{"id":4628,"date":"2026-04-23T13:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T13:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4628"},"modified":"2026-04-23T13:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T13:04:22","slug":"the-european-ai-unicorn-run-by-a-bakers-son-he-learnt-the-fundamentals-of-business-watching-his-father-make-bread-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4628","title":{"rendered":"The European AI unicorn run by a baker’s son\u2014he learnt the fundamentals of business watching his father make bread rolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Baking\u00a0is a tough business. Every\u00a0morning\u00a0from\u00a06am customers want a\u00a0tasty\u00a0product to start their day.\u00a0Margins are small and\u00a0competition intense\u00a0(lots of people can make a mediocre bread roll).\u00a0Demand is choppy but predictable\u2014the morning rush, the lunchtime spike, the home-time commute.\u00a0Be ill-prepared\u00a0for\u00a0Christmas and\u00a0face the\u00a0danger of fumbling your most profitable time of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bastian\u00a0Nominacher, co-founder of\u00a0European\u00a0AI unicorn,\u00a0Celonis,\u00a0comes from\u00a0a\u00a0family\u00a0of bakers\u00a0from\u00a0Munich, Germany. A computer-gaming enthusiast, he would help his father\u00a0use\u00a0new digital\u00a0technologies\u00a0to run the\u00a0five-generation\u00a0business\u00a0more efficiently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mostly helped on point of sale,\u201d\u00a0Nominacher\u00a0told me. \u201cIn baking, you have a lot of demand spikes. The highest is\u00a0at\u00a0Christmas, because everyone buys all the stuff, and you never want to be short.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe collected the data, so we really\u00a0knew. Because the margin is not\u00a0very high. You cannot\u00a0just say: \u2018Hey,\u00a0let\u2019s\u00a0make 10,000\u00a0rolls\u2019.\u00a0Because\u00a0if you throw away 2,000, first of all it\u2019s a pity because it\u2019s good food.\u00a0But it also ruins your\u00a0margin. So,\u00a0we took the\u00a0data, and we were really good\u00a0and\u00a0accurate\u00a0and\u00a0we could understand the demand patterns.\u00a0We had\u00a0a very\u00a0low\u00a0scrap rate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Celonis rank on Fortune Future 50<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, Warren Buffett said that the key to running a successful business was\u00a0not\u00a0the moonshot\u00a0or\u00a0the launch of\u00a0the\u00a0remarkable new product.\u00a0Instead,\u00a0success came from\u00a0doing the basics very well\u00a0and then finding\u00a0simple\u00a0efficiencies along the way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For many Fortune 500 companies,\u00a0the Sage of Omaha\u2019s advice\u00a0is\u00a0well taken. More than 25% of Fortune 500 companies are\u00a0Celonis\u00a0customers\u2014using\u00a0agentic\u00a0AI\u00a0to find better ways to bake bread.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Celonis\u00a0is a \u201cprocess mining\u201d\u00a0firm\u2014mapping every stage of a company\u2019s business, discovering overlapping priorities, human and technological sticking\u00a0points\u00a0and inefficiencies. In 2022 it was valued at\u00a0$13bn\u00a0after\u00a0a Series D $1bn fund-raising round. The\u00a0firm, founded in 2011, is often spoken of as the next European tech IPO\u00a0giant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday in Europe, most of the demand is in the supply chain, because supply chains have been under massive pressure, first with covid, then with tariffs, now\u00a0with\u00a0the Strait of Hormuz\u201d<\/p>\n

Bastian\u00a0Nominacher, co-founder of\u00a0European\u00a0AI unicorn,\u00a0Celonis<\/p>\n

