ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin — AI defense company Helsing announ­ced that it has raised €209 million in a Series B funding round led by Gene­ral Cata­lyst. The Swedish Saab Group is also parti­ci­pa­ting in the round as a stra­te­gic inves­tor, thus deepe­ning the exis­ting partnership.

Foun­ded in 2021, the Munich-based company is a new breed of defense contrac­tor deve­lo­ping AI-based capa­bi­li­ties to protect demo­cra­cies. Helsing’s pure soft­ware-based approach and close part­ner­ship with the indus­try have led to rapid market adop­tion across Europe. In June 2023, the German govern­ment selec­ted Helsing and its part­ner Saab to deli­ver the new AI-enab­led elec­tro­nic warfare capa­bi­li­ties for the upco­ming Euro­figh­ter update. In August 2023, Helsing and its consor­tium part­ners were tasked with provi­ding arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) deve­lo­p­ment infra­struc­ture for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

“This round of finan­cing is a vote of confi­dence in Europe,” said Tors­ten Reil, co-foun­der of Helsing. “Gene­ral Catalyst’s commit­ment to global and Euro­pean resi­li­ence aligns with our mission to protect Euro­pean democracies.”

“We foun­ded Helsing because we believe AI will be essen­tial to conti­nue defen­ding demo­cra­tic values. Our recent contracts show that this belief is shared by govern­ments and indus­try. This round of funding is further vali­da­tion from a leading global inves­tor, as well as from our part­ner Saab,” added Dr. Gund­bert Scherf, co-foun­der of Helsing (photo © helsing.ai).

Helsing places parti­cu­lar focus on the ethi­cal appli­ca­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies, espe­ci­ally arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. The company takes a targe­ted approach to trans­pa­rency, explaina­bi­lity, and the effec­ti­ve­ness of “human in the loop.” To ensure tech­ni­cal excel­lence and diverse thin­king, Helsing recruits employees from a variety of back­grounds and encou­ra­ges criti­cal thin­king and feed­back from its teams.

“We believe Helsing is an indus­try-shaping soft­ware company that is fully aligned with our global resi­li­ence thesis — the need to moder­nize our major indus­tries for the powerful chan­ges in the world,” said Paul Kwan, Mana­ging Part­ner, Gene­ral Cata­lyst.

Helsing’s mission to protect demo­cra­cies places parti­cu­lar focus on the ethi­cal appli­ca­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies, espe­ci­ally arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. The company takes a targe­ted approach to trans­pa­rency, explaina­bi­lity, and the effec­ti­ve­ness of “human in the loop.”

Consul­tant Helsing: YPOG
Team: Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin Tobias Lovett (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin; Farina Weber (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Helsing

Helsing is a key tech­no­logy and soft­ware company of the latest gene­ra­tion. In focus: criti­cal AI capa­bi­li­ties for secu­rity and defense. Helsing was foun­ded as an owner-mana­ged tech­no­logy company to pursue the exclu­sive busi­ness purpose of deve­lo­ping and deploy­ing AI capa­bi­li­ties in the secu­rity sector. It is Helsing’s claim, as a Euro­pean tech­no­logy pioneer, to enable demo­cra­tic socie­ties to make sove­reign decis­i­ons and enforce their own ethi­cal standards.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax, Banking & Finance and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. www.ypog.law

News

Tübin­gen — SHS Capi­tal has raised appro­xi­m­ately €270 million for its sixth gene­ra­tion of funds. Due to strong demand, the fund’s origi­nal target volume of 200 million euros was signi­fi­cantly excee­ded and is now more than double that of the prede­ces­sor fund. The invest­ment focus of the new SHS VI fund is on growing Euro­pean health­care companies.

The new fund is targe­ting ten to fifteen invest­ments in the form of both majo­rity and mino­rity stakes. The invest­ment amount of the fund is 10 to 40 million euros. Toge­ther with LPs and other inves­tors, tran­sac­tion values of up to 150 million euros can be reali­zed. SHS invests exclu­si­vely in compa­nies that are alre­ady gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant sales, are on a growth trajec­tory and have the goal of beco­ming Euro­pean health­care champions.

Inves­tors in the SHS VI Fund include fund of funds, insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, banks, health­care groups, church inves­tors and entre­pre­neurs. Further­more, the SHS invest­ment team itself has inves­ted significantly.

“Health­care is an indis­pensable sector and ther­e­fore offers many exci­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties for invest­ment. With us, inves­tors have the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in the deve­lo­p­ment of this growth market. Our track record to date shows that we have been able to gene­rate attrac­tive returns for our inves­tors while helping to improve health­care through inno­va­tion and opti­mize pati­ent care,” explains Manfred Ulmer-Weber, Mana­ging Part­ner at SHS.

“The volume of the new fund has signi­fi­cantly excee­ded our expec­ta­ti­ons and confirmed our posi­tio­ning as the leading private equity health­care specia­list in the German, and thus largest Euro­pean health­care market. We are very plea­sed that many of our exis­ting SHS inves­tors are also inves­ted in our new fund, in some cases with signi­fi­cant increa­ses in subscrip­ti­ons. In addi­tion, we were able to further inter­na­tio­na­lize our inves­tor base and expand it to include renow­ned addres­ses. We would like to thank our inves­tors for the trust they have placed in us,” says SHS Mana­ging Part­ner Sascha Alilovic.

News

Munich — Comi­tis Capi­tal (“Comi­tis”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Cloud7 GmbH (“Cloud 7”). Petra Junge­bluth, the foun­der of Cloud7 (photo © cloud7), reta­ins a signi­fi­cant stake in the company and will conti­nue to steer Cloud7’s inter­na­tio­nal growth as CEO.

Cloud7, based in Berlin and Königs-Wuster­hau­sen, was foun­ded in 2010 by fashion desi­gner Petra Junge­bluth. Since then, the company has become the leading brand in the premium dog access­ories market in DACH. The brand is known for its range of aesthe­tic, high-quality and sustainable dog products and has won nume­rous brand and product design awards.

Comi­tis Capi­tal is a growth inves­tor based in Frank­furt am Main. Cloud7 is Comi­tis’ second growth part­ner­ship in the broa­der pet sector.

Consul­tant Cloud7: POELLATH 

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Part­ner, M&A/VC)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC)
Ludwig Niller (Asso­ciate, M&A/VC)

News

Amster­dam — CVC, a leading global private markets mana­ger focu­sed on private equity, secon­da­ries and lever­a­ged finance, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in DIF Capi­tal Part­ners (“DIF”), a leading infra­struc­ture mana­ger. The merger will create a global private markets mana­ger with seven comple­men­tary stra­te­gies and total assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 177 billion*.

This stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion gives CVC access to a leading infra­struc­ture plat­form that ideally comple­ments the company’s exis­ting private equity, secon­da­ries and credit stra­te­gies. The acqui­si­tion also acce­le­ra­tes DIF’s growth. The company will conti­nue to operate under the DIF brand and main­tain its inde­pen­dence in terms of busi­ness acti­vi­ties and invest­ment decisions.

Head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam, DIF mana­ges EUR 16 billion in assets, employs more than 225 people in 11 offices and pursues two distinct invest­ment stra­te­gies: core/­build-to-core funds and core-plus funds. Foun­ded in 2005, the company has estab­lished itself as a leading provi­der of mid-sized infra­struc­ture invest­ments with a focus on Europe, North America and Austra­lia. By joining forces with CVC, DIF will acce­le­rate its growth and further expand its invest­ment capa­bi­li­ties, geogra­phic reach and global inves­tor base. DIF will conti­nue to be led by its current CEO and part­ners and will operate under the DIF brand.

Commen­ting on the tran­sac­tion, Rolly van Rappard, Chair­man and Co-Foun­der of CVC, said: “Expan­ding into the infra­struc­ture sector is a logi­cal next step for us, as we are convin­ced of the long-term growth trends in this area and it comple­ments our exis­ting stra­te­gies. We have known the DIF team for many years and are exci­ted to have one of the world’s leading pure-play infra­struc­ture manage­ment compa­nies with an impres­sive track record of success and growth on our side going forward.”

Rob Lucas, Mana­ging Part­ner at CVC (Photo © cvc), added: “We are looking forward to working with DIF, a leading global infra­struc­ture mana­ger. DIF’s busi­ness model and culture are a great fit with our local foot­print and their new infra­struc­ture plat­form will be a great comple­ment to our leading private equity, secon­da­ries and credit stra­te­gies. We welcome Wim, the DIF part­ners and the entire DIF team to the CVC Group and look forward to working toge­ther to become a leading global infra­struc­ture manager.”

Wim Blaasse, CEO and Mana­ging Part­ner DIF, said: “The merger with CVC is a natu­ral step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company. Toge­ther with my part­ners, I look forward to leading DIF into the next phase of growth. We have known the CVC team for a long time and have been impres­sed with what they have built. That is why we are exci­ted to become part of the CVC Group. With this tran­sac­tion, we bene­fit from CVC’s global plat­form, scale and excel­lent inves­tor connec­tions. At the same time, we can fully focus on important infra­struc­ture areas such as the energy tran­si­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion without losing our inde­pen­dence in invest­ment decisions.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory and other appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2023 or the first quar­ter of 2024. The Dutch works coun­cil of DIF has been infor­med about the tran­sac­tion and has appro­ved it.

