While still in university, Simon Burghardt and Vincent Bauman founded FLIPLINE in late 2017 intending to create a portfolio of home improvement brands.

FLIPLINE launched its first product in March 2018, a child headrest for car seats. This quickly rose to the #1 product in the car seat accessory category. Not satisfied with their success, Simon and Vincent dedicated themselves to R&D launching HARDTWERK in 2020, a line of DIY tools targeting the next generation of home improvement enthusiasts. In the following 18 months HARDTWERK achieved explosive growth (>360% year-on-year) with multiple category-leading tools.

Having reached an inflection point in the business, Simon and Vincent were faced with raising debt to expand operations. They opted to pursue an exit, instead, having already received several offers. “At this point, we chose to partner with Fortia because of their phenomenal standing in the market, extensive M&A experience – and because of their German-speaking point person, Johannes, who made the whole process very smooth.” Despite tough market conditions for M&A, FLIPLINE successfully closed in December 2022. Simon and Vincent are delighted with the outcome.