We asked leading European investors working across materials, manufacturing, and industrial systems a simple question: which startups are accelerating Europe’s reindustrialisation?

From AI-designed supply chains and robotic maintenance to carbon-negative materials and bio-based production, their answers point to a new industrial era taking shape.

One where circularity is engineered from the start, infrastructure is deeptech-defined, and biology and computation are increasingly intertwined.

It’s practical, scalable, and already moving into the real world.

Here are the companies they’re watching, and why they matter.

What: AI-powered solutions for packaging product development and market deployment by embedding product-market fit into every go-to-market decision.

Why they were nominated: “As EU packaging regulations tighten and brands scramble to decarbonise, one.five offers an AI platform that cuts through the complexity, helping companies find sustainable packaging solutions faster and with less guesswork, thus saving cost and hassle. With just 15–20% of global packaging classified as sustainable today and nearly half still ending up in landfill, one.five's AI platform couldn't be more critical.”

What: Using green chemistry to make synthetic textiles sustainable. Starting with nylon.

Why they were nominated: “Syntetica is one to watch because it has developed a breakthrough low‑temperature chemical recycling process that turns hard‑to‑recycle nylon textiles back into virgin‑quality building blocks, making true "textile‑to‑textile" circularity possible at scale. Crucially, this is exactly the kind of technology needed to unlock large-scale textile recycling and drive a fundamental industry transformation.”

What: Material Difference is building AI that understands the underground to solve the $5.3T critical mineral shortage.

Why they were nominated: “Mining extraction software may be a crowded space, but Material Difference stands apart with a transparent AI model that integrates all mine-site data - geophysics, geochemistry, drilling - to generate a comprehensive 3D model of subsurface deposits. As the world races to build resilience and decarbonise, the minerals beneath our feet have become the new strategic frontier.”

What: Aerones is an innovative company that has developed robotic technology for wind turbine blade maintenance services

Why they were nominated: “Aerones leverages robotics and artificial intelligence to automate the inspection, cleaning, and maintenance of wind turbines. By reducing the need for manual, riskier interventions and enabling more frequent, data-driven servicing, it significantly extends turbine lifespan and minimises downtime. The result is higher energy yield per asset, lower operational costs, and, ultimately, a greater volume of renewable wind energy delivered to the grid.”

What: Makersite enables manufacturers to quickly reconstruct and simulate environmental impact, cost structures, and regulatory compliance across thousands of products, down to individual components and multi-tier supplier networks.

Why they were nominated: “By turning complex supply chain and lifecycle data into actionable insights in a fraction of the time, it empowers engineering and procurement teams to make smarter design decisions early. This supports more sustainable products, reduced costs, faster time-to-market, and helps enable compliance with evolving regulations.”

What: Energy Dome’s CO₂ Battery provides long-duration energy storage (10+ hours), addressing one of the biggest limitations of renewable energy: intermittency.

Why they were nominated: “By storing excess solar and wind power for a duration of 8 hours+ and releasing it when needed, the system helps stabilise grids and supports a reliable supply of clean energy. Its use of readily available materials and a closed-loop CO₂ process also makes it a cost-effective alternative to long duration energy storage solutions, accelerating the transition to a fully renewable energy system.”

What: Photoncycle addresses one of the hardest constraints in renewable systems - seasonal storage.

Why they were nominated: “By enabling households to shift energy across seasons, it turns distributed energy into true year-round independence.
This is especially relevant in Northern Europe, where winter demand and summer solar supply are fundamentally mismatched.”

What: CorPower brings predictability to renewables, offering a more stable generation profile than wind or solar alone.

Why they were nominated: “They technology reduces system-level balancing costs and strengthens the resilience of local energy systems. If deployed at scale, wave energy could become a core component of a more stable, lower-cost renewable grid.”

What: Mantle8 reframes energy as a discovery problem, using AI and geoscience to unlock naturally occurring hydrogen resources.

Why they were nominated: “If successful, it could shift Europe’s energy model from import dependence toward domestic resource control. This would fundamentally change the cost and availability of clean energy at the source.”

What: Solid-state transformers that are 10× smaller and more efficient than conventional transformers, enabling compact power conversion for AI data centres, EV charging, and renewables.

Why they were nominated: “AI racks are heading toward 1 megawatt, but the power infrastructure feeding them hasn't changed in 140 years. Legacy transformers are too bulky, too inefficient, and backordered 18–24 months. Hyperscale Power's SSTs hit 98.5% efficiency at a fraction of the size, giving data centre operators a way to scale density without waiting on a broken supply chain.”