Advi­sors to CVC: inter alia JPMorgan. 

Advi­sors to DIF: advi­sed by Morgan Stan­ley & Co Plc, Loyens & Loeff, PwC and De Brauw, among others.

News

Essen/ Colo­gne — The corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law experts Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M., Part­ner, and Lena Pfeu­fer, Sala­ried Part­ner, advi­sed the listed 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG on a capi­tal increase from autho­ri­zed capi­tal exclu­ding share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights and, toge­ther with the accom­pany­ing bank, on the admis­sion of the new shares to the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Prime Standard).

The capi­tal increase was made against contri­bu­ti­ons in kind in order to acquire the “pay-per-lead” provi­der Ormigo GmbH, based in Colo­gne. Euro Serve Media GmbH, which is part of the Müller Medien family of compa­nies and which in turn holds a majo­rity stake in 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG via its holding company united verti­cal media GmbH, contri­bu­ted Ormigo GmbH to 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG as a contri­bu­tion in kind as part of the capi­tal increase and recei­ved 1 million new shares in return.

Ormigo GmbH was acqui­red in order to deve­lop the “pay per lead” busi­ness area more stron­gly, to acce­le­rate growth in this area and to save costs for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the “pay per lead” business.

11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG has its head­quar­ters in Essen. For over twenty years, 11 88 0* and 11880.com have deli­vered relia­ble results in sear­ches for indi­vi­du­als and local and natio­nal vendors in all indus­tries. Germany’s second-largest direc­tory assis­tance service, which can be reached by dial­ing 11 88 0*, offers perso­nal support, while the online busi­ness direc­tory 11880.com and the app of the same name provide targe­ted infor­ma­tion and direct users to suita­ble provi­ders in the desi­red region.

Advi­sor 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M., Photo (lead), Lena Pfeu­fer, Fran­ziska Marisa Decker, M.A. (all corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law), all Cologne.

News

Jena/Munich — With the support of invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co, Jena-based rooom AG has just raised over 17 million euros in a successful finan­cing round. The finan­cing round is backed by a consor­tium of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors led by Munich-based finan­cial inves­tor Marondo Capi­tal. Growth capi­tal provi­ders such as Tech­no­lo­gie-Grün­der­fonds Sach­sen (TGFS) and bm‑t Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment Thürin­gen as well as other exis­ting inves­tors are also involved.

Jena-based rooom AG has raised over 17 million euros in fresh capi­tal as part of a successful finan­cing round. In addi­tion to the new inves­tors Marondo Capi­tal and TGFS, exis­ting inves­tors such as bm|t and others parti­ci­pa­ted. This invest­ment also unders­cores the growing importance of 3D visua­liza­tion and Meta­verse solu­ti­ons in the enterprise.

Foun­ded in 2016, rooom AG offers soft­ware solu­ti­ons for crea­ting 3D content and digi­tal expe­ri­en­ces in augmen­ted and virtual reality, which are used in Meta­verse, among others. rooom’s custo­mers include Deut­sche Tele­kom, BMW, Zeiss, porta and Bosch. The Jena-based company curr­ently employs around 100 people and now reaches more than six million users in over 120 countries.

“Hans Elst­ner and his team have deve­lo­ped a proprie­tary tech­no­logy for crea­ting 3D content that stands up to global compa­ri­son. Without the use of special apps or virtual reality glas­ses, users can easily immerse them­sel­ves in virtual worlds and explore any type of 3D object using only their smart­phones,” explains Sebas­tian Schirl, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Bryan, Garnier & Co, who advi­sed on the transaction.

“A successful growth finan­cing round is anything but a matter of course in these tense times. We now want to use the funds raised prima­rily for marke­ting and further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, above all in the USA,” empha­si­zes Hans Elsner, foun­der and CEO of rooom AG.

Slowing tran­sac­tion momen­tum after initial hype in virtual reality soft­ware deve­lo­per market

As an analy­sis by Bryan, Garnier & Co shows, provi­ders of hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the areas of meta­verse and augmen­ted and virtual reality have been in high demand over the past two years: in 2021 and 2022, start­ups and tech­no­logy compa­nies were able to raise around €25 billion in capi­tal in almost 4,000 indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions, but since the end of 2022, the number of tran­sac­tions has drop­ped signi­fi­cantly: In the first half of 2023, compa­nies raised only around EUR 2.0 billion in 542 tran­sac­tions, accor­ding to one result of the analysis.

“The initial hype around the Meta­verse has curr­ently died down a bit, but the market for virtual expe­ri­en­ces has long been there,” Schirl said. “Howe­ver, many compa­nies in this field are still in their infancy. rooom is one of the very few compa­nies here that is alre­ady selling its solu­ti­ons with great commer­cial success.” It is no coin­ci­dence that rooom was also named “Top Manage­ment Solu­tion Provi­der” and “Cool Vendor” by Gart­ner, the world’s leading rese­arch and consul­ting company in the IT sector.

Manage­ment consul­tants at Bain & Company expect that the market for meta­verse solu­ti­ons and virtual expe­ri­en­ces could reach a market volume of $700 billion to $900 billion by 2030. Until then, it will also become clear who the real winners in the market are.

The Bryan, Garnier & Co deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse (photo © Bryan Garnier & Co), Sebas­tian Schirl, Berk Kirca, Alex­an­der Rein­auer and Paul Hirsch.

About Marondo

Marondo, with offices in Munich and Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company for fast-growing, tech­no­logy-orien­ted, next-gene­ra­tion SMEs in Germany and DACH. The fund invests in compa­nies from the German tech­no­logy sector through majo­rity and mino­rity tran­sac­tions. These include soft­ware & IT, Indus­try 4.0, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, and health & medi­cal tech­no­lo­gies. In addi­tion to exten­sive expan­sion capi­tal, Marondo also offers liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for exis­ting share­hol­ders. The part­ner­ship is led by four part­ners with over 80 years of indus­try expe­ri­ence, 90 finan­ced compa­nies and seve­ral hundred tran­sac­tions over the past two deca­des. www.marondo.com.

About TGFS

The TGFS Tech­no­lo­gie­grün­der­fonds Sach­sen provi­des tech­no­logy-orien­ted foun­ders with equity capi­tal for the seed and start-up phase. The fund was first laun­ched in 2008 by the Free State of Saxony (inclu­ding ERDF funding) and Saxon finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and has since supported over 100 start-ups. In 2023, the TGFS laun­ched its third gene­ra­tion of funds. The target compa­nies of the TGFS are young, inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies that belong to the ICT, semi­con­duc­tor and micro­sys­tems tech­no­logy, medi­cal tech­no­logy, life science, envi­ron­men­tal and energy tech­no­logy, and new media sectors and have their head­quar­ters or opera­ting faci­li­ties in Saxony. www.tgfs.de

About bm|t

bm|t betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment thürin­gen gmbh, based in Erfurt, is the first address for venture capi­tal and private equity finan­cing in Thurin­gia. bm|t curr­ently mana­ges eleven funds with a total volume of more than 440 million euros and invests in inno­va­tive compa­nies in almost all sectors and in all phases of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment — from the start-up and growth phase to corpo­rate succes­sion and buyouts. www.bm‑t.com

About rooom

rooom AG is an IT company from Jena, which was foun­ded in 2016. They offer web-based solu­ti­ons for the crea­tion, manage­ment and play­out of immersive 3D content. The plat­form can be used for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and works with augmen­ted reality, virtual reality and gene­ra­tive AI. In recent years, the company has been awarded various inno­va­tion prizes such as the German Inno­va­tion Award, the Euro­pean Meta­verse Award and the Inno­va­tion and Excel­lence Award. rooom employs around 100 people and its most important custo­mers include Deut­sche Tele­kom, BMW, Zeiss, porta and Bosch. In addi­tion, the plat­form reaches over six million users in 120 count­ries. www.rooom.com/de

About Bryan, Garnier & Co

Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with over 200 employees in six offices in Europe (London, Paris, Munich, Stock­holm, Oslo, Amster­dam) and the US (New York). As an inde­pen­dent, full-service invest­ment bank, Bryan, Garnier & Co provi­des compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the complete life­cy­cle of its clients — from initial rounds of finan­cing to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-on finan­cing. On average, the bank accom­pa­nies a good 70 tran­sac­tions per year.

The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A advi­sory for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on the growth sectors of tech­no­logy, health­care and sustaina­bi­lity. Bryan, Garnier & Co is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the AMF and FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US. www.bryangarnier.com

News

Frank­furt — Mitsu­bi­shi HiTec Paper Europe GmbH (MPE) has sold MPE Flens­burg GmbH (MPEF). The buyers are various funds advi­sed by Quan­tum Capi­tal Part­ners. A multi­di­sci­pli­nary and multi-site Deloitte team led by Corporate/M&A Part­ner Andreas Jent­gens and Coun­sel Marc Oliver Stock advi­sed Mitsu­bi­shi HiTec Paper Europe GmbH (MPE) on the sale of MPE Flens­burg GmbH (MPEF). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

MPE is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Mitsu­bi­shi Paper Mills (MPM), a company that not only manu­fac­tures and deve­lops prin­ting paper, prin­ting plate mate­ri­als and prin­ting systems for offset and other prin­ting proces­ses, but also supplies media for almost all recor­ding formats, such as pres­sure-sensi­tive, ther­mal, magne­tic, elec­tro­gra­phic, silver halide photo paper and inkjet paper. In addi­tion, MPM is expan­ding its opera­ting busi­ness to include func­tional mate­ri­als such as highly func­tional filters and is incre­asingly focu­sing on rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment in new busi­ness areas.
MPEF is active in the produc­tion of specialty papers with a focus on ther­mal and barrier papers and opera­tes one paper machine and two coating lines with a total capa­city of 35,000 tons per year. The Flens­burg mill has more than 300 years of company history and is known for its tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how, product speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and quality paper used for various appli­ca­ti­ons such as event tickets, lottery tickets, trans­por­ta­tion, food stamps, cash regis­ter receipts, pack­a­ging and more.

