Today, German industrial AI startup deeplify announces a €2.0M pre-seed round led by D11Z. Ventures, with participation from Vanagon Ventures, EWOR, and strategic business angels, to modernize how critical infrastructure is inspected and managed.
Jan Löwer, CEO of deeplify, spent years building AI tools for industries that actually needed them. While much of the AI boom focused on productivity tools and chatbots, he kept running into the same issue: the infrastructure that keeps modern civilisation running, from pipelines and storage tanks supplying millions of homes to pressure vessels in chemical plants, is still inspected through workflows built around Excel spreadsheets, scattered PDFs, analog imagery, and manual reporting, despite the severe consequences of unseen defects.
"We have the most advanced software for digital-first workflows," says Jan, co-founder and CEO of deeplify, "but when it comes to determining if a high-pressure pipeline is safe, the industry is often still stuck in the past."
The timing makes the problem more urgent. Europe’s chemical industry alone includes around 31,000 companies, many operating ageing infrastructure. At the same time, experienced inspectors are retiring faster than new specialists enter the field, while the volume and complexity of inspection data continues to grow.
deeplify has built an end-to-end AI platform for industrial inspection and asset integrity management, connecting the complete workflow from raw sensor data and imagery through to automated defect analysis and fully auditable reporting. Instead of adding dashboards to existing workflows, the platform aims to rebuild the operational layer from the ground up. In practice, this can mean up to 70% less conventional inspection time, a 66% reduction in reporting errors, fewer unnecessary repairs, and full digital traceability across the process.
The company’s insight came from direct industrial work, not abstract market analysis. Early AI projects exposed how outdated inspection workflows were, leading to a project with Open Grid Europe, Germany’s largest gas transmission operator, which became deeplify’s first product customer. Pilots with Swedish industrial giant SKF followed, and today the platform is used by multiple inspection firms serving global energy majors, including Shell.
“deeplify’s solution helps us to completely change how we do quality management today” says David Pawlik, Digitalisation Manager at Open Grid Europe.
The team behind this is not one that stumbled onto the problem. Jan Löwer trained as a physicist before founding a data science agency to prove AI belongs in the physical economy.
Christoph Siemer, COO, spent over a decade at BP, giving him deep exposure to the industrial processes, operational pressures, and inefficiencies deeplify is built to solve. Felix Asanger cracked the technical challenge that defeated everyone else: making AI interpret inspection data at safety-critical precision.
„The founders combine exceptional industry expertise with a deep understanding of its customers’ challenges,” says Tom Villinger, CEO of D11Z. Ventures “deeplify has developed proprietary technology for a previously highly under-digitized and safety-critical industrial infrastructure.“
The fresh capital will be used to expand the platform’s infrastructure and accelerate deployments across energy, oil & gas, chemicals, and transportation, helping modernise how critical infrastructure is inspected and managed.
About deeplify
deeplify builds AI software for industrial inspection and asset integrity management. Its end-to-end platform connects task management, AI-driven defect analysis, asset registration, and auditable reporting – replacing fragmented manual workflows with intelligent systems built for safety-critical environments. Current customers and partners include Open Grid Europe and inspection firms serving global energy Supermajors. deeplify is based in Germany.
For more information, please visit https://www.deeplify.de/ or follow via LinkedIn.
Jan Löwer, CEO of deeplify, spent years building AI tools for industries that actually needed them. While much of the AI boom focused on productivity tools and chatbots, he kept running into the same issue: the infrastructure that keeps modern civilisation running, from pipelines and storage tanks supplying millions of homes to pressure vessels in chemical plants, is still inspected through workflows built around Excel spreadsheets, scattered PDFs, analog imagery, and manual reporting, despite the severe consequences of unseen defects.
"We have the most advanced software for digital-first workflows," says Jan, co-founder and CEO of deeplify, "but when it comes to determining if a high-pressure pipeline is safe, the industry is often still stuck in the past."
The timing makes the problem more urgent. Europe’s chemical industry alone includes around 31,000 companies, many operating ageing infrastructure. At the same time, experienced inspectors are retiring faster than new specialists enter the field, while the volume and complexity of inspection data continues to grow.
deeplify has built an end-to-end AI platform for industrial inspection and asset integrity management, connecting the complete workflow from raw sensor data and imagery through to automated defect analysis and fully auditable reporting. Instead of adding dashboards to existing workflows, the platform aims to rebuild the operational layer from the ground up. In practice, this can mean up to 70% less conventional inspection time, a 66% reduction in reporting errors, fewer unnecessary repairs, and full digital traceability across the process.
The company’s insight came from direct industrial work, not abstract market analysis. Early AI projects exposed how outdated inspection workflows were, leading to a project with Open Grid Europe, Germany’s largest gas transmission operator, which became deeplify’s first product customer. Pilots with Swedish industrial giant SKF followed, and today the platform is used by multiple inspection firms serving global energy majors, including Shell.
“deeplify’s solution helps us to completely change how we do quality management today” says David Pawlik, Digitalisation Manager at Open Grid Europe.
The team behind this is not one that stumbled onto the problem. Jan Löwer trained as a physicist before founding a data science agency to prove AI belongs in the physical economy.
Christoph Siemer, COO, spent over a decade at BP, giving him deep exposure to the industrial processes, operational pressures, and inefficiencies deeplify is built to solve. Felix Asanger cracked the technical challenge that defeated everyone else: making AI interpret inspection data at safety-critical precision.
„The founders combine exceptional industry expertise with a deep understanding of its customers’ challenges,” says Tom Villinger, CEO of D11Z. Ventures “deeplify has developed proprietary technology for a previously highly under-digitized and safety-critical industrial infrastructure.“
The fresh capital will be used to expand the platform’s infrastructure and accelerate deployments across energy, oil & gas, chemicals, and transportation, helping modernise how critical infrastructure is inspected and managed.
About deeplify
deeplify builds AI software for industrial inspection and asset integrity management. Its end-to-end platform connects task management, AI-driven defect analysis, asset registration, and auditable reporting – replacing fragmented manual workflows with intelligent systems built for safety-critical environments. Current customers and partners include Open Grid Europe and inspection firms serving global energy Supermajors. deeplify is based in Germany.
For more information, please visit https://www.deeplify.de/ or follow via LinkedIn.