To explain what\u00a0Celonis\u00a0does,\u00a0Nominacher\u00a0talks about\u00a0a brewing firm that\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0get the basics right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were struggling with delivery to the supermarkets\u00a0and\u00a0bars, that\u00a0was\u00a0very often late, which is bad because you lose revenue and\u00a0erode\u00a0customer trust\u201d he\u00a0says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Celonis\u00a0analyzed the 5,000 delivery runs a day the brewery was executing, worked out how to make the runs more\u00a0efficient\u00a0and reduced the number of journeys by 17%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought more\u00a0revenue in\u00a0and increased customer satisfaction. We brought down costs because they\u00a0needed less fuel. It also brought in more than 10% emission reduction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is what\u00a0Celonis\u00a0calls the \u201ctop-line, bottom-line, green-line\u201d effects of process mining:\u00a0increased revenue, reduced costs,\u00a0and lower environmental impact.\u00a0In 2025,\u00a0Celonis\u00a0was named\u00a0#3 on\u00a0the\u00a0Fortune Future 50 list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday in Europe, most of the demand is in the supply chain, because supply chains have been under massive pressure, first with\u00a0COVID, then with tariffs, now\u00a0with\u00a0the\u00a0closure of\u00a0Strait of Hormuz,\u201d he\u00a0says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously\u00a0the economy is not going well in many countries, so companies need to free up\u00a0[savings]\u00a0and,\u00a0if you do that right, you can easily find double-\u00a0or triple-digit millions. Macroeconomic pressure really helps create clarity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more: Silicon Valley has no monopoly on AI brainpower. That\u2019s why Demis Hassabis is very happy to stay in London <\/p>\n

The software-as-a-service\u00a0field\u00a0is under pressure, with many arguing that the very agentic AI that is being sold will\u00a0ultimately mean\u00a0the end\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0traditional SaaS commercial model.\u00a0AI-leveraged coding\u00a0from within businesses\u00a0will\u00a0destroy the value of the sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a software stock market analyst,\u201d\u00a0Nominacher\u00a0says with a smile when I ask him about the $1trn selloff in SaaS-listed\u00a0stocks\u00a0in February. \u201cI think some software companies will suffer if they\u2019re not differentiated, if\u00a0you can easily be replaced. But,\u00a0for\u00a0Celonis, it is a massive opportunity because\u00a0we are this piece of infrastructure that you need to drive this, and with massive use of agentic AI, it is a growing market.\u00a0[Agentic AI] allows us to be much more effective and efficient. Our biggest constraint is massive demand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The upsides are obvious,\u00a0he argues,\u00a0across the private and public sector. Do you want a doctor freeing up his or her time to speak to patients or\u00a0spending\u00a0hours, as\u00a0Nominacher\u00a0describes it, \u201cchasing 25 clipboards\u201d?\u00a0He agrees with those who argue that a\u00a0jobs\u00a0apocalypse is not imminent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShould an engineer spend their\u00a0time triangulating everything?\u201d\u00a0he\u00a0says. \u201cOr can you really spend the time understanding what the issue is and\u00a0determining\u00a0the right strategy to drive it? It\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0mean there will be less work.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0actually more\u00a0work, and more relevant work, because engineers can spend more time speaking with customers, doing workshops, doing the high-value work, instead of getting bogged down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any talk of a public listing is not for now, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the long term we see\u00a0Celonis\u00a0as a public company,\u201d he\u00a0says. \u201cBut it needs to be at the right point in time. Currently\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0fully focused on\u00a0our\u00a0customers and building\u00a0the technology. We\u2019re not pushing\u00a0it, [but] there will be a point in time when we do it\u2014when it\u2019s right from an internal perspective and also from a market conditions perspective. But nothing in the short-\u00a0to mid-term future.\u201d\u00a0Many argue that agentic\u00a0AI will \u201cchange everything\u201d.\u00a0And it will. But sometimes you also have to focus on how to make your bread rolls a little more\u00a0efficiently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

#European #unicorn #run #bakers #sonhe #learnt #fundamentals #business #watching #father #bread #rolls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baking\u00a0is a tough business. Every\u00a0morning\u00a0from\u00a06am customers want a\u00a0tasty\u00a0product to start their day.\u00a0Margins are small and\u00a0competition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[9721,6195,272,569,1436,4395,8851,9723,4275,4276,2335,65,9722,4940,4937,5908],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}