Smart manufacturing startup CloEE has raised $600,000 Pre-Seed funding.
Tracking and optimising overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is essential to improving shop floor efficiency. Effective operations automation can increase productivity by 20-30 per cent and reduce quality defects by 15-25 per cent, directly linking productivity to profitability. Even small improvements, such as eliminating as little as 10 per cent of equipment downtime, can yield significant gains without major investments.
CloEE’s AI Platform goes further, integrating manufacturing equipment, MES, and ERP systems, providing actionable insights, benchmarking, and multilingual accessibility (e.g., works in Italian, Japanese, Finnish, etc.).
Check out our interview with Julia Sabitova, co-founder, COO, and Chief AI Advisor Nick Gushchin of CloEE.
Drawing on insights from 25,000 machines in 25 countries, CloEE delivers real-time AI reports for continuous improvement and benchmarking to boost efficiency and quality for manufacturers.
Customers have seen up to $1 million in annual revenue growth, a 30 per cent reduction in energy consumption, and a 95 per cent reduction in emergency outages. In addition, the CloEE solution can be deployed on-premise, offline, or in the cloud in as little as two weeks, requiring no lengthy or costly implementation projects.
According to Oleksandr Zadorozhnyi, CEO and co-founder of CloEE, the platform is developed in direct response to manufacturers’ need for an affordable, truly plug-and-play solution:
“While everyone is eager to adopt AI, the reality is that AI is only as good as the data it receives.”
CloEE solves this challenge by delivering seamless connectivity and applying advanced AI to analyse data directly from industrial machines.
Zadorozhnyi contends:
“In our experience, 70 per cent of manufacturers struggle to reach even 50 per cent equipment efficiency, largely due to inadequate data collection and analysis.
With CloEE, our customers quickly become our strongest advocates — our platform expanded across one of our clients' facilities organically, without any extra sales effort.
Currently, the team is piloting CloEE with a US customer operating 100 facilities, and in discussion for a three-year contract covering 10 of them.”
Miro Vertanen and the Innovestor Angel Co-fund co-led the round, with additional participation from Cariplo Iniziative and three Finnish Business Angels Network (FiBAN) members.
Lead investor Miro Vertanen commented:
“CloEE is leading the shift from outdated manufacturing processes to a new era of smart, data-driven operations, delivering real impact to the bottom line, especially as mid-sized enterprises in the US and beyond embrace digital transformation.
Their hands-on experience with over 100 IoT deployments, combined with their ability to execute at a fast pace, makes them exceptionally well-suited for international expansion.”
“With more than 8 million manufacturing jobs worldwide projected to go unfilled by 2030 – especially those requiring advanced digital skills—making technology accessible is critical. Even experienced engineers often struggle with existing systems, so we designed CloEE to speak a human language. I believe it will become an essential tool for Gen Z in the factories of the future,” said Julia Sabitova, COO and Co-founder of CloEE.
CloEE has a team of eight with an R&D centre in Helsinki. The company aims to secure its first 20 recurring customers in 2025, after which it plans to raise its next investment round.
The new funding will focus on R&D to explore how AI Agents can significantly transform and potentially replace traditional heavy manufacturing platforms and help CloEE scale its solution for existing customers and expand sales in the Nordics, Italy, and the US.
Lead image: Freepik.
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