der, CTO), have seve­ral years of exper­tise in the field of data exch­ange as well as corre­spon­ding use cases, e.g. from Fraun­ho­fer rese­arch and IDS, as well as seve­ral years of expe­ri­ence in manage­ment consul­ting at BCG Platinion.

About FTTF — Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund (FTTF) GmbH

The FTTF finan­ces start-ups that use Fraun­ho­fer tech­no­logy. As a strong entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner, up to 250 TEUR will be inves­ted in the pre-seed phase and up to 5 MEUR in further finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund provi­des support with exten­sive start-up expe­ri­ence and a broad inves­tor network. The fund has a volume of 60 MEUR, alre­ady more than 30 port­fo­lio compa­nies and is mainly finan­ced by the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF). www.fttf.eu

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 690 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has over 1.3 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, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 160 compa­nies. Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft, and more than 40 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.