innoGPT: Revenue, team and how it was built
innoGPT (GDPR-compliant AI workspace for companies, Germany): EUR 1M ARR reported (about US$1.17M), May 2026. Evidence grade D: reported, not verified. Team: 2 managing directors at registration in March 2024; 7 people on the team page and 3 open jobs in November 2026. Launched March 2024; still running, revenue growing.Added 5 November 2026
- Outcome
- EUR 1M ARR reported (about US$1.17M), May 2026Revenue growing
- Evidence
- D reported, not verified
- Launch
- March 2024
- Status
- Still running
- Team
- 2 managing directors at registration in March 2024; 7 people on the team page and 3 open jobs in November 2026
- Outside funding
- None from outside investors (company statement); the company was set up as a joint venture of two existing companies
- Main channel
- Cold outreach
What is not verified
The headline of EUR 1 million in annual recurring revenue in May 2026 rests only on the company: a press text credited to the PR agency comcepta GmbH, published by StartupValley on 4 June 2026, and an interview in the same magazine's Premium Startups section on 19 June 2026, which repeats it. No payment processor, filing or journalist confirmed it. The company does not say how much of it is software licences and how much is consulting and training, which it also sells. A reader could look for the GmbH's annual accounts for 2025 and 2026 in the Unternehmensregister, or an interview in which a journalist saw the figures. The headline number is grade D: one claim or one estimate, with no second source. Aiolum shows it because the story is useful, and marks it so that it is not mistaken for a verified figure.
innoGPT is an AI workspace, a web application in which employees chat with large language models, upload documents and build small assistants, run by the Inno KI GmbH in Vechta, Lower Saxony. It is sold as a GDPR-compliant alternative to ChatGPT; GDPR (in German DSGVO) is the EU data-protection law, and compliance here means the company signs a data-processing contract, hosts the software in Germany and promises that customer data is not used for model training. The models themselves come from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral and others.
The GmbH was entered in the commercial register on 27 March 2024 with two managing directors, Maurice Brumund and Mike Koene. The company told StartupValley that it began early in 2024 as a joint venture of two existing companies, that its first product was a website chatbot called InnoChat, and that its first large customer, the vehicle maker Böckmann, asked for an internal workspace at the end of 2024. In a press text published on 4 June 2026, the company stated that it reached one million euros of ARR (annual recurring revenue: the yearly value of the subscriptions running at one moment) in May 2026, without outside investors. It repeated the figure in an interview published on 19 June 2026 and said the platform grew about 30% a month.
The revenue figure is a company statement in two publications two weeks apart, both on the same magazine, and no payment processor, filing or journalist has checked it, so this page grades it D. The press text also says that money from AI consulting and training pays for the platform, so it is not clear whether the one million euros is software subscriptions only. The team page shows seven people in November 2026.
How much revenue does innoGPT make?
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual recurring revenue, May 2026 | EUR 1 million | D | Company press text published by StartupValley on 4 June 2026, credited to the PR agency comcepta GmbH: "Zwei Jahre nach der Gründung erreicht die Inno KI GmbH aus Vechta im Mai 2026 die Marke von einer Million Euro Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)." (translation: Two years after its founding, Inno KI GmbH from Vechta reaches the mark of one million euros of annual recurring revenue in May 2026.) Not checked by anyone outside the company. | [1] |
| The same figure, June 2026 | "Stand heute haben wir die Million geknackt" | D | Company interview in StartupValley, 19 June 2026, in the section marked Premium Startups. (translation: As of today we have cracked the million.) It is the same claim, repeated, not a second measurement. | [2] |
| Headline in US dollars | about US$1,167,900 a year, or about US$97,325 a month | calc | Calculated: EUR 1,000,000 times US$1.1679 per euro, the Federal Reserve H.10 rate for 29 May 2026; the monthly value is that divided by 12. | [1, 10] |
| What the revenue contains | not stated | D | The press text says: "Einnahmen aus KI-Consulting und Schulungen fließen in die Weiterentwicklung der KI-Plattform innoGPT" (translation: income from AI consulting and training flows into the development of the AI platform innoGPT). The interview says: "Unser Geschäftsmodell basiert auf wiederkehrenden Umsätzen durch Lizenzen" (translation: our business model is based on recurring revenue from licences). Neither says how much of the EUR 1 million is software. | [1, 2] |
