ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt / Munich — Gibson Dunn has advi­sed EMK Capi­tal in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of a group of compa­nies in the secu­rity tech­no­logy sector, consis­ting of four German medium-sized compa­nies, by the Garda Group supported by EMK Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The newly foun­ded group of compa­nies compri­ses the Gleich Group from Aschaf­fen­burg, the vi2vi Group from near Karls­ruhe, Schmid Alarm GmbH from Munich and the Frei­hoff Group from Langen­feld. The merger is inten­ded to create one of the largest secu­rity service provi­ders in Germany.

EMK is a UK-based private equity firm that invests in mid-market compa­nies where it can support growth and trans­for­ma­tion. In June 2023, EMK announ­ced the acqui­si­tion and conso­li­da­tion of the Garda Group, the largest provi­der of secu­rity solu­ti­ons in Nort­hern Europe. In April 2024, the Garda Group took over the Frei­hoff Group, follo­wed by the acqui­si­tion of the Gleich Group, the vi2vi Group and Schmid Alarm GmbH.

About EMK

EMK was estab­lished to pursue the mana­ging part­ners’ shared vision and invest­ment philo­so­phy when inves­t­ing in mid-market compa­nies. This philo­so­phy has enab­led the mana­ging part­ners’ 20-year track record and enab­led our port­fo­lio compa­nies to increase their EBITDA by an average of more than 25 % per year during this time. www.https://de.emkcapital.com/

Consul­tant EMK: Gibson Dunn

The Gibson Dunn private equity team, co-led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (photo © W. Rein­hardt) and Munich asso­ciate Dr. Dennis Seif­arth, included part­ner Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht (Frank­furt), of coun­sel Dr. Aliresa Fatemi (Frank­furt), as well as asso­cia­tes Maxi­mi­lian Schnie­wind, Johan­nes Reul (both Munich), Lisa Holl­fel­der and Dr. Mattias Prange (both Frank­furt). Employ­ment law advice was provi­ded by Of Coun­sel Dr. Peter Gumnior (Frank­furt) and Asso­ciate Ann-Katrin Pfei­fer (Munich). Part­ner Kai Gesing and asso­cia­tes Yannick Ober­acker and Chris­toph Jacob (all Munich) advi­sed on IP and data protec­tion, part­ner Dr. Georg Weiden­bach and asso­ciate Jan Voll­kam­mer (both Frank­furt) on anti­trust law, asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters on finan­cing issues, part­ner Dr. Lars Peter­sen and asso­ciate Victor Thonke (both Frank­furt) on regu­la­tory issues and part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Frank­furt and Munich) on tax law.

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,900 lawy­ers in 21 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn’s offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, Riyadh, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. — For more infor­ma­tion, visit gibsondunn.com.

 

News

Düssel­dorf — Düssel­dorf-based MedTech company CUREo­sity announ­ced that it has recei­ved 3.8 million euros in a finan­cing round from exis­ting and new inves­tors. In addi­tion to other new co-inves­tors, the exis­ting inves­tor Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) and the Belgian family office Noma­in­vest also participated.

TVF, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in medi­cal tech­no­logy compa­nies, has been support­ing CUREo­sity in its virtual reality therapy through gami­fi­ca­tion since 2021.

The finan­cing round was also supported by the law firms ADVANT Beiten and Forvis Mazars. — The latest finan­cing round will enable the German company to further advance its inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and expand its market presence.

Caesar van Heynin­gen, CEO of CUREo­sity, says: “The current successful course — consis­ting of scaling the markets and high-quality updates to our therapy soft­ware — will be streng­the­ned by this finan­cing. We plan to invest heavily in commer­cial expan­sion and inte­grate tomorrow’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal possi­bi­li­ties into our product road­map today. With this finan­cing round, we can ensure finan­cial inde­pen­dence and sustainable busi­ness operations.”

The idea behind CUREosity

CUREO is based on the perso­nal expe­ri­en­ces of the foun­ders — Thomas Saur, Stefan Arand and Marco Faul­ham­mer: After a car acci­dent in 2000, Thomas Saur’s young son suffe­red from para­ple­gia. In the search for the best possi­ble care and reha­bi­li­ta­tion, exis­ting methods did not bring the desi­red success.

