Vehiculum files for insolvency

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

Six years after it was founded, Vehiculum has filed for insolvency. As announced by the Berlin Charlottenburg district court, the application was filed by founders Lukas Steinhilber and Melchior Bauer on September 27. Insolvency administrator Torsten Martini from the law firm Leonhardt Rattunde has now been appointed. So far, none of the 120 employees have been made redundant and their wages will be paid for three months from the insolvency benefits provided by the Federal Employment Agency.

The reason for the start-up's failure is supply bottlenecks from chip manufacturers due to the coronavirus pandemic. This led to delays in the production of cars, which also affected the start-up's leasing contracts. The start-up was unable to deliver and thus meet its obligations. An investor has also backed out. Most recently, there were rumors of a takeover of the start-up by the Mein Auto Group. According to the insolvency administrator, talks with potential investors could not be concluded, as reported by the online magazine Kfz-Betrieb.

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