Deloitte provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to MPE in the sale. Thanks to the inter­di­sci­pli­nary coope­ra­tion of Deloitte Legal’s legal advi­sors with the experts from Deloitte’s Corpo­rate Finance Advi­sory Team, led by Clau­dius Thiell, follo­wing the “one-stop-shop” approach, the tran­sac­tion was comple­ted effi­ci­ently and successfully. With this tran­sac­tion, the Deloitte team once again demons­tra­ted its finan­cial lead advi­sory and legal & SPA advi­sory capa­bi­li­ties and its exper­tise in execu­ting cross-border M&A transactions.

Advi­sor Mitsu­bi­shi HiTech Paper Europe GmbH: Deloitte Legal Germany
Andreas Jent­gens, photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A; © Deloitte), Marc Oliver Stock (Coun­sel, Lead, Corporate/M&A), Jana Hupfer (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Linda Korn (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Nicola Werry (Part­ner, Data Protec­tion), Juliane Franze (Senior Asso­ciate, Data Protec­tion), Marco Engel­mann (Coun­sel, Real Estate), Susan Lange (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate), Rebecca Gulden (Asso­ciate, Real Estate), Claus Wilker (Coun­sel, Employ­ment), Katha­rina Zicker­mann (Coun­sel, Antitrust).

About Deloitte Legal and Deloitte

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services.
Deloitte provi­des indus­try-leading audit and assu­rance, tax, consul­ting, finan­cial advi­sory and risk advi­sory services to nearly 90% of Fortune Global 500® compa­nies and thou­sands of private compa­nies. Legal services in Germany are provi­ded by Deloitte Legal. Our people deli­ver measura­ble, long-term results that help build public confi­dence in the capi­tal markets, help our custo­mers trans­form and grow, and lead the way to a stron­ger economy, a more equi­ta­ble society, and a sustainable world. Deloitte builds on more than 175 years of history and opera­tes in more than 150 count­ries. Learn more about how Deloitte’s more than 415,000 employees live the mission state­ment “making an impact that matters” every day: www.deloitte.com/de

News

Stock­holm — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) is plea­sed to announce the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Unik System Design (“Unik”). Unik is a leading soft­ware provi­der with deep indus­try and subject matter exper­tise in housing and property manage­ment and legal admi­nis­tra­tion. Main will act as a stra­te­gic part­ner to the manage­ment team, support­ing Unik’s jour­ney to become a leading pure-play soft­ware-as-a-service (“SaaS”) provi­der focu­sed on an inter­na­tio­nal buy and build strategy.

Foun­ded in 1985, Unik is an inno­va­tive Danish provi­der of indus­try-speci­fic soft­ware with +240 employees and consul­tants in Vejle, Aalborg, Copen­ha­gen and Warsaw. With nearly four deca­des of expe­ri­ence, the company has posi­tio­ned itself with the most widely used soft­ware solu­ti­ons on the market, serving more than 900 custo­mers, from large private and public housing asso­cia­ti­ons to law firms and corpo­rate legal depart­ments throug­hout Denmark.

Unik is in the process of reinven­ting itself, not only to deli­ver higher levels of effi­ci­ency, auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion to its ever­y­day users, but also to push the boun­da­ries of what happens when digi­tal inno­va­tion meets deep indus­try know­ledge. Over the next few years, the two new SaaS products HabiCen for housing and property manage­ment and Justi­Case for legal manage­ment will gradu­ally replace the current products Unik Bolig and Unik Advosys.

Going forward, Main Capi­tal Part­ners will actively support Unik in main­tai­ning its strong growth momen­tum by further expan­ding its product offe­ring to exis­ting custo­mers. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons will be an important pillar of the stra­tegy to comple­ment the inno­va­tive product port­fo­lio and streng­then the market posi­tion both in Denmark and abroad.

Jens Find, CEO of Unik System Design, comm­ents, “In our dialo­gue with Main, we reco­gni­zed the poten­tial that this part­ner­ship could bring. After 38 years as CEO and prin­ci­pal owner, I clearly feel that this is the right decis­ion for Unik, our custo­mers and our employees. We will conti­nue with the current manage­ment and the current owners will retain a signi­fi­cant 40% stake. For us, it’s more of a part­ner­ship than a sale.”

Tonni Rasmus­sen, CTO of Unik System Design, comm­ents, “Our custo­mers rely on our inno­va­tion and indus­try exper­tise to set the stan­dard for how soft­ware can auto­mate their busi­ness proces­ses. The deve­lo­p­ment of two ground­brea­king SaaS products, HabiCen and Justi­Case, is part of Unik’s next major inno­va­tion, with a focus on impro­ved secu­rity and opera­tio­nal efficiency.”

Wessel Ploeg­ma­kers (photo © Main­Ca­pi­tal), Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “Unik has been on our radar for a long time as one of the leading Danish soft­ware provi­ders, and we are plea­sed to have the oppor­tu­nity to support the company on its jour­ney to become a leading inter­na­tio­nal SaaS provi­der. We are confi­dent that our targe­ted orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, combi­ned with a selec­tive buy-and-build stra­tegy, will create an enhan­ced value propo­si­tion for exis­ting and new customers.”

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, the DACH region, the Nordic count­ries and the United States. Main has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve sustainable growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. A leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and a branch office in Boston. Main mana­ges assets of over €2.2 billion and curr­ently has an active port­fo­lio of over 40 soft­ware companies.

News

Cologne/ Berlin — Food tech company Circus has acqui­red Berlin-based cooking robot startup Aitme. Through the acqui­si­tion, Circus secu­res access to cutting-edge tech­no­logy in kitchen robo­tics. With the acqui­si­tion, Circus also expands its team with expe­ri­en­ced experts in robo­tics and inte­gra­tes the sophisti­ca­ted cooking robots into its infra­struc­ture. The robots are expec­ted to operate cost-effec­tively with mini­mal labor and streng­then the level of auto­ma­tion in Circus’ micro-kitchens.

Former Foodora marke­ting chief Julian Stoß and Foodora CEO Emanuel Pallua have co-foun­ded Aimte. The robo­tics startup is funded with tens of milli­ons of dollars from big-name inves­tors and has deve­lo­ped a cooking robot to market since its foun­ding in 2019.

About Circus
Circus has crea­ted tech­no­logy-driven micro-kitchen hubs that intel­li­gently combine auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion. The recipes for Circus’ wide culinary selec­tion are deve­lo­ped by Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence — allo­wing for a large number of perso­na­li­zed dishes at low produc­tion costs and effi­ci­ent use of resour­ces. Since laun­ching in summer 2022, Circus has alre­ady rolled out its service in Hamburg, Colo­gne, Berlin and Duis­burg and raised a total of €18 million from investors.

Imme­dia­tely prior to the Aitme acqui­si­tion, a YPOG team led by Dr. Johan­nes Janning also advi­sed Circus on a €5.5 million finan­cing round led by venture capi­ta­lists Black­Mars Capi­tal and 2bx.

Consul­tant Circus: YPOG

Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Nina Ahlert (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Matthias Kres­ser (Tran­sac­tion), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax) Part­ner, Hamburg
Lukas Schmitt (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Cologne
Jannis Fischer (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin

 

 

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by DPE Deut­sche Private Equity Manage­ment III GmbH (“DPE”) have sold their stake in SERCOO Group, one of the leading German provi­ders of services for opera­tors of biogas plants and combi­ned heat and power plants and the corre­spon­ding engine tech­no­logy. The buyer was the tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment and energy service provi­der Elevion Group, which will become a leading service provi­der for biogas plants, decen­tra­li­zed coge­nera­tion and engine conver­sion as a result of the acquisition.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH advi­sed DPE on tax law in the context of the tran­sac­tion under the leader­ship of Dr. Michael Best.

Foun­ded in 2014 and based in Lingen (Ems), Lower Saxony, SERCOO Group is one of Germany’s leading service provi­ders in the Energy and Indus­trial Services busi­ness area, cove­ring the entire value chain of biogas plants, CHP units and engi­nes, as well as rota­ting equip­ment. In 2014, DPE acqui­red a stake in the then BU Bücker & Essing GmbH as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy with the aim of crea­ting a leading German tech­ni­cal service provi­der in the context of the energy tran­si­tion. Within the past 9 years, eight compa­nies have been successfully acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. As a result, the Group has signi­fi­cantly increased the breadth of its product range and the depth of its value chain. Today, SERCOO Group is one of the leading one-stop-shop provi­ders in this field and thus contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to the expan­sion of an inde­pen­dent and decen­tra­li­zed energy supply as well as to the sustainable reduc­tion of CO2 emissions.

