The Zurich-based company said it will use the funding to grow its engineering and deployment teams and expand beyond the wood industry into recycling, chemical processing, mining, oil and gas, and maritime operations.

Founderful led the funding round for AVIAN, which spent two years operating without outside funding before raising fresh capital.

During that period, the company built a customer base across about 50 industrial sites in nine countries and says its systems have helped prevent more than $50 million in fire and equipment damage.

Industrial operators have faced high insurance expenses in recent years as ageing machinery, electrical faults and dust-related fire risks continue to increase. In some cases, insurers now consider facilities too risky to cover at affordable rates.

AVIAN says many factories still rely on periodic thermal inspections carried out with handheld cameras. According to the company, that approach usually misses early warning signs that appear hours before equipment failure or fire outbreaks.

Its platform uses thermal cameras to monitor machinery continuously. The system tracks heat changes in motors, bearings, conveyors, presses and electrical cabinets, then sends alerts when temperatures begin to drift outside normal patterns.

The company said customers can install the system within minutes and receive automated maintenance reports alongside round-the-clock support.

Several manufacturers using the platform have already reported operational gains.

Kamps Pallet reduced annual insurance costs by 10% at its Dillwyn sawmill after deploying AVIAN’s monitoring system. Sierra Pacific Industries also avoided more than 24 hours of unplanned downtime at its Quincy facility over the past year, according to the company.

AVIAN noted that its system has also detected small fire incidents before they escalated.

In Switzerland, the platform identified a pellet press fire early enough to prevent what the company described as millions in potential damage. In Germany, it detected an electrical fire beside a machine valued at several million dollars, helping operators contain the incident before production was disrupted.

“AVIAN has developed a solution to a problem which probably affects everyone in the industry directly. For us, it is a great partnership as it helps us make our operations much safer and improves the monitoring process.

“You will never be able to reduce the risk of fires to zero, but you can do everything you can to minimise the danger as much as possible, and AVIAN makes that possible in a simple and straightforward way,” said Ernest Schilliger, CEO Schilliger Holz.

The company was founded after a Swiss sawmill contacted the team about recurring fires, high downtime and growing insurance pressure.

Drew Hanover, AVIAN’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said the company focused first on building trust with operators before seeking investment.

“Most operators don’t need another camera. At 3 a.m., they need to know that a bearing is running hot before it ignites the dust around it,” Hanover said.

“We bootstrapped the business for two years because we wanted to build something operators actually trusted. We raised with Founderful for one reason: to keep doing that, in more markets, faster, without changing what we are. We spent zero minutes on a deck.”

AVIAN now plans to leverage the new funding to strengthen its work with insurers by providing real-time risk assessments using live thermal data from industrial sites.

The company is also developing a new product called AVIAN Vision, which upgrades existing CCTV systems to detect smoke and fire without replacing current infrastructure.

Yet many manufacturers remain stuck with outdated ERP systems that were never built for their pace or precision. Bonx, a French startup building operational software for European industry, is changing that. 

Today, the company announced an $8.6 million seed round led by 9900 Capital, with participation from Kima Ventures, Purple, OSS Ventures, and Dynamo Ventures.

Founded in 2022 by Alexandre Barroux and Rémi Beges within OSS Ventures, Bonx is a modern ERP platform purpose-built for manufacturing. 

By combining no-code configuration, advanced AI capabilities and rapid deployment, the company enables mid-market manufacturers to digitise operations in weeks, not years. 

Bonx integrates seamlessly into existing environments, offering visibility and control across production, logistics, procurement, and quality, without replacing core finance or CRM systems. 

The platform is already being used by a growing number of French, Italian and Spanish manufacturers, including suppliers to Décathlon and emerging brands like French Bloom.

“Our mission remains clear: empower manufacturers to simplify and take control of their operations through technology that adapts to their precise needs,” said Alexandre Barroux, CEO of Bonx. 

“This funding propels us into our next phase – becoming Europe’s definitive ERP leader for mid-sized manufacturers, expanding our successful model from France into new key markets, while scaling in Italy and Spain.”

Unlike traditional ERP deployments, which often drag on for months or years and require expensive consultants, Bonx is designed to go live fast and evolve with the shop floor. 

Customers report full rollouts in as little as three to ten weeks, along with measurable improvements in traceability, purchasing workflows, and inventory coordination. 

The software’s modular, visual interface makes it intuitive for operators and supply chain teams – not just IT departments – and its adaptability means factories can shape the system to fit their actual processes, not the other way around.

The urgency is real. Across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, mid-sized manufacturers are facing growing technical and operational complexity. Shifting regulations, fragmented supplier networks, and ambitious sustainability targets are all increasing the pressure to modernise. 

Yet many of the ERP platforms still in use across Europe were built for a different era – rigid, opaque, and unable to keep up with evolving demands. Even basic changes to workflows often require custom development. 

As a result, too many industrial teams are still managing high-stakes operations in spreadsheets, or locked into systems that were never designed for speed or interoperability.

Bonx steps into this gap with a platform built precisely for the complexity of modern European industry, allowing manufacturers to gain operational clarity fast without ripping out existing systems. 

Their company reflects a broader shift in how Europe’s industrial backbone is being rebuilt – not just with machines, but with software that understands how production actually runs.

“By focusing exclusively on manufacturing and supply-chain operations, we’ve built Bonx to integrate effortlessly with existing tools, particularly general ledgers and CRM solutions that our customers already rely on and love,” said Rémi Beges, CTO of Bonx. 

“Manufacturers don’t have to replace the systems they’re accustomed to; Bonx complements and enhances their stack and acts as their operational backbone.”

Investor appetite mirrors the urgency playing out on factory floors. “Bonx is redefining the ERP landscape by combining extraordinary implementation speeds with genuinely impactful AI-driven capabilities, driving enormous efficiencies within an industry plagued by legacy software,” commented Juliette Sylvain, Principal at 9900 Capital.

“We are excited to support Bonx as it sets a new industry standard and scales across Europe.”

With this new funding, Bonx will grow its team, deepen its product, and scale in Italy and Spain, two of Europe’s most important manufacturing economies, where Bonx is already present. 

The company sees clear demand for fast, modern ERP solutions that respect the way factories already work, while unlocking smarter, more connected operations. 

Over time, Bonx aims to become the foundational layer for industrial execution across the continent, offering a new kind of digital infrastructure that scales with production, not against it.