Paris / Munich, 21. October 2025 – European B2B venture capital fund Hi inov is expanding its deep tech portfolio with an investment in Xelera Technologies, a German provider of software solutions for accelerating network security and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads in data centres and cloud environments. Hi inov led the €1.5 million seed funding round alongside the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund). The investment reflects Hi inov’s strategy of backing transformative B2B technologies that reinforce Europe’s digital infrastructure from an early stage.
With this investment, Hi inov reaffirms its strategy to invest early in innovative B2B technologies that strengthen Europe’s digital infrastructure. The fund focuses on SaaS startups with deeply specialized technologies that tackle structural challenges across climate transition, IT efficiency and resilience, the future of work, and AI‑driven innovation. Xelera embodies this approach: as a European deep‑tech company with strong technical expertise and clear use‑case orientation, it has the potential to create long‑term value for critical business processes and position itself as a future market leader.
Xelera develops software that enables organisations to run data-intensive workloads such as AI inference and network functions significantly faster and more efficiently in data centres, in the cloud, and on the edge. Xelera’s platform delivers software-defined acceleration on standard servers and integrates seamlessly into existing IT environments. In response to the growing demand for real-time processing, Xelera has developed two core software solutions that address distinct challenges in AI interference and network security:
- Xelera Silva is an AI inference platform built to accelerate classical machine learning models in latency-sensitive applications. It reduces response times while maintaining high data processing rates by leveraging advanced hardware accelerator cards and distributing decision-making processes efficiently across server resources. Silva is especially suited to industries that require fast, data-driven decisions, such as financial services and cyber security.
- Xelera Net is a software solution that leverages smart network interface cards (SmartNICs) to accelerate high-speed datacentre networks. It eliminates performance bottlenecks in servers and AI clusters operating in 100GbE-400GbE networks, for example by offloading security functions such as Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) to SmartNICs. In addition, Xelera Net includes software-based IPsec acceleration that scales the workload across CPU cores without requiring any additional hardware.
With the newly secured funding, Xelera intends to accelerate the technological development of its platform, aiming to deliver a full spectrum data centre software solution that meets the increasing demands of modern data infrastructures. The company aims to expand its product portfolio with features such as virtualization, TLS and NAT offloading, and enhancements for data-intensive applications in AI clusters and Neo clouds. In addition, strategic investments in sales and marketing are planned to strengthen the company’s presence in key markets across Europe and North America.
« Xelera is exceptionally well positioned to play a key role in the next generation of software-defined networks and cloud infrastructure, » comments Wolfgang Krause, Partner at Hi inov. « The company’s technology addresses one of the major bottlenecks in today’s data centres and delivers substantial efficiency gains to its customers, offering a real competitive edge in data- and latency-intensive sectors. We believe Xelera will play an important role in shaping the future of digital infrastructure and look forward to supporting the team on that journey. »
« Our mission is to make high performance computing accessible to every business in a way that is simple, scalable and efficient, » says Felix Winterstein, Co-founder and CEO of Xelera. « This funding empowers us to advance our SmartNIC solutions and expand globally, enabling more efficient, AI-ready data infrastructures. In turn, we are laying the technological foundation for a new generation of real-time applications across sectors such as telecom, fintech, and industrial automation.”