ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Ludwigs­ha­fen, Germany — BVC leads DePoly’s CHF 12.3 million seed finan­cing round toge­ther with Wing­man Ventures, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Beiers­dorf, Infi­nity Recy­cling, CIECH Ventures, Angel Invest and others. Proceeds from the finan­cing round will enable DePoly to acce­le­rate the scaling and deve­lo­p­ment of its depo­ly­me­riza­tion process, leading to the cons­truc­tion of a demons­tra­tion plant expec­ted to be opera­tio­nal in 2024.

Sion, Switz­er­land-based startup DePoly, foun­ded in 2020 by Saman­tha Ander­son, Bardiya Valiz­adeh and Chris­to­pher Ireland, is deve­lo­ping “an inno­va­tive chemi­cal recy­cling tech­no­logy.” The fled­gling company’s tech­no­logy can “convert mixed and diffi­cult-to-recy­cle consu­mer and indus­trial waste streams, for exam­ple, mixed plas­tics, mixed paints, soiled plas­tic waste, and poly­es­ter-based fabrics and fibers back into their primary raw materials.”

Plas­tics are an essen­tial part of ever­y­day life. But only about 10 percent is recy­cled; the majo­rity is inci­ne­ra­ted or land­fil­led. As brand owners incre­asingly seek higher recy­cled content in their products, demand for advan­ced recy­cling tech­no­lo­gies is expec­ted to increase. DePoly offers a unique solu­tion to meet this need.

“Our tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to funda­men­tally change the life­cy­cle of PET plas­tics and support global efforts to address climate change. We are very plea­sed that BASF Venture Capi­tal and other stra­te­gic inves­tors are support­ing us in this round to imple­ment our solu­tion on a larger scale,” said Saman­tha Ander­son (pictu­red), CEO and co-foun­der of DePoly.

BASF is stri­ving to make the tran­si­tion to a circu­lar economy by making grea­ter use of recy­cled and rene­wa­ble raw mate­ri­als, desig­ning new mate­rial cycles and deve­lo­ping new busi­ness models. BASF is ther­e­fore imple­men­ting a circu­lar economy program. The company aims to double its sales of circu­lar economy solu­ti­ons to €17 billion by 2030. One exam­ple of these efforts is BASF’s Chem­Cy­cling® busi­ness. The invest­ment in DePoly is a further commit­ment to support this goal.

“To truly make the circu­lar economy for plas­tics a reality, we need to change the way we do busi­ness, and that requi­res a concer­ted effort from multi­ple stake­hol­ders. DePoly’s tech­no­logy offers a promi­sing solu­tion to address the global problem of plas­tic waste, while helping to reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons gene­ra­ted by the produc­tion of virgin plas­tics. We are plea­sed to support the company in crea­ting a more sustainable future,” said Markus Soli­bi­eda, Mana­ging Direc­tor at BASF Venture Capi­tal.

News

Munich/ Hamburg — hema.to has set itself the task of auto­ma­ting and fully objec­ti­fy­ing the clini­cal analy­sis of blood data — so-called cyto­me­try — to enable perso­na­li­zed treat­ment for each person’s indi­vi­dual immune system. Elaia Part­ners, Heal Capi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) support the mission of hema.to with a seed finan­cing round of 3.6 million euros. hema.to will use the funding to scale its AI decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers in Euro­pean labo­ra­to­ries and provide an initial demons­tra­tion of signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment in diagno­stic quality.

In the diagno­sis of blood cancers and other immune dise­a­ses by cyto­me­try, specia­li­zed analysts and physi­ci­ans today have to evaluate abstract, high-dimen­sio­nal point clouds based on their expe­ri­ence and trai­ning. This takes a lot of valuable time (between a few minu­tes and hours per sample, about 20 minu­tes on average), which is a problem given the enorm­ous and incre­asing shortage of quali­fied labo­ra­tory person­nel. Aside from this incre­asing pres­sure on lab staff:inside, this process is noto­riously subjec­tive, with indi­vi­dual staff analy­ses typi­cally diffe­ring by 30%.hema.to aims to drama­ti­cally improve this process with its state-of-the-art, cloud-based machine lear­ning plat­form, helping labs manage their casel­oads, helping lab staff cope with incre­asing demand, provi­ding an objec­tive second opinion to any sick person, and provi­ding new insights to physi­ci­ans to tailor treat­ment to pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.

On a mission to help labo­ra­to­ries world­wide with their clini­cal cyto­me­try workflows

“Europe’s largest leuk­emia lab had an urgent need to acce­le­rate its inter­nal analy­sis work­flows and worked with us to deve­lop the world’s first AI proto­type. After the successful demons­tra­tion of AI-assis­ted clini­cal cyto­me­try, we found that all labo­ra­to­ries shared the same manual work­flows and pain points. We foun­ded hema.to two years ago to support labo­ra­to­ries world­wide in their clini­cal cyto­me­try work­flows,” said Kars­ten Mier­mans, co-foun­der and CEO of hema.to .

Based on a large and growing data­base of cyto­me­try data from multi­ple sources, hema.to has deve­lo­ped algo­rithms that can predict biomar­kers for dise­ase directly from raw blood meter data. This pres­ents a previously unsol­ved chall­enge, as the lack of stan­dar­di­zed measu­re­ment proto­cols leads to complex data varia­ti­ons that prevent auto­ma­tion. hema.to specia­li­zes in combi­ning data from multi­ple sources to iden­tify predic­tive biomar­kers for dise­ase. The team has alre­ady used this tech­no­logy in clini­cal routine for decis­ion support in two labo­ra­to­ries — the Insti­tute of Hema­topa­tho­logy in Hamburg and the Result Labo­ra­tory Dord­recht — and now plans to increase the number of user:s and supported dise­ase patterns as well as to further improve the quality of the AI models.

hema.to is based in Munich, Germany, and is led by a team of data science experts who have worked closely toge­ther for years before hema.to was foun­ded. Since its incep­tion about two years ago, they have made their product CE-IVD compli­ant, conduc­ted a clini­cal trial with four centers, and intro­du­ced the product into clini­cal prac­tice in two labo­ra­to­ries. With the second round of funding now raised, the team will be signi­fi­cantly expan­ded, with a focus on AI and soft­ware engi­neers for product deve­lo­p­ment, but also immu­no­logy and cyto­me­try specia­lists, busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and partnerships.

“The foun­ding team, consis­ting of three former entre­pre­neurs of the same company with three PhD profiles, convin­ced us and is now in the scaling phase. I am deligh­ted that hema.to is Elaia’s first invest­ment in Germany,” says Anne-Sophie Carrese, Mana­ging Part­ner at Elaia Part­ners, photo.

About hema.to

hema.to is an easy-to-use clini­cal decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers based on cyto­me­try data and using AI. hema.to acce­le­ra­tes and impro­ves the diagno­stic work­flow and thus helps both diagno­sti­ci­ans and pati­ents. hema.to is CE-IVD and FDA-regis­tered and is alre­ady routi­nely used by leading hema­to­logy labo­ra­to­ries. Foun­ded in 2021, hema.to’s mission is to fully objec­tify clini­cal analy­sis of cyto­me­try data so physi­ci­ans can tailor treat­ment to their pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.vwww.hema.to

About Elaia Partners

Elaia is a top-tier Euro­pean VC firm with a strong tech­no­logy DNA. We support tech disrup­t­ors with global ambi­ti­ons from early stage to growth. Over the past 20 years, we have been commit­ted to combi­ning high perfor­mance with values.
We are proud to be an active part­ner of over 100 start­ups, inclu­ding success stories such as Criteo (Nasdaq), Orches­tra Networks (acqui­red by Tibco), Volterra (acqui­red by F5), Mirakl (valued at $3.5 billion in Series E), and Shift Tech­no­logy (valued at over $1 billion in Series D). www.elaia.com

About Heal Capital

Heal Capi­tal is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm that invests in early and growth-stage tech­no­logy-based health­care compa­nies. The 100 million euro fund was initia­ted and finan­ced by leading private health insu­r­ers to actively drive inno­va­tion in health­care. www.healcapital.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 160 companies.
Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

 

 

News

Munich — Corpo­rate law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE on the sale of its gas turbine busi­ness to China’s CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine Co Ltd (GHGT) in a carve-out and asset deal. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and the satis­fac­tion of other closing condi­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Beyond the sale, both compa­nies have concluded long-term supply and service agree­ments and will coope­rate closely in the future. — To date, MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons has been produ­cing and servicing MGT gas turbi­nes of up to 8 mega­watts in size at its sites in Ober­hau­sen and Zurich for use as mecha­ni­cal drives or for power generation.

MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE, head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg, Germany, is a leading global supplier of large-bore diesel and gas engi­nes and turbo­ma­chi­nery. The product port­fo­lio includes two- and four-stroke engi­nes for marine and statio­nary appli­ca­ti­ons, turbo­char­gers and propel­lers, as well as gas and steam turbi­nes, compres­sors and chemi­cal reac­tors. The company employs around 14,000 people at more than 120 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

Head­quar­te­red in Harbin, China, GHGT deve­lops small and medium-sized gas turbi­nes as well as high-perfor­mance and combus­tion tech­no­lo­gies. The company is a subsi­diary of China State Ship­buil­ding Corpo­ra­tion (CSSC) and employs more than 700 people worldwide.

GOF had advi­sed MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons, among others, on the acqui­si­tion of H‑TEC SYSTEMS GmbH in 2021.

Legal advi­sors MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE:

Inhouse MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE: Dr. Martin Söhn­gen, LL.M. (Deputy Gene­ral Coun­sel and Head of Corpo­rate, Compe­ti­tion and M&A)

Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich: Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker, LL.M. (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Commercial), Maxi­mi­lian Spind­ler, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Marcel Schmidt (Senior Asso­ciate), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate; all M&A)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Labor Law)

Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse, Dr. Roland Stein, Dr. Leonard Frei­herr von Rummel, LL.M. (all antitrust/foreign trade law)

held jagut­tis, Colo­gne: Dr. Malte Jagut­tis, Dr. Bernard Altpe­ter (Coun­sel; both Public Law/Subsidies)

Fangda Part­ners, Beijing: Jack Li (Chinese law)

Walder Wyss, Zurich: Florian Gunz Nieder­mann, Dr. Irène Suter-Sieber; Asso­ciate: Sabrina Kunz (all Swiss law)

News

Frank­furt am Main/Greven — Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner has reached a binding agree­ment to sell its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Grone­weg Group (Greven), a leading global specia­list in high-quality freeze-dried and air-dried herbs, vege­ta­bles and fruits. The merger with U.S.-based Thrive Foods will create a strong and compe­ti­tive player in food freeze-drying — from fruits, vege­ta­bles and spices to pet food and probio­tics. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

Grone­weg was foun­ded in 1969 and is a global player in freeze-dried herbs. The wide range of products includes herbs, spices, vege­ta­bles and fruits. With an inter­na­tio­nal sales team at six loca­ti­ons in Europe, North America and Latin America, the Grone­weg Group has a broad distri­bu­tion network. Groneweg’s know-how covers the entire value chain, from the high-quality raw mate­ri­als secu­red in contract farming, through prepa­ra­tion, drying and further proces­sing, to the sale of the finis­hed products. Strict inter­nal test­ing systems and inten­sive coope­ra­tion with suppli­ers have also enab­led the company to conti­nu­ally expand its market position.

