80% of the global workforce are frontline workers in industries such as food processing, logistics & warehousing, hospitality, retail, healthcare and manufacturing. Current training options are time-consuming, inefficient and not designed with workers in mind.
doinstruct’s simple, mobile-first approach is training as it should be – low-threshold, bite-sized and in the worker’s native language.
doinstruct secured €7.6M in funding led by Creandum, with participation from existing investors HTGF (High-Tech Gründerfonds) and D11Z as well as Bastian Karweg (Founder Dealfront) and Andreas Hettich (Hettich Group).

Berlin (DE), July 16th, 2024: Europe is facing a jobs crisis driven by skills shortages and aging populations. Millions of people start a new job every year in key industries with inadequate onboarding and training. doinstruct today announces that it has secured $7.6m in a funding round led by Creandum, an early backer of Spotify, Klarna and Pleo, to address these challenges.

According to a study earlier this year, three quarters of employers in 21 European countries could not find workers equipped with the right skills in 2023. Historically low unemployment rates coupled with declining birth rates is creating a jobs gap with immigration key to filling this gap in critical and highly regulated sectors such as food processing.

To date, frontline workers have been largely underserved by technology, trained mostly in a non-native language, in-person or using e-learning solutions not developed with the needs of these workers in mind. This is expensive for employers and makes compliance often hard to track which can have serious consequences in industries such as food processing where hygiene standards are critical, or in dangerous work environments.


doinstruct has built a mobile-first onboarding and training platform with the real needs of deskless workers front of mind. There is no app to download, no password to remember and no email required. All of the training content is continually updated in partnership with regulators and certifiers and currently available in more than 16 languages.


For employers, the platform provides unlimited usage of training packages and a high degree of automation, allowing them to set their training on ‘autopilot’ so it automatically repeats where needed for continuous learning. They can also record and upload their own content. A dashboard allows them to easily track and report training compliance. On average, doinstruct’s customers reach an adoption rate of >80% in the first month, have saved 4.6 hours of productive work per employee and reduced training costs by ~43%.


Charlotte Rothert, CEO and Co-founder at doinstruct: “I started my career restructuring large agricultural operations in the EU, where I was introduced to the world of warehouses and factories. And I worked closely with the unseen and underappreciated backbone of our country that powers same-day delivery, builds our cities, and puts food on the shelves. Like most companies, I trained our employees with time-intensive, face-to-face training that barely reached everyone. I needed the ability to train barrier-free, time- and language-independent, and compliant to meet fluctuating international demand in a multi-shift system. With doinstruct, we built the tool I wish I had back then.”


doinstruct was founded in 2021 and is led by Charlotte Rothert, Daniel Marinkovic, Thorsten Groß, and Mona Feder. The company has seen significant traction in food, logistics and construction with more than 170 customers including well-known European brands such as Voelkel, Wiesenhof, Hengstenberg and Echterhoff, among others. doinstruct will use the funding to scale the product at a faster pace, expand internationally and enter new vertical sectors.


Charlotte Rothert, CEO and Co-founder at doinstruct: “Our customers are facing a rising number of challenges. They are affected by increasingly tough regulatory requirements and labor shortages. Shift workers are difficult to reach, language barriers make compliant training and information delivery nearly impossible, and inevitable employee turnover requires ongoing, time-consuming retraining. I know we can do better. And it’s obvious that workers and industrial companies deserve better.”


Simon Schmincke, General Partner at Creandum: “There are more than 2,7 billion frontline workers around the world that have been left behind by current training options. Doinstruct has built an incredible, easy-to-use product with the needs of these workers in mind and their customers love it. We see huge potential for them as they expand both across vertical sectors and internationally.”


About doinstruct
doinstruct is building the leading platform for frontline worker training. Backed by Creandum, HTGF and other investors, the company is well-positioned to continue scaling its product and team – as well as to become a category leader in frontline training software for midsize to enterprise level companies. To learn more about the doinstruct, visit: https://doinstruct.com/


About Creandum
Founded in 2003, Creandum is a leading pan-European early-stage venture capital firm. The firm’s portfolio of 150+ companies includes some of Europe’s most successful tech companies across a wide range of industries, including Spotify, Klarna, Depop, Trade Republic, Pleo, and neo4j. Today, every sixth company is a billion dollar company or more. Creandum’s advisory teams are based in Stockholm, London, Berlin, and San Francisco and offer extensive operational expertise to support the funds’ portfolio companies from seed to exit to become global category leaders. Learn more at www.creandum.com.


