Technology start-up Cevotec acquires strategic partner

The Austrian mechanical engineering company GFM acquires a 49% stake in the start-up from Unterhaching. There is also a change in management.

Cevotec has secured a strategic partner. GFM from Steyr, a provider of high-tech industrial systems, has acquired a 49 percent stake in the technology start-up. The purchase price has not been disclosed. The previous business angels and investors, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Bayern Kapital and Founder.org, are selling their shares. "With GFM as a new partner, Cevotec is entering a new phase in the company's development," says Thorsten Gröne, Managing Director and co-founder of Cevotec. "GFM shares our vision of enabling manufacturers to produce complex fiber composites in high volumes and quality." GFM manufactures radial forging machines and milling machines for crankshafts, among other things.

Cevotec is a manufacturer of fiber composite production systems. The systems can combine different materials in one product, and the technology is particularly in demand in the aviation and medical technology sectors. "Cevotec has developed a very impressive technology for the automated processing of composite materials and I look forward to their future innovations," says Michael Kralowetz, Chairman and Managing Director of GFM, explaining his investment.

Felix Michl, co-founder and former CTO of Cevotec, is stepping down from management and will support the start-up in an advisory capacity. "Now that we have reached this important milestone with GFM, I would like to focus on new challenges and spend more time with my family," says Michl. Florian Lenz will become Technical Director at Cevotec from September. Most recently, he was Head of Strategic Business Development and Innovation at Leichtbau-Zentrum Sachsen, a company for component development based in Dresden.