ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin/ Munich — To further expand its posi­tion as the market leader in Germany in the field of fresh, auto­no­mous food and beverage deli­very, Foodji has raised money from inves­tors: The Munich-based food tech company raises USD 23 million in its Series A finan­cing round. Dutch inves­tor Movendo Capi­tal and DLF Venture from Luxem­bourg have joined as new partners.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to streng­then the team and expand the foodji tech­no­logy. Dutch inves­tor Movendo Capi­tal and DLF Venture from Luxem­bourg have joined as new part­ners. U.S. inves­tor Triple Point Capi­tal and Kraut Capi­tal from Germany also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round, as did exis­ting inves­tor FoodLabs from Berlin.

Foun­ded in 2016, Foodji opera­tes smart food vending machi­nes that offer fresh and healthy food at any time and exactly where people spend their daily lives. In the office, on the shop floor, at the univer­sity, in the hospi­tal or while trave­ling in a hotel or at the airport. More than 90 percent of German compa­nies do not have their own canteen. The past year has shown that the demand for high-quality and flexi­ble round-the-clock cate­ring — espe­ci­ally in the German SME sector — is high.

About DLF Venture
Foun­ded in Luxem­bourg in 2016, DLF Venture is a family-owned, consu­mer-focu­sed private equity firm with offices in Brussels and London, inves­t­ing prima­rily in Europe and focu­sing on four key sectors: Food & Beverage, Health & Care, Edtech and Inno­va­tive Retail.

About Movendo Capi­tal B.V.
Movendo Capi­tal B.V. is an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in invest­ments in inno­va­tive food and inno­va­tive retail. Behind Movendo is a fourth gene­ra­tion entre­pre­neu­rial family with a long tradi­tion in retail and food produc­tion. Movendo is a long-term inves­tor and active shareholder.

About Foodji

Foodji, the young food tech market leader from Munich, was foun­ded in 2016 by Felix Munte, Daniel von Canal, Moritz Munte, Dr. Oliver Fried­mann and Nico­las Luig. Foodji enables small and medium-sized compa­nies without a canteen to provide their employees with a fresh and healthy food offer. At the heart of the company is its proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form and smart food vending machine, “Foodji,” which provi­des fresh, healthy, high-quality food around the clock. These are charac­te­ri­zed by parti­cu­larly high quality and can be reser­ved via app as well as purcha­sed via touch­screen without regis­tra­tion. The food offe­red is tail­o­red to the wishes of the employees using speci­ally deve­lo­ped arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. In addi­tion to a perso­na­li­zed offe­ring, this results in signi­fi­cantly less food waste than is common in the food indus­try. Thanks to 24/7 avai­la­bi­lity, the food­jis can also be used more flexi­bly than conven­tio­nal canteens and also cater to workers in shifts and at night. Further infor­ma­tion: www.foodji.com

Advi­sors Movendo Capital/DLF Venture: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead) (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner Matthias Kres­ser (Regu­la­tory & Finance, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Nina Ahlert (Co-Lead) (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate Laura Franke (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Project 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 corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
www.ypog.law

News

Berlin — With the merger with AMANA as the leading soft­ware provi­der for finan­cial report­ing and tax solu­ti­ons in Europe, Luca­Net under­lines the importance of the segment “Disclo­sure Manage­ment” and sustain­ably streng­thens its global market posi­tion for Corpo­rate Perfor­mance Manage­ment (CPM), espe­ci­ally also in the areas of tax compli­ance and tax report­ing. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the foun­ders of AMANA Consul­ting GmbH on the exit to Luca­Net AG.

AMANA, as part of the Luca­Net Group, will reach new custo­mers and better meet the needs of its exis­ting custo­mer base thanks to its broad port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons, inter­na­tio­nal focus and the matu­rity of its global orga­niza­tion. Both compa­nies have been working successfully in close part­ner­ship since 2015 and offer their custo­mers joint solu­ti­ons, such as the tools “Smart­No­tes” and “XBRL- Tagger”, which opti­mally comple­ment the Luca­Net solu­ti­ons with far-reaching func­tions for busi­ness and finan­cial report gene­ra­tion as well as digi­tal transmission.

About AMANA

With more than 150 deve­lo­pers and subject matter experts, AMANA deve­lops specia­li­zed, user-friendly and intel­li­gent systems on the topics of taxes, disclo­sure manage­ment, XBRL as well as leasing. The soft­ware solu­ti­ons are desi­gned to auto­mate proces­ses sustain­ably as well as to adapt to the constantly incre­asing requi­re­ments of digitalization.

Advi­sor AMANA: YPOG
Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead) (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Stefan Witte (Co-Lead) (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax Law), Part­ner, Hamburg, Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg, Johan­nes Schmidt (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Hamburg, Lukas Schmitt (Tax Law), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Michael Fili­po­wicz (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Commeo:
Isabel Oest (antitrust/foreign trade law), Part­ner, Frankfurt
Fran­ziska Lange-Schlü­ter (Antitrust/Foreign Trade Law), Asso­ciate, Frankfurt
Chris­toph Bren­del (Antitrust/Foreign Trade Law), Asso­ciate, Frankfurt

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, specia­li­zing in the core areas of
Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
www.ypog.law as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Antwerp — Mediar Thera­peu­tics (Cambridge, MA, USA), a company deve­lo­ping a port­fo­lio of first-in-class thera­pies for the treat­ment of fibro­sis, announ­ces $105 million in finan­cing, inclu­ding an $85 million Series A led by Novar­tis Venture Fund and Sofin­nova Part­ners. Also parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round are Gimv, as well as Pfizer Ventures, Mission BioCa­pi­tal, Pureos, Bris­tol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Ono Venture Invest­ment and Mass Gene­ral Brig­ham Ventures.

Fibro­sis caused by inflamm­a­tion or injury results in abnor­mal forma­tion of scar tissue that can lead to organ fail­ure. Fort­u­na­tely, not all fibro­sis leads to organ fail­ure. To date, there is no cure for fibro­sis, and current thera­pies are subop­ti­mal. Mediar Thera­peu­tics was foun­ded on ground­brea­king fibro­sis rese­arch from Harvard Medi­cal School and Mass Gene­ral Brig­ham & Women’s Hospi­tal. Mediar is working on a pipe­line of unique factors that affect myofi­bro­blasts, the major cell type that drives fibro­sis progression.
The Series A finan­cing will enable Mediar Thera­peu­tics to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of a port­fo­lio of first-in-class anti­body treat­ments that have unique poten­tial to treat fibro­sis at various stages of dise­ase. Two of the programs will enter human trials by 2024.

Dr. Andreas Jurgeit, Part­ner Life Scien­ces at Gimv, who has also joined the Board of Direc­tors of Mediar Thera­peu­tics, commen­ted, “Mediar is a unique combi­na­tion of science, talent and the ability to address a signi­fi­cant unmet medi­cal need. Fibro­sis is respon­si­ble for a signi­fi­cant percen­tage of deaths in the indus­tria­li­zed world, and to date there is no cure or appro­priate treat­ment. We are very plea­sed that Gimv is joining a strong consor­tium of leading global life science inves­tors to support Mediar Thera­peu­tics. We look forward to working closely with manage­ment, our indus­try part­ners and co-inves­tors to achieve Mediar Thera­peu­tics’ mission.”

Chris­toph Kocher, Asso­ciate at Gimv, added, “Mediar’s vision of lever­aging myofi­bro­blast biology to address the large unmet need in pati­ents with fibro­tic dise­a­ses is fully aligned with the mission of Gimv’s life science plat­form: to build leading compa­nies that have a lasting impact on pati­ents and society.”

News

Munich — oculai raises equity capi­tal of 2.5 million euros in a seed finan­cing round. With the fresh capi­tal, the cons­truc­tion-tech startup wants to invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the tech­no­logy and push its disse­mi­na­tion on cons­truc­tion sites.

The finan­cing round is led by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, which has with oculai its 700. Invest­ment in the history of the seed inves­tor successfully comple­ted. In addi­tion, Bayern-Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced high-tech inves­tors in the coun­try, is parti­ci­pa­ting with funds from the REACT part of the Bayern Kapi­tal EFRE inno­va­tion fund, and the French-based VC fund Axeleo Capi­tal via its Contech-Proptech fund, which focu­ses on start­ups in Europe. The round is supple­men­ted by the Leonard acce­le­ra­tor program and other well-known private inves­tors. These inves­tors include Arno Zinke, ex-foun­der and mana­ger of Auto­desk and Hexa­gon, Chris­toph Jentzsch, ex-foun­der and CEO of Slock.it and corpus.ventures, and Tobias Ortmaier, ex-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Yuanda Robo­tics, voraus robo­tik and avatera.

oculai is an emer­ging digi­tiza­tion and AI solu­tion for cons­truc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, came­ras at high posi­ti­ons and previously unique deep-lear­ning models are used to auto­ma­ti­cally record cons­truc­tion proces­ses. This gives users access to func­tions such as an auto­ma­ted target/actual sche­dule, self-writing daily cons­truc­tion reports or process key figu­res. With oculai, cons­truc­tion projects become more trans­pa­rent, produc­tive and plan­nable, while cons­truc­tion manage­ment work proces­ses are auto­ma­ted. Curr­ently, the solu­tion is mainly used in shell cons­truc­tion and on initial infra­struc­ture projects.

oculai camera

“Espe­ci­ally in the current times, the trans­for­ma­tion of the cons­truc­tion indus­try towards intel­li­gent produc­tion systems is beco­ming more and more important. We also notice this in the response to our product. With the fresh tail­wind, we can leverage this momen­tum and take big steps now,” said Constan­tin Kauff­mann, co-foun­der and CEO of oculai

“oculai’s AI has the poten­tial to be a game-chan­ger for process plan­ning in the cons­truc­tion indus­try. At HTGF, we are proud that oculai is our 700th company. Seed invest­ment is. An anni­ver­sary that shows how active and diverse the start-up and inno­va­tion land­scape in Germany is. With our new fund gene­ra­tion HTGF IV, around 500 million euros are available for invest­ments in promi­sing start-ups and tech­no­lo­gies. The larger group of fund inves­tors enables us to offer more added value for the port­fo­lio compa­nies and invest signi­fi­cantly more per company. We are plea­sed to be able to make a rele­vant contri­bu­tion to solving many chal­lenges by funding highly inno­va­tive start­ups,” Dr. Alex von Fran­ken­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF

“No matter how large or complex a cons­truc­tion project may be — oculai offers the perfect over­view. The foun­ding team has deve­lo­ped a unique AI for shell cons­truc­tion that can enorm­ously increase the higher level of auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion urgen­tly needed in the indus­try,” explains Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapital

“The cons­truc­tion indus­try is one of the least digi­ti­zed indus­tries due to a harsh work envi­ron­ment and compli­ca­ted work­flows, which makes change manage­ment parti­cu­larly diffi­cult. Oculai achie­ves a return on invest­ment from day one with a holi­stic, turn­key solu­tion that enables cons­truc­tion mana­gers to stream­line their work­flow and produce useful data. This impro­ves the lear­ning curve from one project to the next,” explains Mathias Flattin, Part­ner & Mana­ging Direc­tor Axeleo Capital.

