Stapelstein®
Stapelstein® is an internationally registered trademark of jobb GmbH, a German company based near Stuttgart. The company has set itself the task of enriching children’s free play through innovative, versatile and sustainable play and movement elements. The company was founded in 2016 with the mission of creating simple and aesthetic solutions for movement-promoting living environments. Since then, the diverse and colorful Stapelstein® portfolio has been inviting children and adults alike to playfully move and interact with their environment, promoting child development and creativity, among other things.
Stapelstein® has already come a long way from the idea of the research project to the design and manufacture of various Stapelstein® products to a successful and profitable company with around 30 employees – not least in terms of its ownership and financing structure.
After founder Stephan Schenk had brought investors on board early on (also as shareholders), he and his co-founder Hannah König reached a point where the discrepancy between their own wishes and those of the business angels became too great: Founding purpose and vision on the one hand and interest in an exit and dividend payout on the other. However, with the support of their own cash flow and the new investors, Purpose Ventures and Purpose Evergreen Capital, they succeeded in buying out the old shareholders and regaining the organization’s self-determination by implementing steward-ownership. Since May 2022, Stapelstein® has been a steward-owned company and has set up an ownership and financing structure geared towards this.
Stapelstein® has implemented steward-ownership with the veto share model. The Purpose Foundation holds the veto share with 1% of the voting rights and thus permanently upholds the principles of steward-ownership.
Steward-ownership enables us to be an independent company that stays true to its values.