Early Conviction Pays Off: OTIV Accelerates with €9M in New Fuel

At Pitchdrive, we’re driven to back founders who upend industries with bold, sustainable solutions, and our early conviction in OTIV has been a cornerstone of that mission.

As one of our first investments from Ghent, OTIV has been a shining star in our portfolio since day one. Today, we’re happy to celebrate their €9 million growth round, co-led by Miles Ahead with continued support from SHIFT Invest and Finindus, fueling OTIV’s vision to redefine rail as the backbone of green transport. This capital powers commercial expansions and cutting-edge innovations, paving the way for autonomous trains to replace truck-clogged roads with efficient, eco-friendly rail networks.

Our belief in OTIV’s co-founders, Sam De Smet and Niels Van Damme, has never wavered. They are weaving AI into the fabric of global logistics, tackling driver shortages and emissions with relentless ingenuity. In a world racing against climate deadlines and supply chain strains, OTIV’s transformation of rail into a 24/7 juggernaut proves our early investment was spot-on, and we love to see them charge forward.

From Ghent tracks to global traction

OTIV's backstory is the kind of startup saga that keeps us up at night, in a good way. Launched in 2020 amid the chaos of a world hitting pause, Sam and Niels spotted the rail sector's blind spot: a backbone of transport begging for brains. What kicked off as a bold pivot from traditional ops has exploded into Belgium's fastest-growing tech scale-up, crowned by Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 in 2025. No small feat in a field dominated by behemoths.

By now, OTIV's no fledgling freight hauler, it's a full-throttle force with boots (or wheels) on the ground across Europe and beyond. Their modular AI platform rolls out in three killer phases: driver-assistance systems to ease the load, remote-control wizardry for off-site oversight, and fully autonomous ops that let trains think for themselves. Tailored for heavy-hitters like industrial yards (think steel mills and chem plants), urban trams zipping through city veins, and mainline monsters hauling freight or folks. Partnerships? They're stacking them like cargo: Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, ArcelorMittal - these aren't pilot projects; they're production-line proofs of concept, automating complex chaos with zero drama.

And the green angle? OTIV's baked it in from the rails up. One train can ghost up to 50 trucks off the road, slashing CO₂ by a factor of nine. That's not fluff, it's fuel for hitting those hairy climate targets while dodging the driver drought that's gumming up global logistics. Automation here means round-the-clock reliability, razor-sharp safety, and a modal mega-shift from highways to high-speed rails. Cities breathe easier, industries hum louder, and the planet gets a breather. OTIV proves tech isn't the endpoint; it's the express lane to a low-emission tomorrow.

As Sam De Smet and Niels Van Damme, OTIV's dynamic duo, put it: “We are extremely grateful to the clients and partners who put their daily trust in our solutions. This funding marks an important milestone in our journey to make rail the backbone of sustainable transport. It allows us to accelerate our growth, expand internationally and further advance automation technologies that help our customers achieve their safety, efficiency and sustainability goals.”

Autonomous rail: hacking the transport headache

Rail's got grit, but it's groaning under old-school weights: aging fleets, manpower crunches, and emissions that no one's proud of. Most "smart" fixes? Band-aids on a bullet train - clunky, costly, and nowhere near scalable. OTIV flips the switch with AI that's equal parts brainy and brawny, teaching locomotives to sense, decide, and drive like pros who've logged a million miles.

Picture this: In a steelworks maze, remote ops keep things humming without a human in harm's way. Urban trams dodge delays with predictive smarts. Freight lines run freight trains on autopilot, slashing downtime and spiking throughput. It's not sci-fi; it's deployed today, unlocking 24/7 vibes that boost productivity and safety stats through the roof. By automating the backbone, OTIV isn't just moving metal, it's mobilizing a greener grid, one autonomous mile at a time.

Fueling the future of rail

This €9M round, co-led by Miles Ahead with continued support from SHIFT Invest and Finindus, is a powerful validation of OTIV’s mission to revolutionize rail through autonomy. The OTIV team’s ability to turn cutting-edge tech into real-world solutions has earned them a stellar reputation, with deployments already transforming key international rail markets for safer, greener, and more efficient operations.

OTIV’s accolades speak volumes: they clinched the 2022 European Start-up Prize for Mobility and have been propelled by an ecosystem of heavyweights including Finindus, SHIFT Invest, imec.istart, Pitchdrive, VLAIO, NVIDIA, and the EU’s EIT Urban Mobility program. From their Ghent roots to global freight frontiers, OTIV is showcasing Belgian innovation on a world stage, proving rail’s potential as the sustainable transport backbone.

Full steam ahead: deployments, autonomy, and beyond

This €9M round? It's rocket fuel straight to the tracks: ramping commercial drops in live ops, pushing the envelope on full autonomy, and expanding that international footprint. Expect deeper dives into urban and industrial plays, more collabs with rolling stock giants, and hires that blend rail know-how with AI edge. The roadmap's loaded; think even sharper sensing for snag-prone spots and seamless handoffs from human to machine.

For the founders, it's mission-critical momentum: Building on a foundation that's already winning with world-class operators, this round supercharges the shift to rail as transport's sustainable spine.

Why OTIV's tracks lead straight to our hearts

We accelerated OTIV from day one because Sam and Niels screamed Pitchdrive ethos: visionary operators zeroing in on a trillion-dollar transport tangle with relentless execution and eco-smarts. That early spark? It's now a blazing trail of deployments, awards, and impact that validates every accelerator ounce we poured in. Our portfolio isn't about checkboxes, it's about changemakers like these, rooted in Belgian hustle but racing global.

If you're in rail, logistics, or just rooting for a cooler planet, keep eyes on OTIV. They're not just raising rounds, they're raising rails to new heights. We're cheering from the sidelines (and the accelerator tracks) as they automate the future, one smart switch at a time.

Full speed ahead, OTIV. Can't wait to see you steamroll sustainability worldwide.