| Growth rate claimed | about 30% a month | D | Press text, 4 June 2026, and interview, 19 June 2026: "Wir wachsen aktuell mit rund 30 Prozent pro Monat" (translation: we are currently growing at about 30 percent a month). The measure (revenue, users) is not named. | [1, 2] |
| Outside investors | none | D | Maurice Brumund in the press text: "Wir hätten Geld aufnehmen können, haben aber jedes Mal abgelehnt." (translation: We could have raised money but declined every time.) The about page says "Bootstrapped. Aus Überzeugung." North Data shows 2 known shareholders; their names are behind a paywall. | [1, 3, 6] |
| Company registration | 27 March 2024, Amtsgericht Oldenburg HRB 220654, share capital EUR 25,000 | B | North Data's summary of the register entry: managing directors Maurice Brumund and Mike Koene. Business purpose: development, sale and licensing of software and AI applications, including SaaS, plus consulting. | [6, 5] |
| Origin | a joint venture of Innovatisten GmbH and Mike Koene's Magic Labs GmbH, early 2024 | D | Company interview, 19 June 2026: "Die Inno KI GmbH ist Anfang 2024 als Joint Venture aus der Innovatisten GmbH und der Magic Labs GmbH von Mike Koene entstanden." The interview says the Innovatisten have four founders, among them the marketing agency moin media, which designed the innoGPT website (imprint). | [2, 5] |
| Team, November 2026 | 7 people shown, 3 jobs open | C | The about page shows seven people, among them the two co-founders and CEOs, Mike Koene and Maurice Brumund. The careers page lists three full-time jobs in Vechta (customer success, sales, software development). No source gives the headcount in May 2026. | [3, 8] |
| Development team | mainly one developer | D | Company interview: "Unsere Plattform wurde bis zum heutigen Punkt im Wesentlichen von einem einzigen Entwickler vorangetrieben, unserem Chefentwickler Mike Koene, der KI konsequent als Hebel für seine eigene Arbeit nutzt." (translation: Up to now our platform has essentially been driven by a single developer, our chief developer Mike Koene, who uses AI consistently as a lever for his own work.) | [2] |
| Users claimed | more than 1,000 companies and more than 600 professionals daily | D | Press text, 4 June 2026. The home page says "+1.000 Unternehmen". Named customers: Böckmann Fahrzeugwerke, GC Gruppe, Hansa-Flex, PwC and paneuropa. | [1, 7] |
| Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 from 56 reviews on OMR Reviews | C | Read 5 November 2026: 49 five-star and 7 four-star reviews; the oldest dated review is from June 2025. The home page still showed 34 reviews. | [9, 7] |
| Models offered | more than 50; the API page lists OpenAI (36), Anthropic (15), Mistral (4) and Meta (1) | C | Company pages, November 2026. The home page also names Gemini and DeepSeek. | [7, 11] |
| Hosting | Frankfurt am Main, with providers such as AWS; Section 203 licences in Berlin | C | Security page: "Die Software und (meisten) KI-Modelle sind in Europa gehostet" (translation: the software and most AI models are hosted in Europe). ISO 27001 certification is claimed; no certificate was read. | [12, 4] |
| Time from registration to the May 2026 figure | 26 months | calc | Calculated: March 2024 to May 2026. | [1, 6] |
How to read this table: grade D is a company statement that nobody outside has checked. Grade C is the company's own website or a review platform. Grade B is the commercial register as shown by North Data. Grade A here is only the exchange rate from the US Federal Reserve. A grade X value was computed on this page.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | 21.21 | 19 euros; all models, no team features (OMR Reviews) | |
| Business | 25.58 | 27.91 | 25 euros per user; up to 1,000 users; SSO extra |
| Business Max licence | 121.68 | 109 euros per user; larger premium-model budget | |
| Section 203 licence | 27.91 | 25 euros per user; for professions bound by secrecy; 1 to 20 licences yearly only | |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | from 1,000 users; self-hosting possible |
| PII filter add-on | 77.02 | from 69 euros a month per workspace |
The company's page states prices in euros per user per month before VAT. Yearly billing on the Business plan gives one month free, so the yearly column is 11/12 of the monthly price. The Personal plan at 19 euros a month is named in the pricing page's description and on OMR Reviews (updated December 2025); its yearly price was not shown. Premium models draw on a budget per workspace that customers can top up with one-time packages of 5 to 1,000 euros. A 3-month guided pilot programme and premium support are sold on separate pages.
