What LiquidFeedback does

LiquidFeedback is an open-source democracy software platform for proposition development and decision-making in medium and large organizations. The product is built on a PostgreSQL database using PL/pgSQL for backend voting algorithms and a Lua-based frontend using the WebMCP framework, implementing liquid democracy (transitive proxy voting), collective moderation, and preferential voting mechanisms. The software is published under MIT/X11 license by Public Software Group e.V., while commercial services are provided by FlexiGuided GmbH (Berlin), the entity through which the founders and managing directors Axel Kistner and Andreas Nitsche operate the business. The commercial entity also maintains a research association, Interaktive Demokratie e.V., that publishes The Liquid Democracy Journal.

The company monetizes through three editions: a free Community Edition (self-service open-source download), a Business Edition (for small and medium organizations with configuration, training, and 2nd-level support), and an Enterprise Edition (for large organizations and governments with high-availability setup and priority service). Installation services start at EUR 4,760 and maintenance from EUR 536 per month. Go-to-market combines direct enterprise sales, free online seminars, workshops, academic conference presence, and academic/research partnerships. The platform integrates with LDAP, Active Directory, OAuth 2.0, Git, Mercurial, and blockchain token systems.

Customer segments span political parties (Pirate Party Germany), governments (County of Friesland, Yorkshire County), corporations (Synaxon AG), NGOs (Slow Food Germany), and EU research projects. The proprietary algorithmic stack — liquid democracy, collective moderation, preferential voting, harmonic weighting, and proportional runoff — has been continuously refined since 2009, though the company has remained a micro-enterprise of 1-10 employees with no disclosed external funding.

Name

LiquidFeedback

Legal name

FlexiGuided GmbH

Website

https://liquidfeedback.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

LiquidFeedback is an open-source democracy software platform that enables proposal development and decision-making through liquid democracy, collective moderation, and preferential voting. It serves political parties, governments, corporations, and NGOs globally, with commercial services handled by FlexiGuided GmbH in Berlin.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Berlin

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Installation Services: Professional installation and configuration services for setting up LiquidFeedback on dedicated servers or cloud environments. Includes handover briefing. Priced starting from EUR 4760 including VAT.
2. Maintenance and Support: Ongoing maintenance services including installation of software updates, email and phone support. Billed monthly starting from EUR 536 including VAT.
3. Consulting and Training: Expert advisory services for system planning, rollout coordination, and integration with existing processes. Also includes workshops and training sessions tailored to organizational needs.
4. Enterprise Licensing: Enterprise edition includes priority service and high-availability setup for large organizations, governments, and public bodies. Sold through direct sales contact.
5. Community Edition (Open Source): Free open-source version under MIT/X11 license for small organizations with qualified IT staff. Self-service download with self-service installation, updates, and support.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

LiquidFeedback is an open-source democracy software platform that enables proposal development and decision-making in medium and large organizations. It implements liquid democracy (transitive proxy voting), collective moderation, and preferential voting to support transparent, scalable participation. The company sells three editions (Community, Business, Enterprise) along with installation, maintenance, consulting, and training services, and publishes The Principles of LiquidFeedback book and The Liquid Democracy Journal.

Product overview

LiquidFeedback is a democracy software platform for proposal development and decision-making in organizations. The product portfolio consists of three editions: Community Edition (free, open-source MIT/X11 license for small organizations), Business Edition (for small/medium enterprises with professional support), and Enterprise Edition (for large organizations and government bodies with high-availability setup). The software comprises two technical components: LiquidFeedback Core (PostgreSQL database schema with voting algorithms) and LiquidFeedback Frontend (Lua-based web interface using WebMCP framework). Professional services include installation (from EUR 4760), monthly maintenance (from EUR 536), consulting, and training workshops. The platform also publishes 'The Principles of LiquidFeedback' book and 'The Liquid Democracy Journal' as educational resources.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• LiquidFeedback Enterprise Edition Full-featured edition for large enterprises, organizations, government agencies, and public bodies. Includes high-availability setup, priority service, use case planning, platform configuration, training, and 2nd level support, with on-premise or cloud installation.
• LiquidFeedback Business Edition Edition for small and medium enterprises and organizations. Includes use case planning, platform configuration, training, 2nd level support, and on-premise or cloud installation.
• LiquidFeedback Community Edition Free open-source edition for small organizations with qualified IT staff. Self-service installation, configuration, and continuous updates under the MIT/X11 license, available on-premise or in the cloud.
• LiquidFeedback Core Database schema for PostgreSQL that includes algorithms for delegations, feedback, and voting procedure implemented as SQL views and database procedures written in PL/pgSQL. Forms the technical backbone of the LiquidFeedback platform.
• LiquidFeedback Frontend Reference implementation written in Lua using the WebMCP web application framework, providing the user interface for the LiquidFeedback platform.
• LiquidFeedback Installation Services Professional installation service including setup on a dedicated server or cloud environment and a handover briefing. Prices start from EUR 4,760 including VAT.
• LiquidFeedback Maintenance Service Ongoing maintenance including installation of updates, email and phone support. Prices start from EUR 536 monthly including VAT.
• LiquidFeedback Consulting Expert consultation on system planning, smooth rollout, and integration with established processes, including connecting to existing subscriber databases.
• LiquidFeedback Training and Workshops Workshops and lectures providing hands-on experience with LiquidFeedback, tailored to organizational needs. Includes the User Perspective Workshop (2-4 hours with 2 speakers) and the Democratic Product Development Workshop (2 hours).

