ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich/ Berlin — The owner-mana­ged invest­ment company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in POOLARSERVER GmbH (“POOLARSERVER”), a German provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal manage­ment of cons­truc­tion proces­ses. The closing of the tran­sac­tion took place in Novem­ber 2022. POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS on the struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ta­tion of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program as part of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Stutt­gart, Germany, POOLARSERVER is a quality-leading cloud cons­truc­tion company that offers an intui­tive, relia­ble and multi-func­tional cloud cons­truc­tion manage­ment plat­form that faci­li­ta­tes colla­bo­ra­tion between all stake­hol­ders invol­ved in a cons­truc­tion project throug­hout the project life­cy­cle. The company has more than 550 custo­mers and over 1,000 ongo­ing cons­truc­tion projects.

EOS Part­ners GmbH is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acquisitions.

POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program with the follo­wing Munich team:
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participations)

About PÖLLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 170 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape it toge­ther with

News

Frank­furt am Main — The Spokes­man of the Board of Manage­ment of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), Tors­ten Grede, intends to resign as a member and Spokes­man of the Board of Manage­ment at the end of Febru­ary 2023 in the best possi­ble agree­ment with the Super­vi­sory Board. This was announ­ced today by Tors­ten Grede and the Super­vi­sory Board of DBAG. The new spokes­man for the Execu­tive Board from March 1, 2023 is to be Execu­tive Board member Tom Alzin. Mela­nie Wiese (photo) will join the DBAG Manage­ment Board as the new Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer on Janu­ary 1, 2023, taking over respon­si­bi­lity for Finance from Tors­ten Grede.

“My decis­ion to ask the Super­vi­sory Board to prema­tu­rely termi­nate my service on the Manage­ment Board after 32 years of service to DBAG marks the comple­tion of the long-plan­ned gene­ra­tio­nal change on the Manage­ment Board,” Grede said today. And: “I am parti­cu­larly plea­sed that it will be my long-time colle­agues who, toge­ther with Mela­nie Wiese, will steer DBAG’s fortu­nes in the future, and that the Super­vi­sory Board will entrust my colle­ague Tom Alzin with the office of Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board.”

The Manage­ment Board of DBAG curr­ently has three members. In addi­tion to Mr. Grede and Mr. Alzin, this is Jannick Hune­cke. Tors­ten Grede has been a member of the Execu­tive Board since 2001 and has been Spokes­man of the Execu­tive Board since 2013.

“The Super­vi­sory Board would like to express its sincere thanks to Tors­ten Grede for the many years of successful coope­ra­tion,” said Dr. Hendrik Otto, Chair­man of DBAG’s Super­vi­sory Board today. And: “He has played a key role in shaping DBAG’s stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment and growth and has played a major role in estab­li­shing DBAG as one of the leading German private equity firms with assets under manage­ment or advi­sory of 2.5 billion euros.”

Tom Alzin will become the new Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG as of March 1, 2023. He joined DBAG in 2004 and has been a member of the Manage­ment Board since 2021. “I am very plea­sed about the confi­dence of the Super­vi­sory Board. I am convin­ced that DBAG is follo­wing the right path with its strong posi­tio­ning as one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity firms and our new stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. These include the expan­sion of our acti­vi­ties in the Italian market, the exten­sion of our range of equity solu­ti­ons for medium-sized and prima­rily family-mana­ged compa­nies, and the focus on sectors that bene­fit from struc­tu­ral growth. I will do ever­y­thing in my power to further advance the dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the company,” said Tom Alzin.

Mela­nie Wiese worked for the energy compa­nies E.ON SE, Innogy SE, Essen, and Bayern­werk AG, Regens­burg, between 2017 and 2022 — most recently as a member of the boards of Innogy SE and Bayern­werk AG, respon­si­ble for finance (CFO, Bayern­werk AG). Previously, as Head of Accoun­ting & Report­ing at Innogy SE and Head of Group Accoun­ting at E.ON SE, she was invol­ved in a wide range of topics, inclu­ding group accoun­ting, M&A tran­sac­tions, taxes, control­ling and finan­cing. Previously, she headed the inter­na­tio­nal shared service orga­niza­tion of the tech­no­logy group ZF Fried­richs­ha­fen (2014 to 2017) and before that worked as a manage­ment consul­tant at Accen­ture Manage­ment Consul­ting and The Hackett Group.

“We are very plea­sed that in Mela­nie Wiese we have been able to attract a proven finan­cial expert with many years of manage­ment expe­ri­ence from German indus­try,” Super­vi­sory Board Chair­man Dr. Hendrik Otto said today. And: “Conti­nuity and a long-term orien­ta­tion are the corner­sto­nes of the private equity busi­ness; this is also reflec­ted in the smooth gene­ra­tio­nal change on the Manage­ment Board, and this is what DBAG’s Manage­ment Board also stands for in its new composition.”

Wiese expects nume­rous chal­lenges at her new employer. In the shadow of the nega­tive capi­tal market deve­lo­p­ment, DBAG had to absorb a loss of 98 million euros in the past fiscal year (until the end of Septem­ber 2022).

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.5 billion euros.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the Munich-based IT secu­rity company Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH on the sale of its mate­rial assets to Vera­code Inc, USA. The tran­sac­tion was carried out as a stra­te­gic exit in the form of an asset deal. The manage­ment team led by Felix Brom­ba­cher and René Milz­arek will work for the Vera­code Group in the future and drive expan­sion in the Euro­pean market.

Vera­code is a leading global provi­der of Appli­ca­tion Secu­rity Test­ing (AST) solu­ti­ons based in Burling­ton, Massa­chu­setts. Crash­test Security’s dyna­mic appli­ca­tion secu­rity test­ing (DAST) solu­tion is desi­gned to comple­ment the exis­ting DAST capa­bi­li­ties of Veracode’s Conti­nuous Soft­ware Secu­rity Plat­form and expand custo­mer access worldwide.

Crash­test Secu­rity, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2017. The solu­tion can analyze Java­Script-based apps, REST (Repre­sen­ta­tio­nal State Trans­fer) APIs, and tradi­tio­nal web apps, and auto­mate secu­rity test­ing by inte­gra­ting them into the soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment pipeline.

SKW Schwarz has accom­pa­nied Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH in the various finan­cing rounds since its foundation.

Advi­sors Crash­test Secu­rity GmbH: SKW Schwarz, Munich
Dr. Martin Bött­ger (photo), Dr. Thomas Haus­beck (both Corporate/M&A, both lead), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax Law), Dr. Martin Greß­lin (Labor Law), Dr. Daniel Meßmer (IT), Dr. Stefan Pein­tin­ger (Coun­sel, IT/Data Protection)

About SKW Schwarz

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent full-service law firm. With more than 120 lawy­ers at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, the firm advi­ses in all rele­vant areas of busi­ness law. At the end of 2018, the firm foun­ded SKW Schwarz @ Tech GmbH, in which the lawy­ers bundle all acti­vi­ties in the area of legal tech across loca­ti­ons and disciplines.

News

Frank­furt — Quadriga Capi­tal sells Aspire Educa­tion to EMZ Part­ners. Aspire’s manage­ment will take a reverse stake in the company as part of the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. — Alan­tra, the global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed Quadriga Capi­tal Funds, Jersey (“Quadriga”), legacy share­hol­ders and manage­ment of Aspire Educa­tion Group (“Aspire” or “the Company”) on the sale of the Company to EMZ Part­ners (“EMZ”).

The Vienna-based Aspire Group is the leading plat­form for voca­tio­nal quali­fi­ca­tion and trai­ning in the DACH region and, with 1,200 employees in eight compa­nies and 100,000 lear­ners per year, the largest private-sector educa­tion provi­der in Austria. The Aspire plat­form, consis­ting of the ibis acam, ETC, brai­nymo­tion, ARS, KAOS, Stepin, aspi­doo and fast lane brands, offers its custo­mers a wide range of services, from soft­ware & IT, legal, compli­ance, tax and finance to prepa­ring trai­nees and jobsee­kers to start or re-enter the work­force. The Aspire Group inves­ted in online and digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties early on, and Aspire custo­mers can access the service offe­ring either on-site, hybrid, or online.

Under Quadriga’s owner­ship, Aspire has inves­ted in expan­ding its digi­tal lear­ning tools and in new, inno­va­tive formats such as Hire-Train-Deploy to address the skills shortage, and has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its geogra­phic foot­print and product port­fo­lio through six stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons since 2018. Most recently, Aspire acqui­red the German IT trai­ning provi­der brai­nymo­tion and now gene­ra­tes group sales of around 100 million euros. With EMZ, Aspire now wants to conti­nue this growth course.

Over­all, the market for private and publicly funded educa­tion in Germany and Austria is worth around six billion euros and is esti­ma­ted to grow by around three percent a year in the coming years, with IT trai­ning expec­ted to grow more than twice as fast. The market is bene­fiting from demo­gra­phic change and the asso­cia­ted struc­tu­ral trend toward lifel­ong lear­ning, as well as from the shortage of skil­led person­nel, parti­cu­larly in the IT sector. Accor­ding to the Insti­tute of the German Economy (IW), there were recently no suita­bly quali­fied jobsee­kers for nine out of ten vacan­cies nati­on­wide in Germany.

Phil­ipp Jacobi, Mana­ging Part­ner of Quadriga Capi­tal Eigen­ka­pi­tal­be­ra­tung GmbH, advi­sor to Quadriga, said: “The Aspire Group has perfor­med extre­mely well since Quadriga’s entry. Alantra’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in working with private equity inves­tors has now enab­led us to realize this value propo­si­tion in the dives­ti­ture, comple­ting a successful tran­sac­tion despite a chal­len­ging M&A environment.”

Johan­nes Lampert and Udo Schel­kes, co-CEOs of Aspire, added: “This tran­sac­tion provi­des an excel­lent foun­da­tion for the imple­men­ta­tion of our future vision for Aspire with orga­nic growth through inno­va­tive products as well as through further stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and part­ner­ships. We have alre­ady seen in past acqui­si­ti­ons that both the Austrian and German markets have unique charac­te­ristics and circum­s­tances despite their proxi­mity in terms of geogra­phy and language. The tire­less commit­ment of the Alan­tra teams in both count­ries has ther­e­fore made an important contri­bu­tion to the success of the tran­sac­tion and to our further growth strategy.”

Sven Harm­sen, Mana­ging Direc­tor in Alantra’s Frank­furt office, added: “We thank Quadriga and the manage­ment team for the trust and close coope­ra­tion on this mandate. Well-rehe­ar­sed teams with sector expe­ri­ence are a key factor in being able to successfully close tran­sac­tions even in the current market environment.”

