Thirty years of experience and a shared history.

Phi Technologies was founded in Prague in 2017. The working relationship behind it is considerably older — it began in 1995, also in Prague, with a company whose development team went on, by way of one of Europe’s largest semiconductor groups, to become Apple’s biometrics department.

How it came about

1995 — Prague. A German aerospace engineer who had found his way into auditing, and a Czech electrical engineer who had graduated with distinction, founded a software company together with a German partner. The country was six years past the Velvet Revolution, and a software industry in Central Europe barely existed yet.

1999. A mathematician from Charles University joined, holding a doctorate in statistics and probability theory and carrying an interest in language that still shapes her work today.

The 2000s. The company was acquired — first by a specialist in biometric authentication, later by one of Europe’s major semiconductor groups. The founders became Vice President Europe and Managing Director. The work itself did not change: systems people have to be able to rely on.

2012. After a turbulent period, the development team was acquired by Apple — and became its biometrics department, led by one of the two founders, who co-invented an authentication method that Apple patented.

2017. They started out on their own again. This time around a question that was becoming visible before it became a topic: what happens when companies want to apply artificial intelligence to their own protected documents — and cannot let that data leave the building?

2018. The first student. Phi Technologies signed an agreement with Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá: students can complete part of their education with us and receive academic credit for the work. The first arrived in 2018, and a new group has followed every year since. One of those students, Santiago Triana, is now Senior Product Developer at Phi and leads the student team.

Why this history is relevant

It answers three things that matter when choosing an AI supplier.

We are not new to this field. Authentication, semantics and language processing have occupied us for over twenty years — long before any of it became a market. That is why our products are built around traceability and control rather than effect.

We know both sides. We have worked in small companies and in corporations with everything that comes with them: approval processes, audits, security requirements, international teams. We know what actually causes AI rollouts in large organisations to fail.

We stay. The same people working together for thirty years is the exception in this industry. For a company placing its document archives in someone else’s hands, continuity is not a formality.

Who is behind it

Hajo Libor — Managing Director

Raised in Hamburg. Studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering at the Technical University of Munich, completing his thesis at Airbus on the design of an ultra-high-capacity aircraft. Two years in auditing at Arthur Andersen, then the founding in Prague in 1995. Later Vice President Europe at Veridicom and Managing Director at STMicroelectronics. Working with artificial intelligence and semantics since 2004. At Phi he is responsible for the technical architecture and works directly on customer projects, from the first use case through to production.

Vladimír Lieberzeit — Chief Technology Officer

Raised in Prague. Studied electrical engineering at the Czech Technical University, graduating with distinction and receiving the Education Minister’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. MBA at Sheffield Hallam University in 2007. CTO from 1995 of the company he co-founded; after the Apple acquisition in 2012, site leader of the Czech Apple team. Co-inventor of an authentication device patented for Apple.

Hana Grubhofferová — AI

Raised in Prague. Studied mathematical statistics and probability theory at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, graduating as RNDr. Her professional interest is language and how machines process it. After beginning in localisation, she joined in 1999, and later worked in software development and project management at Apple. At Phi she is responsible for semantics, machine learning and search technology.

Santiago Triana — Senior Product Developer

Santiago joined Phi Technologies in 2023 through the student programme with Universidad de los Andes. It became clear early on that his approach and his interests were a close fit, and he stayed on after the internship ended. Today he is Senior Product Developer and leads the group of students who come to Prague each year.

Where we are

Phi Technologies s.r.o. is based in Prague. We work in German, English, Spanish and Czech, and serve customers across the German-speaking countries and Central Europe.