KONUX

KONUX is a German AI and industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) company headquartered in Munich, with a U.S. entity incorporated in the United States. It combines proprietary sensor hardware with machine-learning analytics to deliver software-as-a-service products for railway infrastructure managers, covering predictive maintenance, network usage and traffic monitoring, and maintenance planning. Its flagship product, KONUX Switch, continuously and autonomously monitors the condition of railway switches and crossings, including components such as the track bed and frog, and forecasts how asset condition will develop so operators can prevent failures and plan interventions.

The product portfolio also includes modular IoT and sensor components for rail and KONUX CoBrix, a modular, federated data and AI platform on which operators and technology partners can develop, integrate and scale rail infrastructure solutions while retaining control of their own data. Recent product functionality includes a dual-layer frog-health model that pairs real-time alerts with an AI-generated Reliability Score predicting failure risk up to four months ahead (trained on more than 4,500 assets and 1.4 million train traces), Asset Notes, which links on-site observations, inspection reports and technician feedback to IoT and AI insights in a unified digital asset record, and Population Correction Models, which normalise sensor readings for variables such as train speed, axle load, crossing angle and sleeper material to improve anomaly detection and reduce false alarms.

The company frames its market rationale around rail sector challenges: demand for rail expected to double by 2050, reliability shortfalls, and industry costs it cites at $170 billion in OPEX, $200 billion in CAPEX and $400 billion in delays, alongside aging infrastructure, disconnected data systems and duplicated innovation efforts across operators and suppliers.

Founding story

KONUX was founded in March 2014 by four Technical University of Munich students from different disciplines — Andreas Kunze (later Andreas Loy), Dennis Humhal, Vlad Lata and Maximilian Hasler — who had met at TUM and developed a system combining sensor data with AI-based analytics to increase the availability of industrial facilities through predictive maintenance. After surveying candidate industries such as energy generation and manufacturing, they concentrated on rail because railway networks worldwide are structurally similar, which made it feasible to design generic solutions and train AI models on asset condition; the first application targeted railway switches and crossings. Two of the founders participated in UnternehmerTUM's Manage and More programme and its business plan course, and UnternehmerTUM became one of KONUX's first investors.

Business model

KONUX sells software-as-a-service subscriptions built on its own AI core, pairing installed IIoT sensor devices on rail assets with cloud-based machine-learning analytics, so customers obtain monitoring and predictive insights without extensive on-premise hardware investment. The CoBrix platform extends the model toward an ecosystem play in which technology partners and operators co-create and scale solutions on shared infrastructure while retaining data control.

Recurring software-as-a-service revenue from railway infrastructure managers, including long-term framework agreements such as the cloud-based SaaS agreement concluded with Deutsche Bahn for switch digitalisation.

Traction

Deployments with Deutsche Bahn since 2015 on the high-speed network; ten international customers in Europe and Asia as of early 2020; more than 650 DB switches digitalised by mid-August 2021 under a long-term framework agreement, extended in 2023 to 3,500 additional assets on DB's busiest routes. Company-reported platform figures include 6,000 assets monitored and 500 million train traces recorded. Employee counts reported range from 71 to approximately 129, within a 51-200 band.

Latest developments

In October 2025 KONUX launched CoBrix, a data intelligence platform intended to let partners co-create rail infrastructure solutions, and in December 2025 announced a partnership with Rail Power Systems on predictive infrastructure maintenance. Product releases include AI-based frog-health Reliability Scores, Asset Notes for capturing field observations alongside sensor data, and Population Correction Models for context-aware anomaly detection. Leadership has changed repeatedly: co-founder Andreas Loy served as interim CEO in late 2023, and Shlomi Hagai was appointed CEO in October 2024, succeeding Andreas Koenig, with Johanna Leisch as COO. A February 2026 company release refers to a reinforced focus on customers and sustainable operations.