The tran­sac­tion was mana­ged by Alantra’s offices in Frank­furt(Wolf­ram Schmerl (photo), Sven Harm­sen and Maxi­mi­lian Rohardt) and Vienna (Klaus Vukovich).

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, invest­ment banking and credit port­fo­lio advi­sory firm focu­sed on provi­ding services to busi­nesses, fami­lies and inves­tors opera­ting in the middle market segment. The Group has more than 550 profes­sio­nals in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia.
The Invest­ment Banking divi­sion provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, debt advi­sory, restruc­tu­ring and capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions and has advi­sed on more than 475 tran­sac­tions with a total value of over €80 billion in the last three years. Alantra’s specia­lists have both exten­sive global sector exper­tise and strong rela­ti­onships with local compa­nies, inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and finan­cing insti­tu­ti­ons in each of their markets.
www.alantra.com

News

Antwerp (Belgium)/ France — Biolam and Gimv today announce an important step on Biolam’s growth path. Follo­wing the rapid and successful deve­lo­p­ment of the group, which combi­nes orga­nic and exter­nal growth, Gimv is selling its shares in Biolam to the foun­ding team, which is supported by private inves­tors. The foun­ders, manage­ment and their new part­ners will conti­nue to focus on quality of service and care and expan­sion in France.

In 2019, Gimv acqui­red a stake with Daniel Attias in Biolam (www.groupebiolam.fr), an emer­ging group of clini­cal test­ing labo­ra­to­ries in the city of Amiens. The origi­nal plan, deve­lo­ped with Daniel Attias, aimed to create a leading player in the Hauts-de-France region in terms of size, clini­cal perfor­mance and level of service.

From the begin­ning, Biolam has grown very quickly thanks to a combi­na­tion of estab­li­shing labo­ra­to­ries in under­ser­ved loca­ti­ons, which is an important prere­qui­site for acces­si­ble quality care, and stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. In paral­lel, the Group conti­nuously inves­ted in staff, care orga­niza­tion, diagno­stic equip­ment and IT back­bone to support its ambi­tious medi­cal project. These efforts have enab­led Biolam to become a leading labo­ra­tory group in the Hauts-de-France and Normandy region, with a solid foun­da­tion for contin­ued success.

The company curr­ently opera­tes a network of more than 30 labo­ra­to­ries with 4 tech­ni­cal plat­forms and has an exten­sive pipe­line of active acqui­si­tion targets. Since Gimv’s invest­ment in 2019, Biolam has signed 7 addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons and built a leading and high-quality diagno­stics organization.

The tran­sac­tion announ­ced today will streng­then the company’s relent­less focus on quality service and care, as well as expan­sion in its regi­ons. The manage­ment team, toge­ther with its new part­ners, will conti­nue to invest in its orga­niza­tion while expan­ding its labo­ra­tory network to create an even better diagno­stics company for all stakeholders.

The tran­sac­tion has no mate­rial impact on the net asset value of Gimv as of Septem­ber 30, 2022. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

Gautier Lefeb­vre, Part­ner at Gimv, and Kevin Klein, Prin­ci­pal at Gimv., state, “We are very proud to have part­ne­red with Biolam and Daniel Attias on the company’s growth stra­tegy, which has always put the quality of diagno­stics and level of service to physi­ci­ans first, espe­ci­ally during the pande­mic. From the begin­ning, we were perfectly aligned with the manage­ment team, resul­ting in an opti­mal ability to build the busi­ness and seize growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We would like to thank the manage­ment of Biolam for their successful and excel­lent coope­ra­tion and wish them — toge­ther with their new part­ners — all the best for their further growth.”

Daniel Attias, Chair­man of the Biolam Group, says, “We have excee­ded the goals we origi­nally set with the Gimv team, which is a sign of very effec­tive colla­bo­ra­tion. We are grateful for the successful part­ner­ship with Gimv that has enab­led Biolam’s evolu­tion into an estab­lished and leading labo­ra­tory group with a solid foun­da­tion for the next phase of growth, and we look forward to conti­nuing to grow with our new partners.”

Trans­la­ted with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

News

Munich, Germany — Global Savings Group (GSG) and Pepper.com (Pepper) have signed an agree­ment to unite the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity with Europe’s leading shop­ping recom­men­da­ti­ons and shop­ping rewards company. The tran­sac­tion repres­ents the largest deal in the indus­try in 2022 and crea­tes a Euro­pean cham­pion with a global presence.

Toge­ther, GSG and Pepper will form a multi­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy company that will empower shop­pers in more than 20 markets to make better purcha­sing decis­i­ons. GSG and Pepper will jointly operate the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity, shop­ping refer­ral and rewards plat­form, connec­ting brands and retail­ers with consu­mers on more than 2 billion shop­ping trips annually.

“We are very exci­ted about this land­mark deal, which streng­thens our leading posi­tion in Europe. Toge­ther with Pepper, we will play an even more signi­fi­cant role in the daily lives of consu­mers and trans­form and shape the future of our indus­try by crea­ting a unique, impactful and even more compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of shop­ping solu­ti­ons with tremen­dous reach and bene­fits for consu­mers, brands, retail­ers and media compa­nies. Toge­ther we will expand our trans­for­ma­tive influence and drive GSG’s growth,” says Dr. Gerhard Traut­mann, CEO of GSG.

“Our main focus has always been to provide our commu­ni­ties with the best and most compre­hen­sive shop­ping solu­ti­ons to save money. Our colla­bo­ra­tion with GSG will greatly acce­le­rate this process by enab­ling us to broa­den our offe­ring. Toge­ther, we have more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in helping people make better buying decis­i­ons, and toge­ther we will provide even more rewar­ding shop­ping expe­ri­en­ces. Our loyal custo­mers and many more will bene­fit from our combi­ned content and tech­no­lo­gies,” comm­ents Fabian Spiel­ber­ger, CEO of Pepper.

GSG and Pepper are both market leaders in their fields and have expan­ded their shop­ping solu­ti­ons through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of UK loyalty specia­list Pouch in 2018, GSG acqui­red iGraal and Shoop, the leading French and German cash­back provi­ders, in 2020 and 2021 respec­tively, and most recently the Coupons.com brand and domain in the US. Pepper has always shared GSG’s goal of conso­li­da­ting the industry’s fast-growing market and has been expan­ding inter­na­tio­nally since 2014. Today, Pepper opera­tes market-leading social commerce plat­forms such as Dealabs, hotuk­de­als and myde­alz. Toge­ther, GSG and Pepper plan to deve­lop and deploy addi­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies to build the leading plat­form for purcha­sing solu­ti­ons and services and to conti­nuously drive future growth in current and new markets and categories.

About GSG
GSG is Europe’s leading shop­ping rewards company with an inter­na­tio­nal presence in more than 20 markets. The company’s goal is to provide consu­mers with access to the best savings oppor­tu­ni­ties, cash­back, deals, product inspi­ra­tion, reviews, ther­eby enab­ling them to make opti­mal buying decis­i­ons. Foun­ded in 2012, GSG is head­quar­te­red in Munich, Germany, and employs more than 700 people in 12 offices around the world.

About Pepper
Pepper.com is the world’s largest shop­ping commu­nity. From its head­quar­ters in Berlin and offices in Guad­a­la­jara, London, Lyon and Winni­peg, Pepper Media Holding opera­tes market-leading social commerce plat­forms such as Dealabs, hotuk­de­als and myde­alz, which are used by 25 million consu­mers each month and influence 12,000 purchase decis­i­ons per minute. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Fabian Spiel­ber­ger and Paul Nikkel.

Advi­sor Global Savings Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich
Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble (lead, employ­ment law), Dr. Gero Burwitz (tax law), Jilali Maazouz (employ­ment law, Paris); asso­cia­tes: Fran­ziska Leub­ner (employ­ment law), Anne-Lorraine Méreaux (employ­ment law, Paris)

News

Landshut/Munich/Paris — Bayern Kapi­tal is taking a signi­fi­cant million euro stake in Paris-based TRiCa­res SAS, whose wholly owned subsi­diary, TRiCa­res GmbH of Asch­heim near Munich, employs around 20 highly quali­fied staff in Bava­ria, using resour­ces from the Bava­ria 2 growth fund. The German-French MedTech start-up is deve­lo­ping the medi­cal device Topaz, a cathe­ter-based heart valve repla­ce­ment system, to better treat severe tricu­spid regurgitation.

The invest­ment was made in the course of the second closing of a tran­sac­tion alre­ady announ­ced in Septem­ber. Series C finan­cing round with a total volume of EUR 47 millionwhose inves­tors include, in addi­tion to the lead inves­tor 415 Capi­tal also Go Capi­tal, Karista, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, Welling­ton Part­ners, Andera Part­ners, Biomed­in­vest as well as a Consor­tium of private inves­tors around the company foun­der Pascal Lim.

Heart valve dise­ase is one of the most serious heart dise­a­ses, affec­ting more than 12.7 million pati­ents in Europe and many more world­wide. Although mini­mally inva­sive cathe­ter-based solu­ti­ons for the treat­ment of aortic and mitral valve dise­ase have been deve­lo­ped in recent years, none have been deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for the tricu­spid valve. Tricu­spid valve regur­gi­ta­tion is a common and serious condi­tion for which open-heart surgery and sympto­ma­tic phar­ma­co­lo­gic treat­ment are the stan­dard treat­ment opti­ons. Howe­ver, due to the high morta­lity risk, open-heart surgery is ruled out for more than 99% of dise­a­sed indi­vi­du­als — the average survi­val time for pati­ents without surgi­cal treat­ment is only 2.2 years.

TRiCa­res’ Topaz trans­fe­mo­ral heart valve repla­ce­ment system promi­ses to be a medi­cal mile­stone in the treat­ment of tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion. The inno­va­tive medi­cal device was deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion to avoid risky open heart surgery. Topaz is the result of a French-German colla­bo­ra­tion and is implan­ted from the patient’s femo­ral vein in a lower-risk mini­mally inva­sive proce­dure. It is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to fit the anatomy of the tricu­spid valve for easy posi­tio­ning and high func­tion­a­lity. The pros­pects of pati­ents for whom there are no other treat­ment opti­ons can thus be signi­fi­cantly improved.

The Company plans to use the new funding from the comple­ted Series C round initi­ally to cover the costs of the curr­ently ongo­ing first-in-man clini­cal trial of Topaz (TRICURE FIH trial) in Belgium, as well as for the poten­tial submis­sion of the same in other Euro­pean count­ries. Howe­ver, the new capi­tal will prima­rily be inves­ted in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and to conduct a regis­tra­tion trial in the USA. To this end, TRiCa­res 2023 is initia­ting an early feasi­bi­lity study in five U.S. centers.