Thrive Foods is a manu­fac­tu­rer of freeze-dried products such as fruits and vege­ta­bles, prote­ins, pet foods, probio­tics, enzy­mes and prepared foods. The company curr­ently has loca­ti­ons in Mode­sto, Cali­for­nia; Ameri­can Fork, Utah; and Albion, New York.

The sellers of the Grone­weg Group are Ursula Grone­weg with her two daugh­ters and VR Equi­typ­art­ner. In the course of the tran­sac­tion with the Ameri­can company Thrive Foods, they are giving up their shares in full.

“We are happy about this next important step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company. I am sure our company foun­der Dieter Grone­weg would have been deligh­ted to see his life’s work as part of this new group of compa­nies revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the market,” says Ursula Grone­weg. Grone­weg Mana­ging Direc­tor Karl-Heinz Waszik adds: “Over the past few years, we have imple­men­ted a strin­gent growth stra­tegy with our top manage­ment and share­hol­ders and worked perma­nently on the deve­lo­p­ment of new products. This is now paying off: Grone­weg Group is a perfect part­ner for our common goals with Thrive Foods.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner had acqui­red a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Novem­ber 2017. Since then, a consis­tent growth stra­tegy has been pursued, with market entry in further Euro­pean count­ries, an expan­sion of the company’s presence throug­hout North America and the further acqui­si­tion of shares in compa­nies in Latin America. In addi­tion, the product range has been expan­ded and new stra­te­gic supply part­ner­ships have ensu­red a high level of supply capa­bi­lity, which has proved very successful, parti­cu­larly in the chal­len­ging past years.

“We have achie­ved a lot in the five years we have been toge­ther with the foun­ding family,” says Peter Sachse (photo), mana­ging direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “It is hard to imagine a better stra­te­gic fit than the acqui­si­tion of Grone­weg by Thrive Foods. In addi­tion to the geogra­phi­cal expan­sion, the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly in terms of product ranges and asso­cia­ted know-how. From our perspec­tive, this is a forward-looking decis­ion with the best pros­pects for further growth.”

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.
www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: Tim Feld, Hedwig Holken­brink, Daniel Seifert, Jens Osthoff

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:

M&A: Square­field (Dr. Boris Hippel, Dorian Bindemann)

Finance: Grant Thorn­ton (Klaus Schaldt, Johan­nes Kost, Felix Bickel Carioni)

Tax: Grant Thorn­ton (Dr. Stefan Hahn, Dr. Nico­las Brüggen)

Legal: Noerr (Dr. Martin Neuhaus, Gerrit Henze, Florian Döpking, Hannah Best­ing, Phil­ipp Buchs, Clau­dia Rinkens)

 

News

Nuremberg/ Augs­burg — Nurem­berg-based IT moni­to­ring specia­list Paess­ler AG (“Paess­ler”) has acqui­red all shares in Augs­burg-based start-up Qbilon. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the deal.

The start-up was foun­ded in 2019 by Dr. Mela­nie Langer­meier, Dr. Simon Lohmül­ler, Dr. Thomas Dries­sen and Dr. Julian Kien­ber­ger as part of an EXIST rese­arch trans­fer project at the Univer­sity of Augs­burg and will conti­nue to be head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg after the sale.

With its IT visi­bi­lity plat­form, Qbilon enables the inte­gra­tion of a wide range of data sources, inclu­ding cloud plat­forms such as AWS or Azure, IT moni­to­ring and manage­ment solu­ti­ons such as Paess­ler PRTG or Dyna­trace, and virtua­liza­tion tools such as vSphere. Custo­mers can also import gene­ric data such as CSV or JSON to easily inte­grate older infor­ma­tion. For compa­nies, this means full trans­pa­rency of their entire IT envi­ron­ment and more resi­li­ence in their IT opera­ti­ons, with the choice between cloud and on-premi­ses solu­ti­ons. Qbilon’s custo­mers include major compa­nies in the auto­mo­tive, utili­ties and manu­fac­tu­ring industries.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1997, Paess­ler has been provi­ding moni­to­ring solu­ti­ons for compa­nies of diffe­rent indus­tries and sizes, ranging from small busi­nesses and medium-sized compa­nies to large corpo­ra­ti­ons. With its product, the company reaches more than 500,000 users in around 170 count­ries and curr­ently has 350 employees from more than 25 countries.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the foun­ders, Bayern Kapi­tal and other inves­tors with the follo­wing Munich team:

Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
David Lübke­meier, LL.M. (UCL) (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)

Advi­sors Paess­ler AG: Rödl & Part­ner in Nuremberg
Lead manage­ment: Patrick Satzinger

News

Munich — OMMAX advi­sed Innova Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of R‑GOL, a leading supplier of soccer boots and sport­ing goods based in Ostróda, Poland, active in the CEE market. In recent years, R‑GOL has grown steadily and profi­ta­bly, expan­ding its online presence to eleven countries.

OMMAX supported Innova Capi­tal with compre­hen­sive digi­tal, tech­ni­cal and data due dili­gence. This analy­sis included an in-depth exami­na­tion of R‑GOL’s busi­ness model, digi­tal market dyna­mics, custo­mer metrics, digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties, and tech­no­logy and data capa­bi­li­ties, and included a criti­cal assess­ment of the busi­ness plan and digi­tal value crea­tion initiatives.

Max Kneissl, Part­ner at OMMAX, comm­ents, “R‑GOL has had an impres­sive growth story over the last few years and has shown great perfor­mance across all chan­nels, making it a stand­out player in the specia­li­zed soccer equip­ment space in CEE. We would like to congra­tu­late the manage­ment team of Innova Capi­tal and R‑GOL on the successful partnership.”

About Innova Capital

Our expe­ri­ence can acce­le­rate your success. — Innova Capi­tal belie­ves in longer-term invest­ments to create lasting value through a finely tuned part­ner­ship with busi­ness owners, even when they decide to retire or sell their majo­rity stake. In this way, we create a powerful combi­na­tion of the founder’s know­ledge and expe­ri­ence with Innova’s proven exper­tise in company building.
https://innovacap.com

 

News

Tübingen/ Hamburg — German health­care specia­list SHS Capi­tal is selling its stake in Spie­gel­berg to Luciole Medi­cal AG. Spie­gel­berg, a medi­cal tech­no­logy company based in Hamburg, Germany, deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes highly specia­li­zed cathe­ters and measu­ring probes for neuro­sur­gi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons in the brain and has been able to grow stron­gly in recent years. Luciole Medi­cal AG, which specia­li­zes in cere­bral moni­to­ring and measu­re­ment of oxygen satu­ra­tion in the brain, expands its product range with the acqui­si­tion of Spiegelberg

Foun­ded in 1986, Spie­gel­berg has become a reco­gni­zed provi­der in the field of intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment. Signi­fi­cant growth was gene­ra­ted during the holding period of SHS. Today, the company is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of ICP probes for intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment as well as the produc­tion of high-quality cathe­ters for ventri­cu­lar drai­nage, subdu­ral drai­nage or lumbar drai­nage and matching exter­nal ventri­cu­lar drai­nage (EVD) sets. The company works with reco­gni­zed rese­arch insti­tu­tes as well as leading clinics and specia­lists in neuro­sur­gery to deve­lop products that are best tail­o­red to the patient.

With Luciole Medi­cal AG, the company now has the oppor­tu­nity to leverage stra­te­gic syner­gies, both in product deve­lo­p­ment and sales. The company’s products comple­ment each other ideally, and the sales chan­nels and target custo­mers with neuro­cli­nics, hospi­tals and specialty distri­bu­tors are almost iden­ti­cal. Toge­ther, the compa­nies have the oppor­tu­nity to indi­vi­dua­lize and opti­mize compre­hen­sive brain func­tion monitoring.

“We are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in Luciole Medi­cal AG that will enable us to offer further inno­va­tive products on the market and thus achieve an even better market posi­tion,” said Spie­gel­berg CEO Stefan Paschko.

“Spie­gel­berg can be descri­bed as the perfect addi­tion to our product port­fo­lio. The signi­fi­cant growth of the company, the profi­ta­ble core busi­ness, but also the strong inter­na­tio­nal presence of the company convin­ced us. We are looking forward to the upco­ming coope­ra­tion and the nume­rous oppor­tu­ni­ties we will exploit toge­ther,” explains Luciole CEO Phil­ippe Dro.

“We are plea­sed to now trans­fer our shares in Spie­gel­berg to a suita­ble part­ner after seve­ral successful years of colla­bo­ra­tion. This merger is the ideal synergy of two inno­va­tive compa­nies that will enhance both market presence and treat­ment opti­ons in the field of cere­bral health of the brain,” says SHS Mana­ging Direc­tor Uwe Stein­ba­cher.

About Spie­gel­berg

The medi­cal tech­no­logy company Spie­gel­berg GmbH & Co KG, based in Hamburg, was foun­ded in 1986 by Dr. Andreas Spie­gel­berg. Spie­gel­berg deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products for intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment, cere­bro­s­pi­nal fluid drai­nage and IAP measu­re­ment in more than sixty count­ries. The focus here is on relia­bi­lity, robust­ness and ease of use, so that work is made easier and the patient’s treat­ment takes center stage. www.spiegelberg.de

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS, an indus­try inves­tor, is a private equity firm foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe. The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF is up to €40 million. Volu­mes beyond this can be imple­men­ted with a network of co-inves­tors. In its invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on the conside­ra­tion of ESG aspects and has ther­e­fore commit­ted itself to the guide­lines of the UN PRI. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of appro­xi­m­ately € 250m.
www.shs-capital.eu

About Luciola Medical

Luciole Medi­cal AG was foun­ded in Zurich, Switz­er­land and has rese­ar­ched and deve­lo­ped a deep under­stan­ding of brain hemo­dy­na­mics to the field of brain moni­to­ring. The company is led by an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and board of expe­ri­en­ced medi­cal tech­no­logy execu­ti­ves and entre­pre­neurs. www.luciolemedical.com

 

News

Hamburg — YPOG provi­ded legal and tax advice to Hamburg-based senior living opera­tor lively on another finan­cing round. Exis­ting exis­ting inves­tors such as neworld have signi­fi­cantly increased their parti­ci­pa­tion, and this time Michael Maas has joined as an inves­tor for the first time.

lively is an opera­tor for assis­ted living with and without care degree. Foun­ded in 2021 by Constan­tin Rehberg and Chris­tina Kainz, the company is using the new capi­tal to push the further expan­sion of lively. The capi­tal raised will be used to drive the digi­tal plat­form, staff expan­sion and site expansion.

YPOG-Berater:innen had alre­ady advi­sed lively on the invest­ment by the invest­ment company neworld.

