European manufacturers deal with countless decisions every day, from scheduling shifts to managing machines and inventory. Unfortunately, existing systems cannot track the immediate impacts of these decisions in real time. This leads to costly problems, including missed deadlines, unused capacity, excess inventory, and significant financial losses from poor planning.
Berlin-based startup Zentio believes this problem can only be solved by rebuilding production planning around AI. The German company has raised €1.4 million in pre-seed funding to advance its AI-native production planning platform.
The round was led by HTGF, with support from SIVentures, marking a key milestone in Zentio’s mission to modernise how European factories make operational decisions. Additional support came from SIVentures, which brings deep experience in backing early-stage B2B technology startups.
How Zentio solves the problem
Founded in 2025 by Julian Rose, Immo Polewka, and Christophe Kafrouni, Zentio offers a platform that organises all operational, machine, and production data that is typically spread across ERP systems, MES tools, spreadsheets, and manual processes.
“Our main focus for the next months is to advance our core mathematical systems and ML pipelines and tie them all together with UX and agents. To achieve this, we’re expanding our team with ambitious engineers who want to join us on our mission to build the first generation of AI-native production planning,” says Christophe Kafrouni, Co-Founder and CTO of Zentio.
The AI agents then continuously analyse this data, creating a “self-learning flywheel” that helps factories plan more effectively and respond faster.
With this real-time visibility, decision-makers can optimise workflows, allocate capacity, prevent downtime, plan shifts more efficiently, and react to breakdowns or shortages with clear, data-backed options. Instead of relying on static tools and siloed information, factories get a dynamic planning layer that adjusts as conditions change.
As Immo Polewka, co-founder and CCO at Zentio, explains, the best way to bridge this gap is by moving forward: “Our vision is to elevate the standard of decision-making in European manufacturing. By combining operational data with mathematical optimisation and agentic automation, companies can plan ahead strategically and respond to disruptions with confidence”.
This allows decision-makers to anticipate capacity needs weeks in advance, respond to machine breakdowns or material shortages with the best available options, and adjust shift schedules or machine settings in real time to increase output and minimise idle time.
Unlike Siemens Opcenter, SAP APO, or AspenTech, Zentio skips digitising old processes for a ground-up AI rebuild, giving factories strategic foresight without the bloat.
Currently, the German company is collaborating with a broad network of pilot customers and strategic partners across Europe to further accelerate its vision of AI-native production planning.
What’s next?
The investment will support team expansion and further development of Zentio’s core technologies, including machine learning pipelines, mathematical optimisation models, and agent-based automation tools.
Hendryk Hosemann, Senior Investment Manager at HTGF, adds, “Hendryk Hosemann, Senior Investment Manager beim HTGF kommentiert: „Julian, Immo und Chris haben uns gezeigt, dass Excel und andere alte Tools immer noch einen großen Teil der Welt im Stillen bestimmen. Zentio verwandelt chaotische ERP-, MES- und Tabellenkalkulationsdaten in eine KI-native Planungsebene, auf die Fabriken vertrauen können. Ihre Mischung aus KI-nativem Denken und fundierter Erfahrung in der Fertigung ist genau das, wonach wir in diesem Bereich gesucht haben, und wir sind stolz darauf, sie auf diesem Weg zu begleiten.“