About oculai
oculai is a ConTech startup that uses came­ras and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to auto­ma­ti­cally record cons­truc­tion proces­ses and progress. The foun­ders Constan­tin Kauff­mann (CEO), Tim Sippl (CTO) and Yannik Mack (CFO/ COO) know each other from their studies at the Fried­rich Alex­an­der Univer­sity Erlan­gen-Nurem­berg. The idea for the startup sprang from rese­arch into camera-based recor­ding of manual indus­trial proces­ses. The startup formed in seve­ral foun­der programs, such as the Digi­tal Tech Academy, Unter­neh­mer­TUM, and Zoll­hof Incu­ba­tor, and was subse­quently supported by the EXIST-Grün­der­sti­pen­dium until oculai was offi­ci­ally foun­ded in July 2021. The company is now based in Munich and employs around 20 people. oculai’s product is an AI-powered soft­ware that reco­gni­zes and auto­ma­ti­cally docu­ments outdoor cons­truc­tion proces­ses from camera data. Users have access to an auto­ma­ted target/actual sche­dule, self-writing daily cons­truc­tion reports, produc­ti­vity metrics or walking routes, among other things, via a WebApp. Based on the auto­ma­ted docu­men­ta­tion and the coll­ec­ted data, there is a savings poten­tial of 7% of the shell cons­truc­tion costs and a time saving of 15% for site teams. https://www.oculai.de/

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 at an early stage 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, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more. www.bayernkapital.de

About Axeleo Capital
Axeleo Capi­tal (AXC) is a venture capi­tal firm that supports EU start­ups from the (pre-)seed stage through specia­li­zed funds in proptech and B2Btech.
Axeleo Proptech I (AXP1) is a €40 million fund focu­sed on proptech and contech start­ups across Europe. Our proptech invest­ments include Bean­stock, BRXS, Bright Spaces, Check&Visit, Garantme, Myr.ai, Prello. Our B2BTech invest­ments include cyber secu­rity, fintech and enter­prise soft­ware compa­nies such as Alsid, Aplo, Cumul.io, Jenji, Joko, Trust­pair. https://www.axc.vc/

About Leonard
Leonard is the VINCI Group’s inno­va­tion and fore­sight plat­form. Leonard was crea­ted to envi­sion the future of the Group’s busi­nesses and is tasked with moni­to­ring emer­ging trends in VINCI’s areas of exper­tise and markets, iden­ti­fy­ing new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and setting up incu­ba­tion and acce­le­ra­tor programs for employees as well as start-ups. To host these programs and foster exch­an­ges with all the people brea­king new ground in VINCI’s busi­ness lines, Leonard opened Leonard:Paris, a 4,500-square-meter labo­ra­tory in Paris. In 2020, Leonard formed a team to expand opera­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
https://leonard.vinci.com/de .

News

Berlin — VC La Fami­glia closed its Growth Fund in Decem­ber and its Seed Fund III at the end of Febru­ary with a volume of over € 250 million. The legal advice was provi­ded by YPOG.
La Fami­glia announ­ced it has raised more than €250 million for its third seed fund and its first growth fund. The funds are backed by renow­ned entre­pre­neurs and leading indus­tria­lists to invest in the next gene­ra­tion of forward-looking compa­nies. Inves­tors in the two funds also include renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, parti­cu­larly from the USA. The VC has thus raised a total of more than €350 million since 2017.

La Fami­glia closed its first seed fund of €35 million in 2017, follo­wed by a second seed fund of €60 million in 2019. Now La Fami­glia is incre­asing its third seed fund to €165 million, with the goal of doubling invest­ments in emer­ging B2B giants in Europe and the US. In paral­lel, the VC laun­ches a growth fund with € 90 million.
As part of its third seed fund, La Fami­glia aims to make initial invest­ments of up to €5 million in start­ups deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and scalable busi­ness models for various indus­tries. The Growth Fund focu­ses on co-invest­ments in Series B and above companies.

In parti­cu­lar, YPOG advi­sed La Fami­glia on the struc­tu­ring of the third seed fund and the growth fund to obtain the regis­tra­tion as EuVECA mana­ger and to imple­ment the increased flexi­bi­lity for two paral­lel blind pool funds. For advice on U.S. regu­la­tory issues, La Fami­glia and YPOG are again rely­ing on the assis­tance of Kimber­ley J. Kaplan-Gross and Shaun C. Barnes of Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP.

About La Famigila

La Fami­glia is a venture capi­ta­list that provi­des early and growth stage support to strong tech­no­logy start­ups that reinvent estab­lished indus­tries. The team invests in areas such as logi­stics and supply chain, infra­struc­ture and data, retail and commerce, fintech and insur­tech, or Indus­try 4.0. In doing so, it pursues a hori­zon­tal focus on the future of work as well as sustaina­bi­lity. Examp­les of promi­nent seed invest­ments include Deca­corn Deel, unicorns Perso­nio and Forto, and more recently tech­no­logy plat­forms such as Y42, Sweep and Buynomics.

Consul­tant La Fami­glia: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Fund), Part­ner Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Fund), Associate

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IP/IT and nota­rial services. 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become 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 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Hamburg / Berlin / Oister­wijk — Lions­Home, toge­ther with its majo­rity share­hol­der Water­land Private Equity, is working at full speed on the further deve­lo­p­ment of a Euro­pean digi­tal publi­shing group: Follo­wing the successful inte­gra­tion of the product compa­ri­son plat­form Fashiola, Lions­Home has now acqui­red the Dutch opera­tor of deal & coupon portals Franke Media B.V..

Lions­Home GmbH from Berlin, which has been in exis­tence since 2014, has deve­lo­ped into a leading product compa­ri­son plat­form for Home & Living and is now one of the largest Euro­pean furnis­hing portals with over three million users in ten count­ries every month. In 2022, the majo­rity invest­ment by growth inves­tor Water­land marked the start of the deve­lo­p­ment of a leading Euro­pean commerce content group that will aggre­gate a wide range of digi­tal publi­shing models, e‑commerce & e‑service verti­cals, and geogra­phic markets under one roof. A first mile­stone in this stra­tegy was reached within a very short time in mid-2022 with the acqui­si­tion of Fashiola, which makes the online offe­rings of a large number of leading fashion brands compa­ra­ble for its users in more than 25 countries.

Franke Media, a leading opera­tor of deal & coupon portals, has now joined the group as its newest member, having built the most visi­ted discount websites in the Nether­lands and Belgium since its incep­tion in 2012. On Acties.nl and Deals.be, every month more than 1.5 million unique visi­tors find coupons and promo­ti­ons that come from part­ner­ships with major natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal brands such as bol.com, Amazon, ASOS, H&M, Nike and HEMA. The seller of the shares is foun­der Vince Franke, who will remain on board as CEO of Franke Media and will take a reverse stake in the Group as part of the transaction.

“At Water­land, we have always focu­sed on long-term and successful buy & build stra­te­gies, estab­li­shing tomorrow’s market leaders in exci­ting growth markets — Lions­Home is no excep­tion. The Group is ideally posi­tio­ned to become one of the leading part­ners for commerce content adver­ti­sing with broad coverage of verti­cal and geogra­phic e‑commerce markets as well as digi­tal publi­shing models. We look forward to working with Vince Franke and his team — they are very ambi­tious and excel­lently posi­tio­ned in terms of SEO exper­tise,” said Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land (Photo © Waterland).

“The acqui­si­tion of Franke Media marks another important step towards our vision of support­ing users across all chan­nels in their purcha­sing decis­i­ons,” added Michael Röcker, CEO of Lions­Home and the Group. “By expan­ding our Deals & Coupons capa­bi­li­ties, we will be able to offer our part­ners even more attrac­tive adver­ti­sing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future.”

“We are very exci­ted to be working with Lions­Home and Fashiola to build a leading Euro­pean digi­tal publi­shing group. Our goals align perfectly with those of Lions­Home and Water­land,” explains Vince Franke, foun­der and CEO of Franke Media. “Thanks to this part­ner­ship, we can acce­le­rate our inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and help even more online shop­pers in Europe save on their online purchases.”

About Lions­Home

With around 100 million users a year, product compa­ri­son website opera­tor Lions­Home is one of Europe’s leading digi­tal publi­shing houses. Lions­Home offers an inno­va­tive online service to browse furni­ture and home access­ories as well as fashion from a variety of stores at a glance and compare offers. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Chris­toph Köni­ger and Michael Röcker in Berlin and has since become one of the fastest growing digi­tal brands in the home & living sector. Lions­Home was named a Digital100 winner by Simi­lar­Web in 2022, making it one of the top ten fastest-growing digi­tal brands in the Home & Living segment. The add-on Fashiola was acqui­red in July 2022 and expan­ded the product port­fo­lio into the fashion segment.

About Franke Media B.V.

Franke Media, based in Oister­wijk, is one of the leading compa­nies in the Dutch affi­liate marke­ting world and opera­tes Acties.nl and Deals.be, the most visi­ted discount websites in the Nether­lands and Belgium. Across all plat­forms, more than 1.5 million users a month become aware of the wide range of discount and special offers on the web pages. The team ensu­res that visi­tors always find the most inte­res­t­ing and favorable discounts and special offers, ensu­ring satis­fied custo­mers and maxi­mum results for part­ners. Part­ner­ships exist with nume­rous major natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal brands, inclu­ding bol.com, Amazon, ASOS, H&M, Nike and HEMA, among others.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Norway (Oslo), Spain (Barce­lona) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, appro­xi­m­ately 14 billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fourth globally in the HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings (Janu­ary 2023) and seventh among global private equity firms in the Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report 2022.
www.waterland.de

 

News

Frankfurt/Miami — Cygna Labs, a leading compli­ance and cloud secu­rity soft­ware company, has ente­red into a binding agree­ment to acquire Vital­QIP, a global DDI soft­ware provi­der from Nokia Solu­ti­ons & Network Oy (“Nokia”). Cygna Labs is supported by the Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP), which holds a mino­rity stake in the company. The acqui­si­tion includes the Vital­QIP soft­ware solu­tion, custo­mer base and Vital QIP’s inter­na­tio­nal team of experts.

Cygna Labs is a leading soft­ware company in the areas of networ­king, cloud as well as secu­rity and the third largest global DDI provi­der. Many Fortune 100 custo­mers use Cygna Labs’ DDI products and services and secu­rity and compli­ance solu­ti­ons to iden­tify and proac­tively miti­gate thre­ats to their data secu­rity in a timely manner, pass compli­ance audits, and increase the produc­ti­vity of their IT departments.