Consul­tant lively: YPOG
Dr. Adrian Haase, Photo (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

News

Munich — Vyoma GmbH, an emer­ging Munich-based company in the field of Space Situa­tio­nal Aware­nesss (SSA) and Space Traf­fic Manage­ment (STM), was again accom­pa­nied by Green­Gate Part­ners in an exten­ded seed finan­cing round of €8.5 million. The inves­tor is Safran Corpo­rate Ventures, the venture capi­tal arm of the Safran Group, a global tech­no­logy company in the aero­space, defense and secu­rity sectors.

Vyoma is deve­lo­ping a breakth­rough system for moni­to­ring space objects and auto­ma­ted satel­lite opera­ti­ons services to ensure the secu­rity of Europe’s space assets. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate Vyoma’s growth and deepen its part­ner­ship with Safran Corpo­rate Ventures to explore sensor diver­sity and data fusion.

The corpo­rate team of Green­Gate Part­ners specia­li­zes in the VC indus­try, among other things, and has alre­ady accom­pa­nied the young and agile company since the seed round.

Advi­sor Vyoma: Green­Gate Part­ners Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
Dr. Tobias Schön­haar, LL.M. (Bond) (Partner/Corporate) Marc René Spitz, LL.M. (USC) (Partner/Corporate)
Dr. Leonie Singer, LL.M. (Sydney) (Associate/Corporate)

About Vyoma

Vyoma GmbH is a Munich-based company specia­li­zing in Space Situa­tio­nal Aware­ness (SSA) and Space Traf­fic Manage­ment (STM). Foun­ded in 2020, the company deve­lops inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for moni­to­ring space objects and auto­ma­ting satel­lite opera­ti­ons services to ensure safety and effi­ci­ency in space.

Vyoma provi­des real-time data for space moni­to­ring in busy orbits around the Earth. The goal is to revo­lu­tio­nize the space indus­try and contri­bute to Europe’s geostra­te­gic auto­nomy and space sove­reig­nty. https://www.vyoma.space

About Green­Gate Partners

Green­Gate Part­ners is a tech­no­logy law firm with parti­cu­lar exper­tise around tran­sac­tions and venture capi­tal. From our offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers offer their clients first-class advice at eye level. Green­Gate Part­ners repea­tedly provi­des bench­marks in the German market.

News

Munich — OMMAX assis­ted Uniges­tion SA in the acqui­si­tion of Sprin­ger Fach­me­dien München and the entire mobi­lity educa­tion and trai­ning busi­ness of Sprin­ger Nature, resul­ting in the forma­tion of TecVia Group. TecVia is a leading provi­der of educa­tion and trai­ning solu­ti­ons in the mobi­lity sector with head­quar­ters in Munich. In prepa­ra­tion for the acqui­si­tion of Sprin­ger Nature’s mobi­lity educa­tion and trai­ning busi­ness, OMMAX supported Uniges­tion with tech­ni­cal due diligence.

Tech­ni­cal due dili­gence analy­zed and evalua­ted the tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties and set-up in the core markets of Germany and France. The analy­ses included modu­les such as tech­no­logy and product stra­tegy, system archi­tec­ture, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment life­cy­cle, orga­niza­tio­nal setup and IT security.

“Uniges­tion was extre­mely plea­sed with the compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal analy­sis OMMAX provi­ded, which faci­li­ta­ted the successful acqui­si­tion of TecVia. The work of the Tech Due Dili­gence team provi­ded an excel­lent over­view of the current and future tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties of the company’s soft­ware,” said Phil­ipp Scheier, Part­ner at Unigestion.

Dr. Stefan Sambol (photo © OMMAX), co-foun­der and part­ner at OMMAX, commen­ted: “We congra­tu­late Uniges­tion on the successful acqui­si­tion of TecVia. It was a great plea­sure to work toge­ther on this tech due diligence! ”

About UNIGESTION

Uniges­tion was foun­ded in 1971 and is head­quar­te­red in Geneva. It has a global presence in Europe, North America and Asia. It is an inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed asset manage­ment firm that provi­des inno­va­tive, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons to inves­tors worldwide.

Its invest­ment approach is divi­ded into three areas of exper­tise: Private Equity, Equi­ties and Multi Asset & Wealth Manage­ment. Speci­fi­cally, risk manage­ment is inte­gra­ted into every stage of their invest­ment process. www.unigestion.com

About TecVia

TecVia Group is the leading Euro­pean provi­der of content and soft­ware solu­ti­ons for driving schools and driving license training.

Their compre­hen­sive product suite includes cutting-edge tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons such as cloud-based ERP systems desi­gned speci­fi­cally for school driving, coupled with instruc­tional soft­ware for instruc­tors and a self-lear­ning app for student drivers. The company also offers a state-of-the-art driving simu­la­tor and produ­ces high-quality content for blen­ded inter­nal lear­ning. The product range is comple­men­ted by indus­try maga­zi­nes, inclu­ding digi­tal media that are well-known in the German mobi­lity sector.

About OMMAX

Ommax is a digi­tal tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm specia­li­zing in digi­tal and data-driven growth for leading compa­nies and private equity firms. www.ommax-digital.com

 

 

News

Lohne — zvoove Group, the leading provi­der of digi­ta­liza­tion solu­ti­ons for staf­fing and clea­ning compa­nies in Europe, has acqui­red Recruit­Now, the market leader in the Nether­lands for ATS (Appli­cant Track­ing Systems) and recrui­ting solu­ti­ons for tempo­rary staf­fing compa­nies. Follo­wing the merger with ERP specia­list Pivo­ton last year, this makes the zvoove Group number one in the Dutch market for digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons in tempo­rary staf­fing and clea­ning services.

ATS solu­ti­ons play a criti­cal role in mana­ging and auto­ma­ting the recruit­ment process. Indus­try leader Recruit­Now is a fast-growing company with over 150 clients in the tempo­rary staf­fing indus­try and is based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands. The flag­ship product “Cock­pit” is a recruit­ment soft­ware with CRM that combi­nes job boards and online campaigns in one plat­form and signi­fi­cantly auto­ma­tes and acce­le­ra­tes the recruit­ment process.

Based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands, Recruit­Now is a fast-growing company serving more than 150 clients in the staf­fing services environment.

zvoove Group is the market-leading provi­der of digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons for person­nel and faci­lity service provi­ders in Europe, among others. After adding ERP manage­ment specia­list Pivo­ton from the Nether­lands to the group in 2022(KWM advi­ses on the acqui­si­tion of Pivo­ton), zvoove Group beco­mes number one in the Dutch market with the acqui­si­tion of RecruitNow.

zvoove Group and KWM were also supported by local advi­sory teams in the transaction.

Advi­sors to zvoove Group GmbH: King­wood & Wood Malle­sons (KWM)


Markus Herz,
 Photo(Part­ner, Lead), Hanno Brandt (both Corporate/M&A)

About zvoove
The zvoove Group is the leading provi­der of SaaS solu­ti­ons for HR and buil­ding service provi­ders in Europe. In a dyna­mic ecosys­tem of service provi­ders, employees and compa­nies, zvoove impro­ves the world of work through end-to-end digi­ta­liza­tion for service provi­ders, more job oppor­tu­ni­ties and career pros­pects for employees and a secure work­force for compa­nies. Over 4,200 custo­mers and more than 55,000 end users alre­ady rely on zvoove. With zvoove’s solu­ti­ons, they manage 700,000 employees, 12 billion euros in annual payroll, and over one million inco­ming appli­ca­ti­ons per year. zvoove employs over 400 people at 13 loca­ti­ons in Europe.

About Recruit­Now
Recruit­Now, based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands, is the provi­der of the leading ATS solu­tion Cock­pit. Recruit­Now offers opti­miza­tion of the recrui­ting process and provi­des control, clarity and effec­ti­ve­ness. Custo­mers turn to Recruit­Now for relia­ble, best-in-class solu­ti­ons to simplify complex proces­ses. As a result of this achie­ve­ment, the company has grown to 60 employees and over 150 custo­mers in recent years.

News

Colo­gne — A YPOG team led by Jens Kretz­schmann provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Heart­felt on the struc­tu­ring and first closing of its new early-stage VC fund with a target volume of EUR 80 million. In addi­tion to estab­lished LPs, Axel Sprin­ger and Porsche again parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing as anchor investors.

With its fund, Heart­felt, like its prede­ces­sor struc­ture APX, will invest prima­rily in Euro­pean start-ups in their early-stage phase. Heart­felt invests in start­ups at the earliest possi­ble stage — often before the angel round. Initial invest­ments are up to EUR 100,000 and will be further increased until the Series A round if the start-ups show momen­tum and raise exter­nal capital.

About Heart­felt

Heart­felt is the new Berlin unit of the team of APX, a joint venture of Axel Sprin­ger and Porsche, which as an early-stage inves­tor also invests in Euro­pean, early-stage start-ups across sectors. Co-CEOs are Dr. Henric Hunger­hoff (photo © Porsche AG) and Jörg Rhein­boldt. www.heartfelt.capital

Consul­tant Heart­felt: YPOG

Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Funds), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Andreas Bergt­hal­ler (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Markus Alsdorf (Funds), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Dr. Carl Sieger (Tax), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Legal Opera­ti­ons), Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin

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. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Madrid — Trucks­ters, the Spanish road haulage company revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the long-distance trans­port sector through the use of AI and Big Data, has closed a €33 million Series B round. The new injec­tion of capi­tal, backed by new and exis­ting inves­tors, will be used to achieve some of the company’s stra­te­gic goals, inclu­ding the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of its routes, which could make Trucks­ters the first elec­tric long-distance opera­tor in Europe.

The new invest­ments will support other important deve­lo­p­ments, inclu­ding the expan­sion and streng­thening of the IT and manage­ment teams and the opening of new inter­na­tio­nal corri­dors. These impro­ve­ments will support the company’s over­all goal of impro­ving drivers’ working condi­ti­ons while provi­ding effi­ci­ent trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons for its customers.

New inves­tors

The new round of finan­cing is supported by new inves­tors inclu­ding Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit, Volvo Group Venture Capi­tal, part of the Swedish multi­na­tio­nal vehicle manu­fac­tu­rer, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) and Fond­ICO, the Spanish fund of funds.”

The funds provi­ded by the EIB are part of Euro­pean InvestEU, an invest­ment program focu­sed on the EU’s common prio­ri­ties. These include inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and “human capi­tal,” climate protec­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, all of which are central to Trucks­ters’ busi­ness strategy.

The new inves­tors join exis­ting inves­tors who, with this support, show that they believe in Trucks­ters’ ability to revo­lu­tio­nize the trans­por­ta­tion sector and make it more effi­ci­ent, safe, produc­tive and people-centric.

Exis­ting inves­tors include inter­na­tio­nal funds Ampli­fier VC and Meta­vallon VC, as well as Spanish funds Big Sur Ventures, Bonsai Part­ners, Kibo Ventures and The Valley VC . Sacha Mich­aud, co-foun­der of Glovo and member of the Board of Direc­tors as Non-Execu­tive Chair­man, is also re-inves­t­ing in this round.

Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit is parti­ci­pa­ting in this new round for the first time. Jürgen Bilo, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit, explains: “The invest­ment in Trucks­ters is in line with our vision of the future of mobi­lity: inno­va­tive, data-driven fleet manage­ment solu­ti­ons that ensure opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency while promo­ting sustainable growth. We believe Trucks­ters’ model will revo­lu­tio­nize fleet manage­ment and shape the future of transportation.”

Martin Witt, Presi­dent of Volvo Group Venture Capi­tal, agrees: “We are impres­sed by what Trucks­ters has alre­ady achie­ved and see that Volvo Group can add stra­te­gic value to the deve­lo­p­ment of the company. Given the growing demand for freight trans­por­ta­tion, relay systems can provide a solid struc­ture for long-distance elec­tri­fi­ca­tion as well as auto­no­mous solu­ti­ons in the future.”

A dream come true

Luis Bardají, co-foun­der and CEO of Trucks­ters, says, “When we star­ted Trucks­ters, we never imagi­ned that just a few years later we would be in a posi­tion to sign a part­ner­ship with flag­ship compa­nies like Volvo Group and Conti­nen­tal. Having them as our share­hol­ders is a dream: safety, focus on drivers, sustaina­bi­lity and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion are some of the hall­marks of both compa­nies and the reasons Trucks­ters was foun­ded in the first place.”

Bardají also explains that the part­ner­ship is crucial for the deve­lo­p­ment of Trucks­ters, as it will help them “learn from them and their heri­tage. We can’t wait to start this new chap­ter together.”

Substan­tial growth, succes­ses and a busi­ness model that proves itself

Trucks­ters had previously raised €14.3 million when it comple­ted a Series A round in March 2022. The company repor­ted record annual sales of €30 million in 2022, a 300% increase over 2021 (a four­fold increase over the previous year).

One of the key factors in the company’s success, with an equally impres­sive 300% annual reve­nue growth in 2022, is its focus on large custo­mers with high growth capa­city, to whom it offers fast and relia­ble solu­ti­ons, such as incre­asing their fleet size to meet high demand. For exam­ple, Trucks­ters was able to triple the size of its fleet in 2022, over­co­ming major chal­lenges such as the severe driver shortage in Europe.

Trucks­ters is ready in 7 countries

Alre­ady present in Spain, Belgium, Germany and Poland, Trucks­ters opera­tes in seven count­ries: the Nether­lands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, the United King­dom, France and Spain. — Using a truck relay system based on Big Data and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Trucks­ters offers effi­ci­ent routes between Europe and Spain. The scale-up opera­tes four main corri­dors, inclu­ding a new corri­dor from central Spain to the United King­dom. The company moves more than 600 trucks and made nearly 2,000 relay tours last year.

www.trucksters.io

News

Munich, Germany — FERNRIDE, a pionee­ring German company in the field of auto­no­mous and elec­tric trucks, announ­ced the successful closing of a Series A finan­cing round, raising a total of $31 million. These funds will be used to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to auto­ma­ted and sustainable logistics.

FERNRIDE is funded by venture capi­tal inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Promus Ventures, Fly Ventures, Speed­in­vest and Push Vent ures as well as corpo­rate venture capi­tal inves­tors HHLA Next, DB Schen­ker via Schen­ker Ventures and Krone. Inves­tors have confi­dence in FERNRIDE’s vision and confirm the urgency for the indus­try to trans­form and address its chal­lenges. The company combi­nes a decade of rese­arch with indus­try exper­tise from auto­mo­tive and auto­no­mous driving leaders. Former senior execu­ti­ves from BMW, MAN, Mobi­leye and Argo.AI are part of the team. The company’s goal is to become the global leader in auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks within five years.

“As we profoundly change the way the logi­stics indus­try opera­tes, it is criti­cal to part­ner with some of the industry’s leading play­ers. The stra­te­gic invest­ments going into our Series A will help acce­le­rate this trans­for­ma­tion,” said Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­der of FERNRIDE.

FERNRIDE is at the fore­front of human-machine inter­ac­tion tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment here. The company’s unique approach has alre­ady won the trust of leading indus­trial groups such as Volks­wa­gen, DB Schen­ker, BSH and HHLA. Over the past twelve months, the company has inte­gra­ted self-driving trucks into their busi­ness proces­ses. FERNRIDE is using the latest funding to expand its inter­na­tio­nal colla­bo­ra­tion with exis­ting and new custo­mers and to further deve­lop its “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” technology.

M‍shortage of truck drivers

Although auto­no­mous driving as a concept is not new to the logi­stics indus­try, this is the first time a company has mana­ged to bring the tech­no­logy into opera­tio­nal use as a working solu­tion for custo­mers. The biggest chal­lenges in the logi­stics indus­try today are the extreme shortage of truck drivers, rising CO2 emis­si­ons and low profit margins. These problems are alre­ady having a signi­fi­cant impact on society and are predic­ted to conti­nue to grow. For exam­ple, the current shortage of 400,000 truck drivers in Europe alone is expec­ted to increase to 2,000,000 truck drivers by 2026. Auto­no­mous driving seems to offer a solu­tion to many of these problems. Howe­ver, previous attempts to successfully, econo­mic­ally deploy such auto­no­mous concepts failed.‍

FERNRIDE’s unique approach addres­ses these indus­try-speci­fic chal­lenges for its custo­mers today, enab­ling the bene­fits and relia­ble opera­tion of driver­less trucks from day one of inte­gra­tion. The company has deve­lo­ped an end-to-end solu­tion that can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into running opera­ti­ons without caus­ing disrup­tion or downtime.

“Our custo­mers bene­fit from our “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” approach from the begin­ning of our colla­bo­ra­tion,” says Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­der of FERNRIDE. “Our current custo­mers operate more than 1,000 trucks in yard and port logi­stics in Europe alone, so it is important to offer an easily scalable solu­tion. With FERNRIDE, we can do just that, because with our “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” approach, we can alre­ady offer a working, relia­ble solu­tion today.”‍‍

Trucks in yard and port logi­stics repre­sent a $25 billion market in Europe and North America and are just the start­ing point for the trans­for­ma­tion of the truck­ing industry.

About FERNRIDE

FERNRIDE offers scalable auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for trucks in yard and port logi­stics. These solu­ti­ons increase produc­ti­vity, promote sustaina­bi­lity and improve employee safety within the logi­stics indus­try. The company is pursuing the tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach of “human-assis­ted auto­nomy,” which enables remote take­over of auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks. This ensu­res seam­less inte­gra­tion and relia­ble opera­tion of auto­no­mous trucks for logi­stics compa­nies. FERNRIDE’s inno­va­tive tech­no­logy is based on more than ten years of scien­ti­fic rese­arch. FERNRIDE uses these with well-known custo­mers — inclu­ding Volks­wa­gen, HHLA, DB Schen­ker and BSH — to tackle the industry’s major chal­lenges, such as the shortage of drivers and the logi­stics sector’s nega­tive envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. The company was foun­ded by Hendrik Kramer, Maxi­mi­lian Fisser and Jean-Michael Georg and today employs over 120 people at its sites in Munich and Wolfs­burg. www.fernride.com

‍

 

News

Munich/ Zurich — Munich-based Eve Systems GmbH has gained the Zurich-based energy and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy group ABB Ltd. as its new owner. Foun­ded in 1999, Eve Systems is a renow­ned provi­der of smart home products of high quality and ease of use, they include a wide range of devices for home auto­ma­tion, energy manage­ment, secu­rity and device moni­to­ring. With its 40 employees, Eve is a pioneer of the new connec­ti­vity stan­dard Matter, which allows smart home products to be fully inter­ope­ra­ble regard­less of the manu­fac­tu­rer or the user’s opera­ting system via Thread wire­less technology.

Accor­ding to ABB manage­ment, the tran­sac­tion will make ABB a leading provi­der of smart home products based on Matter and Thread, the new inter­ope­ra­bi­lity stan­dard and wire­less connec­ti­vity tech­no­logy. Combi­ned with Eve’s comple­men­tary range of products tail­o­red to the consu­mer retro­fit market, ABB aims to acce­le­rate the deli­very of safe, smart and energy-effi­ci­ent homes and buil­dings. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

Signi­fi­cant market growth and robust valuations

Accor­ding to the experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co., provi­ders of smart home appli­ca­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally compa­nies with corre­spon­ding energy solu­ti­ons, have recently bene­fi­ted greatly from the energy crisis. The invest­ment bank also expects signi­fi­cant growth in this area in the future: the number of smart homes world­wide, curr­ently around 300 million, is expec­ted to rise to around 500 million by 2025. Accor­din­gly, this market is attrac­tive for inves­tors — for exam­ple, the German heating app specia­list tado repor­ted at the begin­ning of April 2023 that the finan­cing round of EUR 43 million, which was only concluded at the begin­ning of Janu­ary 2023, was subse­quently increased by a further EUR 12 million.

The experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co. are also obser­ving a sustained high level of M&A tran­sac­tions in the smart home segment: after 44 acqui­si­ti­ons across Europe in 2021, there were a total of 41 deals in 2022, with a further 15 tran­sac­tions alre­ady added by the end of May 2023. Accor­ding to invest­ment bankers, this trend will continue:

“There is a high level of inno­va­tion in the market for smart home appli­ca­ti­ons, many vendors are expe­ri­en­cing strong growth rates, and both stra­te­gic play­ers and finan­cial inves­tors are incre­asingly inves­t­ing in this space to capi­ta­lize on the trend toward connec­ted and smart homes,” said Falk Müller-Veerse, part­ner at Bryan, Garnier & Co. (Photo © Bryan Garnier) “In doing so, we observe robust company valuations.”

Stra­te­gists in parti­cu­lar are willing to pay considera­ble premi­ums to expand their product port­fo­lios or enter new markets, as can be seen in the exam­ple of Somfy SA. At the begin­ning of 2023, the Despa­ture family, based in France, had comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of the remai­ning 26.1% of this listed company, paying almost 1.4 billion euros. “This corre­spon­ded to a multi­ple of 3.1x reve­nue and 14.4x EBITDA,” Müller-Veerse explains.

Accor­ding to the experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co., Eve is curr­ently the global tech­no­logy leader with a total of 16 Thread-certi­fied devices and four Matter-certi­fied products alre­ady. Matter is a tech­no­logy that ensu­res inter­ope­ra­bi­lity of brands and devices while maxi­mi­zing usabi­lity, Thread is a wire­less stan­dard deve­lo­ped for the Inter­net of Things (IoT), which is used by Matter to improve connec­ti­vity between devices. Both stan­dards are conside­red ground­brea­king for the industry.

Markus Fest, foun­der of Eve Systems comm­ents, “Selling a company you foun­ded and helped build is a big step for any entre­pre­neur. This was my fourth exit, and I was abso­lut­ely thril­led with the support and indus­try exper­tise we recei­ved from the Bryan Garnier team throug­hout the process.”

