Dembrane

What Dembrane does

Dembrane B.V. is a Netherlands-based private company that builds an AI-powered stakeholder engagement platform designed to convert small-group, in-person conversations into structured, auditable outcomes in real time. The product architecture is modular, organized around five functional layers: RECORD (QR-code-based conversation capture via participants' phones, with EU-hosted transcription and ISO 27001 / GDPR-compliant storage), ASK (LLM-driven synthesis that merges and deduplicates findings across tables and sessions into a first draft of recommendations), VERIFY (hands the AI summary back to participants in the room for real-time correction and sign-off), EXPLORE (Socratic questioning driven by conversational friction), and a planned SHARE layer to pool anonymised processes into a governed data commons. Dembrane's core differentiation combines a no-app, QR-code participant experience with EU data sovereignty, multilingual support, and an open-source core (ECHO, now under BSL 1.1).

Name

Dembrane

Legal name

Dembrane B.V.

Website

https://dembrane.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Dembrane is a Netherlands-based AI platform that turns in-person small-group conversations into structured, traceable outcomes via QR-code recording, live transcription, and LLM-powered synthesis, serving municipalities, public agencies, healthcare boards, universities, and facilitation consultancies primarily across Europe.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Stakeholder Engagement Software

NAICS

Computer Systems Design Services (541512)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration (BPAMAMAI)

Keywords

• Stakeholder engagement software
• Citizen participation platform
• Deliberative democracy tools
• AI conversation transcription
• Civic engagement technology

Headquarters

HQ city

Eindhoven

HQ country

Netherlands

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Self-Service SaaS Subscriptions: Three-tier annual subscription model (Innovator €20/mo, Changemaker €75/mo, Guardian €150/mo) with unlimited participants and recording hours on every tier. Revenue recognized on a recurring annual subscription basis.
2. Deliberation as a Service: Managed professional services for live events: €1,250 event preparation fee plus €1,250 per event day. Includes intake, event design, workspace setup, in-person facilitation, live analysis, structured report delivery, multilingual support, and software/transcription. Travel costs quoted separately.
3. Certified Training: EU AI Act-compliant training for high-risk AI use in participatory settings: Flex async at €50, live online intermediate at €675, and in-person advanced at €2,500. Annual recertification required. Additional participants billed extra.
4. Scholarships (Recipients): Discounted or free access for NGOs, community organizers, grassroots movements, students, and partners in the Global South, in exchange for feedback, beta testing, documentation, or research collaboration.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Dembrane builds the dembrane Platform, an AI-powered stakeholder engagement software that lets participants join small-group conversations by scanning a QR code on their phone, with no app installation. Audio is captured, transcribed, and analyzed in real time using large language models to surface themes, merge insights across tables, and produce auditable reports. The offering is delivered through tiered SaaS subscriptions, supplemented by managed Deliberation as a Service event facilitation and EU AI Act-compliant certified training.

Product overview

Dembrane offers a modular stakeholder engagement platform built around five functional layers (RECORD, ASK, VERIFY, EXPLORE, and upcoming SHARE). The core product is the dembrane/ECHO platform, which enables QR code-based conversation recording with AI-powered transcription, synthesis, and recommendation generation. Platform tiers (Innovator, Changemaker, Guardian) offer escalating compliance and feature sets. The offering is complemented by Deliberation as a Service (professional facilitation) and certified Training programs, with scholarship support for eligible organizations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• ECHO: Former product name for the stakeholder engagement platform. Now referred to as the dembrane platform.
• Dembrane Participation Portal

Products and services

• dembrane Platform The stakeholder engagement platform built for the real world. Participants scan a QR code to record small-group conversations on their phones, and the platform turns dozens of conversations into live outcomes, editable drafts, and traceable reports using AI-powered transcription and synthesis. Targeted at public sector, consultancies, networks, and healthcare organizations running participatory processes.
• Deliberation as a Service Managed event facilitation service for high-stakes live events. Includes intake, event design, workspace setup, in-person attendance, live analysis, and structured report delivery with multilingual support. Priced at €1,250 event preparation plus €1,250 per event day, with travel quoted separately. Targeted at government agencies, municipalities, and large organizations running citizen assemblies or multi-day deliberative events.
• Certified Training Program EU AI Act-compliant certification training for organizations deploying the platform in high-risk participatory AI use cases. Delivered in three formats: Flex async (€50 for up to 5 participants), live online intermediate (€675 flat), and in-person advanced (€2,500 for up to 10 participants). Annual recertification is required. Targeted at compliance officers, participation professionals, and organizations operating under EU AI Act requirements.

