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Zeit AI

YC S24

Munich, DE · Founded 2024 · 12 employees · Hiring · 12 known investors

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Zeit AI builds an autonomous AI system that connects enterprise data sources, prepares data, and converts business questions into operational applications for operators and managers in European companies.

Also known as Cascada AI

AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSaaSArtificial IntelligenceB2BAnalyticsData EngineeringGermanyEuropePartly Remote

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (S24)

Zeit AI was founded in 2024 by Leopold von Waldthausen and Marvin Christopher Bornstein.

LVLeopold von Waldthausen
Leopold von WaldthausenCEOLeopold von Waldthausen studied computer science at Oxford, where he published research on process mining and cryptography. He spent 3.5 years at Palantir managing customer relations across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and previously founded and sold a business called weview.
MCMarvin Christopher Bornstein
Marvin Christopher BornsteinCTOMarvin Christopher Bornstein spent five years at Palantir in various roles serving customers across chemicals, railway infrastructure, media, utilities, insurance, and medical equipment sectors. He has over 18 years of software development experience with expertise in full-stack development, data engineering, and deep learning.
JB
Janos Brauer

Investors · 12

Eight Capitallisted by Eight CapitalNorwalk

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · eightcapital.com · Not right? Tell us

Transpose Platform Managementlisted by Transpose Platform ManagementSan Francisco

How we know: Transpose Platform Management's portfolio page · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

ACE & CompanyreportedGenevavia Sherif El Halwagy · inferred

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Acequia Capital (AceCap)reportedSeattle · $100K – $5M

How we know: a partner's Signal profile · Not right? Tell us

CervinreportedPalo Alto · $250K – $6M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Companion M Gmb Hreported$25K – $50K

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Feramreported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

General Advancereported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Oxford Seed FundreportedOxford · $19.1K – $127K

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Sequoia CapitalreportedMenlo Park · $100K – $50M

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

Stern Stewart Ventures Gmb H & Co. KGreported

How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us

The YC application· Summer 2024 batch

Alumni Q&A

How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)
The two founders started Zeit AI after four years together at Palantir, where they led forward-deployed teams for a major European public-sector client under time pressure, with Leopold on the strategic side and Marvin on the technical side. They observed that gaps in corporate data strategies were typically filled with Excel files whose knowledge could not be accessed at scale, which led them to build a system that converts Excel files into a structured database queryable in natural language.

Summarized from the founders' answers on their Y Combinator profile.

Images

Zeit AI photoZeit AI photo

Related companies · 6

Zeta GlobalZeta Global is a marketing technology company providing data- and AI-driven products for marketing, CRM, and media activation. It serves enterprise marketers with tools spanning customer data, media, and campaign activation.
SecodaSecoda is an AI-powered data management platform that consolidates data catalog, lineage, governance, monitoring, and observability functions for enterprises. It enables data teams and business stakeholders to access and act on insights from their organization's data infrastructure.
HoneydewHoneydew provides a semantic layer for enterprise data warehouses that unifies business logic and context across AI agents and business intelligence tools. The platform enables consistent data governance and querying for organizations using multiple BI and AI interfaces.
SanifuSanifu provides a platform for automating manual data handling tasks like cleaning, validation, reconciliation, and report consolidation across finance, operations, and marketing functions. The system captures and repeats defined workflows to move data from various sources into dashboards and other systems without requiring spreadsheets, scripts, or custom coding.
FivetranFivetran builds software that automatically moves and transforms data between cloud platforms and data warehouses, handling tasks like schema changes and data extraction so engineering teams can focus on analysis and insights.
MovingLakeMovingLake provides real-time API integrations that sync data between enterprise systems like ERPs, CRMs, and data warehouses, with support for event-driven architectures and minimal data drift.

Companies working in the same space as Zeit AI.

Legal entities · 1

corporate structure
Zeit AI, Inc.

In the news

YC-backed Zeit AI raises €4.3 million to build Europe’s “autonomous data engineer”eu-startups.com · Sep 2026📈💡Zeit AI: Insights from your tabular data with just a few wordsycombinator.com · Aug 2024

Frequently asked questions

What does Zeit AI do?
Zeit AI builds an autonomous AI system that connects enterprise data sources, prepares data, and converts business questions into operational applications for operators and managers in European companies.
Who founded Zeit AI?
Zeit AI was founded by Leopold von Waldthausen, Marvin Christopher Bornstein in 2024.
Who are Zeit AI's investors?
Zeit AI's investors include Y Combinator, Eight Capital, Transpose Platform Management, ACE & Company, Acequia Capital (AceCap), Cervin, Companion M Gmb H, Feram and 4 more.
Where is Zeit AI headquartered?
Zeit AI is headquartered in Munich, DE.