“This mile­stone is signi­fi­cant for me as CEO and marks an exci­ting new chap­ter for Eve. ABB is the perfect fit for Eve’s mission to deve­lop energy-effi­ci­ent connec­ted home products that protect user privacy. We are very grateful to Bryan Garnier for putting this deal toge­ther for us. Her network and in-depth indus­try know­ledge were instru­men­tal in brin­ging this deal to frui­tion. The entire Eve team looks forward to conti­nuing to grow with one of the world’s most inno­va­tive brands as a leader in the smart home market,” said Jerome Gackel, CEO of Eve Systems.

Bryan Garnier’s multi­na­tio­nal deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse (Part­ner), Olivier Beau­douin (Part­ner), Martin Eich­ler (Direc­tor) and Jakub Veiner (Asso­ciate).

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.

News

Dues­sel­dorf, Germany — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) announ­ces the highly successful sale of Clever­soft to Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners (“LLCP”). Clever­soft has become a major player in the field of regu­la­tory tech­no­logy (RegTech), provi­ding effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons to address complex regu­la­tory chal­lenges in the finan­cial industry.

Due to Cleversoft’s great poten­tial to become a leading RegTech soft­ware provi­der, Main Capi­tal Part­ners inves­ted in the company back in 2018. During Main’s invest­ment period, Clever­soft trans­for­med from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of regu­la­tory soft­ware for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and achie­ved outstan­ding growth. During this time, Cleversoft’s sales more than tripled and Clever­soft was able to conso­li­date its posi­tion as the market leader.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners supported through acquisitions

Main played a criti­cal role in support­ing Cleversoft’s growth trajec­tory, inclu­ding stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons that signi­fi­cantly enhan­ced the company’s product port­fo­lio and market presence. In this regard, Main supported Cleversoft’s acqui­si­tion of CDDS, a holi­stic soft­ware provi­der specia­li­zing in anti-money laun­de­ring solu­ti­ons for banks, asset mana­gers and other finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, Clever­soft further expan­ded its offe­ring with the acqui­si­tion of Busi­ness­Fo­ren­sics, a provi­der of finan­cial and white-collar crime preven­tion solu­ti­ons, and Second­Flow, a provi­der of inno­va­tive compli­ance and risk manage­ment soft­ware focu­sed on the insu­rance sector.

The sale of Clever­soft to LLCP repres­ents another signi­fi­cant achie­ve­ment for Main Capi­tal Part­ners. LLCP, as the buyer, appre­cia­tes the excep­tio­nal value and exper­tise Clever­soft brings to the RegTech market. The tran­sac­tion will provide Clever­soft with the neces­sary resour­ces and support to drive its future growth and soli­dify its posi­tion as a global leader in the industry.

Florian Clever, CEO of Clever­soft, comm­ents, “Toge­ther with Main Capi­tal, we have laid the foun­da­tion for the Euro­pean RegTech plat­form, which we now plan to aggres­si­vely expand globally with our new part­ner Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners. We would like to perso­nally thank Main Capi­tal Part­ners and espe­ci­ally Sven van Berge for almost 5 years of part­ner­ship and excel­lent coope­ra­tion on our way to become a pan-Euro­pean cham­pion in the RegTech market. In these 5 years, toge­ther we have refi­ned our stra­tegy for success, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed our custo­mer base, acqui­red and successfully inte­gra­ted three compa­nies, and acce­le­ra­ted our over­all deve­lo­p­ment. I am confi­dent that our time with Main is the foun­da­tion for a bright future, and we look forward to conti­nuing on this path with our new part­ner, LLCP.”

Matthias Tabbert, Head of DACH at LLCP, added: “We are deligh­ted to have acqui­red Clever­soft, a leading company in the RegTech sector. Clever­soft offers its custo­mers a range of inno­va­tive compli­ance solu­ti­ons and has many attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to provi­ding Florian and the manage­ment team with our exper­tise and resour­ces to support their expan­sion plans and further grow Cleversoft’s market position.”

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen, Mana­ging Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “We congra­tu­late Clever­soft on the successful sale to LLCP and on the remar­kable jour­ney we have taken toge­ther. Cleversoft’s deve­lo­p­ment into a pan-Euro­pean market leader is a testa­ment to the commit­ment and vision of Florian Clever and his manage­ment team. We are proud to have supported Clever­soft in its growth and stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, and we are confi­dent that LLCP will provide the ideal plat­form for Cleversoft’s contin­ued success.”

About Clever­soft

Foun­ded in 2004, Clever­soft has become a leading soft­ware specia­list in the RegTech market, serving global banks, asset mana­gers and insu­r­ers. With over 100 dedi­ca­ted employees, Clever­soft helps finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons effi­ci­ently comply with incre­asingly complex regu­la­ti­ons. The company’s compre­hen­sive solu­ti­ons address regu­la­tory chal­lenges under regimes such as PRIIPs, MiFID II, PIB, FIDLEG and AML. Cleversoft’s services are comple­men­ted by life­cy­cle manage­ment solu­ti­ons, inclu­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onship manage­ment (CRM) and marke­ting proces­ses. Curr­ently, Clever­soft serves over 200 inter­na­tio­nal customers.

About clever­soft

About Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Partners

Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 39-year history of inves­t­ing in a variety of focus sectors, inclu­ding Fran­chi­sing & Multi-unit, Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Trai­ning, and Engi­nee­red Products & Manu­fac­tu­ring. LLCP pursues a diffe­ren­tia­ted struc­tu­red private equity stra­tegy that combi­nes debt and equity invest­ments in port­fo­lio companies.

LLCP’s global team of dedi­ca­ted invest­ment profes­sio­nals is led by nine part­ners who have been with LLCP for an average of 19 years. Since incep­tion, LLCP has mana­ged appro­xi­m­ately $13.3 billion of insti­tu­tio­nal capi­tal in 15 mutual funds and inves­ted in over 100 port­fo­lio compa­nies. LLCP curr­ently mana­ges $9.3 billion in assets and has offices in Los Ange­les, New York, Chicago, Char­lotte, Miami, London, Stock­holm, The Hague and Frank­furt. https://www.llcp.com

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region and the Nordic count­ries. Main has nearly 20 years of expe­ri­ence streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to realize sustainable growth and build excel­lent soft­ware groups. Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and the USA (Boston). As of Octo­ber 2021, Main has over €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has inves­ted in more than 150 soft­ware compa­nies to date. These compa­nies have crea­ted jobs for about 9000 employees. https://main.nl/about

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Norman Wasse and Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on many tran­sac­tions and financings.

Advi­sors Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger (Finan­cing, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory), Dr. Chris­tian Masch (IP/IT, Munich), Edward A. Gordon (IP, Boston), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Corporate/M&A), Alex­an­dra Heberle (Regu­la­tory), Simon Apelojg (IP, Munich)

 

News

Zurich / Munich / Berne — Peri­gon GmbH, a subsi­diary of the Sihl Group, has acqui­red Trichord Ltd. Peri­gon is one of the world’s first provi­ders of a process for indus­trial, full-area prin­ting of complex 3D objects that guaran­tees the highest quality regard­less of the mate­rial. With the acqui­si­tion of the tech­no­logy provi­der and joint venture part­ner Trichord, the Sihl Group secu­res all shares in the tech­no­logy as well as the consumables.

Peri­gon was foun­ded in 2021 by Sihl Group and Trichord, two leading compa­nies in mate­ri­als and tech­no­logy, as a joint venture. Based in Düren, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, the specialist’s globally unique tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons enable designs to be trans­fer­red cost-effec­tively to complex 3D objects. The paten­ted, proven process can be used to design a wide variety of complex shapes, with mold mate­rial and produc­tion quan­ti­ties being irrelevant.

With the complete acqui­si­tion of Trichord by Peri­gon, the joint venture part­ner now beco­mes part of the Sihl Group, which can now serve its custo­mers even more compre­hen­si­vely and conve­ni­ently as a one-stop provi­der. The tran­sac­tion marks the second acqui­si­tion of Sihl Group under the aegis of funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”). In 2016, the funds had acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the long-estab­lished company based near Bern; at the end of 2021, the US-based Diez­gen Corp. was added.

“Trichord is the ideal addi­tion to our group, enab­ling us to offer custo­mers all services from a single source in the future,” says Peter Wahs­ner, CEO of Sihl Group. “With this acqui­si­tion, we are laying the foun­da­tion for the global expan­sion of our stra­te­gic Surface Deco­ra­ti­ons busi­ness. We look forward to working toge­ther with Trichord’s manage­ment to take the next step in our growth strategy.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin.

Consul­tant to the Sihl Group: 

Deloitte (Finan­cial), Bär & Karrer (Legal & Tax Switz­er­land), Addle­shaw Goddard (Legal UK) and Good­win (Finan­cing).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 invest­ments in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone funds are curr­ently inves­t­ing from the sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with 2.8 billion euros. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.com.

News

The fund’s inves­tor base includes major insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (from the ERP-EIF faci­lity), LfA Förder­bank Bayern and NRW.Bank, as well as indus­trial compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons and family offices, and well-known tech­no­logy-orien­ted part­ners from indus­try such as ZF Ventures, ZEISS Ventures and Montan-Stif­tung-Saar. A large part of the capi­tal commit­ments of over EUR 75 million came from exis­ting investors.

The Munich-based Matter­wave team has been an estab­lished finan­cing part­ner for Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech sector for many years. The focus is on auto­ma­ting, digi­tiz­ing and impro­ving the resource effi­ci­ency of the entire indus­trial value chain: from the auto­ma­tion of rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and design to the trans­pa­rency of the logi­stics chain, produc­tion opti­miza­tion and after-sales support of products in custo­mer use.

Consul­tant Matter­wave: POELLATH 

POELLATH advi­sed on the launch of the fund on all contrac­tual, regu­la­tory and tax aspects of fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London), photo © Pöllath; (Part­ner, Lead, Private Funds); Nele Frie (Asso­ciate, Private Funds), Dennis Fordan (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Wies­ba­den / Munich — Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH has successfully comple­ted the volun­t­ary public take­over offer for the shares of Aareal Bank AG. U.S.-based Advent Inter­na­tio­nal and Center­bridge Part­ners laun­ched a joint take­over bid for Germany’s Aareal Bank (ARLG.DE) in 2021, valuing the lender at 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).

Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH is a non-control­led company in which funds advi­sed, mana­ged or control­led by Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion and Center­bridge Part­ners, L.P., respec­tively, as well as CPP Invest­ment Board Europe S.à r.l, a wholly-owned subsi­diary of Canada Pension Plan Invest­ment Board, and other mino­rity share­hol­ders hold inte­rests. — Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH curr­ently holds around 90 percent of the share capi­tal and voting rights of Aareal Bank AG.

Henge­ler miller Advi­ses Advent and Center­bridge on the struc­tu­ring, prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of all banking regu­la­tory proce­du­res and aspects of the acqui­si­tion of Aareal Bank inclu­ding the bearer control proce­dure and the holding struc­ture vis-à-vis the Euro­pean Central Bank (ECB), the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) and the German Bundes­bank as well as the Bundes­ver­band deut­scher Banken e.V. and the Audi­ting Asso­cia­tion of German Banks e.V.