The two co-foun­ders of CUREo­sity — Stefan Arand and Marco Faul­ham­mer — expe­ri­en­ced simi­lar fates and chal­lenges, which led them to the decis­ion to deve­lop a new form of therapy that combi­nes their thera­peu­tic expe­ri­ence and know­ledge with current tech­no­lo­gies and neuro­sci­en­ti­fic findings. Thanks to many years of expe­ri­ence in 3D visua­liza­tion and the crea­tion of appli­ca­tion concepts in the IT and science sector, the foun­ders have sound tech­ni­cal know-how.

The combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal skills, exper­tise in 3D visua­liza­tion, expe­ri­ence with virtual reality and perso­nal moti­va­tion due to medi­cal condi­ti­ons led to the foun­ding of CUREo­sity and the idea for CUREO.

CUREo­sity: Virtual reality therapy through gamification

Under the leader­ship of Caesar van Heynin­gen, CUREo­sity became known for its virtual reality therapy system called CUREO for clinics and practices.

The advan­ta­ges include evidence-based thera­peu­tic success, sustained relief for staff, increased pati­ent moti­va­tion, a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and simple and intui­tive opera­tion. The 50 trai­ning sessi­ons in 7 modu­les can be used in physio­the­rapy, occu­pa­tio­nal therapy and neuro­psy­cho­logy. Curr­ently, the soft­ware is used in 24 count­ries worldwide.
www.cureosity.com

About Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF)

Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is a seed capi­tal firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in tech­no­logy compa­nies that have the poten­tial to trans­form key indus­tries. The company’s stra­tegy is based on early enga­ge­ment and prima­rily targets seed-stage invest­ments, with occa­sio­nal initial invest­ments in Series A. The company’s focus spans SaaS/software, IoT, digi­tal solu­ti­ons, medtech, biotech, new mate­ri­als and greentech/cleantech.

Björn Lang, Part­ner at TVF, says: “CUREOSITY solves the problem of the shortage of skil­led workers in the therapy sector. Smart solu­ti­ons such as CUREO are highly rele­vant to society, parti­cu­larly due to demo­gra­phic change. We look forward to parti­ci­pa­ting in the solu­ti­ons and succes­ses in the future.”

News

Frank­furt a. M. — KKR’s take­over offer for a total of 87,007,448 Enca­vis shares was accepted in due time on June 18, 2024. This corre­sponds to appro­xi­m­ately 87.41 percent of all outstan­ding Enca­vis Shares, inclu­ding the Enca­vis Shares which ABACON and other share­hol­ders have sold to the Bidder under binding agree­ments or which will be trans­fer­red to the Bidder by way of a roll-over.

KKR intends to complete the delis­ting of Enca­vis as soon as legally and prac­ti­cally possi­ble in order to bene­fit from the finan­cial flexi­bi­lity and long-term commit­ment of KKR and Viess­mann in private ownership.

On March 14, 2024, the bidder announ­ced a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all outstan­ding Enca­vis shares. Viess­mann is inves­t­ing as a share­hol­der in the consor­tium led by KKR. The volun­t­ary public take­over offer is still subject to the condi­ti­ons set out in sections 12.1.1, 12.1.3 (ii), (iv), (v) and 12.1.4 of the Offer Docu­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024. The offer docu­ment and further infor­ma­tion are available at www.elbe-offer.com.

