The derivo GmbH has been founded in July 2010. The company is rooted in the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Ulm University and is still in close contact with research groups in order to be able to bring newest scientific results into the development of practical products and solutions. Based on a project-specific collaboration the derivo GmbH fosters a business partnership with Racer Systems GmbH & Co. KG in Hamburg, Germany.

The founders and team members own high scientific qualifications and are well-recognized within the application-oriented research community. For instance, for their lead management in the course of the development of a specification for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or organization of international events such as the SSWS (Scalable Semantic Web Systems) workshop.

The foundation of derivo has been supported amongst others by an EXIST Business Start-Up Grant from the Federal Republic of Germany.