Record exit: Düsseldorf-based AI startup Cognigy sold to Nice for almost 1 billion

The Düsseldorf-based AI startup Cognigy achieves Europe's largest AI exit: US corporation Nice takes over the company for around 955 million dollars.

The Düsseldorf-based AI startup Cognigy is making a record exit in the European AI scene: The US software group Nice is acquiring the AI agent provider for $955 million (about €819 million), as both companies announced today.

The purchase price is expected to include around $50 million (€43 million) in earn-outs, which will be paid out half in cash and half in shares over a certain period, according to Nice's statement .

The acquisition, which Nice is financing entirely from its own resources, is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2025 – subject to regulatory approval. It's a historic milestone for the German tech industry, but also highlights the opportunities that have so far gone unexploited.

A year ago, Cognigy closed a Series C round of $100 million (€86 million). The financing round was led by investor Eurazeo Growth , along with other prominent investors such as Insight Partners, DTCP (Digital Transformation Capital Partners), and DN Capital.

In total, the startup has raised approximately $170 million (€146 million) in venture capital since its founding in 2016. In 2019, the startup secured a well-known investor, DN Capital, for its Series A. Insight Partners followed as lead investor in the Series B round in 2021.

With the fresh capital from the Series C, Cognigy primarily aimed to accelerate its global expansion, further develop its AI technology, and position itself as a leading provider of enterprise automation in customer service. The nearly $1 billion acquisition by Nice proves that this strategy has paid off.

Cognigy offers an AI platform that enables companies to create, manage, and optimize intelligent chat and voice bots ("AI agents") for their customer service. The Düsseldorf-based startup's technology understands customer inquiries, whether text or voice, and automatically provides appropriate responses. It supports, for example, product searches or controls dialogue robots in brick-and-mortar stores.

Customers include well-known companies such as Lufthansa, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, Henkel, ERGO, E.ON and Mister Spex.

In Germany, Cognigy's main competitor is the Berlin-based AI unicorn Parloa. The company also offers an intelligent voice solution that allows call centers to automatically process inquiries such as orders or complaints.

Cognigy was founded in Düsseldorf in 2016 by Philipp Heltewig, Sascha Poggemann, and Benjamin Mayr. According to Handelsblatt , the three founders originally planned to develop a talking teddy bear – but quickly realized that the speech technology available at the time was not yet mature.

Instead of abandoning the project, they quickly built their own platform for natural language processing, laying the foundation for Europe's largest AI exit to date.

Since then, Cognigy has grown rapidly, opening offices in the US and Asia and establishing itself as a leading provider in the field of so-called "Agentic AI." The Düsseldorf-based startup is experiencing triple-digit growth and, according to its own statements, has processed hundreds of millions of interactions on its platform in the last twelve months.

For DN Capital, one of Cognigy's early investors, the exit represents not only a financial success but also a symbolic milestone. Gülsah Wilke , partner at DN Capital, describes it on LinkedIn as the largest AI exit in Europe.

"This is more than just a milestone for a single company. It is a clear signal to the global market: Europe—and Germany in particular—can develop and develop world-class AI leaders," said the investor.

The fact that Cognigy comes from Düsseldorf and not from traditional startup strongholds such as Berlin or Munich clearly shows that technological excellence arises wherever the team, vision and capital are right.