199 lines
9.6 KiB
Markdown
199 lines
9.6 KiB
Markdown
# Amutable Corporate Structure, Funding, and Infrastructure
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## Founder Holding Companies (Major Discovery)
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Each founder created a personal holding UG to hold their Amutable equity - a standard German startup structure. The timeline reveals these were incorporated while the founders were still at Microsoft.
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| Entity | Managing Director | HRB | Founded | Capital | Purpose |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Assembled Parts UG | Christopher Wilson Kühl | HRB 254424 B | May 26, 2023 | 5,000 EUR | "Development, maintenance and distribution of software and related technical and management consulting services" |
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| CBLLC Holding UG | Christian Brauner | HRB 277363 B | Jul 2025 | 10,400 EUR | "Shareholding in other companies and management of own assets" |
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| LPLLC Holding UG | Lennart Poettering | HRB 277482 B | Jul 25, 2025 | 10,400 EUR | "Shareholding in other companies and management of own assets" |
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| Amutable GmbH | Brauner, Kühl, Poettering | HRB 278404 B | Aug 21, 2025 | 25,200 EUR | Same as Assembled Parts UG |
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### Naming Convention
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- LPLLC = Lennart Poettering LLC (German UG equivalent)
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- CBLLC = Christian Brauner LLC
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- Assembled Parts = Kühl's pre-existing entity (also runs All Systems Go! conference)
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### Key Finding: LPLLC Appears in Amutable's Shareholder List
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LPLLC Holding UG appears in Amutable's Gesellschafterliste (shareholder list dated August 6, 2025), confirming it holds equity in Amutable GmbH. The other holding UGs presumably hold the remaining equity.
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### No External Investors in Public Registry
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No external VC investors, corporate investors, or other entities appear in any public corporate registry data. The shareholder structure appears to consist solely of the three founder-controlled holding vehicles.
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A previous claim (from a hallucinating AI agent) that AXA Venture Partners, Bosch Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Spark Capital, and 42CAP invested was verified as fabricated - zero search results connect any of these firms to Amutable.
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---
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## Complete Corporate Timeline
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| Date | Event | Significance |
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| May 26, 2023 | Assembled Parts UG registered (Kühl) | 2+ years before Amutable announcement; while at Microsoft |
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| Jul 2025 | CBLLC Holding UG registered (Brauner) | While still at Microsoft |
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| Jul 25, 2025 | LPLLC Holding UG registered (Poettering) | While still at Microsoft |
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| Aug 6, 2025 | Gesellschaftsvertrag signed; Gesellschafterliste signed by all three founders | Shows holding UGs as shareholders; all still at Microsoft |
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| Aug 19, 2025 | Gesellschafterliste certified by Notar Dr. Hans-Michael Giesen | Pre-registration notarization |
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| Aug 21, 2025 | Amutable GmbH registered at Handelsregister by Dr. Weiland | All founders still at Microsoft |
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| Oct 7, 2025 | US trademark filed (Serial 99430458) | All founders still at Microsoft |
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| Oct 13, 2025 | AB-1043 signed into law | 6 days after trademark filing |
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| ~Late 2025 | Kühl leaves Microsoft | First founder to depart |
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| Jan 28, 2026 | Poettering and Brauner publicly leave Microsoft | 5 months after incorporation |
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| Jan 28, 2026 | Amutable publicly announced | |
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| Mar 18, 2026 | birthDate merged into systemd | 7 months after incorporation |
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---
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## Infrastructure OSINT
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### DNS and Hosting
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| Record | Value | Significance |
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| A records | 172.67.185.60, 104.21.19.49 | Cloudflare hosting |
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| MX records | aspmx.l.google.com (priority 1) | Google Workspace - NOT Microsoft 365 |
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| NS records | tanner.ns.cloudflare.com, tiffany.ns.cloudflare.com | Cloudflare DNS |
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| TXT (SPF) | includes _spf.mlsend.com, _spf.google.com | MailerLite newsletter + Google email |
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| TXT | cloudflare_dashboard_sso=bc8296c76975... | Cloudflare Dashboard SSO enabled |
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| CF-Ray | FRA (Frankfurt) | German Cloudflare edge |
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### SSL Certificate
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| Field | Value |
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| Subject | CN = amutable.com |
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| Issuer | Google Trust Services, WE1 |
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| Not Before | Jan 27, 2026 (1 day before announcement) |
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| Not After | Apr 27, 2026 |
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| SANs | DNS:amutable.com (single domain) |
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### Technology Stack
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| Component | Technology |
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| Framework | Next.js (x-powered-by header) |
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| Deployment | OpenNext (x-opennext: 1) |
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| CDN/Proxy | Cloudflare |
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| Email | Google Workspace |
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| Newsletter | MailerLite |
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| SSL | Google Trust Services |
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### Infrastructure Assessment
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The use of Google Workspace (not Microsoft 365) for email is a mild counter-signal to the "Microsoft proxy" theory. However, Google Workspace is extremely common for startups regardless of backers. The SSL cert was issued January 27, 2026 - one day before the public announcement - confirming the website went live at launch.
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### GitHub Presence
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No GitHub organization found under "amutable-systems" or "amutable." No public repositories. No source code published.
