Arcos raises €5.5 million seed round for European safety

Munich-based Arcos has closed a €5.5 million Seed funding round. The civil security infrastructure startup launched publicly today.

The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). It saw participation from Bayern Kapital, Pact, Haufe, Robin Capital, and strategic business angels.

Founder and managing director Moritz Steigerwald told EU-Startups that Europe now understands its safety is its own responsibility. This includes the infrastructure everyday life runs on: power, transport, water, and data. He stated the funding will allow the company to grow its German team, extend its platform, and take its first steps into critical infrastructure and further European markets.

The market shift and Arcos's solution

Arcos, founded by Louis Wübben and Moritz Steigerwald, is a full-service civil security provider. The company builds and operates the physical infrastructure where security signals converge and the technology that runs on it.

The security industry is undergoing an unprecedented shift, according to the company. Sensors are being deployed at a massive scale in homes, commercial properties, railway stations, substations, and data centres. Simultaneously, fewer staff are available to monitor them. Arcos argues that attacks on unwatched infrastructure, like substations or railway lines, succeed due to a lack of continuous monitoring.

Founder Louis Wübben said the industry helps decide whether a country functions and is changing faster than ever. "More sensors, fewer people. What is missing is someone who looks." Wübben stated.

An integrated, in-house approach

Arcos claims to handle infrastructure from start to finish. It processes every signal from every connected source. Every decision is made in one place, and every incident is handled through to closure. The company's system is designed to replace the collection of separate systems operators currently use.

A key part of its philosophy is keeping all operations in-house. The company's press release emphasized that operators, users, and developers are the same people. This means software is built and changed internally based on direct operational experience, not requested from an external vendor. "The system gets better with every new sensor instead of more complicated with every extension," the company mentioned.

Scaling across infrastructure types

The same control centre, software, and processes serve all types of infrastructure for Arcos. This applies whether the site is a home, a commercial property, a construction site, or a critical facility. The principles that work for one site are applied to all.

Moritz Steigerwald added that combining signal processing and operational workflow in one system provides immediate feedback. We see immediately in daily operations where workflows need to improve, and we can implement those improvements ourselves, he said.

The newly raised capital will be used to expand the team in Germany and extend the platform. The company plans to prepare for scaling in the critical infrastructure market. As a next step, Arcos aims to enter further European markets.