Helmut Strau­bin­ger, Presi­dent and CEO of TRiCa­res, says: “The successful finan­cing reflects the enorm­ous poten­tial of the Topaz heart valve repla­ce­ment system, our conti­nuous progress in its deve­lo­p­ment and the great confi­dence of our inves­tors. We are doing ever­y­thing we can to prove our very good results to date in clini­cal trials in other Euro­pean count­ries and also in the U.S., so that we can then offer this much-needed solu­tion to all pati­ents suffe­ring from severe tricu­spid regurgitation.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger adds: “Toge­ther with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB), we have endo­wed the Bava­ria 2 Growth Fund with 165 million euros to support high-tech start-ups in the deve­lo­p­ment phase. One of our goals here is to ensure that such compa­nies conti­nue to remain in Bava­ria and do not have to migrate due to a lack of funding. The exam­ple of TRiCa­res shows how dyna­mic and inno­va­tive our Bava­rian ecosys­tem for start-ups is.”

“Tricu­spid valve surge­ries are among the riskiest cura­tive proce­du­res, with a large propor­tion of affec­ted pati­ents deemed unsui­ta­ble due to high morta­lity rates,” explains Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “With Topaz, TRiCa­res is deve­lo­ping an inno­va­tive product with excel­lent poten­tial to fill this major gap in the treat­ment of valvu­lar heart dise­ase. We are very plea­sed to support TRiCa­res on its further course towards market approval.”

“We believe that the tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by TRiCa­res has the poten­tial to estab­lish itself as the gold stan­dard in the treat­ment of pati­ents with tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion and to restore the quality of life of milli­ons of pati­ents in the long term,” commen­ted Frede­rik Groe­ne­we­gen, mana­ging part­ner of 415 Capi­tal. “We are impres­sed with the initial clini­cal cases with the Topaz system and look forward to helping the team bring this novel therapy to pati­ents in the U.S. and Europe.”

About TRiCa­res
TRiCa­res is a medi­cal device start-up based in Paris and Munich with a vision to bring a trans­fe­mo­ral tricu­spid valve repla­ce­ment system to market. This is inten­ded to help pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion (TI) without the need for open heart surgery. TRiCa­res’ expe­ri­en­ced team is supported by leading Euro­pean life science venture capi­tal firms 415 Capi­tal, Andera Part­ners, Bayern Kapi­tal, BioMed­Part­ners, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, GoCa­pi­tal, Karista and Welling­ton Partners.
www.tricares.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in early on include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

News

Munich/ Bochum — Vienna-based tuto­ring plat­form GoStu­dent has acqui­red Studi­en­kreis, the leading loca­tion-based tuto­ring company in the DACH region. The seller was the private equity firm IK Part­ners. No infor­ma­tion is available on the purchase price. Studi­en­kreis will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently under its current manage­ment team, while the two compa­nies aim to iden­tify syner­gies over time. POELLATH advi­sed the manage­ment of Studi­en­kreis in the context of the sale.

GoStu­dent is one of the largest online tuto­ring provi­ders in the world. The tran­sac­tion both acce­le­ra­tes the company’s stra­tegy of combi­ning the best of the online and offline worlds to give people access to quality educa­tion through tech­no­logy and firmly posi­ti­ons GoStu­dent at the fore­front of the morning, after­noon and content educa­tion market.

Studi­en­kreis is Germany’s leading tuto­ring company and serves 125,000 fami­lies in the DACH region every year. The company owns over 1,000 lear­ning centers across Germany and has been a pioneer in online lear­ning since 2012. Studi­en­kreis has been owned by IK since 2017. In 2018, Studi­en­kreis expan­ded into Austria through the acqui­si­tion of Lern­Qua­drat and streng­the­ned its market-leading posi­tion in the DACH region through increased brand aware­ness and the provi­sion of high-quality tuto­ring services. By combi­ning offline tuto­ring with online services as well as digi­tal tools deve­lo­ped in-house, Studi­en­kreis shares the vision of deve­lo­ping a blen­ded lear­ning experience.

Munich part­ner Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the manage­ment of Studi­en­kreis in connec­tion with the transaction.

News

Munich — Busi­ness law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed Adap­ta­vist Group Ltd, a London-based leader in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, on the acqui­si­tion of venI­Ture GmbH.

venI­Ture is a German-based soft­ware consul­ting company and provi­der of enter­prise solu­ti­ons and work manage­ment in the DACH region. Foun­ded in Colo­gne in 2016, the company has become one of the leading provi­ders for ever­y­thing rela­ted to the products of the soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer Atlas­sian over the years. With more than 100 employees from all over the world at loca­ti­ons in Germany, Croa­tia, Turkey and the United Arab Emira­tes, venI­Ture provi­des advice and support to its more than 400 satis­fied customers.

Foun­ded in 2005, Adap­ta­vist specia­li­zes in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and IT services and employs over 750 people worldwide.

Legal advi­sors Adaptavist:

Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich: Dr. Kilian Helm­reich (Part­ner, Private Equity/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), David Ziegel­mayer (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Maxi­mi­lian Spind­ler (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

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

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Hanover/Munich. NORD Holding has deci­ded to take the mega­to­pic of sustaina­bi­lity or ESG into account and to set a corre­spon­ding focus both intern­ally and on the port­fo­lio side. The start­ing signal for this is the parti­ci­pa­tion in the ESG soft­ware pioneer VERSO, which has also been successfully repre­sen­ted on the market with consul­ting and trai­ning for seve­ral years. NORD Holding intends to intro­duce the soft­ware solu­tion in its 15 asso­cia­ted compa­nies and thus stan­dards in sustainable corpo­rate management.

With its invest­ment in VERSO, NORD Holding is rely­ing on one of the few ESG soft­ware solu­ti­ons that has been estab­lished over many years and has now grown into a holi­stic service provi­der in the area of corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity. VERSO supports compa­nies to acce­le­rate their Sustainable Trans­for­ma­tion effec­tively and effi­ci­ently: From “Mission Zero” (carbon accoun­ting, reduc­tion and offset­ting), to ongo­ing sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment, to ESG report­ing, a focus area of VERSO. The company is thus ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the EU-CSRD (Corpo­rate Sustaina­bi­lity Report­ing Direc­tive) in the long term.

VERSO addres­ses the incre­asing need for digi­ta­liza­tion and know­ledge in various areas of sustaina­bi­lity in SMEs through the direc­tive for capi­tal market-orien­ted compa­nies issued in 2017 and the Europe-wide exten­sion to smal­ler SMEs deci­ded in 2022. In addi­tion, there are further incre­asing regu­la­tory chal­lenges (e.g. Supply Chain Act), for which VERSO is alre­ady successfully prepa­ring its customers.

“We take our respon­si­bi­lity seriously: Toward our inves­tors and share­hol­dings, but also toward society and the planet. For us, the mega­trend of sustainable trans­for­ma­tion, and thus the area of ESG, is a key value driver. At the same time, we are deve­lo­ping ESG stra­te­gies with all our invest­ments to make our port­fo­lio more sustainable and thus, not least, more compe­ti­tive. VERSO alre­ady offers a strong and estab­lished solu­tion for compa­nies across all indus­tries and bene­fits from more than a decade of expe­ri­ence. Toge­ther with VERSO, we can ther­e­fore make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to our own port­fo­lio both on the opera­ti­ons side of NORD Holding and on the invest­ment side from the massi­vely incre­asing demand in the sustaina­bi­lity segment,” says Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Prin­ci­pal at NORD Holding.

Andreas Maslo, Co-Foun­der and CEO of VERSO, comm­ents: “We are commit­ted to a great mission: To acce­le­rate the sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the economy. But in order to imple­ment our stra­tegy to this end, we don’t just need fast money, but the right growth part­ners. After many discus­sions with a wide variety of inte­res­ted parties, we made a very conscious decis­ion in favor of NORD Holding. We were convin­ced by an inves­tor with deep roots in the German SME sector, a genuine desire for trans­for­ma­tion and a trans­pa­rent share­hol­der struc­ture. In addi­tion, NH’s domain exper­tise in soft­ware, consul­ting and now ESG speaks for itself. We are now incre­di­bly looking forward to jointly buil­ding the leading ESG soft­ware and consul­ting service provi­der in the German-spea­king region. Thus, we will be able to support compa­nies even more effec­tively in their trans­for­ma­tion towards sustaina­bi­lity and further acce­le­rate the process.”

The invest­ment was carried out by the two NORD Holding teams Busi­ness Services and Software/Technology and under­lines the sector compe­tence in the area of tech­no­logy-enab­led services. On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Chris­toph Grune­wald, 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 CSR report­ing, manage­ment and climate accoun­ting make VERSO a compre­hen­sive part­ner for corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and ESG. Sustaina­bi­lity mana­gers profes­sio­na­lize and digi­ta­lize their CSR manage­ment with VERSO or bring even more effi­ci­ency into their exis­ting proces­ses, above all CSR report­ing. In addi­tion, VERSO supports compa­nies on their way to climate neutra­lity. VERSO GmbH, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2010 by Andreas Maslo and Florian Holl and is now mana­ged by the two foun­ders toge­ther with Nuvia Maslo. www.verso.de

About NORD Holding
With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 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 parts/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

Stutt­gart — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed Schalt­bau Holding AG on the sale of GEZ (Gesell­schaft für elek­tri­sche Zugaus­rüs­tung) Rail Solu­ti­ons GmbH (GEZ) to a group of inves­tors consis­ting of Nord West Manage­ment GmbH and Nieder­rhei­ni­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted before the end of 2022. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

Follo­wing the sale of SBRS Char­ging Solu­ti­ons to Shell Deutsch­land GmbH in Octo­ber 2022, which Gleiss Lutz also legally advi­sed, Schalt­bau Holding AG is now selling GEZ Rail Solu­ti­ons GmbH, the second company to emerge from the former SBRS GmbH, as part of its port­fo­lio focus.

With annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately €525 million and around 3,000 employees, Schalt­bau Holding AG is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal suppli­ers of systems and compon­ents for the trans­por­ta­tion tech­no­logy and capi­tal goods industries.

Advi­sors to Schalt­bau Holding: Gleiss Lutz
Dr. Patrick Kaffiné (Part­ner, M&A), Dr. Stephan Aubel (Part­ner, Corporate/Capital Markets, both Lead), Dr. Anto­nius Mann (M&A), Dr. Chris­tina Aye (Coun­sel, all Frank­furt), Dr. Walter Andert
(Berlin, both Corporate/Capital Markets), Vladis­lava Berben­kova (Berlin), Michael P. Clever, Marc Maurice Duschek (both Frank­furt, all M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Hannah Bug (Coun­sel, both
IP/IT, Berlin), Simon Wegmann (Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Dr. Lisa Kapp­ler (Public Law, Stutt­gart), Dr. Ocka Stumm (Part­ner), Julian Kette­mer (both Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Abend (Coun­sel, Labor Law, Frank­furt), Konrad H.J. Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Patrick Grüner (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law, Stutt­gart), Dr. Katja Lehr (Coun­sel, Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Nagel (Coun­sel,
Restruc­tu­ring, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Simon Wagner (Coun­sel, Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Stuttgart).

