Cortexia successfully closes an oversubscribed financing round of CHF 2.35 million to accelerate international growth and the development of new application areas. In addition to the existing investors REMONDIS Digital Services and Capital Risque Fribourg, Cortexia also gained strong new investors in Bloomhaus, Kurrant Ventures and Spicehaus.
About Cortexia
CORTEXIA helps cities to improve the quality of life of their residents and protect the environment. The system, which is operated by REMONDIS Digital in Germany, is based on artificial intelligence and can be used to monitor the cleanliness of local authorities. The system recognises small pieces of litter, such as cigarette butts, paper or bottles, and uses an index to translate the level of cleanliness into a points system that users can see: the Clean City Index (0 = dirty, 5 = clean). Concrete measures to optimise urban cleanliness can be derived from this objective assessment.
The City of Potsdam’s municipal waste disposal service (STEP) has been working with CORTEXIA since June 2023 and is thus playing an important pioneering role in smart city cleaning in Germany. The map shows Potsdam’s Clean City Index.
Thereby, Cortexia SA is a pioneering company in the field of artificial intelligence solutions for the environmental sector. Cortexia is positioning itself with a proven technology platform that is already being used successfully for the management of city cleaning. This solution enables a measurable improvement in the quality of cleaning and waste disposal services and leads to a significant reduction in resource consumption and environmental impact. Reference customers include the cities of Basel, Geneva, GPSO (Grand Paris Seine Ouest), Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Hamburg, as well as companies such as Veolia and Suez. The company is currently in the process of extending the use of this platform to waste management. At the beginning of the year, the company received Swiss Accelerator funding from Innosuisse for a solution to improve the recycling of organic waste. The Swiss Accelerator, a highly selective funding programme of the Swiss Innovation Agency, underlines Cortexia’s outstanding innovation potential.
Into the future with long-standing and new investors
“This is a very nice recognition for the entire team. We are very proud that our existing shareholders have made a significant contribution to this financing round and that three new venture capital funds have joined us. This shows the confidence in our business model and its growth potential”, says Andréas von Kaenel, CEO and co-founder of the company.
The existing shareholders, REMONDIS Digital Services and Capital Risque Fribourg, renewed their confidence in Cortexia.
“We are a strategic investor with a long-term vision. Cortexia brings a real solution to our core business. We market this solution in Germany and have been able to convince ourselves of its potential in the field. We are very pleased that new shareholders have joined us to continue the growth in other countries.”
Johannes Schön, Managing Director REMONDIS Digital Services GmbH
Bloomhaus Ventures and Spicehaus Partners, two Swiss VC funds specialising in B2B industrial IT solutions, are now contributing their experience in scale-ups acceleration. Pascal Stürchler, Co-founder and CEO of Bloomhaus: “Cortexia convinced us with its unique solution and solid business model. The exceptional combination of software and hardware helps to clean cities extremely effectively and efficiently and to keep them clean. We therefore see great potential in expanding the solution and are happy to support.” Jonas Brenner from Spicehaus Partners adds: “We are pleased to support Cortexia in its international expansion and development of further business areas so that even more customers in the future can allocate resources in a cost-saving manner using computer vision.”
Kurrant Ventures, the investment unit of Kurrant, a recognised specialist in the digitalisation of cities and service providers, will provide its expertise and network of cities and industrial players in this field. “Smart cities seek proven solutions to address their current challenges. With its proven expertise in cleanliness and waste management, Cortexia sets itself apart from purely technological players and has emerged as the pioneer best placed to tackle these challenges. We have great confidence in the company growth potential ” says Antoine Kassis, Co-founder and CEO of Kurrant.
Cortexia is the initiator of the “Alliance to improve the quality of biowaste”, which brings together the main players in this sector in Switzerland. Cortexia is benefiting from the current momentum in France and Germany and is continuing its development in Europe starting with the Benelux countries.
Image credits: © REMONDIS Digital