Advi­sor to Advent and Center­bridge: Henge­ler Mueller

Dirk Blie­se­ner (Part­ner, Banking Regu­la­tory Law, Lead), Prof. Dr. Johan­nes Adolff (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law), Dr. Daniela Favoc­cia (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner, Labor Law, all Frank­furt); Dr. Markus Ernst (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich), Martin Peters (Coun­sel, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Jan Letto Stef­fen (Coun­sel, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Dr. Gerrit Tönningsen (Asso­ciate, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Maxi­mi­lian Kunzel­mann (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law, all Frank­furt), Dr. Isabella Zimmerl (Asso­ciate, Tax Law, Munich).

News

Hanover/ Hamburg/ Cologne/ Munich — Follo­wing its invest­ment in ESG soft­ware pioneer VERSO, NORD Holding is conti­nuing its compre­hen­sive ESG initia­tive by acqui­ring stakes in Hamburg-based Silves­ter Group and Colo­gne-based sustaina­bill. The three compa­nies are merging under the majo­rity share­hol­ding of NORD Holding. VERSO is a provi­der of ESG manage­ment soft­ware and services, while Silves­ter Group guides and advi­ses clients on corpo­rate, ESG and finan­cial stra­tegy, commu­ni­ca­tion and report­ing. The sustaina­bill cloud plat­form increa­ses the trans­pa­rency and sustaina­bi­lity of supply chains.

With the merger of the compa­nies, NORD Holding is crea­ting a leading provi­der for sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment and report­ing with a holi­stic solu­tion “Made in Germany”, from which more than 200 active custo­mers are alre­ady bene­fiting today. In addi­tion to the orga­nic deve­lo­p­ment of compe­ten­cies in all sustaina­bi­lity areas, stra­te­gic addi­ti­ons are sought through syner­gi­stic acqui­si­ti­ons within the merger.

“We are plea­sed to have formed an ESG cham­pion with these three compa­nies, thus acce­le­ra­ting the sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the economy and crea­ting a diffe­ren­tia­ted tech­no­logy and consul­ting offe­ring for medium-sized busi­nesses,” says Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Prin­ci­pal at NORD Holding.

Andreas Maslo, as co-foun­der of VERSO and CEO of the newly formed company comm­ents, “Sustaina­bi­lity is beco­ming incre­asingly complex and our newly formed company is the answer to this. We combine compre­hen­sive sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise with leading tech­no­logy. We are plea­sed that with NORD Holding we have the right part­ner to imple­ment this vision.”

“NORD Holding and we are united by a common goal: the sustainable success of our custo­mers. That is why we accom­pany the deve­lo­p­ment of the sustainable corpo­rate stra­tegy and commu­ni­cate on the status and success deve­lo­p­ment of the ESG and finan­cial perfor­mance, actively and target group-orien­ted in busi­ness and sustaina­bi­lity reports,” says Thilo Tern, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Silves­ter Group and Co-CEO of the newly formed company.

“The sustainable supply chain is an irre­placeable buil­ding block in the sustaina­bi­lity orien­ta­tion of compa­nies. The vision of NORD Holding to create a holi­stic offe­ring toge­ther with VERSO and Silves­ter Group to meet all ESG requi­re­ments now and in the future was crucial for us,” explains Klaus Wiesen, co-foun­der of sustainabill.

The invest­ment has been supported by the NORD Holding Busi­ness Services and Soft­ware team since Novem­ber 2022 and under­lines the sector exper­tise in the area of tech­no­logy-enab­led services. On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tions were imple­men­ted by Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Moritz Stolp and Korne­lius Karl Komischke.

About VERSO

VERSO supports medium-sized compa­nies holi­sti­cally in their sustainable trans­for­ma­tion with its soft­ware (SaaS) solu­tion and services for sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment. Consul­ting and trai­ning in ESG report­ing, manage­ment and climate accoun­ting make VERSO a compre­hen­sive part­ner for corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and ESG. Sustaina­bi­lity mana­gers profes­sio­na­lize and digi­tize their sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment with VERSO or bring even more effi­ci­ency into their exis­ting proces­ses, above all CSR report­ing. In addi­tion, VERSO supports them on their way to beco­ming a climate-friendly company.

About Silves­ter Group

Silves­ter Group is the leading company for inte­gra­ted stake­hol­der rela­ti­ons in Germany. With expe­ri­ence from more than 30 years in the market and over 2,150 client projects, Silves­ter Group offers corpo­rate, ESG and finan­cial commu­ni­ca­ti­ons holi­sti­cally from a single source: stra­tegy, consul­ting, rese­arch and editing. Design, brand and image. Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons (IR), Public Rela­ti­ons (PR) & ESG. Online, Offline, Social Media, Digi­tal & Film.

About sustaina­bill

With its cloud plat­form, sustaina­bill offers a compre­hen­sive solu­tion for mana­ging sustaina­bi­lity and ESG risks in the supply chain. The company was foun­ded in 2017 based on rese­arch conduc­ted at the renow­ned Wupper­tal Insti­tute, one of the world’s leading think tanks for sustainability.

About NORD Holding

With a history of over 50 years and assets under manage­ment of € 3 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund invest­ments. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group divisions/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the micro and small cap segment of mid-market-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on
Primary, Secon­dary and Co-Invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.

News

Cologne/New York — Sastrify announ­ced Series B funding round of $32 million led by Endeit Capi­tal, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Simon Capi­tal and exis­ting inves­tors HV Capi­tal, First­Mark Capi­tal and Triple­Point Capital.

The addi­tio­nal funding will go toward incre­asing the size of the global team with a focus on the U.S. and Europe, as well as further acce­le­ra­ting product deve­lo­p­ment to support mid-market and enter­prise custo­mers. Sastrify has been a strong force in Europe since its mid-2020 launch, growing more than 400% last year.

The proli­fe­ra­tion of SaaS conti­nues to pose a signi­fi­cant risk to enter­pri­ses world­wide. Accor­ding to indus­try rese­arch, more than $200 billion and 3.9 billion man-hours will be wasted on soft­ware purcha­ses in 2023, while one in five orga­niza­ti­ons will expe­ri­ence a cyber inci­dent rela­ted to shadow IT.

Accor­ding to Sastrify, the typi­cal enter­prise over­spends more than 30 percent of its SaaS costs and wastes more than 400 hours per year mana­ging its SaaS contracts.

Sastrify’s all-in-one plat­form enables users to centra­lize, visua­lize and auto­mate their entire SaaS procu­re­ment jour­ney: We are driving SaaS procu­re­ment for fast-growing compa­nies like senn­der, OnRun­ning, Babbel, and Pleo, and are posi­tio­ned to further expand our services in the U.S. as we alre­ady serve U.S. custo­mers like Capchase, a non-dilu­tive funding provi­der for SaaS companies.

The Series‑B coin­ci­des with the expan­sion of our core product offe­ring to include auto­ma­ted usage analy­tics, as well as the launch of the Sastrify Market­place, which includes flexi­ble payment and finan­cing opti­ons. We also recently announ­ced a part­ner­ship with Capchase to offer flexi­ble finan­cing opti­ons for SaaS licenses.

YPOG provi­ded legal coun­sel to Simon Capi­tal in the $32 million Series B finan­cing round.

About Simon Capital

Simon Capi­tal is an early stage VC fund based in Germany. The fund invests in dedi­ca­ted foun­ders who are trans­forming their indus­tries in the areas of consump­tion, well-being and produc­ti­vity. Simon Capi­tal lever­a­ges its broad network and exper­tise rooted in entre­pre­neu­rial tradi­tion to foster new gene­ra­ti­ons of sustainable busi­nesses. The fund takes an active port­fo­lio approach, where capi­tal means more than just money; past invest­ments include the likes of water­drop, Just Spices, MushLabs, Holy and Ordio. www.simoncapital.com

About Endeit Capital

Endeit Capi­tal is a growth capi­tal firm that has been driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and inno­va­tion since 2006. With local part­ner teams in the Nether­lands, Germany and Sweden, Endeit specia­li­zes in support­ing Euro­pean tech scale-ups that have grown out of the start-up phase. Endeit and its commu­nity of entre­pre­neurs and experts support these compa­nies with capi­tal and manage­ment advice. Among them Parcel­Lab, 3DHubs, Navan, Conto­rion, Gastro­fix and Tour­Ra­dar. Endeit’s part­ners have a broad opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence in bran­ding and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, espe­ci­ally through Buy & Build. www.endeit.com

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. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Munich — ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons for semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring, and Gimv, a listed Euro­pean private equity inves­tor, are joining forces to further drive ERS’ growth. The two ERS mana­ging direc­tors, Klemens Reit­in­ger and Laurent Giai-Miniet, will remain invol­ved in the company and retain their current posi­ti­ons. Finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, based in Germe­ring near Munich, has more than 50 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons. These enable the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to perform relia­ble ther­mal tests during micro­chip produc­tion. The company has earned a special repu­ta­tion for its fast and precise chuck systems. These can be used to perform air-cooling-based analy­ti­cal, para­me­ter-rela­ted and produc­tion-speci­fic measu­re­ments in a test tempe­ra­ture range from ‑65 °C to +550 °C.

Since 2008, ERS elec­tro­nic has also been active in the field of advan­ced pack­a­ging with fully auto­ma­tic and manual debon­ding and warpage adjus­t­ment systems. They are now used by most semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers and OSATs (Outsour­ced Semi­con­duc­tor Assem­bly and Test Compa­nies) world­wide. The company has recei­ved wide­spread indus­try reco­gni­tion for its ability to measure and correct complex wafer defor­ma­ti­ons (also called “warpage”) that occur in the fan-out wafer-level pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­ring process.

Gimv has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in helping Euro­pean compa­nies imple­ment ambi­tious growth plans with the aim of crea­ting sustainable value for busi­ness and society. Gimv Smart Indus­tries focu­ses on leading growth compa­nies that are at the inter­sec­tion of the digi­tal and indus­trial worlds, combi­ning both areas of exper­tise to offer holi­stic solu­ti­ons — as is the case with ERS elec­tro­nic. Gimv and ERS are only joining forces to further expand ERS’ leading market posi­tion and to serve the conti­nuously incre­asing demand.

Laurent Giai-Miniet, CEO of ERS elec­tro­nic comm­ents: “Ther­mal manage­ment in semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring is beco­ming incre­asingly important. We are ther­e­fore in a good posi­tion to bene­fit from the rapid deve­lo­p­ment of the indus­try and conti­nue to offer our custo­mers special added value. Our decis­ion to work with Gimv is based on our shared commit­ment to excel­lence and our passion for inno­va­tion and tech­no­logy. We look forward to opening a new chap­ter in ERS’ history with Gimv and reali­zing our shared vision.”

Klemens Reit­in­ger, CTO of ERS elec­tro­nic, added: “We are convin­ced that Gimv’s proven exper­tise will help us take a big step forward in further deve­lo­ping simi­lar busi­nesses, espe­ci­ally in terms of scaling opera­ti­ons and acce­le­ra­ting inno­va­tion. This part­ner­ship will provide us with the resour­ces and flexi­bi­lity to further advance product rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and conti­nue to lead the way in our industry.”

