Belgian automotive safety technology startup IVEX has raised €5 million in Series A funding to accelerate product development and expand into North America and Asia. The round was backed by existing investors The Faktory and Dedicated.lu, alongside several private investors. IVEX plans to use the capital to broaden its support for New Car Assessment Programme, or NCAP, protocols, strengthen its data-processing infrastructure, and introduce its technology to additional automotive markets.
Automating On-Road Safety Testing
Modern vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving technologies generate large volumes of camera, sensor, dashboard, and vehicle-performance data during safety testing. Engineers traditionally review much of this information manually, identifying road signs and driving conditions before comparing them with information displayed by the vehicle and evaluating whether its systems reacted correctly. As vehicle systems become more sophisticated, this process becomes increasingly difficult to scale without significantly increasing engineering resources.
Founded in 2018 as a spin-out from KU Leuven, IVEX has developed an AI-powered platform designed to automate the most labor-intensive parts of on-road automotive safety testing. Its technology combines computer vision, artificial intelligence, mathematical algorithms, and cloud-based processing to analyze a vehicle's surroundings, interpret information shown to drivers, and compare different data streams. The platform can then help engineers determine whether a vehicle correctly detected relevant road information and responded according to applicable safety-testing requirements.
Reducing Engineering Workloads
IVEX said its platform can reduce the engineering time required for driving-data analysis by more than 95% while maintaining human oversight of final safety assessments. In one deployment cited by the company, the technology processed approximately 400 hours of multi-sensor driving data while requiring eight hours of engineering input. Engineers remain responsible for reviewing the system's findings, enabling IVEX to automate repetitive analysis without removing expert judgment from the testing process.
CEO and co-founder Mario Torres said the company aims to make automotive safety analysis faster and more scalable while ensuring that results remain traceable to the underlying driving data. IVEX ultimately intends to develop what it describes as an operating system for automotive safety testing, with different testing protocols and vehicle functions running as applications on a common platform. Its underlying models are expected to improve as the company processes additional vehicles, road conditions, and driving environments.
Building on International Deployments
IVEX already supplies technology to Euro NCAP for use in official vehicle assessments and has participated in on-road testing campaigns across more than 20 countries. Its deployments have included markets in the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, and Japan, while its platform has processed more than 100,000 kilometers of driving data covering over 50 vehicle models. The company also holds six patents, including one in the United States, and has obtained ISO 27001 information-security certification.
Expanding into the United States and Asia
The new financing will support IVEX as it builds on its European operations and develops a stronger commercial presence in North America and Asia. The company plans to target regulators, automotive testing organizations, and vehicle manufacturers seeking to manage increasingly complex safety-testing requirements and larger datasets. IVEX will also expand the number of NCAP protocols supported by its platform while strengthening its infrastructure for processing data across additional countries, vehicle categories, and testing environments.
Strengthening Corporate Governance
Alongside the Series A financing, IVEX has expanded its board of directors with several technology and investment executives. The new members include former Siemens Industry Software NV CEO Jan Leuridan, Deloitte Director Omar Mohout, The Faktory Partner Simon Alexandre, and IVEX co-founder Quentin de Clercq, who currently leads AI strategy at ASML in the United States. They join Torres as IVEX prepares for the next stage of its international expansion and technology development.
IVEX's €5 million Series A comes as automotive manufacturers and safety organizations face growing volumes of data generated by increasingly advanced vehicle systems. By automating repetitive analysis while retaining human supervision, the company is positioning its platform as infrastructure for more scalable and traceable automotive safety testing. Its planned expansion into the United States and Asia will test whether the technology developed through its European deployments can gain wider adoption across major global automotive markets.