In March 2024, the family-owned company Viess­mann, toge­ther with KKR, announ­ced a new stra­te­gic invest­ment in Enca­vis, one of the leading plat­forms for rene­wa­ble ener­gies based in Hamburg. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Viess­mann inves­ted as a share­hol­der in the KKR-led consortium.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global inves­tor provi­ding alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, capi­tal markets and insu­rance solu­ti­ons. The focus is on gene­ra­ting attrac­tive invest­ment returns through a long-term and disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach, employ­ing highly skil­led profes­sio­nals and support­ing growth at its invest­ment proper­ties and in the commu­ni­ties where KKR has a presence. KKR finan­ces funds that invest in private equity, credit products, real assets, and — through stra­te­gic part­ners — hedge funds. KKR’s insu­rance subsi­dia­ries offer pension, life and reinsu­rance products under the manage­ment of Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group. Refe­ren­ces to KKR’s invest­ments may also refer to the acti­vi­ties of funds mana­ged by KKR and its insu­rance subsidiaries.
KKR laun­ched its global infra­struc­ture busi­ness in 2008 and has since grown to become one of the largest infra­struc­ture inves­tors in the world with a team of more than 115 dedi­ca­ted invest­ment profes­sio­nals. The company curr­ently (as of Decem­ber 31, 2023) mana­ges infra­struc­ture assets of around USD 59 billion world­wide and has made over 80 infra­struc­ture invest­ments in a range of sub-sectors and regi­ons. KKR’s infra­struc­ture plat­form is speci­fi­cally desi­gned for long-term, capi­tal-inten­sive struc­tu­ral investments.

Further infor­ma­tion about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), can be found on the KKR website at www.kkr.com. For more infor­ma­tion about Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group, please visit the Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group website at www.globalatlantic.com.

About Viess­mann
Foun­ded in 1917, the inde­pen­dent family-owned company Viess­mann is now a global, broadly diver­si­fied group. All acti­vi­ties are based on the corpo­rate mission state­ment “We create living spaces for future gene­ra­ti­ons” — this is the passion and respon­si­bi­lity that drives the members of the large global Viess­mann family every day. In line with this goal, Viess­mann offers compa­nies and co-crea­tors an ecosys­tem that is commit­ted to avoi­ding, redu­cing and storing CO2 beyond the heating industry.

About Enca­vis

Enca­vis AG (Prime Stan­dard; ISIN: DE0006095003; ticker symbol: ECV) is a produ­cer of elec­tri­city from rene­wa­ble ener­gies listed on the MDAX of Deut­sche Börse AG. As one of the leading inde­pen­dent power produ­cers (IPP), Enca­vis acqui­res and opera­tes (onshore) wind and solar parks in twelve Euro­pean count­ries. The plants for sustainable energy gene­ra­tion gene­rate stable income through guaran­teed feed-in tariffs (FIT) or long-term power purchase agree­ments (PPAs). The Enca­vis Group’s total gene­ra­tion capa­city curr­ently amounts to more than 3.5 giga­watts (GW), of which around 2.2 GW is gene­ra­ted by Enca­vis AG, which corre­sponds to a saving of around 0.8 million tons of CO2 per year by Enca­vis AG alone. In addi­tion, the Group curr­ently has around 1.2 GW of gene­ra­tion capa­city under cons­truc­tion, inclu­ding around 830 MW in its own portfolio.

Within the Enca­vis Group, Enca­vis Asset Manage­ment AG specia­li­zes in the area of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Stern Energy S.p.A., which is also part of the Enca­vis Group and head­quar­te­red in Parma, Italy, is a specia­li­zed provi­der of tech­ni­cal services for the Europe-wide instal­la­tion, opera­tion, main­ten­ance, revam­ping and repowe­ring of photo­vol­taic systems.
Enca­vis is a signa­tory to the UN Global Compact and the UN PRI network. Enca­vis AG’s envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance perfor­mance has been reco­gni­zed by two of the world’s leading ESG rese­arch and rating agen­cies. MSCI ESG Ratings rates Enca­vis’ sustaina­bi­lity perfor­mance with an “AA” level, while the inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned ISS ESG awards Enca­vis “Prime” status.
www.encavis.com

 

News

Berlin — The Dutch Care Cosme­tics B.V. (“Care Cosme­tics”) and its share­hol­der 3d inves­tors from Belgium are acqui­ring Sommaire Beauté GmbH (“Sommaire Beauté”) with compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice. Through this part­ner­ship, Care Cosme­tics is ente­ring the German-spea­king market. — YPOG advi­sed the Dutch Care Cosme­tics B.V. and its share­hol­der 3d inves­tors on this transaction.

