Metzler advises the shareholders of Planet AI on the sale of 51 percent of its shares to Bechtle

Bechtle AG has acquired 51 percent of the shares in Planet AI GmbH. Metzler Corporate Finance acted as exclusive M&A advisor to the founding shareholders of Planet AI GmbH  and facilitated a competitive and international bidding process with investors from Europe, North America and Asia.

Planet AI GmbH, with headquarters in Rostock, Germany, was founded in 2015 as a spin-off of Planet intelligent systems GmbH which has been active in the market for Artificial Intelligence since 1992. With over 40 employees, Planet AI is a developer of AI-based software products with cognitive capabilities for information processing and comprehension. Using proprietary deep learning technologies, Planet AI enables customers to extract information from unstructured documents, capitalize on digitization opportunities, and eliminate manual work associated with data entry. The company’s proprietary software suite for intelligent document processing, IDA, is one of the most functionally powerful solutions on the market. It enables organizations to achieve rapid automation and high data quality when compiling and comprehending documents and extracting data.

With over 85 IT system houses and subsidiaries in 14 countries, Bechtle AG is one of Europe’s leading IT companies. Founded in 1983, the Bechtle Group, with headquarters in Neckarsulm, Germany, currently employs over 14,500 people. Bechtle is listed on the MDAX and TecDAX and generated consolidated sales of EUR 6.03 billion in 2022. The partnership between Bechtle and Planet AI aims to combine application-oriented AI research with the sales strength of Germany's largest IT system house in order to strengthen Europe’s AI ecosystem and play a leading role in future innovations.

Find out more in the press releases of Planet AI GmbH (in german language) and Bechtle AG.