Luminovo lights up with €11 million to get innovations to market faster

From critical medical devices to electric car modules, smart gadgets that make our lives easier and everything in between, there is currently a disconnect between the advancements being built in labs and R&D departments, and these often life-changing advancements making it to market.

The disconnect comes from the fact that the current systems that manage the global product chain are broken, shrouded in bureaucracy, fragmented and siloed. This creates years of delays, not to mention billions in avoidable costs, and high environmental burdens. The overwhelming growth of electronics e-waste, alone, is set to reach 7.47 million tonnes annually by 2030. 

Founded in 2020 by Sebastian Schaal and Timon Ruban, Munich-based AI-powered software suite Luminovo is working on offering a solution to the trillion-dollar electronics industry. The startup is helping electronics leaders bring vital innovations to market faster and cheaper. In doing so, it has brought in €11 million in a seed round. The funding will fuel technological progress through the improvement of hardware development on a global scale.

Luminovo’s unified data model streamlines and democratises the electronics development process which in turn helps reduce time to market, increase revenue, productivity and profitability, and fuel technological progress. 

The investment was led by Chalfen Ventures with participation from Tencent, Verve Ventures and Khadjavi Capital Partners and existing investors La Famiglia and Cherry Ventures. The company had earlier raised over €2.5 million in funding in 2021 for its electronics operating system.

Sebastian Schaal, co-founder of Luminovo said: “We want to rethink the entire electronics value chain to make it more efficient, effective and impactful. It’s infuriating that the manufacturers and designers that are building the products that will change the world are wholly reliant on excel spreadsheets and 20th-century communication tools to take their projects from design to production.” 

Timon Ruban, co-founder of Luminovo added: “It’s been an incredible few years building Luminovo and already we’re seeing the positive impact this tool is having across the electronics industry with over 50 customers who are building products that will be used in important sectors like industrial, healthcare, energy and others. But there’s still so much to do to transform this industry and enable manufacturers and developers to focus on creating technological solutions to the world’s biggest problems.” 

Mike Chalfen, founder of Chalfen Ventures, added: “Complex process-driven industries are ripe for transformation but it often seems too hard for the people within them to make a change. Luminovo has designed products that are easy to adopt and deliver value fast, and is overcoming that resistance, and is already making a big difference to its customers across the electronics industry.”