NXRT raises €2.1M to expand its simulation platform for the automotive and railway sectors

Vienna-based NXRT, a technology company developing the next generation of immersive simulation software for mixed reality driving applications, announced on Monday that it has raised €2.1M in a fresh round of funding.

The company says that the funds will help to expand its simulation platform for the automotive and railway sectors. 

“Our platform provides the automotive and rail industry with the tools they need to develop simulation solutions independently. With this financing, we can open up additional markets and progress even faster from a solution provider to a platform provider,” says Lukas Stranger, CEO of NXRT.

Investors in this round

The investment was led by Austrian venture capital firm eQventure. Founded in 2014, eQventure provides growth capital to young Austrian high-tech startups that have a strong global network, and operational support to accelerate their growth.

Franz Fuchsberger, Senior Partner at eQventure, says, “With NXRT, customers not only benefit from a solution but from a platform that they can expand independently and scale almost infinitely. Current customers include Porsche, Hyundai, Audi, Rhomberg Sersa Vossloh and Rail4mation.”

The round also saw participation from entrepreneurs such as Hermann Hauser and the Tricentis founders Wolfgang Platz and Franz Fuchsberger.

A tech venture in the ​field of real-time simulation

NXRT, which operates in the ​field of real-time simulation, aims to support humans in a fast-moving technology-based world. The company has developed simulation technologies that realistically reproduce the driving experience on rail and road.

Automotive and rail companies can leverage the NXRT development platform and develop test, training and sales solutions independently. This makes it easy to combine individual simulation environments. The connection with virtual or mixed reality further increases the degree of reality.

In the railway sector, the company’s focus is on simulators for the training and further education of drivers, and shunting and safety personnel. NXRT creates an interactive environment for training from everyday scenarios to extreme situations. The digitisation of the complex railway infrastructure and 3D-visualisation of switches through to selective route sections save the purchase of expensive training hardware, makes the training lively and creates new opportunities in training.

The company has more than 30 customers, including Porsche, Hyundai, Audi, AVL, Rhomberg Sersa Vossloh GmbH, and Rail4mation AG, that are using NXRT’s immersive vehicle and engine driver simulation. With over 40 employees, the Viennese company currently operates in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.

How was NXRT born?

In 2014, Patrick Kolar and Alexis Kopciak claimed to have developed Europe’s first VR-based driving school simulator at St. Polten University of Applied Sciences. Then, in the following years, they did R&D with co-founders, Lukas Stranger and Martin Wagner, to build the first VR simulator for driving schools. 

In 2017, they showcased the world’s first VR-simulator in a real car with Mercedes Benz Austria.

Since its official foundation in 2019, NXRT has started cooperations with Porsche AG, Magna, RSRH, and the OAMTC, in 2020. In 2021, the core product became available for the railway industry.