
EU-Startups Podcast Episode 148: Karim Saleh: Co-Founder & CEO of Cerrion – Real-Time AI for Manufacturers
Dec 11, 2025
28:43
Most people talk about AI in the cloud. Karim Saleh is putting it on the factory floor.
This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Karim Saleh — Co-Founder & CEO of Cerrion, the company building agentic AI that watches factory lines 24/7 and intervenes in real time to prevent safety incidents, scrap, and costly downtime.
Cerrion plugs into standard cameras, understands production flows like an expert operator, and can instantly take action — slowing conveyors, shutting down machines, or triggering alarms. Factories using Cerrion resolve issues 50% faster, cut downtime and scrap in half, and run operations with far less stress.
Karim’s journey is unreal:
→ Grew up in a manufacturing family in Egypt
→ Professional athlete & captain of Egypt’s national water polo team
→ Electrical engineering at ETH Zurich
→ Founder building AI across 15 countries and 3 continents
→ Just raised an $18M Series A from Creandum, Hanel, YC, 10x Founders, Robin Chan, Justin Kan, Harry Stebbings and others
We cover:
• The moment on a factory floor that shaped the mission behind Cerrion
• Why frontline teams everywhere face the same structural problems
• How agentic AI can safely intervene during production
• Real stories where Cerrion caught what humans couldn’t see in time
• The surprising similarity between factories in 15 different countries
• What elite sport teaches you about building a hypergrowth startup
• What the factory of the future feels like for a shift leader in 2030
• And the “one myth about factories” Karim wants the world to forget
This is one of the most grounded, mission-driven, high-clarity deep-tech conversations we’ve had.
Takeaways:
1. Frontline teams are overwhelmed; AI reduces stress, not jobs.
2. Agentic AI is shifting factories from firefighting to foresight.
3. Real-time AI intervention works when humans stay in the loop, not out of it.
4. Elite sports taught Karim the founder superpower: discipline beats adrenaline.
5. The factory of the future is calm, predictable, and safe — not chaotic.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction: Karim’s story & Cerrion’s mission
02:13 – Growing up in manufacturing & seeing frontline pain
06:59 – What’s broken in factories today
10:39 – How Cerrion’s AI agents work in real time
12:34 – Human–AI partnership on the shop floor
15:40 – Success stories from 15 countries
18:22 – Athlete mindset → founder mindset
21:29 – Hypergrowth: what broke first
24:50 – The factory of the future
26:42 – Rapid Fire with Karim Saleh
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