What Opentalk Gmbh does

OpenTalk GmbH is a Berlin-based, privately held (GmbH) provider of GDPR-compliant video conferencing software, operating as a subsidiary of the Heinlein Group. The company sells both a SaaS product hosted exclusively in German data centers and an on-premises deployment option, targeting public-sector agencies, educational institutions, enterprises, and managed service providers that require digital sovereignty, BSI-grade security, and EU data residency. Pricing is tiered: a free Starter plan, Standard at €75 per user per year (or €7.50 monthly), Premium at €125 per user per year (or €12.50 monthly), and Custom/Enterprise pricing for on-premises and large accounts. The go-to-market combines product-led self-serve registration with event-driven and direct enterprise sales, supplemented by a Provider/MSP channel and co-marketing with sister company OpenCloud.

The platform is fully open source under the EUPL licence and is built on a modern architecture using Rust, LiveKit as the WebRTC media server (migrated from Janus in 2025), Kubernetes for horizontal scaling, RabbitMQ for signalling, and containerised conference rooms. Functionality spans video conferencing up to 200 participants, breakout rooms, subroom audio, audit-proof and anonymous voting, interactive whiteboards, meeting minutes, recording with tiered storage, RTMP(S) streaming to YouTube/Twitch, telephone dial-in via the in-house Obelisk SIP component, OIDC back-channel logout, MFA enforcement, waiting-room controls, and an Outlook add-in. Notable operational milestones include BSI IT Security Labels across all three commercial tiers and BITV 2.0 accessibility certification in 2025, statewide rollouts in two German state administrations (Thuringia and Schleswig-Holstein, the latter covering approximately 2,000 employees), and the appointment of Agathe Hütter as CEO in January 2026. Operating geographies include the DACH region plus France and the Netherlands.

Name

Opentalk Gmbh

Legal name

OpenTalk GmbH

Website

https://opentalk.eu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

OpenTalk GmbH provides GDPR-compliant, EUPL open-source video conferencing as SaaS (hosted in German data centers) or on-premises, targeting European public-sector agencies, educational institutions, enterprises, and MSPs with BSI-certified security and digital sovereignty.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Video Conferencing Software

NAICS

Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Video Conferencing & Meetings (BPAMACAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Open-Source & Developer Communities (BPAMABAM)

Keywords

• Video conferencing software
• Open source communication
• Sovereign cloud collaboration
• Enterprise meeting platform
• Self-hosted video meetings

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, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. SaaS Subscription (Per-User): OpenTalk generates revenue primarily through tiered SaaS subscriptions charged per user. The Starter plan is free with limited features; Standard (€7.50/month or €75/year per user) and Premium (€12.50/month or €125/year per user) plans offer progressively more conference rooms, participants, recording storage, and advanced features. An additional Private plan (€125/month or €12.50/month) offers custom configurations. Enterprise/Custom pricing is available upon request. Customers are billed monthly or annually with annual billing offering up to 17% savings.
2. On-Premises Licensing: OpenTalk offers on-premises deployment for organisations that want to operate video conferencing within their own IT infrastructure for maximum digital sovereignty. Revenue is generated through custom licensing agreements for organisations hosting their own instances, with pricing upon request. This targets public sector, large enterprises, and security-conscious organisations.
3. Freemium / Free Tier: The free Starter plan generates indirect revenue by driving awareness, adoption, and conversion to paid tiers. The Starter plan is limited to 10 conference rooms, 5 participants max, 30-minute call length, and 100 MB recording storage — sufficient for casual use but incentivising upgrades for professional needs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

OpenTalk GmbH provides a GDPR-compliant, open-source (EUPL) video conferencing platform offered as a SaaS service operated in German data centres and as an on-premises deployment for organisations requiring full digital sovereignty. The product supports up to 200 participants with collaboration features including breakout rooms, subroom audio, voting and polls, interactive whiteboards, recording, RTMP/S streaming, and telephone dial-in, and is targeted at public sector, education, enterprise, and managed service providers.

Product overview

OpenTalk GmbH offers a unified open-source video conferencing platform with two deployment options: OpenTalk Cloud Solution (SaaS) hosted in German data centers, and OpenTalk On-Premises for self-hosted installations. The platform is available through tiered pricing plans (Starter free, Standard at €75/year, Premium at €125/year) supporting 5 to 200 participants. Supporting components include Obelisk for SIP telephony integration and OpenTalk-Compose for air-gapped deployments. The solution provides collaboration features including breakout rooms, subroom audio, voting, polls, chat, interactive whiteboards, meeting minutes, recording, and streaming via RTMP(S) to YouTube/Twitch.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• OpenTalk Cloud Solution (SaaS) Cloud-hosted GDPR-compliant video conferencing platform operated in German data centres, providing scalable infrastructure for public sector, education, business, and provider customers without requiring on-premises installation; supports up to 200 participants with a 99.9% availability guarantee.
• OpenTalk On-Premises Self-hosted video conferencing solution for organisations requiring absolute digital sovereignty and integration into their own IT infrastructure with existing user management systems; can be operated in isolated networks and behind VPNs, and is licensed under custom enterprise agreements.
• OpenTalk-Compose Containerised deployment variant of OpenTalk designed to be installed in air-gapped environments without internet access, using templating configuration and the otctl command-line tool for greenfield setup.
• Obelisk SIP Component OpenTalk's own SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) component that enables integration of professional telephony systems and Cisco hardware such as Room Kits and desk phones into OpenTalk conferencing infrastructure without cloud or proprietary platform dependencies.

