EKK & Co. Investment

About EKK & Co. Investment

EKK and Co. Investment GmbH (full name ENGELHARDT KAUPP KIEFER and Co. Investment GmbH) and the related EKK and Co. Management GmbH trade collectively under the brand EKK and Co. The firm is headquartered at Marienstraße 39 in Stuttgart, Germany. The platform was founded in 2001 by Dr. Tobias Engelhardt, Karl-Friedrich Kaupp and Georg Kiefer. The current GmbH vehicles were re-incorporated in 2019 to support the regulated KAGB fund structure. Assets under management are not publicly disclosed. The structure is an independent owner-operated investment firm with the Investment GmbH operating a closed-end special AIF (Spezial-AIF) under German KAGB capital-investment law, with the Management GmbH acting as advisor. The firm self-describes as a Holistic Growth Investing specialist and is a BVK member. EKK and Co. has executed approximately 24 investments across its 25-year history. The team is led by Dr. Tobias Engelhardt (Founder and Advisory Board Chairman) and Managing Partners Roman Loch and Moritz Reck, supported by an operational team of around eight people including five partners.

Investment thesis

EKK and Co. Investment pursues an early-growth equity and growth-capital strategy for owner-managed companies with proven product-market fit. The firm self-describes its approach as Holistic Growth Investing, supporting portfolio companies across personal growth of founders, financial performance, economic impact and societal relevance. The firm emphasises a participant rather than purely financial-investor posture with hands-on entrepreneurial support and long-duration partnership. Sectors are industry-agnostic with historical and current portfolio concentration in business-to-business services, commercial services, software-as-a-service, technology, media and telecoms, plus consumer brands and specialty industrials. Recent deal flow leans toward consumer (food products, premium D2C brands) and digital B2B platforms. Geography is the DACH region with portfolio companies predominantly headquartered in Germany. The firm targets companies with revenues between €1 million and €10 million at entry. Per-deal equity tickets are not publicly disclosed but are consistent with early-growth tickets in the low single-digit million euro range. The limited partner base is not publicly disclosed; the regulated AIF structure accommodates qualified institutional and professional investors under German KAGB law. Value creation operates through operational engagement from a partner-led team, growth-capital deployment for organic expansion and bolt-on acquisitions, long investment horizons aligned with owner-managers, and reinvestment of returns to back follow-on rounds.

Recent activity

Recent investments include Happy Sprinkles in consumer and food products (2024), Smartvillage in services and events (2026 growth financing), XPLN in technology and SaaS and PLitch in consumer and digital media. Recent exits include Sabio in software and SaaS (2018), Turtle Entertainment ESL in consumer and media covering esports (2015), Solutronic in industrials and energy and Dorten in industrials and services. The platform continues to deploy across DACH owner-managed B2B services, software, consumer brands and specialty industrials with long-duration growth partnerships. Detailed buyer names and multiple data available on Pro at €29/month.