Going forward, Cygna Labs’ mana­ged service offe­rings will be expan­ded to include solu­ti­ons from Vital­QIP, which is one of the top five provi­ders of DDI soft­ware and has nume­rous deploy­ments with large enter­pri­ses. Vital­QIP will remain as an inde­pen­dent product line within Cygna Labs Group after the tran­sac­tion. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, Vital­QIP custo­mers will bene­fit from Cygna Labs’ exper­tise and inno­va­tions, and will conti­nue to be served by compre­hen­sive main­ten­ance and support services, as well as 24x7 world­wide service.

Alex­an­der Häcker, CEO of Cygna Labs Group, said, “Cygna Labs conti­nues to support large enter­pri­ses that rely on our DDI products and services. With this acqui­si­tion, we expand our offe­ring to include VitalQIP’s indus­try-proven open and scalable DDI solu­ti­ons, which we will offer along­side our exis­ting DDI solutions.”

“The acqui­si­tion of Nokia’s leading DDI soft­ware streng­thens our Intellec­tual Property offe­ring and makes Cygna Labs the global number two in the DDI market,” added Chris­tian Ehren­thal, CEO of Cygna Labs. “From a busi­ness perspec­tive, the acqui­si­tion expands our product port­fo­lio, adds more Fortune 100 compa­nies to our custo­mer base, and increa­ses oppor­tu­ni­ties for Cygna Labs to expand our global market presence.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, comm­ents, “Follo­wing the acqui­si­ti­ons of the Diamond IP soft­ware solu­tion from British Tele­com and the DDI busi­ness unit of NCC Group last year, the Vital­QIP add-on marks the third important growth step for Cygna Labs within a very short time. We are very plea­sed to be able to accom­pany the company in this process.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

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

News

Ebner Stolz Mönning Bachem leaves Nexia and beco­mes a member of the inter­na­tio­nal network RSM in Octo­ber. What will happen to the previous German RSM company has not yet been commu­ni­ca­ted. Ebner Stolz’s sales figu­res for the past fiscal year are impres­sive: It was able to gene­rate 15.2 percent more than in the previous year. The tax consul­ting busi­ness also grew significantly.

RSM increa­ses global reve­nue by 15% to more than $8 billion in 2022

RSM is one of the leading provi­ders of audi­ting, tax and consul­ting services for medium-sized compa­nies. released its global reve­nue figu­res for 2022 and announ­ced the launch of its 2030 global stra­tegy. RSM Inter­na­tio­nal repor­ted in Febru­ary 2023 that global sales in 2022 were more than $8 billion (€7.34 billion), up 15% from the previous year. — Global sales up more than 41% in three years; double-digit growth in all RSM regi­ons for the second year in a row. 10% increase in head­count to 57,000 RSM employees. RSM network targets 100% reve­nue growth by 2030,

Largest growth in consul­ting services

In 2022, global fees for RSM’s consul­ting services increased by 37%, inclu­ding IT consul­ting, which increased by 26%. Global sales from Risk Advi­sory also grew by 26%. RSM also saw strong global growth in Accoun­ting Services (11%), Tax (8%) and Audit (6%). — The number of employees world­wide also grew again. This has increased by 18% in the last two years alone to now 57,000 employees.

Global Stra­tegy 2030 marks a new era for RSM

With its Global Stra­tegy 2030, RSM aims to achieve 100% reve­nue growth by 2030. As part of the stra­tegy, RSM will also incre­asingly use auto­ma­tion, Big Data, machine lear­ning and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to meet the chan­ges in the new world of work and support compa­nies in the best possi­ble way.

About RSM in Germany

RSM GmbH is one of the ten largest medium-sized audi­ting and tax consul­ting firms in Germany, inde­pen­dent and part­ner-mana­ged. The more than 900 employees, inclu­ding around 250 audi­tors, tax advi­sors and attor­neys, provide audi­ting, tax, tran­sac­tion, corpo­rate and legal advice prima­rily to medium-sized compa­nies from 18 loca­ti­ons. RSM GmbH also advi­ses its custo­mers world­wide in the RSM network with more than 57,000 employees in around 120 countries.

News

Annwei­ler — The manu­fac­tu­rer of folding carton Buch­mann Karton GmbH sells to carton­board produ­cer Moritz J. Weig GmbH & Co KG. Buch­mann was advi­sed by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek. Howe­ver, the take­over is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval. The produ­cers did not disc­lose the amount of the transaction.

Buch­mann looks back on a tradi­tion of about 120 years as an owner-mana­ged company and is active in the field of deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of folding cartons with more than 330 employees at the Annwei­ler site. Buch­mann gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 190 million in 2022. At the begin­ning of March, a sales agree­ment was signed with the WEIG Group.

WEIG is also an owner-mana­ged group of compa­nies. WEIG’s acti­vi­ties cover the pack­a­ging, carton­board and recy­cling sectors. The WEIG Group includes compa­nies in Germany and South America. Appro­xi­m­ately 1500 employees gene­rate sales of over EUR 800 million p.a. for WEIG. The sale of the shares to Buch­mann took place within the frame­work of a struc­tu­red sales process.

A team led by M&A specia­lists Dr. Andreas Lenz (Colo­gne) and Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein (Stutt­gart) advi­sed the share­hol­ders of folding carton manu­fac­tu­rer Buch­mann Gesell­schaft mit beschränk­ter Haftung (Buch­mann) on its sale to the WEIG Group.

Advi­sors to Buch­mann Gesell­schaft mit beschränk­ter Haftung: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek 
Dr. Andreas Lenz, Colo­gne, Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M., (Corpo­rate Law/M&A, joint lead), Stuttgart;
Dr. Johan-Michel Menke, LL.M., (Labor Law), Hamburg, Michael Neises (Finan­cing), Frankfurt,
Dr. Frank Baßler (Real Estate Law), Stutt­gart, Beatrice Stange, LL.M., (Compe­ti­tion Law), Düsseldorf;
Dr. Emanuel Teich­mann, Ramona Bauer-Schöll­kopf, LL.M., (both Corpo­rate Law/M&A), both Stuttgart,
Bastian Rieck, Dr. Vera Randel (both M&A, Corpo­rate Law), both Cologne;
Antje Münch, LL.M., (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Stuttgart,
Bettina Nehe­i­der (Public Law, Envi­ron­ment), Dr. Ruth Schnei­der (Commer­cial), both Munich;
Vero­nika Straub, Ivana Djepic (both Real Estate), both Stuttgart;
Chris­tian Staps, Michèle von Lewin­ski (both Banking & Finance), both Frankfurt;
Dr. Arietta von Stechow, Timo Trefzger (both Labor Law), both Hamburg;
Carina Bart (Labor Law), Stuttgart

The sellers were advi­sed on tax matters by lawy­ers and tax consul­tants Chris­tian Roth and Jens Otto von Bans­bach.

The WEIG Group was repre­sen­ted by a team from Graf von West­pha­len Frank­furt am Main, led by attor­ney Eric Messenzehl.

News

Düssel­dorf — The Frank­furt-based health­care PR agency 3K Agen­tur für Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH is selling to the British WPP Group. A Düssel­dorf-based Deloitte Legal team led by corporate/M&A part­ners Michael von Rüden and Thilo Hoff­mann (Düssel­dorf) advi­sed on the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1998, 3K Agen­tur für Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH is one of the leading health­care public rela­ti­ons agen­cies in Germany. It is known for its exper­tise in medi­cine, health­care, biophar­maceu­ti­cals and rela­ted scien­ces. Its clients include well-known global phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, as well as consu­mer health brands and local biotech start-ups.

WPP is an inter­na­tio­nal commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, adver­ti­sing, public rela­ti­ons and tech­no­logy holding company head­quar­te­red in London. Through the tran­sac­tion, 3K Agen­tur für Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH will become part of the global network of Hill+Knowlton Stra­te­gies, a subsi­diary of WPP, which is an inter­na­tio­nal commu­ni­ca­ti­ons consul­tancy provi­ding services to local, multi­na­tio­nal and global clients.

For 3K Agen­tur für Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH, the tran­sac­tion promi­ses syner­gies with the global network of Hill+Knowlton Stra­te­gies and WPP. For its part, Hill+Knowlton Stra­te­gies’ acqui­si­tion of German health­care commu­ni­ca­ti­ons specia­list 3K offers a boost to its inter­na­tio­nal health­care capabilities.

Advi­sor 3K Agen­tur für Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH, owner Ruth Bastuck: Deloitte Legal
Led by corporate/M&A part­ners Michael von Rüden and Thilo Hoff­mann (Düssel­dorf)

Advi­sor WPP: DLA Piper
Daniel Osma­no­vic (Frank­furt) et al.

About Deloitte Legal

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services.
Deloitte refers to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms and its affi­lia­tes (coll­ec­tively, the “Deloitte Orga­niza­tion”). DTTL (also refer­red to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and their affi­lia­tes are legally sepa­rate and inde­pen­dent enti­ties that cannot bind or obli­gate each other with respect to third parties. DTTL, each DTTL Member Company and Affi­lia­tes shall be liable only for their own acts and omis­si­ons and not for those of others. DTTL itself does not provide any services to clients. www.deloitte.com/de/UeberUns.

News

Munich/ Hamburg — Munich-based invest­ment holding Armira has bought into German start-up Factor Eleven. Its main share­hol­ders are giving up a majo­rity stake in the company. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Alex­an­der Anhuth and is based in Hamburg. Previous main share­hol­ders and sellers of Factor Eleven are a family holding of the foun­der and CEO, Alex­an­der Anhuth, and a family holding of the entre­pre­neur and inves­tor Werner Dreesbach.

Factor Eleven says it is a leading tech­no­logy company that provi­des adver­ti­sers with a one-stop soft­ware solu­tion for their cross-chan­nel campaigns. Foun­ded in 2014 by Alex­an­der Anhuth, the company uses proprie­tary algo­rithms and deli­vers not only Brand Safety, but also metrics-based and trans­pa­rent billing. FACTOR ELEVEN is conti­nuously deve­lo­ping its own tech­no­logy stack to auto­mate and simplify the process from campaign plan­ning to billing. Campaigns can be plan­ned and booked by all adver­ti­sers in both mana­ged and self-service (soft­ware-as-a-service) mode. At the same time, the plat­form hand­les digi­tal campaigns for over one thousand compa­nies. Custo­mers and part­ners include well-known compa­nies from the corpo­rate, agency and SME sectors. The company curr­ently employs just under 100 people and is active on the Austrian and French markets in addi­tion to the German market. Other inter­na­tio­nal markets will follow.

The invest­ment holding company Armira invests prima­rily in tech­no­logy compa­nies. It offers closed-end alter­na­tive invest­ment funds that acquire equity inte­rests in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany and, where appro­priate, in Austria and Switz­er­land. The focus is on family busi­nesses and tech­no­logy. The focus is on the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of the companies.

