Swiss Startup Forgis Raises €3.8M To Automate Industrial Machines

The round was led by Redalpine, with participation from Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino, along with several other DeepTech and manufacturing-focused investors.

“Minimising downtime, maximising throughput, and reducing quality scraps have always been critical challenges for manufacturers” said Federico Martelli, CEO of Forgis. “But with systems built 40 years ago, factories keep losing millions. We’re bringing state-of-the-art physical AI to the factory floor, where it actually matters.”

Forgis’ funding round comes amid strong investor interest in European industrial automation and physical-AI startups.

Switzerland has seen notable activity, with Mimic raising €13.8 million to advance dexterous robotic manipulation, highlighting the country’s growing presence in advanced robotics. In Germany Energy Robotics secured €11.5 million for autonomous inspection software, while in.hub closed a seven-figure round to expand its plug-and-play IIoT tools.

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Italy’s Adaptronics raised €3.15 million for its electro-adhesive robotic grippers, and Spain’s HappyRobot secured €37.7 million to scale its AI-driven digital workforce platform.

With over €65 million raised across these 2025 rounds, Forgis’ pre-seed investment reflects a broader European push to advance industrial intelligence, with Switzerland emerging as one of the most active markets this year.

“It’s a revolution built from the inside out,” adds Camilla Mazzoleni, CPO of Forgis. “We’re not replacing legacy systems or industry standards. We plug into what’s already there and upgrade every inefficient step with advanced intelligence”.

Founded in 2025, Forgis develops edge software that enables industrial machines to become autonomous, collaborative, and intelligent. Its platform connects machines, PLCs and robots across brands into a unified layer that continuously adapts production logic, creating self-optimizing systems capable of detecting and resolving inefficiencies on their own.

Forgis was founded by Federico Martelli, Camilla Mazzoleni, and Riccardo Maggioni alumni of ETH Zurich and St. Gallen, with experience at Google, Bain, and IBM with the mission of modernizing industrial operations by making factories more intelligent, collaborative, and flexible. Its software powers “digital engineers” that improve production performance in real time.

Early pilot programs with European manufacturers have shown promising results, including up to 60% reduction in configuration times, 30% less downtime, and around 20% higher throughput.

“We closed in 36 hours because the conviction was mutual,” says Gianmarco Hodel, Investment Manager at redalpine. “This is what Europe needs more of: speed, belief, and boldness.”

According to Forgis, over the past decade, China’s industrial robot stock has surged from 200,000 to 2 million units, reaching 567 robots per 10,000 workers surpassing Germany, the US and the UK combined. Forgis aims to help Western industries close this industrialization gap, not through protectionism, but by leveraging intelligence and advanced automation.

“We’re bringing production back to the West by adding an intelligent software layer to existing factory ecosystems,” said Riccardo Maggioni, CTO of Forgis. “This way, reshoring becomes the smarter, not the costlier, choice.”

Forgis is already collaborating with IBM and running projects in the automotive and advanced manufacturing sectors. Its platform seamlessly integrates with existing systems from vendors like Siemens and ABB, helping to make complex industrial environments more flexible, efficient, and intelligent.

About Forgis

Forgis, based in Zurich, is driving the next industrial revolution by making Western manufacturing smarter and more competitive. Formerly Xelerit, the company builds the “brain” for production plants, integrating industrial intelligence to optimize operations, enhance efficiency and enable autonomous, collaborative, and flexible factories for the future of manufacturing.