Retarus

Retarus GmbH is an international information and communication technology company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Founded in 1992 by Martin Hager, Retarus provides cloud-based messaging services for businesses.

History
Retarus was founded in 1992, in Germany by Martin Hager, who currently serves as the company's president and CEO.

In 1994, Retarus introduced fax- and eMail- consulting services as its core offering, allowing transmission of high volumes of faxes.

In 1998, Retarus launched a free wake-up call service through www.weckruf.de. It quickly attracted over 135,000 users and reached its millionth call by November that same year. Its popularity has drawn advertisers like Amazon.de, Yellowmap, and Unertl Weißbier, who started using it for wake-up spots, banner ads, and email notifications.

In 2000, the company expanded its services by including email services. In 2008, it launched SMS services as part of its offering. Retarus introduced cloud messaging services for resellers and channel partners in 2010. In 2015, the company opened data centers in Asia and Australia. In 2019, the company founded a new local subsidiary in Romania. In 2021, a subsidiary was established in Lisbon (Portugal).

In 2022, Retarus partnered with DE-CIX, an operator of carrier- and data-center-neutral Internet Exchanges that allows users of DE-CIX to communicate through Retarus' cloud via a private direct connection that bypasses the public Internet, unlike VPN, Multiprotocol Label Switching or leased lines.

Other
Retarus often conducts email investigations that are featured in newspapers. For instance, in 2008, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cited Retarus' research on spam, reporting that over 98% of emails were spam.

In 2019, Retarus conducted another investigation, also reported by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which found that fax usage was increasing among DAX-listed companies. The number of companies using fax grew by 17% compared to 2018.