The Quiet Startup Deutsche Bahn and Mercedes-Benz Both Trust

Jan de Vries · 2026-10-23

Milan-based Phononic Vibes just closed a €25 million round (roughly $27 million) to take its noise and vibration technology global. And if you've ever stood next to a highway barrier or a humming data center, you already know why investors are paying attention. ### What Phononic Vibes Actually Does The company designs noise and vibration products for rail, energy, industry, construction, and mobility. But here's the twist: it does the same job with far less material. Every noise barrier, enclosure, and silencer on the market has historically obeyed the mass law. Want more quiet? Add more mass. Phononic Vibes claims to break that rule by designing metamaterials, structures whose shape does the work that weight used to do. The result? Products that weigh up to 30% less while delivering the same acoustic performance, or perform better at the same weight. That's a big deal for anyone who's ever tried to spec a noise barrier onto a bridge or a rail line with tight load limits. ### Who's Backing It and Why The round was led by Jolt Capital, a Paris-based private equity firm focused on DeepTech growth companies, through its Jolt Capital V fund, which is targeting €1 billion and nearing final close. Eureka! Venture SGR, CDP Venture Capital SGR, and Simest SpA also joined in. The deal includes the acquisition of 360 Capital's stake, which it has held since the seed round. As Andrea Traversone, Managing Partner at Jolt Capital, put it: "Noise control is reaching a turning point. Conventional products have hit their physical limit, and infrastructure needs quieter assets with less weight and space." It's also Jolt Capital V's first investment in Italy, which Traversone calls "a country with an increasingly dynamic and vibrant deeptech ecosystem." ### The Customer List Does the Talking Founded in 2018 by Luca D'Alessandro, Giovanni Capellari, and Stefano Caverni as a spin-off of Politecnico di Milano, the company manufactures in Italy. And its client roster reads like a who's who of demanding European infrastructure players: - **Deutsche Bahn** certified its transparent noise barrier for the German rail network, the first see-through panel it rates as highly absorbing. - **Mercedes-Benz** uses the technology in series production, which the company says is the first metamaterial in a series-production car. - Contractors like **Webuild and Eteria** pick its barriers because they install faster. Revenue has doubled every year since 2018, and the company reached break-even in 2025. That's a rare thing to say about a hardware-heavy deeptech startup. ### The Engine Behind the Quiet At the core sits a proprietary design engine protected by 18 patent families. It turns the physics of metamaterials into certified products, drawing on application libraries that grow with every project. In plain terms, each new market starts from proven designs rather than a blank sheet. > "Weight has always been the price of quiet. We have shown it is a design choice." — Luca D'Alessandro, CEO and co-founder ### What Happens Next The fresh capital will go toward scaling that design engine internationally, pushing into new applications, and strengthening delivery capabilities. Targeted acquisitions are also on the table to extend the technology's reach and add industrial muscle. The company is eyeing data centers, rail, energy, and industry as its next frontiers. Given how much noise infrastructure generates, and how little appetite there is for heavier, costlier fixes, lighter noise control could become the default rather than the exception.