The company was founded by Ole Augustinus on 11 May 1750 when he established a tobacco factory on Frederiksborggade. A new building at Vestergade 8 was inaugurated in the 1770s. Augustinus three sons were all active in the venture. The eldest of them, Christian Augustinus, from whom it later took its name, took over the operations after their father's death in 1779. The building in Vestergade was destroyed in the Copenhagen Fire of 1795 but the current building at the site was completed a few years later.