Zeit AI Raises Five Million Euros for AI Data Platform

The Munich-based startup Zeit AI has closed a funding round of five million euros. Investors include Y Combinator, the Oxford Seed Fund, Hasso Plattner VC, the Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, and ACE Ventures. In addition, several prominent business angels have invested, including former German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, World Cup champion Mario Götze, and Helsing CTO Robert Fink.

Founded in 2024 by Leopold von Waldthausen and Marvin Bornstein, the company is developing ZeitMind, an AI agent for corporate data. It is designed to consolidate information from ERP, CRM, and hundreds of other systems and, in particular, to automate analysis processes that many companies still handle using Excel and manual labor.

From Palantir to Their Own Data Startup

The two founders bring with them experience from the data company Palantir. According to Zeit AI, von Waldthausen was responsible there for existing business in the DACH region. Bornstein led an engineering team working on early production-ready AI applications. Together, the two generated more than 50 million euros in new project revenue during their time at Palantir.

Zeit AI was founded in 2024. According to the company, it generated seven-figure revenue in its first year with just six employees. The team has since grown to twelve people, including former employees of Palantir, BCG, and McKinsey.

Y Combinator and Hasso Plattner VC Invest

For its next phase of growth, Zeit AI is now receiving 5 million euros from an international group of investors. Participants include Y Combinator, the University of Oxford’s Oxford Seed Fund, the Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, ACE Ventures, and Hasso Plattner VC. Also participating are business angels Christian Lindner, Mario Götze, Charlie Songhurst, Martin Schoeller, and Robert Fink.

Hasso Plattner VC, in particular, sees the company as contributing to European sovereignty.“Europe’s industry must not make its most important decisions dependent on non-European software,” says partner Jens Schmidt-Sceery.

AI Agent Aims to Replace Excel Workarounds

At the heart of the business model is ZeitMind. The product is designed to function as an autonomous data engineer, connecting corporate data from various sources. According to the company, ERP and CRM systems, as well as more than 600 other data sources, can be integrated. Based on this, the AI agent generates actionable applications and analyses. The results are designed to remain traceable all the way down to individual transactions.

Zeit AI thus specifically addresses a problem that persists in many established companies despite extensive IT infrastructure: While data is generally available, it often must be manually consolidated from different systems for individual analyses and then further processed in Excel.

The Munich-based startup’s approach is to automate this process largely through AI agents. For example, a controller should be able to describe a required analysis rather than first having to manually build data models and corresponding applications.

German Data Centers as Part of the Positioning

Zeit AI explicitly positions its platform as a European alternative for sensitive corporate data. According to the company, the applications are operated in German data centers.

For industrial companies in particular, this aspect could gain significance alongside the automation itself. With the increasing use of AI, companies face not only the question of what is technically possible, but also where data is processed and how dependent business-critical processes are becoming on individual international platform providers.

Zeit AI therefore links its product promise to the concept of digital sovereignty.

First Customers from Industry, Agriculture, and Aviation

The customer base already includes companies from various industries. Among those mentioned are Kolbenschmidt, Horsch, Allgaier Agrarhandel, Wahl & Co, Stern Stewart & Co, and Jetfly Aviation.

This means Zeit AI does not focus exclusively on traditional digital companies. The manufacturing, logistics, and small-to-medium-sized enterprise sectors, in particular, often have legacy IT landscapes in which data is distributed across various systems.

This is where Zeit AI aims to step in and shorten the time between existing data and a decision-making basis that can actually be used.

Five Million Euros for Sales and Engineering

With this fresh capital, Zeit AI now plans to expand its sales and engineering teams in particular. The company intends to hire employees specifically to implement ZeitMind at additional customer sites and put it into productive use.

For the Munich-based company, this marks the beginning of the actual scaling phase. According to the company, its current seven-figure revenue indicates an early willingness to pay in the market. Now, Zeit AI must prove that the data work—which has so far been performed in a highly customer-centric manner—can be transformed into a scalable software business.

This is likely to be one of the key questions for the company’s future development. The market for AI agents is growing rapidly—but at the same time, providers must demonstrate that their systems not only automate individual tasks but can also be reliably integrated into complex enterprise IT infrastructure that has often evolved over decades.

With five million euros in new capital and investors such as Y Combinator and Hasso Plattner VC behind it, Zeit AI now aims to take precisely this step.