London, 22 October 2026 — EBM Newsdesk Analysis — By Katie Winearls
Nvidia is putting money into German industry. Chief executive Jensen Huang has announced plans to invest in four German startups: Agile Robots, Avelios Medical, Mirelo and Reflex Aerospace. They are part of a near-$10bn European commitment to companies, universities and research institutions. Nvidia has not disclosed how much it will invest in each.
The announcement came at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin. There, Chancellor Friedrich Merz and two federal ministries signed a joint declaration of intent with Nvidia covering “physical AI”, meaning AI that runs robots, vehicles and industrial machinery.
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The four companies cover robotics, healthcare, audio and space.
Agile Robots, based in Munich, builds AI-powered robots, from industrial arms to a humanoid called Agile ONE. It was spun out of the German Aerospace Center in 2018 and became a unicorn in 2021 after a $220m round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
Avelios Medical, also from Munich, makes an AI-native hospital information system, the software that runs clinical and administrative records. It raised a €30m Series A led by Sequoia in 2025.
Mirelo, founded in 2023, builds AI models that generate sound effects, speech and music to match video. It raised a $41m seed round last December, led by Index Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.
Reflex Aerospace, from Berlin, designs satellites that can be ready to launch in about 12 months rather than years. With Germany’s defence ministry planning around €35bn for space projects through 2030, that is a timely bet.
Why Germany, and Why Now
The four German deals complete a 13-company round across Europe, following four startups in France and five in Britain earlier this month, according to Tech Funding News. Nvidia already backs German names including Black Forest Labs, n8n and Neura Robotics, and has supported European AI efforts such as Le Chonk and Kolibri.
The logic is clear. Huang told the Berlin audience that Germany’s manufacturing expertise sets it apart and that AI will amplify it. Physical AI needs factories, machinery and industrial data, and Germany has all three. Merz said he was “really optimistic” that Germany could lead in AI adoption across manufacturers, machinery makers and automotive suppliers, according to The Next Web.
There is a gap to close. Only about 47% of German medium-sized companies use AI, compared with 67% of large ones. The Mittelstand, the family-owned engineering firms that form the backbone of the economy, is where adoption has to happen.
Nvidia’s Bigger Game
For Nvidia, this is about more than venture returns. It is investing across the AI stack, from its $12.9bn Hugging Face deal to a historic $150bn buyback. Every startup it backs is likely to become a long-term buyer of its chips. Supporting governments’ AI ambitions also makes Nvidia hard to displace as political scrutiny grows.
The timing is notable. Chip stocks have been under pressure, with AI’s reality check pushing Nvidia lower as oil and interest rates rise. Spreading investment across Europe’s industrial economies is a way to build demand that does not depend on Silicon Valley’s spending cycle.
My Read
This is good news for German tech, and a clever move by Nvidia. Europe has struggled to compete with America on chatbots and large language models. Physical AI, which brings intelligence to machines, factories and hospitals, plays to Europe’s strengths. If Germany can turn its industrial base into an AI advantage, it has a real chance to lead rather than follow. Startups like these are part of Europe’s fastest-growing companies for a reason. The test is whether the Mittelstand adopts the technology quickly enough. Nvidia’s money will help, but Germany’s family firms have to make the leap themselves.
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