EIC ePitching on Software and AI: eight deeptech startups meet European investors

Brussels, November 8th 2024

Summary

›On 29 October the EIC hosted an ePitching session for Software and AI with eight EIC-backed companies and more than 25 European investors.
›The event generated over 25 investor follow-up meetings and three pitches were singled out as best-in-show: Treble, Alias Robotics and Ekkono.
›Participants ranged from acoustic simulation SaaS to robot cybersecurity, edge AI, EDA for chips, processing-in-memory, and data centre acceleration.
›The session was run under the EIC Investment Readiness and Outreach Programme, part of the EIC’s Business Acceleration Services, which provides coaching, matchmaking and investor introductions.
›While organisers reported a high quality of investor engagement and follow-ups, commercial and capitalisation challenges remain, especially for hardware-intensive and deeptech teams.

EIC ePitching on Software and AI: eight EIC-backed innovators in front of a concentrated investor panel

On 29 October the European Innovation Council ran an online ePitching event dedicated to Software and AI. Eight EIC-backed teams presented technologies spanning acoustic simulation, robot cybersecurity, Edge AI, hardware-aware ML toolchains, industrial sound analytics, electronic design automation, processing-in-memory semiconductors and data centre acceleration. More than 25 qualified European investors attended. Organisers say the investors invited the founders to over 25 one-on-one meetings and follow-ups after the session.

Event mechanics and purpose

This ePitching was delivered under the EIC Investment Readiness and Outreach Programme, a pillar of the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The programme provides coaching, deck reviews, benchmarking, and curated investor introductions for EIC Accelerator beneficiaries. Events such as ePitchings and Investor Days are designed to accelerate investor discovery and to help prepare companies for follow-up due diligence and fundraising conversations.

Organisers report immediate traction: more than 25 one-to-one meetings were requested after the pitches. That is a useful short-term metric, but investor meetings do not automatically translate into term sheets. Several of the companies involved were already raising or planning rounds before the event.

Companies that pitched and the session’s top recognitions

Company	Country / Base	Core technology	Fundraising status or notable funding cited in session
Treble Technologies	Iceland (Reykjavík)	Acoustic simulation SaaS for audio hardware and room acoustics	Raised €11m Series A led by KOMPAS VC; preparing Series B
Alias Robotics	Spain (Basque Country)	Robot cybersecurity platform (Robot Immune System) and security tooling	Seeking €5m Series A
Ekkono	Sweden	Edge AI software with on-device training and extremely small footprint	Raised €6.3m (including EIC grant); targeting a €5m round
Embedl	Sweden	Tools to optimise and deploy deep learning models across heterogeneous edge devices
Neuron Soundware	Czech Republic	Sound and data analysis for industrial equipment condition monitoring
HyperPV	Romania	Electronic Design Automation for chip design and verification
UPMEM	France	Processing-in-Memory semiconductor technology for data movement reduction and generative AI acceleration
Xelera Technologies	Germany	Software acceleration for data centres and clouds targeting high-throughput and low-latency workloads

Winners and founder perspectives

Three pitches were recognised as the best of the day by the organisers and investor jury. They were Treble, Alias Robotics and Ekkono. Each founder or executive framed the event as valuable for investor exposure and validation, while also highlighting remaining fundraising work.

Treble — mission and traction:Treble’s acoustic simulation platform enables virtual prototyping for audio hardware and room acoustics. Founded in 2020 by two acoustic engineers, Treble has specialised in synthetic audio data and high-fidelity simulations used for product design and training audio models. CEO Finnur Pind described the ePitching as an important showcase ahead of a planned Series B. The company previously closed an €11 million Series A led by KOMPAS VC and operates from Reykjavík with a team of about 40.

Alias Robotics — product and claims:Alias Robotics develops the Robot Immune System, an endpoint protection platform for robots that is positioned as antivirus-like software for robotic systems. Founder Víctor Mayoral Vilches said the company has changed manufacturer mindsets about robot security since its 2017 founding and is exploring generative AI techniques to automate security processes. Alias was seeking €5 million in Series A funding at the time of the pitch.

Ekkono — what sets its edge AI apart:Ekkono sells Edge AI software with a 'super-tiny footprint' allowing deployment on highly constrained hardware. The product supports not only inference but training at the edge, enabling manufacturers to monitor and adapt every deployed unit in operation. The company counts customers such as Volvo and Siemens Energy. Ekkono reported €6.3 million raised including EIC grants and told investors it was closing a €5 million funding round.

Short profiles of the other participants

The remainder of the cohort represented a mix of software optimisation, industrial sensing and infrastructure acceleration. Briefly:

Embedl:A Sweden-based toolchain for hardware-aware model optimisation and deployment. Embedl focuses on quantization, neural architecture search and device benchmarking to shrink latency, memory and energy costs for on-device AI.

Neuron Soundware:A Czech company using sound analysis and edge computing to detect faults and optimise industrial and power equipment. Their stack pairs IoT sensors with ML models for predictive maintenance and process control.

HyperPV:A deep-tech startup from Romania building Electronic Design Automation tools for advanced chip design and verification. EDA remains a capital- and expertise-intensive market with high barriers to entry but strong strategic value for EU semiconductor ambitions.

