Exit for Bayern Kapital: Augsburg IT start-up qbilon becomes part of Paessler AG

Landshut/Augsburg — In the course of selling the entire company, Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH also sells its shares in the IT start-up qbilon. The Augs­­­burg-based company offers a plat­form for the auto­ma­tic capture, analy­sis and opti­miza­tion of hybrid IT land­scapes. The buyer is Nure­m­­berg-based Paess­ler AG, an expe­ri­en­ced specia­list in IT moni­to­ring. As one of the most expe­ri­en­ced tech inves­tors in Germany, Bayern Kapi­tal had inves­ted in qbilon toge­ther with other inves­tors only a year ago and has since supported the company in its growth.

qbilon GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 by four compu­ter science PhD students as part of an EXIST rese­arch trans­fer project at the Univer­sity of Augs­burg and will conti­nue to be head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg after the sale. With its moni­to­ring plat­form, qbilon enables the inte­gra­tion of a variety of data sources, inclu­ding cloud plat­forms such as AWS or Azure, IT moni­to­ring and manage­ment solu­ti­ons such as Paess­ler PRTG or Dyna­trace, and virtua­liza­tion tools such as vSphere. Custo­mers can also import gene­ric data such as CSV or JSON to easily inte­grate older infor­ma­tion. For compa­nies, this means full trans­pa­rency of their entire IT envi­ron­ment and more resi­li­ence in their IT opera­ti­ons, with the choice between cloud and on-premi­­ses solu­ti­ons. Hybrid IT land­scapes are captu­red auto­ma­ti­cally and live data allows indi­vi­dual data analy­sis for effi­ci­ent opti­miza­tion while mini­mi­zing fail­ure risks. qbilon’s custo­mers include major compa­nies in the auto­mo­tive, utili­ties and manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries, such as KTR Systems, among others.

“We provide compa­nies with compre­hen­sive know­ledge about their IT land­scapes — complete, auto­ma­tic and easy to under­stand, resul­ting in signi­fi­cantly less work, lower costs and increased secu­rity,” says Dr. Mela­nie Langer­meier, co-CEO and co-foun­­der of qbilon. “The decis­ion to join Paess­ler Group makes a lot of sense, as our IT visi­bi­lity tools and the network insights and intel­li­gence Paess­ler provi­des to its custo­mers are a great fit. We look forward to provi­ding our joint custo­mers with a compre­hen­sive know­ledge of their IT land­scapes to increase effi­ci­ency and save resour­ces.” Other foun­ders of qbilon are Dr. Simon Lohmül­ler, Dr. Thomas Dries­sen and Dr. Julian Kienberger.

500,000 users in 170 countries

Paess­ler AG was foun­ded in 1997 and offers IT moni­to­ring solu­ti­ons for compa­nies in all indus­tries — from small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses to large corpo­ra­ti­ons. Paess­ler products help users to opti­mize their IT, OT and IoT infra­struc­tures and ther­eby reduce their energy consump­tion and emis­si­ons. The main product is the Paess­ler PRTG moni­to­ring solu­tion, which is used by more than 500,000 users in around 170 count­ries world­wide. The company curr­ently employs 350 people from over 25 countries.

“Today marks an exci­ting mile­stone in our history and future,” says Helmut Binder, CEO of Paess­ler. “Our passion is to give our custo­mers the visi­bi­lity they need into their IT land­scape to opti­mize their resour­ces. qbilon is an excel­lent fit with our corpo­rate culture and our goals. Both compa­nies will bene­fit from mutual syner­gies in the areas of deve­lo­p­ment and tech­no­logy, sales and marke­ting, and opera­ti­ons. We will work closely toge­ther to expand our offe­rings to exis­ting and new custo­mers, and I am exci­ted about the oppor­tu­ni­ties that will arise from this colla­bo­ra­tion. I am very happy to welcome the qbilon team to the Paess­ler family.”

Bayern Kapi­tal parti­ci­pa­ted in 2022

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH had parti­ci­pa­ted in a seed finan­cing round for qbilon in June 2022. The funds came from the Bava­rian Capi­tal Inno­va­tion Fund (EFRE), which is also supported by EU funds. Other inves­tors were the Bava­rian family offices Vetos GmbH and DI Betei­li­gungs GmbH. “Alre­ady in the first talks, the team of qbilon had convin­ced us. The coope­ra­tion with the foun­ders and the private inves­tors was very posi­tive,” explains Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “The projects carried out and the custo­mers acqui­red were promi­sing. They have shown that there is a great need for IT moni­to­ring on the market. The merger with the Nure­m­­berg-based company Paess­ler will allow addi­tio­nal markets to be opened up and the successful path to be continued.”

About qbilon

qbilon was foun­ded in 2019 by four former PhD students of the Univer­sity of Augs­burg. During their work with large enter­pri­ses, they found that compa­nies struggle with buil­ding a meaningful data­base for criti­cal IT decis­i­ons. Based on their rese­arch findings, they deve­lo­ped an inno­va­tive approach to meet this chall­enge. qbilon’s soft­ware solu­tion finally brings light to orga­ni­cally grown, hybrid IT land­scapes. The auto­ma­tic coll­ec­tion and linking of exis­ting data enables IT decis­­ion-makers to stream­line and opti­mize their IT land­scape to end up with IT that perfectly fits their needs. In times when digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and expo­nen­tial IT growth are key issues in large compa­nies, qbilon wants to do its part to keep IT effi­ci­ent and mana­geable. Since IT staff are often over­worked, our soft­ware effec­tively reli­e­ves IT staff of tedious manual docu­men­ta­tion work — paving the way to an IT land­scape that is always up-to-date and consistent.
www.qbilon.io

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.
www.bayernkapital.de