European startup Futurail has closed a €7.5 million funding round to advance the development and certification of its autonomy stack for self-driving trains, marking a key milestone in the digital transformation of rail mobility. The round was co-led by Asterion Ventures (Paris) and Leap435 (Munich), joined by EIT Urban Mobility and US investors Zero Infinity Partners and Heroic Ventures
Founded in 2023, Futurail operates between Strasbourg and Munich, bringing together veterans from Tesla, Argo AI, and Edge Case Research - the same engineering talent that helped pioneer autonomous driving in the automotive industry. The company's mission is to apply this expertise to rail, making trains not only safer and more efficient, but also more attractive as the backbone of low-carbon transportation.
"While leading the Autopilot team at Tesla, I saw how autonomy can completely transform an industry," says Alex Haag, CEO and co-founder of Futurail. "We founded Futurail to bring that same potential to rail - turning a 200-year-old system into a core enabler of sustainable mobility."
At the heart of Futurail's innovation is FUTURAILDriver, an AI-based autonomy stack that can be integrated into new rolling stock or retrofitted to existing fleets. The system combines perception, decision-making, and control layers, allowing trains to detect and respond to obstacles, signals, and other operational events in real time.
FUTURAILDriver is being developed to meet European safety and certification standards, with the company targeting Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6-7 and initial certification for autonomous depot operations - a key early use case that enables safe, repeatable manoeuvres without human intervention.
Beyond depots, the system is designed to support higher levels of automation on mainline and regional networks. Futurail's goal is to tackle one of the sector's most pressing challenges: the shortage of qualified train drivers. Automating core operational functions can allow operators to run more services at lower cost, reopen unprofitable secondary lines, and increase network capacity without major infrastructure changes.
"Autonomy unlocks both growth and efficiency," explains Maximilian Schöffer, CCO and co-founder. "Operators can run more trains, more often, at lower cost - that's a game-changer for the entire industry."
Futurail has already established partnerships with major industrial players. In Europe, it is collaborating with Lohr Group, known for its advanced transport systems, and in the US with Parallel Systems, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers developing automated, battery-electric freight vehicles.
These alliances give Futurail a foothold across both passenger and freight markets, two domains poised to benefit from increased automation. At scale, the company estimates its systems could shift millions of passengers and tonnes of freight from road to rail, avoiding more than 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
According to Dr Patrick Dendorfer, CTO and co-founder, "This isn't a research project - it's about delivering a certified, safe system that can redefine how people and goods move. We're building real technology for deployment, not experimentation."
Investors view Futurail as a key player in the emerging autonomous rail ecosystem, with the potential to position Europe at the forefront of smart, sustainable transport.
"Just as electric traction replaced steam, autonomy is the transformative technology of this century for rail," says Dr Matthias Kempf, founding partner at Leap435. "Futurail is delivering that leap and ensuring Europe's industry stays ahead."
With its new capital, Futurail will expand its engineering and operations teams, advance pilot projects with major OEMs and operators, and push toward regulatory approval and commercial trials.
By blending AI-driven autonomy with the reliability of rail, Futurail is not only addressing a structural labour challenge but also paving the way for a new era of efficient, connected, and climate-friendly transport.