Newcomer rescues pioneer firma.de from insolvency
Amid Germany’s biggest wave of insolvencies in more than two decades, the market for digital company formation is seeing a notable takeover: Openlaw — the Munich-based legal-tech company founded in 2024 and the maker of Germany’s beglaubigt.de — is acquiring firma.de, the industry pioneer founded twelve years earlier, in 2012, out of insolvency. firma.de was among the pioneers of digital company formation in Germany and helped build the market over more than a decade. With more than 30,000 customers and over 1,000 connected notaries, Openlaw now becomes the market leader in fully digital company formation in Germany. The company expects to complete the organizational and technical integration within just two months. According to the ifo Institute, one in twelve companies in Germany currently fears for its survival.²
Experience wins the race
What tipped the scales was the founding team’s experience. Openlaw CEO Alexander Sporenberg was part of the founding team of Razor Group, which became Germany’s fastest unicorn in just 15 months and completed more than 300 transactions. That M&A muscle made the difference with firma.de: only 48 hours passed from the first tip-off to securing the deal. In a process involving several interested parties, Openlaw won on speed alone.
“This was a highly demanding sale process in every respect. Sporenberg and his team showed determination and the ability to execute in the shortest of time, and that is what made the difference,” says Joachim Kühne of CMS Hasche Sigle, the insolvency administrator for firma.de.
Economic renewal needs speed
For founders, the takeover is a leap forward. Openlaw set out to do away with the red tape of starting a company in Germany, where forming a GmbH still takes four to eight weeks — compared with just 18 minutes in Estonia. With firma.de’s notary network, built up over years, and its customer base, Openlaw skips one to two years of groundwork and can bring its fully digital route to company formation to far more founders, faster.
“At a time with more corporate insolvencies than at any point in over two decades, the speed of new company formations helps determine whether our economy can renew itself,” says Alexander Sporenberg, CEO of Openlaw. “Anyone who can start a company in days instead of weeks helps get the country moving again faster. We’re building the operating system for entrepreneurship — from incorporation to tax.”