Sommaire Beauté was foun­ded in Düssel­dorf in 2014 and has deve­lo­ped into a leading distri­bu­tion company for niche cosme­tics and life­style brands. The foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors Patrick Mehrow and Chris­toph Broich will conti­nue to drive the growth of Sommaire Beauté as part­ners toge­ther with Care Cosmetics.
Care Cosme­tics is a market leader in the distri­bu­tion of profes­sio­nal cosme­tics in the Bene­lux and manu­fac­tu­rer of two own brands. The company was foun­ded in 1996 by Duco van Keim­pema and has been supported by 3d inves­tors from Belgium since 2020.
The part­ner­ship with Sommaire Beauté is an important step in Care Cosme­tics’ inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion stra­tegy and the asso­cia­ted buy-and-build strategy.

About Care Cosmetics
Care Cosme­tics is an estab­lished company in the cosme­tics indus­try. With over 25 years of expe­ri­ence, it offers a wide range of products and treat­ments. The brands distri­bu­ted by Care Cosme­tics include Dr. Renaud, Skeyn­dor, PCA Skin, Neova, Guinot, Acade­mie, Matis, Pupa Milano, Roc, Anne­ma­rie Börlind and Simone Mahler. Further infor­ma­tion: https://www.carecosmetics.nl/

About 3d investors
3d inves­tors is a family busi­ness. It was foun­ded in 1992 by the Donck and Desim­pel fami­lies, who are active in the dairy and buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­tries respec­tively. The company builds on a proud tradi­tion of entre­pre­neur­ship and has chosen to support solid compa­nies with growth poten­tial. It is based on its core values: Entre­pre­neur­ship, empa­thy, inte­grity, passion and agility. https://www.3d-investors.be/

Consul­tant Care Cosme­tics and 3d inves­tors: YPOG

Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Ferdi­nand Cadmus (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Amelie Insel­mann (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Laura Franke (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Roman Schäle (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Gerrit Breet­holt (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Berlin, June 2024 — Vsquared Ventures, a Euro­pean early-stage deep tech venture capi­tal fund, raises €214 million, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding its origi­nal target of €165 million. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Vsquared Ventures on the final closing of its current fund, Vsquared Ventures II.

This makes it the largest early-stage deep tech fund in Europe to date. With the final closing of Vsquared Ventures II, the total assets mana­ged by Vsquared Ventures increase to around €450 million.

Vsquared Ventures invests in start-ups that build compa­nies with inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and create new markets. The fund has a strong focus on promo­ting a sustainable Euro­pean deep tech ecosys­tem. Vsquared Ventures targets compa­nies in the fields of AI & next-gen soft­ware, energy trans­for­ma­tion, new compu­ting and sensor tech­no­logy, new space, robo­tics and manu­fac­tu­ring, and tech-bio.
With Vsquared Ventures II, Vsquared Ventures has alre­ady inves­ted in eight tech start-ups, inclu­ding Neura Robo­tics, Cylib, Quan­tune, Atrandi, Dynelec­tro, Lace Litho­gra­phy, ConstellR and Synthara.

The fund is supported by a large number of inves­tors, inclu­ding insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family offices. Inves­tors include Novo Holdings, Lombard Odier Invest­ment Mana­gers, the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund (NIF), KfW Capi­tal, the Growth Fund and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF).

Advi­sor Vsquared Ventures: YPOG
Jens Kretzschmann’s team has been advi­sing Vsquared Ventures on legal and tax matters since its foun­da­tion. Team:
Jens Kretz­schmann, (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Funds), Part­ner, Colo­gne Michael Blank (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Stefa­nie Nagel (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Johan­nes Gehring (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin Florian Thrun (Funds), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszcek (Funds), Senior Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin

About Vsquared Ventures

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

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News

Berlin — Project A Ventures has led the €254.4 million finan­cing round of Aachen-based DeepT­ech start-up Black Semi­con­duc­tor as lead inves­tor. Porsche Ventures acted as co-lead inves­tor, other new inves­tors are Scania Growth, Capna­mic, Tech Vision Fonds and NRW.BANK. Exis­ting inves­tors such as Vsquared Ventures, Cambium Capi­tal and Onsight Ventures are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the Series A finan­cing round. Project A Ventures was alre­ady a co-lead inves­tor in the seed finan­cing round. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Project A Ventures.