UPMEM:A French-origin processing-in-memory (PIM) semiconductor approach that reduces data movement costs in datacentres and mobile devices. The company positions PIM as a way to address the 'memory wall' when moving large datasets for generative AI workloads.

Xelera Technologies:A German team building software acceleration for data centres with products that target ultra-low latency and high data rates. Xelera markets solutions for network acceleration and machine learning inference that aim to reduce CPU load and total cost of ownership.

What investors were looking for

The investor jury included partners and teams from Armilar Venture Partners, Caixa Capital Risc, Capricorn Partners, eCAPITAL, Equinor, Ericsson Ventures, Global Brain, Matterwave Ventures, NGP Capital, No Such Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, SAP, Speedinvest, Ventech and Voima Ventures among others. Emmanuel Cassimatis from SAP explained typical attractiveness criteria for a strategic investor: the ability to scale, product strength, differentiation and barriers to entry, and the execution capabilities of the team.

Founders at the event echoed that investor quality mattered. Ekkono’s co-founder Jon Lindén praised the event format and the presence of VCs covering multiple stages. Alias Robotics reported follow-up meetings and constructive feedback. That kind of targeted matchmaking is the explicit goal of the EIC programme.

Explaining key technologies briefly

Edge AI:Edge AI refers to running machine learning models on devices located at the edge of the network rather than in centralized clouds. It reduces latency and data transfer, can improve privacy and enables real-time adaptation. Edge deployments are often constrained by memory, compute and energy budgets which drives specialised software and model compression techniques.

Processing-in-Memory (PIM):PIM moves computation closer to memory to reduce the costs of data movement between memory and processors. For data-intensive AI workloads where memory bandwidth is a bottleneck, PIM can improve throughput and energy efficiency. Integration into datacentres and software stacks remains a systems-level challenge.

Electronic Design Automation (EDA):EDA is a set of software tools that automate chip design, verification and layout. Modern EDA must handle increased design complexity from advanced nodes and heterogeneous architectures. EDA startups face long sales cycles and are often acquired by larger EDA incumbents or chipmakers.

Robot Immune System (RIS):Alias Robotics frames RIS as an endpoint protection platform for robots. The claim is it behaves like antivirus for robotic systems, detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities. Applied to industrial automation, robot security blends OT and IT risk management and touches on safety implications when connected systems are compromised.

Programmatic context and the EIC’s role

The ePitching forms part of the EIC Investment Readiness and Outreach Programme which sits in the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The initiative aims to prepare EIC Accelerator awardees for investment by offering coaching, benchmarking and targeted introductions to investors. The EIC positions these activities as a bridge between grant funding and private capital.

From an ecosystem perspective the EIC’s matchmaking is one of several EU mechanisms attempting to scale deeptech in Europe. The structured introductions and free coaching remove frictions for early-stage founders, especially those in hardware-heavy domains where buyer and investor discovery can be slow.

A critical view: what the metrics do and do not show

Organisers highlight immediate indicators of success: investor attendance, meeting requests and a small set of 'best pitch' winners. Those are useful short-term signals of engagement. However, converting investor interest into funded growth remains the bigger test. Hardware and infrastructure startups such as PIM vendors, EDA tools and data-centre accelerators face longer sales cycles and higher capital needs than pure software companies. Robot cybersecurity and Edge AI claim product-market fit in industrial segments but must still prove enterprise adoption at scale.

Founders who reported follow-up meetings will still need to show commercial traction, defensible differentiation and realistic go-to-market plans to close rounds. Public-sector support and EIC grants can de-risk technology development, but bridging the funding gap to large-scale manufacturing or cloud rollouts commonly requires later-stage venture capital or strategic corporate investment.

Next sessions and how founders can apply

The EIC announced upcoming investor-focused sessions in other verticals. The next public calls included an EIC x J&J Healthcare Investor Day in Paris on 13 November and an online Food & Agritech ePitching on 4 December. Eligible participants are EIC Accelerator awardees who have received or been selected for the investment component. Applications and event details are published through the EIC Community platform.

Takeaways for investors, founders and policymakers

For investors the event illustrates a concentrated pipeline of EU-funded deeptech opportunities and a practical mechanism to screen technical teams. For founders, curated investor exposure and pitch coaching are valuable, but these should be combined with clear commercial milestones and realistic capital plans. For policymakers and programme operators, the EIC’s events are a useful convening tool, yet the longer-term measure of success will be conversion into follow-on funding, international scaling and meaningful market deployments.

The cohort demonstrated the breadth of European AI and systems innovation, from acoustic simulation for audio R&D to security platforms for robots and edge-first ML. That diversity is a strength but it also reinforces the need for investor patience, cross-border customer development and continued support for capital-intensive deeptech pathways.

Practical links and contacts

Founders and investors interested in future ePitchings, Investor Days and EIC BAS services should sign up to the EIC Community platform and the EIC Business Acceleration Services newsletter. Companies selected for the EIC Accelerator or having received the investment component are the primary eligible group for investor-readiness support.