Green industry investor Nordic Alpha Partners has taken a minority stake in German electric motor maker Additive Drives, investing €25M+ to support the company’s next phase of growth.
The deal also includes fresh capital from existing backer AM Ventures, which has supported Additive Drives since its seed stage. Financial terms beyond the investment size were not disclosed.
What Additive Drives does
Additive Drives, founded in July 2020 in Dresden, Germany, by Dr Jakob Jung, Axel Helm, and Philipp Arnold, develops high-performance electric motors using advanced 3D-printing techniques. Its motors are designed to deliver very high efficiency while staying lightweight, a key requirement for sectors such as electric vehicles, aerospace, robotics, and industrial automation.
Its technology can reach up to 98% energy efficiency, sharply reducing energy loss compared to conventional motors. The motors are built without rare-earth materials, helping reduce dependence on fragile global supply chains.
Electric motors and the systems they power account for more than half of global electricity consumption, making efficiency gains one of the fastest ways to cut energy use across industries.
What’s next?
With Nordic Alpha Partners on board, Additive Drives plans to scale production and bring its motors to more energy-intensive, fast-growing industries, including data centres, e-mobility, and advanced manufacturing.
Additive Drives can produce working prototypes in around 21 days, allowing customers to test and deploy new motor designs much faster than traditional manufacturing cycles. The company already works with major industrial customers, including Amazon, Airbus, Audi, BMW, and Schaeffler.
Unlike many deep-tech manufacturers, Additive Drives has been profitable from an early stage and is already considered bankable by several European lenders. The company was recently ranked among the top performers in a German financial benchmark covering thousands of young companies.
