CODE Success Stories: Ontora

Behind Ontora are CODE alumni Maximilian Arnold and David Korn (both Software Engineering) as well as Leon Iwanowitsch (a graduate of the University of St. Gallen in Business Strategy, Finance, and Entrepreneurship). The three combine a powerful blend of expertise: Maximilian was involved in process optimization at Porsche, where he developed an agentic SAP system for procurement data. David built data pipelines in the financial sector and founded successful platforms (Registercheck, trustyourvc) during his studies. CEO Leon brings experience from the VC sector and AI transformation (including projects for Siemens and Mercedes).

Through their practical work, the three repeatedly observed the same issue: valuable company knowledge within the workforce is almost never documented. As a result, management lacks the necessary context for strategic decisions, and AI systems lack the foundation for automation. They decided to change that together.

Many companies buy expensive AI licenses but often only use them to rephrase emails. The reason? Nobody knows exactly what actually needs to be automated.

Ontora sets itself apart as an AI platform specifically designed to make hidden, informal company knowledge (so-called "Tribal Knowledge") accessible. Instead of relying on manual documentation, the company uses AI agents that interview employees fully automatically and in parallel. This allows them to map real workflows as they actually happen and immediately deliver deep optimization proposals. While the traditional, consultant-led approach takes at least four months, Ontora reduces this to less than two weeks. Consequently, the costs associated with the CODE startup's approach are significantly lower.

The fact that they have struck a chord is proven by their success just a few months after founding: The team quickly secured 5 major corporations as fixed partners and has already launched its product live for their first customer. With their solution, the three are generating global interest. Before their first official funding round, they have already raised 1.5 million USD, and further talks with potential investors are currently underway.

“At CODE, I learned to see problems as startup opportunities. With Ontora, we are now solving a fairly massive challenge for many companies: process knowledge is incompletely documented and lacks the context needed for AI agents. We capture this knowledge directly from employees' minds using voice agents. Getting so much positive feedback globally and having our first major partners on board is a great success that we will continue to build upon.”

— Maximilian Arnold, Co-founder of Ontora