Oqton, a software company specializing in AI-powered solutions for the manufacturing industry, has raised over $40M in a Series A financing round, led by Fortino Capital, a leading B2B software investor, by PMV, the regional Flemish investment fund, and by Sandvik, a global engineering group. In particular, Sandvik—which manufactures AM powders and provides metal AM services— also acquired a minority stake in the company.
“This investment is in line with our strategic agenda to broaden our offering in digital manufacturing. We are looking forward to working with Oqton and finding ways to expand our offering for increased customer productivity by creating new products that take advantage of Sandvik’s extensive know-how about manufacturing processes and Oqton’s AI-powered manufacturing solutions”, said Stefan Widing, President and CEO of Sandvik.
The founding team (Samir Hanna and Ben Schrauwen) and several angel investors, including former Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, Dries Buytaert (Drupal and Acquia), and Peter Mercelis (Layerwise) also participated in the round. The financing will be used to further develop Oqton’s platform while expanding commercial partnerships in multiple domains and verticals (Additive manufacturing, Robotic welding, CNC machining).
Oqton’s platform is unique in that it combines several manufacturing software capabilities (CAD, PLM, CAM, IOT, MES, QMS) into a single platform, enabling an unprecedented degree of AI-powered automation and optimization. Users can automatically capture expert knowledge and eliminate repetitive tasks, access technologies remotely and across multiple sites, and optimize production planning to improve utilization and quality.
Manufacturing on Demand
Samir Hanna, Oqton’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said: “We can already achieve 100% automation in the dental and jewelry verticals, resulting in 30% overall cost reduction. Given the platform strategy, the software can be targeted to many specific industry verticals, like dental, jewelry, medical, industrial and aerospace, as well as to different personas and workflows within those industries.”
Being fully integrated, users can also link the platform to their traditional technologies, such as CNC, welding, and post-processing machines for a truly end-to-end manufacturing solution, making their processes faster, more adaptable, and more cost-effective. Oqton has already established partnerships with EOS, Sisma, Trumpf, Prodways and Sandvik.
Oqton’s Co-Founder and CEO, Ben Schrauwen, said: “We are keen to have new investors on board who can help us scale globally, with both a direct and indirect sales approach. We truly think the time has come for the manufacturing space to embrace the cloud and we are working hard to facilitate this.”
This funding round coincides with the announcement that Ben Schrauwen, Oqton’s CTO, will be taking over as CEO. Samir Hanna, Oqton’s Co-Founder and leaving CEO, will become Executive Chairman.
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Author: Davide Sher
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