Mark Sude­row (photo © DPE), Part­ner at DPE, added: “DPE belie­ves in inves­t­ing in busi­ness models that make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society. That is why we have been inves­t­ing in various compa­nies in the “Rene­wa­ble Ener­gies” sector since 2008.

DPE is an inde­pen­dent German invest­ment company and is one of the largest growth capi­tal provi­ders in Germany. DPE invests in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and focu­ses on indus­tries with posi­tive long-term deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects. DPE was foun­ded in 2007 and has since inves­ted in 40 compa­nies that have comple­ted more than 100 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons and now employ more than 10,000 people. DPE has total assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately 3 billion euros.

Consul­tant DPE: 

PwC (M&A), Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek (Legal), Ebner Stolz (Finan­cial), Pöllath (Struc­ture) and Crescendo Part­ners (Manage­ment Coaching) advised.

News

Wall­dorf — The inves­tor group of LeanIX has sold the company to the Wall­dorf-based soft­ware group SAP. Sellers include inves­tors such as Insight Part­ners, DTCP, Capna­mic Ventures, Iris Capi­tal, Dawn Capi­tal and Gold­man Sachs. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2023, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the transaction.

LeanIX was foun­ded in 2012 by Jörg Beyer and André Christ in Bonn. The start-up is a global leader in enter­prise archi­tec­ture manage­ment (EAM) and offers a cloud plat­form that enables custo­mers to gain visi­bi­lity into their IT systems, which is also a prere­qui­site for moder­ni­zing their own infor­ma­tion technology.

With the plan­ned acqui­si­tion, SAP aims to expand its product port­fo­lio and help custo­mers more easily manage chan­ges in the busi­ness envi­ron­ment and perma­nently improve busi­ness proces­ses through LeanIX’s Saas offe­ring. In addi­tion, LeanIX recently laun­ched an AI wizard to help compa­nies leverage the poten­tial of gene­ra­tive AI to manage IT landscapes.

Advi­sors to SAP: Allen & Overy
Led by part­ner Dr. Roman A. Kasten (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt) and senior asso­ciate Linda Mayer (Corporate/M&A, Munich); the team also included part­ner Dr. Heike Weber (Tax Law, Frank­furt) as well as part­ner Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), senior asso­cia­tes Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion), Anna Kräling (IP/IT, both Düssel­dorf), Merle Herr­mann (Labor Law, Hamburg) and asso­ciate Vero­nika Gaile (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt).

Also advi­sing were part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith (Corporate/M&A, Munich), coun­sel Dr. René Galle (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Dr. Stephan Bühner (FDI), Dr. Manuel Köchel (Tax, both Frank­furt), Henri­ette Hermann, (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Katha­rina Jüne­mann (IP/IT), Pascal Yves Schroe­der (Data Protec­tion, both Düssel­dorf), Mert Guel­mez (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Hendrik Slab­sche (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt), the Tran­sac­tion Support Lawyer Corvin Kiesel­horst (Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Laura Thiel (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) as well as the Tran­sac­tion Offi­cers Lotte Dillen (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Sophia Merkl (Corporate/M&A, Munich).

In addi­tion, Allen & Overy lawy­ers from the USA, UK, France, Nether­lands, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Spain, Luxem­bourg, Austra­lia, Belgium and Hungary advised.

Rojs, Peljhan, Preles­nik & Part­ners, Slove­nia, acted as part­ner law firm.

Advi­sor Dawn Capi­tal: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Tobias Lovett (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Farina Weber (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Dawn Capital

Dawn Capi­tal is Europe’s largest specia­li­zed B2B soft­ware inves­tor. The company part­ners with inno­va­tive compa­nies that can become cate­gory-defi­ning global titans through excep­tio­nal teams, products and busi­ness models. Dawn is an early-stage inves­tor that supports Series A and B compa­nies and funds the best-performing compa­nies through growth rounds to exit. In B2B soft­ware, Dawn focu­ses on four areas: Data and Analy­tics, Secu­rity, Fintech, and the Future of Work. Previous invest­ments have included the likes of Mime­cast and iZettle, while current invest­ments include some of Europe’s leading soft­ware compa­nies such as Colli­bra, Show­pad, Data­iku, Templafy, Quan­texa, Garri­son and Tink.

 

News

Hamm/ Odense (Denmark) — Micro Matic prevai­led in a bidding process against seve­ral compe­ti­tors and acqui­res DISPTEK from the listed Dutch Aalberts Group, which is dispo­sing of the invest­ment for stra­te­gic reasons to opti­mize its own group struc­ture. A Heuking team led by part­ners Dr. Martin Imhof and Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. provi­ded legal advice to Micro Matic on the acqui­si­tion of DISPTEK Group.

Micro Matic is the global market leader in dispen­sing solu­ti­ons for the beverage indus­try. Foun­ded in 1953, the tradi­tio­nal company is head­quar­te­red in Odense, Denmark. Today, 70 years later, Micro Matic employs around 1350 people world­wide and is repre­sen­ted by nine produc­tion sites, distri­bu­tion warehou­ses and compe­tence centers in 14 count­ries and on all conti­nents. In fiscal year 2022/2023, Micro Matic gene­ra­ted sales of €270 million with custo­mers of all sizes, from start­ups to major global beverage companies.

The DISPTEK Group compri­ses in parti­cu­lar the four compa­nies D.S.I. Geträn­ke­ar­ma­tu­ren GmbH, Taprite Inc., Disp­tek UK Ltd. and Vin Service S.r.l., which jointly pool their many years of exper­tise in the field of inno­va­tive and custo­mi­zed dispen­sing solu­ti­ons with loca­ti­ons in Germany, Italy, England and the USA. DISPTEK produ­ces and supplies, among other things, tops, keg connec­tions, pres­sure regu­la­tors, dispen­sing guns, taps, dispen­sing systems and refri­ge­ra­tion machi­nes for the beverage indus­try. The end markets include in parti­cu­lar brewe­ries, soda produ­cers, keg manu­fac­tu­r­ers, and the food service industry.

With the acqui­si­tion of the DISPTEK Group, Micro Matic is further expan­ding its global posi­tion as a leading supplier of dispen­sing systems while streng­thening its exper­tise in inno­va­tive digi­tal solutions.

Advi­sor Micro Matic: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner), Düssel­dorf, Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (Univer­sity of San Diego), Stutt­gart, Sebas­tian Poll­meier, Düssel­dorf, Natha­lie Hemmer­ling (all Corporate/M&A), Hamburg;
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Göb-Krumme (Commer­cial Law/M&A), Düsseldorf,
Fabian G. Gaffron, Simon Pommer, LL.M. (both tax law), both Hamburg,
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (Kings’s College London) (merger control), Astrid Lued­tke (IP/IT), Michael Below (public law/environmental law), Sandra Janberg (public law), all Düsseldorf,
Michael Kreis­ler, LL.M. (Foreign Trade and Payments Law), Berlin,
Dr. Chris­toph Gerhard (Labor Law), Frank­furt am Main,
Fabian Schmitz (Real Estate Law), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Till­mann Peter Rübben, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Cologne,
Chris­tina Tsiti­ri­dis (Corpo­rate Finance), Düsseldorf

Kromann Reumert:
Bent Kemplar, Copen­ha­gen, Kath­rine Hyld­gaard Gamst, Copenhagen

Gianni & Origoni:
Kath­leen Lemmens, Milan, Riccardo Fogliano, Milan

Burr & Forman:
Ches­ter J. Hosch, Atlanta

News

Aachen — Yester­day, TVF Manage­ment GmbH (TVFM) presen­ted the Tech­Vi­sion Fonds II (TVF II) at the Enter­prise Inte­gra­tion Center on the RWTH Aachen Campus. The new edition of the startup fund initi­ally compri­ses a volume of 42 million euros and is to be expan­ded over the next six to twelve months. It provi­des tech­no­logy-orien­ted start­ups with invest­ments of up to €6 million each in the Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A phases. In addi­tion to the Rhine­land, the target region for inves­tors is now the entire Eure­gio Meuse-Rhine (inclu­ding Hasselt, Maas­tricht, Eupen and Liège).

“Even though we are curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing a some­what quie­ter startup phase, the entire Rhine­land has grown and become stron­ger as a startup ecosys­tem. As soon as the econo­mic para­me­ters brigh­ten up, it will become very dyna­mic,” said Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, Mana­ging Part­ner of TVF Manage­ment GmbH, at the launch event for the new fund yester­day. “Univer­si­ties, rese­arch insti­tu­tes and nume­rous cross-border initia­ti­ves in the Rhine­land and the Eure­gio create an ecosys­tem extre­mely rich in poten­tial for startups.”

The group of inves­tors in TVF ll compri­ses the two anchor inves­tors NRW.BANK and Spar­kasse Aachen as well as other savings banks from the west of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and nume­rous private inves­tors. In the process, many new entre­pre­neurs and compa­nies from diffe­rent indus­tries (curr­ently 17) joined as investors.