News

Stutt­gart — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Schwä­bisch Hall-based OPTIMA group of compa­nies on the sale of OPTIMA auto­ma­tion GmbH to a subsi­diary of the Private Assets AG invest­ment company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The new owner opens up new deve­lo­p­ment and growth perspec­ti­ves for the opera­ti­ons of OPTIMA auto­ma­tion GmbH. The assem­bly tech­no­logy specialist’s loca­tion in Fell­bach with around 50 employees will be retai­ned. The new parent company will be SIM Auto­ma­tion GmbH from the exis­ting port­fo­lio of Private Assets AG.

OPTIMA is a third-gene­ra­tion family-run company in the field of pack­a­ging machi­nes and filling systems with 2,800 employees at 20 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

Private Assets is a Hamburg-based invest­ment company specia­li­zing in stra­te­gic invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies in tran­si­tio­nal situations.

Menold Bezler advi­sed OPTIMA on all legal aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor OPTIMA Group of Compa­nies: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jost Ruders­dorf (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Axel Klumpp (Part­ner, both Corporate/M&A)

Inhouse Legal: Dr. Michael Kien­in­ger (Gene­ral Counsel)

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

News

Munich / Berlin — Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH, a subsi­diary of Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als (Heidel­berg­Ce­ment), will acquire Berlin-based RWG I Holding GmbH from ADCURAM Group GmbH as of Janu­ary 1, 2023, subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. RWG I Holding GmbH is a leading company in the field of demo­li­tion and buil­ding mate­ri­als recy­cling with other comple­men­tary busi­ness areas. With three attrac­tive loca­ti­ons in Berlin and 250 employees, the company gene­ra­tes more than 50 million euros in sales per year. — POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to ADCURAM in connec­tion with the sale.

Chris­tian Knell, Spokes­man for Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als Manage­ment Germany, says: “With the purchase of RWG, Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH is streng­thening its two-pron­ged raw mate­ri­als stra­tegy in the grea­ter Berlin area. In addi­tion to primary mine­ral raw mate­ri­als, recy­cled aggre­ga­tes, among other things for the produc­tion of recy­cled concre­tes, can be incre­asingly offe­red in the future. Our long-term goal is to estab­lish a circu­lar economy and thus give prio­rity to the use of recy­cled aggre­ga­tes over primary raw mate­ri­als in the manu­fac­ture of our products.”

Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Witt­mann adds, “RWG, with its market presence and good repu­ta­tion in the indus­try, is an excel­lent fit for us and will help us meet the increased demand from our custo­mers for sustainable buil­ding mate­ri­als in the grea­ter Berlin area.”

ADCURAM had acqui­red the RWG Group in 2019 as part of a succes­sion solu­tion and in recent years had built up the manage­ment team, profes­sio­na­li­zed the report­ing and finan­cial struc­tures, and made an acqui­si­tion before the end of 2022 to streng­then its growth potential.

Henry Bricken­kamp (photo © ADCURAM), Mana­ging Direc­tor at ADCURAM and opera­tio­nally respon­si­ble for the RWG Group, sees the tran­sac­tion as a confir­ma­tion of the manage­ment team: “The mana­ging direc­tors of the RWG Group have steadily expan­ded their market posi­tion in their respec­tive areas and signi­fi­cantly profes­sio­na­li­zed the company. The company is ther­e­fore the clear market leader in Berlin.” Broder Abra­ham­sen, also ADCURAM’s Mana­ging Direc­tor, added: “We are deligh­ted to have found a renow­ned part­ner for RWG in Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als, which will keep the company on the road to success.”

About Heidel­berg Materials

Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als is one of the world’s largest inte­gra­ted manu­fac­tu­r­ers of buil­ding mate­ri­als and solu­ti­ons, with leading market posi­ti­ons in cement, aggre­ga­tes, and ready-mix concrete. The company has more than 51,000 employees at almost 3,000 loca­ti­ons in over 50 count­ries. Around 4,200 employees work in Germany. Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als is working on sustainable buil­ding mate­ri­als and solu­ti­ons for the future as a pioneer on the path to CO2 neutra­lity and a circu­lar economy in the buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­try. Heidel­ber­ger Sand und Kies GmbH is a subsi­diary of Heidel­berg Mate­ri­als and opera­tes 40 sites across Germany with around 450 employees. www.heidelbergcement.de

About ADCURAM

ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the Group gene­ra­tes sales of around 800 million euros world­wide with nine holdings and more than 4,500 employees. ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

Consul­tant ADCURAM: POELLATH

Dr. Frank Thiä­ner (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Taxes)
Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Till Schwich­ten­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Torben Busch (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity)
Jannis Lührs (Asso­ciate, Tax)

News

Hamburg/ Munich — Customs Support Group B.V. (“Customs Support”), a port­fo­lio company of Castik Capi­tal, acqui­res Porath Customs Agents GmbH (“Porath”), one of the brand-leading and best-known customs agen­cies in Germany with further acti­vi­ties in Poland and the Netherlands.

The tran­sac­tion

Customs Support, the leading and digi­tal customs broker in Europe, announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of Porath Customs Agents. This acqui­si­tion streng­thens Customs Support’s presence in Germany and Poland to faci­li­tate customs clearance for global trade within and outside Europe.

“Offe­ring Europe-wide, digi­tal customs solu­ti­ons from a single source for our custo­mers is an idea that has linked Porath and Customs Support for a long time. That Porath as a custo­mer-centric customs specia­list and Customs Support as a leading digi­tal customs service provi­der are now going down a common path makes me very happy.” Thors­ten Porath, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Porath Customs Agents.

“With their focus on digi­ta­liza­tion and their know­ledge of the customs profes­sion, Porath’s team is a perfect fit for Customs Support’s goals: making customs simple for global trade.” Frank Weer­mei­jer, CEO of Customs Support Group.

The role of Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners has been accom­pany­ing Customs Support as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor in its expan­sion in the DACH region for years. The acqui­si­tion of Porath is alre­ady the seventh acqui­si­tion that has been successfully imple­men­ted jointly, and work is under­way on further acqui­si­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. In addi­tion to iden­ti­fy­ing the customs agency and cont­ac­ting the share­hol­ders, Proven­tis Part­ners carried out the stra­te­gic analy­sis of the target company and accom­pa­nied the further tran­sac­tion process from due dili­gence, through commer­cial nego­tia­ti­ons, to successful closing. The Proven­tis Part­ners tran­sac­tion team consis­ted of Timo Stahl­buhk and Dr. Leon­hard Austmann.

About Porath Customs Agents

Porath Customs Agents is a family owned and opera­ted company that has been in the market for over 30 years. Start­ing out as a freight forwar­ding company, the focus has shifted to its core compe­tence, customs clearance. With a dedi­ca­ted team stra­te­gi­cally loca­ted in Germany and Poland, the company is known for its excel­lence and meeting high custo­mer expec­ta­ti­ons. Its expe­ri­ence and focus on digi­tiza­tion offer custo­mers a tail­o­red solu­tion for every customs matter. The wide range of services offe­red, such as import and export clearance, tran­sit proce­du­res and customs consul­ting, is tail­o­red to speci­fic needs. Porath’s team provi­des fast and accu­rate customs advice, profes­sio­nal hand­ling and compre­hen­sive customs manage­ment, and excel­lent service to custo­mers. Porath is AEO-certi­fied and a member of VHSp and Hafen Hamburg. www.porath.com

About Customs Support Group

Head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, Customs Support Group is Europe’s leading inde­pen­dent, digi­tal and neutral provi­der of customs services, employ­ing over 1,500 dedi­ca­ted customs profes­sio­nals serving over 15,000 custo­mers annu­ally. Through our compre­hen­sive suite of services and digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties, we consis­t­ently help clients maxi­mize compli­ance, achieve opera­tio­nal effi­ci­en­cies, opti­mize import duties, customs plan­ning, and conti­nuously evolve in an ever-chan­ging customs landscape.

In addi­tion to tradi­tio­nal brokerage and digi­tal services, Customs Support Group provi­des customs consul­ting and gas measu­re­ment services. The company curr­ently opera­tes in the Nether­lands, Belgium, Germany, France, the United King­dom, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switz­er­land, Spain and Luxembourg.

In Europe, Customs Support Group serves many cross-border custo­mers from various indus­tries such as auto­mo­tive, food and beverage and many others. Customs Support is number one in digi­tal customs and is inves­t­ing signi­fi­cantly in the digi­tiza­tion of the customs process. www.customssupport.com

About Castik Capital

Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l. (“Castik Capi­tal”) mana­ges invest­ments in private equity. Castik Capi­tal is a Euro­pean private equity firm that acqui­res signi­fi­cant stakes in Euro­pean private and listed compa­nies where long-term value can be crea­ted through active part­ner­ships with manage­ment teams.

Foun­ded in 2014, Castik Capi­tal is based in Luxem­bourg and focu­ses on iden­ti­fy­ing and deve­lo­ping invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties across Europe. Invest­ments are made by the Luxem­bourg-based fund EPIC II SLP. Castik Capi­tal S.à r.l.’s advi­sor is Castik Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH, based in Munich. www.castik.com

About Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on more than 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and well over 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A consul­tants with offices in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­Care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. www.proventis.com

News

Munich/ Berlin — Deep tech-focu­sed venture capi­ta­list Vsquared Ventures has raised €165 million for its new early stage fund, which will conti­nue to invest in Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech space. “We stron­gly believe that the Euro­pean deep tech indus­try will outper­form other regi­ons in the coming years,” said Bene­dikt von Schoe­ler, Gene­ral Part­ner at Vsquared. That’s why the Munich-based VC firm, foun­ded in 2016, will conti­nue to invest in Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech space, he said.

A YPOG team led by Jens Kretz­schmann advi­sed Munich-based venture capi­tal inves­tor Vsquared Ventures on the struc­tu­ring of its second early-stage fund. Estab­lished LPs such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund as well as renow­ned family offices and entre­pre­neurs parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing.

With the new fund, Vsquared will invest prima­rily in early stage foun­ders and start­ups from the deep tech sector. Since laun­ching its first Vsquared fund in 2020, the company has built a port­fo­lio of more than 30 compa­nies, inclu­ding start­ups such as rocket manu­fac­tu­rer Isar Aero­space, quan­tum compu­ting deve­lo­per IQM and high-perfor­mance battery specia­list Customcells, as well as Zama, which provi­des AI-driven encryp­tion to increase online privacy.

