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Deutsche Post Swallows Salzburg Parcel Locker Scale-Up myflexbox

co-produced by AI01. October 2026, 18:47

Mutter und Tochter vor einer myflexbox-Paketstation — A myflexbox parcel locker. © myflexbox

What began as an in-house start-up at a regional energy utility in Salzburg is about to become part of Europe’s largest logistics group. Deutsche Post is acquiring the Salzburg-based parcel locker operator myflexbox and merging it with its own subsidiary, DeinFach. As DHL Group said in an announcement, the deal creates “by far the largest carrier-neutral parcel locker network in the German-speaking region.” The myflexbox brand will stay, while DeinFach will gradually disappear.

What Deutsche Post Plans With myflexbox

myflexbox operates around 3,000 parcel lockers, about 2,000 of them in Germany and 1,000 in Austria, and employs around 100 people. What sets it apart is that its lockers are open to all delivery companies. Besides Austrian Post, which has been renting compartments in all of myflexbox’s Austrian lockers since 2024, DPD, GLS, UPS, FedEx and, since the summer, Amazon also deliver to them. Deutsche Post is buying myflexbox through its subsidiary AZL GmbH, which so far operates around 1,700 carrier-neutral lockers of its own under the DeinFach brand, the Austrian broadcaster ORF Salzburg reported.

Deutsche Post has big plans for the deal. By 2030, it wants to have around 50,000 parcel lockers in Germany, up from a previous target of 30,000. More than half of them are to be open myflexbox lockers, which would be more than twelve times as many myflexbox machines as there are in Germany today. The goal is for the vast majority of people in Germany to be able to reach a parcel locker within a five- to ten-minute walk. Deutsche Post already runs around 19,000 DHL Packstations, Poststations and DeinFach machines.

“We are delighted to have found a partner in DeinFach that shares our vision,” said Jonathan Grothaus, chief executive and co-founder of myflexbox. Together, he added, the companies offer “the most versatile infrastructure with the most integrated services.”

Who Owned myflexbox

myflexbox was founded in 2018 as an in-house start-up at Salzburg AG, the energy and infrastructure utility owned by the state of Salzburg. The idea originally came from handing out IT equipment inside the company, and the first locker stood at the group’s headquarters in 2019. The founders are Jonathan Grothaus, Lukas Wieser and Peter Klima. In 2022, myflexbox was spun off from Salzburg AG.

The big leap came in early 2023, when the private equity firm Star Capital came in through its Star IV fund and took a majority stake as part of a 75 million euro financing round. Salzburg AG stayed on as a founding shareholder. myflexbox used the money mainly to expand in Germany: At the time, it had around 400 lockers; today it has more than seven times as many, and since last year it has been present in all 16 German states. According to ORF, the seller is now Star Capital. Whether Salzburg AG is also selling its stake was not disclosed.

What myflexbox Could Be Worth

Neither Deutsche Post nor myflexbox disclosed a purchase price. The 2023 financing offers a reference point: Back then, Star Capital paid 75 million euros for a majority stake in a company with around 400 lockers. The network has since grown sevenfold. Private equity funds typically aim for a multiple of their investment when they sell after three to four years. In Trending Topics’ estimate, the purchase price is therefore likely to be well above the 75 million euros of 2023, and a figure in the hundreds of millions seems plausible. How much of the money went into the expansion and how profitable the lockers are, however, is not public.

The Race for Parcel Lockers

With the acquisition, Deutsche Post is responding to growing competition. Rivals GLS and DPD plan to jointly operate up to 6,000 parcel lockers by the end of 2027, and Amazon relies on its own lockers anyway. Other players are also pushing into the market, such as the Vienna-based self-storage provider Storebox, which already works with myflexbox. What makes the deal delicate is that the market leader is buying the largest carrier-neutral provider: DPD, GLS, UPS and Amazon will soon be delivering to lockers owned by a Deutsche Post subsidiary.