Munich-based deep tech company Orbem has closed a €55.5 million Series B financing round to expand its industrial MRI platform across food production and healthcare sectors. The round was led by European deep tech investor Innovation Industries, with participation from Supernova Invest and strong follow-on investment from existing backers General Catalyst, 83North, The Venture Collective, Possible Ventures, and several angel investors.
The company has developed a platform that makes magnetic resonance imaging fast, affordable, and scalable enough for industrial applications. Using a combination of advanced MRI sensors and vertical AI, Orbem's technology can reveal what's hidden inside biological materials, performing non-invasive analysis in less than one second without human intervention.
Orbem is already profitable and operates as a leading provider of in-ovo sexing technology across five European countries. The company has built this position on deep knowledge of poultry industry processes, scanning over 170 million eggs to date. Its flagship product, Genus Focus, uses AI-powered MRI to determine the sex of an embryo inside a poultry egg in under one second.
This provides an animal-friendly alternative to chick culling, a practice now banned in several EU countries. The technology is gaining traction in the United States as well, driven by initiatives like the new Hatch Check certification program.
Building on this success, Orbem recently launched Genus Scale, which sees inside eggs to check fertilization status before incubation. This allows hatcheries to avoid wasting incubator space on non-viable eggs, repurposing them for the food industry instead. The approach creates new revenue streams while reducing food waste.
The Series B capital will fuel several growth initiatives. Orbem is entering the US market after establishing its first American office in Houston, Texas, in 2025. The company plans to bring its proven poultry solutions to one of the world's largest agricultural markets while continuing to strengthen its existing platform.
Beyond poultry, Orbem is expanding into the fruit and vegetable sector. Its non-destructive technology can see inside produce like watermelons, avocados, and mangoes to spot internal defects and assess quality without cutting them open. This helps producers sort goods with precision, ensure consistent quality, and reduce food waste before products reach consumers.
The company is also investing in healthcare applications. What Orbem learns from scanning millions of eggs and avocados translates to a deeper understanding of biology. The platform is building what the company describes as the world's largest biological dataset, which will serve as the foundation for AI models with applications in human health.
"We're the first and so far only company in the world to demonstrate the use of MRI in less than one second and without humans in the loop," says Dr. Pedro Gómez, co-founder and CEO of Orbem. "This new funding allows us to accelerate our US expansion and help more food producers and healthcare providers make better decisions with data."
Orbem was founded by Dr. Pedro Gómez, Maria Laparidou, and Miguel Molina, who met at TUM university in Munich where they were all actively researching. They soon realized that AI would change the way MRI works and can be applied, so they started building in this direction. They began with a solution for a critical challenge the poultry industry was facing: the killing of male chicks. With their in-ovo sexing solution, the company has scanned more than 170 million eggs for the poultry sector, providing more ethically produced eggs to millions of EU citizens.
The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany, with offices in Houston, Texas. Its team focuses on scaling inside-out intelligence to transform how we see and understand biological matter. By providing previously inaccessible information, such as the sex of an embryo inside an egg or the quality of an avocado without cutting it open, Orbem serves global customers across agriculture, food, and health sectors.
"Orbem is truly exceptional. Few companies manage to make such complex technology accessible and scalable across so many industries," says Pleuni Hooijman, Investment Manager at Innovation Industries.
"We're thrilled to join forces with Orbem, a visionary company that perfectly embodies Europe's deep tech excellence," adds Michaël Thomas, Investment Director at Supernova Invest. "This investment illustrates our conviction that Europe can lead in physical AI, transforming scientific breakthroughs into meaningful industrial innovation."
The investment comes as European deep tech continues to attract significant capital. Innovation Industries manages €1 billion and focuses on science and engineering-based companies tackling global challenges. Supernova Invest, backed by Amundi and CEA, manages approximately €800 million in assets and has supported over 80 deep tech companies across cleantech, digital, industrial technologies, and healthcare sectors for 20 years.