The venture capi­tal investor’s focus is on promo­ting Europe’s strengths — the strong talent pool in the deep tech sector and indus­trial know-how.
Deep Tech is incre­asingly percei­ved as an effec­tive solu­tion to the chal­lenges and crises of our time, for which Europe can take a global leader­ship role in the future. The fund will support start­ups from the outset to drive the deve­lo­p­ment and scaling of ideas that will cement and streng­then Europe’s repu­ta­tion in deep tech.

Inves­tor Lise Rech­stei­ner beco­mes gene­ral part­ner of the Vsquared team. — She comes with expe­ri­ence from her profes­sio­nal posi­ti­ons at Rocket Inter­net, Bauer Venture Part­ners and Nordic Impact. She also co-foun­ded the deep tech fund Propa­ga­tor Ventures.

About Vsquared Ventures

Vsquared Ventures is a tech­no­logy-focu­sed early-stage inves­tor based in Munich. Supported by pionee­ring entre­pre­neurs and tech­no­logy indus­try experts, they are crea­ting a streng­thening ecosys­tem to provide inter­di­sci­pli­nary know­ledge and access to those who are inven­ting the future, and to coll­ec­tively take their compa­nies to the next level of deve­lo­p­ment. Areas of focus include New Space, Quan­tum Compu­ting, New Mate­ri­als, AI, Robo­tics and Enter­prise SaaS. https://vsquared.vc

Advi­sor VSquared Ventures: YPOG

Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead, Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax), Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Michael Blank (Struc­tu­ring), Associate
Dr. Fried­rich Wöhlecke (Tax, Struc­tu­ring), Associate
Stefa­nie Nagel (Regu­la­tory), Associate
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Inves­tor Onboar­ding), Legal Project Manager
Ricardo Pfaff (Inves­tor Onboar­ding), Foreign Lawyer

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 corpo­rate groups 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.

News

Stockholm/ Munich — EQT has announ­ced the closing of EQT Ventures Fund III with total commit­ments of € 1.1 billion. This makes the fund the largest Euro­pean fund to date focu­sed on inves­t­ing in early-stage Euro­pean and North Ameri­can tech­no­logy start-ups.

The fund, which includes a variety of Euro­pean, North Ameri­can and Asian insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, foun­da­ti­ons and endow­ment funds, will make invest­ments of EUR 1–50 million in foun­der-led start­ups that are using tech­no­logy to try to solve some of society’s biggest challenges.

With EQT Ventures III, the EQT Ventures funds have commit­ted a total of EUR 2.3 billion since their launch in 2016. EQT Ventures funds have made over 100 invest­ments, nine of which have reached a valua­tion of more than EUR 1 billion and 18 of which have been sold. EQT Ventures III has led invest­ments in 13 compa­nies, inclu­ding June, Nothing, Knoe­tic and Candela.

EQT Ventures III and EQT Growth toge­ther raise EUR 3.5 billion in new commit­ments to invest in early and growth-stage tech­no­logy compa­nies, rein­for­cing EQT’s posi­tion as a leading tech­no­logy investor.

The closing of EQT Ventures III for EUR 1.1 billion follows the recent closing of the EQT Growth fund with total commit­ments of EUR 2.4 billion.

 

News

Frank­furt — Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP has advi­sed Motive Part­ners, a private equity firm specia­li­zing in buil­ding, support­ing and acqui­ring FinTech compa­nies, on its acqui­si­tion of embedded/capital GmbH, a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal plat­form focu­sed on support­ing the next wave of FinTech inno­va­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to close in Janu­ary 2023.

Motive Part­ners is a specia­li­zed private equity inves­tor that brings toge­ther inves­tors, opera­tors and inno­va­tors to build, support and buy the tech­no­logy compa­nies that enable the finan­cial economy. Motive invests in tech­no­logy-enab­led finan­cial and busi­ness services in North America and Europe at all stages. Motive has offices in New York and London and, with more than 220 employees, mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately $4.8 billion in assets through its two invest­ment programs, Motive Ventures (early stage) and Motive Capi­tal (growth and buy-out).

embedded/capital, based in Berlin and foun­ded in 2021, specia­li­zes in finan­cial tech­no­logy start­ups in embedded finance, web3 and fintech products. Its port­fo­lio includes nine invest­ments to date, inclu­ding Bezahl.de, Bunch, Februar.co, Getquin, Hero, Luca, Myne, Nelly and Pliant. The embedded/capital team is led by Ramin Niro­u­mand and Michael Hock.

The Gibson Dunn team was led by Frank­furt PE and M&A part­ner Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht and included Funds part­ner A.J. Frey (Washing­ton, D.C.) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Mattias Prange and Bastiaan Wolters (both Frank­furt). The team also included asso­cia­tes Yannick Ober­acker (Munich) and Curtis B. Vella (New York), London asso­ciate Martin Coom­bes and coun­sel Cait­lin Cornell (New York). Part­ners Dr. Hans Martin Schmid (Munich) and Brian W. Kniesly (New York) advi­sed on tax aspects, and Munich part­ner Dr. Mark Zimmer advi­sed on employ­ment law aspects. Asso­cia­tes Jan Voll­kam­mer and Linda Vögele (both Frank­furt) advi­sed on anti­trust law.

About Gibson Dunn
Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,700 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Villin­gen-Schwen­nin­gen — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, toge­ther with co-inves­tor Unter­neh­mens­Gut, is acqui­ring a stake in Schmidt + Bartl GmbH, the Black Forest expert for tech­ni­cal plas­tics, and will contri­bute not only capi­tal but also exten­sive know-how for further growth to the part­ner­ship. Heri­bert Rott­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Schmidt + Bartl, will retain an inte­rest in the company as part of the tran­sac­tion and will conti­nue to act as Mana­ging Direc­tor. Finan­cial details of the share acqui­si­tion will not be disclosed.

Schmidt + Bartl GmbH (“S&B”) was foun­ded in 1985 in Villin­gen-Schwen­nin­gen and has been active in the distri­bu­tion of semi-finis­hed plas­tic products, plas­tic piping systems and elas­to­mers for almost 30 years. Further­more, S&B has been active in the produc­tion of small-volume tech­ni­cal plas­tic and elas­to­mer parts for over 15 years and uses a wide range of machi­nery for this purpose, from CNC milling machi­nes to 3D prin­ters. Due to high mate­rial compe­ten­ces in plas­tic design, S&B advi­ses the deve­lo­p­ment depart­ments of its custo­mers from the idea to the produc­tion readi­ness of a product. The semi-finis­hed plas­tic products can be indi­vi­du­ally proces­sed in-house or extern­ally using various machi­ning proces­ses. With its very broad product port­fo­lio, ranging from stan­dard to high-perfor­mance plas­tics, and its custo­mer and supplier rela­ti­onships that have been in place for seve­ral deca­des, S&B earns a annual sales of over EUR 20 million. The company is also effi­ci­ently posi­tio­ned in the area of energy supply, so that around one third of the total elec­tri­city consump­tion is covered by an in-house photo­vol­taic system.

In the course of the comple­ted tran­sac­tion, the mana­ging part­ner Sigrid Schmidt sells her shares. Its co-mana­ging direc­tor of many years, Heri­bert Rott­ler, will conti­nue to hold an inte­rest in the company and remain mana­ging direc­tor by means of a reverse share­hol­ding. Toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner and Unter­neh­mens­Gut, the (partial) succes­sion is now to be secu­red and the successful growth course contin­ued. In addi­tion to expan­ding the custo­mer base from the chemi­cal indus­try, food tech­no­logy, rene­wa­ble ener­gies, the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, medi­cal and clean room tech­no­logy, and semi­con­duc­tor tech­no­logy, the range of products and produc­tion capa­city are also to be further expanded.

“With VR Equi­typ­art­ner and Unter­neh­mens­Gut, we have found long-term, finan­ci­ally strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ners who at the same time have a lot of expe­ri­ence with succes­sion plan­ning. This crea­tes an excel­lent basis for the future and further deve­lo­p­ment of our company,” says Heri­bert Rott­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Schmidt + Bartl GmbH.

Chris­tian Futter­lieb (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, also, is opti­mi­stic about the future: “In over 35 years of company history, Schmidt + Bartl GmbH has posi­tio­ned itself excel­lently in the field of plas­tics proces­sing and its distri­bu­tion. With the compa­nies DITTRICH+CO., KTP, DUOPLAST and other holdings, we have a broad back­ground of expe­ri­ence with regard to the mate­rial, and we see conti­nuous dyna­mic perfor­mance increa­ses in plas­tics over­all, and conse­quently also a stron­gly growing area of appli­ca­tion. This and the solid start­ing posi­tion of Schmidt + Bartl GmbH provide an excel­lent basis for exploi­ting further growth poten­tial, which we now intend to drive forward toge­ther with Unter­neh­mens­Gut and the exis­ting share­hol­der Heri­bert Rottler.”

“Schmidt+Bartl can look back on a long history of success with great tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how and a high level of market, custo­mer and solu­tion orien­ta­tion. As a long-term inves­tor in medium-sized compa­nies, we are plea­sed to be able to support the company’s further growth plans and to contri­bute our exper­tise to the group of share­hol­ders,” adds Jens Fürbeth, Mana­ging Direc­tor at UnternehmensGut.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Thiemo Bisch­off, Astrid Binder, Sebas­tian Leker, Alex­an­der Koch, Frank Wildenberg

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:
Commer­cial: Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Sascha Vollmerhausen)
Finan­cial / Tax: Grant Thorn­ton (Harald Weiß, Dr. Stefan Hahn)
Legal: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek (Dr. Rainer Herschlein)
Real estate: Drees & Sommer (Grze­gorz Pieluzek)
Cartel: KWM Europe (Tilman Siebert)

News

Munich — Offi­cium GmbH has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of ifena GmbH, successfully conti­nuing its buy-and-build stra­tegy. The fast-growing port­fo­lio company of the invest­ment company EMERAM is inde­pen­dent and one of Germany’s leading meter­ing and billing service provi­ders for water and heat in apart­ment buil­dings and commer­cial proper­ties. As an umbrella company of regio­nal meter­ing service provi­ders, the current tran­sac­tion means that the company has acqui­red nine provi­ders in the past 22 months and mana­ges more than one million meters. — The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. Offi­cium was advi­sed by Noerr (Legal).

With its ninth acqui­si­tion, Offi­cium is now also repre­sen­ted in the Munich metro­po­li­tan region. The Group is thus consis­t­ently expan­ding its presence in Bavaria.

