An AI assistant that understands your business, protects your knowledge, belongs to you.

Locally installed. Works with your documents.
Answers with sources. No data leakage.

3–6 weeksto productive
€ 0per user
0Data in the cloud
15+mid-sized companies trust us
01 The AI Journey

Where does your company stand today?

Almost every mid-sized company is at one of these three points with AI. We take you from phase 1 to phase 3 — without a detour through someone else's servers.

PHASE 1

Experimenting

Individual employees use ChatGPT on their own. First aha moments. But nobody knows where the data ends up. Shadow AI inside your own walls.

PHASE 2

Structuring

AI belongs in everyday work, but under control. On your own data. With clear rules. With sources you can trust. This is where we come in.

PHASE 3

Sovereign use

AI is part of value creation. It grows with the company, understands its language, protects its knowledge. A strategic lever, not a risk.

Most mid-sized companies are in phase 1 — and don't know it. Take the AI Self-Check and see where you really stand.

Start the AI Self-Check
02 The Platform

One platform. Two products. One path to Phase 3.

IGNAITE brings sovereign AI into your company — from the office to the shop floor. Today with LOKI for your documents. Tomorrow with MINERVA for your machines.

FOR YOUR MACHINES

MINERVA

The local AI operator
for your machine data.

Hardware developed in-house. No white-label, no reseller.

MINERVA is our edge AI hardware for production. Sensor data is analyzed directly at the machine — in real time, without the data leaving your plant.

  • Self-developed edge boards, designed in our own house
  • Real-time analysis of sensor and machine data
  • Extends LOKI with shop-floor intelligence

Currently in pilot — early adopters welcome

More about MINERVA

Both products work on the same principles: sovereign, source-grounded, local. You start with LOKI in the office and grow, when you're ready, with MINERVA into the shop floor.

MORE THAN A CHATBOT

LOKI acts.

LOKI is a tool-calling agent — not a chatbot. Today it already queries databases, generates Word and PowerPoint documents, and logs every step. The platform is growing — here's where it stands.

Live today

  • Live database access (SQL via natural language)
  • Word and PowerPoint generation
  • Human-in-the-loop for sensitive actions
  • Auditable agent runs
  • REST API for custom development

In development

  • Skill marketplace with curated workflows
  • Proactive monitoring (push notifications)
  • Compliance AI as upstream guard layer
  • Skill SDK for customer-side development

Platform character

LOKI is end product and platform at the same time. If you start with the end product, you can add your own skills later. If you start with custom development, you have full technical depth from day one.

You start with knowledge queries — and grow into complete processes.

03 What changes

What your team does with it
from day one.

Three scenes from a day at work with LOKI. You will recognize them.

DAY 14 — NEW EMPLOYEE

He asks LOKI what his predecessor decided back in 2019. LOKI answers with the email thread that contains the decision and the reasoning. With the engineering report. With the meeting minutes. No hallucination.

COMPLAINT FROM 2018

A customer asks about a part shipped seven years ago. Your service team asks LOKI: what was the special case back then? LOKI finds the special-approval email, the drawing, the protocol.

THURSDAY, 14:30 — AUDIT

The auditor asks about the supplier approval process from 2022. Your QM officer asks LOKI. 8 seconds later: the answer, with all sources.

In a very short time, LOKI will know things about your company that no employee still carries in their head. The value grows every day, and it belongs to you alone.

04 Technology

Why LOKI can do what cloud AI cannot.

Four architectural decisions that make the difference.

PROTECTION

Your knowledge stays your trade secret.

No cloud, no CLOUD Act, no external access. Your data never leaves your network.

PRECISION

Understands your company, not the internet.

Works on your documents, knows your terminology, delivers answers with sources.

OWNERSHIP

Invest once, use permanently.

No per-user license, no per-query costs. Cheaper than cloud AI licenses in the medium term.

RESILIENCE

Works even without internet.

No vendor dependency, no external model changes. As reliable as your power supply.

These four decisions are our conviction. Together they make a difference you feel in everyday work. Not just at the next audit.

05 Voices from the Mittelstand

What convinced customers about IGNAITE.

Voices from satisfied customers show: AI sovereignty that works in everyday operations.

