ESG Software Market 2026: Who Acquired Whom and Who Remains
osapiens, House of Gaia, Diginex, Dcycle & co.: which CSRD and ESG tools in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been acquired since 2024, what is driving consolidation and what it means for your software selection.
- The CSRD and ESG software market in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) is consolidating: since early 2024 we have counted around 20 acquisitions, mergers and customer takeovers involving DACH targets, most of them in 2026.
- The most active domestic consolidator is House of Gaia, the holding formed in May 2026 by Code Gaia and Planted. It gathers vendors and customers in the mid-market, most recently the customers of Global Climate, which is being wound down.
- osapiens (Mannheim, valued at over USD 1 billion since January 2026) is the expander instead: with acquisitions such as Nasdaq Metrio, it is trying to establish itself above all in the US.
- Many Berlin start-ups went to foreign platforms: Plan A to Diginex, Atlas Metrics to Novata, ecolytiq to Clarity AI, Vaayu to Carbonfact, ESG-X to Dcycle.
- Deals are often paid in shares rather than cash, and increasingly only the customers are taken over, not the company. There have been no public insolvencies of well-known vendors so far.
- SAP, DATEV, Haufe and the Big Four are not buying; they rely on partnerships. Testing and certification groups such as TÜV SÜD and SGS are buying.
- For your software selection, this means vendor continuity and data export now belong on your criteria list.
As recently as 2024, new ESG software vendors were entering the market almost every week. Back then we wrote about a market on the rise. Two years later the picture has changed: since 18 March 2026, the Omnibus limits the CSRD to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than EUR 450 million in turnover. Industry estimates suggest that roughly four out of five originally covered companies are now out of scope. The market was built for a regulation that then shrank.
The result is consolidation, which we sort out in this article: who acquired whom, what patterns lie behind the deals, and which vendors we still see as independent players? Research status: 20 October 2026.
1. Two strategies: House of Gaia consolidates, osapiens expands
The two best-known domestic buyers are pursuing fundamentally different goals. House of Gaia is gathering vendors and customers in the German mid-market. osapiens is buying capabilities and, above all, access to the US market.
House of Gaia: the mid-market consolidator
On 27 May 2026, Munich-based Code Gaia and Cologne-based Planted combined under the holding House of Gaia. It was not a classic acquisition but a share swap, after which both groups of shareholders hold roughly equal stakes. Both brands remain (StartingUp, Code Gaia). The group has announced an "aggressive acquisition strategy" for the next 24 months, funded mainly from its own cash flow. Since then it has added:
- Clime (Berlin): acquired by Planted back in 2024 and now fully integrated.
- Codio Impact (Berlin, June 2026): product compliance for PPWR, EUDR, the Digital Product Passport, REACH and RoHS (EUWID).
- Global Climate's customers (September 2026): Munich-based Global Climate GmbH is being wound down and has handed its customers over to House of Gaia. Code Gaia is the successor solution and is also taking over historical data. The company itself was not acquired (Code Gaia).
According to the group, House of Gaia now serves more than 630 customers with more than 60 employees at five locations. CEO Markus Adler openly invites other vendors to join: "We offer ESG providers the opportunity to become part of the group." This is consolidation in the true sense: more customers in the same market, and a successor solution for vendors that give up.
osapiens: the expander heading for the US
osapiens is playing a different game. The Mannheim-based vendor is the best-funded ESG software company in the DACH region: in January 2026 it raised USD 100 million from Decarbonization Partners (BlackRock and Temasek) at a valuation of over USD 1.1 billion (Tech.eu). osapiens is not using that money to buy up German competitors. It is trying to establish itself internationally, and in the US in particular:
- Nasdaq Metrio (August 2026): the largest and strategically most important deal. osapiens takes over Nasdaq's ESG reporting and carbon platform including its customers, giving it a base in the US market, including California's climate disclosure laws (osapiens, ESG Today).
- Lucent AI (December 2025): Berlin start-up for AI in risk management, a technology and team acquisition (osapiens).
- BYRD Health (April 2025): medtech product data and UDI compliance, carved out of the Markant group, an expansion into a new compliance field (osapiens).
- mavue (20 October 2026): co-founders Julius Engbert and Donatus Boder are joining osapiens to build AI agents. The first mavue customers have already moved to the osapiens HUB (osapiens).
The pattern: osapiens buys capabilities (AI, new compliance fields) and markets (the US), not market share in the DACH mid-market. Whether the leap across the Atlantic succeeds remains to be seen. The US market for ESG reporting is politically contested, and several European vendors have recently pulled out of it again, including Position Green.
For BYRD Health, Lucent AI and Metrio, osapiens explicitly wrote "acquires". For mavue, it says the founders are "joining osapiens" and that customers have moved. No purchase price or share deal is mentioned. Put precisely, osapiens is bringing mavue's founding team and customers on board. Whether osapiens also becomes a shareholder of mavue GmbH (Frankfurt) is not public at the time of writing.
