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About · Apex Digital

Built in Germany. Running openings since 2021.

COMPASS is made and run by Apex Digital — we build products for the operations a business runs on.

in production since
2021
openings
1,000+
countries
146
Neuer Wall 80
Hamburg
Dr. Bernhard Schulz

How COMPASS started

“COMPASS started in 2021 the way all our products do — in the operational meetings of a hotel group, with someone about to build another spreadsheet. We built the system instead. A thousand openings later, we still run it every day.”
Dr. Bernhard SchulzFounder, Apex Digital
  1. 01 · A conversationSomeone about to build another spreadsheet.
  2. 02 · Inside the operationWe sat in the operational meetings and watched how openings ran.
  3. 03 · Since 2021In daily use — and still being extended.

How we work

Few products. Built for years.

  1. 01

    We start inside the operation

    No requirements document first. We sit in the operational meetings and learn how the work actually runs.

  2. 02

    We build few things, for years

    Our first product has been in daily use since 2021 and is still being extended.

  3. 03

    We own what we build, and run it

    The people who designed a module are usually the people still answering questions about it.

Apex products

Two systems we run.

The platform that runs opening projects end to end — hotels, restaurants, anything with an opening date.You are here — explore COMPASS →KalaiDocument control: one document, one version, whatever the country, brand or client.How Kalai works ↗

Talk to us

Let’s talk about your next opening.

Leave your name and email — we’ll get back to you, usually within a day. Or write to [email protected].

Privacy

HamburgNeuer Wall 80
20354 Hamburg, Germany
New York413 West 14th Street #200
New York City, NY 10014
Legal

Imprint

Provider identification pursuant to § 5 DDG and § 18 (2) MStV.

ProviderDiensteanbieter — § 5 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 DDG
Apex Digital GmbHNeuer Wall 8020354 HamburgGermany
Represented byVertretungsberechtigter Geschäftsführer
Dr. Bernhard Schulz, Managing Director
Contact§ 5 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 DDG
[email protected]
Commercial registerHandelsregister — § 5 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 DDG
Amtsgericht Hamburg (Local Court of Hamburg)HRB 142473
VAT identification numberUmsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer — § 27a UStG
DE367668741
Responsible for contentVerantwortlich nach § 18 Abs. 2 MStV
Dr. Bernhard SchulzAddress as above

Consumer dispute resolution

Verbraucherstreitbeilegung — § 36 VSBG

Apex Digital GmbH is neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

Liability for content

Haftung für Inhalte — §§ 7–10 DDG

As a service provider we are responsible for our own content on these pages under general law. We are not obliged to monitor transmitted or stored third-party information, or to investigate circumstances that indicate unlawful activity. Obligations to remove or block the use of information under general law remain unaffected, but liability in that respect arises only once a concrete infringement becomes known. We will remove such content promptly.

Liability for links

Haftung für Links

This site links to external sites over whose content we have no control, and responsibility for that content rests with its respective provider. The linked pages were checked for unlawful content at the time the link was set and none was apparent. Permanent monitoring without concrete evidence of an infringement is not reasonable; we will remove any such link promptly once one becomes known.

Copyright

Urheberrecht

The content and works on these pages are subject to German copyright law. Reproduction, adaptation, distribution and any form of exploitation beyond the limits of copyright require our written consent. Downloads and copies of this site are permitted for private, non-commercial use.

Legal

Privacy

How openwithcompass.com handles your data, and how little of it there is. No cookies, no tracking, no consent banner — the reasons are set out below.

Who is responsible

The controller for the processing described here is Apex Digital GmbH, Neuer Wall 80, 20354 Hamburg, Germany, represented by its Managing Director Dr. Bernhard Schulz. The full provider details are in the imprint.

For anything to do with your data — a question, a request, an objection — write to [email protected]. We are not required to appoint a data protection officer and have not appointed one; your enquiry reaches the people who run the site.

What this site does not do

It sets no cookies. It runs no visitor statistics or analytics, no advertising, no social plugins, no embedded videos or maps from other companies, no chat widget, no A/B testing and no cross-site tracking of any kind. The one place that asks you for data is the demo request form, described below.

The typefaces and the film are served from this domain: the typefaces are compiled into the site at build time, so opening a page sends no request to Google or to any other font service, and the film plays from our own server, not from a video platform.

Nothing is written to or read from your device — no cookie, no local storage, no session storage — which is why this site has no cookie banner and does not need one.

Server log files

Every request to a web server leaves a record, and this one is no exception. Our server writes a log entry for each page and file it delivers:

  • the IP address the request came from
  • the date and time of the request
  • the page or file requested, and the HTTP status returned
  • the amount of data transferred
  • the referring page, where your browser sends one
  • your browser type and version, and your operating system

We use these entries to deliver the site, to keep it stable, and to recognise and defend against attacks. They are not combined with any other data, they are not used to build a profile, and no attempt is made to identify you from them.

Legal basis
Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in a site that is delivered reliably and can be defended when it is attacked.
Retention
No longer than 30 days, after which the entries are deleted.