In addi­tion to the €25.7 million in equity finan­cing from venture capi­tal inves­tors, the semi­con­duc­tor start-up recei­ves €228.7 million in funding from the Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The public funding is spread over seven years as part of the EU IPCEI ME/CT program.
Over­all, this is one of the largest finan­cings for a deep tech chip company in Europe.

Foun­ded in 2020 by Dr. Daniel Schall and Sebas­tian Schall, the company uses graphene to improve the perfor­mance and effi­ci­ency of chips. Graphene is an inno­va­tive mate­rial that acce­le­ra­tes data commu­ni­ca­tion between chips and increa­ses energy effi­ci­ency. This tech­no­logy thus enables trans­for­ma­tive appli­ca­ti­ons in various areas such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, data centers and auto­no­mous driving.
The start-up intends to use the new capi­tal to expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties and drive forward the deve­lo­p­ment of a new gene­ra­tion of graphene-based chips.

Advi­sors: YPOG has alre­ady advi­sed Project A Ventures on the seed finan­cing round.
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Ferdi­nand Cadmus (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Roman Schäle (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin.

About Project A Ventures

Project A is one of the leading early-stage tech inves­tors in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addi­tion to $1 billion in assets under manage­ment, Project A supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with a plat­form team of over 140 profes­sio­nals in key areas such as soft­ware and product deve­lo­p­ment, busi­ness intel­li­gence, brand, design, marke­ting, sales and recrui­ting. The venture capi­tal company was foun­ded in 2012 and has supported more than 100 start-ups to date. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Trade Repu­blic, World­Re­mit, senn­der, KRY, Spry­ker, Cata­wiki, Unmind and Voi. https://www.project‑a.com

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. — http://www.ypog.law

News

Munich — KEYOU, the pioneer of CO2-neutral hydro­gen mobi­lity, has closed the first part of its Series B finan­cing round with a double-digit million amount. The finan­cing round is led by DILO Arma­tu­ren und Anla­gen GmbH, which has inves­ted a large seven-figure sum in KEYOU. Other inves­tors include the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil (EIC), the BESTO GmbH “Family Office” of the two Swabian entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies Beyer and Stoll (FESTO indus­trial group) and Baywo­bau, which alre­ady inves­ted in KEYOU as part of the Series A finan­cing round. The funds will prima­rily be used to build up the pioneer fleet and to adapt the KEYOU-inside system to a 40-ton semi­t­rai­ler tractor.
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Follo­wing the successful conclu­sion of the first part of the finan­cing round, the Munich-based hydro­gen expert is alre­ady in talks with other poten­tial inves­tors. The Series B round, which is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the year, is expec­ted to raise a total of around EUR 35 million. KEYOU intends to use the fresh capi­tal prima­rily to drive forward the expan­sion of its pionee­ring fleet, the further deve­lo­p­ment and adapt­a­tion of the KEYOU-inside system to a 40-ton arti­cu­la­ted truck for the commer­cial roll­out of its “H2Mobility as a Service” solu­tion (H2MaaS) and the further struc­tu­ral and person­nel expan­sion of the company. DILO is not only in the role of inves­tor, but is also laun­ching its first joint project with KEYOU.

With DILO, KEYOU has gained another important stra­te­gic inves­tor. The leading gas specia­list from Bava­ria deve­lops inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons for profes­sio­nal, emis­sion-free gas manage­ment and intends to further expand its busi­ness acti­vi­ties in the promi­sing hydro­gen segment. The coope­ra­tion between the two compa­nies is corre­spon­din­gly promi­sing. The first concrete project coope­ra­tion has alre­ady begun. KEYOU is support­ing DILO with its H2 exper­tise in the deve­lo­p­ment of a univer­sal H2 service device for work­shops that reli­e­ves employees of all hydro­gen-rela­ted work. The aim of the deve­lo­p­ment is to qualify more work­shops to work with hydro­gen vehic­les and to conti­nuously expand the H2 work­shop network in line with the incre­asing number of vehic­les and hydro­gen regions.

