Motius Revolutionizes Investments in DeepTech Startups

• Fund volume of 35 million euros with a focus on DeepTech
• Startups with a competitive edge: R&D business of Motius as a basis
• Investments in Artificial Intelligence, Web3.0, Metaverse, Chip Design, and Robotics

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Munich, May 04, 2022. The technology specialists at Motius are launching Spacewalk, a venture capital fund that offers unique advantages to technology startups: It finances startups that emerge from Motius’ successful research and development business – giving them an immediate competitive advantage. The fund’s €35 million euros will be invested in early-stage DeepTech startups that use new technologies to revolutionize the products and production processes of entire industries.

“Through our R&D business, we know earlier than others which markets will be created by new technologies. After successful projects, we have the right teams with the right products at the right time. They have worked with leading companies – and therefore first customers – to develop solutions to technology challenges,” says Zièd Bahrouni, CEO and Co-Founder of Motius. “For DeepTech startups, this is an ideal starting position: market lead, latest technologies, first customers, and a well-established team. Only the capital is then still missing. That comes now, after our successful first closing, from Spacewalk.”

Motius has been one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Europe for years and specializes in future technologies – from Artificial Intelligence to Blockchain to Extended Reality or Robotics. The R&D service provider supports companies such as BMW, Siemens, MTU, Microsoft, and Lufthansa Technik with forward-looking innovations. Many of the solutions developed by the project teams have the potential to become products in their own right.

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“The Best Place for Techies”: From Your Own Project to Your Own Startup

The fact that successful project teams become founders in a very short time and can start immediately with a first investment and first customers is due to the fluid-structure of Motius. Motius has built up a pool of highly qualified talents with expertise in all important future technologies. The ideal project team is put together from this pool for each task. Project Management and technical leadership are handled by Motius’ experienced core team.

“Part of the reason we started Motius nine years ago was that we wanted to create a place where techies and other talented people could fulfill themselves,” says Zièd Bahrouni. “At Motius, they can always work with the latest technologies and prove themselves by providing solutions to world-renowned companies. They can either work on individual projects or make a permanent commitment to the company as part of the core team. Now with Spacewalk, they get even more development opportunities. Those who have successfully implemented a project and want to stay on top of their own development for longer can build a startup with our support.”

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DeepTech Marks the Beginning of a New Era for Tech Startups

Spacewalk is investing in several DeepTech projects right out of the gate. These include a startup that specializes in Federated Learning for developing Artificial Intelligence. By allowing distributed training of models where sensitive data never leaves the device, Federated Learning ensures better data protection over the standard Centralized Machine Learning paradigms. Furthermore, it enables new Machine Learning use cases for medical and industrial applications which were previously impossible to realize due to restrictions on sharing and pooling of data.

Solutions for the future of the Internet – for Web3.0 and Metaverse – are also being driven by Spacewalk. One example is the development of use cases for Data Pods, a decentralized storage solution where the user has ownership of all their personal data. Users can then decide for themselves which companies can have access to their data and revoke access at any time. This will transform the Internet to make it more transactional, where companies must provide worthwhile services to gain access to their customers’ data, rather than by “spying” on them.

To reduce the reliance on fragile supply chains in the face of chip shortages, Motius is also working with many high-profile customers to bring microchip development back in-house. The tools and technologies for this will soon be supplied by another Spacewalk startup.

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Spacewalk Builds the Next (Hidden) Champions

“The digitization of simple business processes, for example in HR or purchasing, will soon be complete,” says Zièd Bahrouni. “So the next-generation tech unicorns will have to go one step further: They will come up with technological innovations to make completely new products and production processes possible, even in established industries. This is DeepTech – and has been Motius’ core business for years. We are building on this with Spacewalk.”

For the launch of Spacewalk, Motius has reorganized its personnel: Dr. Michael Münnix and Felix Wolf, two former partners from well-known European Tech VC Funds, strengthening the team as Venture Partners. Spacewalk’s advisory board includes Dr. Carlos Haertel, CTO of Climeworks, Prof. Hana Milanov from the Technical University of Munich, and Herbert Mangesius, Founding Partner at Vsquared Ventures.

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