Vehiculum files for insolvency

On Monday, the founders filed for insolvency, now an insolvency administrator is taking care of it. The reasons for the end are delivery bottlenecks and an investor who backed out.

Six years after its founding, Vehiculum has filed for insolvency. As the district court of Berlin Charlottenburg announced, the application was filed by the founders Lukas Steinhilber and Melchior Bauer on September 27. Now the insolvency administrator Torsten Martini of the law firm Leonhardt Rattunde has been appointed. So far, none of the 120 employees has been dismissed, and wages will be paid for three months from the insolvency money of the Federal Employment Agency.

The reason for the failure of the start-up is supply bottlenecks of chip manufacturers due to the Corona pandemic. These have led to the delayed production of cars, which has also affected the leasing contracts of the start-up. The start-up could not deliver and thus meet its obligations. Also, an investor bailed out. Most recently, there were rumors of the start-up being acquired by Mein Auto Group. According to the insolvency administrator, talks with potential investors could not be completed, as reported by the online magazine Kfz-Betrieb.

Martini wants to try to resume talks and find investors under new conditions. The start-up, founded in 2015, has been traded in the automotive industry as a great hope of the leasing business. Vehiculum operates a platform for brokering leasing contracts and wanted to digitize the process around leasing. The managing directors will remain with the start-up, but are not allowed to comment during the proceedings.