In future, the H2 service tool will auto­mate basic service func­tions that could previously only be carried out by speci­ally trai­ned person­nel. Details of this device will be announ­ced at a later date. At the moment, DILO and KEYOU are only announ­cing that it will be a comple­tely new device with inno­va­tive func­tions that are not yet available on the market.

The human factor was a key factor

“We are deligh­ted to have found another inves­tor in DILO who belie­ves in the future of the combus­tion engine in combi­na­tion with hydro­gen and in our approach to conver­ting exis­ting vehic­les,” says Thomas Korn, CEO and co-foun­der of KEYOU. “Another major advan­tage is DILO’s many years of exper­tise in the field of indus­trial gases, which opens up valuable synergy poten­tial for us. In addi­tion, as with all our stra­te­gic inves­tors, it was important to us that the ‘human factor’ was right. This is defi­ni­tely the case with DILO.”

“The capi­tal increase from DILO and our exis­ting inves­tors will not only enable us to enter the market smoothly, but also to scale our tech­no­logy to other engine and vehicle clas­ses. This will enable us to work the market even more inten­si­vely in the future and further expand our tech­no­logy leader­ship,” adds Olaf Berg­ner, CFO of KEYOU (photo © Keyou).

DILO is also looking forward to the colla­bo­ra­tion: “With KEYOU, we are support­ing a future-orien­ted and inno­va­tive growth company that, as a pioneer in the field of emis­sion-free hydro­gen mobi­lity, fits in perfectly with us and our motto ‘One Vision. Zero Emis­si­ons’,” says Chris­tian Schel­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of DILO Arma­tu­ren und Anla­gen GmbH. “We are convin­ced that hydro­gen engi­nes are an important part of the solu­tion for the mobi­lity tran­si­tion, and that prag­ma­tic solu­ti­ons that enable the rapid and econo­mical decar­bo­niza­tion of the indus­try are parti­cu­larly in demand in the commer­cial vehicle sector.”

Market entry with 18-ton trucks, 40-ton trucks in preparation

KEYOU will deli­ver its first 18-ton pioneer vehic­les to pilot custo­mers this year and thus complete its market entry. This is the first time the company intends to demons­trate the market matu­rity of its conver­sion tech­no­logy and prepare the market for further scaling.

KEYOU is alre­ady working on larger motors to address the heavy-duty segment in the near future, as this is where the company sees the grea­test poten­tial in the coming years. A look at the TCO (total cost of owner­ship) of KEYOU’s 40-ton H2 truck shows that it is signi­fi­cantly chea­per than battery and fuel cell trucks simply due to econo­mies of scale and toll exemp­ti­ons. In the medium term, it will even under­cut the TCO of conven­tio­nal 40-ton diesel trucks.

www.keyou.de

 

News

The United Talent Agency (UTA) takes over the leading German soccer player agency ROOF “Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves Of Outstan­ding Foot­bal­lers”. — ROOF is one of the largest soccer player agen­cies in Euro­pean profes­sio­nal soccer and Europe’s leading profes­sio­nal soccer consul­tancy with offices in Germany, Great Britain and Spain.

Through the part­ner­ship with UTA/Klutch, ROOF is joining the ranks of the world’s top sports recruit­ment agen­cies. The play­ers served by ROOF will gain direct access to the Ameri­can market as a result of the merger and will be able to bene­fit from UTA/Klutch’s expe­ri­ence in advi­sing play­ers in the future. In return, UTA, which with its subsi­diary Klutch has so far mainly advi­sed athle­tes from US sports, inclu­ding the NBA, NFL, WNBA and NCAA, will gain access to the Euro­pean continent.

POELLATH advi­sed ROOF on this transaction.

Under the direc­tion of Dr. Frank Thiä­ner a multi­di­sci­pli­nary team of POELLATH toge­ther with PwC Legal led by Lars Benger with Rebecca Klenke provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the mana­ging part­ners of ROOF and the finan­cial inves­tor INVISION on the sale of their stake in ROOF Group GmbH to United Talent Agency, LLC, toge­ther with its sports consul­ting firm Klutch Sports Group (Klutch). The mana­ging part­ners of ROOF have acqui­red a signi­fi­cant stake in UTA as part of the transaction.