Over 50 start­ups in the invest­ment balance

This is TVF’s management’s fourth startup fund since 2007, finan­cing inno­va­tive compa­nies in the life scien­ces, soft­ware, deep and medtech, and new mate­ri­als sectors. With incre­asing fund volu­mes and a steadily growing circle of fund inves­tors, TVF not only provi­des the Rhine­land start-up scene with capi­tal, but also with stra­te­gic know­ledge and a far-reaching network. “To date, we have helped more than 50 start­ups deve­lop their tech­no­logy and bring it to market,” says Bern­hard Kugel, also a mana­ging part­ner at TVFM. “We empha­size long-term support and the possi­bi­lity of further rounds of finan­cing, which we usually imple­ment with co-inves­tors.” The funds’ port­fo­lio compa­nies include well-known upstarts such as Hemo­vent, Sile­xica and Taxy.io.

Networ­king the Euro­pean startup scene

TVF ll can also provide start-up teams from neigh­bor­ing Dutch and Belgian regi­ons with capi­tal and know-how. “We want to conti­nue our successful course and also network start­ups across count­ries with busi­ness part­ners and addi­tio­nal inves­tors,” Schlei­cher said. “This is how we streng­then and drive tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion at the Euro­pean level.”

About TVF Management

The Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is the leading early-stage VC fund from the Rhineland/NRW region focu­sing on tech­no­logy start­ups in the pre-seed to Series A phases. TVF focu­ses on outstan­ding teams from the region inclu­ding. the borde­ring Nether­lands and Belgium. TVF Manage­ment has expe­ri­ence from four gene­ra­ti­ons of funds and curr­ently has over €100 million in assets under manage­ment. The fund is backed by potent inves­tors such as NRW.BANK, seven savings banks from western NRW, and more than 15 successful entrepreneurs.
TVF supports foun­ding teams with proxi­mity, network and exper­tise, paving the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leader. Through the S‑UBG Group network, TVF provi­des unique access to over 150 successful compa­nies in various indus­tries, and estab­lishes cont­acts between start­ups and their first custo­mers, part­ners and advi­sors. www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Washing­ton, DC — Subway is one of the most well-known fast food chains in the world. Subway has been selling its sand­wi­ches since 1965. And since then, the company has also been owned by the foun­ding fami­lies of Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck. That is about to change, accor­ding to the US news­pa­per Wall Street Jour­nal.

Accor­ding to the news­pa­per report, the finan­cial inves­tor Roark Capi­tal is about to take over the sand­wich chain. The owner of fast-food chains Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings will put about $9.6 billion on the table for Subway, the WSJ repor­ted, citing people fami­liar with the matter. A deal could be fina­li­zed in the near future, he said.

Subway had said in Febru­ary that the chain was looking into a sale. The sand­wich chain is hoping for a price well in excess of nine billion dollars in a sale. Subway has been owned by the foun­ding fami­lies since its incep­tion in 1965.

Subway with almost 700 stores in Germany

Subway has more than 37,000 stores in over 100 count­ries, with nearly 700 of the sand­wich chain’s stores in Germany alone. This makes it one of the fast-food chains with the most bran­ches in the world, but it is behind the giant McDonald’s. Howe­ver, the chain’s sales have decli­ned in recent years. Nevert­hel­ess, Subway had recently expres­sed a plan to build even more stores internationally.

News

Colo­gne — The EIC Fund invests in the tech start-up STABL Energy GmbH. The invest­ment was made as an equity invest­ment in a Series A finan­cing round under the Hori­zon Europe program. Oppen­hoff has again compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the EIC Fund on its invest­ments in Germany.

The EIC Fund is the special fund of the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil and thus the central invest­ment vehicle of the Euro­pean Commis­sion. It serves to imple­ment the Euro­pean Commission’s EIC Acce­le­ra­tor program, which supports inno­va­tive and sustainable Euro­pean growth compa­nies. The EIC (Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil) was estab­lished under the pilot project “Hori­zon 2020 — the Frame­work Programme for Rese­arch and Inno­va­tion” and successfully contin­ued in 2021 with the launch of the “Hori­zon Europe Programme”. With a dura­tion from 2021 to 2027 and a total budget of up to €95.5 billion, it is one of the largest funding programs for rese­arch and inno­va­tion world­wide. In 2022, the EIC Fund was the largest Euro­pean deept­ech VC fund with 71 invest­ments. Oppen­hoff has advi­sed the EIC Fund on its Germany invest­ments since 2021.

STABL Energy GmbH deve­lops energy storage systems from discarded vehicle batte­ries. The aim is to increase the use of rene­wa­ble ener­gies with the help of energy storage systems and at the same time to extend the life cycle of car batte­ries. The finan­cing round has a total volume of up to EUR 15 million.

Advi­sor EIC Fund: Oppenhoff

The Oppen­hoff team, led by Dr. Peter Etzbach (photo © Oppen­hoff), included Dr. Jonas Weise (both Corpo­rate /M&A), Georg Leche­ler, Dr. Patric Mau (both IP), Dr. Johan­nes Kaes­bach (Labor Law); Chris­tian Saßen­bach and Dr. Axel Grätz (both IT&C).

About Oppen­hoff

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses compa­nies in the venture capi­tal envi­ron­ment, most recently, for exam­ple, the EIC Fund on its invest­ment in biotech start-up CO2BioClean, on its invest­ment in tech start-up enote, on its invest­ment in tech start-up Nyris as well as on nume­rous other invest­ments in German start-ups, SellerX on its acqui­si­tion of KW-Commerce, Beyond­Build on its stra­te­gic merger of spaceOS and Equiem Holdings.
The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

 

News

Switz­er­land — Rolex, by far the largest and most important Swiss watch brand, acqui­res Buch­erer, by far the largest and most important Swiss Rolex dealer. This is the message Buch­erer sent out a few days ago to the brands the Lucerne-based company sells in its own stores. This was announ­ced by the Swiss “Handels­zei­tung”.

Buch­erer patron Jörg Buch­erer has no descen­dants and ther­e­fore sought a viable, syner­gi­stic solu­tion for his empire. Accor­ding to Buch­erer, the take­over still has to be appro­ved by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. This should be a mere forma­lity, as Buch­erer and Rolex operate in diffe­rent markets — retail and watch­ma­king. The two tradi­tio­nal houses have been working closely toge­ther since 1924, and Buch­erer sells Swiss luxury watches and offers the offi­cial repair service in over 100 specia­list stores worldwide.

The company produ­ces about one million watches a year, accor­ding to Morgan Stan­ley esti­ma­tes, gene­ra­ting sales of more than 10 billion Swiss francs. By compa­ri­son, the second and third largest brands in terms of sales, Cartier (watches) and Omega, account for less than 3 billion Swiss francs. No other luxury watch brand produ­ces anywhere near as many watches as Rolex.

News

Monheim am Rhein/ Frank­furt a. Main — The Natsana Group, a supplier of high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments, has raised debt capi­tal to finance its growth stra­tegy. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders and manage­ment of Natsana Group in the struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­tion of the growth finan­cing. — The debt finan­cing volume is EUR 50 million and is prima­rily used for product expan­sion and internationalization.

About Natsana

Natsana Group was foun­ded in 2019 by Marcus Thiel­king, Florian Bell, Alex­an­der Oeing and brings toge­ther the most successful brands of premium nutri­tio­nal supple­ments on Amazon in Germany. In addi­tion to Amazon, the products of the three brands are also sold via the company’s own web store and in leading drugs­to­res in Germany and Austria. — As inves­tors, they had brought on board former racing drivers Jörg Schmidt-Staade and Peter Sche­ufen as well as the Schweyer family of inves­tors (Flip­ca­pi­tal).

In 2022, a stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion agree­ment was signed with Bayer, under which Bayer acqui­red a 30 percent stake in Natsana with the aim of better serving the growing demand for high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments. This coope­ra­tion was a stra­te­gic step to deve­lop a large network with world­wide part­ners for the 3 brands Natu­ral Elements, Nature Love and Feel Natu­ral. Toge­ther we will work relia­bly on the best natu­ral products and offers for our custo­mers. In a strong team that shares the same good ideas and values. This is parti­cu­larly important in an envi­ron­ment where factors such as Corona, growing infla­tion and supply bott­len­ecks are making it incre­asingly diffi­cult to main­tain consis­t­ently high quality and avai­la­bi­lity in a stable manner.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance (ncf)

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on advi­sing on corpo­rate sales and acqui­si­ti­ons (mergers & acqui­si­ti­ons), capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cings. Our core compe­ten­cies lie in the struc­tu­ring and execu­tion of complex corpo­rate tran­sac­tions — natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal — such as company sales to stra­te­gic inves­tors and finan­cial inves­tors, IPOs or struc­tu­red corpo­rate finan­cing. We advise estab­lished entre­pre­neurs, corpo­ra­ti­ons, finan­cial inves­tors as well as young start-ups. In teams, we deve­lop indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons tail­o­red to the needs of our clients. We cover all areas of stra­te­gic corpo­rate financing.

 

News

Aachen — S‑UBG AG, the region’s leading invest­ment company for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses, toge­ther with Mana­ging Direc­tor Martin Petzl, acqui­res 100 percent of the shares in the LD DIDACTIC (LD) group of compa­nies from the pan-Euro­pean alter­na­tive invest­ment group AURELIUS as part of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO). LD offers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and teaching tools for digi­tal teaching in science and technology.

