The German Answer to US Tech
Interview with Sebastian Schwarz, Managing Director of the //CRASH Corporate Group
What started in 1999 with end-user software has today become a diversified IT corporate group with 160 employees and three strong business fields. Sebastian Schwarz, one of the three managing directors of the //CRASH Corporate Group in Rastede, talks about the journey from software pioneer to European tech player and why now is the time for digital sovereignty.
The history of the group began in 1999 with the founding of Ashampoo by Rolf Hilchner, a software house for end-users that early on focused on online distribution. Today, over 20 million customers worldwide trust the Ashampoo brand, a testament to the company's long-standing innovation and high quality standards. 'Developing new business models from our own ideas and skills was shaping our later culture,' says Sebastian Schwarz. This pioneering spirit led to the founding of CleverReach in 2007, an email marketing solution originally stemming from the internal needs at Ashampoo. Today, the platform has over 400,000 customers worldwide, including well-known brands like Ritter Sport. In 2021, Personizer was added as the third pillar, a modern HR solution for digitizing personnel processes. 'The idea was conceived before the pandemic and was then implemented in 2021. The pandemic has
"The project was additionally accelerated," recalls Sebastian Schwarz. Today, about 1,400 companies from the DACH region use the platform, which is particularly aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises up to 250 employees.
European Autonomy as Strength
In times of growing security concerns and a noticeable shift away from the US market, Sebastian Schwarz sees enormous potential for European IT companies. Europe, he is convinced, has the competence, the values, and the regulatory framework to live digital independence. Our GDPR compliance is not a bureaucratic compulsion but a genuine competitive advantage, he emphasizes. "For the //CRASH corporate group, data protection, data sovereignty, and independence from US providers are not a brake but a drive. European solutions with a GDPR native architecture create trust, and that is exactly the key to sustainable success," explains Sebastian Schwarz.
Artificial Intelligence as a Growth Driver
Artificial intelligence is the central future topic for the corporate group, with a clear claim to think of it in European terms and implement it in compliance with data protection. At Ashampoo, AI today accelerates the internal Go to Market processes for new software titles. Product descriptions, marketing texts, and campaign concepts are created in the shortest time, efficient, targeted, and resource-saving. Thus, the sales platform can also keep up with its own growth. At CleverReach, the team is currently working on an AI-driven intelligence that is at the heart of the vision "Anyone can do email marketing." The goal is that even small companies can create campaigns tailored to their target groups that are second to none in quality to professional agencies. Personalized content, automated phrasing recommendations, and data-based customer segmentation are to become the new standard. At Personizer, AI also plays a central role. Through predictive analytics, companies should be made aware of possible personnel shortages at an early stage. "AI is to take over routine work and create space for the tasks that require real ideas and decisions," says Sebastian Schwarz. For the year 2030, the //CRASH corporate group has ambitious goals. "We want to become one of Europe's leading software houses, independent, sustainable, and with long-term growth," summarizes Sebastian Schwarz. Together with the managing directors Jens Klibingat and Sebastian Strzelecki, he leads a corporate group whose success is based on the commitment of its employees, on innovation, efficiency, and trust and proves that technological strength can also be thought of in European terms.