HIVE, a London-based physical AI company building an intelligence layer for industrial machinery, has announced a €13.1 million ($15 million) pre-Series A round. The firm aims to create a universal "silicon brain" capable of operating any industrial machine, replacing traditional bespoke control systems.
SuperSeed led the round, with participation from Veriten, Skyfall, and Nysnø. Angel investor Børge Hald also contributed. The fresh capital will fund platform development, founding team expansion, and scaling of commercial deployments.
Founded by serial entrepreneur Christoffer Jørgenvåg, who previously built and sold a control systems company, HIVE targets a fragmented industrial automation market. Traditional machine control relies on custom, hardware-specific code; HIVE's approach promises a unified, AI-driven alternative that could dramatically reduce integration costs and time.
The industrial AI space is heating up, with players like Covariant and Physical Intelligence attracting large rounds. Yet HIVE's bet is distinctive: rather than building general-purpose robots, it sells the intelligence layer that can be retrofitted to existing machinery. This could unlock a faster path to adoption in factories and warehouses.
If successful, HIVE's platform could accelerate the shift toward software-defined factories, where AI replaces programmable logic controllers (PLCs). However, the company faces skepticism about reliability and latency in real-world, safety-critical environments. One challenge: industrial operators are notoriously risk-averse, and convincing them to trust an AI brain over decades-old PLC systems remains an uphill battle.