The LD DIDACTIC Group, based in Hürth near Colo­gne, was foun­ded in 1850 by Ernst Leybold and acqui­red by AURELIUS in 2009. It deve­lops, produ­ces and sells teaching systems and educa­tio­nal tech­no­logy (EdTech) for science and tech­no­logy teaching. Under the brands ELWE, Feed­back and LEYBOLD, the group serves schools, voca­tio­nal schools and univer­si­ties. These include RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, the city of Colo­gne, Hürth Compre­hen­sive School and Witt­gen­stein Voca­tio­nal College in Bad Berleburg.

The Group sells its products and solu­ti­ons in Germany as well as through a dealer network and selec­ted part­ners in other Euro­pean and non-Euro­pean count­ries. It employs appro­xi­m­ately 160 people and has 5 loca­ti­ons in Germany, England and Hungary.

Expan­sion of sales activities

“We have successfully emer­ged from the pande­mic and are seeing an over­all increase in demand for products for digi­ti­zed teaching,” says Martin Petzl, who has led the company since 2020 and spear­hea­ded the MBO. “I am plea­sed to have found a relia­ble regio­nal part­ner in S‑UBG, which supports us in further expan­ding our port­fo­lio and our sales and placing new products on the market. In the area of tech­no­logy, our focus is on auto­mo­tive and elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring, energy tran­si­tion as well as energy trans­mis­sion and SMART GRID, respec­tively. In the area of natu­ral scien­ces, we are focu­sing on the further virtua­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion of the expe­ri­ment port­fo­lio as well as on sustaina­bi­lity topics such as climate change.”

“LD is making a valuable contri­bu­tion to society world­wide with nume­rous solu­ti­ons for modern, digi­tal educa­tion,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher (photo), CEO of S‑UBG. “We are convin­ced that Martin Petzl and his team will conti­nue to drive LD’s success in the years to come.”

Promi­sing market development

The market for science expe­ri­men­ta­tion equip­ment grew by about 16 percent from 2020 to 2022 to reach 2.2 billion euros. Average growth of around 7 percent per year is expec­ted up to 2027. Experts expect above-average growth in the emer­ging markets in Africa and Asia in parti­cu­lar. The incre­asing digi­tiza­tion of teaching and expe­ri­men­ta­tion is seen as a driver. Accor­ding to fore­casts, the share of digi­tal science expe­ri­ment solu­ti­ons is expec­ted to increase by 150 percent by 2027.

About the S‑UBG Group

For more than 35 years, the S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in provi­ding equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchengladbach.
S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company. She deve­lops invest­ment models for medium-sized compa­nies, both in open and silent form, and she looks back on many years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of expan­sion finan­cing models, share­hol­der chan­ges as well as succes­sion arran­ge­ments (MBO/MBI) and exclu­si­vely enters into mino­rity shareholdings.

The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. Further infor­ma­tion: www.s‑ubg.de; www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Frank­furt a. Main — US-based DISA Global Solu­ti­ons, a leading provi­der in the areas of employee scree­ning and compli­ance, has acqui­red all shares in SIGNUM Consul­ting. With this first inter­na­tio­nal acqui­si­tion DISA Global Solu­ti­ons under­lines its inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. DISA now offers back­ground checks in 145 count­ries. DISA Global Solu­ti­ons was advi­sed by Oppen­hoff on this transaction.

Foun­ded in 1986 in Hous­ton, Texas, DISA provi­des person­nel selec­tion and compli­ance services. DISA helps employ­ers make infor­med work­force decis­i­ons and ensu­res the highest level of work­place safety.

SIGNUM Consul­ting was foun­ded in 1998 and supports inter­na­tio­nally orien­ted large and medium-sized compa­nies in the areas of pre-employ­ment scree­ning and risk/compliance manage­ment in more than 100 countries.

Advi­sor DISA Global Solu­ti­ons: Oppenhoff
The Oppen­hoff team, led by Dr. Markus Rasner (photo © Oppen­hof), included Marcel Marko­vic (both private equity), Anja Dombrow­sky (labor law), Dr. Jürgen Hartung (IT and data protec­tion law), Dr. Wolf­gang Kotzur (finan­cing) and Dr. Gunnar Knorr (tax).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses US compa­nies on the imple­men­ta­tion of their inter­na­tio­nal M&A stra­tegy, such as Mobi­leum on the acqui­si­tion of SIGOS, SDC Tech­no­lo­gies on the acqui­si­tion of COTEC and Simpson Tech­no­lo­gies on the acqui­si­tion of Webac Maschinenbau.

About Oppen­hoff

Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a full-service law firm and finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for corpo­ra­ti­ons, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

News

Munich — MCon Group AG sells the MCon Mana­ged Services divi­sion to CONVOTIS GmbH. The Mana­ged Services busi­ness unit, which includes MCon’s German and Moroc­can subsi­dia­ries, provi­des Infra­struc­ture-as-a-Service services for custo­mers in nume­rous indus­tries, inclu­ding the auto­mo­tive indus­try. An M&A team led by Heuking Part­ner Dr. Mathias Schrö­der provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to MCon Group AG on the sale of the MCon Mana­ged Services divi­sion to the CONVOTIS Group.

The MCon Group was foun­ded in 2010 in St. Gallen. MCon Group AG’s opera­ti­ons are based on three busi­ness pillars: digi­tal, data-driven solu­ti­ons to add value to sales and after-sales busi­nesses, profes­sio­nal services to design and imple­ment digi­tal solu­ti­ons, and IT infra­struc­ture and hosting, backed by 24/7 support. The company has also been active in Asia for more than ten years, parti­cu­larly with a strong presence in China.

The CONVOTIS Group is a leading provi­der of inno­va­tive and high-quality busi­ness solu­ti­ons and mana­ged IT services in the DACH region. With its three busi­ness units Busi­ness Solu­ti­ons, Digi­tal Plat­form Solu­ti­ons and Mana­ged IT Services, CONVOTIS sees itself as a stra­te­gic IT part­ner for its custo­mers in incre­asing growth and effi­ci­ency through digitization.

Legal Coun­sel MCon Group AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Mathias Schrö­der, LL.M., Fabian Becker, LL.M., Peter M. Schäff­ler (all Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Munich

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The inde­pen­dent German private equity firm ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”), as mana­ger of the fund German Equity Part­ners V (“GEP V” or “the Fund”), today announ­ced the sale of its majo­rity stake in the Berlin-based soft­ware deve­lo­per PikeTec GmbH (“PikeTec”) to Synop­sys, Inc. a global leader in elec­tro­nic design auto­ma­tion (EDA) and semi­con­duc­tor IP based in the US. A dyna­mi­cally growing soft­ware company, PikeTec specia­li­zes in embedded soft­ware test­ing and func­tional veri­fi­ca­tion with a focus on the auto­mo­tive indus­try. The parties to the agree­ment have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

With the successful closing of the tran­sac­tion, funds mana­ged by ECM have alre­ady reali­zed the second successful exit this year after the sale of the Derma­to­lo­gi­kum Group.

Further deve­lo­p­ment of the orga­niza­tion and intro­duc­tion of a subscrip­tion-based busi­ness model
Since the entry of GEP V in 2019, the soft­ware specia­list foun­ded in 2007 by Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann has deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cantly and successfully initia­ted the adapt­a­tion of its busi­ness model from a clas­sic licen­sing to a soft­ware subscrip­tion busi­ness model (“SaaS”). With ECM’s support, PikeTec has pushed ahead with its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and has ente­red into successful sales part­ner­ships, parti­cu­larly in the fast-growing Asian markets of India and China. This success is under­pin­ned by signi­fi­cant reve­nue growth as well as a signi­fi­cant increase in the share of recur­ring soft­ware reve­nue. In addi­tion, PikeTec has increased the number of its employees by more than 50 percent during this time and has adapted its orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures to the dyna­mic growth of the company, thus laying the foun­da­ti­ons for further expan­sion in the future.

Global and loyal customers

With a team of around 60 soft­ware deve­lo­pers and engi­neers, the company is now one of the leading provi­ders of test­ing soft­ware. PikeTec combi­nes the deve­lo­p­ment of stan­dard test soft­ware with Test­ing-as-a-Service services to provide a unique test auto­ma­tion offe­ring. The company’s Time Parti­tion Test­ing (TPT) test­ing tool enables embedded soft­ware programs to be tested more accu­ra­tely and effi­ci­ently than with other methods. PikeTec’s focus is on early soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment stages such as model and soft­ware-in-the-loop. The soft­ware specialist’s core market is the auto­mo­tive indus­try, with OEMs and Tier 1 suppli­ers as its main custo­mers. With its tools, PikeTec serves custo­mers in around 20 count­ries worldwide.

Andreas Krämer, co-foun­der of PikeTec, said: “We thank ECM for the successful coope­ra­tion over the past four years. With ECM’s support, we have deve­lo­ped PikeTec’s busi­ness model into a soft­ware subscri­ber model, driven inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, espe­ci­ally in Asia, and crea­ted the neces­sary orga­niza­tio­nal condi­ti­ons for further growth. Thanks to ECM’s excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal network, we were able to find the right stra­te­gic part­ner in Synop­sys for our further deve­lo­p­ment. We look forward to shaping and chan­ging the future of virtua­liza­tion, simu­la­tion and testing.”