Quantifiable outcome

• 99.9% uptime SLA for SaaS service
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature20 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• OpenCloudcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpenCloud (opencloud.eu) is a related company within the Heinlein Group that offers content collaboration and file management solutions. OpenTalk and OpenCloud frequently co-exhibit at trade shows (e.g., GITEX Europe, Digitaler Staat, Chemnitz Linux Days, Univention Summit) presenting a joint sovereign European communication and collaboration stack. Both companies share a mission around digital sovereignty and open-source values.
• Heinlein GroupcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpenTalk GmbH is a subsidiary of the Heinlein Group, which has specialised in secure data exchange and digital communication since 1992. The Heinlein Group provides strategic direction, shared infrastructure, ecosystem relationships, and co-marketing through events like SLAC, Chemnitz Linux Days, and Univention Summit. Jutta Horstmann serves as Co-CEO of the Heinlein Group.
• Elevate GmbHminorOthersElevate GmbH (Munich, Germany) is responsible for OpenTalk's brand identity and web design, as listed in the company imprint.
• LOOM GmbHminorOthersLOOM GmbH (Berlin, Germany) handled the technical implementation of the OpenTalk website, as listed in the company imprint.
• Pfennigparade Business. Inklusiv.minorOthersPfennigparade Business. Inklusiv. conducted the accessibility evaluation of the OpenTalk video conferencing solution in August 2024 and re-tested it in February 2025, based on EN 301 549 standard. The evaluation assessed accessibility for people with hearing, visual, and motor impairments.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Pexip: Pexip is a Norwegian enterprise video interoperability platform that enables secure video meetings across Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet, with strong public-sector adoption. It overlaps with OpenTalk's sovereign, regulated-customer value proposition and is a likely contender in European government and healthcare RFPs.
• eyeson: eyeson is an Austrian video conferencing provider with a developer-friendly API and a focus on European data protection. It competes with OpenTalk for European SMB and enterprise customers seeking an EU-hosted alternative to US hyperscalers, though with a smaller feature set around public-sector certifications.
• alfaview: alfaview is a German video conferencing provider headquartered in Karlsruhe that emphasises data protection, German hosting and BSI-aligned certifications. It is one of the closest direct competitors to OpenTalk in the German enterprise and public-sector market with comparable sovereignty positioning.
• Jitsi (8x8): Jitsi is an open-source WebRTC-based video conferencing platform offered as both self-hosted and a managed cloud service (Jitsi Meet, now part of 8x8). It is the closest direct competitor to OpenTalk in the open-source, self-hostable video conferencing space and competes for the same European privacy-conscious and education customers.
• Whereby: Whereby is a Norwegian browser-based video conferencing service positioned on ease of use and privacy/GDPR compliance. It targets SMBs and European customers seeking a lighter alternative to Zoom/Teams, overlapping with OpenTalk's SMB and education use cases in the DACH/Nordics corridor.
• BigBlueButton: BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing platform purpose-built for online learning and widely used in education. It competes with OpenTalk in the same sovereign, open-source and education segments, although it lacks OpenTalk's BSI certifications and on-premises air-gapped deployment.

Broad incumbents

• Zoom Video Communications: Zoom is the dominant global incumbent in video conferencing and competes head-to-head with OpenTalk for enterprise and education customers. While Zoom lacks EUPL open-source, BSI labels and on-premises sovereignty, its brand reach and feature depth set the benchmark OpenTalk must differentiate against.
• Cisco Webex: Cisco Webex is an established enterprise video conferencing and collaboration suite with deep public-sector and regulated-industry penetration. It overlaps with OpenTalk's enterprise and government segments, particularly through Cisco hardware (Room Kits) that OpenTalk also supports via SIP/Obelisk.
• Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is the largest enterprise collaboration platform globally, bundled with Microsoft 365. It is the principal incumbent competitor for the same enterprise and education budgets that OpenTalk targets and represents the biggest bundling and switching-cost threat to OpenTalk's growth.

Emerging players

• Wire: Wire is a Swiss/European secure messaging and collaboration platform with end-to-end encryption and EU sovereignty positioning. It is a thematic competitor to OpenTalk in the sovereign European enterprise communications space, with partial overlap in customer base and security-led value proposition.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/opentalk-video-conferencing

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 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 Opentalk Gmbh