Stockholm-based IPercept has raised $16.5 million in a Series A funding round to expand its CNC machine monitoring technology in Europe and the United States. The round was co-led by Isogon Ventures and London-based 2150, with existing investors Luminar Ventures, RunwayFBU, J12 Ventures and AI Fund also participating. The funding comes 17 months after IPercept raised €5 million in a seed round led by Luminar Ventures. The company develops technology that monitors the mechanical condition of computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools at the component level.
IPercept said the new funding will be used to expand its US operations, hire local sales and deployment teams, increase partnerships with industrial service providers and develop additional intelligence applications for its data platform. “Our patented technology enables CNC machine tools to report their own mechanical condition. With this funding, we will scale our operations in the US, grow our partnerships with industrial service providers and extend our data platform with a series of add-on intelligence applications,” the company said.
The company’s technology uses a patented device mounted on the moving part of a CNC machine. The device measures the machine’s physical motion at micrometre scale and converts it into data on the condition of individual components. The system does not connect to the machine controller or the customer’s IT network. It is designed to work with CNC machines across different brands, models and ages.
IPercept said the technology can provide information on components including spindles, ballscrews, guides and bearings. Maintenance and production teams can use the data to identify wear, monitor its progression and take action before a component failure affects production.
The company said its system does not require historical datasets to determine machine condition. Instead, it measures the machine’s physical behaviour directly and applies data-driven analytics to identify changes in mechanical performance. CNC machine tools are widely used to manufacture components for industries including automotive, aerospace, electronics, medical devices, machinery, energy and defence. IPercept estimates the global installed base of CNC machines at around $1 trillion.
Karoly Szipka, Founder and CEO, IPercept, said CNC machine tools have traditionally provided limited visibility into their mechanical condition while operating. He said the company’s technology was developed through five years of research and four years of real-world data collection.
The company was founded around CNC-specific machine diagnostics. Szipka holds a PhD in CNC machine diagnostics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, while co-founder Andreas Archenti is a chair professor in industrial dependability at KTH.
Paco Riberas, General Partner, Isogon Ventures, said unplanned CNC downtime remains a challenge for industrial operations and described IPercept’s technology as an approach to monitoring machine condition. Rahul Parekh, Partner, 2150, said IPercept is using technology to provide manufacturers with real-time information on industrial equipment and support productivity and asset life. With the Series A funding, IPercept plans to increase its presence in the US, expand its engineering and data science teams, and develop further applications based on its CNC machine data platform.
