HTGF Portfolio Company Neural Concept Closes $100M Funding Round Led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives to Scale AI-Native Engineering

• New capital accelerates Neural Concept’s ability to deliver transformative technologies and enterprise-wide AI impact across advanced industrial workflows.
• Platform delivers CAD-native, physics-aware AI and deep reasoning for engineering, saving customers $50 million annually, reducing late-stage redesigns by 30-50% and accelerating time to market by up to two years.
• The company has generated a fourfold increase in enterprise revenue over the past 18 months.
• More than 50 global companies are actively relying on the platform, including General Motors, General Electric Vernova, Leonardo Aerospace, Eaton, Safran, Renault Group and multiple Formula 1 teams.
• HTGF has supported Neural Concept from the seed stage as one of the first institutional investors, participating in every financing round and now significantly in Series C.

Neural Concept, a global AI platform and leader in Engineering Intelligence powering next-generation product development, today announced it raised a $100 million Series C funding round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with existing investors Forestay Capital, Alven, D.E. Shaw Ventures, Aster Capital and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), which has backed Neural Concept since its seed stage and invested in every round to date.

Neural Concept is redefining engineering workflows with CAD-native enterprise AI that understands geometry, constraints and design intent. By helping its customers build and deploy physics-aware design copilots, the platform enables teams to explore millions of design options earlier and avoid costly late-stage changes, accelerating the entire product development cycle, helping companies bring better products to market faster.

Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ investment underscores the surging demand for enterprise AI that drives real-world impact. As engineering teams move from AI experimentation to full-scale deployment, Neural Concept has emerged as the leader in AI-native engineering, combining cutting-edge technology with an enterprise-focused approach, fueling fast, sustained growth across major industries, including automotive, aerospace and defense, energy, semiconductors and consumer electronics.

 “Neural Concept’s technology represents a rare leap forward in enterprise engineering AI,” said Lambert Diacono, Executive Director Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. “As demand accelerates for AI that drives real impact in complex industrial workflows, Neural Concept is emerging as one of the leading companies in the market”, affirmed Christian Resch, Partner, Head of EMEA Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives.

The team will use the funding to accelerate product development, including unveiling a breakthrough generative CAD capability in early 2026, expand global GTM teams and strengthen its position as the intelligence layer across engineering systems, deepening partnerships with industry leaders such as Nvidia, Siemens, Ansys, Microsoft and AWS.

“We founded Neural Concept with the ambition to enable complete AI-driven design of advanced systems like tomorrow’s cars and spacecrafts,” said Dr. Pierre Baqué, CEO and founder of Neural Concept. “Advances in AI are transforming engineering from a process of trial and error into a data-driven workflow where tradeoffs and constraints can be understood and optimized from the start. This investment enables us to fast-track our progress toward establishing the intelligence layer powering every engineering team, worldwide.”

Neural Concept’s Series C marks the company’s latest funding milestone following its $27 million Series B in 2024.

Early Belief, Ongoing Support: HTGF’s Journey with Neural Concept

Together with Constantia New Business (CNB), HTGF became Neural Concept’s first institutional investor during the seed stage and has supported the company’s evolution from an EPFL spin-off to a global leader in AI-native engineering. With significant participation in the Series C round, HTGF reaffirms its long-term commitment to the founders and their team.

Gregor Haidl, Partner at HTGF, said: “Our investment approach is about backing visionary founders early and stay committed as they scale globally. Neural Concept embodies this perfectly: from seed to Series C, we’ve seen Dr. Pierre Baqué and his team redefine engineering workflows with Artificial Intelligence and deliver real enterprise impact. We look forward to continuing this journey together.”

“Neural Concept’s journey is a prime example of how deep tech and AI can transform entire industries,” said Romy Schnelle, Managing Director at HTGF. “We believed in the team from the very beginning and are proud to have supported them through every stage of growth. Gregor Haidl’s simulation background and product development expertise played a crucial role in recognizing the disruptive potential early. This successful Series C round highlights the strength of their product and the scalability of their business model.”

 

 

About Neural Concept
Founded in 2019, Neural Concept provides the leading AI-first engineering platform for product development. By embedding AI natively into design and simulation workflows, Neural Concept empowers engineering teams to compress development cycles from months to days, improve product performance across efficiency, safety, and sustainability, and scale AI adoption without costly, years-long integration. 

The company drives product development across major industries, including automotive, aerospace, energy, consumer electronics, semiconductors and defense, working with the world’s leading global OEMs and component suppliers. Neural Concept was spun out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and is backed by global investors, including Forestay Capital and D. E. Shaw Group. Visit https://www.neuralconcept.com

About Goldman Sachs Alternatives
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is one of the leading investors in alternatives globally, with over $500 billion in assets and more than 30 years of experience. The business invests in the full spectrum of alternatives including private equity, growth equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, sustainability, and hedge funds. Clients access these solutions through direct strategies, customized partnerships, and open-architecture programs.

The business is driven by a focus on partnership and shared success with its clients, seeking to deliver long-term investment performance drawing on its global network and deep expertise across industries and markets.

The alternative investments platform is part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which delivers investment and advisory services across public and private markets for the world’s leading institutions, financial advisors and individuals. Goldman Sachs has approximately $3.5 trillion in assets under supervision globally as of September 30, 2025.

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About HTGF – High-Tech Gründerfonds 
HTGF is one of the leading and most active early-stage investors in Germany and Europe, financing startups in the fields of Deep Tech, Industrial Tech, Climate Tech, Digital Tech, Life Sciences and Chemistry. With its experienced investment team, HTGF supports startups in all phases of their development into international market leaders. HTGF invests in the pre-seed and seed phase and can participate significantly in further financing rounds, since 2024 with the HTGF Opportunity growth fund. HTGF has a fund volume of over 2 billion euros. Since its inception in 2005, HTGF has financed around 800 startups and successfully sold shares in 200 companies.  

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capital and numerous companies are invested in the HTGF seed funds. Investors in the HTGF Opportunity growth fund include the ERP Special Fund and KfW with the resources of the Zukunftsfonds (“Future Fund”). Further information can be found at HTGF.de or on LinkedIn and on the Zukunftsfonds page.