EthonAI closes USD 1.3M pre-seed financing round

EthonAI closes a USD 1.3M (CHF 1.2M) pre-seed financing round to bring AI-powered quality management to the manufacturing industry. The round is led by Wingman Ventures with additional investment from US-based Acequia Capital (Investor of Pinterest, Wish, Formlabs), and experienced business angels.

“Swiss made” is a sign of outstanding quality, but every Swiss manufacturer knows what it takes to maintain it. The internal costs of quality management are considerable, generating 15% of operating expenses in an average manufacturing firm. Making things right the first time is an uphill battle, and expensive rework is therefore still common. Even worse, poor quality sometimes slips through to the market, and results in customer dissatisfaction, brand damage, and lost sales.

EthonAI addresses this problem by developing an AI-powered platform that detects and prevents quality defects in manufacturing. The ETH Zurich spin-off is on a mission to make AI more accessible to factory operators and engineers. The company’s no-code applications have already been deployed at world-leading manufacturers and have proven to reduce production waste by up to 50% while increasing factory workers’ job satisfaction.

The company was founded by ETH PhD graduates Julian Senoner and Bernhard Kratzwald together with ETH Professor Torbjørn Netland. The founders build upon a strong track record in developing human- centered AI for industrial applications. “Through years of research in the manufacturing industry, we experienced a slow uptake of AI in quality management. We therefore developed groundbreaking AI applications that can be easily used by factory operators and engineers.” says Co-founder Netland.

EthonAI has now raised a pre-seed financing round to fuel their growth and ramp up their Zurich-based development team. Prior to their first financing round, the founders had already received the prestigious Pioneer Fellowship grant of ETH Zurich. Pascal Mathis, Founding Partner at Wingman Ventures, who is joining the company’s board of directors adds: “We have been looking into the industrial AI space for a long time. With EthonAI we have finally found the perfect team to bring AI to the manufacturing industry. We are convinced that manufacturers will experience substantial productivity gains by using EthonAI’s no-code applications.”