A €6bn Mid-market Company Software Market - Why We Invested in amberSearch

Unlocking Enterprise Knowledge with AI

By Nicolas Barthalon, Principal at Ventech

What is amberSearch?

Founded in 2021 in Germany, amberSearch helps its users find and interact with company data with the easiest possible way.

In an era where information overload and data silos slow down businesses, amberSearch enables companies to unlock and operationalize their data—boosting productivity, streamlining workflows, and future-proofing company knowledge. That’s why we’re proud to back amberSearch in its €2.1 million seed round as lead investor.

The Problem: A Workplace Knowledge Black Hole in the SMEs

Companies generate massive amounts of structured and unstructured data but retrieving the right information at the right time remains a nightmare. Employees waste countless hours searching through scattered files, project management tools, and cloud storage systems—resulting in lost productivity and inefficiency.

Adding to this challenge is the aging workforce. As experienced employees retire, their expertise disappears with them, leaving companies with a significant knowledge gap.

While enterprise search tools exist, they are either too fragmented, too complex, or lack AI-driven intelligence to truly transform how teams interact with company knowledge.

amberSearch is changing that paradigm.

The Solution and How amberSearch Stands Out from Existing Players

amberSearch is not just another enterprise search tool.

- It allows employees to instantly retrieve relevant documents, customer information, and insights based upon their modern AI-stack.

- It connects with file servers, cloud platforms, CRM, DMS, intranet, and internal databases, indexing all data while maintaining access rights. This way amberSearch brings AI to tools that do not natively have AI in them

- The system understands user intent, proactively surfacing the most relevant information at the right time.

⚙️Beyond just retrieving data, amberSearch is evolving into a fully automated AI assistant—learning from workflows and automating repetitive knowledge-based processes.

How is amberSearch different?

The AI-powered search and automation landscape is becoming increasingly crowded.

However, amberSearch takes a fundamentally different approach and differentiates itself from other ventures in the fast-growing Large Language Models (LLM)-powered assistant market by:

1. Target Audience: Mid-Market Focus vs. Enterprise Customization

Most AI startups entering the search and automation space are built for large enterprises. This means their solutions typically require extensive customization & long implementation times.

amberSearch, on the other hand, is designed for mid-sized businesses—particularly industrial and manufacturing companies—where AI adoption has been hampered by too few IT resources having to manage too many data silos.

Instead of offering a highly customized product that requires manual setup, amberSearch provides a plug-and-play solution.

2. Search vs. Automation: A Different Approach to AI in the Workplace

This difference is key: amberSearch ensures that AI-driven automation is built on a reliable, well-structured knowledge base, rather than applying automation to an already chaotic system.

Many existing AI agent companies focus on automating known processes. They assume companies already have structured workflows in place and seek to optimize those through AI-powered automation.

While amberSearch helps companies to uncover undocumented processes. Many mid-sized companies operate with fragmented knowledge across file servers, CRMs, ERPs, intranets, and other disconnected platforms. Instead of automating known workflows, amberSearch helps companies first structure, index, and retrieve valuable knowledge—creating a foundation for automation after knowledge is centralized.

3. Implementation: Plug-and-Play vs. Custom Integration

✅ Short implementation cycles (weeks, not months)

✅ Pre-built integrations with key business software

✅ A plug-and-play approach that enables instant usability across teams, without the need for deep technical expertise

4. Data Security & Privacy: A Key Differentiator

🔹 Many enterprise AI solutions rely on US-based LLMs (like OpenAI’s GPT models), which raises concerns about data privacy and compliance—especially for companies handling sensitive information.

🔹 amberSearch ensures full EU data sovereignty, meaning:

✅ All AI operations remain within secure, localized infrastructure,

✅ Company-specific access rights are maintained, preventing unauthorized data exposure,

✅ Open-source LLM preference gives businesses more control over their AI models.

Why Now? Both the Market and the Timing are Perfect

The need for AI-powered enterprise search & knowledge automation is more urgent than ever.

Market sizing

Top-down: Intranet Software Market size was valued at USD 18.78 Billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 49.19 Billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 14.11% during the forecast period 2024-2031. It can be estimated that mid-market companies account for roughly 40% of that market due to their share in economic output and in employment.

Bottom-up: 50.000+ German mid-market companies with 50 to 1000 employees

Market Trends:

●      The rise of LLMs & RAG now makes context-aware, company-wide search a reality—something that wasn’t technically feasible just a few years ago.

●      Proliferation of highly standardised & verticalized apps for SMBs (“consumerisation of IT”) create data silos that are not interconnected, creating an opportunity for a meta/software-agnostic search engine for companies

●      Mid-market companies generate more and more data which is spread across data silos

●      Employee onboarding and knowledge accessibility are key for companies facing either labour shortages, high employee turnover caused knowledge drain or difficulties to hire. Plus an aging workforce means business-critical knowledge needs to be digitized and made accessible to new employees.

●      Reluctance of medium-sized companies to let critical company information on foreign/non-EU infrastructure – afraid their data will be used to train closed-source LLMs

Why Ventech?

amberSearch is the go-to enterprise AI search solution in Germany’s SME sector, but its vision extends far beyond.

- Scaling beyond Germany: Ventech is helping amberSearch expand its GTM playbook across Europe, leveraging our deep network in AI, SaaS, and industrial sectors.

- Bringing in strategic advisors: Through Ventech, amberSearch welcomes Kristen Habacht, an experienced AI/SaaS leader based in the US, to its board, bringing invaluable go-to-market expertise.

- Building a product-led growth engine: As a product-first company, amberSearch benefits from our experience scaling B2B SaaS businesses, with successful cases like Prewave, 7learnings, Insided, Jumio (4Stop), Botify, Crossbeam (Reveal), and many more.

The Road Ahead

Initial product usage (2/3 of weekly active users) & short upselling cycles (from 50 to 200+ users per customer in less than a year) highlight the must-have nature of amberSearch’s product as well as its robustness.

At Ventech, we invest in category-defining startups—and amberSearch is leading the way in AI-driven enterprise search & workflow automation.

We couldn’t be more excited to support Philipp, Bastian, Igli and the entire amberSearch team in scaling this game-changing technology.

If you’re a founder tackling vertical AI topics, let’s talk: https://form.typeform.com/to/Qbrmu4mh?typeform-source=ventech.typeform.com