With the acquisition, aesco solutions strengthens its position as a growth platform in the life sciences sector.

Heilbronn, 21 May 2024 – In a successful exit process, the investor D11Z. Ventures has sold the MedTech service provider seleon GmbH, which it has developed since 2007, to the aesco solutions group. With this acquisition, aesco solutions, a provider of production and development services for medical technology companies, is further expanding its strong position in the European market. For seleon GmbH, the sale provides additional development potential within the new group. It is planned to develop the Heilbronn site into the group’s center for medical technology services.

“This exit is a great success for us,” says Tom Villinger, CEO of the Heilbronn-based venture capitalist D11Z. Ventures. “seleon was one of our first investments with the former Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn, and we look back on an extremely positive investment phase.”

In recent years, seleon has become a recognized player in the MedTech industry. Its integration into the aesco solutions group will enable it to further expand its range of services. Both companies are active in the so-called CDMO sector (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization) and offer medical technology customers integrated services from development and prototyping to approval and series production.

“The strategic partnership opens up exciting new opportunities for seleon GmbH and enables us to offer our customers expanded services,” explains Frank-Martin Rammelt, CEO of seleon GmbH. “We are confident that this synergy will further strengthen our ability to develop innovative solutions while continuing to provide excellent service to our customers.”

The aesco solutions group already includes the brands SASSE Elektronik and FG Elektronik, two well-known names in the medical technology sector for decades. With the acquisition of further healthy medium-sized companies, aesco solutions is now developing into the growth platform in the life sciences sector of AURELIUS Growth Capital SE & Co. KG.

“We are delighted to welcome seleon to the aesco solutions group,” says Peter Molnár, CEO of the aesco solutions group. “The acquisition is an important step in the implementation of our buy-and-build strategy to create a leading company in the European MedTech CDMO market. We will be able to offer our customers even more innovative and efficient solutions. Together we want to shape the future of the industry by combining application and technology innovation.

With the acquisition of seleon GmbH, medical device manufacturers can access an integrated offering from the aesco solutions group across the entire product lifecycle. The expansion of the service offering and the strengthening of the technological competence will eliminate the complex and costly interfaces between service providers in the areas of development, regulatory affairs, industrialisation, production and after-sales services. This will enable customers to bring their medical devices to market faster and more cost-effectively.

“We are convinced that the joining of forces within the aesco solutions group will open up additional growth potential for seleon,” says Villinger, CEO of D11Z. Ventures. “The sale can create a real MedTech champion.

At the same time, the sale, which has been in the works for more than a year, fits in with the realignment of D11Z. Ventures. This year, the Heilbronn-based family office is focusing on promising investments in the field of artificial intelligence.

About seleon

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Heilbronn, with additional locations in Dessau and Leipzig, seleon GmbH has established itself as a leading service partner in Central Europe for the development of medical technology devices and components, with a particular focus on fluidics applications and clinical and regulatory consulting. At its production site in Dessau, seleon manufactures high-quality devices for renowned medical technology companies of the highest quality.

For further information, please visit www.seleon.com

About aesco solutions

As a full-service group, aesco solutions provides comprehensive support to medical device manufacturers in the realisation of their products: from the idea phase, through the development and integration of our technologies & components, to approval and series production, as well as lifecycle management and after-sales service.

For more than 77 years, SASSE Elektronik has been known for its complex development and manufacturing services in the field of medical technology. It is known for its outstanding solutions in human-machine interaction (HMI and sensors), secure communications, and the development and production of medical devices and high-tech component solutions.

FG Elektronik stands for innovative battery solutions and components in high-end power electronics, enabling high performance and safe power supply for medical devices and complex applications in other areas.

For further information, please visit www.aesco-solutions.com

About D11Z. Ventures

D11Z. Ventures is a dynamic early-stage investor specialising in digital and AI startups in Germany and Europe. As a single family office VC, D11Z. Ventures pursues the vision of shaping the digital future as a leading European investor in AI, IoT and SaaS. With experience, expertise and agility, D11Z. Ventures drives digital transformation and has valuable relationships with technology SMEs and global market leaders. They prioritise identifying founders with visionary ideas that can sustainably shape the digital future. True to the motto “Shaping Tomorrow, Today”, D11Z. Ventures is already bringing visionary ideas to life.