Advi­sor Armira: Rödl & Partner

During the entire tran­sac­tion, Armira was advi­sed by a tran­sac­tion team from Rödl & Part­ner specia­li­zing in finan­cial issues. In addi­tion to conduc­ting a finan­cial due dili­gence, the team provi­ded ongo­ing advice on issues rele­vant to the purchase price in the share purchase agree­ment from the start of the project to signing. Part­ner Matthias Zahn was respon­si­ble for the over­all project manage­ment. Asso­ciate Part­ner Michal Wilc­zek was respon­si­ble for the execu­tion on this M&A deal. www.roedl.de.

Advi­sors to Armira Invest­ment Holding: White & Case (London)

Gareth Eagles (Finance), Marcus Booth (Private Equity), Dr. Matthias Kiese­wet­ter (M&A/Corporate; Hamburg), Emma Foster, Andreas Lischka (Frank­furt; both Finance), Phil­lip Vava­li­dis (Dubai), Hugo Schwarz Leite (both Private Equity), Markus Fischer (Finance; both Frank­furt), Moritz Müller-Butt­mann (M&A/Corporate; Hamburg); Asso­cia­tes: Oliver Trot­man, Jacob Heath (both Finance), Adnan Bekdur (all London), Thomas Jacques (both Private Equity), Tigran Saak­yan (both Dubai), Moritz Schnei­der, Dr. Nico Frehse, Thors­ten Eggert (all Corporate/M&A; all Hamburg)
Taxess (Frank­furt): Gerald Thomas (tax law) — known from the market

Advi­sor Factor Eleven: CMS Hasche Sigle (Munich)

Stefan-Ulrich Müller, Dr. Jessica Mohaupt-Schnei­der, Photo (© CMS) (both lead)
Dr. Jacob Siebert (all Corporate/Private Equity), Jörg Schr­ade (Tax Law), Dr. Markus Kaulartz (IT/Data Protec­tion), Stefan Lüft (IP), Dr. Bene­dikt Forsch­ner (Labor Law), Dr. André Frische­meier (Banking and Finance Law), Stefan Lehr (Anti­trust Law), Dr. Stefan Höß (Real Estate Law/Public Law), Dr. Chris­toph Küster (Corporate/Private Equity), Dr. Chris­toph Ceele (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Tobias Kalski, Sebas­tian Hummel, Marie­louise Emmer, Matthias Unger, Dr. Chris­tian Seebur­ger (all Corporate/Private Equity), Eduard Kosavtsev (Tax Law), Dr. Felix Glocker, Katha­rina Hirzle (both IT/Data Protec­tion), Annika Linde­mann (IP), Sarah Schä­fer (Labor Law), Hatice Akyel (Banking and Finance Law)

 

News

Düssel­dorf — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) reali­zes acqui­si­tion of pdv Finan­cial Soft­ware GmbH as well as van den Berg GmbH and van den Berg Service AG. In the future, the acqui­red compa­nies will operate under the umbrella of pdv Holding GmbH, which was foun­ded for this purpose and in which the manage­ment teams have inves­ted. The colla­bo­ra­tion between the two compa­nies marks a mile­stone in Main’s efforts to build a strong group in the banking soft­ware market.

Toge­ther with manage­ment, Main will support the group in its growth plans and with a selec­tive buy-and-build stra­tegy. The focus is on the further expan­sion of the banking soft­ware plat­form to include the core areas of trading, payment tran­sac­tions and supple­men­tary banking solu­ti­ons with a focus on recur­ring revenues.

pdv Finan­cial Soft­ware GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, is the German market leader for capi­tal market soft­ware and offers end-to-end solu­ti­ons for the entire trading process chain. The solu­tion covers all major asset clas­ses and finan­cial instru­ments, both for buying and selling as well as for insti­tu­tio­nal and private trading. Key reasons for Main’s invest­ment include pdv’s cross-selling poten­tial within the broa­der banking soft­ware group, its attrac­tive finan­cial profile with sustained double-digit growth and high profi­ta­bi­lity, and its strong custo­mer base.

The van den Berg Group, which consists of van den Berg GmbH and van den Berg Service AG and is head­quar­te­red in Herzo­gen­rath, Germany, curr­ently offers payment soft­ware solu­ti­ons to its appro­xi­m­ately 100 custo­mers, who are prima­rily active in the banking sector. The company’s product port­fo­lio includes Payment Proces­sing and Manage­ment (PPM) with all elements requi­red for recei­ving, conver­ting, veri­fy­ing, correc­ting, recon­ci­ling and routing payment tran­sac­tions. In addi­tion, van den Berg offers further func­tions for SEPA Card Clea­ring for proces­sing card payments as well as an Instant Payments Gate­way. Estab­lished as a part­ner to banks for over 35 years and in use as a Payments-as-a-Service solu­tion for 15 years, van den Berg has built strong rela­ti­onships with its custo­mers and has succee­ded in buil­ding a long-stan­ding and loyal custo­mer base.

The products and services of pdv and van den Berg comple­ment each other to a large extent and thus promise a high synergy poten­tial through cross- and upsel­ling within the broa­der banking soft­ware group. The merger will further expand the alre­ady strong presence of both compa­nies in the banking soft­ware market.

The team led by Düssel­dorf-based Deloitte Legal lawy­ers Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen has advi­sed Main Capi­tal on a number of plat­form and add-on tran­sac­tions since 2015; more recently, Deloitte Legal has also repea­tedly acted for Main on the seller side, for exam­ple in the sale of finan­cial soft­ware provi­der b+m Group to German tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners and the stra­te­gic sale of arte­gic to UNITED Marke­ting Tech­no­lo­gies by DuMont.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal Part­ners: Deloitte Legal

Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Co-Lead); Frauke Heudt­lass (Part­ner, Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Niko Jako­vou, LL.M. (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Felix Skala, LL.M. (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Hamburg); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Diet­mar Althaus (Coun­sel, Commercial/IT, Colo­gne), Stefan Weste (Coun­sel, Labor Law, Berlin); Nicole Deneke, Nicole Rurik (Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Leonie Onkel­bach (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Düsseldorf).

Deloitte Finan­cial Advi­sory: Jan Verleys­donk (Part­ner), Mathias Keller (Part­ner), Sven Hausen (Direc­tor); Vilma Vranici (Mana­ger), Janis Fabio Baltha­sar (Mana­ger), Pauline Tubben (Consul­tant, all Deloitte Finan­cial Advi­sory, Düsseldorf)

News

Bonn/ Berlin — The DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF) has successfully closed its first invest­ment in a Series A finan­cing. Toge­ther with HZG Group, Onsight Ventures and the exis­ting inves­tor SquareOne, the DTCF provi­des xolo GmbH with 8 million euros. With this funding, xolos aims to trans­form the 3D prin­ting indus­try through their revo­lu­tio­nary new process called “Xolo­gra­phy”. The focus of xolo is on opti­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, bioprin­ting and the dental and acou­stics industries.

Xolo­gra­phy is a volu­metric prin­ting process that prints quickly and produ­ces very smooth surfaces. It also opera­tes with mate­ri­als that previously could not be used for 3D prin­ting. This addres­ses three of the major chal­lenges facing the 3D prin­ting indus­try. The aim is to help Xolo­gra­phy tech­no­logy achieve a breakth­rough and ther­eby open up comple­tely new fields of appli­ca­tion for 3D prin­ting. For exam­ple, in medi­cal tech­no­logy for the repro­duc­tion of organs or in the opti­cal indus­try for the produc­tion of high-precis­ion lenses.

Objects arise virtually from nothing

The prin­ting process was deve­lo­ped at the Berlin-Adlers­hof Tech­no­logy Park by xolo foun­ders Prof. Dr. Martin Regehly, Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht and Dirk Radzinski. Xolo­gra­phy sounds like science fiction, because objects are crea­ted virtually from nothing. The three foun­ders are putting Xolo­gra­phy to work in the Xube 3D prin­ter. Unlike conven­tio­nal 3D prin­ting proces­ses, which work layer by layer, Xolo­gra­phy prints from the full volume.

For this purpose, a cuvette contai­ning liquid resin moves conti­nuously through a so-called light section into which a light projec­tion is focu­sed. By enri­ching the liquid resin with photo-active special chemi­cals deve­lo­ped by xolo, the so-called photo­in­itia­tors, the end product with smooth surfaces is crea­ted within a very short time. Read more in the scien­ti­fic jour­nal “Nature”, in which the rese­ar­chers descri­bed their method: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020‑3029‑7.

Our inves­tors under­stand the importance of the para­digm shift

xolo co-foun­der and CEO Dirk Radzinski: “Xolo­gra­phy repres­ents a funda­men­tal change in the 3D prin­ting indus­try. From hard­ware to mate­ri­als, ever­y­thing is being rethought. Our inves­tors under­stand the importance of this para­digm shift and support us with their finan­cial strength, exper­tise and network to make it a success.”

Frank Cars­ten Herzog, Mana­ging Part­ner of the HZG Group, adds: “Xolo­gra­phy signi­fi­cantly impro­ves the reso­lu­tion and volume gene­ra­tion rate of previous proces­ses. This means that in the future, the process will be able to produce high volu­mes of detailed objects in a short time — the econo­mic poten­tial is enormous.”

The DTCF focu­ses its invest­ments on the capi­tal-inten­sive growth phase of compa­nies. The goal is to deve­lop the tech­no­logy cham­pi­ons of the future. With its first invest­ment, the DeepT­ech & Climate fund aims to help xolo’s revo­lu­tio­nary 3D prin­ting tech­no­logy make the tran­si­tion to indus­trial-scale use. Co-Mana­ging Direc­tor Tobias Faupel (photo © DTCF): “xolo has all the prere­qui­si­tes to become a future market leader in the field of 3D prin­ting. We are plea­sed to accom­pany this deve­lo­p­ment toge­ther with HZG, Onsight Ventures and SquareOne.”

Consul­tant Xolo: Vogel Heerma Waitz 

Florian Kozok and Sinje Clausen

News

Bonn — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) closes its fourth fund gene­ra­tion with a total volume of 493.8 million euros. This makes HTGF IV HTGF’s largest fund to date. The seed inves­tor, which invests in tech­no­logy start­ups in the digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors, has backed more than 690 start­ups since it was foun­ded. The volume of the third fund gene­ra­tion of 319.5 million euros was excee­ded by more than 50 percent in the fourth fund generation.

HTGF has also once again been able to signi­fi­cantly increase the number of private inves­tors compared to fund gene­ra­tion three: 45 private inves­tors are parti­ci­pa­ting in HTGF IV along­side the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Climate Protec­tion (BMWK) and KfW Capi­tal. The majo­rity of the private inves­tors are market-leading SMEs or hidden cham­pi­ons. Nume­rous large compa­nies and family offices are also among the investors.