“With our locally installed AI assistant from IGNAITE, our employees can access company knowledge much faster — for example, information from past projects. This enables higher productivity — and above all, more comprehensive knowledge sharing.”
Rainer Braun Managing Director, bonGroup
“In our collaboration with IGNAITE, we built a practical, high-performance computer-vision solution that has sustainably improved our incoming-materials processes. What particularly convinced us was the structured approach, the deep process understanding, and the ability to translate complex requirements into pragmatic solutions.”
Dr. Philipp Reisert CEO, C.Hafner
SkylotecSistoNüssleInitiative Wohnen 2050KSBTelekomGIZAbacusC.HafnerDHGSpringerZemahto

What unites these companies: they stopped renting AI. They started owning it.

06 Investment

What AI really costs you. Over 5 years.

Cloud AI never gets cheaper. It grows with every employee, every month, every price round. IGNAITE is a one-time investment. After that, the AI belongs to you.

STANDARD CONFIGURATIONS

Five packages by company size.

Hardware, installation, standard data integrations, training, and the AI system are included in every package.

UP TO 5 EMPLOYEES

S

€ 9,900

one-time


Maintenance

€ 99 / month

6 – 25 EMPLOYEES

M

€ 19,000

one-time


Maintenance

€ 600 / month

26 – 100 EMPLOYEES

L

€ 34,000

one-time


Maintenance

€ 1,000 / month

101 – 250 EMPLOYEES

XL

€ 59,000

one-time


Maintenance

€ 1,500 / month

251+ EMPLOYEES

Enterprise

individual

on request


Maintenance

individual

Modules for ERP, CRM, custom readers, high availability, or multi-site extend the packages as needed. You'll find details and a complete example scenario in the Decision Brief.

Download Decision Brief
MORE THAN MONEY

Per-user license is only one dimension.

What the curve doesn't show: the dimensions where cloud AI and IGNAITE differ structurally.

Dimension Microsoft ChatGPT Anthropic IGNAITE
Data sovereignty Data in MS cloud (US/EU) Data at OpenAI (US) Data at Anthropic (US) Entirely in your own network
GDPR compliance Contractual (DPA), Schrems II risk Contractual (DPA), Schrems II risk Contractual (DPA), Schrems II risk Architecturally guaranteed
Vendor lock-in High (M365 ecosystem) Medium (API switch possible, re-integration costly) Medium (API switch possible, re-integration costly) None — open-source models, own hardware
Use your own documents Only SharePoint / M365 content Only via Custom GPTs / API integration Only via API integration Full data landscape (mail, ERP, CAD, file shares)
Scaling with headcount Linearly more expensive per user Linearly more expensive per user Linearly more expensive per user Maintenance independent of user count
Compliance docs (EU AI Act) Vendor documentation Vendor documentation Vendor documentation Full processing chain documentable

The curve below shows only the monetary dimension. For small teams Microsoft wins on the money axis. On every other axis IGNAITE wins.

YOUR SIZE 50 employees
L (€ 34,000 one-time + € 1,000 / month)

More than 250 employees? Enterprise configuration on request — the slider covers only the standard packages.

ChatGPT Enterprise
Microsoft 365 Copilot Business
Anthropic Claude for Enterprise
IGNAITE
0k € 50k € 100k € 150k € 200k € 250k € Start Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Break-even vs. Anthropic Break-even vs. ChatGPT

* Microsoft Copilot requires M365 Business Premium or E3. Effective real-world cost includes the plan upgrade.

IGNAITE sits between cloud-premium and cloud-discount on price — and is the only provider offering structural sovereignty. This isn't a question of price. It's a question of architecture.

DECISION BRIEF

Want to make the case internally?

A structured decision brief for management and IT: 5-year TCO comparison, compliance and liability dimension, implementation roadmap, answers to typical questions. Instant PDF, no email required.

Cloud AI is a decision you pay for every month. IGNAITE is a decision you make once — and it grows with you.

IGNAITE Team
07 Who is behind it

20 people. From AI research. Rooted in the Mittelstand.

We're not cloud resellers and not consultants with an AI certificate. We build LOKI and MINERVA ourselves — and run them together with you.

