Koenig & Bauer, founded 1817 in Würzburg, Germany, manufactures industrial printing presses and process machinery. It supplies solvent-free dry-coating lines for lithium-ion electrodes and machine-vision inspection modules used in EV and energy storage production.
Koenig & Bauer AG, founded in 1817 by Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer and headquartered in Würzburg, Germany, manufactures industrial printing presses and process machinery. The company produces systems for printing, finishing and converting across packaging, security printing and specialty industrial segments. Its stated mission emphasizes engineering reliability, manufacturing efficiency and long-term customer support. Koenig & Bauer operates multiple production sites in Europe and a worldwide sales and service network, and has extended its portfolio to include process equipment for lithium-ion electrode production.
Koenig & Bauer’s battery-related technology focuses on solvent-free dry-coating equipment for lithium-ion anodes and cathodes and on inline optical inspection modules. The dry-coating method applies powder electrode materials without slurry or solvents, eliminating the drying oven and reducing reported energy use by up to 30% and floor-space needs by about 15% in pilot data. An exclusive license with Volkswagen PowerCo covers initial deployment. Supporting systems include automated web handling, tailored illumination and frame-grabber-based machine vision developed with Mitsubishi Electric to detect micro-defects across pouch, prismatic and cylindrical foils, improving yield and production safety.
Products include industrial dry-coating lines for electrode manufacture, high-speed optical inspection modules, classic and digital printing presses, and service offerings such as parts, retrofits, training and 24/7 support. These solutions serve packaging, security printing, labels, metal decorating and industrial coding, and are applied in EV battery electrode production and stationary energy storage to reduce solvent handling, lower energy use and provide inline quality assurance.
In 2025 Koenig & Bauer completed proof-of-concept testing for its dry-coating electrode process and advanced to a pilot production line with Volkswagen PowerCo under a seven-year exclusive equipment license. The company also developed machine-vision inspection modules with Mitsubishi Electric for electrode foil defect detection. In October 2025 Koenig & Bauer Kyana implemented integration of third-party presses for unified production data transparency and announced a cooperation with Bosch to explore manufacturing applications.
Koenig & Bauer has been publicly traded since 1985. Major shareholders include Koenig’sche Aktionärsvereinigung (16.7%), Leibinger Consulting AG (15.07%), AlternInvest GmbH (10.2%) and Hauck & Aufhaeuser Fund Services S.A. (10.02%). Institutional investors hold roughly 39.5% of shares, private companies 17%, and insiders about 15%.