The repre­sen­ta­tive of private inves­tors in the new fund is Alexa Gorman (photo © SAP.io). Gorman leads all SAP SE startup acti­vi­ties world­wide as senior vice presi­dent of SAP.iO; she is conside­red a proven expert in corpo­rate venture capi­tal and will serve as vice chair of the Inves­tor Advi­sory Board.

Initial invest­ments have alre­ady been made, inclu­ding in Reflex Aero­space (custom and high-perfor­mance satel­li­tes), Phia­lo­gics (biolo­gics that balance the immune response in acute and chro­nic inflamm­a­tion), and Visio­Lab (AI-based check-out solutions).

With the new gene­ra­tion of funds, HTGF can invest even more flexi­bly and quickly, while simpli­fy­ing the invest­ment crite­ria. Start-ups need only be less than three years old and must be head­quar­te­red in Germany or have a German perma­nent estab­lish­ment if the company is based in another Euro­pean country.

In addi­tion, the fund can provide more capi­tal per start-up in the future: Up to one million euros is possi­ble in the seed round. HTGF can thus invest a total of up to four million euros in a start-up across all finan­cing rounds.

“We are proud to have signi­fi­cantly expan­ded the number of private inves­tors at HTGF IV despite an envi­ron­ment that has been extre­mely diffi­cult in some cases. In addi­tion to the very good econo­mic perfor­mance of the first three funds, the diverse added values for private inves­tors are decisive. The inves­tor base of HTGF IV reflects the strengths of the German economy: In addi­tion to mostly hidden cham­pi­ons, selec­ted large corpo­ra­ti­ons, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and, for the first time, five family offices are inves­tors in HTGF IV,” says Dr. Alex von Fran­ken­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF.

“The very successful fund­rai­sing conti­nues to enable us to finance start-ups with pionee­ring inno­va­tions in large numbers. At the same time, we are able to deploy more capi­tal per invest­ment thanks to our fund inves­tors. This is a signi­fi­cant change in this market phase,” Guido Schlit­zer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

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

Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.
www.htgf.de

News

Berlin — A Berlin team of Deloitte Legal led by Dr. Julia Peter­sen (Part­ner) advi­sed capi­ton V GmbH & Co Betei­li­gungs KG on the sale of Raith GmbH and AEMtec GmbH and their subsi­dia­ries to the newly estab­lished “capi­ton Quan­tum” fund.

Raith and AEMtec are leading compa­nies in the field of indus­trial tech­no­logy. Under capiton’s owner­ship, both compa­nies have focu­sed on capa­city expan­sion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and impro­ving their tech­no­logy offe­ring in recent years. Toge­ther with the respec­tive manage­ment teams, who will remain on board after the tran­sac­tion, a stra­tegy of orga­nic growth and addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons will conti­nue to be pursued.

Chris­toph Karbenk, Mana­ging Part­ner at capi­ton (Photo © Capi­ton): “On behalf of the entire capi­ton team, I would like to thank the group of inves­tors who supported us in this tran­sac­tion, as well as the manage­ment teams who have done an outstan­ding job to date. We are very exci­ted to conti­nue this successful part­ner­ship and take both compa­nies to the next level. The trans- action gene­ra­tes strong returns for our exis­ting capi­ton V LPs, who have been left free to either gene­rate liqui­dity or parti­ci­pate in the next chap­ter of both companies.”

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, the Deloitte Legal team was respon­si­ble in parti­cu­lar for the prepa­ra­tion of a compre­hen­sive legal fact­book as well as the execu­tion of the multi­na­tio­nal legal due dili­gence regar­ding the compa­nies of the Raith and AEMtec Group. Under the leader­ship of Deloitte Legal, legal advi­sors from China, the USA and the Nether­lands were invol­ved in the due dili­gence. The finan­cial due dili­gence was perfor­med by Deloitte Finan­cial Advisory.

Advi­sor Capi­ton: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Julia Peter­sen (lead), Dr. Moritz Erkel, Anna Reshe­tina-Kork­hova, Dr. Klaus Pilz (all Corpo­rate M&A, Berlin), Stefan Weste (Labor Law, Berlin).
Deloitte Finan­cial Advisory:
Kars­ten Holl­asch, Roland Basler, Caro­lin Kopy­ciok, Nastas­sja Nier­ling, Tim Geil­ker (all Finan­cial Advi­sory, Düssel­dorf; hand­ling Raith Finan­cial Due Dili­gence); Jens Schulze-Velling­hau­sen, Dirk Uhl, Chris­tof Schrei­ber, Alex­an­der Schmidt, Fabian Hansen, Fedor Ivanov (all Finan­cial Advi­sory, Hamburg; hand­ling AEMtec Finan­cial Due Diligence).

Other advi­sors: UBS Invest­ment Bank, Stephen­son Harwood LLP, P+P Pöllath, BMH Bräu­ti­gam, Ashurst LLP, Ernst & Young, Houli­han Lokey and Roland Berger

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery is advi­sing Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Dutch soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer NetRom Holding B.V. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Q1 2023.

McDer­mott consis­t­ently advi­ses Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on tran­sac­tions in the tech­no­logy sector. For exam­ple, the acqui­si­tion of cyber­se­cu­rity company Avira for around 165 million euros and its sale for around 360 million dollars to Norton­Li­feL­ock Inc. and on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity inte­rest in the Content­serv Group.

Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners focu­ses on inves­t­ing in fast-growing, foun­der-led compa­nies in Europe. The tech­no­logy team is conside­red a market leader in inves­t­ing in lower middle market compa­nies with a focus on soft­ware, data/analytics, cyber­se­cu­rity and fintech/payment. Since 2001, Invest­corp has raised more than $1.5 billion to invest in tech­no­logy companies.

Advi­sors to Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Dr. Michael Cziesla (Photo © McDer­mott Will & Emery), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law); Asso­ciate: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (Corporate/M&A)
Orange Clover (Nether­lands)
Mușat și Asociații (Roma­nia)

 

News

Berlin — Raue is expan­ding its corpo­rate and tran­sac­tional team with the addi­tion of Dr. Nadine Hartung (photo © Raue) as Equity Part­ner on March 1, 2023. Dr. Nadine Hartung specia­li­zes in corpo­rate law and M&A advice in the health­care sector and was previously a part­ner at McDer­mott Will & Emery in Munich.

Dr. Nadine Hartung advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors as well as health­care provi­ders on corpo­rate law, M&A tran­sac­tions, contract draf­ting and corpo­rate gover­nance and compli­ance issues. Her clients include private equity and venture capi­tal funds, medi­cal care centers (MVZ), opera­tors of hospi­tals and nursing homes, as well as phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies and medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­r­ers. It is recom­men­ded by Legal 500, Best Lawy­ers and Handelsblatt.

Dr. Nadine Hartung studied and recei­ved her docto­rate in Marburg. From 2010 to 2016, she worked at Henge­ler Muel­ler in Berlin and Frank­furt am Main before joining McDer­mott Will & Emery LLP in 2016. In 2013/2014, she spent a second­ment in the M&A team of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York.

Dr. Hartung explains the reasons for her move to Raue: “Raue offers nume­rous syner­gies to my advi­sory prac­tice, espe­ci­ally in corpo­rate law and VC advi­sory as well as in health­care law and digi­tal economy. I look forward to working with my colle­agues at Raue to further expand tran­sac­tional advice focu­sed on the health­care sector in particular.”

Raue Mana­ging Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Hertel: “We are very plea­sed that Dr. Hartung has joined us. With her, we have found an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner perso­na­lity who has deve­lo­ped an indus­try-focu­sed advi­sory offe­ring — this fits perfectly with our own stra­te­gic approach. We conti­nue to focus on growth in advi­sing regu­la­ted indus­tries and technologies.”

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle, Part­ner at Raue in the Corpo­rate and M&A prac­tice, says of Dr. Hartung’s arri­val: “Dr. Hartung is an excel­lent addi­tion to our private equity / venture capi­tal advi­sory prac­tice. With her, we will further increase our exper­tise in advi­sing tran­sac­tions, in parti­cu­lar also for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in the health­care industry.”

Dr. Katha­rina Wodarz, part­ner at Raue in the health­care sector adds: “Dr. Nadine Hartung is an almost ideal addi­tion for us. She has known the health­care sector for many years and is fami­liar with its complex regu­la­tion. This allows for seam­less colla­bo­ra­tion with our strong regu­la­tory team when advi­sing on new busi­ness models and transactions.”

With the addi­tion of Dr. Nadine Hartung, Raue’s Corporate/M&A, PE/VC prac­tice compri­ses a total of 14 profes­sio­nals (six equity part­ners, one coun­sel, one senior asso­ciate, one of coun­sel and five associates).

About RAUE

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com.

News

Landshut/ Nurem­berg — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, and the seed fund BORN2GROW, which specia­li­zes in high-growth start-ups in pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gies, are jointly inves­t­ing in trap­lin­ked. The Nurem­berg-based start-up deve­lops perma­nent moni­to­ring systems and networked traps for the control and moni­to­ring of rats, mice, insects and other pests. Seve­ral busi­ness angels are also invol­ved in the invest­ment, which totals EUR 2.3 million.

trap­lin­ked GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 by Tim Kirch­hof in Nurem­berg and produ­ces remo­tely moni­to­red auto­ma­tic pest traps as well as accom­pany­ing soft­ware that covers all the office work of a pest control­ler, from infe­sta­tion and treat­ment docu­men­ta­tion to deploy­ment route plan­ning and moni­to­ring to invoi­cing. The idea for the start-up matu­red while the foun­der was a student trai­nee at a pest control company. Here Kirch­hof reco­gni­zed the enorm­ous poten­tial for auto­ma­ting work proces­ses, which lay parti­cu­larly in the daily mono­to­nous work with trap boxes in which no catches were recorded.

With the combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy, trap­lin­ked has since contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the digi­tiza­tion of the pest control indus­try. The JERRY and TOM smart sensor modu­les moni­tor and docu­ment the condi­tion of trap boxes with real-time noti­fi­ca­ti­ons across multi­ple sites, making impact traps a time- and cost-effec­tive control method for pests of all kinds. This can signi­fi­cantly reduce food loss, the spread of dise­ase, and the use of contro­ver­sial poison baits ridd­led with draw­backs and risks.

So far, trap­lin­ked has sold more than 55,000 sensor modu­les across Europe. The new finan­cial resour­ces will be used to drive forward the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy and to expand the hard­ware — parti­cu­larly in the areas of connec­ti­vity and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for auto­ma­tic data analy­sis. Another focus is on mone­tiz­ing the in-house trap­lin­ked software.

Daniel Peli­kan, CEO of trap­lin­ked, comm­ents: “The hard­ware was our market entry. We have imple­men­ted this very successfully. With the fresh capi­tal, we now put the focus on soft­ware. Our goal is to gene­rate around 1,000,000 ARR by 2024.”

Manuel Böhrin­ger (Photo © Manuel Böhrin­ger), invest­ment mana­ger of BORN2GROW adds: “The market poten­tial in pest control is huge. We are convin­ced to revo­lu­tio­nize the market for digi­tal pest control toge­ther with the strong foun­ding team of traplinked.”