Florian Kähler, Mana­ging Part­ner of ECM (Photo © ECM), added: “It has been a great plea­sure to work with PikeTec’s foun­ders Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann on an equal footing. Since the begin­ning of our part­ner­ship in 2019, we have supported the manage­ment team in conti­nuing and acce­le­ra­ting PikeTec’s successful growth trajec­tory and in driving the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the company. We thank the manage­ment team for the trust they have placed in us and wish the team and the company every success for the future along­side the new part­ner Synopsys.”

Advi­sor GEP V on this transaction: 

Houli­han Lokey (M&A), Milbank (legal and struc­tu­ring), Roland Berger (commer­cial) and Ebner Stolz (finance & tax) advi­sed. Florian Kähler, Jan-Luca Bell and Bene­dikt Müller were respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion at ECM.

About ECM Equity Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH (“ECM”)

ECM is a trus­ted part­ner for medium-sized compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs in German-spea­king Europe. Since 1995, ECM has laun­ched the GEP I‑V equity funds with a total volume of more than €1 billion and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from the fifth fund GEP V (€325 million). The funds invest prima­rily in leading medium-sized compa­nies with attrac­tive growth poten­tial in the course of succes­sion plan­ning, part­ner­ship invest­ments and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.ecm-pe.de

About PikeTec GmbH (“PikeTec”)

PikeTec was foun­ded in Berlin in 2007 by Dr. Eckard Bring­mann, Andreas Krämer and Dr. Jens Lüde­mann. Today, the company is one of the leading provi­ders of specia­li­zed test­ing soft­ware with a team of around 60 soft­ware deve­lo­pers and engi­neers. PikeTec deve­lops the test tool TPT and also offers engi­nee­ring services. PikeTec advi­ses compa­nies in the field of test­ing safety-rele­vant embedded systems, performs test mode­ling, execu­tion and evalua­tion for exter­nal custo­mers and is also active in test tool deve­lo­p­ment and inte­gra­tion. The TPT test tool is compa­ti­ble with various safety stan­dards and is used in all soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment phases (MiL, SiL, PiL, HiL). www.piketec.com

News

Berlin — Maga­zino, a robo­tics specia­list from Munich, has sold all its shares in Jung­hein­rich. The listed Hamburg-based company Jung­hein­rich is taking over the Munich-based robo­tics specia­list Maga­zino in full. In addi­tion to its exis­ting share­hol­ding, which has been in place since 2020 and will be increased to 21.7 per cent in 2022, Jung­hein­rich will acquire all the shares held by the foun­ders as well as the previous co-share­hol­ders, inclu­ding Fiege Logis­tik and Körber. The tran­sac­tion became effec­tive imme­dia­tely upon signing this week. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. YPOG advi­sed the foun­ders of Maga­zino on this transaction.

For Jung­hein­rich, the complete take­over of Maga­zino is another stra­te­gi­cally important step towards streng­thening its auto­ma­tion exper­tise. Foun­ded in 2014, Maga­zino employs around 130 people and has one of Europe’s largest deve­lo­p­ment teams in mobile robo­tics. The company offers a powerful tech­no­logy plat­form that enables the opera­tion of logi­stics robots even in a mixed human-machine envi­ron­ment. Robots are thus able to intel­li­gently navi­gate in the warehouse and speci­fi­cally grab and trans­port requi­red objects. Magazino’s system and robots are alre­ady in use in the warehou­ses of various indus­trial custo­mers, online retail­ers and logi­stics service provi­ders. Moreo­ver, the control soft­ware for robots in complex logi­stics envi­ron­ments is alre­ady inte­gra­ted in Jungheinrich’s EAEa. This is a fully auto­ma­ted low-lift truck that was presen­ted for the first time at this year’s Logi­MAT intra­lo­gi­stics trade show.

Maga­zino is to conti­nue to grow as an inde­pen­dent company within the Jung­hein­rich Group and, above all, to utilize the Group’s global sales and service network. The company will conti­nue to be mana­ged by the two co-foun­ders Frede­rik Brant­ner and Lukas Zanger as well as Dr. Moritz Tenorth.

Jung­hein­rich is thus streng­thening the field of auto­no­mous mobile robots as a future field of intra­lo­gi­stics, promo­ting the further expan­sion of its soft­ware exper­tise and being comple­men­ted by one of the largest deve­lo­p­ment teams for mobile robots in Europe with some 130 experts.

About Maga­zino

Maga­zino offers solu­ti­ons for proces­ses that previously could not be auto­ma­ted. They design intra­lo­gi­stics that are more flexi­ble and effi­ci­ent than ever before. To this end, they are deve­lo­ping and buil­ding the next gene­ra­tion of intel­li­gent logi­stics robots. With their ACROSAI tech­no­logy, they work toge­ther with people — simply, safely, stably and with a quality that no one before Maga­zino has ever achieved.

About Jung­hein­rich

As one of the world’s leading intra­lo­gi­stics solu­tion provi­ders, Jung­hein­rich has been driving the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive and sustainable mate­rial flow products and solu­ti­ons for 70 years. As a pioneer in its indus­try, the listed family-owned company is commit­ted to shaping the warehouse of the future. In fiscal 2022, Jung­hein­rich gene­ra­ted sales of €4.76 billion with some 20,000 employees. The global network compri­ses 12 produc­tion sites as well as service and sales compa­nies in 42 count­ries. The share is listed in the MDAX.

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Sazuburg/ Stuttgart/ Plochin­gen — Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders and foun­ders of LogBATT GmbH based in Plochin­gen in the context of a majo­rity share­hol­ding of Lager­max Group from Salz­burg in LogBATT GmbH.

Foun­ded in 2017 by Phil­ipp Helmle and Eduard Schön­meier, LogBATT deve­lops logi­stics solu­ti­ons for lithium-ion batte­ries, espe­ci­ally in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, and now employs around 35 people. The two foun­ders conti­nue to hold shares in the company and remain active in the management.

The owner-mana­ged family company Lager­max is a provi­der of trans­port solu­ti­ons. With over 60 loca­ti­ons in 14 Euro­pean count­ries and around 3,800 employees, the Group is one of Austria’s largest compa­nies for freight forwar­ding, car trans­port and logistics.

Menold Bezler advi­sed the share­hol­ders of LogBATT on the legal and tax aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor LogBATT GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)

Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Domi­nik Nast, Nicole Brandt, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A), Nico Haldy (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch (both Tax), Robert Elhardt (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Markus Kleinn (IP)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Sidney, Austra­lia — Zimmer­mann has become the first Austra­lian fashion label to be valued at more than $1 billion follo­wing its majo­rity acqui­si­tion by private equity firm Advent Inter­na­tio­nal. The label’s foun­ders, sisters Simone and Nicky Zimmer­mann, have retai­ned a mino­rity stake in the brand and said the company will conti­nue to be run by them and current management.

Advent Inter­na­tio­nal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Zimmer­mann from Italian private equity firm Style Capi­tal. Finan­cial terms were not disc­lo­sed, but two people fami­liar with the matter told Reuters the deal values the brand at 14 times its core earnings, or about $1.15 billion (A$1.76 billion).

Zimmer­mann has sales of $260 million and a core profit margin of more than 30%, the indi­vi­du­als said.

Advent’s invest­ment would allow Zimmer­mann to acce­le­rate expan­sion over­seas, inclu­ding Asia and the Middle East, and streng­then its distri­bu­tion network, inclu­ding e‑commerce, Advent, Zimmer­mann and Style Capi­tal said in a joint statement.

The Sydney busi­ness is not expec­ted to be affec­ted by the acqui­si­tion. Rajan Sen of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal said in a state­ment, “We look forward to support­ing the manage­ment team led by CEO Chris Olli­ver and Nicky and Simone Zimmermann.”

The label, known for its high-end swim and resort wear, began in 1991 with a stall in Sydney’s Padding­ton market. There are now 58 Zimmer­mann bouti­ques world­wide, inclu­ding 22 in Austra­lia and 22 in the U.S., and is repre­sen­ted in major depart­ment stores.

News

Munich — The start up Flyby closes a seed finan­cing round in its holding company Kalaan GmbH (herein­af­ter “Kalaan”) with the parti­ci­pa­tion of inves­tors, busi­ness angels and friends & family. A total of 15 parties parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed finan­cing round, inclu­ding inves­tors from the United Arab Emira­tes, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Flyby deve­lops soft­ware and hard­ware to opti­mize last mile deli­very. Flyby has deve­lo­ped a digi­tal deli­very box (photo) and fully inte­gra­ted soft­ware for this purpose. The use of the paten­ted digi­tal smart­box enables a signi­fi­cant increase in effi­ci­ency of the last mile, among other things through fully digi­tal mobile displays and geo track­ing. Flyby will initi­ally be active in Dubai, United Arab Emira­tes, with market entries plan­ned in other count­ries, inclu­ding Germany, and the USA.

Wall­berg & Cie provi­ded legal advice to Kalaan on the finan­cing round, in parti­cu­lar draf­ting and nego­tia­ting the docu­men­ta­tion for the finan­cing round. As the inves­tors had mainly issued conver­ti­ble loans prior to the finan­cing round, the main objec­tive of the finan­cing round was to ensure the stable conver­sion of debt into equity. Due to the inter­na­tio­nal circle of inves­tors and foun­ders, various cross-border legal aspects had to be considered.