If you ask for a demo

Three forms on this site ask for a demo: the full one on the demo page, and the short ones at the end of the film and on the About page. Whichever you use, what you enter is sent to our server, which turns it into one email and sends it through the email service Resend to [email protected]. We use it to arrange the demo and to answer you. The email contains:

  • your name and your work email address — every form asks for these
  • on the full form, also your company and your message, if you enter them, and the number of openings per year you select
  • which of the three forms you used, and the date and time your request arrived

Your email address is set as the reply address of that email, so that we can answer you directly. The email is the only record: your request is not stored in a database or anywhere else on our server, and its content is not written to our logs.

To stop the form being used to send mass email, our server counts requests for ten minutes at a time. For that it holds the IP address the request came from and the email address you entered, together with a count, in its working memory only — never on disk. Each entry counts for ten minutes; after that it is deleted the next time someone asks for a demo, and a restart of the server deletes all entries at once.

The forms also contain a field that is hidden from people and that only automated programs fill in. A request in which that field is filled in is discarded, and nothing is sent.

Legal basis
Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR — steps prior to a contract, taken at your request, for arranging the demo and answering you. Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in protecting the form against abuse, for the counts described above.
Retention
The email: until the matter is settled and no longer needed, unless commercial or tax law requires the correspondence to be kept for longer — as for any email you send us. The counts: ten minutes, in working memory only, then deleted as described above.

If you write to us

The addresses on this site are ordinary mailboxes. If you write to one, we receive your email address, whatever else you put in the message, and the technical headers your mail carries — and we use them to answer you.

Email is not encrypted end to end unless you encrypt it yourself. It travels through our mail provider and yours, and neither of us controls every step. Please keep that in mind before sending anything confidential.

Legal basis
Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR where your message concerns a contract or the steps leading to one, otherwise Art. 6 (1) (f) — our legitimate interest in answering the people who write to us.
Retention
Until the matter is settled and no longer needed, unless commercial or tax law requires the correspondence to be kept for longer.

Who else processes this data

The site runs on infrastructure operated by DigitalOcean, LLC, 105 Edgeview Drive, Suite 425, Broomfield, CO 80021, USA, which processes the server log files and the demo requests described above on our behalf. DigitalOcean is a US company, so this is a transfer to a third country: it is covered by a data processing agreement and by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, together with the technical and organisational measures those clauses require.

Every request to this site reaches our server through the network of Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA, which delivers the site's traffic and protects it against attacks. On our behalf, Cloudflare processes the data of each request — your IP address among it, and the content of a demo request on its way to our server — including in the request logs it keeps. Cloudflare is a US company too: this transfer is likewise covered by a data processing agreement and by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

Demo requests are sent as email through Resend, a service of Plus Five Five, Inc., 2261 Market Street #5039, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA. Resend delivers the email to our mailbox on our behalf, and keeps a copy of it and its delivery log for 30 days so that a delivery problem can be traced. This, too, is a transfer to the United States: it is covered by a data processing agreement that includes the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, and Plus Five Five, Inc. is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Our mail provider processes email you send us, and the demo requests that reach our mailbox, likewise on our behalf.

Nobody else receives this data. We do not sell it, and we do not pass it to anyone for their own purposes. It would only ever leave that circle if a law or a court required it.

Links to other sites

This site links out — to apexdigital.online, the site of Apex Digital, which builds COMPASS; to getkalai.com; and, from the film's share buttons, to Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Nothing is transmitted to those sites while you are here: the link is a link, not an embed, and a share button is only a link that opens Teams, LinkedIn or WhatsApp with the film's address filled in. Once you follow a link, the privacy notice of the site you arrive on applies, not this one.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us for a copy of the data we hold about you (Art. 15), have it corrected (Art. 16) or erased (Art. 17), have its processing restricted (Art. 18), and receive it in a portable form (Art. 20).

You can also object to any processing we base on our legitimate interest, on grounds arising from your particular situation (Art. 21). If you do, we stop unless we can show compelling grounds that override your interests. In practice, the processing on this site that rests on legitimate interest is the server log, the ten-minute count that protects the demo form against abuse, and our answer to an email that does not concern a contract.

Exercising any of this costs nothing and needs no form. Write to [email protected].

Complaints

If you think we are handling your data unlawfully, you can complain to a supervisory authority — the one where you live, where you work, or where the alleged infringement took place. The authority responsible for us is:

Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Ludwig-Erhard-Straße 22, 20459 Hamburg, Germany.

You are of course welcome to raise it with us first, and we would rather you did.

Whether you have to provide anything

Reading this site requires you to give us nothing: no page is behind a login or a sign-up. The server log is the unavoidable by-product of your browser asking for a page — the only way not to produce one is not to open the page.

Asking for a demo is up to you. If you do, we need your name and your work email address — the two fields every form requires — to arrange the demo and to answer you; without them the form cannot be sent. Your company and your message are optional.

We make no automated decisions about anyone, and we build no profiles. There is no processing here that produces a legal effect for you or affects you in any comparable way.

Security

The site is served over TLS throughout, which you can check in the address bar of your browser: the connection is encrypted from your device to Cloudflare, and again from Cloudflare to our server.

Changes to this notice

We will update this notice when what the site does changes — a new tool, a new provider, a different retention period. The version in force is always the one published here, and it carries the date it was last changed.

Last updated: 14 October 2026