“Limi­ting pest effects is beco­ming incre­asingly important and at the same time more diffi­cult in the context of global warm­ing,” comm­ents Monika Steger, mana­ging direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “By elimi­na­ting poison bait and other toxics, trap­lin­ked is taking a sustainable approach to working at the cutting edge here, which is why we’re happy to support the company with our investment.”

About trap­lin­ked Gmbh

trap­lin­ked deve­lops digi­tal solu­ti­ons for pest control. Networked beat traps and the trap­lin­ked app save pest control opera­tors time and enable them to provide outstan­ding service to their custo­mers in all indus­tries. The goal: to make stri­ker traps a time- and cost-effi­ci­ent control method. Curr­ently, the use of traps is asso­cia­ted with high person­nel costs, as they must be checked daily. This is where traplinked’s digi­tal solu­tion comes in: A combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy moni­tors and docu­ments pest infe­sta­ti­ons, even across multi­ple loca­ti­ons. www.traplinked.com

About BORN2GROW

BORN2GROW (B2G) is a Heil­bronn-based and inter­na­tio­nally active seed fund that focu­ses on invest­ments in high-growth start­ups in forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies such as Life Scien­ces, Clean­Tech, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence & Machine Lear­ning, IoT, Hard­ware & Robo­tics, and Soft­ware. B2G was foun­ded in 2013 and supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and its exten­sive network. Since its incep­tion, the fund has actively supported more than 25 port­fo­lio compa­nies. B2G works toge­ther with other VC funds and busi­ness angels. B2G is a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, a family office that focu­ses on networ­king acti­vi­ties and invest­ments in the Heil­bronn-Fran­ken region. In this context, the coope­ra­tion between natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal start-ups and medium-sized compa­nies from the region is inten­si­fied. www.born2grow.de

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

Berlin — The Berlin-based company Selfapy, which offers people with mental illnesses effec­tive help in the form of digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons, has gained a strong part­ner in Medice Arznei­mit­tel as an inves­tor. The tran­sac­tion was supported by the invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co. On Decem­ber 23, 2022, a finan­cing round of 7 million euros was nota­ri­zed in Berlin. Leading the pack was Medice Arznei­mit­tel, a family-owned phar­maceu­ti­cal company focu­sed on the treat­ment of ADHD. All exis­ting inves­tors were also invol­ved, inclu­ding the health­care inves­tor SHS, Think.Health Ventures, IBB Ventures and HTGF.

7 million for further growth in Germany and Europe

“The funding round is an important mile­stone and a confir­ma­tion of confi­dence in the success of Selfapy,” Nora Blum, Co-CEO and Foun­der of Selfapy. The capi­tal provi­ded is to be used for the deve­lo­p­ment of further digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons for various mental disor­ders and for growth in the German market. More doctors and psycho­the­ra­pists can now be infor­med by Selfapy about the bene­fits of DiGA and prescribe Selfapy’s therapy cour­ses to their mentally ill patients.

A further part of the capi­tal is to be used for market entry in other Euro­pean countries:

“We see great poten­tial for digi­tal thera­pies in the area of mental illness, both in Germany and inter­na­tio­nally. With five comple­ted RCT studies and a broad user base in Germany, we are well on our way to expand our offe­ring to other indi­ca­ti­ons and into other markets,” Adham Kassab, Co-CEO of Selfapy

“Selfapy’s strong perfor­mance over the past few years speaks for itself. Digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons will conti­nue to gain importance in the coming years. We conti­nue to see a lot of growth poten­tial here and look forward to accom­pany­ing Selfapy on this jour­ney,” Dr. Richard Ammer, CEO of Medice. — Today, the MEDICE Group is one of the most successful owner-mana­ged family compa­nies in the German phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try, with more than 1,000 employees and annual sales of over 300 million EURO in around 50 markets worldwide.

New digi­tal health apps for people with mental illnesses
Since 2021, Selfapy’s perma­nently listed online cour­ses for people with depres­sion and anxiety disor­ders have alre­ady been reim­bur­sed by all health insu­r­ers. The back­ground to this is the certi­fi­ca­tion of the therapy cour­ses as digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons (DiGA), which are perma­nently listed in the direc­tory of the Fede­ral Minis­try for Drugs and Medi­cal Devices (BfArM). The on the
Selfapy online cour­ses based on cogni­tive beha­vi­oral therapy methods signi­fi­cantly reduce the symptoms of people with depres­sion and gene­ra­li­zed anxiety disor­der: the effec­ti­ve­ness has been proven in rando­mi­zed control­led trials. Just a few weeks ago, Selfapy was able to offer two more online cour­ses for people with binge-eating disor­der and bulimia
Nervosa to its port­fo­lio, making it the first DiGA provi­der for eating disor­ders. But the total of four certi­fied online cour­ses is not to be the end of the story: The capi­tal raised will be used to deve­lop further digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons and to conduct addi­tio­nal clini­cal studies. www.selfapy.com

 

News

Munich — For the first time, Siemens AG has issued a crypto secu­rity under the Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act in the amount of €60 million in a decen­tra­li­zed manner on a public block­chain. Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe acted as regis­trar and paying agent in the tran­sac­tion. Deka­Bank, DZ Bank and Union Invest­ment inves­ted in the bearer bond. GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Siemens AG on the legal struc­tu­ring and issu­ance of the crypto secu­ri­ties bond under the German Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act (eWpG). This is the first issu­ance of a crypto secu­rity by a DAX-40 company in the millions.

New oppor­tu­ni­ties for elec­tro­nic securities

The eWpG, which has been in force since June 2021, has made it possi­ble for the first time in Germany to issue elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties in fully digi­tal form, i.e. without a physi­cal global certi­fi­cate. The distinc­tive feature of crypto secu­ri­ties is that they are kept in a block­chain-based regis­try. To date, 20 such secu­ri­ties have been issued. With Siemens AG, one of Germany’s largest compa­nies is now taking advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity on a substan­tial scale for the first time.

The parties have thus set a mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal secu­ri­ties in Germany in terms of the form and amount of the issue. The paper was regis­tered in a decen­tra­li­zed regis­try on a public block­chain in accordance with the legal frame­work for elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties. The private keys are secu­red by Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG’s in-house crypto custo­dian, Hauck Aufhäu­ser Digi­tal Cust­ody (HADC). This struc­ture meant that sett­le­ment via a central secu­ri­ties depo­si­tory or a market maker was not neces­sary. The parties could thus deal directly with each other bila­te­rally and settle the paper through the register.

GSK Stock­mann and a team led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Tobias Rieth­mül­ler advi­sed Siemens AG on the capi­tal markets and banking regu­la­tory aspects of the issue. Among other things, the advice rela­ted to support in the draf­ting and nego­tia­tion of the requi­red contrac­tual docu­ments (bond terms and condi­ti­ons, issu­ance agree­ment, crypto secu­ri­ties regis­tra­tion agree­ment, paying agent agree­ment) as well as compli­ance under the eWpG.

GSK Stock­mann was able to draw on expe­ri­ence in the project, among other things, from advi­sing on one of the first ever block­chain secu­ri­ties tran­sac­tions in Germany, which also invol­ved Siemens AG in 2019. Most recently, GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Deut­sche Finance Group on the issu­ance of an elec­tro­nic secu­rity in Novem­ber 2022, also led by Dr. Tobias Riethmüller.

Advi­sors to Siemens AG: GSK Stockmann
Dr. Tobias Rieth­mül­ler (Lead Part­ner, Banking and Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Timo Patrick Bernau (Banking and Finan­cial Regu­la­tory Law); Asso­cia­tes: Patrick Wambold (Banking and Capi­tal Markets, Digi­tal Finan­cing Plat­forms), Dr. Martin Frey­tag (Banking and Finan­cial Regu­la­tory Law)

Heuking advi­sed Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG on the first crypto secu­ri­ties issue of Siemens AG, led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl. Also advi­sing on various aspects of the tran­sac­tion were part­ner Dr. Anne de Boer, part­ners Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe and Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, and asso­cia­tes Linda Karl, Michèle von Lewin­ski and Lena Wagner.

The compa­nies invol­ved have thus set a mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal secu­ri­ties in Germany in terms of the form and amount of the issue. The paper was regis­tered in a decen­tra­li­zed regis­try on a public block­chain, in accordance with the legal frame­work for elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties. The private keys were secu­red by Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG’s in-house crypto custo­dian, Hauck Aufhäu­ser Digi­tal Cust­ody (HADC).

As part of the tran­sac­tion, various contracts had to be drawn up. In parti­cu­lar, new regu­la­ti­ons such as the new Regu­la­tion on Requi­re­ments for Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Regis­tries (eWpRV) require crypto secu­ri­ties regis­trars to adhere to high regu­la­tory stan­dards for such tran­sac­tions. For Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl, who has been advi­sing Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe on various projects for quite some time, this is his first tran­sac­tion as a Part­ner at Heuking. The crypto and compli­ance expert had only joined Heuking in mid-January.

Advi­sors to Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl (lead), Frank­furt; Dr. Anne de Boer, LL.M., Stutt­gart; Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Colo­gne; Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, Michèle von Lewin­ski, Linda Karl, Lena Wagner, (all Capi­tal Markets), all Frankfurt.

News

Stutt­gart — Keen­sight Capi­tal acqui­res Onven­tis, a leading provi­der of cloud procu­re­ment solu­ti­ons for SMEs in the DACH region, Bene­lux and Scan­di­na­via Part­ners. The seller is Main Capi­tal Part­ners, which had inves­ted in Onven­tis in 2019. Keen­sight was advi­sed by DLA Piper on this transaction.

Keen­sight will support Onven­tis as it conti­nues to evolve into an inter­na­tio­nal SaaS cham­pion in the midmar­ket. The current manage­ment team will remain with the company and invest toge­ther with Keen­sight Capital.

Onven­tis, head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart, Germany, has been provi­ding cloud solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of purcha­sing and finance proces­ses since 2000. World­wide, more than 1,000 compa­nies in the Onven­tis network handle an annual procu­re­ment volume of over 10 billion euros with more than 50,000 suppliers.

During Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ invest­ment period, Onven­tis evol­ved from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean spend manage­ment soft­ware provi­der with local offices in the Nether­lands, Sweden and Austria. During this period, the company became an attrac­tive Rule-of-40 company with a strong focus on recur­ring reve­nue growth and an increase in total reve­nue of more than 2.0x.

Keen­sight Capi­tal is one of the leading Euro­pean growth buyout firms. For more than 20 years, the company has been making long-term invest­ments in profi­ta­ble compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and sales of between 10 and 400 million euros.

