Mafer AI Secures $2.1M for AI OS in R&D Formulation

Jan de Vries · 2026-05-29

Barcelona-based startup Mafer AI has raised $2.1 million in pre-Seed funding to build an AI operating system for R&D teams in formulation industries. The round was led by Kfund, 4Founders Capital, Masia, and Lavanda Ventures (the investment arm of the Puig family). A roster of prominent business angels also joined, including Adrián Mato (Andreessen Horowitz scout and GitHub Copilot executive), Manuel Roca (founder of Atrápalo and investor in Wikiloc), Dídac Lee, Fernando Castiñeiras (managing partner at Athos Capital), and Juanjo Mostazo. Investors from cosmetics and fragrance sectors, along with professionals from MIT, Google, Samaipata, Bain, BCG, Shakers, and Happy Robot, also contributed. ### The Problem: Decades of Hidden R&D Data Fernando Oliver Jané, CEO and co-founder of Mafer AI, explains: "Formulation industries have spent decades accumulating a silent asset, their technical R&D history, without having any way to exploit it at scale. The current generation of AI changes that equation completely." He adds: "Today, using the data of a single customer, we can train proprietary models that radically accelerate the pace at which that company brings formulas to market." These industries—spanning specialty chemicals, food, beverages, cosmetics, personal care, and fragrances—have amassed immense technical know-how. Yet this knowledge sits locked in lab instruments, spreadsheets, regulatory PDFs, and the minds of senior experts. The result? Innovation cycles run five to ten times slower than market demands, causing delayed launches and shrinking margins.  ### MaferOS: A Full-Stack AI Platform Founded in late 2025 by Oliver Jané and CTO Marc Montalbo Burges, Mafer AI developed MaferOS. It's an AI-native operating system that trains proprietary models on each company's historical data while keeping everything secure and isolated. The platform is built with specialized modules that automate technical decisions—from lab analysis and data structuring to regulatory compliance and formula recommendation. Think of it as a central brain that finally connects all those fragmented workflows. ### Why This Matters Right Now Oliver Jané emphasizes urgency: "We are building a new category from Europe, during a window that will remain open for the next three years, and that we believe will not reopen again. With $2.1 million, an extraordinary team and the support of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre behind us, we intend to build it ourselves." When senior experts retire, companies can lose up to two years of institutional knowledge. Meanwhile, reformulating a product still requires manually recalculating regulatory compliance across dozens of jurisdictions. MaferOS aims to change that by embedding Forward Deployed Engineers directly within client organizations to bring products into production within weeks. ### The Bigger Picture Mafer AI isn't just applying AI to chemistry—it's bringing the full-stack enterprise software model that's reshaping other industries to formulation sectors. This means proprietary models trained per customer, AI agents working on structured data layers, and real-world deployment support. For R&D teams drowning in legacy systems and data silos, this could be a game-changer. The question isn't whether AI will transform these industries—it's who will build the tools to unlock that potential.