When did innoGPT launch, and how did it grow?
From a website chatbot to a workspace that the company says is used by more than 1,000 companies, in about two years. Each entry carries its grade.
- Early 2024DInno KI is set up as a joint venture of Innovatisten GmbH and Magic Labs GmbH. Its first product is InnoChat, an AI chatbot for websites. [2]
- 27 March 2024BInno KI GmbH is entered in the commercial register in Oldenburg, with Maurice Brumund and Mike Koene as managing directors. [6]
- End of 2024DThe first large customer, Böckmann Fahrzeugwerke, asks for an internal AI workspace for its staff. The company builds innoGPT with them and turns it into a SaaS platform. [2]
- 2 April 2025BThe word mark InnoGPT appears in the publications listed by North Data; a second InnoGPT mark follows on 26 November 2025. [6]
- June 2025CThe first dated user review of innoGPT on OMR Reviews. [9]
- May 2026DThe company says it reaches EUR 1 million in annual recurring revenue without outside investors. [1]
- 19 June 2026DIn an interview the company repeats the figure, says the platform grows about 30% a month, and plans to expand sales, partners and a mobile app. [2]
- November 2026CThe team page shows seven people; three jobs are open. OMR Reviews shows 56 reviews at 4.8 out of 5. [3, 8, 9]
Why did innoGPT work?
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
Customer closeness
The company said in June 2026 that bundling all models under the GDPR is an argument shared with other providers, and that what sets it apart is how close it works with customers: a named customer success manager, workshops on use cases, and features built on request, such as a meeting recorder that one customer asked for.
Data rules as the product
Many German companies had staff using ChatGPT on their own, which the site calls shadow AI. innoGPT sells the same models behind a data-processing contract, German hosting, no training on customer data, and a licence for lawyers and others bound by professional secrecy under Section 203 of the German Criminal Code.
Built with the first customer
The company said that the workspace was developed together with its first large customer, the vehicle maker Böckmann, and then opened as a subscription product. A real customer defined the first feature list.
One developer using AI
The company said the platform was mainly built by one developer, its co-founder Mike Koene, who uses AI tools for his own work. This kept costs low enough to grow without investors, by the company's account.
How it was built
These details come from the company's own website and its StartupValley interview. They are grade C and D. [7, 12, 4, 2]
- The platform connects to the APIs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral and others, and picks a model automatically with a feature called Smart Select.
- Hosting is in Frankfurt am Main with certified EU providers such as AWS; the Section 203 licence is hosted in Berlin.
- Each customer workspace is separated in the database with row-level security, a database rule that lets every row be read only by its own workspace.
- Integrations with SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Google Drive, plus MCP, the Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting AI models to other tools.
- An OpenAI-compatible API endpoint is sold as an add-on, billed per token.
- The company said the platform was mainly built by one developer who uses AI as a tool for his own work.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
Who tried this before innoGPT, and why did they fail?
Four companies in our database of failed startups promised workplace knowledge or privacy as the reason to choose them over the large platforms. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Niles
The promiseAn AI chatbot inside Slack that answered staff questions from the company's own knowledge.
Why it diedSlack and the other large platforms added the same AI features themselves, and companies found the setup and upkeep too much work.
Skiff
The promiseAn encrypted, privacy-first alternative to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
Why it diedPrivacy alone did not make people leave free tools that they already used every day.
Surge Cloud
The promiseA GDPR-native European cloud as an alternative to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Why it diedIt spent far more each month than its 40 customers paid, while AWS opened EU regions and cut prices.
Neeva
The promiseA paid search engine that never tracked users.
Why it diedToo few people paid for privacy in search, and ChatGPT changed how people looked for answers.
The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.
What changed
Each of the four sold privacy or company knowledge as the reason to switch away from a large platform, and the platforms either added the feature or stayed free and good enough. innoGPT makes the same promise against ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, which all sell business plans with data-protection terms.
Two things differ. First, innoGPT does not build its own models or its own cloud: it rents the best models and AWS servers in Frankfurt, so its costs grow with use instead of with large up-front spending, the trap that sank Surge Cloud. Second, it sells to German small and mid-sized companies through people: demos, a guided pilot, training and a customer success manager. The company said in June 2026 that this help with rollout, not the software alone, is why customers stay.
