Nox Mobility raises €2 Million pre-seed round to reinvent Europe's night trains

Berlin, 22 April 2026 – Nox Mobility has raised €2 million in pre-seed funding to build a new generation of overnight rail with fully private rooms. The round is led by Berlin-based IBB Ventures, with backing from Italian investor Tommaso Lucca and industry experts, such as HomeToGo Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Patrick Andrae. The fresh capital will accelerate the startup's team growth, full-scale mock-up construction and preparations for its first routes, launching in 2027.

Night trains are having a cultural moment, but despite growing demand and recent record bookings on popular routes, the market has been shrinking for decades. Between 2001 and 2019, the total number of night trains in Europe declined from around 1,200 services per week to roughly 450.

Nox's Solution: Comfort and Privacy Meets Airline Precision

In contrast to traditional overnight rail, where passengers share compartments, Nox Mobility is building night trains that offer every passenger their own private space. The startup replaces short-haul flights and hotel stays with a single overnight journey at a comparable price. Trains depart from central stations in the evening and arrive the next morning at the destination's city centre, skipping airport transfers and security queues.

Operationally, Nox Mobility combines airline-grade reliability with a hospitality-first experience inspired by boutique hotels. For leisure travellers, the journey becomes a night's rest and skips the extra hotel stay altogether. Business travellers, who already make up 30 percent of night train users in France, avoid early morning departures to catch the first flight, overnight stays, and lost working time. With thoughtful design, personalised service onboard and consistent timetables, Nox Mobility makes overnight rail predictable, affordable and genuinely enjoyable.

“Berlin has created mobility companies that reshaped European travel. Nox has the team to do it again: financial backing, operational credibility and a community that's already waiting. The infrastructure exists. What's missing is a product people actually want to sleep in,”

says Roman Pimonov, Senior Investment Manager at IBB Ventures.

“As the leader of a fellow Berlin-based travel tech company, I believe strongly in European rail as a more sustainable travel option. This is why we prioritize trains over planes for all business travel at HomeToGo. Nox is taking this vision forward by delivering sustainability without compromising hospitality or comfort — a combination that remains rare in European mobility,”

says Dr. Patrick Andrae, CEO & Co-Founder of HomeToGo.

The Founders Reimagining Leisure and Business Travel

Nox Mobility was founded in 2025 by entrepreneurs and operators with experience in rail, mobility platforms and technology startups.

Thibault Constant built one of Europe's largest railway media communities with Simply Railway (600k+ subscribers). Janek Smalla brings operational expertise from FlixTrain and Bolt, having scaled new mobility models across Europe's most regulated transport markets. Artur Hasselbach previously co-founded payment fintech orderbird, which was acquired by Nexi for €140+ million, and is a renowned mobility expert with a background in venture capital.

“Night trains are one of Europe's last big untapped mobility opportunities. The infrastructure already exists and the market is waiting. Raising this round shows that investors believe in our approach to create a loveable product with a business model that works,”

says the Nox founding team.

“It's a great sign that recently many new promising rail operators start or expand across Europe. However, we do not want to be just another rail company. We plan to totally reshape the way people perceive night trains by making it a true hospitality-first offering,”

says the Nox founding team.

“More than six hundred thousand people follow Simply Railway because they believe in the potential of night trains. They tell me every week what's broken: the shared compartments, the delays, the prices. Nox Mobility is the result of years of riding night trains, discussing with customers and seeing what works and what doesn't,”

says Thibault Constant, Co-Founder of Nox Mobility.