First Ponton GmbH was founded in 1996, from which Ponton Hamburg GmbH emerged. Initially, the company worked in partnership with Ponton Media Art Lab in Hannover on joint projects such as the experimental, virtual school platform Comenius, commissioned by the German ministries of education and Telekom, whose design was inspired by the Van Gogh TV project Service Area i. a.. Ponton in Hamburg took over the technical implementation.
Under the name Ponton AG, Salvatore Vanasco, as managing director, built up his own technology and software company in Hamburg from 1999 onwards, which still exists today. The holding included subsidiaries that specialised in software development, management consultancy and interactive media. Frank Matthäi, who was already responsible for finances at “Piazza virtuale”, became the company’s commercial director.
The company worked for magazines such as Spiegel and Bravo and for publishing houses such as Dumont, Springer or Gruner und Jahr, but also for industrial companies such as Preussag. Besides internet and media applications, Ponton Holding, which in the meantime had 400 employees and several subsidiaries, also developed applications and programmes in the fields of energy, logistics and ecommerce. Vanasaco left the company in 2001 and founded the software company Xailabs in Berlin in 2006. Today, Ponton AG has specialised entirely in the business-to-business sector.