“It is remar­kable how much inter­na­tio­nal inte­rest Flyby has attrac­ted within a very short time: As a result, the circle of inves­tors was unusually inter­na­tio­nal for a seed finan­cing round. It was a great plea­sure to legally accom­pany this inter­na­tio­nal and extre­mely promi­sing project toge­ther with the foun­ders,” says tran­sac­tion expert Dr. Sabel.

About Kalaan

Kalaan, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2020. The concep­tion, deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of the paten­ted digi­tal smart box was accom­pa­nied from the begin­ning by an inter­na­tio­nal team of engi­neers, soft­ware deve­lo­pers and marke­ting experts. The inter­na­tio­nal foun­ding team has strong roots in the market of the United Arab Emira­tes, which is ideally suited for market entry due to the high density of deli­very services. Due to the considera­ble rele­vance of the last mile for the profi­ta­bi­lity of deli­very services world­wide, Kalaan’s valua­tion at the time of the seed finan­cing round is alre­ady in the double-digit million range.

Consul­tant Flyby: Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG

Dr. Simon Sabel, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate Law

About Wall­berg & Cie.

Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG is a specia­li­zed legal and tax consul­tancy based in Munich. The foun­ders combine their enthu­si­asm for legal and tax advice with a strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal and digi­tal DNA. The focus of Wall­berg & Cie. lie in the areas of corpo­rate law, tax law and law of the digi­tal world with a focus on digi­ta­liza­tion, tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects. The exper­tise of Wall­berg & Cie. is regu­larly in demand for complex projects, espe­ci­ally in finan­cing rounds.

News

Metzin­gen — Neura Robo­tics GmbH has raised EUR 50 million in fresh capi­tal in a finan­cing round. The Euro­pean inves­tor consor­tium is compo­sed of Lingotto (invest­ment arm of Italy’s Agnelli family), Vsquared Ventures, Prim­e­pulse and HV Capi­tal. LUTZ | ABEL compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed the emer­ging deept­ech robo­tics startup on the complex finan­cing round.

The Baden-Würt­tem­berg tech­no­logy startup Neura Robo­tics GmbH stands out in parti­cu­lar for merging AI and robo­tics. In this way, robots reco­gnize their envi­ron­ment and can act auto­no­mously. They see, hear and have a sense of touch. Thus, through the use of AI, smart sensors and soft­ware systems, the cogni­tive robots are able to inter­act and learn with the envi­ron­ment. This opens up nume­rous comple­tely new, compre­hen­sive fields of appli­ca­tion outside of tradi­tio­nal industry.

The company was one of the first to bring AI to commer­cial robo­tics solu­ti­ons. It defi­nes a new market segment called “cogni­tive robo­tics,” which aims to simplify human-robot inter­ac­tion without programming. The concept is for the robot to under­stand voice commands and learn by observing.

The company has a wide range of colla­bo­ra­tive robots and mobile robo­tics solu­ti­ons. The MAiRa and LARA cobots offer a range of payload and range confi­gu­ra­ti­ons. The MAV and MiPA mobile robo­tics solu­ti­ons provide AMR-like mobi­lity and a mobile mani­pu­la­tor solution.

Robots built on the Neura Robo­tics plat­form can see, hear and feel. In combi­na­tion with refle­xive proces­sing of sensory infor­ma­tion, these abili­ties are essen­tial for auto­no­mous and anti­ci­pa­tory action. The company expects these robots to help solve the problem of the gene­ral shortage of skil­led workers over the next decade.

The foun­der and CEO of NEURA, David Reger, has built up the company toge­ther with a team of AI and robo­tics specia­lists after foun­ding it in Metzin­gen in 2019 and has now been able to win over the inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor consor­tium for the impres­sive finan­cing round. The capi­tal increase will enable the company to streng­then its inno­va­tive edge. There are plans to invest in the deve­lo­p­ment of the company’s own produc­tion infra­struc­ture in order to accom­mo­date the growing volume of orders (alre­ady in excess of EUR 400 million, accor­ding to the company). In addi­tion, expan­sion into Japan and the USA is being driven forward.

Advi­sor Neura Robo­tics GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB

Phil­ipp Hoene (lead), Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch LL.M. (both Part­ner Venture Capi­tal / M&A), Ute Schenn (Part­ner Commer­cial), Corne­lius Renner (Part­ner IP)

Sonn­tag & Part­ner for tax consul­ting Dr. Johan­nes Zausig (Part­ner, Tax Consultant)

Advi­sor to inves­tors (Vsquared, Lingotto and Prim­e­pulse): GvW Graf von Westphalen
Titus Walek (Part­ner), Jan Hüni­ken (Asso­ciate Part­ner), both Venture Capi­tal / M&A); Dr. Joachim Mulch (Part­ner, IP/Commercial), Kars­ten Kujath (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Frank Tsche­sche (Part­ner, Tax)

For IP: Patent Attor­ney Matthias Seyboth in coope­ra­tion with Elliot Papa­ge­or­giou (Part­ner — China IP), Vivian Desmonts (Part­ner — China Corpo­rate), Gowling WLG

Consul­tant Foun­der: Diss­mann Orth
Dr. Chris­tian Brehm (Attor­ney at Law, Tax Consul­tant), Dr. Armin Hergeth (Attor­ney at Law, Tax Consultant)

About LUTZ | ABEL

With around 100 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law.

News

Ulm, Germany — NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH has successfully closed a Series A finan­cing round with a volume of more than USD 30 million. Both exis­ting and new inves­tors, inclu­ding promi­nent venture capi­tal inves­tors from the U.S., Israel, Luxem­bourg, Portu­gal and invest­ment compa­nies from German Landes­ban­ken, parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round to support NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies in the deve­lo­p­ment of meta­bo­lic imaging systems for adap­tive cancer treatment.

NVision Imaging Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH is an award-winning deep-tech startup based in Ulm, Germany, with more than 50 employees from more than 10 count­ries. Foun­ded in 2015, the company lever­a­ges advan­ces in quan­tum physics to enable the first routine, conve­ni­ent, and afforda­ble use of magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) to assess pati­ents’ early response to cancer therapy at the meta­bo­lic level. NVision plans to deploy its pola­ri­zer systems in more than 50 cancer centers world­wide by 2025.

POELLATH has been NVision’s perma­nent legal advi­sor since the begin­ning. In this Series A finan­cing round, POELLATH advi­sed NVision with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Michael Inhes­ter (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/ Venture Capital)
Andreas Kühnert, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, M&A/ Venture Capital)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Taxes)
Andreas Gesell (Asso­ciate, Tax)
Leonid Guggen­ber­ger (Asso­ciate, M&A/ Venture Capital)

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has provi­ded compre­hen­sive finan­cial and tax advice to Viess­mann Refri­ge­ra­tion Solu­ti­ons (VRS) on the closing of a joint venture with Epta S.p.A. (Epta), a family-owned company and leading provi­der of commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion solu­ti­ons for the retail, HoReCa and food & beverage sectors, head­quar­te­red in Milan, Italy. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be appro­ved by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties in the fourth quar­ter of 2023.

The new part­ner­ship will enable Viess­mann to streng­then its growth course and market posi­tion. The newly formed joint venture between Epta and VRS aims to jointly create a leading commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion supplier in Central and Nort­hern Europe. The merger includes all of VRS’s commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion acti­vi­ties in Germany, Poland, the Czech Repu­blic, Slova­kia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and the Baltic States, as well as Epta’s busi­ness acti­vi­ties in Germany, Poland, Denmark, Finland and Norway. With over 1,600 employees, both compa­nies gene­rate total sales of over 400 million euros.

Viess­mann was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a Rödl & Part­ner team specia­li­zing in corpo­rate tran­sac­tions, led by part­ner Jochen Reis. He is respon­si­ble for compre­hen­sive support in finan­cial matters throug­hout the entire tran­sac­tion process. This included the prepa­ra­tion of a finan­cial fact­book and assis­tance with finan­cial issues during contract nego­tia­ti­ons. Tax advice was provi­ded by an inter­na­tio­nal M&A tax team led by part­ner Florian Kaiser. Tax part­ner Timo Huhtala provi­ded support from the Finnish office in Helsinki.

About the Viess­mann Group 

The Viess­mann Group says it is one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of sustainable heating, cooling, water and air quality solu­ti­ons. In 2022, the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1917, employed 14,500 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of around 4 billion euros.

About Epta

The multi­na­tio­nal company, head­quar­te­red in Milan, says it is the Euro­pean market leader for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion tech­no­logy in the food retail sector. Epta employs more than 6,000 people, has seve­ral produc­tion plants in Italy and abroad, and has a world­wide distri­bu­tion network with over 40 dedi­ca­ted sales and tech­ni­cal centers. In Germany, the company employs almost 500 people and most recently gene­ra­ted sales of more than 150 million euros.

Advi­sor Viess­mann Group: Rödl & Partner

Jochen Reis (Photo © Roedl), Part­ner, Head of TVS Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Financial
Simon Nieder­mann, Mana­ger, Esch­born — Financial
Maresa Hoeter, Senior Asso­ciate, Esch­born — Financial
Florian Kaiser, Part­ner, Nurem­berg — Tax
Timo Huhtala, Part­ner, Helsinki — Tax
Mimoun Houbani, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Esch­born — Tax
Lukas Fischer, Mana­ger, Nurem­berg — Tax
Jendrik Dohr, Asso­ciate, Nurem­berg — Tax

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