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---
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## Handelsregister Access (For Future Investigation)
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The German Handelsregister provides free, anonymous access to all corporate documents since August 1, 2022 (DiRUG reform):
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| Feature | Status |
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| Cost | Free (previously 4.50 EUR/retrieval) |
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| Registration required | No |
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| Identification required | No |
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| Accessible worldwide | Yes |
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| Gesellschafterliste available | Yes - shows all shareholders, ownership %, birth dates, addresses |
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| Interface language | German and English |
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| URL | handelsregister.de |
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### What the Gesellschafterliste Would Show
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For Amutable GmbH (HRB 278404 B), the Gesellschafterliste dated August 6, 2025 would reveal:
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- Every shareholder (natural persons and entities)
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- Ownership percentages
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- Whether any external investor (VC, corporate) holds equity
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- Whether it's solely the three founder holding UGs
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A direct download from handelsregister.de would definitively answer the funding question. This is the single highest-ROI investigative step remaining.
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### Bundesanzeiger Status
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| Entity | Jahresabschluss Filed? | Notes |
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| Amutable GmbH | No | Too new (registered Aug 2025, first FY ends Dec 2025, filing due by Dec 2026) |
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| Assembled Parts UG | Not found publicly | Should have filed for FY2023 by Dec 2024 - may be deposited as micro-entity |
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Sources:
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- [North Data — Amutable GmbH](https://www.northdata.com/?id=6632476091613184)
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- [North Data — LPLLC Holding UG](https://www.northdata.com/LPLLC+Holding+UG,+Berlin)
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- [North Data — Christian Brauner](https://www.northdata.com/Brauner,%20Christian,%20Berlin/1drk)
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- [CompanyHouse — Amutable GmbH](https://www.companyhouse.de/en/Amutable-GmbH-Berlin)
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- [openregister.de — Assembled Parts UG](https://openregister.de/company/DE-HRB-F1103-254424)
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- [Handelsregister Portal](https://www.handelsregister.de/)
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- [DiRUG reform — Law-Blog.de](https://law-blog.de/handelsregister-vereineinsregister-kostenlos-abrufen-dirug-digitalisierung/)
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- [Implisense — 2 companies at Bornholmer Str. 80A](https://implisense.com/en/addresses/10439-berlin-bornholmer-strasse-80-a)
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---
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## JBB Rechtsanwälte - Trademark Attorney
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JBB Rechtsanwälte is a legitimate, well-established Berlin IP/IT law firm with a 25+ year history and a leading reputation in open-source law in Germany.
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### Key Personnel
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| Person | Role | Significance |
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| David A. Copland | Of counsel (since 2018) | US trademark attorney, Dresden-based. 57 USPTO TTAB records. Filed Amutable trademark. |
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| Dr. Till Jaeger | Former partner (left Dec 2025) | Co-founded ifrOSS, handled ALL gpl-violations.org cases, GPLv3 drafting committee |
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### Major Restructuring (Dec 31, 2025)
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8 of 10 equity partners left JBB on December 31, 2025 to found JBViniol (Sophienstrasse 14, Berlin). The departing partners took the core IP, media, IT, and open-source expertise. The JBB that filed the Amutable trademark is a substantially different entity from what JBB is today.
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### Assessment
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- JBB is the natural choice for a Berlin open-source startup needing US trademark protection
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- No connections to Microsoft, Meta, or age verification companies were found
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- Copland's role is specifically US trademark prosecution - routine for his practice
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- The firm's OpenChain partnership and GPL enforcement history make it the default for this ecosystem
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Sources:
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- [JBB Rechtsanwälte](https://jbb.de/en/)
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- [David Copland at JBB](https://jbb.de/en/anwaelte/copland/)
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- [Copland Legal](https://www.coplandlegal.com)
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- [JUVE — JBB split](https://www.juve.de/markt-und-management/grosses-team-spaltet-sich-von-jbb-ab/)
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---
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## Government Funding Investigation
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### Sovereign Tech Fund → systemd
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| Period | Amount | Contractor | Notes |
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| 2023-2024 | Undisclosed | Neighbourhoodie Software (Berlin consultancy) | 10,000+ lines of test code |
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| 2025-2026 | 399,000 EUR | Not confirmed | "Extending systemd to improve security, integrity, and robustness" |
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| Ongoing | Up to 10K EUR/vuln | YesWeHack | Bug bounty program |
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No evidence shows that Amutable GmbH or Assembled Parts UG received STF grants. The 2023-2024 work was contracted through Neighbourhoodie Software. The 2025-2026 contractor is not publicly disclosed.
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### Other Grant Programs
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| Program | Amutable Grant Found? |
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| SPRIND | No |
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| BMBF | No |
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| Prototype Fund | No |
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| NLnet / NGI | No |
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| EXIST | No (requires university affiliation) |
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| KfW | No (would not be public) |
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| OpenSSF / Linux Foundation | No |
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| EU Horizon Europe / CORDIS | No |
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### Endocode (Kühl's Earlier Company)
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Chris Kühl's previous company Endocode AG participated in the EU H2020 FASTEN project (grant 825328), receiving approximately 492,808 EUR for FOSS compliance tooling. Kühl has experience with EU-funded open-source work.
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Sources:
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- [Sovereign Tech Agency — systemd](https://www.sovereign.tech/tech/systemd)
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- [Phoronix — STF 2026](https://www.phoronix.com/news/STF-2026-systemd-PHP)
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- [CORDIS — FASTEN project](https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/825328)
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