Dr. Alexis Tran-Viet (Photo © Emeram)., Part­ner at EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, explains: “With ifena, Offi­cium beco­mes a tech­no­logy company with soft­ware that can read and analyze data across manu­fac­tu­r­ers and can ther­e­fore be used much more flexi­bly. This means that new busi­ness areas such as the digi­tiza­tion of real estate and energy effi­ci­ency coope­ra­ti­ons resul­ting from the amend­ment of the Heating Costs Ordi­nance can be deve­lo­ped more quickly.”

Stephan Kier­meyer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Offi­ciumadds: “By further deve­lo­ping and scaling ifena’s open plat­form, we will be able to offer our custo­mers and part­ners other services and products in addi­tion to heating cost billing that make a valuable contri­bu­tion to climate protec­tion. The aim is to further expand our market share in Munich, both orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally. With our expe­ri­ence and inno­va­tive strength, for exam­ple in digi­tal solu­ti­ons, we are a strong part­ner for property manage­ment compa­nies. In addi­tion, we offer a future-proof soft­ware plat­form for other inde­pen­dent meter­ing service provi­ders who are facing tech­no­lo­gi­cal chal­lenges or are simply looking for a succes­sion solu­tion for their company. Our pipe­line for further growth is well filled.”

ifena foun­der Alex­an­der Lass­lop: “We are deligh­ted about the sale to an expe­ri­en­ced and fast-growing provi­der of heating cost billing services in Germany. The tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by ifena will enable even more consu­mers to enjoy daily consump­tion trans­pa­rency and thus savings in the future. Against the back­drop of current price increa­ses in the energy sector and ambi­tious climate protec­tion targets, this is more rele­vant than ever and can be offe­red to all inte­res­ted Offi­cium custo­mers in the future.”

ABOUT OFFICIUM — www.officium.gmbh

Offi­cium GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing and energy service provi­ders for consump­tion-based meter­ing and billing of water and heat for the housing indus­try. The company was estab­lished as a plat­form invest­ment of funds advi­sed by EMERAM in 2020. As an umbrella company, Offi­cium mana­ges nume­rous regio­nal provi­ders and has a presence prima­rily in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (for exam­ple, Düssel­dorf and Duis­burg), Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt (Dessau-Roßlau), Saxony (Dres­den and Chem­nitz), Thurin­gia, and Bava­ria (Upper and Lower Fran­co­nia and Munich). Custo­mers are prima­rily small and medium-sized property manage­ment compa­nies and private land­lords. More than one million measu­ring units are now supplied.

About EMERAM CAPITAL PARTNERS — www.emeram.com

EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide more than €500 million in capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of growth compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the Technology/Software, Value-added Services and New Consu­mer Stap­les sectors. EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for its compa­nies and promo­tes the sustainable growth (orga­nic and inor­ga­nic) of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. In addi­tion, the focus is on the imple­men­ta­tion of holi­stic ESG concepts.

The port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of six plat­form invest­ments with a cumu­la­tive work­force of more than 2,500. The compa­nies conti­nuously achieve double-digit orga­nic sales growth. In addi­tion, a total of 31 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons to date have acce­le­ra­ted growth and enab­led inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

 

News

Düsseldorf/ Frank­furt a. M. — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills advi­sed Düssel­dorf-based Rhein­me­tall AG on the conclu­sion of a purchase agree­ment with Maxam­Corp. Holding S.L., Madrid, to acquire all shares in Expal Systems S.A., a global muni­ti­ons manu­fac­tu­rer. The closing of the tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted to take place by summer 2023, is subject to anti­trust and other regu­la­tory reviews. The agree­ment between Rhein­me­tall and Maxam­Corp. The agreed purchase price is based on an enter­prise value of EUR1.2 billion.

Herbert Smith Freeh­ills advi­sed Rhein­me­tall with an inter­na­tio­nal team led by part­ners Dr. Sönke Becker (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) and Alberto Fras­quet (Corporate/M&A, Madrid).

Advi­sor Rhein­me­tall: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Düsseldorf/ Frank­furt
Dr. Sönke Becker (photo) (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marcel Nuys (Compe­ti­tion), Dr. Marius Boewe (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Stef­fen Hoer­ner (Tax), Dr. Julius Brandt (Corporate/Capital Markets); Marjel Dema (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A); Coun­sel: Dr. Chris­tian Johnen, Lena von Richt­ho­fen (both Corporate/M&A); Dr. Florian Huer­kamp (Compe­ti­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Tatiana Guens­ter (Tax), Mirko Gleits­mann, Caro­line Wendt (both Compe­ti­tion), Kris­tin Kattwin­kel, David Rasche (both Regulatory)

Madrid: Alberto Fras­quet (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Henar Gonza­lez (Compe­ti­tion), Tomas Diaz Mielen­hau­sen (Real Estate); Coun­sel: Marta Este­ban (Corporate/M&A), Pablo Garcia Mexia (Dispu­tes), Álvaro Gross (Real Estate), Esther Lumbre­ras (Public Law); Asso­cia­tes: Amparo de Leyva, Alejan­dro Hillage, Jacobo Jimé­nez-Poyato Narváez, Carmen Muñoz, Alvaro Silva (all Corporate/M&A), Igna­cio Jimé­nez-Poyato Narváez, Pablo de Vega Tremps (both Employ­ment), Beatriz Madri­gal, Lucía Tarra­cena Figar (both Real Estate), Miguel Ángel Barroso López, Monica de Hevia, Cata­lina Hierro (all Public Law), Jose Munoz (Compe­ti­tion), Miguel Alvar­gon­za­lez, Chris­tina Diez de Rivera, Jose Maria Faz (all Finance)

New York: James Robin­son (Corporate/M&A), Joseph Falcone (Dispu­tes); Asso­cia­tes: Lina Velez (Finance, Corporate/M&A), Tyler Hendry (Employ­ment)
Milan: Fran­ce­sca Morra, Iria Calvino; Asso­ciate: Giacomo Gavotti (all Corporate/M&A)
London: Vero­nica Roberts; Asso­cia­tes: Max Kauf­man, Agos­tino Bignardi (all Regulatory)
Kuala Lumpur & Singa­pore: Glynn Cooper; Asso­cia­tes Prakash Selvam, John Ling (all Corporate/M&A)
Brussels: Kyria­kos Foun­tou­ka­kos (Compe­ti­tion)

News

Munich — Etri­bes Group GmbH acqui­res 100% of the shares in COBE GmbH.
COBE GmbH offers speci­ally deve­lo­ped, brand-speci­fic UX iden­tity methods (UXi) and thus expands the imple­men­ta­tion exper­tise of Etri­bes’ digi­tal consul­ting deut-
lich. Green­Gate Part­ners advi­sed the share­hol­ders of COBE GmbH on the sale of all ge-
busi­ness shares.

COBE GmbH is a specia­list in UI/UX design and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment with around 90 full-time employees spread across Munich and Osijek (Croa­tia). Since its foun­ding in 2012, COBE — Crea­tors Of Beau­tiful Expe­ri­en­ces — has supported a range of corpo­rate clients from ProSiebenSat.1 and Voda­fone to Bosch, BMW and REWE in the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal products. In doing so, the company combi­nes a user-cente­red design approach with proprie­tary, brand-speci­fic UX iden­tity (UXi) methods.
With the inte­gra­tion of the UX/UI design and product deve­lo­p­ment agency COBE into the Etri­bes Group, Etri­bes has signi­fi­cantly streng­the­ned its imple­men­ta­tion exper­tise in the areas of UX/UI design, service design, web and mobile deve­lo­p­ment. Toge­ther, COBE and Etri­bes are even more attrac­tive for DAX corpo­ra­ti­ons and German SMEs.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, Green­Gate Part­ners advi­sed the sellers on the sale of their shares in COBE GmbH to Etri­bes Group GmbH.

Advi­sor COBE GmbH: Green­Gate Part­ners Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
Dr. Tobias Schön­haar, LL.M. (part­ner)
Marc René Spitz, LL.M. (USC) (Part­ner)
Advi­sor Etri­bes Group GmbH: honert hamburg PartG mbB
Dr. Jan-Chris­tian Heins (Part­ner) Dr. Fran­ziska Stro­bel, LL.M. (LSE)

About Green­Gate Partners
Green­Gate Part­ners is a tech­no­logy law firm with parti­cu­lar exper­tise around venture capi­tal and tran­sac­tions. From our offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers offer their clients first-class advice at eye level.
The scope of consul­ting in the venture capi­tal area is compre­hen­sive and ranges from the foun­ding to the indi­vi­dual finan­cing rounds to the exit. Clients include dome­stic and foreign venture capi­tal funds, stra­te­gic inves­tors, busi­ness angels as well as foun­ders, start-ups or managers.

News

Berlin — Aphe­ris, the plat­form for crea­ting colla­bo­ra­tive data ecosys­tems, has raised EUR 8.7 million to further deve­lop its unique tech­no­logy and expand its growing list of custo­mers and part­ners, inclu­ding BASF, Boston Consul­ting Group, BMW Group and JLABS, the inno­va­tion divi­sion of John­son & Johnson.

The seed exten­sion funding round is led by Octo­pus Ventures. The new inves­tors also include Euro­pean health­tech invest­ment specia­lists Heal Capi­tal, Bert­hold von Frey­berg (co-foun­der of Target Part­ners) and Mirko Nova­ko­vic (foun­der of Inst­ana). In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors Local­Globe, Dig Ventures, another.vc and Patrick Pichette (former CFO of Google) have provi­ded addi­tio­nal funding.

Berlin-based startup Aphe­ris offers a plat­form for colla­bo­ra­tive data ecosys­tems. It enables compa­nies to connect secu­rely, extract value from the decen­tra­li­zed data­sets of others, and over­come regu­la­tory, tech­ni­cal, and commer­cial chal­lenges. At the same time, data never leaves the owner’s secure envi­ron­ment — the plat­form gives all stake­hol­ders complete control over data manage­ment, ensu­ring secu­rity, privacy and protec­tion of intellec­tual property.

Robin Röhm and Michael Höh foun­ded Aphe­ris in 2019. Her start-up now has a team of more than 30 specialists.

With this funding round, Aphe­ris plans to further expand its colla­bo­ra­tive data ecosys­tem plat­form to help connect data science and AI across orga­niza­tio­nal boundaries.

Advi­sor to Aphe­ris: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Ariane Neubauer (Lead; Venture Capi­tal), Berlin
Dr. Eva Kett­ner, LL.B. (Labor Law), Hamburg
Shimon Merkel, LL.M. (Venture Capi­tal), Berlin
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Hamburg
Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe (Capi­tal Markets Law), Cologne
Dr. Matthias Kühn, LL.M. (Public Law), Berlin

Heuking regu­larly advi­ses venture capi­tal inves­tors and start-ups. The current advice is further evidence of the strong deve­lo­p­ment of the firm’s venture capi­tal practice.

