Our Services
About Open Hippo
Based in the city of the river Lech, we build sovereign AI infrastructure for European enterprises. Secure, compliant, and powered by renewable energy from the very river that runs through our hometown.
3
Enterprise Clients
Organizations with 200+ employees
3
Reseller Partners
IT service providers across Germany
100%
EU Data Residency
Your data never leaves European soil
Where does Open Hippo come from?
Born in Augsburg, built for Europe.
Open Hippo's roots are in the Augsburg region — a city with a 2,000-year history of engineering, trade, and innovation. The river Lech that runs through our hometown doesn't just shape the landscape; it powers the renewable energy that runs our AI infrastructure.
We chose to stay here — in the city of the Fuggers — because we believe great technology doesn't need a Silicon Valley address. It needs conviction, craftsmanship, and roots.
Why do we build in the open?
Open source at heart — helping, sharing, building together.
We believe the best technology is built in the open. That's why we contribute to open-source projects, share our learnings publicly, and build on top of community-driven tools like vLLM, Docling, and Lucene.
For us, open source isn't just a licensing model — it's a mindset. It means helping others succeed, sharing knowledge freely, and trusting that when everyone contributes, everyone wins. That's the spirit we bring to every project.
Where do our managed services actually run?
The LEW Green Data Center — where our AI lives.
Our infrastructure runs in the LEW Green Data Center, powered by 100% renewable energy from the river Lech. This isn't just a hosting choice — it's a statement. Powerful AI doesn't have to cost the planet.
By operating our own hardware in a sovereign, GDPR-compliant facility, we guarantee that your data never leaves European soil. No US cloud dependencies, no compromises on privacy — just clean energy and full control.
See what runs here
Where do we cook up new ideas?
DZ.S — our innovation kitchen.
If the LEW data center is our living room, then the Digitales Zentrum Schwaben is our kitchen — the place where new ideas are prototyped, stress-tested, and turned into real products. Located at the Sigma Technopark in Augsburg, DZ.S is home to a community of digital founders who share knowledge, challenge each other, and build together.
With gigabit fiber, meeting rooms, and a network of like-minded companies right next door, it's the kind of environment where innovation doesn't just happen by accident — it's engineered into the everyday.
What do we stand for?
What Open Hippo stands for.
The principles that guide every decision we make.
Sovereign AI Without Compromise.
Your data doesn't leave your hands — or your continent. We run self-hosted infrastructure down to the metal, ensuring full GDPR and EU AI Act compliance without compromise.
AI That Actually Works.
We don't build AI for the sake of it. Every product we ship is designed around a real problem your organization actually has — and built to solve it.
Sustainability without Greenwashing.
Our infrastructure runs on 100% renewable energy at the LEW Green Data Center, powered by the river Lech and the Augsburg sun.
Open to the Core.
Open standards, transparent pricing, honest communication. We believe trust is earned through radical openness — not polished in a marketing department.
Who are we?
The team behind Open Hippo.
Engineers, researchers, and builders who care deeply about responsible AI.
Dr. Thomas Fraunholz
Founder & CEO
Regular speaker at PyData and PyCon conferences and CUDA expert. Founded Open Hippo to bring deep AI infrastructure expertise to sovereign European enterprise deployments.
Tim Köhler
Engineer
MLOps and DevOps specialist with deep Kubernetes experience, responsible for the reliability and scalability of Open Hippo's AI serving infrastructure.
Dennis Rall
Researcher
PhD candidate in Computer Science researching LLM security — how language models can be exploited and how to build systems that hold up under adversarial conditions.
Eduard Kesler
Engineer
Full-stack engineer specializing in RAG pipelines and Lucene-based retrieval, making enterprise knowledge reliably accessible to AI systems.
Klaus Happacher
Engineer
Backend engineer specializing in Kotlin, building the APIs and services that connect Open Hippo's AI capabilities to enterprise workflows.
Where can you find us?
Based in Augsburg, Bavaria.
Come say hi. We're at the Digitales Zentrum Schwaben in Augsburg's innovation district.
Open Hippo GmbH
Werner-von-Siemens-Str. 6
86159 Augsburg, Germany
"Sovereign AI can be thought about and lived in many ways. But in the end, it almost always comes down to open source. And that's exactly where we already stand with Open Hippo."
Dr. Thomas Fraunholz
CEO & Founder, Open Hippo
Ready for sovereign AI?
Let's have a no-obligation conversation about your challenges. Together we'll find the best solution for your needs — quickly, straightforwardly, and tailored to you.