Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Etienne Fieg, Co-Founder & CEO: The service business in mechanical engineering has the potential to become a revenue driver, and given the current economic situation, it absolutely must. Best-in-class companies generate nearly 50 percent of their revenue from service, which offers a much higher margin compared to new customer acquisition. Most mechanical engineering companies in Europe, however, are far from this level. But why?
Their service business is hardly scalable because the process and product knowledge – which quickly becomes enormous with complex machines – resides in the minds of experienced employees and is only very limitedly documented. These are precisely the employees who will be retiring in the coming years. Furthermore, this situation makes it difficult to automate service processes because there are no clear rules of engagement with which to feed conventional automation tools.
We have that AI operating system Developed for mechanical engineering service, Lytra empowers service teams. It extracts data from sources not originally intended for this purpose, analyzing its customers' service processes and automating individual service processes using AI agents. This saves time and money and generates more service revenue.
Standard AI reaches its limits in mechanical engineering
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Etienne Fieg: No, at least not when products become highly complex, as in the mechanical engineering industry. While many of the new AI tools and chatbots work excellently for simple service cases, they quickly reach their limits with scattered data, complex products, and highly individualized service processes.
Considering that the IT systems used in mechanical engineering do not necessarily have standardized interfaces, a Solution, which is tailored to the complexity and precise requirements of the industry and integrates seamlessly into existing system environments.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Etienne Fieg: During my mechanical engineering studies, I repeatedly experienced firsthand the various problems that arise from implicit expert knowledge, both at large players and medium-sized mechanical engineering companies.
Numerous in-depth expert interviews followed, which ultimately revealed the specific use case and the untapped potential to us. Coupled with the developments in artificial intelligence in recent years and supported by the EXIST start-up grant, this led to the creation of Lytra.
Data security as the key to the acceptance of AI
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Etienne Fieg: A major challenge is the understandable fear many companies have about what happens to their own data. While many companies desire greater efficiency, they are also so afraid of change that decision-making processes often take longer than necessary.
We address this with a very specific software architecture. The data remains with the company and is stored there as before. This way, our customers get both: maximum data security and control combined with the advantages of state-of-the-art, AI-centric IT systems.
Munich Startup: How are things going?
Etienne Fieg: Excellent! We have outstanding customers with whom we collaborate in partnership and continuously develop our solution (and there are more every month), investor funding that is accelerating our growth enormously, and our team is getting bigger and bigger: By Q2/2026, we aim to scale our team to ten FTEs.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Etienne Fieg: It is no coincidence that the Munich startup ecosystem, or UnternehmerTUM, was repeatedly named Europe's leading startup hub by the Financial Times in 2025.
Countless networks, initiatives, incubators, accelerators, and investors are based in Munich. This makes things significantly easier for startups, regardless of their stage of development. At the same time, the opportunities are so diverse that it's crucial not to lose focus on building an outstanding product that creates genuine added value for customers.
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Etienne Fieg: Both. Calculated entrepreneurial risk in Lytra's growth. And maximum security when it comes to our customers' data.
