Cologne-based United Manufacturing Hub (UMH), an open-source industrial data management platform for modern factories, today announced a €5 million funding round to accelerate its mission to build the foundational data layer for global manufacturing.
The round was led by KOMPAS VC, with participation from seed + speed Ventures, Sustainable Future Ventures, and Archimedes New Ventures. Prominent industry angels also participated in this round, including Jan Oberhauser (Founder & CEO of n8n) and Jeff Hammerbacher (Founder of Cloudera).
Alexander Krüger, CEO and co-founder of UMH, said, “Every factory runs on decades-old software – Data is trapped in proprietary protocols, siloed by vendors, missing the context that real use cases and AI depend on. We’re building the open-source data infrastructure layer that finally makes industrial data available in the quantity and quality it needs to be – ready for what comes next.
“This round lets us double down: wider connectivity, greater scale, pool and a product that works for data engineers and shop floor engineers alike.”
According to UMH, the key challenge limiting digitalisation and the deployment of AI in manufacturing lies at the data layer. Data is often locked within proprietary systems and dispersed across machines, processes, and applications, which makes the modernisation of manufacturing nearly impossible.
Founded in 2021 by Alexander Krüger (CEO) and Jeremy Theocharis (CTO), claims to unify industrial data into a real-time data hub, called Unified Namespace, replacing point-to-point integrations with a scalable, interoperable structure.
“The platform connects machines, sensors, and IT systems through standardised interfaces, then cleans and contextualises their data – creating a single source of truth that any application can use without custom integration work. On top of this foundation, UMH delivers ready-to-use capabilities: operational KPIs, energy and resource tracking, condition monitoring, alerting, and industrial AI applications,” UMH explained in the press release.
The fresh capital will be used to bolster the company’s open-source platform, grow the engineering team, accelerate product development, including broader connectivity, advanced data modelling and AI agents. UMH also plans to extend collaborations with consulting and technology partners to accelerate adoption across Europe’s industrial base, as well as strengthen the organisation in both engineering and go-to-market positions.
“In areas like ERP, CRM, or HR management, billion-dollar companies have emerged. In digital manufacturing, such a player is still missing. That’s exactly our mission: We want to build the world’s leading Industrial Data Company,” said Niklas Hebborn, Chief Commercial Officer at UMH and former Partner at Freigeist Capital, where he was an early pre-Seed investor in UMH.
Some of the companies using UMH to digitise their factories include HiPP, Edeka, and Böllhoff.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/01/colognes-united-manufacturing-hub-raises-e5-million-to-fix-the-data-layer-holding-global-manufacturing-back/
