What counts as industrial automation and IoT here
Any company building hardware, sensors or software that automates or connects industrial and manufacturing processes – warehouse and factory robotics, photonics and optical components, connected sensors, and manufacturing software. We include the physical component layer (photonics, semiconductors used in industrial systems) and exclude pure consumer IoT, which is filed elsewhere.
- Family
- Hardware
- Coverage since
- 2019
- Desks
- 4
- Reviewed
- 20 Sep 2026
The four desks
Each one is a live page – this pillar is the way in
Funding rounds
Every European industrial automation round we have verified with the company or the lead investor.
DirectoryStartup directory
Who is building what, at which stage, in which country – filtered to the vertical.
DirectoryInvestors
Funds and angels with an industrial automation thesis, ticket and stage – not a paid list.
RankingEvents
Trade shows, deal rooms and buyer fairs assessed for this vertical.
The 7 sub-verticals
Filter the startup desk by any of these
Where the companies are
Headquarters counted on the startup desk
Where the sector stands
Three eras, not a straight line
Dozens of general-purpose IoT and connectivity platforms raised capital promising to connect any factory to the cloud; most struggled to differentiate.
European manufacturers, facing supply-chain fragility and rising labour costs, began investing seriously in automation to reshore production rather than offshore it further.
The largest rounds now go to companies solving physical bottlenecks – optical switching, advanced sensors – rather than software layered on existing hardware, as seen in iPronics' Series B.
Three open questions
Where informed people in this sector genuinely disagree
Several large rounds on this desk are explicitly pitched around helping European manufacturers bring production back from Asia.
iPronics and other photonics companies are raising large rounds on the promise of solving network bottlenecks in AI infrastructure.
Many of the sensors and components inside a European automation product are themselves manufactured in Asia.
How to get in
Three audiences, three short lists
If you are building
- Name the specific industrial process or bottleneck you solve, not “IoT” or “automation” broadly.
- Get one manufacturing site running your product in production, not a pilot in a lab, before you pitch scale.
- Decide whether you are selling hardware, software, or a managed service – the capital intensity and sales cycle differ enormously.
- Pick two events: one industrial buyer trade show, one investor-facing deal room.
If you are investing
- Ask for the actual deployed-site count, not the pipeline – industrial sales cycles are long and pilots frequently stall before rollout.
- Underwrite the component supply chain explicitly if the product involves custom hardware manufacturing.
- Check whether the company owns real manufacturing process IP or is primarily an integrator of off-the-shelf components.
- Use the funding desk to see who actually led rounds in the last 24 months.
If you are buying or partnering
- Ask for a reference site in your specific industry and process, not an adjacent one.
- Understand the total integration cost and timeline, not just the unit price of the hardware.
- Check the vendor's supply-chain resilience if the product depends on components sourced outside Europe.
- Use the startup desk for a shortlist; use events for discovery, not for due diligence.
Who to know
Start on the desks – profiles update as we verify them
Glossary
Terms that keep coming up on this vertical
Latest coverage
Reporting and analysis tagged to this vertical
All verticals, by family
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Frequently asked
About this vertical and how we cover it