Labhard Medien Gmbh

What Labhard Medien Gmbh does

Labhard Medien GmbH is a Konstanz-based regional publishing house, founded in 1985 and operating since January 2022 as a subsidiary of the Schwäbisch Media (SV-Gruppe) media conglomerate following its merger with akzent Verlag. The company publishes a portfolio of roughly 20 print titles and complementary digital portals covering tourism, gastronomy, lifestyle, culture, business and special-interest content across the Lake Constance / Oberschwaben, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern regions of Germany (and cross-border into Austria and Switzerland).

The core technology is a cross-media publishing stack combining annual and monthly print magazines with regional online portals — most prominently bodensee.de, which the company reports reaches 2.7 million annual users — supported by social media channels totaling over 250,000 followers, an e-commerce storefront (labhard-shop.de), email newsletters, and a free catalog ordering service forwarding vacation planning requests to regional tourism offices. The 40-year-old Bodensee Magazin, 20+ year SachsenMagazin, akzent Magazin (largest lifestyle magazine at Lake Constance, distributed at over 2,000 points), seezunge gastronomy guide and IBN Magazin (water sports, since 1964) anchor the portfolio alongside custom publishing services for B2B clients including museums, castles, clinics, real estate firms and regional/city publications.

The business model combines four revenue streams: (1) advertising sales in print and online properties, executed by a dedicated sales and media consulting team targeting tourism organizations and local businesses; (2) magazine sales via subscription, retail and the online shop, with unit-priced specialty publications such as Die Höri Bülle at €14.80 / CHF 16.50; (3) custom magazine and publication production billed as professional services to corporate and institutional clients; and (4) catalog and brochure distribution acting as an affiliate-style referral channel into regional tourism offices. Operations are run from two main offices (Konstanz and Dresden) plus a Neubrandenburg office for the Baltic coast titles, with the consolidated entity employing approximately 24 staff.

Name

Labhard Medien Gmbh

Legal name

Labhard Medien GmbH

Website

https://labhard.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

1985

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Labhard Medien GmbH is a Konstanz-based subsidiary of Schwäbisch Media that publishes regional German print magazines and digital portals covering tourism, gastronomy, lifestyle, culture and business across the Lake Constance, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern regions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Konstanz

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Magazine Sales: Sale of travel, lifestyle, gastronomy, and business magazines through subscription, retail, and online shop
2. Advertising & Media Consulting: Sale of advertising space in print magazines and online platforms, with dedicated sales team providing media consulting services
3. Custom Magazine Production: Creation of custom magazines, customer magazines, and publications for B2B clients including museums, castles, business reports, clinic magazines, real estate magazines, and regional/city publications
4. Catalog & Brochure Distribution: Free catalog ordering service forwarding requests to regional tourism offices, facilitating tourism promotion

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Labhard Medien GmbH is a regional publishing house that produces and sells print and digital magazines focused on tourism, lifestyle, gastronomy, culture, and business across multiple German regions. The company publishes flagship titles such as Bodensee Magazin, SachsenMagazin, akzent Magazin, and seezunge gastronomy guide, operates online portals including bodensee.de with 2.7 million annual users, and offers custom magazine production services for B2B clients such as museums, healthcare providers, real estate firms, and regional governments. It also runs a free catalog ordering service that forwards brochure requests to regional tourism offices.

Product overview

Labhard Medien GmbH operates as a multi-platform publishing house offering a portfolio of travel, lifestyle, gastronomy, culture, and business magazines, supported by digital online portals and custom publishing services. The core portfolio includes regional travel magazines (Bodensee Magazin with 40 years of publication, SachsenMagazin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-Magazin, GartenTour), lifestyle publications (akzent Magazin as the largest lifestyle magazine in the region), specialized gastronomy content (seezunge as the largest gastronomy guide), business magazines (Wirtschaftsmagazin Bodensee and Wirtschaftsmagazin SACHSEN), and water sports publications (IBN Magazin since 1964). These magazines are complemented by online platforms including bodensee.de (with 2.7 million annual users), urlaubszeit-sachsen.de, camping-bodensee.de, and meckpomm.de. The company also offers custom magazine production services for corporate clients and operates a free catalog ordering service. Following the 2022 merger with akzent Verlag, the company became the largest magazine publisher at Lake Constance with approximately 24 employees and millions in annual circulation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Bodensee Magazin: 40-year-old travel magazine for the Lake Constance region
• SachsenMagazin
• GartenTour
• seezunge
• akzent Magazin
• OberschwabenMagazin
• Wirtschaftsmagazin Bodensee
• IBN Magazin
• SIGHTGEIST
• Traumzeit
• CAMPING Urlaub
• VITAL am See
• seeclassics
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-Magazin
• Seemänner und klasse Frauen

