one.five raises €14M to speed up AI-led packaging product development
Hamburg-based one.five has closed a €14 million Series A to expand its proprietary AI platform and data foundation for packaging. The goal: help teams across the packaging value chain ship products that meet real brand requirements, pass regulatory hurdles, and hit cost targets-without wasting cycles.
What's new
The round is led by Dr. Hans Riegel Holding, joined by 212 NexT, Symbia VC, Btomorrow Ventures, KIMPA Impact, and Zubi Capital. Existing backers-Speedinvest, Planet A, Green Generation Fund, Climentum Capital, Revent, and WEPA Ventures-also participated.
Funding will scale one.five's AI co-pilot and its first platform product, the Product Market Fit Compass, built for paper, coating, and packaging manufacturers.
Why product teams should care
one.five's platform turns success-critical factors-technical performance, regulatory compliance, costs, and consumer acceptance at the shelf-into precise, data-backed requirement profiles. That means fewer failed builds and faster brand alignment.
"Too many packaging products fail before they even reach the market," says co-founder Martin Weber. Co-founder Claire Hae-Min Gusko adds that early pilots with paper manufacturers show faster brand engagement, fewer dead ends, and shorter time-to-market, with an expected ~5x ROI in year one.
Context: packaging regulation is tightening, especially in the EU. If your specs don't reflect it upfront, you'll pay for it later. See the European Commission's overview of packaging rules for reference: Packaging and Packaging Waste.
How the platform works
- Product Market Fit Compass: Evaluate portfolios against live brand requirements. Identify which products have the highest chance of market success and set clear development targets (e.g., barrier properties, sealability, recyclability, cost range).
- Requirement profiles: Translate regulatory, technical, and commercial constraints into measurable acceptance criteria that engineering can build against.
- AI co-pilot: Guide teams through concept validation, risk reduction, and go/no-go decisions with data instead of opinion.
Investor view: "Material technologies only matter if they go beyond the lab and have impact across multiple industries," says Caglar Urcan, General Partner at 212 NexT. The bet here is that a platform approach ties innovation to outcomes brands will actually buy.
Product lineup and early traction
- Bluemorph: Recyclable high-barrier solution for demanding freshness and protection needs.
- Glassleaf: Transparent, recyclable packaging made from bio-based materials.
- Hazelsun: Heat-sealable paper made from agricultural waste.
Customers include BioSun, Starkraft (a business division of Zellstoff Pöls AG, Austria), and Grünperga Papier (Germany).
Founders and mission
one.five was founded by Martin Weber (ex-CFO) and Claire Hae-Min Gusko (ex-Head of Business Strategy) from Infarm. Their focus is compressing time-to-market across the packaging supply chain with AI-driven product decisions.
What's next
- Expand the platform and generate more proprietary data through experiments and commercial material deployment.
- Reach new customer segments and launch specialized platform products for brand owners in H2 2026.
Practical steps for product leaders
- Codify acceptance criteria upfront: barrier targets (OTR/MVTR), seal strength, machinability, recyclability class, compliance flags, unit economics.
- Gate development on measurable signals: validated brand requirements, regulatory checks, consumer shelf tests, and cost-to-serve thresholds.
- Run small, time-boxed pilots with suppliers using data-backed requirement profiles; kill fast when criteria aren't met.
- Track three core metrics: time-to-first brand validation, % of failed builds avoided, and cost per validated iteration.
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