Ronald Bartel, Part­ner at Gimv Smart Indus­tries and Head of Gimv Germany, adds: “ERS’s inno­va­tive capa­bi­lity and special custo­mer-orien­ted approach make the company an ideal addi­tion to our Smart Indus­tries plat­form. It is precis­ely such ambi­tious, inno­va­tion-driven compa­nies that we support in their further deve­lo­p­ment. Our invest­ment in ERS repres­ents the company’s poten­tial and we look forward to working with the team to execute its growth strategy.”

Advi­sor to share­hol­ders of ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH: Rödl & Partner
Lead manage­ment Dr. Oliver Schmitt and Thomas Fräbel. The team had alre­ady advi­sed on a previous invest­ment review procee­ding for ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH and its share­hol­ders through Asso­ciate Part­ner Clau­dia Geercken.
Tax advice was provi­ded by part­ner Dr. Susanne Kölbl and mana­ger Dr. Bene­dikt Keilen.

About ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH

ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, based in Germe­ring near Munich, has more than 50 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons. They enable the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to perform relia­ble ther­mal tests during micro­chip produc­tion. The company has earned a special repu­ta­tion for its fast and precise chuck systems. They can be used to perform air-cooling-based analy­ti­cal, para­me­ter-rela­ted and produc­tion-speci­fic measu­re­ments in a test tempe­ra­ture range from ‑65 °C to +550 °C. Since 2008, ERS elec­tro­nic has also been active in the field of advan­ced pack­a­ging with fully auto­ma­tic and manual debon­ding and warpage adjus­t­ment systems. They are now used by most semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers and OSATs (Outsour­ced Semi­con­duc­tor Assem­bly and Test Compa­nies) world­wide. The company has recei­ved wide­spread indus­try reco­gni­tion for its ability to measure and correct complex wafer defor­ma­ti­ons (also called “warpage”) that occur in the fan-out wafer-level pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­ring process.

About Gimv

Gimv, a Belgian private equity inves­tor listed on Euron­ext 100, has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in guiding Euro­pean compa­nies to imple­ment ambi­tious growth plans with the aim of crea­ting sustainable value for busi­ness and society. Gimv Smart Indus­tries focu­ses on leading growth compa­nies that are at the inter­sec­tion of the digi­tal and indus­trial worlds, combi­ning both areas of exper­tise to provide holi­stic solutions.

News

Munich/Frankfurt — Euro­pean private equity firm Rivean Capi­tal acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Green Mobi­lity Holding (GMH), one of Europe’s leading tech­no­logy-based (e-)bike leasing provi­ders. The previous majo­rity owner DPE Deut­sche Private Equity remains inves­ted with a mino­rity share. Further shares are held by the foun­ders and manage­ment of the two subsi­dia­ries Company Bike and mein-dienstrad.de.

“We will support Green Mobi­lity Holding with capi­tal and stra­te­gic know-how to further grow and expand its busi­ness in Germany and Europe,” said Matthias Wilcken, senior part­ner at Rivean Capi­tal. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are conceiva­ble in the coming years. “Our invest­ment philo­so­phy is based on value enhance­ment through digi­tiza­tion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and a focus on sustaina­bi­lity. These aspects, which are signi­fi­cant for our invest­ment decis­ion, will also signi­fi­cantly influence GMH’s further deve­lo­p­ment. That makes us ideal partners.”

“Bicy­cles and e‑bikes have become an alter­na­tive to cars or mass tran­sit over the past decade. Through our cost-effec­tive and easily acces­si­ble leasing offers, we support the chan­ging mobi­lity and promote an envi­ron­men­tally friendly and healthy life­style,” said Maxi­mi­lian Acht, CEO of Green Mobi­lity Holding. “With Rivean Capi­tal, we have found the right part­ner to further improve our holi­stic concept and expand our market share in Germany and neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean countries.”

Volker Hichert (Photo © DPE), Foun­der and Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board at DPE, says: “Despite our clear focus on growth compa­nies, it is also rare at DPE that the manage­ment team, in coope­ra­tion with its foun­ders and capi­tal provi­ders, succeeds in multi­ply­ing sales within two years. This is an extra­or­di­nary achie­ve­ment to which it has been a great plea­sure to contri­bute. With Rivean Capi­tal on board, we are confi­dent that we will be equally successful in the next phase of strong growth.”

With its digi­tal plat­forms, GMH connects compa­nies with bicy­cle dealers, manu­fac­tu­r­ers and leasing provi­ders to enable sustainable mobi­lity for their employees. To this end, the subsi­dia­ries Company Bike and mein-dienstrad.de conclude frame­work agree­ments with corpo­rate custo­mers, who provide their employees with the desi­red bicy­cles as lessees. The monthly leasing install­ments are with­held from the gross salary as part of defer­red compen­sa­tion and trans­fer­red directly to leasing banks contrac­tually affi­lia­ted with GMH. Employees bene­fit from tax advan­ta­ges and services such as main­ten­ance and insu­rance. With (e-)bike leasing offers, compa­nies can increase employee satis­fac­tion, contri­bute to their well-being and health, make commu­ting to work more attrac­tive, and help reduce the ecolo­gi­cal footprint.

GMH’s corpo­rate custo­mers include Daim­ler Truck, Euro­gate, Funke Medi­en­gruppe, Johan­ni­ter and nume­rous medium-sized companies.

GMH is head­quar­te­red in Munich and employs more than 200 people throug­hout Germany. Last year, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 140 million euros. As in previous years, a signi­fi­cant increase in sales is plan­ned for this year.

The company is the only provi­der to offer direct access to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of bicy­cles and (e-)bikes, as well as its own deli­very and service network with more than 60 employees.

GMH(https://www.greenmobility.technology) is curr­ently Rivean Capital’s fourth plat­form invest­ment in Germany, along­side Best4Tires, ]init[ AG für digi­tale Kommu­ni­ka­tion and TonerPartner.

About Rivean Capital

Rivean Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor for mid-market tran­sac­tions with acti­vi­ties in the DACH region, Bene­lux and Italy. Funds advi­sed by Rivean Capi­tal manage funds in excess of EUR 3 billion. Rivean Capi­tal has offices in Frank­furt, Zurich, Amster­dam, Brussels and Milan. Since its foun­ding in 1982, Rivean Capi­tal has helped more than 250 compa­nies achieve their growth objectives.

News

Berlin / Austin (Texas) — Weil advi­ses e‑commerce aggre­ga­tor Elevate Brands on its acqui­si­tion by SellerX. SellerX, a leading eCom­merce aggre­ga­tor in Europe, has signed an agree­ment to acquire Elevate Brands, one of the most estab­lished eCom­merce aggre­ga­tors in the US.

The combi­ned company, SellerX Group, will be one of the largest and most profi­ta­ble global conso­li­da­tors of eCom­merce brands, with total reve­nues of more than €400 million, a strong global presence and a diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio of more than 80 Amazon-owned consu­mer brands.’

Phil­ipp Trie­bel and Malte Horeys­eck, co-CEOs of SellerX, will lead the SellerX Group, while the co-foun­ders of Elevate Brands (Ryan Gnesin, Jeremy Bell, Robert Bell) will remain in key leader­ship posi­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of June 2023, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. The exis­ting share­hol­ders of SellerX and Elevate Brands have also agreed to invest more than €60 million in a new equity finan­cing round.

Consul­tant Aggre­ga­tor Elevate Brands: WEIL

The German Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by the Munich Corpo­rate Part­ners Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger. (both Corpo­rate, Munich) and compri­sed part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), coun­sel Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (IP/IT, Munich) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schmitt, Seve­rin Scholz, Amelie Zabel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Nata­scha Späth (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Fabian Kraupe (Labor Law, Munich), Mario Kuhn (Data Protec­tion Law, Frank­furt), Laura Kirch­ber­ger (Real Estate, Munich), Manuela Minsel (Tax, Munich) and Stef­fen Giolda (Anti­trust, Munich). The U.S. aspects were legally advi­sed by part­ners Eoghan P. Keenan (Lead, Corpo­rate, New York), Paul J. Wessel (Tax, New York) and Devon Bodoh (Tax, Washing­ton) with support from Coun­sel Michael Naugh­ton (Anti­trust, New York) and asso­cia­tes Nathan Trun­nell, Sichun (Julia) Liu (both Corpo­rate, New York), Radhika Tahi­liani (Tax, New York) and Carlos Parra (Tax, Miami).

News

London — Global buy-and-build analy­sis: add-on acti­vity in German M&A market increa­ses signi­fi­cantly TMT, busi­ness services and health­care sector are the drivers.

In times of adverse finan­cing condi­ti­ons, buy-and-build stra­te­gies have gained signi­fi­cant trac­tion in M&A globally, with TMT, busi­ness services and health­care sectors as drivers. This is the conclu­sion of the latest buy-and-build inte­gra­tion study by Eight Advi­sory, Europe’s leading tran­sac­tion, restruc­tu­ring and trans­for­ma­tion consultancy.

While the Anglo-Saxon market has tradi­tio­nally domi­na­ted in this area, Germany is now clearly follo­wing suit. In parti­cu­lar, highly frag­men­ted sectors charac­te­ri­zed by strong growth and a large number of compe­ti­tors are popu­lar with inves­tors, who grow a plat­form company via add-on acqui­si­tion and inte­gra­tion of suita­ble other compa­nies. The white­pa­per on buy-and-build inte­gra­tion is based on figu­res from indus­try services provi­der Mergermarket.

Accor­ding to the report, the share of buy-and-build acqui­si­ti­ons, as a percen­tage of the total number of all M&A tran­sac­tions, grew globally from 6% (2012) to 15% (2022) over the past decade. In this context, Germany has been consis­t­ently repre­sen­ted in the list of the most active five count­ries since 2012 and has recor­ded the stron­gest growth rates compared with the leading markets of the USA, the United King­dom and France. While buy-and-build deals accoun­ted for just 5% of total tran­sac­tion volume in 2015, this figure rose to 12% last year.

The growing importance of the buy-and-build stra­tegy for inves­tors in Germany is also reflec­ted in the deve­lo­p­ment of abso­lute figu­res: In recent years, the number of acqui­si­ti­ons rose from 62 (2015) to 282 (2022), an increase of around 355 percent. Marc Niclas and Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg, part­ners at Eight Advi­sory in Tran­sac­tion Support and Stra­tegy & Opera­ti­ons, respec­tively, agree, saying, “Given the incre­asing econo­mic uncer­tainty, we believe the buy-and-build stra­tegy will conti­nue to gain trac­tion. This is espe­ci­ally true for inves­tors who want to conti­nue to achieve high returns along­side ambi­tious manage­ment teams, espe­ci­ally in light of fluc­tua­ting tran­sac­tion values.”

