This Startup Just Raised $11 Million to Fix the Spare Parts Industry

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-30

The spare parts industry is massive, but it's also stuck in the past. For decades, distributors, manufacturers, and recyclers have relied on clunky legacy software, endless spreadsheets, and manual reviews to make critical decisions about inventory and pricing. That's finally starting to change. Intropy, a London-based startup, just raised $11 million in Seed funding to build what it calls an AI-native operating system for the spare parts industry. The round was led by Felix Capital, with participation from Quiet Capital and early investors General Catalyst and firstminute capital. ### The Problem: Too Much Data, Too Little Action Here's the reality: when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of individual SKUs, figuring out how much stock to hold, where to put it, and when to change a price becomes a nightmare. Most companies still do this manually, which is slow, error-prone, and expensive. Franziska Kirschner, co-founder and CEO of Intropy, puts it bluntly: "The physical economy is sustained not only by what we build, but by our ability to keep it working. Spare parts make that possible, yet many of the industry's most important decisions still rely on fragmented systems and manual work." And the problem is getting worse. Tariffs, rising fuel and operating costs, uncertain repair volumes, and increasingly complex vehicles and machines are piling on the pressure. The information needed to make better decisions is scattered across ERP systems, warehouse platforms, spreadsheets, images, documents, and even phone conversations. ### The Solution: An AI That Actually Does the Work Intropy isn't just another dashboard that gives you recommendations and hopes you'll act on them. Instead, it connects directly to your existing ERP and operational systems, aggregates all that fragmented data, and then makes and executes decisions automatically. Think of it this way: instead of asking a human to review a spreadsheet and decide whether to order 500 more brake pads, Intropy's AI just does it. It dynamically adjusts inventory levels, tweaks pricing in real time, and manages obsolescence without waiting for a quarterly review. YihKai Teh, co-founder and CTO, explains the vision: "Every machine made from multiple components will eventually need spare parts, whether it is a car on the road today, an autonomous vehicle of tomorrow, or a robot supporting humanity on Mars. We're building the intelligence layer that understands the extraordinary complexity of spare parts: what fits, how it performs, and when it is needed." He adds, "The best user experience is when the user needs to do nothing at all." ### Early Results Are Impressive Since launching in 2024, Intropy says its technology has already processed over $10 billion in parts demand. Customers are seeing measurable improvements, including returns on investment of more than 10x. That's not just a nice-to-have; it's a game-changer for an industry where margins are often thin. ### What's Next for Intropy? With this fresh capital, the company plans to accelerate product development, expand its engineering and machine learning teams, and open a new office in New York as it grows its presence in the United States. It will also continue expanding across Europe. The spare parts industry has been overlooked by technology for far too long. With Intropy's AI-native approach, that's starting to change. For businesses that have been drowning in spreadsheets and manual work, this could be the breath of fresh air they've been waiting for.