€500k · Other round · AI · Magdeburg, Germany
Magdeburg-based Be2Byte has raised €500k in its latest financing round for LabThunder, its software platform for laboratory equipment, operational knowledge and compliance. The IBG Funds, managed by bmp Ventures, invested. The company says the capital will support LabThunder's market launch, expansion across the DACH region and continued development of specialised modules.
The Be2Byte team behind LabThunder. Image: LabThunder / Be2Byte.
Equipment records become the knowledge layer
LabThunder is aimed at laboratories that still split equipment histories, maintenance records, operating procedures and staff know-how across paper logbooks and disconnected files. The platform combines digital equipment logs, maintenance planning and a searchable knowledge base. Its Thunder AI assistant answers questions from a laboratory's own manuals, log entries and methods, with source citations rather than generic responses.
The commercial mechanism is broader than replacing paper. A laboratory can begin with an urgent documentation problem, then add more equipment, maintenance workflows and institutional knowledge to the same system. Each additional record makes the platform more useful to technicians and managers while increasing the cost of moving that operational history elsewhere. That can make deployment sticky, but only if staff keep the underlying records current and trust the system during audits and troubleshooting.
The early evidence is company-reported but specific. At ISO 17025-accredited Zentrallabor Witowski, LabThunder says it reduced documentation work by more than 70%, replaced 107 paper logbooks and went live in ten weeks. The customer says the system improved traceability and knowledge retention without increasing workload. Those results come from one named deployment, so the next test is whether the workflow repeats across different laboratory types.
Pharma is a later, higher-bar market
Be2Byte says LabThunder is designed for analytical service, environmental, food-testing, clinical and academic laboratories. The company plans to use the financing to establish the product across the DACH region and expand its module ecosystem, with entry into regulated pharmaceutical laboratories planned for the end of 2027. That milestone is a plan, not current market presence.
Pharmaceutical expansion would test whether the same equipment-and-knowledge layer can fit stricter operating procedures without turning every sale into a custom software project. bmp Ventures describes customer-specific modules as part of the development roadmap. Reusable modules can widen the product's scope; too much bespoke work would weaken the scalability that makes a €500k round meaningful. The immediate evidence to watch is therefore repeatable rollout: how quickly LabThunder can move from one reference laboratory to several customers while preserving audit-ready records and the low implementation burden behind its first case study.
Sources checked:
bmp Ventures · LabThunder · Startup Mitteldeutschland · Tech.eu Funding Explorer
