History SECO Northern Europe GmbH

SECO Northern Europe GmbH was founded at the beginning of 2022 after the takeover of the Garz & Fricke Group by SECO S.p.A. With a company history of more than 30 years, the Garz & Fricke Group was one of the pioneers in the field of human machine interfaces, vending electronics and system on modules. SECO Northern Europe continues to uphold the core philosophy and spirit of the Garz & Fricke Group and aims to develop products and maintain the excellent service quality according to these maxims in the future.

The history of Garz & Fricke

In addition to their passion for entrepreneurship, Manfred Garz and Matthias Fricke are enthusiastic engineers and, with Garz & Fricke GmbH, constantly drove the technological development of embedded systems (HMIs, SBCs and payment systems) forward. From the beginning, first priority has always been the customer. They should always be offered excellent service and product quality, as well as a product portfolio for customised end solutions. Based on this philosophy, both founders developed their company steadily over 25 years. They made groundbreaking decisions, such as the founding of the Garz & Fricke Group or internationalisation in the USA. These decisions were always driven by the vision of creating a leading supplier of HMI systems. Manfred Garz and Matthias Fricke also had long-term plans to lead the company into a secure future through a successful transaction. This chapter was initiated with the investment of the SME investor Afinum in 2017 and concluded with the sale to the SECO Group at the end of 2021.

The story begins in Braunschweig, where the two founders Manfred Garz and Matthias Fricke studied electrical engineering together. Already during their studies, both dreamed of starting their own business one day. The first orders for the production of alarm systems for cigarette vending machines were soldered together by hand for hours in their shared kitchen. This experience shaped both of them so much that, after a short period of being employees, they decided to become entrepreneurs. The company Garz & Fricke GmbH was founded in 1992, and just one year after its foundation, the young company moved to Hamburg, where the new company headquarters of 86m² were occupied in a technology park in Harburg.

The young company is growing steadily and the number of large orders is constantly increasing. In order to be able to meet the rapidly increasing demand in the future, an SMD production facility is set up in the production department. In addition to its previous focus on vending & telemetry, Garz & Fricke is now focusing on a new business area: embedded systems.

Over the years, Garz & Fricke gains a lot of experience around single-board computers and starts developing its first own first Single Board Computer (SBC). In 2009, the company launches its first SBC series on the market. Already at this time, an own form factor is established and the fundamentals for the later modular family concept are noticeable. Even at that time, the stated goal was to develop a coordinated product portfolio that would make it possible to combine HMIs and Single Board Computers fast and easily. Furthermore, the foundation for customer-specific adaptations is already established here, so that even the most special customer requirements can be implemented efficiently.

An important building block for the success of Garz & Fricke is the high quality standard of its own products. Garz & Fricke received the decisive ISO 9000 certification in 2011. With the further achievement of ISO 13485, Garz & Fricke confirms the high requirements of medical products and is also increasingly active in this market.

In the meantime, products from Garz & Fricke can be found in almost all sectors: Transport, building security, professional kitchen equipment, digital signage or the in the areas of medical technology and vending as mentioned above.

Manfred Garz and Matthias Fricke have been planning to take their company to the next stage of development for some time and in 2017 they won Afinum as a SME investor for this project. Both founders continued to hold a significant stake in the company and managed the operational business in an executive position. With the investor as a partner, the company can realise its expansion plans in the USA.

Planned in 2017 and completed in 2019, Garz & Fricke moved into its new headquarters in Schlachthofstraße in Harburg. The new company headquarters was designed to meet the needs of the company from the start of planning. On approx. 8000 m², further growth plans are also possible in the future and the machinery can be strategically expanded.

In 2019, the Stuttgart software specialist e-GITS became a part of the Garz & Fricke Group. Together with the US location, the group expands to a workforce of over 150 employees.

With Keith & Koep, another company was integrated into the group in 2020. The Wuppertal-based company is a pioneer in ARM-based System on Modules (or also called Computer on Modules). With the integration of Keith & Koep, the Garz & Fricke Group became one of the most important system providers for ARM-based embedded technologies in Europe with an additional presence in North America. Furthermore, the group offers services in the matching software ecosystem.