LION Smart Recognized Among Germany's Top Innovators with TOP 100 Seal Award

The reward for outstanding innovative strength: LION Smart, a company of the LION E-Mobility Group, has been awarded the TOP 100 Seal 2026. This places the company among Germany's most innovative mid-sized businesses. At the award ceremony during the German SME Summit on 26 June in Heidelberg, Christian Wulff will personally congratulate LION Smart on this achievement. The former Federal President of Germany and former Minister-President of Lower Saxony serves as mentor to the TOP 100 innovation competition.

How much working time does management dedicate to innovation, and how many innovative ideas do employees contribute? These are the kinds of questions at the heart of TOP 100's scientific selection process. In detail, innovation researcher Professor Nikolaus Franke and his team assess five categories: innovation-oriented top management, innovation climate, innovation processes and organisation, external orientation/open innovation, and innovation success. The basis for this is an online questionnaire completed in advance by the participating companies.

The five categories are reflected in more than 100 assessment criteria. Franke conducts the selection process on behalf of compamedia, the organiser of the competition. LION Smart impressed in the selection process and has been entitled to carry the TOP 100 Seal since 1 February. The company operates in the field of intelligent energy storage and battery solutions and has built a strong reputation, in particular for modular, scalable storage systems for industrial, grid, and mobility applications. LION Smart pursues a consistently innovation-driven approach - from the early concept phase and system development through to market launch.

For us, innovation is not a one-off project, but a permanent part of our day-to-day work and our corporate culture, says Dr. Joachim Damasky, Managing Partner of LION Smart. The TOP 100 award confirms that we are setting the right course not only technologically, but also organisationally and strategically. A key success factor is the close integration of research, development, and customer requirements: at LION Smart, new solutions are always developed with a view to real-world applications and future market needs. The company therefore sees the TOP 100 Seal as recognition of its achievements to date - and at the same time as an incentive to play an active role in shaping the energy transition with further innovative storage solutions.

To ensure equal opportunities for all participants, the TOP 100 Seal is awarded in three size categories: up to 50 employees, 51 to 200 employees, and more than 200 employees. In the current, 33rd round of TOP 100, 356 mid-sized companies applied for the seal, of which 282 were successful. A maximum of 100 companies can be recognised in each size category. The top innovators of the current year will gather on 26 June at the Heidelberg Congress Center for the German SME Summit. There, Christian Wulff will personally congratulate them on their TOP 100 success.

Since 1993, compamedia has awarded the TOP 100 Seal to mid-sized companies for outstanding innovative strength and above-average innovation success. Since 2002, the scientific direction has been in the hands of Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke. Franke is founder and chairman of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. With 27 research awards and more than 200 publications, he is internationally recognised as one of the leading researchers in innovation. The mentor of TOP 100 is former Federal President and Minister-President Christian Wulff. Project partners are the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research and the SME association BVMW. The magazine manager magazin supports the company comparison as media partner, while the magazine ZEIT fur Unternehmer acts as cooperation partner. More information and registration are available at https://www.top100.de.