Our DNA

We are your partner. We have skin in the game.

Most technology companies call themselves partners. Gradion uses the word differently.

The company was not built by consultants. It was built by a founder who started companies, sold one to KAYAK, helped run KAYAK’s worldwide engineering team, and then built a firm that has spent more than two decades building and co-founding businesses alongside clients.

Gradion’s founder Lars Jankowfsky built Swoodoo, Germany’s leading flight metasearch platform. He later sold it to KAYAK and served as KAYAK’s VP Engineering.

That experience shapes how Gradion approaches every client relationship.

The question is simple. What does this business need to grow, and what would we do if it were ours?

Going further when the opportunity is right

Gradion’s involvement often extends beyond building software.

With LemonSwan, Gradion did not only develop the platform. The team helped place the founding CEO, a German dating industry expert based in Asia. The lead developer who built the product later became the company’s CTO.

Gradion co-built the business, not just the technology.

By 2024, LemonSwan had reached an estimated EUR 8 million in annual revenue.

When the opportunity is right, Gradion is open to deeper involvement. This can include advisory equity, co-investment, or even a founding role.

It is not a standard offering. It happens when the company genuinely believes in the product, the market, and the founding team.

That is the difference between operating as a partner and operating as a vendor.

Built from conviction, not cost

NFQ expanded into Asia in 2001.

The decision was not driven by cost advantages, although the economics work. The conviction was that Asia would become a third axis of global technology alongside the United States and Europe.

Two decades later, that conviction has proven correct.

Gradion is headquartered in Singapore. Engineering hubs operate in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Cairo, and Hamburg.

These are not support centers. They are where the engineering work happens. The teams operate with the same standards and the same client accountability as the Munich office.

What makes delivery different

Gradion’s engineering organization has grown from its NFQ origins into a global delivery platform.

320 engineers across four continents
More than 1,000 production deployments
Over $10 billion in GMV flowing annually through systems the company has built

These numbers are not a portfolio highlight. They are the baseline from which new engagements begin.

The delivery model also benefits from geographic structure.

Germany and Vietnam operate on a natural nine hour time difference. A scoping decision made in Hamburg on a Friday afternoon can move forward in Ho Chi Minh City the same evening.

This is not time zone arbitrage. It is a structural advantage for clients who need continuous progress.

Team composition follows the same principle.

Engineers are matched to client teams by domain expertise, not availability. A fintech client operating on AWS does not receive a team whose primary experience is Azure workloads in manufacturing.

The match determines the outcome. When it is wrong, engineers spend weeks building context. When it is right, they contribute from the first sprint.

The long view

Gradion’s longest partnerships span more than a decade.

HomeToGo has been a partner since its founding in 2014.
Shopmacher since 2017.
Detlev Louis since 2018.

These relationships persist because the work compounds over time.

An engineer who has worked inside a codebase for three years understands decisions made long before the current product manager joined. That context cannot be replicated by a new vendor, even one with strong credentials.

The goal of every engagement is simple.

To become the partner the client does not want to replace.

That happens when the team fit is right, delivery remains consistent, and engineers stay long enough to accumulate the context that makes them indispensable.