Quantifiable outcome

• Unlimited number of participants can be included in deliberation and decision processes
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

Feature11 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• Interaktive Demokratie e.V. (Association for Interactive Democracy)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2010Founded by LiquidFeedback developers in June 2010 as an independent, non-partisan research institution. Collaborates with researchers from computer science, mathematics, media studies, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Promotes science, education, and development cooperation. Conducts academic research and publishes The Liquid Democracy Journal. Provides scientific legitimacy and research advancement for LiquidFeedback.
• Public Software Group e. V.coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNon-profit organization that publishes LiquidFeedback open-source software. Maintains the codebase repositories and accepts contributions under MIT/X11 license.
• International IDEA (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerStockholm-based international organization focused on democracy support. Partnered with LiquidFeedback on workshops including the inaugural Global South workshop in Yangon, Myanmar in November 2013.
• Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHosted international launch of 'The Principles of LiquidFeedback' book in January 2014. Conducted workshops with Georgian political parties in Tbilisi, Georgia.
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInvited LiquidFeedback to participate in Technology & Strengthening Democracy conference in Islamabad, Pakistan in October 2014.
• Asia-Europe FoundationminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSingapore-based foundation participated in inaugural Global South workshop in Yangon, Myanmar in November 2013.
• Hanns-Seidel-FoundationminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMunich-based political foundation participated in workshop in Yangon, Myanmar in November 2013.
• RAND CorporationmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated with Interaktive Demokratie on organizing National Coalition for Equity Impact (NCEI) Summit events in 2023 in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, California.
• EU Horizon 2020 (WeGovNow and CO3 Projects)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerLiquidFeedback participated in EU research projects from 2016-2021, resulting in LiquidFeedback 4.0 with Material Design interface, OAuth2.0 support, and other enhancements. Used in Athens, London, Paris, Turin, and San Donà di Piave.
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborated on educational videos about liquid democracy and the origins of liquid democracy in 2021.
• Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (Colombia)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerParticipated in 'Conectados por la Paz' event in Bogotá, Colombia in August 2015 focused on inclusion processes for peace agreement implementation.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• YourPriorities: Civic engagement platform for crowdsourced ideas and voting from Citizens Foundation Iceland. Comparable because it offers open-source deliberation and voting tools for governments and civic organizations, similar to LiquidFeedback.
• Decidim: Open-source participatory democracy platform for cities, organizations, and governments. Comparable because it offers similar deliberation, proposal, and voting functionality targeting municipal governments and civic organizations across Europe.
• Loomio: Cooperative decision-making platform for groups and organizations. Comparable because it targets NGOs, co-ops, and member-based organizations seeking collaborative governance, with both freemium and paid tiers.
• Pol.is: Open-source real-time opinion visualization and deliberation platform. Comparable because it enables large-scale deliberation with algorithmic opinion mapping, overlapping with LiquidFeedback's deliberative process focus.
• Citizenlab: Citizen engagement platform for governments and municipalities offering ideation, consultation, and voting modules. Comparable as it targets the same government and civic-participation segment with a more modern SaaS delivery model.
• Ethelo: Group decision-making platform using multi-criteria decision analysis. Comparable because it serves organizations seeking structured, preference-based group decisions—similar use cases to LiquidFeedback's voting and proposal workflows.
• CONSUL (Madrid City Council): Open-source civic participation platform originally developed by the City of Madrid. Directly comparable to LiquidFeedback as both are open-source citizen participation tools used by European municipalities for participatory budgeting and consultation.

Emerging players

• All Our Ideas: Academic-driven pairwise voting and ideation platform developed at Princeton. Comparable as a deliberation/voting research tool, though more focused on idea prioritization than full governance workflows.

Regional players

• vTaiwan / g0v (Taiwan): Civic-tech ecosystem powering Taiwan's vTaiwan consultation platform. Comparable in function (deliberation, voting for civic engagement) but operating primarily in a different geography and as an open civic-tech movement.

Others

• Stanford Crowdsourced Democracy / CrowdLaw Lab: Academic initiative exploring crowdsourced legislative drafting and deliberation. Comparable ecosystem participant that overlaps with LiquidFeedback's civic participation use case, though operating as research rather than commercial software.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubpublic-software-group.org/mercurial/liquid_feedback_core/file
• Xx.com/liquidfeedback
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/liquidfeedback

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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 LiquidFeedback