Digiclean Raises Seed Funding to Cut Industrial Chemical Waste With AI
Industrial cleaning is one of those processes that almost nobody outside a factory floor thinks about, yet it consumes enormous volumes of chemicals, water, and energy every single day. Swedish startup Digiclean Solutions wants to change how that process is managed, and it has now closed a seed round worth roughly 2.5 million euros to do it.
The round was led by Almi Invest GreenTech and Unconventional Ventures, with additional participation from SEB's foundation for development, Impact Shakers, and Feminvest. Digiclean, based in the Gothenburg area of Sweden, was founded in 2024 by Charlotte Stigen Lastberg, who built the company after years working inside her family's chemical business.
Replacing Manual Sampling With Real‑Time Data
Most factories still manage cleaning baths and process fluids the old fashioned way, through manual sampling and fixed dosing schedules that rarely reflect what is actually happening inside the system at any given moment. That approach tends to lead to overuse of chemicals, unnecessary fluid changes, and a fair amount of guesswork around when a bath needs to be topped up or replaced entirely.
Digiclean's platform replaces that guesswork with continuous monitoring. The system combines IoT sensors, real time data analysis, and AI models that track the condition of cleaning baths as they are used, then automate chemical dosing so that factories add only what is actually needed rather than relying on a fixed schedule. The result is a shift from reactive maintenance toward a more predictive way of running cleaning operations.
The numbers behind that shift are notable. According to the company, customers using the platform have seen chemical use drop by as much as 60 percent, wastewater volumes fall by roughly 97 percent, and carbon emissions tied to cleaning processes decrease by around half. Cleaning fluid lifespan has also been extended dramatically in some deployments, cutting down on how often fluids need to be replaced entirely.
Built on Deep Industry Knowledge
What sets Digiclean apart from generic industrial monitoring tools is the depth of chemical domain expertise behind the product. The founding team combines hands on experience in the chemical industry with applied AI development, and the technology has already been validated with names like Volvo Group Trucks, SKF, and Parker Hannifin, alongside smaller manufacturing and precision component companies across Sweden.
The startup has filed two patents tied to its core sensor and dosing technology, and its current focus sits primarily in metalworking and automotive manufacturing, where process fluids play a direct role in production quality and equipment lifespan.
A Market Under Regulatory Pressure
Chemicals manufacturing is one of the largest industrial sectors in Europe, feeding into nearly every category of manufactured goods. At the same time, regulation is tightening. Frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the EU Taxonomy are pushing manufacturers to document and reduce their environmental footprint in far greater detail than before, and chemical usage is one of the clearer targets for that kind of scrutiny.
That regulatory backdrop is part of what makes Digiclean's pitch land with investors right now. Rather than asking factories to overhaul their existing equipment, the platform layers on top of current processes and turns chemical use into something measurable and optimizable, which lines up neatly with the kind of reporting manufacturers increasingly have to produce anyway.
Where the Funding Goes Next
With the new capital, Digiclean plans to accelerate commercialization, continue developing its sensor and software platform, and bring on more industrial partners across Europe. The company has already begun exploring adjacent applications beyond metalworking, including water treatment, defense related fluid systems, and clean in place processes used across food and beverage manufacturing.
Stigen Lastberg has described the company's mission as making one of the most overlooked parts of industrial operations measurable and intelligent, arguing that the chemical industry's old approach of selling higher volumes is no longer compatible with where manufacturing is headed. With fresh funding in place and a growing list of industrial partners, Digiclean is positioning itself as one of the more practical examples of AI delivering measurable sustainability gains rather than abstract promises.
