Backing engineers who build the physical layer of the AI economy.
Birdhill Ventures invests early in deep tech, AI and physical AI — as a direct investor and as a limited partner in specialist funds. Behind it is a founder who has designed power electronics, built a hardware company and sold it to Tesla.
What we look for
Three convictions shape every ticket. They come from twenty years of building hardware, not from a pitch-deck template.
Atoms need better software
The next decade of value sits where AI meets machines, materials and manufacturing. We back the models, tools and robots that let intelligence act in the physical world — and the deep tech underneath them.
Technical founders, hard problems
We prefer teams with a real engineering edge — a model, a process, a device that competitors cannot copy in a quarter — over teams that are simply first to a market.
Capital plus a founder who has been there
Angel-sized cheques, fast decisions and hands-on help with the parts that hurt: hardware roadmaps, industrial customers, financing structures and the road to an exit.
Direct investments
Companies in which Birdhill Ventures holds a direct stake — some of them through Black4est Invest, the co-investment vehicle Florian shares with his Wiferion co-founders.
Black Forest LabsFreiburg
Frontier lab behind the FLUX family of image and video generation models — one of Europe's leading foundation-model companies, built in Freiburg.
blackforestlabs.aikausableHeidelberg
Reasoning-first world models that adapt to changing conditions without retraining — causal AI for complex, dynamic systems in industry, energy and medicine.
kausable.aiOktonexTübingen
A robotics brain that learns new tasks by watching a human do them once. Vision-language-action and world models, pre-trained on internet-scale human video, for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing. Spun out of Tübingen's Autonomous Vision Group.
oktonex.comNODE RoboticsStuttgart
Node.OS turns automated guided vehicles into collaborative autonomous fleets, across manufacturers. A Fraunhofer IPA spin-off building the operating system for intralogistics.
node-robotics.comVelutoFreiburg · Utrecht
Vehicle-agnostic autonomy software for light urban vehicles: an AI stack that navigates bike lanes and sidewalks, plus fleet orchestration — autonomy where it first becomes economically viable.
veluto.citySilanaVienna
The first fully autonomous sewing system — robotics, AI and machine vision for garment production, the last manual step in one of the world's largest manufacturing industries.
silana.comCambrionMunich
Agentic document intelligence: extraction pipelines configured in natural language, no training or labelling, running entirely on European infrastructure.
cambrion.aiLoadwiseBerlin
Grid-aware energy coordination for data centres: forecasts and operating decisions that unlock grid capacity for AI infrastructure without touching uptime.
loadwise.aiFlinn.aiVienna
AI that automates regulatory and quality work for medical-device and pharma companies — post-market surveillance, literature evaluation and complaint handling, audit-ready.
flinn.aiFund commitments
Where a specialist fund sees earlier, deeper or wider than a single angel can, Birdhill Ventures invests as a limited partner.
Matterwave Ventures
Munich. Seed and Series A investor in European industrial deep tech — materials, components, systems and the software that runs them.
Mätch VC
Stuttgart. Pre-seed and seed fund for the next-generation Mittelstand, backed by family businesses across Baden-Württemberg's industrial heartland.
backtrace capital
Munich. Thesis-driven pre-seed and seed fund for the building blocks of modern tech infrastructure — developer tools, AI infrastructure, security, semiconductors.
TT49 / FTTF
Munich. Fraunhofer's technology-transfer funds, turning research from Fraunhofer, DLR and Max Planck into science-based companies at the earliest stage.
Florian Reiners
Electrical engineer by training, hardware founder by trade. Florian co-founded Wiferion in Freiburg and led it as CEO for eight years, building wireless charging systems for industrial robots and electric vehicles until the company was acquired by Tesla in 2023. He then served as Managing Director of Tesla Engineering Germany.
Before Wiferion he headed the power-electronics R&D department at Fraunhofer ISE, where his group co-developed the first solar inverter with efficiency above 99 percent. Birdhill Ventures is where that operating experience meets early-stage capital. He is also a co-founder of aihorizon R&D gGmbH, a non-profit research vehicle for applied AI.
- 2023 – 2026Managing Director, Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH
- 2015 – 2023CEO & Co-Founder, Wiferion GmbH — acquired by Tesla
- 2009 – 2015Head of R&D Power Electronics, Fraunhofer ISE
- EducationElectrical Engineering, TU Darmstadt · Murdoch University
- AwardsSemikron Innovation Award · Marquardt Award · Expert Award Renewable Energy
A short note with what you are building, why now, and what you need beats a deck. Replies come from Florian, usually within a week. LinkedIn ↗