News

Milan/Munich/Babenhausen — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”) is one of the largest Euro­pean asset mana­gers fully commit­ted to envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. The company has now acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Lässig GmbH (“LÄSSIG”) in Baben­hau­sen, Hesse, a leading supplier of func­tional, sustainable and inno­va­tive products for babies, child­ren and the whole family in the German-spea­king region and other Euro­pean count­ries. The company was owned by finan­cial inves­tors, the foun­ders Clau­dia and Stefan Lässig, and Karin Hein­rich. Ambi­enta beco­mes the new majo­rity owner, but the foun­ders and Karin Hein­rich remain signi­fi­cantly inves­ted along­side finan­cial investors.

LÄSSIG was foun­ded in 2006 by Clau­dia and Stefan Lässig and today has more than 110 employees. The company star­ted with inno­va­tive, sustaina­bi­lity-orien­ted diaper bags, which are still a successful product today. The product port­fo­lio has been conti­nuously expan­ded since then and today includes back­packs, access­ories, toys, children’s table­ware, clot­hing and much more in addi­tion to bags. The products are sold in around 2,800 brick-and-mortar stores, 50 online stores and the company’s own online store at www.laessig-fashion.de.

The company is on a strong growth path and has used its strong presence in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land) as a start­ing point for successful expan­sion into other Euro­pean markets such as France and the Bene­lux count­ries. Ambi­enta will support further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion through its inter­na­tio­nal network and know-how. In addi­tion, Ambi­enta will work with the manage­ment team to drive the digi­tiza­tion of sales, proces­ses and operations.

Based on Ambienta’s sustainable invest­ment stra­tegy, the focus of the invest­ment in LÄSSIG is on resource effi­ci­ency and reduc­tion of envi­ron­men­tal emis­si­ons. The company is a pioneer in the imple­men­ta­tion of a holi­stic sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy: even in the deve­lo­p­ment of its products, LÄSSIG focu­ses on the econo­mical use of resour­ces, rene­wa­ble and recy­cled mate­ri­als, and dura­bi­lity. For exam­ple, the company uses sustainable mate­ri­als such as orga­nic cotton for two-thirds of its baby clothes and supports farmers in India in conver­ting from tradi­tio­nal to orga­nic farming methods. The company coope­ra­tes with reco­gni­zed suppli­ers of recy­cled plas­tics to produce sustainable and dura­ble products — from diaper bags to satchels.

LÄSSIG bene­fits from the switch to sustainable products in a market that is still domi­na­ted by conven­tio­nal ranges today. In addi­tion, the company has deve­lo­ped clear unique selling points through its focus on inno­va­tion and func­tion­a­lity. Thanks to this stra­tegy, LÄSSIG has succee­ded in buil­ding a strong brand with a very high level of trust among parents. The company and its products have recei­ved nume­rous awards, inclu­ding the Plus X Award 2022 for sustaina­bi­lity, the German Brand Award 2021 and as a Top 100 Inno­va­tor 2022.

Hans Hade­rer (photo), part­ner and respon­si­ble for the DACH region at Ambi­enta, said: “LÄSSIG is an ideal fit for Ambi­enta due to its deep convic­tion in sustainable action and a successful growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy. The company is not only a pioneer in inno­va­tions for family needs, but also in the econo­mical use of resour­ces, the use of recy­cled raw mate­ri­als and product dura­bi­lity. We want to consis­t­ently expand this approach toge­ther with the foun­ders and support the company’s growth stra­tegy to the best of our ability with our network and experience.”
Foun­ders Clau­dia and Stefan Lässig empha­si­zed: “In Ambi­enta, we found the opti­mal part­ner for the next growth phase of our company. It was the special focus on sustaina­bi­lity and the outstan­ding exper­tise in the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of foun­der-mana­ged, medium-sized compa­nies that ulti­m­ately tipped the scales. Both compe­ten­ces will decisi­vely help us to become the leading outfit­ter for babies, child­ren and fami­lies in Europe.”

Ambi­enta was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Ommax on commer­cial due dili­gence, Houli­han Lokey on M&A (buy-side) and debt advi­sory, Noerr on legal and struc­tu­ring due dili­gence, KPMG on finan­cial and tax due dili­gence and ERM on ESG due diligence.

Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean inves­tor in envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity in private and public markets. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on inves­t­ing in private and public compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. In the private equity sector, Ambi­enta has made 58 invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a full range of sustainable products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds.

News

Magdeburg/ Zurich — Conver­gence Part­ners parti­ci­pa­tes in a signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed Pre-Series A finan­cing round for digi­tal health company neotiv GmbH. The total volume is EUR 10 million. Co-inves­tors in this round include Capri­corn Part­ners, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, bmp Ventures, RSJ Fonds, Sana Future GmbH and Vega Venture. The Magde­burg-based startup has deve­lo­ped an app that can be used to diagnose demen­tia dise­a­ses at an early stage.

Detect Alzheimer’s dise­ase earlier

With the CE-marked medi­cal device neotiv­Care®, neotiv offers digi­tal memory tests for people with self-percei­ved memory problems and supports the diagno­sis of mild cogni­tive impair­ment (MCI). Dr. Chris Rehse, CEO and neotiv co-foun­der explains: “The number of pati­ents, physi­ci­ans and health insu­r­ers who are relia­bly supported in the diagno­sis of ‘mild cogni­tive impair­ment (MCI)’ through the use of our revo­lu­tio­nary medi­cal product neotiv­Care® is growing rapidly. Only compre­hen­sive care with relia­ble diagno­ses will set the course for inno­va­tive thera­pies for early Alzheimer’s dise­ase, which is often unde­tec­ted, and can thus help many people affec­ted.”

Signi­fi­cantly increase treat­ment chances

The company was foun­ded five years ago. Using the unique neotiv­Care® app, pati­ents test the memory func­tions of speci­fic brain regi­ons asso­cia­ted with the early deve­lo­p­men­tal stages of demen­tia over an exten­ded period of time. Thus, neotiv­Care® can relia­bly detect the effects of Alzheimer’s patho­logy before symptoms are visi­ble. The earlier a diagno­sis is made, the faster and more effec­tive treat­ment can be initia­ted. “The tech­no­lo­gi­cal foun­da­tion we have crea­ted with neotiv­Care® allows all physi­ci­ans to relia­bly inves­ti­gate suspec­ted cases of MCI against a back­drop of rising preva­len­ces. This puts us in a unique posi­tion to rapidly deli­ver dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs to pati­ents,” says Prof. Emrah Düzel, Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer and co-foun­der, describ­ing neotiv’s contri­bu­tion to the stan­dard care of the future.

Coope­ra­tion with health insu­rance companies

Neotiv has alre­ady agreed coope­ra­ti­ons with health insu­r­ers, and further talks are curr­ently under­way. Accor­ding to an esti­mate by the German Alzhei­mer Society, 1.8 million people have Alzheimer’s dise­ase. Last year alone, 440,000 people were added to the work­force in Germany. Accor­ding to the World Alzhei­mer Report of 2021, only 40% of pati­ents receive a diagno­sis. “The deve­lo­p­ment of powerful drugs to treat Alzheimer’s is on the verge of a breakth­rough follo­wing recent posi­tive news from ongo­ing clini­cal trials. But all of these thera­peu­tics rely on detec­ting the dise­ase early. This is where neotiv’s revo­lu­tio­nary diagno­stics make a crucial contri­bu­tion to comba­ting the wide­spread dise­ase of the 21st century,” explains Daniel Koppel­kamm, Mana­ging Part­ner of Conver­gence Partners.

About neotiv GmbH

neotiv GmbH is a spin-off of the OVGU Magde­burg in close coope­ra­tion with the German Center for Neuro­de­ge­nera­tive Dise­a­ses — DZNE. neotiv GmbH was foun­ded in 2014 and is head­quar­te­red in Magde­burg with an addi­tio­nal office in Berlin. The goal of the young company is to trans­late the latest findings in neuro­sci­ence into products that can be used in science and in the health­care system. The focus here is on mobile apps for smart­phones and tablets that enable test­ing of important memory func­tions. Further, health system bene­fits are a core appli­ca­tion area. The medi­cal device neotiv­Care supports pati­ents in the medi­cal assess­ment of self-percei­ved memory problems. Tests can be perfor­med in the home envi­ron­ment, which are later evalua­ted with the doctor and help to iden­tify a possi­ble dise­ase, such as Alzheimer’s, at an early stage. In order to be able to inte­grate such appli­ca­ti­ons into the health­care system in a scien­ti­fi­cally valid and sustainable way, neotiv actively coope­ra­tes with various inter­na­tio­nal studies and important insti­tu­ti­ons of the health­care system. https://neotiv.com/en

About Conver­gence Part­ners AG
Conver­gence Part­ners AG (“Conver­gence”) is a Swiss Health­Tech venture capi­tal firm actively support­ing the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the four largest health­care markets USA, China, India and Germany. Conver­gence has offices in Switz­er­land, Germany, Spain and Hong Kong and was foun­ded in 2018 by expe­ri­en­ced health­care indus­try play­ers and venture capi­ta­lists with the goal of connec­ting EU Health­Tech inno­va­tions with large inter­na­tio­nal scale-up and exit poten­tial. Conver­gence focu­ses on later-stage invest­ments in digi­tal health, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics. Current key invest­ment areas include Mental Health, Women’s Health and Compu­ta­tio­nal Biology. Conver­gence is the venture capi­tal part­ner of “Medi­cal Valley” in Nurem­berg-Erlan­gen, Germany’s “Digi­tal Health Center of Excel­lence”. https://www.convergence-partners.ch/home .

News

Düssel­dorf, Germany — Main Capi­tal Part­ners has successfully comple­ted the stra­te­gic sale of arte­gic, a specia­list in marke­ting auto­ma­tion soft­ware, to marke­ting tech­no­logy provi­der UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies (“UNITED”), a DuMont Media Group company. The sale marks the third successful company sale by Main Capi­tal Part­ners in 2022.

The acqui­si­tion by UNITED repres­ents another successful exit for Main Capi­tal Part­ners. With this acqui­si­tion, UNITED is further expan­ding its posi­tion in the field of marke­ting tech­no­logy. artegic’s marke­ting auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons comple­ment UNITED’s current marke­ting tech­no­logy port­fo­lio, which includes a cloud-based plat­form for social media manage­ment and an omnich­an­nel content platform.

arte­gic, head­quar­te­red in Bonn, Germany, was foun­ded in 2005. Since then, arte­gic has become a leading Euro­pean provi­der of cross-chan­nel, SaaS-based marke­ting auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons and digi­tal CRM. arte­gic offers its custo­mers a strong service package for the concep­tion, imple­men­ta­tion and auto­ma­tion of indi­vi­dual marke­ting campaigns. These solu­ti­ons enable first-class digi­tal dialog marke­ting via e‑mail and mobile.

