EK · Public chronology
Timeline
The public chronology of EK — from the years that built the brand, through the EKWB-era crisis covered extensively in 2024, to the LM TEK transition in March 2025 and the recovery work since. Entries are dated, sourced where the source is external, and arranged in four phases. Where a figure or a date is approximate, we say so.
Phase 1
EKWB period — peak and decline
EK was, for most of its history, the pioneer and reference brand in PC open-loop liquid cooling. The years leading up to the 2024 public crisis are sparse on the timeline because little of what happened in private has since been independently sourced.
Original leadership departs EKWB.
CEO Mark Tanko, CTO Niko Tivadar, and Head of Marketing Andrej Škraba leave the company after a disagreement with the founder and owner about the company's direction. Executive responsibility passes back to founder Edvard König.
Cited: GamersNexus.
Peak years, then overexpansion.
Business booms through the COVID era as demand for high-end PC components spikes, with EK recognised as one of Slovenia's highest-growth companies in 2021. The growth phase led to overexpansion in investment, headcount, and business practices that could not adapt when demand contracted sharply after the COVID peak. After the correction, EKWB's revenue and margin deteriorate through 2022 and into 2023. The detail of this period was not publicly reported at the time; the broad shape was reconstructed in subsequent reporting.
Cited: Dnevnik (Slovenian).
First operational distress signal.
Approximately 25% of staff are laid off in a single round. With hindsight this is the earliest internal-facing indication that the post-COVID demand correction has become a structural problem; at the time it was not externally reported as such.
Cited: TechPowerUp.
Edvard König formally resumes the CEO role.
Founder Edvard König publicly and formally resumes the CEO position with a stated intent to address mounting operational issues.
Cited: PC Gamer.
Phase 2
EKWB period — public crisis
Three investigative reports by GamersNexus, alongside coverage by Tom's Hardware, KitGuru, PC Gamer, and others, brought the EKWB situation into public view. A Slovenian Labour Inspectorate investigation followed. By the end of 2024, key personnel had left and the company was in freefall.
GamersNexus publishes "EK is Imploding."
The investigative report alleges months of unpaid wages, unpaid contractors, and unpaid suppliers. EKWB acknowledges much of what is reported in a video statement by Edvard König.
Cited: GamersNexus video, PC Gamer.
Slovenian Labour Inspectorate opens an investigation.
Slovenian labour authorities open a formal investigation into delayed salary payments to EKWB employees.
Cited: Tom's Hardware.
Senior staff departures.
Several senior staff leave EKWB during this period for other companies in the cooling and components space.
Cited: Tom's Hardware.
GamersNexus publishes "How 4 People Destroyed a $250 Million Tech Company."
The third major investigation reconstructs the management decisions and operational failures that led EKWB into crisis. The video establishes the framing used by most subsequent coverage.
Cited: GamersNexus video.
Continued operational decline.
Through the remainder of 2024 and into early 2025, EKWB's webshop continues operating but with deteriorating fulfilment and customer-service performance. Customer-paid orders accumulate without shipping; these later become the legacy-orders dataset published on this site.
Phase 3
Transition
On 3 March 2025, the operating rights to the EK brand, webshop, product management, and customer support passed to LM TEK, d.o.o., a Slovenian company. EKWB, d.o.o. continues to exist as the legal entity servicing the legacy debt.
LM TEK takes over EK operations.
09:00 CET
Operating responsibility for the EK brand, the ekwb.com webshop, customer accounts, order history, customer support, and warranty servicing passes to LM TEK, d.o.o. The EKWB, d.o.o. legal entity remains in existence to service the legacy debt, financed by brand-licence royalties from LM TEK's ongoing sales.
Cited: The FPS Review, KitGuru, ekwb.com.
Last order date in the legacy window.
The last pre-paid consumer order that falls inside the EKWB-era legacy window covered by the Outstanding orders report is dated 10 April 2025. Every order placed after that date is fulfilled or refunded under LM TEK's operational standards and falls outside the legacy dataset.
Salary obligations and government tax debt serviced.
Approximate date
All outstanding wages owed to employees and former employees, and all outstanding tax debt to the Slovenian government, are paid in full. The exact closure dates vary by individual debt instrument and are recorded in EKWB, d.o.o.'s internal ledger.
Peak customer obligation documented.
The customer-debt registry reaches its documented peak: approximately €300,000 in pre-paid but unfulfilled orders across approximately 1,100 individual customer records (before bulk payment-provider refunds — including the PayPal cohort below — reduced the active queue to the 543 orders tracked on this site).
Source: internal records.
PayPal cohort refunded.
519 orders that had been paid via PayPal — totalling approximately €130,000 — are refunded in a single processed batch. This is the first cluster-wide resolution of legacy customer debt under LM TEK.
Source: internal records.
Phase 4
LM TEK period — recovery
Throughout the second half of 2025 and into 2026, LM TEK rebuilds EK's operational layer — supplier relationships, customer service, inventory, channel distribution — and works through the inherited debt position. The phase ends with the public launch of this transparency site.
Supplier debt restructured.
Bank debt and the majority of supplier debt are restructured under long-term repayment plans agreed individually with each counterparty. Some critical supplier debts are settled outright using a combination of asset sales and external financing. The detail of these arrangements will be published under the Financial health and legacy obligations cluster once legal review is complete.
Operational rebuild.
LM TEK restores the webshop, customer service infrastructure, warranty processing, supplier network, and inventory to a steady-state operating condition. Channel distribution, dormant during the EKWB crisis, is re-established.
10,000th business-to-consumer order shipped under LM TEK.
LM TEK ships its 10,000th direct-to-consumer order, marking one year of operations. Distributor channel sales are operational and contributing alongside direct B2C.
Mark Tanko returns as CEO of LM TEK, d.o.o.
Mark Tanko, who led EK from 2013 to 2017 and subsequently established the Corsair Hydro X custom-cooling lineup and the iCUE Link ecosystem, returns to lead LM TEK, d.o.o. and the EK brand as CEO and partner.
Transparency surface built.
LM TEK builds the transparency site as the public-facing layer over the operational data. The first dataset to be made transparent is the legacy customer orders queue, followed by customer service performance metrics.
First transparency snapshot.
The first monthly snapshot of the Outstanding orders and Customer service reports is captured: 543 legacy customer orders tracked, 31 resolved, 512 outstanding.
Public launch of this site.
The transparency site is published alongside the press announcement of the new leadership. Mark Tanko's foundational message — dated 25 May 2026 to mark the editorial close of the launch content — is published on the same date, as is the first Update, the launch-baseline methodology note.
Last revised 27 May 2026.