Following the sale of Emmi AI to Mistral, the next major AI exit from the Speedinvest portfolio comes just weeks later: Ona is being acquired by OpenAI. The company officially announced the deal on Thursday, after Bloomberg first reported it. The purchase price has not been disclosed, and the transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals.
Ona, founded in Kiel, Germany, in 2020, develops AI agents for software development that help developers write code, find bugs, and implement changes directly in development environments. The company – previously known as Gitpod – says it has helped around two million developers work in secure, reproducible cloud environments. That technology is now set to become the centerpiece of the next stage of OpenAI’s coding agent Codex.
Why OpenAI Has to Make This Acquisition
For OpenAI, this acquisition is not a nice-to-have but a strategic necessity. Codex now counts more than five million weekly active users – up 400 percent since the beginning of the year. And the most valuable work the agent performs increasingly unfolds over hours or days rather than minutes. Anyone who wants to delegate ambitious tasks to agents can no longer be tied to the device where the work started. The task needs to keep running when the laptop is closed – and remain reviewable, steerable, and ready for sign-off from a smartphone or tablet.
This is exactly where OpenAI lacked the infrastructure: a secure, persistent place where agents can work over long periods with access to tools, systems, and context. Ona delivers that layer. The Kiel-based company’s customer-controlled execution model allows agents to operate inside an organization’s own cloud environment while OpenAI provides the intelligence and orchestration. Companies thus retain control over their infrastructure, data, and security boundaries – over questions like: Where do the agents run, what can they access, how are credentials scoped, how is activity logged?
In the enterprise business, that is the decisive lever. OpenAI says it now serves more than two million business customers, twice as many as a year ago. And Codex has long outgrown traditional software teams: product teams, analysts, and other knowledge workers use the agent for research, analysis, and automation. According to OpenAI, knowledge workers already make up roughly one in five Codex users – and are growing more than three times as fast as the core developer group.
Then there is the competitive pressure: OpenAI is locked in a race with Anthropic for dominance in AI coding agents – Anthropic’s Claude Code is considered a key driver of its rival’s explosive growth. Both companies have already filed confidential paperwork for an IPO. Whoever wants to win in the enterprise segment needs not only the best models but also the deployment layer that convinces corporations with the highest security and compliance requirements. The Ona acquisition thus joins a whole series of recent deals: in March, OpenAI announced the acquisition of cybersecurity startup Promptfoo, in January it bought health tech company Torch for around 60 million US dollars, and in 2025 the purchase of Jony Ive’s hardware startup io – valued at more than six billion dollars – made headlines.
“Agents need more than intelligence – they need a trusted workspace,” says Ona co-founder and CEO Johannes Landgraf. He says Ona was built to give agents cloud environments with the context, control, and collaboration that enterprises require. Joining OpenAI makes it possible to bring that foundation directly into Codex.
A Major Exit for Speedinvest – the Second Within Weeks
For Vienna-based VC Speedinvest, the deal marks a significant exit – and already the second major AI exit within a very short time. Just a few weeks ago, Speedinvest sold its shares in Linz-based physics AI startup Emmi AI to Mistral AI. Speedinvest is the first and largest investor in Ona and has worked closely with the company since its founding.
Emmi AI and Ona both stand for the same development: AI is shifting from general-purpose models and chatbots toward deep technical applications – from industrial systems to enterprise software development and infrastructure. In our view, this points to a larger trend: Austria may not have its own Mistral or OpenAI, but Austrian capital and talent are helping to build the European AI companies that become strategically relevant for the world’s most important AI labs.
Speedinvest CEO Oliver Holle comments on the acquisition:
“Europe is no longer just asking itself what role it will play in the AI age. The acquisition of Ona, a company founded in Germany, by OpenAI shows: European founders are building technologies that even the world’s leading AI companies need to bring AI into practical application. That is exactly what Ona is working on for enterprise software teams. The acquisition comes just weeks after Mistral acquired Emmi AI, an Austrian company that makes physics AI usable for industry and science. Speedinvest was the first and largest investor in both companies. Two companies, two of the world’s most important AI players, and a clear signal: Europe builds AI that is truly needed.”
What Happens Next
Until closing, OpenAI and Ona will remain separate, independent companies. After the transaction is completed, the Ona team will join OpenAI and work with the Codex team to expand secure, persistent enterprise execution environments and roll out Codex to more companies worldwide. CEO Johannes Landgraf wrote on LinkedIn that he had always thought selling the company would feel like an ending – instead, it feels as if his life’s work has just become bigger and more important.
