Nox Mobility has secured €2 million in pre-seed funding, led by IBB Ventures, with support from Italian investor Tommaso Lucca and angel investors, including Dr Patrick Andrae, co-founder and CEO of HomeToGo.
Nox Mobility was founded in Berlin in 2025 by Thibault Constant, Janek Smalla, and Artur Hasselbach. Constant, a former railway YouTuber with more than 600,000 subscribers on Simply Railway, saw both the decline and partial comeback of Europe’s night trains.
“I saw the downfall of night trains between 2010 and 2020, and then the regain of popularity, and then that popularity fading again. There are a lot of things that need to be done to make night trains a really popular product,” Constant says to Tech Funding News.
Night trains are becoming popular again, but they still face big operational challenges. From 2001 to 2019, the number of weekly European night train services fell from about 1,200 to 450. More cuts are expected by 2026, as ÖBB ends its Paris routes and Sweden stops the Stockholm–Berlin service. Even though demand is strong, current options do not meet customers’ needs.
“When we ask people why they don’t take night trains, they say: it’s too expensive, uncomfortable because you share your room with strangers, and unreliable. That’s why night trains remain a niche for adventurers and fail to attract the people who matter most — business travellers who currently fly,” says Constant.
Nox is working on both hardware and software solutions. The company will begin by updating existing train coaches with standardised interiors that increase the number of private rooms per coach while keeping costs in check.
“If you give privacy to anyone without optimising space, you get a coach that fits 10 or 15 people — and economically, it doesn’t work. Most night trains rely on subsidies. We are changing the model to make it profitable,” Constant explains.
“The infrastructure exists. What’s missing is a product people actually want to sleep in,” notes Roman Pimonov, Senior Investment Manager at IBB Ventures.
On the software side, Nox is building a complete booking and services platform focused on hospitality. “It’s not just about moving people from A to B. The question is how you transport people so they feel comfortable and safe — it’s a mix of software, services, and hardware,” adds Hasselbach.
Nox will showcase its first refurbished coach at InnoTrans in Berlin in September 2026, highlighting how it has evolved from its 1990s design into a modern product. The company will also announce its first route around that time, likely starting with a domestic German line and expanding to cross-border routes later. Nox has identified up to 35 possible routes across Europe, ranging from 500 to 1,500 km.
