GEA and RebelDot form joint venture to supercharge digitalisation
GEA and Romanian technology leader RebelDot have announced the formation of a strategic joint venture, RebelDot Process Industries, set to launch in January 2026.
This collaboration is designed to accelerate digital transformation across the global process industry, offering immediate, tangible benefits to food and beverage manufacturers seeking to enhance operational efficiency and innovation.
Headquartered in the major European tech hub of Cluj, Romania, the new company will specialise in delivering bespoke software development services, including advanced web, mobile, and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, tailored specifically for industrial customers.
The joint venture fuses GEA’s extensive, decades-deep process industry expertise — which touches everything from dairy and brewing to meat and plant-based foods — with RebelDot’s cutting-edge software engineering and digital innovation capabilities.
For manufacturers, this combination translates directly into shorter product time-to-market for new digital tools and greater development efficiency in scaling existing solutions. Through modern DevOps practices, the partnership promises more cost-effective and reliable operations of production software.
One key focus area is the collaborative development of sophisticated AI applications. This includes the proprietary GEA Copilot, an AI assistant designed to support customers’ maintenance teams in fulfilling their service tasks.
For food and beverage producers, this AI-driven maintenance support is critical for maximising uptime on complex, high-throughput processing equipment, directly reducing costly unplanned outages and bolstering production reliability. GEA already operates the GEA Cloud, an industrial platform connecting over 10,000 units of process equipment worldwide, providing a robust foundation for these AI-driven services.
Tom Oelsner, chief digital officer of GEA, confirmed the strategic importance of the collaboration, stating, “The joint venture enables us to combine our leading industry expertise with software excellence. This underscores our ambition to lead the digital transformation of the process industry and deliver first-class value to our customers.”
The joint venture also gains a significant advantage from RebelDot’s recent acquisition of an AI specialist firm, empowering the new entity to help Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and industrial companies rapidly explore and deploy new AI-driven applications.
Tudor Ciuleanu, CEO of RebelDot, emphasised the synergy, noting, “Our experience as a digital innovation partner, blending user-centered design with cutting-edge software engineering, combined with GEA’s global reach and industry expertise, creates powerful synergies to deliver sustainable, customer-focused solutions.”
By focusing on a common open-source software strategy and promoting an open digital ecosystem, RebelDot Process Industries is positioning itself as an essential partner for food and beverage manufacturers looking to develop scalable, future-proof software that keeps pace with an increasingly automated and data-driven production environment.
