IoT automation company KINEXON raises $130 million in funding led by Thomas H. Lee Partners

KINEXON, whose software supports connected and automated processes in multiple industries, today announced a successful $130 million Series A fund raising. Thomas H. Lee Partners, (THL), a private equity firm, led the round with co-investments from BMW i Ventures and Telekom Innovation Pool (TIP), Deutsche Telekom’s strategic investment fund.

KINEXON will leverage the investment to accelerate the development of its automation technology and to continue its expansion in North America and Europe, the company said.

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, KINEXON provides cloud software that captures, optimizes and automates processes in manufacturing, logistics, and sports. Operating under two core segments, KINEXON Industries and KINEXON Sports & Media, the company’s full Internet of Things (IoT) stack product portfolio combines software with any sensors and connected devices, creating an end-to-end solution for automation. KINEXON Industries’ technology enables companies like BMW, Continental, Siemens, and Airbus to improve productivity as well as sustainability and reduce costs in manufacturing and logistics. In sports, KINEXON’s automated real-time content generation enables the analysis of athletic performance as well as the enrichment of sports broadcasts with novel data, for example for augmented reality applications.

Dr. Oliver Trinchera, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of KINEXON, said, “Our vision is of a world in perfect flow. Wherever assets, people or operations are in motion, we can improve and automate the underlying processes. The investment round will provide us with growth capital to scale and further expand our leading operating system for process automation. We also plan to expand geographically to meet the growing needs of our customers across the world.”

Michael Kaczmarek, Managing Director at THL, said, “KINEXON has defined a new category within IoT and orchestration software. Its cloud platform can gather localization data in real time and translate it simultaneously into powerful actions for customers. We are excited to support co-founders Oliver Trinchera and Alexander Hüttenbrink in scaling KINEXON and believe they have the vision and track record to define the future of automation technology in industry and sports.”

THL invested in KINEXON through both its flagship Fund IX and its Automation Fund, the private equity industry’s first fund dedicated to automation-related businesses. Mr. Kaczmarek and Jim Carlisle, Managing Director and Head of THL’s Automation Fund, will join KINEXON’s Board of Directors alongside Michael Süß, Chairperson of the Oerlikon Board of Directors and former Member of the Siemens AG Managing Board, and Carl-Peter Forster, former member of the BMW Board of Management and former CEO of General Motors Europe and Tata Motors.

Milan Nedeljković, Board Member for Production at BMW AG said of the solution, which goes by the name IPS-i at BMW, “Automotive production at the BMW Group is a lot like top-flight sport in that it’s about high-performance processes. The real-time locating platform IPS-i forms the backbone for fully digitalizing our production. It’s an innovative operating system that makes our highly complex manufacturing processes transparent and raises efficiency in production even further. We are now intensifying our well-established, long-standing partnership with KINEXON by acquiring a stake in them. Together, we want to set new standards in digital production steering.”

According to BMW’s announcement on the funding round, the integrated IPS-i software platform was developed in collaboration with Kinexon to improve coordination of highly complex processes in automotive manufacturing by capturing real-time position data and passing it into a “digital twin” layer for orchestration. For example, according to BMW, in car manufacturing, components have to be available at exactly the right place on the production line, right beside the tools that will be used – and all of them just in time, with the IPS-i platform providing the orchestration role.