Quantifiable outcome

• 8x faster, 4x coverage, 50% cheaper vs. traditional methods (Co-operation Ireland, Derry/Londonderry)
• +9 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• AI4Deliberation ConsortiumcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 19 November 2024Dembrane joined AI4Deliberation, a €3M European research consortium of 13 organisations (universities, non-profits, IT consultancies, software projects) building open-source AI-powered tools to revitalize democratic participation. The European Commission accepted the consortium's proposal. Dembrane's role is to translate research into user-friendly DemTech tools. Partners include TU Delft, University of Dundee, Institute of Criminology Ljubljana, City of Bamberg, ActionAid, and others.
• Global Democracy Coalition (GDC)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerDembrane became an official partner of the GDC, a multi-stakeholder alliance of 150+ democracy organisations worldwide. As a technology partner, dembrane supports the GDC network with tools designed for democratic processes, including citizen assemblies and stakeholder consultations.
• CommunitySenseminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the OpenAI Democratic Inputs to AI consortium. CommunitySense contributes expertise in community engagement and social deliberation methodologies.
• TU/e & JADS (Eindhoven University of Technology / Jheronimus Academy of Data Science)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the OpenAI Democratic Inputs to AI consortium. TU/e contributes academic research expertise in technology and ethics, with Bram Delisse as the representative.
• Sortition FoundationminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the OpenAI Democratic Inputs to AI consortium. Sortition Foundation contributes expertise in representative random sampling for citizen assemblies.
• Eindhoven MunicipalityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the OpenAI Democratic Inputs to AI consortium. Eindhoven Municipality (Ran Haase) was the host location for the BrainWaves city-wide dialogue experiment and provides civic context for product development.
• Drostan.orgminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of the OpenAI Democratic Inputs to AI consortium. Rolf Kleef contributes social deliberation expertise to the consortium.
• The Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborations on open civic participation tools with VNG (Dutch municipality association) and the OECD helped catalyze Dembrane's decision to go open source, per the February 2025 open source announcement.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• CitizenLab: Citizen engagement SaaS platform for municipalities and public-sector organizations, offering citizen panels, idea collection, and participatory budgeting. Direct competitor to Dembrane in the European civic-engagement market with overlapping government buyer profile and similar PLG-to-enterprise motion.
• Decidim: Open-source participatory democracy platform developed by Barcelona City Council, used by hundreds of European municipalities. Direct competitor in the citizen assembly and participatory process space, though deployed via self-hosting rather than managed SaaS.
• Pol.is: Open-source, AI-assisted real-time deliberation platform that surfaces consensus and disagreement across large groups. Closely comparable to Dembrane's AI synthesis of small-group conversations, with similar ML-driven opinion mapping approach.
• Loomio: Cooperative-owned collaborative decision-making platform used by organizations for proposals, discussions, and polls. Comparable in the deliberation-as-decision-support category, though more text/thread-based rather than audio capture like Dembrane.
• Remesh: AI-powered live conversation platform for market research and employee/stakeholder engagement, using NLP to surface consensus from group conversations. Closely comparable to Dembrane's LLM-synthesis approach, targeting enterprise research buyers.
• Thoughtexchange: Stakeholder engagement platform for governments, schools, and healthcare systems with patented idea-rating and discussion tools. Direct competitor in the public-sector stakeholder consultation category, with overlapping healthcare and education buyer segments.
• Ethelo: Group decision-making and stakeholder engagement platform for governments, organizations, and communities. Comparable in offering structured deliberation with trade-off analysis, overlapping with Dembrane's citizen assembly and policy consultation use cases.
• Consul: Open-source citizen participation platform developed by Madrid City Council, widely deployed across Spanish municipalities. Direct competitor in the participatory democracy category with similar government-focused positioning.

Broad incumbents

• Granicus: Established govtech vendor offering a broad suite of public-sector engagement, communications, and service delivery tools. Larger incumbent in the same government buyer segment that Dembrane targets, with overlapping citizen engagement capabilities.
• Otter.ai: AI meeting transcription and summarization platform serving enterprises broadly. Overlaps with Dembrane's RECORD and ASK layers (transcription + synthesis) but lacks deliberation-specific workflows and EU data-sovereignty positioning.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/dembrane

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Dembrane