Undisclosed · Series B · Software · Berlin, Germany
SPREAD, a Berlin-based engineering intelligence software company, has secured an undisclosed strategic investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, extending its Series B. Transaction counsel Hogan Lovells Cadwalader says the deal was the first investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures’ newly earmarked $100m allocation for the UK and Europe, and was announced during the Farnborough International Airshow.
Connecting engineering data before adding AI
SPREAD sells a software layer for manufacturers whose product data is split across requirements, design, production, quality and service systems. The company says its platform converts those records into a shared product model that engineers, machines and AI agents can query, helping teams trace how a design change affects components, software and downstream operations.
That matters most in complex, regulated products, where an AI answer is only useful if the underlying engineering context is complete and auditable. SPREAD’s commercial proposition is therefore not simply to generate new content. It is to make fragmented product knowledge usable across existing workflows, reducing the time engineers spend locating information and exposing dependencies before a change reaches production or field service.
The same architecture creates a demanding sales and delivery model. Connecting product-lifecycle data across different tools and business units requires access, integration work and trust from customers. SPREAD names manufacturers including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ford, Rheinmetall, Bosch, Audi, Daimler Truck and Stadler. Those references show the enterprise environments it is targeting, but expansion depends on making deployments repeatable across customers with different systems and security requirements.
A strategic investor can shorten the route into defence
Lockheed Martin Ventures describes its role as combining capital with access to engineering expertise, supply-chain relationships and routes into national-security programmes. For SPREAD, that strategic fit is unusually direct: defence and aerospace manufacturers manage long-lived, software-defined products where design traceability and controlled data access are operational requirements.
The investment does not by itself establish a commercial deployment with Lockheed Martin. It does, however, give SPREAD a partner familiar with the procurement, integration and assurance standards that shape defence technology adoption. If the company can translate that knowledge into a repeatable product configuration, it may expand from automotive and industrial machinery into defence without turning every rollout into a bespoke services project.
SPREAD says it was founded in Berlin in 2019, won Mercedes-Benz as its first customer, launched a scalable platform in 2023 and introduced multi-agent AI in 2024. The Series B extension adds a strategic investor after the company’s main 2026 Series B, supporting the next phase of a platform already positioned across automotive, industrial and defence engineering.
