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Germany's Cevotec has new partner in GFM

03 Aug '21

3 min read

Pic: Cevotec

GFM has bought a 49 per cent stake in Cevotec from early financial investors who exit their investments after five years of supporting the company from the onset. GFM is a leader in high-tech industrial systems tailored to individual customer needs. Automation specialist Cevotec has one of the most advanced production systems for complex fibre composites.

Since its foundation in 1945, GFM is recognised as a global leader for high-tech industrial systems tailored to individual customer needs. Their lines of machinery include radial forging machines, milling machines for crankshafts, CNC routers, ultrasonic cutting technology, and automation equipment for composites. The investment in Cevotec broadens GFM’s activities in the field of composite processing and creates new technology and business opportunities.

“With GFM as partner, we are entering a new phase of development at Cevotec. GFM shares our vision to empower manufacturers to build complex composites in high volume and quality and supports us with more than 75 years of experience in high-tech machinery. We sincerely thank our business angels and our financial investors High-Tech Gründerfonds, Bayern Kapital and Founder.org for their great trust and support throughout the start-up phase of Cevotec,” Thorsten Groene, CEO and co-founder of Cevotec, said.

“Cevotec has developed a very impressive technology for automated composites processing and I’m looking forward to their future innovations. We welcome the team to our company group,” Michael Kralowetz, president and CEO of GFM, said.

“Both the versatility and scalability of Cevotec’s technology convinced us from the very beginning. We are convinced that with this recent growth step, Cevotec is ideally positioned for further successful development in the future,” said Dr. Georg Ried, managing director at Bayern Kapital.

“Producing high quality carbon fibre parts in a scalable way has a great future and we are glad that we could support the Cevotec team on their way. With GFM as a partner Cevotec can now grow faster and deliver its strong technology to a broad customer base,” Dr. Olaf Joeressen, senior investment manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds, said.

Concurrently to the investment, the management of Cevotec continues to adapt and grow. Felix Michl, co-founder and CTO, steps down from his active CTO position and continues to support Cevotec in an advisory role going forward.

“It was very exciting to build up Cevotec and bring FPP technology to industry over the last ten years. Having reached this important milestone with GFM, I’d like to focus on new challenges and also spend more time with my family,” Michl said.

From September, Dr. Florian Lenz joins Cevotec as technical director and brings more than 15 years of composite experience into the management. Graduated with a doctorate degree from the University of Dresden in the field of composites, he worked for 12 years at LZS, last in the role of deputy group manager engineering and as head of strategic business development and innovation.

“I’m looking forward to joining Cevotec, a company that I’ve been following for several years now. Together with the dedicated and strong technical team, we will push the state-of-the art in Fibre Patch Placement technology, contributing our part to the automation of industrial composite manufacturing,” Lenz said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (SV)