Garz & Fricke Group becomes SECO Northern Europe and SECO Mind Germany

In October 2021, Garz & Fricke Group announced the acquisition by SECO, a highly innovative core player in embedded systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence, listed on the Italian stock exchange. As a result, the Garz & Fricke Group and all its companies became part of the globally active SECO. As of 01 January 2022, the Garz & Fricke Group will take the next step towards integration into the SECO Group - and will in future operate under the names of SECO Northern Europe and SECO Mind Germany.

By doing so, the group wants to make its three lines of offering SECO Edge, SECO Mind and SECO Next more visible in markets DACH, Scandinavia, United Kingdom, Ireland and Benelux. In the future, SECO Northern Europe will also take over the business of SECO Deutschland GmbH.

From Edge to AI

SECO develops and produces first-class embedded systems adapted to the specific requirements of its customers and also makes them intelligent. Through additional solutions for data processing at the edge and in the cloud, the group of companies aims to make forward-looking technological solutions accessible to its customers in the simplest and fastest way possible.

Based on a comprehensive product portfolio, SECO adds intelligence to devices and applications and enables interaction between people and machines.

SECO Edge specializes in Single Board Computers (SBC) in the formats 3.5", embedded NUCTM and Pico ITX, Computer-on-Modules (COM) with proven standards such as COM Express®, COM-HPC®, ETX®, Qseven and SMARC as well as Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs). In the future, the comprehensive product portfolio will be supplemented by the modular Proven Concept HMI Portfolio by Garz & Fricke with Flush Mount, Rear Mount and Panel Mount installation variants and the Single Board Computers developed for this purpose. In addition, the System-on-Module (SOM) solutions Trizeps (SODIMM) and Myon by Keith & Koep will be integrated into the product range. Furthermore, this business unit will offer the entire field of payment solutions, such as the unattended cashless payment system KarL4 (TOPP) by Garz & Fricke. SECO Edge also offers advanced edge computing features - such as security applications and data computation - in the products.

Research & Development competencies in the areas of hardware, software and customer-specific system integration have also been bundled under SECO Edge. Customers of the new SECO Northern Europe as well as all customers of the entire SECO Group will benefit not only from the significantly expanded product range, but in particular from the now even better positioned R&D department.

From January 1, 2022 the new SECO Northern Europe GmbH, which will be formed from the companies Garz & Fricke GmbH, Keith & Koep GmbH and SECO Deutschland GmbH, will operate in the DACH regions, Scandinavia, United Kingdom, Ireland and Benelux.

Under SECO Mind, the group brings together all services related to the development of powerful and innovative IoT and AI applications. The focus is on the deployment of special software services and platforms for the use of artificial intelligence (AI), data science and data orchestration. At SECO Mind, solutions are developed for customers to extract data from the edge and transfer it to the cloud, where it can be used for data-driven decision-making with the help of state-of-the-art data processing. The aim is to use innovative software not only to reduce costs for device operators, but also to generate more revenue and profit. At the heart of this is the groundbreaking IOT-AI-SasS solution called Clea. This platform is designed to transform field data into actionable and measurable insights, as well as bundle device and application management into one platform. Today, this flexible solution is already integrated into all SECO hardware and can be quickly implemented upon request. Thus, customers receive a powerful overall solution from a single source, even without their own development. From now on SECO Mind is additionally represented by the new SECO Mind Germany GmbH, as successor of e-GITS GmbH.

The SECO Next focuses on creating and orchestrating an ecosystem for experimentation and supporting diverse market players through an open innovation approach. For this purpose, SECO offers a multidisciplinary network that is open to initiatives and partnerships and fosters new ideas for the next generation of innovation. Co-design and cooperation are at the forefront here, in order to jointly develop solutions for tomorrow today.

The new SECO Northern Europe and SECO Mind Germany combines an outstanding product and service portfolio with the corporate strength of a listed pioneer in IoT and AI solutions. In this way, it creates significant added value for existing customers as well as for new customers.