IKA, EV Battery Solutions from a 110-Year Mixing House

IKA (IKA-Werke GmbH & Co. KG) is a family-owned company specializing in laboratory and process mixing technology, founded in 1910 and headquartered in Staufen, Germany.

1. Company Overview

• Company name: IKA-Werke GmbH & Co. KG
• Founded: 1910 in Cologne as the Janke & Kunkel trading company
• Headquarters: Staufen im Breisgau, Germany (since 1942)
• Ownership: Family company (CEO René Stiegelmann, son Marcel Stiegelmann)
• Employees: Over 800, with locations in 8 countries worldwide

2. History and Workforce Status

Founded in 1910 in Cologne as a supplier to pharmacies and hospitals, the company relocated to Staufen after the war in 1942 and grew into a global leader in laboratory technology and dispersing, stirring, and kneading machinery. In 2025, it was again named one of Germany’s “World Market Leader Champions,” recognized as a fast-growing German mid-sized company.

Alongside its two core pillars of laboratory technology and process technology, the company has recently established new EV Battery Solutions and BioProcessing Solutions divisions. Detailed workforce composition is (undisclosed).

3. Core Technology and Major Equipment

The company manufactures dispersing machines, homogenizers, stirrers, jet-flow stirrers, kneading machines, and vacuum dryers in-house, and supplies inline mixing and dispersing systems for producing battery electrode coating compositions.

• Ultra-Turrax dispersing machine series
• Inline mixing/dispersing systems — for battery coating compositions
• magic PLANT — a laboratory system integrating emulsification, dispersion, dissolution, and drying
• EV Battery Solutions division — specialized solutions for material and cell manufacturers

Per the official datasheet, the magic PLANT is a desktop-scale inline dispersion unit with a 2-liter batch capacity, 400 W standard motor power, a maximum processing temperature of 150C in batch mode (80-120C for the inline configuration), a working pressure of -1 to 2.5 bar (up to 5 bar optional), and the ability to process media with viscosities up to 100,000 mPas. The inline rotor/stator head is rated for circumferential speeds of 5-40 m/s (source: IKA magic PLANT official catalog). These lab/pilot-scale pressure and viscosity ratings can serve as scale-up reference values when selecting inline mixers for mass-production lines.

4. Production Infrastructure and Quality Assurance

The company has locations in 8 countries worldwide, with its Staufen, Germany headquarters serving as its core production and research site. Detailed plant floor area and capacity are (undisclosed).

The 8-country footprint specifically comprises subsidiaries in the United States, China, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil, and Japan in addition to the German headquarters (source: clinicaltrialsarena.com company profile). Traditional flagship reference customers cited include BASF, Bayer, and Procter & Gamble, but these are chemical/pharmaceutical-sector reference accounts predating the battery business, and specific battery-cell-maker customer names are not separately disclosed.

5. Delivery Track Record and Partnerships

The company states it collaborates with material manufacturers and battery cell makers, but individual customer names are (undisclosed).

6. Financial Status and Roadmap

The company does not publicly disclose its own revenue figures, but third-party data provider ZoomInfo estimates IKA’s annual revenue at approximately USD 272.7 million and headcount at 501-1,000 employees (third-party estimate, not an official company disclosure; confirmation needed).

As a family company, it does not disclose detailed revenue. It has disclosed being named one of Germany’s “World Market Leader Champions” in 2025 and recognized as a fast-growing German mid-sized company.

The company plans to expand specialized solutions for the battery and bio industries centered on its two newly established divisions, EV Battery Solutions and BioProcessing Solutions.

This profile was written based on publicly available sources including the company newsroom (ika.com), CPHI Online, and Bloomberg Markets. Unverified figures and undisclosed information were not arbitrarily included.