Linexa Just Raised Millions to Automate Europe's Factories

Linexa, a Munich-based deep tech startup that decodes decades-old industrial automation code across vendors, making Europe's factories AI-ready, led by Viktor Stryczek, Alexandros Vassiliadis, Tobias Drees, and the team, has raised €2 million pre-seed round led by Project A, with Thomas Böck (CEO Festo), Bastian Nominacher (founder Celonis), and Christian Schlögel (former CTO/CDO Kuka & Körber) as angels.

European manufacturing is facing mounting pressure, with Volkswagen cutting over 35,000 jobs, ZF Friedrichshafen 14,000, and Schaeffler 4,700, while highly automated “dark factories” emerge in China. The underlying issue is structural: fragmented control systems built over decades create complexity, making changes risky and costly, reinforcing the long-held norm of avoiding disruption.

Linexa addresses this gap by providing a unified view of production systems, combined with AI agents designed to optimize operations autonomously.

“Each production site closure in Europe and the acquisition of industrial leaders by foreign investors weakens economic strength and independence,” said Viktor Stryczek, co-founder and co-CEO. “A strong manufacturing base underpins prosperity, and restoring operational control is key to strengthening competitiveness.”

Unlike solutions focused on processes or sensor data, Linexa works at the machine-control level, translating logic into a unified model to identify risks early and reduce changeover time.

“Germany’s industrial future depends on competitive shop floors, yet many manufacturers struggle to modernize due to fragmented, legacy automation systems,” said Thomas Böck, CEO of Festo. “That’s the challenge Linexa is addressing, and the reason for this backing.”

“European manufacturing remains the backbone of the continent’s economy,” said Florian Heinemann, General Partner at Project A Ventures. “Linexa enables shop floor modernization at the speed required to stay competitive globally.”