Magazino was founded in 2014 and has developed a mobile picking robot capable of intelligently navigating warehouses and precisely grabbing the right boxes. The system has been deployed in the warehouses of various industrial customers, online retailers, and logistics service providers, where it works alongside humans. The startup has also developed the software platform ACROS.AI (“Advanced Cooperative Robot Operating System, powered by A.I”) for intelligent robots, a modular software toolkit for developing and operating intelligent and cooperative robots in complex and dynamic environments. The software is also deployed on third-party hardware.
Investors in the TUM spinout included High-Tech Gründerfonds, Siemens, Zalando, Cellcom, Fiege Logistik, and Körber. Jungheinrich also invested in the startup in 2020, and increased its stake to 21.7 percent in 2022. Now they are acquiring the stakes of the remaining shareholders. The founders are also giving up their shares, with Frederik Brantner and Lukas Zanger remaining as CEO and COO respectively. The third founder, Nikolas Engelhard, left the company in 2020 and has since been working for Motius. Magazino is to continue growing as an independent company within Jungheinrich, leveraging in particular the group’s global sales and service network. The purchase price has been kept confidential.
Frederik Brantner, CEO and co-founder of Magazino, says:
“The demand for warehouse automation is growing steadily. By controlling robots in this complex environment, we have developed unique expertise that we want to continue expanding. We thank our previous investors for their confidence and many years of successful collaboration. They have supported us strategically and financially so far and played a significant role in further developing our business. Together with us, they have laid the foundation for the next chapter in Magazino’s success story. Together with Jungheinrich, we will continue to expand our technology leadership in intralogistics and also expand internationally.”
Magazino can “sustainably shape the future of intralogistics”
“We have been working closely with Magazino for several years, know each other well, and communicate at eye level. The chemistry is just right. Now we are taking the next logical step in our collaboration and fully acquiring Magazino,”
says Lars Brzoska, chairman of Jungheinrich’s board of management.
“Magazino is a successful company with very good management and top experts in the market. It has outstanding software expertise and has developed solutions that have the potential to sustainably shape the future of intralogistics. Within the group, we will leverage these competencies to jointly advance the development of innovative automation and robotics solutions.”
With Magazino’s 130 employees, Jungheinrich is acquiring one of Europe’s largest development teams in mobile robotics. This expands the company’s business with automated and autonomous vehicles. In the future, the Munich team’s software and development expertise is to be incorporated even more strongly into the Hamburg company’s product development.
