TU Munich spin-out SimScale secures backing via High-Tech Gruenderfonds and Bayern Kapital.
SimScale, a Germany-based engineering simulation software provider, has raised an undisclosed amount from a consortium including the state-backed High-Tech Gruenderfonds (HTGF) and Bayern Kapital. Other investors in the round included venture capital firm Earlybird Venture Capital, together with a consortium of business angels.
HTGF, Bayern Kapital and an angel consortium made the first investment in SimScale at the beginning of last year after the company’s spin-out of Munich’s technical university TU München in 2011.
The SimScale platform was officially launched in the second half of 2013 and has attracted several thousand engineers and designers from around the globe as users since then.
Guillem Sagué, investment manager at HTGF, which manages €576m through a public/private partnership including the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KFW Banking Group as well as strategic corporate investors, said:“As in other areas of enterprise software, we expect a breakthrough of the rapidly growing cloud providers in the field of simulation software. As a first mover, SimScale is in a very promising situation.”
Wolfgang Härtl, senior investment manager at Bayern Kapital, which invested through its €24m ($30m) Clusterfonds Seed, added: “The SimScale team managed to develop the platform for productive usage within a very short period of time and executed the market launch successfully.”
Bayern Kapital was set up in 1995 by the Bavarian state government and has invested about €195m in more than 225 companies.
David Heiny, co-founder and managing director of SimScale, and a graduate from TU München, by email through his press officer said: “Our investors to date, including High Tech Gruenderfonds, Bayern Kapital and angel investors, have been instrumental in not just providing the financial backing, but solid business advice and direction as we began our startup from idea to implementation.
“TU Muenchen has been supportive in several ways since the inception of the first ideas behind SimScale. The faculty and administration have provided guidance, introductions to some initial investors, and we are currently located in the startup entrepreneur facility just down the street from the campus.”