The merger will enable UNITED and arte­gic to jointly acce­le­rate their growth trajec­tory in the field of marke­ting tech­no­logy. The part­ner­ship also combi­nes DuMont’s resour­ces and expe­ri­ence in media and marke­ting with artegic’s inno­va­tive soft­ware solution.

Main Capi­tal inves­ted in arte­gic in 2016 and has since supported the company on its orga­nic growth path. The focus was the trans­for­ma­tion from a tran­sac­tion-driven busi­ness model to a highly scalable and fast-growing SaaS model. Working with Main Capi­tal, arte­gic has nearly tripled its SaaS reve­nue and increased its SaaS growth rate from a low single-digit percen­tage to over 33% in 2022/23.

Chris­tian Fried­richs, Mana­ging Direc­tor of UNITED by DuMont, commen­ted: “UNITED is taking a stra­te­gi­cally important step with the acqui­si­tion of arte­gic. We look forward to working with artegic’s manage­ment team and lever­aging our shared synergies.”

Stefan von Lieven, Mana­ging Direc­tor of arte­gic, commen­ted: “In UNITED, we have found a strong part­ner that has built up in-depth know­ledge in the field of marke­ting tech­no­logy throug­hout its corpo­rate history. As a group, we can offer our custo­mers a broa­der range of comple­men­tary solu­ti­ons in this area. We are very proud of this part­ner­ship and would like to thank Main Capi­tal Part­ners for their stra­te­gic support and exper­tise over the past years.”

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen, Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, commen­ted: “We congra­tu­late arte­gic and UNITED on this successful part­ner­ship. The company has under­gone an impres­sive busi­ness model trans­for­ma­tion that has resul­ted in SaaS growth rates of over 33%. We believe arte­gic has found a strong part­ner in UNITED for the next phase of growth.”

UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies by DuMont — www.united-mt.com

UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies by DuMont compri­ses all of DuMont’s invest­ments, which were bund­led for the first time in 2017 in its own Marke­ting Tech­no­logy busi­ness unit. Today, the UNITED group includes the compa­nies face­lift (100 percent), censhare (100 percent), quintly (100 percent) and arte­gic (75.1 percent) — all with a focus on scalable soft­ware-as-a-service busi­ness models in the MarTech context. Curr­ently, 470 employees work at a total of seven loca­ti­ons world­wide for UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies, which combi­nes the advan­ta­ges of large holists and a large number of small specia­lists. The port­fo­lio and size of the UNITED compa­nies thus give DuMont a unique posi­tio­ning in the global MarTech land­scape. UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies is a 100 percent subsi­diary of the family-owned company DuMont.

arte­gic — www.artegic.com/de
arte­gic was foun­ded in 2005 and employs over 70 people. The company offers SaaS marke­ting auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons that enable custo­mers to deve­lop and auto­mate complex digi­tal campaigns in real time. The custo­mer base includes Payback, BMW, DHL, Ameri­can Express and a total of one third of the German DAX companies.

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 in 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 over 55 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.

News

Luxembourg/ Vienna (ÖS) — Round2 Capi­tal comple­tes first closing of € 100 million soft­ware lending fund. The company’s second fund targets Euro­pean growth compa­nies offe­ring B2B soft­ware that is criti­cal to busi­ness success and typi­cally gene­ra­tes €5–25 million in recur­ring annual revenue.

Euro­pean soft­ware invest­ment house Round2 Capi­tal closes the first part of its second soft­ware lending fund with €62 million, brin­ging its total assets under manage­ment to €115 million. Round2 Capi­tal is a leading pan-Euro­pean soft­ware lending firm that employs an actively mana­ged, reve­nue-based lending stra­tegy and has inves­ted in more than 25 compa­nies across 8 Euro­pean countries.

The Luxem­bourg-based Round2 Capi­tal Fund II applies the same successful stra­tegy as Round2 Capital’s fully inves­ted first soft­ware lending fund and has a target of €100 million. The second vehicle will finance up to 40 small and medium-sized soft­ware compa­nies across Europe, with a focus on the DACH and Nordic markets.

With its busi­ness-friendly, reve­nue-based finan­cing approach, Round2 Capi­tal enables soft­ware compa­nies to convert their recur­ring reve­nue into flexi­ble growth finan­cing that allows these compa­nies to secure capi­tal without dilu­tion, loss of control or rest­ric­tive covenants.

Round2 Capi­tal takes a long-term approach and is an active part­ner to its port­fo­lio compa­nies, provi­ding hands-on support for the key opera­tio­nal chal­lenges SaaS compa­nies face in the criti­cal stages of their deve­lo­p­ment to reach €50M ARR. As of Novem­ber 2022, Round2 Capi­tal Fund I has no defaults and 4 exits.

Round2 Capi­tal Fund II inves­tors include various family offices and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from Europe and the USA. The anchor inves­tor is the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF), which will be repre­sen­ted on the fund’s board of directors.
— The fund is mana­ged by Chris­tian Czer­nich, Jan Hille­red, Isabella Hermann-Schön and Stefan Nagel, who were alre­ady respon­si­ble for mana­ging the first cohort. You will be part of a growing 11-person team that opera­tes the Round2 Capi­tal soft­ware lending plat­form. www.round2cap.com

News

Berlin/Cologne, Novem­ber 02, 2022 — Germany’s largest inde­pen­dent car sharing provi­der MILES Mobi­lity has acqui­red Volks­wa­gen subsi­diary UMI Urban Mobi­lity Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH, known as WeShare. The carsha­ring provi­der WeShare is present in Berlin and Hamburg with around 2,000 all-elec­tric vehic­les, which are now being migra­ted to the MILES ecosys­tem, the exis­ting carpool and the user app.

WeShare is backed by VW subsi­diary UMI Urban Mobi­lity Inter­na­tio­nal, which is being acqui­red by Miles Mobi­lity. The WeShare fleet, which consists of 100 percent elec­tric vehic­les, will be inte­gra­ted into Miles Mobility’s car pool.

VW and Miles Mobi­lity have also agreed on a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. Part of the coope­ra­tion is the purchase of more than 10,000 elec­tric vehic­les from the Audi, Seat/Cupra and VW brands, which will be deli­vered to Miles Mobi­lity start­ing next year. With regard to the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion, the parties have agreed to main­tain confidentiality.

With this acqui­si­tion, the company is expan­ding its vehicle fleet and custo­mer base in an econo­mical and sustainable way. MILES custo­mers will bene­fit from a larger e‑fleet, and exis­ting WeShare custo­mers will gain access to a signi­fi­cantly larger and more diverse vehicle port­fo­lio, six addi­tio­nal German and two Belgian cities, and new services such as city-to-city and cross-coun­try rides. In total, more than 11,000 vehic­les will be available in Germany and Belgium. As part of the new part­ner­ship, MILES has alre­ady orde­red more than 10,000 addi­tio­nal elec­tric vehic­les from Audi, Seat/Cupra and VW Passen­ger Cars for deli­very start­ing in 2023.

Both parties are thus taking an important step towards a relia­ble, comfor­ta­ble and sustainable form of mobi­lity as an alter­na­tive to the private vehicle. To conti­nue on this course, MILES aims to become Europe’s leading car-sharing platform.

Consultant:inside MILES Mobi­lity: YPOG
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, M&A), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead, M&A), Partner
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Co-Lead, M&A), Partner
Nina Ahlert (M&A), Senior Associate
Jona­than Görg (M&A), Associate
Laura Franke (M&A), Project Lawyer
Dr. Lutz Schrei­ber (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Matthias Treude (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Associate
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Senior Associate
Sara Apen­burg (IP/IT, Data Protec­tion), Senior Associate
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Lukas Schmitt (Tax), Associate

Advi­sors VW / WeShare: Arqis
VW is being advi­sed by Arqis in the course of the sale of its subsi­diary UMI Urban Mobi­lity Inter­na­tio­nal and the stra­te­gic coope­ra­tion with Miles Mobi­lity. Lead manage­ment Dr. Lars Laeger.

About MILES Mobility
MILES is Germany’s largest inde­pen­dent car-sharing provi­der. The offe­ring includes mileage-based car sharing, van sharing, and packa­ges for flexi­ble long-term rentals as well as city-to-city trips — all without stati­ons in a free-floa­ting system. MILES belie­ves in a world where mobi­lity should be shared, sustainable and acces­si­ble to ever­yone and wants to offer an alter­na­tive to private car owner­ship. The goal is to be part of the perso­nal mobi­lity mix to improve urban living. MILES is curr­ently active in Germany (Berlin, Pots­dam, Hamburg, Munich, Colo­gne, Düssel­dorf, Bonn and Duis­burg) and in Belgium (Ghent and Brussels).

About WeShare
WeShare is the 100% elec­tric car sharing service of UMI Urban Mobi­lity Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Berlin. A Volks­wa­gen AG company, WeShare laun­ched in July 2019 with 1,500 elec­tric vehic­les in Berlin and expan­ded its fleet to Hamburg over time. As a “vehicle on demand” service, WeShare serves the needs of people who do not want to do without indi­vi­dual mobi­lity. It is inten­ded as a useful addi­tio­nal service for all occa­si­ons when a car is prac­ti­cal and convenient.

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.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the Dutch Azer­ion Group N.V. on the acqui­si­tion of Munich-based Vlyby Digi­tal GmbH. The acqui­si­tion was comple­ted at the end of Q3 2022.

Azer­ion will pay appro­xi­m­ately half of the purchase price in cash (combi­na­tion of upfront and defer­red payment) and in the form of Azer­ion common shares; 785,540 treasury shares will be trans­fer­red to the selling shareholders.

Azer­ion is a publicly traded tech­no­logy and data company head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam. Foun­ded in 2014, Azer­ion serves publishers, adver­ti­sers and game deve­lo­pers around the world with tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons to auto­mate the buying and selling of digi­tal adver­ti­sing, among other things.

Vlyby enables website opera­tors, online market­ers and digi­tal publishers to simplify and self-manage their Program­ma­tic Video Adver­ti­sing proces­ses across all devices. From its Munich base, the company serves leading German digi­tal market­ers such as United Inter­net Media, Burda Commu­nity Network, Burda­For­ward and Funke Medi­en­gruppe, among others.

SKW Schwarz had alre­ady advi­sed Azer­ion on the acqui­si­tion of Hamburg-based games deve­lo­per Whow Games in 2021.

Advi­sor to Azer­ion Group N.V.: SKW Schwarz, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Graf von Wall­witz, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Nick Nieder­ber­ger (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Raluca Calin (Project Management)

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