The DLA Piper team was led by Part­ner Lars Jessen (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) with Part­ners Sebas­tian Decker (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Dr. Konrad Rohde, Of Coun­sel Martin Hein­sius (both Tax, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Anne-Kath­rin Hoppe, Frie­de­rike Rickers (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Sven Bisch­off (Tax) and Asso­ciate Daniel Osma­no­vic (Corporate/M&A, both Frank­furt) in the core team. The team in Germany included more the partners.

In addi­tion, an inter­na­tio­nal team from DLA Piper’s offices in Sweden, the Nether­lands and Austria acted in an advi­sory capacity.

Paul Hastings, Paris, advi­sed on the French law aspects and struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion with Olivier Deren, Allard de Waal, Vincent Naci­n­o­vic and Alban Castarède.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

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

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. www.dlapiper.com

News

Düssel­dorf — The IPO of United Internet’s subsi­diary IONOS on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange took place on Febru­ary 8. Last year, United Inter­net made public its plans to float the cloud and web hosting company on the stock exch­ange follo­wing strong growth in recent years, in order to further expand its posi­tio­ning as a key provi­der of digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons for the self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises.

In 2021, IONOS repor­ted sales of EUR 1.06 billion, which accoun­ted for just under 20 percent of United Internet’s total sales. The adjus­ted EBITDA margin was 32.2 percent.

McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed IONOS Group in the context of its IPO on the struc­tu­ring of the compen­sa­tion system for the Manage­ment Board and the revi­sion of the contrac­tual compen­sa­tion arran­ge­ments for top manage­ment. The shares of IONOS are listed in the Prime Stan­dard of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange. It is the first major IPO in Europe in months.

IONOS is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of hosting services, cloud services and cloud infra­struc­ture from the United Inter­net AG Group. With the IPO, the company intends to further acce­le­rate its growth course.

United Inter­net is a leading Euro­pean inter­net service provi­der and tele­coms group.

Advi­sors to IONOS: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf
Dr. Thomas Gennert (lead), Volker Teigel­köt­ter; Asso­ciate: Julian Jäger (all labor law)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Dort­mund — Dort­mund-based start-up sovity has secu­red seven-figure seed funding to increase the effi­ci­ency and inno­va­tive capa­city of compa­nies through quick and easy access to data spaces. With the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of Europe’s leading seed inves­tors, and the Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­lo­gie-Trans­fer Fonds (FTTF), which has supported sovity since its begin­nings, two important compa­n­ions are on board. The new capi­tal will be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and the expan­sion of the market presence.

“We are very plea­sed that we were able to attract another well-known inves­tor in addi­tion to FTTF: HTGF also shares our vision of the market and the mission of our product around Data Space tech­no­logy.”, Sebas­tian Kleff, CEO and Co-Foun­der of sovity

“The market for Data Spaces is growing: compa­nies are now actively looking for solu­ti­ons that enable them to share data with part­ners as easily as possi­ble and without major tech­ni­cal hurd­les,” Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel, CTO and Co-Foun­der of sovity.

In Data Spaces, compa­nies can exch­ange and use data to measure the carbon foot­print of products, for exam­ple, or to gain trans­pa­rency about supplier requi­re­ments and capa­ci­ties. Data Spaces imple­ment prin­ci­ples of data sove­reig­nty — compa­nies retain full control over their data at all times. With sovity’s soft­ware — theCon­nec­tor-as-a-Service — compa­nies are offe­red the right solu­tion for this. This allows compa­nies to be connec­ted to a Date Spaces within ten minu­tes. Inde­pen­dent imple­men­ta­tion would take appro­xi­m­ately six to eight months.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, sovity has built a strong team of tech and busi­ness experts and curr­ently employs more than ten people. The team will use the funding to focus on further deve­lo­p­ment of the product. In addi­tion, the sales and marke­ting depart­ment is to be streng­the­ned in order to expand the market presence and acquire new custo­mers. On its website, sovity offers inte­res­ted compa­nies access to a trial version of its software.

“Sovity is very clear in their vision to make Data Spaces acces­si­ble to all busi­nesses. We see tech­no­logy as a rele­vant lever to enable compa­nies to exch­ange data with each other in order to opti­mize proces­ses and improve products and services,” Johan­nes Dier­kes, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

“Sovity enables the exch­ange of data while provi­ding full data control to data holders. Since its incep­tion, the team has made excel­lent tech­ni­cal progress and won important custo­mers as well as renow­ned part­ners,” said Tobias Schwind, Mana­ging Part­ner at FTTF.

Last but not least, exis­ting part­ner­ships with Data Spaces initia­ti­ves, such as Catena‑X, Mobi­lity Data Space and Gaia‑X, as well as with the Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces Asso­cia­tion (IDSA), are to be further expan­ded. In addi­tion to these initia­ti­ves, sovity is alre­ady working with a large number of indus­trial compa­nies on pilot or tech­no­logy projects.

About sovity

Foun­ded in Octo­ber 2021 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Soft­ware and Systems Engi­nee­ring ISST in Dort­mund, sovity offers data sove­reig­nty as a service. The start-up provi­des compa­nies with the tech­no­logy for Data Spaces based on stan­dards, inclu­ding Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces (IDS), Gaia‑X or Eclipse Foun­da­tion. Thus, sovity provi­des compa­nies with the easiest and fastest access to Data Spaces. Compa­nies exch­ange a wide range of infor­ma­tion via Data Spaces in order to opti­mize proces­ses or products and to deve­lop new busi­ness models. The mana­ging direc­tors of sovity, Sebas­tian Kleff (Co-Foun­der, CEO) and Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel (Co-Foun­der, CTO), have seve­ral years of exper­tise in the field of data exch­ange as well as corre­spon­ding use cases, e.g. from Fraun­ho­fer rese­arch and IDS, as well as seve­ral years of expe­ri­ence in manage­ment consul­ting at BCG Platinion.

About FTTF — Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund (FTTF) GmbH

The FTTF finan­ces start-ups that use Fraun­ho­fer tech­no­logy. As a strong entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner, up to 250 TEUR will be inves­ted in the pre-seed phase and up to 5 MEUR in further finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund provi­des support with exten­sive start-up expe­ri­ence and a broad inves­tor network. The fund has a volume of 60 MEUR, alre­ady more than 30 port­fo­lio compa­nies and is mainly finan­ced by the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF). www.fttf.eu

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 690 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has over 1.3 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 160 compa­nies. Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft, and more than 40 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

News

Munich — Eraneos Group has acqui­red DCP. DCP is a consul­ting firm specia­li­zed in finan­cial service provi­ders with head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf. The spec­trum of services ranges from busi­ness area alignment and the manage­ment of IT imple­men­ta­ti­ons to reor­ga­niza­tion and process opti­miza­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of new regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. Eraneos Group was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the law firm Gütt Olk Feldhaus.

Eraneos Group is an inde­pen­dent inter­na­tio­nal manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­tancy with offices in Switz­er­land, Germany, the Nether­lands, Spain, Luxem­bourg and Asia. It is the result of the merger of Ginkgo Manage­ment Consul­ting, Quint Group and AWK Group announ­ced in 2021. Origi­nally purely Swiss, Eraneos has become a leading inter­na­tio­nal digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion consul­ting group in recent years through mergers with Talos, Ginkgo and Quint. In 2021, the Group achie­ved sales of almost 200 million euros.

Legal advi­sors Eraneos Group: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), David Ziegel­mayer (Of Coun­sel, IP/Competition/Litigation), Matthias Uelner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Krappitz (Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law)

Kind & Drews, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Ernesto Drews (Part­ner, Tax 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

Amster­dam / Munich — Andra Tech Group, a leading group of compa­nies focu­sed on the manu­fac­tu­ring of precis­ion mecha­ni­cal compon­ents, successfully makes its second acqui­si­tion under the aegis of Equis­tone: With the majo­rity acqui­si­tion of DKH Metaal­be­werk­ing B.V. (“DKH”), a specia­li­zed manu­fac­tu­rer of complex metal­lic parts and compon­ents, the Dutch group further expands its presence in its home market. The group takes over DKH from its foun­der and CEO Fran­cois van Hirtum, who has deve­lo­ped the company into an estab­lished part­ner for a deman­ding custo­mer base from various high-tech industries.

Head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, Andra Tech Group (form­erly Kusters Beheer) has grown into a leading group for the manu­fac­ture of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and modu­les since its foun­ding in 1973. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of metal specia­list DKH, the Group now grows to a total of seven compa­nies. As a result, the Andra Tech Group employs around 500 highly quali­fied employees across the group, who use their many years of expe­ri­ence to serve an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base — with a parti­cu­lar focus on the semi­con­duc­tor market as well as the aero­space, trans­port, pack­a­ging, food and medi­cal indus­tries. In addi­tion to the deve­lo­p­ment of high-tech proto­ty­pes and produc­tion of small to medium-sized series of precis­ion compon­ents, the Group combi­nes the highest level of exper­tise in the proces­sing of complex metals as well as synthe­tic and compo­site mate­ri­als with state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies (inclu­ding in the areas of 3D metal prin­ting and clean room assem­bly systems).

Based in Uden, the Nether­lands, DKH has grown since its foun­ding in 1999 to become a specia­list in the manu­fac­ture of complex, precis­ion mecha­ni­cal parts and compon­ents with a focus on CNC milling and turning. With solu­ti­ons for small to medium-sized product series, the company acts as a relia­ble part­ner for its custo­mers from diverse indus­tries — inclu­ding the manu­fac­tu­ring and food proces­sing indus­tries as well as the trans­por­ta­tion sector. The company curr­ently employs around 30 expe­ri­en­ced, highly quali­fied employees.

With the acqui­si­tion of DKH, Andra Tech Group successfully reali­zes its second acqui­si­tion within a short period of time. This is inten­ded on the one hand to further expand the Group’s growth and presence in its home market, and on the other hand to posi­tion DKH at the same time to best meet incre­asing custo­mer demand for its products.

“Toge­ther with the team, we have deve­lo­ped DKH into an important part­ner for the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed products in the Nether­lands. Now, through the merger with Andra Tech Group, we want to take the company’s previous success and deve­lo­p­ment to a new level,” explains Fran­cois van Hirtum, foun­der and CEO of DKH.

Geert Ketel­a­ars, CEO of Andra Tech Group, adds: “We are plea­sed to welcome DKH and its employees as a new member of our group. Toge­ther, we intend to conti­nue the impres­sive growth achie­ved under the leader­ship of Fran­cois van Hirtum.”

“With DKH, the Andra Tech Group gains another strong part­ner, which is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in its market. With its high quality stan­dards and compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal know-how, DKH, now the seventh member, under­lines the strong tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties of the group and once again increa­ses the attrac­ti­ve­ness towards the alre­ady broad custo­mer base,” explains Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office.

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Dr. Marc Arens (photo © Equis­tone), Phil­ipp Gauss and Josh Aalbers.

Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by PwC (Finan­cial & Tax) and Vesper (Legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, equity has been inves­ted in more than 170 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com

About Andra Tech Group https://werkenbijandratech.nl/home

About DKH Metaal­be­werk­ing https://www.dkhmetaal.nl/

News

Munich — The Gimv port­fo­lio company KÖBERL Group with Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG conso­li­da­tes the main loca­tion Munich in the pipe clea­ning and sewage tech­no­logy by acqui­ring the estab­lished specia­list compa­nies Rohr­rei­ni­gungs — Service RRS GmbH and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH. The mana­ging part­ner, Andreas Stau­ber, remains on board and takes a stake in the KÖBERL Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The aim of the KÖBERL Group is to build up a leading full-service provi­der in buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment in Germany. Rohr­rei­ni­gungs — Service RRS GmbH (herein­af­ter also “RRS”) and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH (herein­af­ter also “THG”) expand this attrac­tive busi­ness divi­sion of Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik. This will make the Group a leading provi­der in this segment in the grea­ter Munich area as well. The specia­li­zed compa­nies are known for their custo­mer proxi­mity as well as tech­ni­cal compe­tence, avai­la­bi­lity paired with the most modern tech­ni­cal equip­ment. This merger not only increa­ses the recur­ring reve­nue of the KÖBERL Group, but also repres­ents an ideal stra­te­gic addition.

Andreas Stau­ber explains the merger: “Both RRS and THG have enjoyed an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the grea­ter Munich area for seve­ral deca­des. I am ther­e­fore very plea­sed to have found a strong part­ner for the future of both compa­nies in the KÖBERL Group, which not only values today’s strong market posi­tion but also intends to conti­nue growing toge­ther. In parti­cu­lar, I am looking forward with great anti­ci­pa­tion to the syner­gies with Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik that are still to be lever­a­ged. Within the frame­work of a very inten­sive process, the entre­pre­neu­rial approach of the KÖBERL Group, with Gimv as an expe­ri­en­ced and finan­ci­ally strong invest­ment company in the back­ground, was ulti­m­ately decisive.”

Armin and Karl Köberl, mana­ging part­ners of the KÖBERL Group, comment: “With RRS as well as THG we welcome two more members to the KÖBERL Group. Both compa­nies belong to the most renow­ned compa­nies in the field of pipe clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion in the Munich area and comple­ment our port­fo­lio in the field of buil­ding services but also buil­ding manage­ment. This enables us to respond even better to the wishes and requi­re­ments of our custo­mers and part­ners. We are very much looking forward to an exci­ting and inte­res­t­ing coope­ra­tion that will further increase the Group’s potential.”

“With RRS and THG, we are plea­sed about excel­lently fitting new addi­ti­ons to the group and are proud that the part­ner­ship approach of the KÖBERL Group with Mr. Köberl has convin­ced”, says Maja Marko­vic (photo © GIMV), part­ner of Gimv and advi­sory board member of the KÖBERL Group. “The merger is another important stra­te­gic step for the Group towards beco­ming a leading full-service provider.”

About the KÖBERL Group

The agile group of compa­nies is a growing tech­ni­cally-savvy full-service provi­der of buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment services for resi­den­tial and commer­cial proper­ties as well as indus­trial custo­mers in Germany with around 650 employees. In addi­tion to tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment for heating, air condi­tio­ning, venti­la­tion and refri­ge­ra­tion, the Group focu­ses on tech­ni­cal buil­ding manage­ment and inte­gra­ted faci­lity manage­ment. https://koeberl.group/.

About pipe clea­ning service RRS GmbH and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH

RRS and THG have been provi­ding pipe and drain clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion services prima­rily to private house­holds, muni­ci­pa­li­ties and indus­trial compa­nies for over 50 years. Both compa­nies are among the longest-serving compa­nies in this segment in the grea­ter Munich area. For years, nume­rous orders in the field of pipe clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion have been hand­led by an expe­ri­en­ced and well-coor­di­na­ted team of about 30 employees. www.rrs-abwassertechnik.de and www.thg-abwassertechnik.de.

About GIMV

For over 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and, as a Euro­pean invest­ment company, support­ing them on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of around EUR 1.5 billion in invest­ments in more than 60 holdings, which toge­ther realize sales of more than EUR 3.1 billion and employ 19,000 people. www.gimv.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) reports a very successful start to the new finan­cial year 2022/2023. Having recently focu­sed in parti­cu­lar on adding attrac­tive compa­nies to its invest­ment port­fo­lio and rapidly expan­ding its market posi­tion through acqui­si­ti­ons, DBAG agreed three dispo­sals in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 and a fourth in Febru­ary 2023. “It is parti­cu­larly plea­sing that these dispo­sals relate to the two growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and IT services and soft­ware, as well as an invest­ment from Italy,” comm­ents Tors­ten Grede, DBAG Board Spokes­man (photo 1st from left). “This means that the stra­te­gic decis­i­ons of broa­de­ning our sector focus and expan­ding geogra­phi­cally into Italy are now bearing fruit. Even in the current chal­len­ging capi­tal market envi­ron­ment, tran­sac­tions are taking place. This is eviden­ced by both our recent study published in coope­ra­tion with FINANCE and our successful dispo­sals,” Grede continued.

By selling its invest­ment in Cloudf­light in a chal­len­ging market, DBAG was able to realize more than four times the capi­tal inves­ted. The sale of the invest­ment in Heytex marks the successful conclu­sion of DBAG Fund V. DBAG Fund V is thus one of the most successful funds of its vintage for private equity invest­ments in Europe. In addi­tion, the dispo­sal of the invest­ment in Pmflex also marked the first dispo­sal in Italy and was comple­ted in Janu­ary 2023. DBAG was thus able to realize more than twice the capi­tal inves­ted after a holding period of just over two years. Finally, the sale of the stake in BTV Multi­me­dia was agreed in Febru­ary, reali­zing around three times the capi­tal invested.

The good start to the fiscal year is supported by posi­tive capi­tal market influen­ces. This affec­ted the entire breadth of our port­fo­lio, i.e. both busi­ness models with an indus­trial focus and busi­ness models in growth sectors. The chan­geo­ver to the 2023 budgets, which is custo­mary in the first quar­ter, also resul­ted in a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to earnings. Due to the value reco­very period, this also alre­ady takes into account the dispo­sal of BTV Multi­me­dia. In total, the net asset value increa­ses to 620.8 million euros. This is seven percent more than at the begin­ning of the fiscal year.

The Fund Consul­ting segment deve­lo­ped accor­ding to plan and gene­ra­ted earnings before taxes of 3.5 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: 3.7 million euros). Profit before tax in the Private Equity Invest­ments segment reached 38.4 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑11.9 million euros). Over­all, DBAG closes the first three months of finan­cial year 2022/2023 with conso­li­da­ted net income of 41.6 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑8.2 million euros).

Results for a single quar­ter cannot be extra­po­la­ted to the full fiscal year. Due to DBAG’s busi­ness model, the results of indi­vi­dual peri­ods, even directly conse­cu­tive ones, may differ significantly.

The company’s key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 are within the corri­dor of the fore­cast published at the begin­ning of Decem­ber 2022; it is ther­e­fore unch­an­ged. In its fore­cast, DBAG assu­mes that the valua­tion condi­ti­ons on the capi­tal markets at the end of the current finan­cial year will not differ signi­fi­cantly from those at the time the fore­cast was prepared.

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

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 2.6 billion euros.

News

Schaan, Liech­ten­stein — FMA Holding AG (“FMA Group”) announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of NOX Systems AG (“NOX”), a leading deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer in the field of secu­rity tech­no­logy, with a focus on intru­sion detec­tion and access control systems, head­quar­te­red in Vaduz, Liech­ten­stein. The FMA Group thus under­lines its strong growth with another stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. NOX brings to the group not only outstan­ding deve­lo­p­ment exper­tise in the field of safety systems, but also a new mecha­tro­nic product and a strong custo­mer base. The company’s foun­der, Sven Sauter, will remain with the company in his current role as Mana­ging Director.

NOX products are widely used to support access control, intru­sion detec­tion systems and video surveil­lance. Further­more, the products have a special repu­ta­tion, espe­ci­ally with larger inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers, due to the flexi­bi­lity, indi­vi­dua­lity and holi­stic offer. NOX is able to meet all the secu­rity needs of these custo­mers. Custo­mers include, for exam­ple, banks, muse­ums and other buil­dings that have parti­cu­larly high secu­rity requirements.

“We are deligh­ted about this promi­sing merger,” says NOX Mana­ging Direc­tor Sven Sauter. “We have had trus­ting and valuable discus­sions over time, which have convin­ced me that we have found the right further deve­lo­p­ment for NOX. This step is a posi­tive sign for our employees, custo­mers, suppli­ers and other busi­ness part­ners. We are convin­ced to streng­then our growth with the FMA Group as a strong part­ner. I look forward to actively shaping this path as Mana­ging Director.”

Through the acqui­si­tion of NOX, the FMA Group expands its busi­ness model with a strong product port­fo­lio in the field of safety tech­no­logy. As a result, the FMA Group grows to three compa­nies with a total of four produc­tion sites and appro­xi­m­ately 120 employees, thus streng­thening its posi­tion as a mecha­tro­nics group in the DACH region. NOX will remain as an opera­ting unit under the manage­ment of Sven Sauter.

“The busi­ness model is comple­men­tary to FMA and allows a stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment from “manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der of mecha­tro­nic assem­blies” to “mecha­tro­nics group with own and third-party products” with a versa­tile engi­nee­ring know-how”, says mana­ging direc­tor of FMA, Erich Trink­ler. “By being geogra­phi­cally close, we hope to mutually bene­fit from this busi­ness combi­na­tion and increase mutual growth.”

About NOX Systems AG

NOX Systems AG was foun­ded in 2001 by Sven Sauter. In a very short time, the company succee­ded in beco­ming a sought-after specia­list for secu­rity systems in the Euro­pean market. The products convince with inno­va­tive spirit and almost unli­mi­ted possi­bi­li­ties. Custo­mer wishes and speci­fic requi­re­ments are always incor­po­ra­ted into the deve­lo­p­ment process, resul­ting in a modu­lar product range that offers maxi­mum perfor­mance and relia­bi­lity, while being precis­ely tail­o­red to the respec­tive custo­mer requi­re­ments. The company is head­quar­te­red in Vaduz, Liech­ten­stein. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.noxsystems.com

About FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG

Foun­ded in 1955 and head­quar­te­red in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, the company star­ted with the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of simple mecha­ni­cal parts. Since the take­over by Stefan Dürr in the 1990s, FMA has deve­lo­ped into a renow­ned mecha­tro­nics service provi­der. As such, FMA supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. Since 2019, FMA has been majo­rity-owned by the multi-family holding company Liberta Part­ners. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.fma.li

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. These are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the long-term “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. Liberta Part­ners’ team curr­ently consists of 20 employees working in M&A, corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and legal, as well as an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

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