If someone would have told us in 2012 that we will become the market leader for scanning services, nobody would’ve believed it. At that time we consisted of only a couple employees, located in a small office and busy with developing a own scan technology. Meanwhile we are the scan service provider in Europe – and we’re for sure proud of it.
How it came to that you will get to know on this page.
The best ideas mostly result out of necessity. The hobby inventor Dr. Hans-Walter Knuth was looking for an inexpensive and high-quality way for scanning his extensive slide collection. His research has revealed that retailers were too expensive and quality was too bad. So he developed a gadget himself that could serve his purposes. After he told his cousin Hans-Günter Herrmann about it at a family celebration on 09/09/2011, the idea was born to do this in a more professional way.
Due to a project in the Professional Center at the University of Cologne, the idea was further developed and tested at the end of 2011. The results were amazing and at Christmas 2011 they could surprise their families with converted slides.
Because of the positive feedback, in 2012 a slide scanner was developed by our today’s CTO Christoph Kind in cooperation with electrical and photo engineers. Finally it was possible to scan slides low-priced and at high quality for everybody. First we started with our subsidiary DIAFIX. On 17 October 2012 Hans-Günter Herrmann, Christoph Kind and Stefan Wickler together founded the MEDIAFIX GmbH.
On its first birthday in October 2013 MEDIAFIX already converted over 2.3 million analogue media to digital.
On the 18/03/2013 the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger published an article about MEDIAFIX for the first time. The article was titled “Digital future for family slides” and showed the background of MEDIAFIX.
In 2013 MEDIAFIX developed an own process for scanning negatives. Now customers could have their slides and negatives converted by us.
Only a year after MEDIAFIX was born, our office size was no longer sufficient due to a high demand. Mid 2013 MEDIAFIX increased its quarter from 50 sq m to over 400 sq m.
Since converting image media started out successfully, MEDIAFIX also began to convert videos since 2014. The product range now included scanning 8mm films and video cassettes.
In 2015 MEDIAFIX opened another head office in Dortmund. Apart from our main office in Cologne, customers could now just come by in Frohlinder Straße 12a in Dortmund-Kirchlinde and have their media digitized and also get advice from our customer service on site.
The news channel n-tv wanted to find out: What is the best way to have old photos, slides and films scanned? The reporters tested different gadgets for self-scanning and also our professional scan service at MEDIAFIX. The result: MEDIAFIX by far beats home scanners in image quality and speed and therefore is the n-tv test winner.
The founder award NRW every year awards successful start-ups that stand out by innovation or social responsibility. The competition is a project of the Ministry of Economy, North Rhine-Westfalia and the NRW.BANK. MEDIAFIX was in the top 10 for the most successful start-ups in North Rhine-Westfalia.
In 2016 the first MEDIAFIX Access point in Oberhausen opened. This was the starting point for our Access point concept. The idea was to enable customers to drop by their media in their environment by cooperating with selected photo retailers. From there the films and photos are transported to MEDIAFIX in Cologne and back with our own transport service. This concept is highly appreciated and meanwhile we have a network of 67 MEDIAFIX Access points. At the end of 2016 a second Access point in Aachen opened.
Only four years after founding, the production area got way too small, so MEDIAFIX moved to the industrial park in Ehrenfeld. By moving, the plant increased from 430 sq m to 1,100 sq m. The new building had enough space for at that time around 50 employees. Rising order volumes could also be better handled.
In 2017 the renowned FAZ drew attention to MEDIAFIX and made an interview with us. „Saving memories for the future“ was the title of the article that was published in the business section. Apart from the company’s history and founders’ backgrounds the article also shows the impressions of the customers.
In 2017 eleven further Access points opened in Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Gütersloh, Paderborn, Mannheim, Stuttgart and in Hannover.
Apart from the good results at our own customer surveys also the TÜV Nord officially confirmed our customer satisfaction in year 2018. In the following years the satisfaction of our customers was certified as well.
Since 2018 MEDIAFIX has been the largest scan service provider in Germany considering number of employees, plant size and amount of converted media a month and became the market leader in this business sector.
