Figma co-founder backs Berlin-based engineering intelligence startup SPREAD in €14.5M funding round

Berlin-based SPREAD, an Engineering Intelligence startup for complex mechatronic products, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $16M (approximately €14.5M) in a Series A round of funding. 

The round was led by HV Capital with participation from existing investors Cavalry Ventures and angel investors Dylan Field – Figma Co-Founder & CEO, and the founders of logistics unicorn Sennder, among others.

“SPREAD will be the source of truth for complex physical products. This is a huge opportunity and I’m excited to be involved!” says Dylan Field, Co-Founder & CEO of Figma.

SPREAD says it will use the capital to scale its early successes outside of automotive to new markets. 

The company will also grow the platform’s capabilities and expand the reach of the Engineering Intelligence Network. 

What does SPREAD solve?

Manufacturers of complex mechatronic products spend billions to prevent delayed product launches, failures, material waste, and recalls. 

Around 70 per cent of engineering time is spent searching for product information, not on engineering tasks.

To address this issue, SPREAD has developed a medium for engineering intelligence that connects and standardises all sources of product data. 

“SPREAD’s mission is to make product information easily accessible & actionable for everybody,” says Robert Göbel, SPREAD’s Managing Director.

This will enable the thousands of people working on a product to quickly and intuitively get the information they need, which can save time, money, and resources.

SPREAD: Making product data accessible

Founded by Philipp Noll and Robert Göbel in 2019, SPREAD makes product data accessible, intuitive, and actionable. 

SPREAD’s Engineering Intelligence Network combines all separate information sources into a single software solution. 

“Our Engineering Intelligence Network is the key to understanding how a product functions as a whole. Engineers benefit massively from this bigger picture,” says Philipp Noll, Co-Founder and Managing Director at SPREAD. “We give them their time back, so they can solve complex challenges faster than before.”

The platform has already been used by companies to tackle various specific engineering challenges, from development to manufacturing and maintenance. 

The tools used today – digital twins, PLM systems, AML, PDM, etc – are not able to capture the complexity of the system as a whole. 

SPREAD’s intelligent algorithms, however, understand the interplay of the mechanics, electronics, and software domains. 

Combining this with information about a product’s requirements, functions, logic, and physics gives engineers unprecedented insights about a product that can scale along with its complexity.

“We connect existing tools and systems instead of replacing them. This is a huge advantage for engineering teams creating complex products across different departments and domains because they can integrate our technology much faster and quickly achieve time to value. Therefore, every insight they uncover has a huge potential when scaled to the whole product line,” adds Noll.

With use cases from R&D to Aftersales, SPREAD is helping customers like Mercedes, VW, and Infineon to accelerate development cycles, increase quality, eliminate millions in inefficiencies, and reduce their environmental footprint.  

The Investor

Since 2000, HV Capital (formerly HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) has backed Internet and technology companies through various generations of funds and is one of the most successful and financially strongest early-stage and growth venture capitalists in Europe. 

HV’s funds have already been invested in around 200 companies, including Zalando, Delivery Hero, FlixBus, and SumUp. The total of all HV‘s funds amounts to €1.7B till date. 

The company supports startups with capital between €500,000 and €50M. 

“SPREAD’s Engineering Intelligence Network is leading the shift in how products are designed, produced, and repaired. All German automakers are already benefitting from SPREAD, and the pull from international players across industries is stunning to observe,” explains Felix Klühr, Partner at HV Capital.