For further information, please visit www.d11z.com



Press contact:
Christian Gleichauf, wortCraft Strategy | Communication
kontakt@wortCraft.de
+49 7131 6188124

  • Founded in 2021, Berlin-based akirolabs empowers procurement organisations to unlock 4-5x higher sustainable business value beyond traditional cost savings.
  • The funding round was led by HTGF, OTB Ventures and D11Z. Ventures and strengthened by angel investments from industry leaders Fredrick Spalcke, Heiko Schwarz, Markus Ehrle, and Detlef Schultz.
  • The funds will be used to evolve akirolabs SaaS product and enhance its AI capabilities, as well as to further scale customer growth and business operations.

 

Berlin, January 29, 2024 – akirolabs, a Berlin-based ProcureTech startup, enabling enterprises worldwide to augment strategic procurement processes, announced that it has raised $5M in its recent seed funding round.

Investors in this round included HTGF, OTB Ventures, D11Z. Ventures, and Switzerland’s Serpentine Ventures, alongside angel investments from industry leaders such as Fredrick Spalcke (ex-CPO of Phillips & Huawei), Heiko Schwarz (CEO of riskmethods), Markus Ehrle (VP and General Manager EMEA at ServiceNow), and Detlef Schultz (former CEO of the Vodafone Procurement Company).

Notably, akirolabs has also appointed Jens Rassloff as the Chairman of the Advisory Board. Jens holds similar roles at Coparion, Parloa, and d.velop and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the tech industry, specifically in the areas of growth, innovation, and investment strategies.

akirolabs’ large corporate customers across the globe and across various industries, as well as internationally leading analysts, appreciate and recognize akirolabs’ innovation power and uniqueness. The startup’s recognitions include Gartner “Cool Vendor”, Gartner’s “Hype Cycle Sample Vendor”, “IDC Innovator 2023”, Spend Matters “Future 5”, and ProcureTech’s “Top 100 Pioneers”.

akirolabs highlights that while digitalization in procurement in the past was primarily focused on operational and tactical solutions for efficiency and savings, industry benchmarks indicate a much higher value potential in strategic procurement. This potential is often untapped due to capability gaps. Also, the current macroeconomic challenges and recent black swan events have amplified and accelerated the need for more strategic procurement. To address this challenge, akirolabs offers an AI-powered strategic procurement SaaS solution, enabling its customers to unlock and achieve 4-5 times higher value from procurement, – beyond savings.


“We’re very grateful for the trust placed into akirolabs in this funding round. It emphasizes the imperative of advanced strategic procurement software in today’s economic environment. In these challenging times, akirolabs does not just facilitate savings on price.”, says Michael Pleuger, CEO of akirolabs. “Much more, our solution delivers tangible improvements in total cost and supply chain resilience, sustainability and agility, strengthening the competitiveness of our customers.”

“…What you have created is significant… there is no doubt in my mind that this is a breakthrough innovation. akirolabs is on a trajectory to eliminate much of the category management function as we know it. today.”, says Elouise Epstein, KEARNEY Partner & best-selling author on Digital Procurement.

Christian Arndt, Senior Investment Manager at HTGF, added“We are convinced that akirolabs builds an international category leader in strategic procurement and we are looking forward supporting the team on its path.“

With the advent of LLMs, there is an opportunity to transform the strategic aspects of procurement decision-making. Founding teams that combine a deep domain expertise with technical prowess will thrive in this environment.”, says Mateusz Lukasik, Investment Director at OTB Ventures. “akirolabs fits the bill and we are excited to support them.”

Adding value beyond cost savings, akirolabs will set new standards in strategic procurement management.”, says Thomas R. Villinger, Managing Director at D11Z. Ventures.

About akirolabs:
akirolabs, founded in 2021 by Michael Pleuger, Detlef Schultz, Christoph Flöthmann, and Tim Ergenzinger, develops and provides an AI powered SaaS platform for collaborative strategic procurement. akirolabs is based upon a world-class and industry proven strategic procurement process, methodology and toolkit, embedded into an intuitive cross-functional collaboration workflow and enriched with all relevant internal and external business insight. akirolabs’ unique approach delivers “Procurement Strategies with Value & Purpose” and a significantly broader and 4-5 times higher value contribution than traditional souring solutions.

Press Contact:
akirolabs GmbH
Greifswalder Str. 208
10405 Berlin
hello@akirolabs.com
Tel:+49 30 754 384 66