Can one person copy innoGPT now?
Partly. The software is copyable; the local sales work is not a one-person job.
A multi-model AI workspace is a known product, and many open-source versions exist. What the company says made it work is regional closeness: one large local customer that defined the product, German hosting and contracts, and people who train staff on site. A solo founder could copy the software and the data-protection terms for one country or one profession, but the rollout help needs people.
Where it is still open: Other countries and languages with strict data rules, and professions with secrecy laws, where the large providers' standard business plans do not fit.
- 1Pick a market where data rules block ChatGPT use: one country, or a profession bound by secrecy such as law or tax advice.
- 2Build the workspace on top of the model providers' APIs, hosted in that jurisdiction, with a data-processing contract ready to sign.
- 3Develop the first version with one paying customer, and add features they ask for.
- 4Sell rollout help, training and a named contact person alongside the licence, and track how much revenue is software.
What could go wrong for innoGPT?
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
What is not verified
The headline of EUR 1 million in annual recurring revenue in May 2026 rests only on the company: a press text credited to the PR agency comcepta GmbH, published by StartupValley on 4 June 2026, and an interview in the same magazine's Premium Startups section on 19 June 2026, which repeats it. No payment processor, filing or journalist confirmed it. The company does not say how much of it is software licences and how much is consulting and training, which it also sells. A reader could look for the GmbH's annual accounts for 2025 and 2026 in the Unternehmensregister, or an interview in which a journalist saw the figures.
Consulting is part of the offer
The press text says income from AI consulting and training pays for the platform, and Brumund said change management is now a fixed part of the offer. The software has public self-service prices and a free trial, so it is a software business, but the revenue mix is not public.
Team size and owners
The register shows two managing directors in 2024 and the about page seven people in November 2026, with three jobs open and the stated plan to grow the team in Vechta. The company was set up by two existing companies, one of them linked to the marketing agency moin media, which also designed the website and took the press photo. The founding owners are companies, not only the two people named here.
Counters on the site
The press text claims more than 1,000 companies and more than 600 professionals using the platform daily, without saying how a company is counted. The home page showed 34 OMR reviews while OMR itself showed 56. The security page says the software and most AI models are hosted in Europe, while the pricing page says content does not leave the EU.
Competing with the model makers
OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and Anthropic all sell business plans with EU data terms. A workspace that resells their models depends on their prices and terms, and on staying better for German customers than the providers' own products.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- D StartupValley, 4 June 2026: Inno KI erreicht 1 Million Euro ARR ohne InvestorenRead in full. A press text credited to comcepta GmbH. Source for the revenue figure, the growth rate, the quote on investors and the customer names.
- D StartupValley, 19 June 2026: Wer setzt die Standards für den KI-Einsatz im Mittelstand? (interview with Inno KI, by Sabine Elsässer)Read in full. A company interview in the Premium Startups section. Source for the origin, the first customer, the licence model and the single developer.
- C innoGPT: Über uns (about page), read 5 November 2026Read in full as the site's Markdown version. Source for the team page and the bootstrapped statement.
- C innoGPT: Preise (pricing page), read 5 November 2026Read in full as the site's Markdown version. Source for the plans, add-ons and hosting claims.
- C innoGPT: Impressum (imprint), read 5 November 2026Read in full. Source for the company name, managing directors, register number and the website designer.
- B North Data: Inno KI GmbH, Vechta, Amtsgericht Oldenburg HRB 220654Read the free part of the page: register entry of 27 March 2024, business purpose, number of managing directors and shareholders, trademark publications.
- C innoGPT home page, read 5 November 2026Read in full as the site's Markdown version. Source for the features, customer logos and counters.
- C innoGPT: Karriere (careers page), read 5 November 2026Read in full. Source for the three open jobs.
- C OMR Reviews: innoGPT Erfahrungen & Features 2026Read the rating summary, the review dates and the price list (updated December 2025).
- A Federal Reserve H.10 historical rates, EU euroRead the rates for 29 May 2026 (US$1.1679) and 30 October 2026 (US$1.1163).
- C innoGPT: KI-Modelle (models and API page), read 5 November 2026Read the provider list and the API description.
- C innoGPT: Datenschutz & Sicherheit (security page), read 5 November 2026Read in full. Source for the hosting location, row-level security and the ISO 27001 claim.
- C Database of failed startups, local exportLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
Run this company? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com