Hive Robotics, a Munich startup building a universal AI control layer for robot swarms, has closed a €2 million pre-seed funding round to scale its technology.
As autonomous systems become more common, their inability to communicate and collaborate across different domains—air, land, and sea—has limited their potential. A German startup, Hive Robotics, aims to solve this with a unified software and hardware solution. The company has successfully raised €2 million in a pre-seed round. The investment was led by b2venture and saw participation from prominent investors including Firedrop, Pareto, Matthias Hilpert, and the Klocke Group.
Solving Cross-Domain Fragmentation
The core of Hive Robotics‘ innovation is an AI-powered platform that acts as a central nervous system for diverse groups of robots. This allows fleets of drones, unmanned ground vehicles, and autonomous marine vessels to operate in sync. CTO Dr. Burak Yuksel, whose background includes developing flight control and autonomy stacks at urban air mobility pioneer Volocopter, identified fragmented control as a critical barrier to progress in the industry. He conveyed that Hive Robotics was built to address this by creating a modular platform that integrates control, perception, and communication, allowing different machines to share sensor data and work as a single entity.
An AI Layer for Collaborative Autonomy
The company’s mission, driven by co-founders CEO Sebastian Mores and Dr. Burak Yuksel, is to make advanced swarm capabilities accessible for a broad range of applications, including infrastructure inspection and emergency response. CEO Sebastian Mores explained that the company provides swarm intelligence through industrial-grade hardware and software modules. He detailed that their proprietary C3 (Command, Control, Connect) architecture enables secure communication and distributed AI, allowing robot teams to function effectively even in GPS-denied environments. The goal is to lower barriers to entry, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
A Holistic Approach in a Niche Market
While the swarm robotics field includes specialized companies like Boston Dynamics, Hydromea, and SwarmFarm that excel in specific areas, Hive Robotics distinguishes itself with a different strategy. Instead of focusing on a single domain, the company offers a holistic framework designed to unify heterogeneous systems. This multi-domain approach allows for unprecedented collaboration between aerial, ground, and maritime assets within a single, scalable ecosystem.
Scaling Up with Fresh Capital
The newly secured €2 million will be pivotal for the company’s growth. The funds are earmarked for expanding the engineering team and deepening partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to accelerate the real-world adoption of their technology. Mores affirmed that the ultimate vision is for Hive Robotics to become the foundational platform for robotic collaboration worldwide. He aims to empower new innovators and help solve critical global challenges by leveraging the power of intelligent, collaborative robot swarms.
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