2. All deals at a glance
The table shows acquisitions, mergers and customer takeovers with targets in the DACH region, plus acquisitions abroad by DACH buyers. Purchase prices are almost never disclosed.
| Date | Buyer | Target (HQ) | Target's focus | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/2024 | EQS Group (Munich) | Daato (Berlin) | CSRD/ESRS reporting | Acquisition |
| 07/2025 | Clarity AI (Madrid) | ecolytiq (Berlin) | Carbon footprint in banking | Acquisition |
| 07/2025 | Atlas Metrics (Berlin) | Pelt8 (Zurich) | Sustainability reporting | Acquisition |
| 10/2025 | Novata (New York) | Atlas Metrics (Berlin) | CSRD reporting for financial services | Acquisition |
| 11/2025 | Climcycle (Vienna) | Klima.Metrix (Berlin) | Carbon accounting, scopes 1–3 | Acquisition |
| 11/2025 | SGS (Geneva) | Sami (Paris) | Carbon and ESG platform for SMEs | Majority stake |
| 01/2026 | Diginex (London) | Plan A (Berlin) | Carbon accounting | Acquisition, approx. EUR 55m, of which EUR 3m in cash |
| 01/2026 | Lune (London) | gryn (Hamburg) | Logistics emissions | Merger |
| 02/2026 | Dcycle (Madrid) | ESG-X (Munich) | AI for CSRD and VSME | Acquisition |
| 04/2026 | Makersite (Stuttgart) | SiGREEN (Siemens) | Product carbon data exchange | Carve-out |
| 05/2026 | Code Gaia + Planted | House of Gaia | ESG, CSRD and VSME reporting | Merger via share swap |
| 05/2026 | Carbonfact (Paris) | Vaayu (Berlin) | Product carbon for fashion | Acquisition |
| 06/2026 | House of Gaia | Codio Impact (Berlin) | Product compliance | Acquisition |
| 07/2026 | Assent (Ottawa) | IPOINT (Reutlingen) | Material compliance, LCA/PCF | Acquisition |
| 07/2026 | TÜV SÜD (Munich) | SustainCERT (Luxembourg) | Carbon verification | Acquisition |
| 08/2026 | osapiens (Mannheim) | Nasdaq Metrio (North America) | ESG reporting, carbon accounting | Carve-out |
| 08/2026 | Lookthrough (Zurich) | BuildingMinds (Berlin, Schindler) | ESG data for real estate | Carve-out, closing expected Q4 |
| 09/2026 | House of Gaia (Code Gaia) | Global Climate's customers (Munich, being wound down) | Carbon accounting, CSRD | Customer takeover |
| 10/2026 | osapiens | mavue's founders and customers (Frankfurt) | AI compliance for SMEs | Team and customer transfer |
Key sources: Diginex/Plan A, Dcycle/ESG-X, Novata/Atlas Metrics, Clarity AI/ecolytiq, Makersite/SiGREEN, Assent/IPOINT, TÜV SÜD/SustainCERT, SGS/Sami, Carbonfact/Vaayu, Lune/gryn, EQS/Daato.
Outside the DACH region, one deal in particular is reshaping competition: in September 2026, Greenly (Paris) acquired its Swedish competitor Normative. Together they have more than 4,000 customers (ESG Today).
3. Five patterns behind the consolidation
- Berlin sells, foreign buyers buy. About half of the targets are based in Berlin. The buyers come from London, Paris, Madrid, New York, Ottawa, Vienna and Zurich. Many vendors German companies negotiate with today belong to international groups.
- Shares instead of cash. Diginex paid only EUR 3 million of roughly EUR 55 million for Plan A in cash, the rest in its own shares. Clarity AI/ecolytiq, Greenly/Normative and House of Gaia were also share swaps. This points to sellers with little bargaining power.
- Customers instead of companies. House of Gaia takes over the customers of Global Climate, which is being wound down, osapiens takes over mavue's, Carbonfact migrates Vaayu's customers. Vendors leave the market this way without a public insolvency.
- Corporates divest non-core units. Nasdaq (Metrio), Siemens (SiGREEN) and Schindler (BuildingMinds) sold their sustainability software to specialists.
- Money moves to product data. IPOINT, SiGREEN, Codio Impact and Vaayu provide data on product carbon footprints, the Digital Product Passport and the Packaging Regulation. Pure CSRD reporting tools are rarely the target.
What stands out is who is not buying. We found no acquisition of an ESG software vendor in the DACH region by SAP, DATEV, Haufe or the Big Four. They rely on alliances instead, such as PwC with Envoria or KPMG with osapiens. Among established companies, only testing and certification groups such as TÜV SÜD and SGS have been buying. The logic: whoever audits data also wants to own the software in which it is created.
Notably, not a single deal announcement cites the Omnibus as a reason. Buyers point to the Digital Product Passport, Scope 3 and "consolidation". The Omnibus mainly changes what buyers spend money on, and it has not yet triggered any visible distressed sales.
4. Who we still see in the market
Consolidation does not mean only buyers are left. We continue to see these vendors as visible and active, even without M&A activity of their own in 2026:
- CONSUST (Verl, Germany): the FramesCube platform covers CSRD/ESRS, VSME, the EU Taxonomy, the Packaging Regulation and carbon accounting. CONSUST says it is self-funded and has been profitable since it was founded (CONSUST).
