Munich (dpa) - The insolvent Munich robotics start-up Franka Emika is being sold. The buyer - the German-Chinese company Agile Robots - intends to continue and further expand the start-up "with the entire team of around 100 people at the Munich site", said insolvency administrator Matthias Hofmann on Monday. "I am very pleased that we have succeeded in finding a good solution for Franka Emika. Agile Robots has made a clear commitment to the further expansion of Franka Emika's team and to Munich and Bavaria as a location."

According to Hofmann, Franka Emika filed for insolvency at the end of August "following differences among the shareholders". The sale had kept him, his team and the experts consulted "very busy in recent weeks", he said. Among other things, the sale of the patent portfolio had been reversed six weeks before the insolvency application. In addition, "questions of foreign trade law" had been clarified with the Federal Ministry of Economics.

The ministry did not provide any further details on request. On Monday (November 6), it merely stated: "Information on any investment review procedures is not possible because business secrets worthy of protection are involved, which only companies that may be affected can disclose." In the run-up to the sale, "Der Spiegel" and "Bild", among others, had reported that other interested parties had tried to prevent the sale of Franka Emika to Agile Robots with reference to its Chinese connections.

Agile Robots claims to have research and development teams in Beijing and Munich. More than half of the Supervisory Board members are resident in China. The company is based in Munich.

The founder and CEO of Agile Robots, Zhaopeng Chen, called the merger "a strong signal for Germany as a robotics and AI location". With the takeover, an industrial solution has been found "that offers us the unique opportunity to create a Bavarian technology company with a truly global perspective".