Behind Purple are more than 70 people who understand how publishers work
It started with the iPad. Today Purple is on every channel.
We launched Purple in 2013 as a tablet solution for magazines and newspapers. Since then, Purple has grown alongside our customers: web and multichannel followed in 2017, AI automation in 2019, and from 2020 we began working closely with news publishers. Today, 60 publishers and 600+ brands across 10 countries publish with Purple on web, app, social media, newsletter and print.
We love journalism
Journalism carries our culture and our democracy, and it deserves the right software behind it. We give you the freedom to focus on your content and build a successful business around it. We measure our own success by two things: Media Time (a term coined by our friends at Highberg) and the time your editors win back for what matters.
Our leadership team
Stephan is a computer scientist and publishing strategist in one. Three years as a project engineer at Daimler in Sindelfingen taught him what keeps complex technical systems stable over the long term. In 2007, he co-founded SPRYLAB with Benjamin Kolb to bring that discipline to an industry that badly needed it. As CEO, he leads Sales, Marketing, Key Account Management, Finance and HR. At the VDL annual congress, at the BDZV and in industry webinars, he's a familiar voice for publishing decision-makers.
A software developer with a publisher's instinct: a combination rarely found at this depth. Before co-founding SPRYLAB with Stephan in 2007, he was Technical Manager at Axel Springer, where he saw first-hand how hard it is for publishers to bring their tools and their content into line. That experience became the conviction that sits in Purple's architecture today: open, modular systems instead of isolated silos. As CTO, he leads Engineering, Architecture and product partnerships.
Adrian is the link between customer and product, and probably the person at Purple closest to our publishing customers and their projects. Before joining SPRYLAB in 2021, he spent several years leading complex app and backend projects. Here, he built up the project business as Head of Projects over almost five years. Since January 2026, he has been COO, responsible for Projects, Product, Solutions, Customer Success, QA and integration partners. A deliberate move to bring these together, so our customers experience the same care at every stage.
The team behind Purple. With media companies on their CVs.
We're more than 70 people from Engineering, Product, Project Management, Customer Success, Sales and Marketing. Most of us work in Berlin, others from Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Vienna or London. Many of us come straight from publishers like Schwäbische Zeitung, Bauer Media, Die Glocke, Die Welt, Rheinische Post and Madsack. That's what makes the difference: we know the industry first-hand and translate that into robust features that hold up in the daily editorial routine.
Rooted in Berlin, built for digital change
Berlin shapes us: pragmatic, diverse, direct. We sit right in the middle of Europe's tech and publishing scene. That attitude runs through Purple's architecture: open interfaces, modular building blocks, integrated AI. Best-of-breed, not lock-in. So your editorial system grows with your business, not against it.
Purple is a SPRYLAB product
Alongside Purple, SPRYLAB builds bespoke platforms and apps for around 120 companies across education, energy, automotive and healthcare. 300 projects in 19 years, 83% of them from referrals. As an owner-led company, we build Purple for the publishers who work with it every day. Not for roadmaps designed to impress investors.
This is us
Keen to develop Purple with us?
We are looking for people who understand, or want to understand, how publishers tick. Build software with us that publishers in 10 countries use every day.