- leadity (Hamburg): ESG and ISO management software for mid-sized companies, with more than 600 customers according to the company. Since June 2026, IntegrityNext modules for supply chain due diligence and carbon emissions are integrated, as a partnership rather than an equity stake (IntegrityNext).
- Tanso (Munich): ESG and carbon software for industry. After a EUR 12 million Series A in August 2025, it added a PPWR module, product carbon footprints under TfS and Catena-X, and AI agents in 2026 (UnternehmerTUM).
- Position Green (Malmö): Europe's most active buyer in 2025 with Morescope, Greenomy and Factlines. In 2026 the focus is on integration, cost cuts and a new CEO from 1 October 2026 (ESG Today).
- EQS Group (Munich): since acquiring Daato, EQS offers the "Sustainability COCKPIT" as part of its compliance platform. Modules for product carbon footprints and carbon reduction were added in October 2025 (EQS).
- Materiality Master: our own specialist tool for the double materiality assessment. We list it for completeness, with the caveat that as its provider we are not neutral (profile).
How big are the vendors? Employees according to LinkedIn
A rough but comparable size indicator is the number of employees who have linked their LinkedIn profile to the company. The figures may include working students and freelancers, and people without a LinkedIn profile are missing.
| Vendor | Size band (LinkedIn) | Employees on LinkedIn | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| EQS Group | 501–1,000 | 641 | Entire group; ESG is one business unit |
| osapiens | 501–1,000 | 626 | Expanding internationally, above all into the US |
| Position Green | 201–500 | 243 | 40% below its peak, according to the company |
| House of Gaia | no own page | 100 (Code Gaia 63, Planted 37) | More than 60 employees according to the group |
| leadity | 51–200 | 70 | |
| Tanso | 51–200 | 67 | 55 employees in August 2025 |
| CONSUST | 11–50 | 16 | Self-funded |
| Materiality Master | 2–10 | – | Product of CSR Tools |
As of 20 October 2026, public LinkedIn company pages.
The range is wide. With more than 600 people each, osapiens and EQS play in a different league from the specialist mid-market vendors with 15 to 70 people. For you as a customer, though, size is only one criterion among several. Profitability, focus and customer base often say more about a vendor's future than its headcount.
5. What this means for your software selection
For any vendor smaller than osapiens, you should now factor in that it may be acquired, merge with another vendor or hand its customers over to a successor within the next two years. That is no reason to avoid smaller vendors. They are often cheaper, faster and closer to mid-sized companies. But it is a reason to ask a few questions up front:
- Data export: Can you export all data, evidence and report versions at any time in an open format?
- Contract clauses: What happens if ownership changes? Is there a special termination right or a price guarantee?
- Funding: Is the vendor profitable, or does it depend on the next funding round?
- Focus: Does the product strategy match your needs, for example VSME instead of full ESRS, or product carbon instead of a corporate footprint?
You can add these questions as extra criteria to our ESG tool selection valuation model. Our CSRD software selection guide walks you through the complete selection process.
Excel template with predefined criteria for a structured evaluation of ESG software solutions, including an automatically calculated fit score.
Frequently asked questions about consolidation in the ESG software market
Did osapiens acquire mavue?
Not in the classic sense, as far as is publicly known. According to osapiens' announcement of 20 October 2026, mavue co-founders Julius Engbert and Donatus Boder are joining osapiens, and the first mavue customers have already moved to the osapiens HUB. There is no mention of buying the company or its shares. For its earlier deals (BYRD Health, Lucent AI, Nasdaq Metrio), osapiens explicitly spoke of an acquisition.
What is House of Gaia?
House of Gaia is the holding into which Code Gaia (Munich) and Planted (Cologne) merged via a share swap on 27 May 2026. The group also includes Clime and Codio Impact (both Berlin). In September 2026, the group also took over the customers of Global Climate, which is being wound down. According to the group, House of Gaia serves more than 630 customers and plans further acquisitions over the next 24 months.
Why is the ESG software market consolidating right now?
The market is crowded, with more than 100 vendors in carbon management alone, and the Omnibus has sharply reduced the number of companies subject to the CSRD. At the same time, funding for climate and ESG start-ups has become harder to get. A few well-funded platforms are buying, while smaller vendors without follow-on funding look for a buyer or a successor for their customers.
What happens to my data if my ESG software vendor is acquired?
It depends on the deal. In a merger like House of Gaia, the brands remain. In a customer takeover such as Global Climate to House of Gaia or Vaayu to Carbonfact, the old product is discontinued and the data is migrated to the new vendor. When signing a contract, check whether you can export all data at any time and what rights you have if ownership changes.
Which ESG software vendors in the DACH region are still independent?
Among others, CONSUST, leadity, Tanso, Envoria, IntegrityNext, Prewave, carbmee, Cozero and Climatiq had not been involved in any acquisitions as of October 2026. Several of them have raised growth capital or entered partnerships instead, such as leadity with IntegrityNext, or Envoria with PwC and Vodafone Business.
