Hamburg-based tech company One.five, which specialises in AI-based solutions for the product development of packaging, has successfully completed its Series A financing round of 14 million euros. The new funds will be used in particular to expand the company's own AI platform.
Founded by Martin Weber and Claire Hae-Min Gusko, One.five aims to transform global packaging supply chains. With the help of its AI platform, the company significantly shortens the development and time-to-market of packaging and enables its customers to bring innovative solutions to market faster and more efficiently.
The financing round was led by Dr Hans Riegel Holding GmbH (co-shareholder of the HARIBO Group). Other investors include 212 NexT, Symbia VC (Family Office), Btomorrow Ventures, KIMPA Impact (Multi-Family Office), Zubi Capital and the existing investors Speedinvest, Planet A, Green Generation Fund, Climentum Capital, Revent and WEPA.
Expansion of the AI platform for sustainable packaging development
The new funds will be channelled in particular into the expansion of the company's own AI platform. The aim is to support companies along the packaging supply chain in developing new products faster and launching them on the market more successfully than before.
Despite ambitious sustainability targets and stricter legal requirements, plastic continues to dominate the packaging market, but only around 15 per cent of plastic packaging can actually be recycled, with almost half still ending up in landfill sites. At the same time, around 60 per cent of the packaging industry's R&D budget is spent on products that never make it to market.
One.five addresses this problem by embedding product-market fit directly into the development process. The AI-based platform optimises the process by translating all success-critical factors, from technical performance and regulatory compliance to cost targets and consumer acceptance at the point of sale, into precise, data-driven requirement profiles. This enables R&D teams to develop products that are already market-ready by design.
The fresh capital will enable us to further expand our AI-based platform and scale our first platform product, the ’Product Market Fit Compass'. This was developed specifically for companies such as paper manufacturers and has already proven itself in practice: Customers are using the platform to address brand owners more strategically and make internal material development much more efficient - without the need for large internal R&D teams.
Martin Weber, Co-founder of one.five
Systematic product-market fit through AI
„In early pilot projects with paper manufacturers, we have seen that customers interact with brands faster, reduce misalignments and significantly shorten time to market,“ says One.five co-founder Claire Hae-Min Gusko. „In these cases, we expect this to translate into a return on investment of around five times the capital invested within the first year. It is precisely this commercial impact that we want to scale with this financing round.“
One.five is currently working on pilot projects with paper manufacturers such as Starkraft, a Heinzelpöls company, Zellstoff Pöls AG (Austria) and Grünperga Papier (Germany). At the same time, the company is in talks with international packaging manufacturers and FMCG brands and is already active internationally - with customers in Europe and initial material sales in the USA.
Source: one.five
