Elio funding news – Vienna-based Elio Raises €1.9 Million in Pre-Seed in Funding

The funding round was led by Ananda Impact Ventures, with participation from industry leaders Stefan Oschmann (former CEO of Merck) and Andreas Treichl (former CEO of Erste Group), as well as Cerulean, a pre-Seed AI fund, and Overview Capital, a U.S.-based climate fund.

Co-founder and CEO Kami Krista said, “Our goal is to end sustainability as an afterthought, To Krista, scientists and process engineers are some of the most powerful yet overlooked agents of the sustainable transition. Today, these operators are being asked to solve sustainability challenges without the tools or expertise to do it. Elio empowers them to make more informed, sustainable decisions in minutes — not months.”

Elio says that in manufacturing, sustainability is often treated as a task done later, after key decisions have already been made. Using AI and large language models (LLMs), Elio helps process engineers and scientists quickly choose sustainable materials, packaging, methods, and equipment early in the product design process.

Unlike traditional tools that focus on sustainability after production, Elio makes sustainability a key part of the design process from the start. This way, sustainability is considered during the design, not just after the product is made.

The European Parliamentary Research Service estimates that 80% of a product's environmental impact is decided during the design phase, before large-scale production starts. These early decisions affect the entire process, adding to the overall environmental impact.

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Elio believes this is especially important in the pharmaceutical industry, where they are starting their work. New EU regulations, such as the Deforestation Regulation (2024), the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (2025), and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Revision (2030), are putting pressure on companies to adopt sustainable practices or face financial and reputational risks.

Elio uses AI and LLMs to analyze various data sources—like life cycle assessments, industry reports, and supplier databases—and create detailed sustainability profiles for over 15,000 consumable process inputs. This allows users to compare different materials, packaging, and equipment to find the most sustainable options for their manufacturing process.

Alina Bassi, Investment Manager at Ananda Impact Ventures said, “By empowering design teams to rapidly explore and assess sustainable options for manufacturing processes — whether it’s optimizing heat and water usage, finding alternatives to petrochemical ingredients, or reducing packaging waste, Elio not only accelerates decarbonization efforts but also helps companies build more resilient and proactive supply chains. This is the kind of impact we’re proud to support,”.

The Elio team has already worked with several companies over the past year to improve their approach, including ten23 health, a Swiss company focused on sustainability in contract development and manufacturing.

she said , "Alissa Monk, Sustainability Lead for ten23 health, expressed a need for companies to automate the “arduous task” of assessing product sustainability. No other software on the market takes a holistic view of environmental impact, Using Elio allowed sustainability to be directly embedded into the way we operate. All employees, most with no sustainability expertise, were able to seamlessly integrate the tool.”

Krista said, “We’re not just creating a better design tool — we’re creating a paradigm shift in how industries approach sustainability, It’s one thing to set targets, another to take action. Our vision is a world where every product and manufacturing design choice can seamlessly be optimized for sustainability from day one.”

About Elio

Elio was founded in 2021 by Kami Krista, a bioengineer and former pharmaceutical consultant, and Kamil Mroczek, a tech entrepreneur. Elio helps scientists and engineers make better eco-friendly design choices early in the production process.