Point Nine

Thrilled to welcome Aletiq to the P9 Family as they build the next-gen PLM. The space is stuck in the pre-cloud era and Aletiq aims to change this by improving collaboration, data quality and traceability. Excited to be on this journey with Geoffrey Ricard, Edouard Goutay & Jérémie Fraudeau! 🚀

In February 2023 I got a cold outreach email from Ralf Gulde sharing his vision for Sereact and his fundraising plans. I had spent time with reinforcement learning-based robotics companies in 2016-17 but realized that the constraints on deploying fully functioning AI-based zero-shot robotics made it difficult to commercialize robotics at scale. 2023 was the year of LLM maximalism given the recent launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. All eyes were on text but luckily for us at Point Nine we focused our attention on what Ralf Gulde and Marc Tuscher had developed during their PhDs at the University of Stuttgart pioneering the embedding of actions in VLMs (vision language models) which led to the creation of VLAMs. Robotics weren't sexy at all just a few years back but as we started digging in, we got to conviction that Sereact's approach was the right one to build a large AI-first company in the robotics world. One that would enable intelligence on any robotic hardware platform available out there. A tier-1 supplier of AI-based robotic manipulation for the industry. My partner Christoph Janz didn't have to travel far to visit them on-site and we soon after issued a term sheet and a few days later sealed the deal at our annual Founder Summit (our best-kept secret to closing investments). We also introduced the founders to our friend Nathan Benaich at Air Street Capital who was excited to join us on the adventure. Fast forward to today, @Sereact launched PickGPT and deployed their technology with plenty of customers like Daimler Truck AG BMW Group or bol while doubling down on our research efforts to continue being at the forefront of the industry (watch this space 👀 ). Today they're announcing their $25.7M Series A led by Creandum with strong participation from internals and the addition of angels like F1 world champion Nico Rosberg, Torsten Reil and Niklas Köhler from Helsing and Mehdi Ghissassi ex-Google DeepMind A small step towards the realization of our vision for Sereact. A small celebration without keeping the eyes off the ball. The work ethic, tenacity, and pure hardcore execution demonstrated by this team is second to none. Proof of that was seeing Marc Tuscher leave the office at 2am after preparing the fundraising materials with Ralf Gulde and I to drive to a customer deployment the following day 🤖 or just another day at Sereact :) Join this team if you want to do outstanding work: https://sereact.ai/careers #p9family c:: Christoph Janz Louis Coppey Pawel Chudzinski Point Nine Nathan Benaich Air Street Capital Johan Brenner Jakob Stein Creandum

A new year, a new mission—and an exciting chapter ahead! ⚡️ ️I’m beyond excited to join Point Nine as Director of Platform, working alongside a team of kind, humble, and brilliant minds to support extraordinary founders around the world in beating the odds. For years, I’ve admired and been inspired by how Point Nine builds genuine relationships and offers thoughtful, relentless support to the entire P9 Family. There’s no team I’d rather join or mission I’d rather take on. I’m eager to play my part in helping our founders achieve their goals, drive performance, and make the P9 Family even stronger. Here’s to an exciting journey ahead! 🚀 Thanks for the warm welcome Ricardo Sequerra Amram, Aleksandra Zorylo, Louis Coppey, Amaranthe Partridge, Bethany D., Chaitali Sheth Nijdam, Christoph Janz, Pawel Chudzinski, Tom Blumenstock, Kim Goddard, Tilman Langer, Dr. Julian Kaboth

🇩🇪✨ Navigating the New German ESOP: What Founders and Employees Need to Know ✨🇩🇪 Germany’s startup ecosystem just got a significant update with the new ESOP regulations. But what does it mean for founders, employees, and the broader European startup landscape? In Tilman Langer's latest article, he dives into: ✅ How the new German ESOP stacks up against global standards. ✅ The pros and cons for startups and their teams. ✅ Insights to help you make informed decisions about equity compensation. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eUtAJx9Q

✍️ New post: "Some thoughts on software" I spent the last 3 weeks in the US meeting people and thinking about recent evolutions in the software industry (including AI). Below are a few high-level thoughts on software engineering, the software industry, the size of the software opportunity, new use cases, AI-first services businesses, and organisations in an AI-first world. Hope they spark some interest/discussions!

We are excited to support Florian Geiser, David Schmider and the Hula Earth team as they take biodiversity monitoring to the next level! With the pre-seed funding, they will put build the foundations for a scalable platform to help industries worldwide monitor and improve biodiversity. Here’s to a greener future! 🌱.. more info in the comments!

We are excited to support Florian Geiser, David Schmider and the Hula Earth team as they take biodiversity monitoring to the next level! With the pre-seed funding, they will put build the foundations for a scalable platform to help industries worldwide monitor and improve biodiversity. Here’s to a greener future! 🌱.. more info in the comments!

Congrats David Dokes 🐻❄️, Charbel Seif 🐻❄️, and the entire Polar Analytics team! Excited about the next part of the journey. Welcome Mike Chalfen!

Thrilled to share that Polar has raised $18 million, a significant milestone in our journey to unlock growth for millions of consumer brands with Data. Our journey began with an ambition inspired by Polaris, the North Star. We wanted to provide independent brands with clarity and direction so they could compete in retail’s fast-paced landscape. Today, we're closer to that goal, supporting a new generation of brands that deserve to be seen and celebrated. The Data Challenge Today, brands face a “data blind spot.” The loss of third-party cookies and fragmented data channels have made it more complicated than ever for brands to understand their customers and make strategic decisions. Data can feel overwhelming—but that’s where Polar steps in. Our Impact So Far Three years in, we’re proud of the impact we’ve made. Today, Polar supports over 3,715 merchants in 45 countries, including brands like The Frankie Shop, Doên, Allbirds Korea, and RIPNDIP. Our customers see real results: a 20% reduction in customer acquisition costs (CAC) and a 30% increase in email flow revenue, often within the first month of using our platform. What's Next: Doubling Down on Growth With this funding, bringing our total to $28.5 million, we’re focusing on: 1. Product Development: Building advanced data-driven automation to help brands convert data into revenue, allowing them to thrive amidst rising ad costs and leverage first-party data effectively. 2. Expanding the Team: By the end of 2025, we aim to grow to 100+ team members (our Polar bears!), scaling our product and GTM teams across Europe and the U.S. A Vision for Retail’s Future Our vision is ambitious: to be the ultimate source of truth for retail brands, helping them scale to nine-figure revenues. We’re here for the small brands with big dreams. Today, we celebrate this milestone. Tomorrow, we’re back to work. Onwards and upwards. For more details, please check the links in the comments for our blog post, along with coverage from Axios.

It’s been nearly a month since we gathered in Paris for the P9 CTO Meetup! As a reminder of the day, we’ve put together a video capturing some of the moments from the event 🎥 https://lnkd.in/ekN6uFNZ Thanks to everyone and our awesome speakers ⬇️ who made the event a success—looking forward to next year’s edition! Michael Wolfe Ilya Zayats Benoit Perrot Dmytro Voloshyn Cécile R. Paolo N. David Lambert Olivier Bonnet