Products and services

• Bodensee Magazin Flagship annual travel magazine for the Lake Constance (Bodensee) region, published for 40 years as the primary tourism publication and lead medium for the region.
• SachsenMagazin Annual travel magazine showcasing Saxony as a destination for relaxation, active recreation, and cultural experiences, with 128-144 pages of content, plus the quarterly SachsenMagazin aktuell events newspaper.
• akzent Magazin Largest lifestyle, personality, culture, and events magazine between Bodensee and Oberschwaben, distributed monthly at over 2,000 locations around Lake Constance.
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-Magazin Travel magazine covering the Baltic Sea coast and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, supported by the online portal meckpomm.de.
• GartenTour Annual special-interest travel magazine focused on gardens, parks, and estates in Germany and beyond, published as a 96-page edition.
• OberschwabenMagazin Magazine covering the Upper Swabia tourism region, produced in cooperation with Oberschwaben Tourismus GmbH for over 20 years as the central advertising medium for the destination.
• seezunge Largest gastronomy guide in the Lake Constance region, covering approximately 100 restaurant recommendations and 1,000 addresses across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
• Wirtschaftsmagazin Bodensee Annual business magazine covering the international Lake Constance economic region, featuring business promotion, companies, politics, and location factors.
• IBN Magazin Monthly magazine since 1964 covering the most important boat and water sports news on and around Lake Constance.
• CAMPING Urlaub Annual camping guide featuring camping destinations around Lake Constance, Allgäu, and Upper Swabia, including ECOCAMPING-certified sites.
• Traumzeit Wedding magazine and online platform serving as the largest wedding platform in the Lake Constance region.
• SIGHTGEIST English-language lifestyle magazine presenting cultural and economic highlights of Saxony with generous photography, targeted at international audiences.
• Usedom Magazin Annual magazine for the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea, produced at the Neubrandenburg office, plus the Usedom Aktuell events and leisure newspaper.
• bodensee.de Online Portal Primary online portal for Lake Constance tourism with 2.7 million annual users, serving as the umbrella digital brand for all Bodensee publications and magazines, complemented by urlaubszeit-sachsen.de, camping-bodensee.de, and meckpomm.de.
• Custom Magazine Production (Kundenmagazine) B2B service producing custom magazines, customer magazines, and publications for corporate clients including museums, castles, annual business reports, clinic magazines, real estate magazines, and regional/city publications.
• Free Catalog Ordering Service (Gratiskataloge) Free catalog ordering service for vacation planning brochures from Lake Constance, Saxony, Upper Swabia, and garden regions, with requests forwarded to regional tourism offices.

Quantifiable outcome

• 2.7 million annual users on bodensee.de
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration6 records

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Oberschwaben Tourismus GmbH (OTG)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Long-term partnership for OberschwabenMagazin publication. The magazine serves as a central advertising medium for the Upper Swabia tourism region in cooperation with the official tourism umbrella organization (OTG). Partnership spans over 20 years, making it one of the core strategic relationships.
• akzent VerlagcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Merger in 2022 combining akzent Verlag with Labhard Medien to form the largest magazine publisher at Lake Constance. All magazines, online platforms, and staff retained. Combined entity has 24 employees and operates under the Labhard Medien umbrella with bodensee.de as the visible consumer brand.
• Schwäbisch Media (SV-Gruppe)coreOthersParent company Schwäbisch Media is one of the largest and most successful media houses in southwest Germany. Part of the SV-Group with 2,500 employees nationwide. Labhard Medien operates as a subsidiary with editorial and publishing independence while benefiting from group resources and distribution capabilities.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• BerlinStory Verlag: Berlin-based independent regional book and magazine publisher producing high-quality, photography-rich content for a specific German region. Comparable as a small German publisher building a regional-content brand around print + digital + B2B custom projects.
• Motor Presse Stuttgart: Stuttgart-based special-interest magazine publisher (Auto Motor und Sport, Motor Klassik, sport.auto). Comparable publishing model — multi-title special-interest portfolio with print + digital + events — and similar mid-size German publisher profile to Labhard.
• GeraNova Bruckmann Verlagshaus: Munich-based special-interest and travel magazine publisher (including cycling and active-travel titles). Comparable regional content focus, special-interest magazine mix, and B2B custom publishing presence alongside Labhard's tourism and lifestyle titles.
• Callwey Verlag: Munich-based special-interest book and magazine publisher covering architecture, design, and lifestyle (e.g., Wohnen, Garten). Comparable as a German special-interest publisher with a portfolio of premium, regionally relevant titles and strong B2B custom publishing.
• Jahreszeiten Verlag: Hamburg-based lifestyle and lifestyle-travel magazine publisher (Merian, Petra, Vogue Germany, Geo). Comparable premium lifestyle/travel magazine portfolio and similar ad-monetized print + digital model, although operating at a larger national scale.
• Delius Klasing Verlag: Bielefeld-based special-interest book and magazine publisher with strong titles in water sports, cycling, and travel (e.g., BOOTE, YACHT). Directly comparable to Labhard's niche, region-rooted special-interest portfolio, including the IBN Magazin water-sports title.
• Raufeld Medien: Berlin-based digital-first content and custom magazine producer serving B2B clients across DACH. Highly comparable to Labhard's Kundenmagazin service line (custom magazines for museums, clinics, real estate, cities) and competes for similar Mittelstand content-marketing budgets.

Broad incumbents

• Funke Mediengruppe: Major German regional newspaper and magazine group publishing regional titles across multiple federal states. Comparable as a regional-content aggregator, but with much broader geographic reach and deeper digital infrastructure than Labhard.
• Hubert Burda Media: One of Europe's largest private media conglomerates, with significant travel/lifestyle (e.g., Holidaycheck) and regional publishing holdings. A broad incumbent that overlaps with Labhard in DACH lifestyle/travel media, but operates at much greater scale.
• Gruner + Jahr: Hamburg-based major consumer-magazine publisher (Stern, Geo, Brigitte, Schöner Wohnen). Broad incumbent with overlapping lifestyle, travel, and home/garden content verticals — most relevant for benchmarking Labhard's lifestyle portfolio against national-scale periodical publishers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks4 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/BodenseeMagazin
• Instagraminstagram.com/bodensee_magazin/?hl=de
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/labhard-medien-gmbh

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 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 Labhard Medien Gmbh