EU-Startups Podcast | Episode 148: Karim Saleh, Co-founder and CEO of Cerrion

Dec 11, 2025 - 21:00

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, we sit down with Karim Saleh, Co-founder and CEO of Cerrion. This Zurich-based company is building agentic AI that watches factory lines around the clock and intervenes in real time to prevent safety incidents, scrap, and costly downtime. By plugging into standard cameras and understanding production flows like an expert operator, Cerrion can slow conveyors, shut down machines, or trigger alarms the moment something goes wrong.

Factories using the technology resolve issues 50% faster, cut downtime and scrap in half, and run operations with far less stress. Behind the product is Karim’s remarkable journey, from growing up in a manufacturing family in Egypt to captaining the national water polo team, studying electrical engineering at ETH Zurich, and building AI across 15 countries and three continents. Founded in 2021, Cerrion has secured a total of $23 million in funding.

In our conversation, we dive into the factory-floor moment that sparked the mission, the structural challenges frontline teams face everywhere, how agentic AI can safely intervene during production, and real examples of Cerrion catching what humans could not see in time. Karim also shares what elite sport teaches you about hypergrowth, and much more!

Video version of episode 148:

Audio version of episode 148:

Key Takeaways:

Frontline teams are overwhelmed; AI reduces stress rather than jobs.
Agentic AI is shifting factories from firefighting to foresight.
Real-time AI intervention works when humans stay in the loop, not out of it.
Elite sports taught Karim, the founder superpower that discipline beats adrenaline.
The factory of the future is calm, predictable and safe, not chaotic.

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