TMT, Busi­ness Services and Health & Pharma at the top in Germany

The success of a buy-and-build stra­tegy depends heavily on the sector in which the invest­ment was made. In Germany, the focus of buy-and-build inves­tors last year was parti­cu­larly on TMT (112 tran­sac­tions), Busi­ness Services (40 tran­sac­tions) and Health­care (30 tran­sac­tions). In percen­tage terms, the Busi­ness Services sector was the busiest, accoun­ting for 19% of all tran­sac­tions: almost one in five tran­sac­tions was an add-on as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy. In the TMT (112 out of 749) and Cons­truc­tion & Manu­fac­tu­ring (25 out of 167) sectors, add-ons accoun­ted for 15 percent of M&A tran­sac­tions each, while in the Chemi­cals & Mate­ri­als sector, add-ons accoun­ted for 9 out of 64 tran­sac­tions, or about 14 percent.
“Howe­ver, Healthcare’s soaring fortu­nes could soon slow down again in Germany if the Fede­ral Minis­ter of Health’s plans to ban the acqui­si­tion of medi­cal care centers by finan­cial inves­tors become reality. This would make buy-and-build, which is espe­ci­ally popu­lar in areas such as dental and ophthal­mo­logy chains, much more diffi­cult or even impos­si­ble,” Niclas said.

Gene­rally less suita­ble for buy-and-build stra­te­gies are complex indus­tries with mostly cycli­cal busi­ness models, inclu­ding mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring or utili­ties & energy. Even in the tech indus­try, there are often diffi­cul­ties with inte­gra­tion because compa­nies are very diffe­rent and product appli­ca­ti­ons differ, making it more diffi­cult to align systems.

Rela­tive number of acqui­si­ti­ons by plat­form compa­nies also growing

The incre­asing importance of add-ons for the growth stra­tegy and the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of the inte­gra­tion of acqui­red compa­nies has led to more target compa­nies being acqui­red on average. In 2015, plat­form compa­nies bought an average of 2.9 compa­nies at the global level; this figure increased to 3.4 from 2019 and reached 4.0 in 2022. In Germany, the values deve­lo­ped slightly upward from 2.0 in 2019 to 2.4 compa­nies in 2022. Clear gover­nance prin­ci­ples are essen­tial for the successful inte­gra­tion of an add-on. For the inves­tor, it is important to ensure that the future manage­ment has the neces­sary capa­city to manage, in some cases, seve­ral inte­gra­ti­ons simul­ta­neously. In gene­ral, howe­ver, the number of add-ons shows a slow­down after five tran­sac­tions. Only 15% of compa­nies have purcha­sed more than six add-ons and less than 1% have purcha­sed more than ten.

Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg: “The foun­da­tion of a successful stra­tegy is laid with the suita­bi­lity of the plat­form acqui­red first and the compe­tence of the manage­ment. Add to this a compre­hen­sive and easily multi­plia­ble inte­gra­tion play­book and suffi­ci­ent inter­nal and exter­nal expert capa­city, and the chan­ces of achie­ving the desi­red value increase rapidly.”

Rising deal volu­mes in buy-and-build transactions

The published tran­sac­tion volu­mes for buy-and-build deals in Germany show a simi­lar picture: Values have risen steadily for years, apart from a slight dip in the crisis year 2020, and were at a five-year high of almost EUR 14 billion in 2022. Just under 8.5 billion of this was attri­bu­ta­ble to cross-border deals. Over­all, the share of buy-and-build tran­sac­tions in Germany is still quite low at 6.1 percent of the published total M&A tran­sac­tion value — but as this has increased by 5.5 percen­tage points since 2018, the market should conti­nue to grow rapidly in the coming years.

About Eight Advisory
Eight Advi­sory advi­ses entre­pre­neurs, CEOs, inves­tors and banks on tran­sac­tions, restruc­tu­rings and trans­for­ma­ti­ons. The group of 750 employees, inclu­ding 82 part­ners, supports execu­ti­ves in finan­cial and opera­tio­nal decis­ion-making proces­ses. Eight Advi­sory is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean group with offices in France, the UK, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Germany and Switz­er­land. As a foun­ding member of Eight Inter­na­tio­nal, the company can draw on a global network of inde­pen­dent part­ners in over 30 count­ries in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.
www.8advisory.com

News

Hamburg — Hell­o­Bet­ter raises another seven million euros for US expan­sion. A team led by Heuking Sala­ried part­ner Chris­toph Proch­nau from the Hamburg office again advi­sed Hell­o­Bet­ter on the expan­sion of its Series A finan­cing round.

Mass­Mu­tual Ventures (MMV), Health­Cap, Spar­row Ventures, Hevella Capi­tal and Expon Capi­tal have inves­ted a further seven million euros in the Hamburg-based start-up. This expan­sion increa­ses the volume of the Series A finan­cing round — despite the current chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment for venture capi­tal finan­cing — to a total of EUR 20 million.

Hell­o­Bet­ter intends to use the new funds to expand its digi­tal health appli­ca­tion (DiGA) busi­ness in Germany and to drive it forward across Europe and in the US. The German startup began its U.S. expan­sion last year and was recently accepted into the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Breakth­rough Device program.

As a leader in inno­va­tion in the field of e‑mental health, Hell­o­Bet­ter offers custo­mers many and varied therapy programs that are deve­lo­ped and evalua­ted by inter­di­sci­pli­nary teams through many years of rese­arch. No other provi­der in the world has done a compa­ra­ble number of clini­cal studies on the effec­ti­ve­ness of its online psycho­logy cour­ses. Six of the products distri­bu­ted by Hell­o­Bet­ter have now been appro­ved as digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons and can be prescri­bed to all people with health insu­rance in Germany on prescription.

Advi­sor Hell­o­Bet­ter: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Chris­toph Proch­nau, LL.B. (Lead Part­ner / Finan­cing, Corporate/ M&A), Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax), Katha­rina Waszc­zyn­ski (Corporate/ M&A), Nils Leon Bojert, (Corporate/ M&A), all Hamburg

News

Munich — InvestEU: EIF provi­des EUR 60 million for the Euro­pean NewSpace Fund Alpine Space Ventures. Alpine Space Ventures invests in the fast-growing satel­lite market. The invest­ment under­pins Euro­pean support for the growing NewSpace commer­cial ecosys­tem. The EIF invest­ment is supported by the EU space initia­tive CASSINI and the InvestEU program, as well as by the German ERP funds. Fund recei­ves addi­tio­nal invest­ment from SpaceX execu­ti­ves to advance NewSpace innovations

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) is inves­t­ing €60 million in Alpine Space Ventures (ASV), a German-based venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on the NewSpace sector. Funding is supported by InvestEU and the Euro­pean Space Program’s CASSINI Invest­ment Faci­lity, as well as the German government’s Euro­pean Reco­very Program (ERP).

With this invest­ment, ASV’s commit­ted capi­tal exceeds the 100 million euro mark and brings the fund closer to its target of 160 million euros, which is expec­ted to be reached this year.

The term “NewSpace” refers to the private space indus­try, as oppo­sed to the tradi­tio­nal, mostly govern­ment-run space agen­cies. NewSpace ventures span areas from private laun­ches to high-speed Inter­net constel­la­ti­ons, Earth obser­va­tion satel­li­tes, and ground or space equip­ment for track­ing space debris. In Europe, the NewSpace sector consists of a growing number of private compa­nies and start-ups deve­lo­ping commer­cial NewSpace technologies.

ASV is rapidly beco­ming one of the leading NewSpace funds in Europe. The fund focu­ses on the entire value chain of satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons and Earth obser­va­tion. To date, ASV has alre­ady inves­ted in four compa­nies: small satel­lite manu­fac­tu­rer Reflex Aero­space, elec­tric propul­sion company Morpheus Space, carbon compo­si­tes expert Black­wave, and Source Energy, a provi­der of inte­gra­ted energy solu­ti­ons for spacecraft.

The fund was foun­ded by Bülent Altan and Joram Voelk­lein. Bülent Altan is co-CEO of laser commu­ni­ca­ti­ons company Myna­ric and is expec­ted to join the Super­vi­sory Board soon (subject to share­hol­der appr­oval). He was VP Avio­nics, Guidance, Navi­ga­tion Control at SpaceX, where he was also chief engi­neer for Star­link, SpaceX’s satel­lite Inter­net constel­la­tion now opera­ting in 53 count­ries. Joram Voelk­lein, a German entre­pre­neur and tech inves­tor, alre­ady played a crucial role in funding Munich-based NewSpace company Myna­ric from its first round of finan­cing to its IPO in 2017.

The Euro­pean NewSpace ecosys­tem is gaining momen­tum. For exam­ple, German small launch provi­der Isar Aero­space recently successfully closed a record 155 million Euro Series C finan­cing round. Altan and Voelk­lein were both foun­ding inves­tors in the company and parti­ci­pa­ted in seve­ral rounds of finan­cing before forming Alpine Space Ventures. Altan is also chair­man of the company’s board of directors.

News

Berlin — The express deli­very service Flink was on the verge of bank­ruptcy, and now 150 million euros are repor­tedly flowing into the Berlin-based company as part of emer­gency finan­cing. Rewe and other inves­tors injec­ted fresh capi­tal into the company, as first repor­ted by Mana­ger Maga­zin. To date, the round has been stee­red by exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding the US deli­very service Doordash and the super­mar­ket chain Rewe. Rewe is also said to be leading the current finan­cing with more than 50 million euros. In the process, the valua­tion, which not long ago was 2.5 billion euros, has fallen consider­a­bly. As a result, inves­tors now value the deli­very service at only around one billion euros.

Tension behind the scenes with Mubadala

One of the most important share­hol­ders is no longer invol­ved: the sove­reign wealth fund Muba­d­ala from Abu-Dhabi was not only one of the major inves­tors in Flink, but also one of the largest share­hol­ders in its compe­ti­tor Getir and would bene­fit from a merger of its investments.

With the current funding, Muba­d­ala is unli­kely to have been willing to provide further capi­tal to Flink as a stan­da­lone company. The state fund is no longer invol­ved in the 150 million round.

Steady staff reductions

It had alre­ady become appa­rent during the take­over of the Berlin-based adver­sary Goril­las by the Turkish company Getir that the express deli­very services would be facing diffi­cult times after the end of the pande­mic. None of the provi­ders was able to deli­ver signals that they would soon be profi­ta­ble. Even massive staff cuts appar­ently did not bring suffi­ci­ent relief — accor­ding to rese­arch by Mana­ger Maga­zin, more than 8,000 employees at Flink alone are said to have lost their jobs in the past year.

Now comes another drastic step to cut costs. Nevert­hel­ess, Flink CEO and co-foun­der Oliver Merkel has appar­ently enti­ced inves­tors to cut costs even further. Around one hundred of the appro­xi­m­ately 600 employees are to be laid off, as repor­ted by Mana­ger Magazin.

In order to make itself leaner for poten­tial inves­tors, Flink filed for insol­vency for its Austrian subsi­diary at the end of 2022. At the time, the company explai­ned that the region would not be profi­ta­ble in the fore­seeable future. More than 160 people — both drivers and office employees — lost their jobs at that time. Expan­sion into other count­ries is not in sight. Instead of expan­ding, Flink emptied dozens of depart­ment stores in previous months and adver­ti­sed on real estate portals.

 

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