Familonet was sold to moovel , a Daimler subsidiary for mobility solutions, in 2017. As the portal deutsche-startups.de reports , the app, including all user accounts, has now gone back to Familonet’s founders and former employees, who have founded the startup FamiloApp GmbH. The reasons for the repurchase, which was communicated to users by email, were not at first disclosed. The announcement stated that “the extent to which moovel actually benefited from the Familonet technology over the past few years is unclear.” What progress the app has made over the past two years is also questionable.

The case is not unique in the automotive industry: In June 2019, VW ended its cooperation with US startup Aurora in the field of autonomous driving. According to German monthly business magazine ‘Manager Magazin’ , no details were given.