IGNAITE Leadership

Richard Haxel

Richard Haxel

Chief Executive Officer

Jens Schneider

Jens Schneider

Co-Chief Technology Officer

Marlies Morgen

Marlies Morgen

Co-Chief Technology Officer

Jessica Ohnesorge

Jessica Ohnesorge

Chief Operations Officer

Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Guido Dartmann

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Guido Dartmann

Scientific Advisor

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Vette

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Vette

Scientific Advisor

The Ignaiters

Carolin Backes

Carolin Backes

Media Designer

Sebastian Bast

Sebastian Bast

AI Researcher

Bouchra Bou-Toulout

Bouchra Bou-Toulout

Frontend Developer

Christoph Brosch

Christoph Brosch

AI Developer

Uygar Büyükkahraman

Uygar Büyükkahraman

Embedded Developer

Lena Ellerkamp

Lena Ellerkamp

AI Developer

Alexander Harwardt

Alexander Harwardt

Embedded Engineer

Cassandra Obiagwu

Cassandra Obiagwu

AI Developer

Julian Regel

Julian Regel

Trainee

Marvin Schacht

Marvin Schacht

Embedded Engineer

Mathis Ströhlein

Mathis Ströhlein

Trainee

Miras Walid

Miras Walid

AI Developer

Marie Wientjes

Marie Wientjes

Project Manager

Florian Wittmann

Florian Wittmann

Trainee

We're a team of specialists for every topic sovereign AI needs — from natural language processing to embedded systems. Our mission is clear: bring sovereign AI to the Mittelstand. For us this is more than a business model — it's our conviction.

Our Network

Cutting-edge research Direct link to leading AI research in Germany.
Mittelstand network Deeply rooted in the German Mittelstand via BVMW.
Enterprise reach On eye level with corporate IT and telecommunications.
08 Next step

Three ways to start with IGNAITE.

Three paths, depending on where you stand right now and what you need next.

POSITIONING

AI Self-Check

An honest 2-minute positioning check. PDF report with your phase on the AI journey. Easy to share with your management.

Anonymous. Local in the browser. No email required.

Start the AI Self-Check
30-MIN MEETING

Intro call

30 minutes of honest assessment whether LOKI fits your company. No slides. Real answers. No sales pressure.

Online or on-site.

Book a meeting

You don't have to buy today. But you should know today where you stand.

09 Contact

Let's talk.
Or just send us a note.

30 minutes. For an honest assessment of whether our solution is right for your company.

On submit your email client opens with this as a draft — actual sending happens there. No server detour, no third parties.

Frequently Asked Questions

The answers we give most often in our first conversations.

What does IGNAITE cost in operation?

There are no per-user license fees. You make a one-time investment in hardware and setup and pay a modest monthly maintenance fee — regardless of whether five or five hundred employees use the solution. Compared to cloud AI, it amortises within a few years.

What hardware do we need?

For the local AI server we use industry-leading edge AI hardware — we set them up at your site and handle maintenance. A single unit is sufficient for smaller operations; if you need more capacity for concurrent queries, additional units simply stack. On the shop floor, we deploy our own MINERVA edge boards. The hardware belongs to you and stays behind your firewall.

How long does setup take?

Typically a few weeks. The exact effort depends on your data landscape and the systems being connected. We accompany the entire process and only hand over when everything runs in production quality.

Which AI models run locally?

We use open-source language models selected and deployed for your specific use case. No API calls to OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google — inference happens entirely on your hardware.

Is IGNAITE GDPR compliant?

Yes. Your data never leaves your network, there is no third-country transfer, and we are EU AI Act ready. The on-premises architecture makes data protection technically guaranteed rather than merely contractual.

Does IGNAITE work without internet?

For operation, yes — the solution runs entirely offline. For optional support and updates we provide secure, customer-controlled remote maintenance that you can disable at any time.

Can IGNAITE connect to existing systems?

Yes. We integrate data sources such as document repositories (SharePoint, Nextcloud, file shares), ERP and CRM systems, email servers, and machine controls — typically without changes to your existing infrastructure.

How does LOKI differ from ChatGPT with Custom GPTs?

Custom GPTs are chat interfaces with a system prompt and uploaded documents — on cloud servers. LOKI is a tool-calling agent: it queries your databases live, generates ready-made Word and PowerPoint documents, and logs every step — on your hardware. If you use Custom GPTs and are happy with them, you have a different use case. If you want to automate actions and AI that grows with you, you need a different architecture.

Can we extend LOKI ourselves?

Yes, via the REST API. LOKI already has a complete API for documents, collections, databases, and chats — anyone who wants to build their own frontends, workflows, or integrations can do so. An official skill SDK for tools and workflows is in planning.