bm|t wrapped

At bm|t, we con­tin­u­ously search for founders and com­pa­nies shap­ing today and tomorrow’s tech­no­log­i­cal land­scape. As 2025 closes and 2026 begins, we would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to offer a ret­ro­spec­tive on a year defined by tran­si­tion, exe­cu­tion, and tan­gi­ble progress across Thüringen’s inno­va­tion ecosystem.

The year began with an impor­tant new chap­ter for bm|t. In Jan­u­ary, Katja Butz­mann assumed the role of CEO of bm|t. Hav­ing been part of bm|t since 2016, she brings strong expe­ri­ence as both a Senior Invest­ment Man­ager and a suc­cess­ful CEO. Through­out this year, Katja Butz­mann has guided the team through a period of change and suc­cess – notably over­see­ing the land­mark exit of Spleen­lab to Quan­tum Systems.

The sec­ond major mile­stone fol­lowed in the sum­mer with the launch of the Mit­tel­stands-Fonds Thürin­gen II (MFT II). Announced in July by Thüringen’s Min­is­ter for Eco­nomic Affairs, Agri­cul­ture and Rural Areas, Colette Boos-John, the fund will sup­port estab­lished, medium-sized Thuringian com­pa­nies to strengthen their equity base for fur­ther growth. The Mit­tel­stands-Fonds Thürin­gen II will be man­aged by bm|t. “The fund for late-stage financ­ing will ini­tially have a vol­ume of € 20 mil­lion and com­ple­ments our exist­ing range of funds,” sum­ma­rized Katja Butzmann.

2025 was a strong year for liq­uid­ity events. In total, three port­fo­lio com­pa­nies exited, led by the head­line-mak­ing acqui­si­tion of Spleen­lab by Ger­man defence uni­corn Quan­tum Sys­tems. As noted by Quan­tum Sys­tems Co-CEO, Spleenlab’s AI exper­tise had shaped the Quan­tum Sys­tems for years through col­lab­o­ra­tion, and the acqui­si­tion brings world-class soft­ware and world-class hard­ware under one roof. Devel­oped in Thürin­gen, Spleen­lab exem­pli­fies the long-term value cre­ation that bm|t seeks to enable. Addi­tional exits included Zeilen­wert and Crow­dAr­chi­tects, fur­ther val­i­dat­ing the depth and matu­rity of the regional ecosystem.

Deal flow remained strong through­out the year. In 2025, seven new com­pa­nies joined the bm|t port­fo­lio, span­ning a wide-range of tech­nolo­gies and indus­tries. This diver­sity is a clear sig­nal of the strength of Thüringen’s start-up land­scape and a tes­ta­ment to years of focused ecosys­tem-build­ing.

As a com­mit­ted long-term part­ner, bm|t also sup­ported port­fo­lio com­pa­nies beyond the ini­tial invest­ment. In addi­tion to new entries, we par­tic­i­pated in the fol­low-on financ­ing rounds of eigh­teen of our Investee Part­ners. This reflects our con­vic­tion that build­ing suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies requires time, con­sis­tency, and trust.

Despite a chal­leng­ing macro­eco­nomic back­drop, bm|t Investee Part­ners par­tic­i­pated in a total of six­teen financ­ing rounds of € 1 mil­lion of more dur­ing the year. Alto­gether, com­pa­nies within bm|t’s port­fo­lio raised approx­i­mately € 110 mil­lion in 2025. Whether sup­port­ing early-stage dis­rup­tors or scal­ing estab­lished growth com­pa­nies, bm|t – together with our trusted part­ners – con­tin­ues to play an active role in strength­en­ing Thüringen’s inno­va­tion economy.

As we look ahead to 2026, we do so with con­fi­dence grounded in exe­cu­tion, resilience, and an strong ecosys­tem of ambi­tious founders and inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies.

We thank all part­ners, entre­pre­neurs, and stake­hold­ers, and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to sup­port inno­va­tion in Thüringen.

Your bm|t Team

Next Chapters

We are delighted to high­light that our port­fo­lio com­pany Spleen­lab has been acquired by Quan­tum Sys­tems. As a pre-seed investor, we sup­ported Spleen­lab in sev­eral financ­ing rounds since its found­ing until the exit. Through being part of this trans­ac­tion, bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH is not only achiev­ing an excel­lent return for the fund, but also strength­en­ing another out­stand­ing Thuringian com­pany, which can now con­tinue to grow with a strong strate­gic partner.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the teams at Spleen­lab and Quan­tum Sys­tems! For more infor­ma­tion, please read this press release.

Welcome to the Family

Tiny Mon­ster GmbH: bm|t, Rezirok, and a group of busi­ness angels have invested € 4 mil­lion as part of a seed financ­ing round in Tiny Mon­ster, – the devel­oper of GALAKTO, an offline audio sys­tem for chil­dren that is based on tokens. Founded in 2023 and with a con­tin­u­ally expand­ing library, the Berlin-based start-up is using the funds to fur­ther expand pro­duc­tion, their con­tent cat­a­logue, and sales. Katja Butz­mann, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of bm|t stated: “we are delighted to be devel­op­ing another inno­v­a­tive com­pany based in Thuringia. We look for­ward to a promis­ing and inspir­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion.” For more infor­ma­tion, please read this press release.