IPercept raises $16.5M for CNC monitoring US

IPercept has raised $16.5 million in a Series A funding round. The investment was co-led by Isogon Ventures and 2150. This capital will fuel the company's expansion into the United States market. IPercept will make its first local hires there. It will also build out its data platform with additional AI applications aimed at predictive maintenance and real-time machine intelligence. Existing investors Luminar Ventures, RunwayFBU, J12 Ventures, and AI.Fund also participated in the round. The Stockholm-based startup was spun out of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Technology and market impact

IPercept's patented plug-and-play technology uses a single device to capture micrometre-scale motion from CNC machines. It reads machine motion via a device mounted on the moving part. The system converts this motion into component-level condition data. Crucially, it does this without connecting to the machine controller or the customer's IT network. The device works on any brand, model, or age of CNC machine. This provides manufacturers with component-level condition data previously unavailable.

Adoption and validation

The technology is already deployed across more than 30 manufacturers. These include major industrial names such as Airbus, Bosch, Hitachi Energy, Scania, and Volvo. IPercept also has traction in the industrial service company sector. Its customers there include Konecranes, Quant, DynaMate, and MTT.

Industry context and opportunity

CNC machines are critical inputs into a wide range of industries. These include automotive, aerospace, electronics, medical devices, machinery, energy, and defence. They are precision systems used to manufacture components for aircraft engines, medical implants, cars, electronics, and energy infrastructure. Yet they have been the least observed asset in the factory. CNC monitoring saw no scalable data access for 25 years. Machine controllers command motion but do not measure mechanical condition. Vibration sensors were designed for pumps and motors, not for CNC machines with dozens of interacting components. The consequence is a decades-long blindspot. Average machine efficiency in CNC operations has remained at 50-60% for decades. Without IPercept, understanding a single machine failure takes two days of manual work. The global installed base of CNC machines is worth roughly $1 trillion.

Founder vision and investor confidence

Founder and CEO Karoly Szipka emphasized the research journey. He stated that the question was how to make the most important machine in the physical world legible to software and AI. That took a new measurement principle, five years of research, and four years of real-world data. The target market is discrete-part manufacturing. The AI-driven analytics provide detail not previously available. Manufacturers can see which components are wearing, how quickly, and what to do before production stops. This clears an industrial blindspot that existed since the 1940s.

Investors highlighted the technology's role in addressing critical industrial needs. Isogon Ventures General Partner Paco Riberas stated that unplanned CNC downtime is where the ideal of industry breaks. He described IPercept as the most seamless, accurate answer the space has produced. 2150 Partner Rahul Parekh said the next wave of AI will change how the physical world operates. He noted IPercept is bringing intelligence directly to industrial equipment to help manufacturers understand their equipment in real time, improve productivity, and extend the life of critical assets. This shift is seen as part of a need to move the world's manufacturing centre of gravity back to the West, shaped by changing geopolitics and commercial objectives.

IPercept will use the funding to expand into the US, make its first local hires, and build out its data platform with additional AI applications for predictive maintenance and real-time machine intelligence.