In 2018 seven further Access points opened in Nuremberg, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Braunschweig and also in Berlin.
In September 2018 MEDIAFIX took part at the photokina with an own stand. At the photokina 2018 812 companies, thereof 69 % from other countries, introduced their products and services. About 180,000 people from 127 countries came to visit.
The past years we extended our product range continuously. Apart from slides, negatives, photos, video cassettes and 8mm films, in 2018 also converting audio was added to our services.
Since MEDIAFIX successfully could convert old media from thousands of customers from Germany in the last few years, the company now enables customers from Austria to save their memories low-priced.
The online review website ausgezeichnet.org has awarded MEDIAFIX as Top service provider 2019. The website is specialized in analyzing and evaluating the experience, that customers make with different companies. With a rating of 4.85/5 MEDIAFIX belongs to the best rated companies in its business sector.
MEDIAFIX is one of the best middle class employers in Germany. This results from a study done by Focus-Business in cooperation with kununu.com.
In 2019 the Access points in Lübeck and Kiel opened.
After existing for 8 years in the scanning business, MEDIAFIX has achieved a further milestone: 100 million pictures and film minutes the company has converted – and the number becomes greater and greater every day.
In 2020 we officially defined our company philosophy. Our values include positive thinking and fun at work, respectful and honest communication, focused and performance-oriented working, continuous progression and supporting each other, collaborative thinking and experimenting and finally conneting our heart and mind.
While many employers had to cut jobs, MEDIAFIX was able to grow in the first half of the year: More and more people want to have their analogue media converted to digital. In a short period of time MEDIAFIX hired 16 new employees in order to satisfy the demand.
After expanding to Austria in 2019, in 2020 we opened an Access point in Vienna. Customers from Austria – aside from delivery by post – now have the possibility to drop by in Vienna and to get advice in person in order to have their pictures and videos converted.
The famous WDR reporter and digital expert Dennis Horn went for a visit at MEDIAFIX to make an interesting film about converting to digital. He investigated how digitization works and why you should let a professional do it.
After successfully building up our business in Austria, in 2021 we also expanded to Switzerland. Accordingly MEDIAFIX provides its professional digitization service also for Swiss customers.
High-ranking visitors at MEDIAFIX: RTL came by and got an exclusive behind the scenes impression of our company. Some of our customers are present in the video, too.
In 2021 MEDIAFIX enlarged its plant size for the third time – with now over 1,500 sqm. But this is only an intermediate step. Due to the high demand and growing staff a further movement into an even larger building is planned.
We could celebrate this success in early 2022 and we thank all the people and institutions who entrusted us with their valueable memories to be digitized!
We have arrived in the Swiss market. By opening our Access point in Zürich and a second one in Basel Swiss customers can now drop their media by in person, if they don’t want to send them by post.
We continued to open up additional markets in Europe. Since mid 2022 MEDIAFIX provides own domains for Dutch and Belgian customers in the respective language. At that we are glad to have a strong partner on our side: the Dutch camera retailer Kamera Express. The new partnership brought us 21 additional Access points in the Netherlands and Belgium for our customers. So that everything runs smoothly, we have two new employees who support everything.
This is the result of our scan provider research. For this the several criteria were taken into consideration, e.g. number of employees, plant size, sales and prices. Already in 2018 MEDIAFIX was the leading company in Germany – by far. The international expansion into the Benelux countries has contributed to the international success. Therefore customers from 6 different countries can take advantage of our amazing products and services. We have Access points in over 50 cities all over Europe, so that customers don’t have to send their media by post – a service that is also highly appreciated apart from Germany.
MEDIAFIX remains on the path to internationalization. After the German-speaking countries and the Benelux countries, we are expanding to France in 2023. For our French customers, there is now also a website in the national language: mediafix.fr. This means that our French customers can also deliver their analog media both by mail and in person.
In the course of our further internationalization, our next station is the United Kingdom in 2024. MEDIAFIX couldn’t be happier to now convert slides, video tapes, cine films and more for British customers on mediafix.co.uk. To start with, they can simply deliver their analogue media by post.