What: Duatic is enabling mobile robots to handle real physical tasks in warehouses, factories and other industries.

Why they were nominated: “Labour shortages are intensifying across logistics and manufacturing, yet most mobile robots can't manipulate objects with the strength needed for real work. Duatic's DynaArm does exactly that. Spun out of ETH Zurich's Robotic Systems Lab, they are now commercialising physical AI at exactly the moment industry demands it.”

What: A software-first precision manufacturing company building a franchise network of AI-powered factories to produce high-precision parts for aerospace and energy.

Why they were nominated: “Western manufacturing capacity is eroding just as demand for sovereign production surges. Skilled operators retire, machine shops close, and lead times stretch into months. Isembard's franchise model, underpinned by its agentic MasonOS software, enables a new generation of operators to run high-performance factories without decades of shop-floor experience.”

What: An AI-powered geospatial platform for site selection in energy infrastructure projects.

Why they were nominated: “As energy systems grow more distributed and complex, deployment speed is becoming a key competitive edge. Plume transforms fragmented, manual siting and permitting processes into a scalable software layer, enabling faster infrastructure rollout and more efficient capital deployment across energy projects.”

What: Bio-production of green ammonia using synthetic biology and microorganisms.

Why they were nominated: “Synanthra tackles one of the most carbon-intensive industrial processes: ammonia production. By leveraging bio-based methods, they offer a low-emission alternative to a critical input for fertilisers, with massive implications for agriculture, energy, and global decarbonisation.”

What: Bloomineral turns CO₂ into carbon-negative minerals that can replace high-emission materials like cement.

Why they were nominated: “By leveraging biomineralization, they permanently store carbon while creating scalable, cost-competitive inputs for industry / unlocking both carbon removal and emissions reduction in one integrated solution.”

What: Microlub is unlocking a new generation of sustainable, cross-industry protein technologies, designed for real-world integration and consumer impact.

Why they were nominated: “In food, MicroLub removes the trade-off between health and indulgence, enabling low-fat and high-protein products to match full-fat taste and texture at scale.”

What: Industrialising photosynthesis to expand the world's food supply

Why they were nominated: “Arborea is redefining food production through its Biosolar Leaf technology, converting CO₂ and sunlight into nutrient-rich microalgae biomass emitting pure oxygen as the only by-product and without the need for farmland. This approach enables scalable, carbon-negative ingredients with minimal water use and no reliance on traditional agriculture.”

What: Evoralis, a University of Cambridge spin-off, is redefining plastic and textile recycling through next-generation enzyme technology.

Why they were nominated: “Their proprietary microfluidic ultra-high-throughput platform rapidly discovers and optimises enzymes that break down complex plastics into virgin-quality building blocks, enabling a truly circular and scalable recycling system.”

What: MatNex uses AI to design and deploy cheaper, more resilient, higher-performance materials for industry.

Why they were nominated: “They use AI and quantum calculations to accelerate discovery of net-zero materials, dramatically reducing the time and cost of developing low-carbon alternatives. They just released a physics based AI model to generate new magnetic materials. 

What: making microbial growth predictable, scalable, and cost-effective through robotic lab automation and AI-driven insights.

Why they were nominated: “They integrate robotics, AI modelling, and miniaturised fermentation to cut the time and cost of scaling bioprocesses from lab to industrial production.”

What: AI powered marine robotics, satellite data and IoT to make a transparent blue economy.

Why they were nominated: “They deploy AI-powered sensor buoys and are monitoring robots to collect real-time ocean data for ports and other maritime infrastructure, with very strong revenue growth.”

What: Transforming end-of-life sport shoes into high-performance outsole compounds — engineered to meet the technical and aesthetic requirements of leading footwear brands.

Why they were nominated: “One of the most advanced industrial solutions for footwear end of life management through rubber upcycling.”

What: Solving the circular economy problem and now, through technology, we are scaling the solution, to help brands end waste.

Why they were nominated: “Pioneer circular supply chain innovation, Teemill has already demonstrated the economic and environmental value creation generated by circular production models.”

What: A leader the circular transition in fashion with design for disassembly and full-service textile waste management.

Why they were nominated: “Resortecs is the only solution enabling large scale non-chemical clothes disassembling which is crucial for large scale textile to textile recycling.”

Note, startups marked (*) have ties or are a portfolio with the named investor