In 2019, POELLATH had alre­ady advi­sed the foun­ders and share­hol­ders of ROOF, form­erly arena11 sports group GmbH, on the entry of the finan­cial inves­tor INVISION. By taking on the insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, the ROOF Group took the first step towards successfully conso­li­da­ting and profes­sio­na­li­zing the Euro­pean player consul­tant market. Follo­wing the successful merger with Coaches & More GmbH, Spie­ler­rat GmbH subse­quently joined the joint venture. This was follo­wed in 2022 by the merger with the British player consul­tants Neil Fewings and Nabile Hakimi and the estab­lish­ment of a joint company in the UK. ROOF now repres­ents over 150 of the best foot­bal­lers and coaches in the world’s most important soccer leagues, inclu­ding the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and the German Bundesliga.

Björn Beze­mer, share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor of ROOF, commen­ted on the tran­sac­tion: “We felt very well advi­sed by POELLATH and PwC as part of the team on this major step for us. Frank and Lars were part of the small nego­tia­ting team that made the tran­sac­tion possi­ble not only legally but also strategically.”

Foun­ded in 1991, UTA is a leading talent, sports, enter­tain­ment and consul­ting firm repre­sen­ting artists, athle­tes, storytel­lers, enter­tai­ners and brands world­wide. Among the cele­bri­ties under contract with UTA are US stars such as LeBron James of the Los Ange­les Lakers, actors Sylves­ter Stal­lone, Arnold Schwar­zen­eg­ger and Harri­son Ford, and singer Chris­tina Aguilera.

ROOF is one of the leading agen­cies in the soccer land­scape and repres­ents around 150 soccer play­ers and coaches in the five major Euro­pean leagues — the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and the German Bundes­liga. ROOF advi­ses German inter­na­tio­nals such as Kai Havertz, Niclas Füll­krug and Marc-André ter Stegen, as well as Virgil van Dijk and Harvey Elliott from the English Premier League. ROOF curr­ently opera­tes from offices in Munich, London and Madrid and intends to expand internationally.

Foun­ded in 2012, Klutch is an athlete consul­ting agency that repres­ents some of the world’s grea­test athle­tes in profes­sio­nal sports. Klutch laun­ched its part­ner­ship with UTA in 2019, provi­ding stra­te­gic support in areas inclu­ding bran­ding, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, content, social respon­si­bi­lity and other oppor­tu­ni­ties at the inter­sec­tion of sports, enter­tain­ment and culture.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the mana­ging part­ners of ROOF with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Frank Thiä­ner (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt aM)
Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Erik Muschei­tes (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt aM)
Torben Busch (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Domi­nik Sorber (Senior Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Asso­ciate, Tax Law, Munich)

 

News

Düssel­dorf — Main Capi­tal subsi­diary ZIG comple­tes merger with Doozer Real Estate Systems. A Deloitte Legal team under the joint leader­ship of Max Lüer­ßen (part­ner) and Felix Fell­ei­sen (part­ner) advi­sed Zig on the acqui­si­tion of Doozer Real Estate Systems GmbH. Zig and Doozer are leading soft­ware provi­ders for the real estate sector in the Nether­lands and Germany respec­tively. The merger was supported by Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), a private equity inves­tor focu­sed exclu­si­vely on the soft­ware industry.

Doozer is a German deve­lo­per of real estate manage­ment soft­ware that enables real estate compa­nies to map, initiate and moni­tor reno­va­tion proces­ses via a digi­tal plat­form. The soft­ware maxi­mi­zes effi­ci­ency by simpli­fy­ing and opti­mi­zing vacancy manage­ment in the re-letting process. This bene­fits both the tenants, because apart­ments are available again more quickly, and the land­lords, who opti­mize their rental income and opera­ting proces­ses. The company is based in Berlin, was foun­ded in 2014 by Nicho­las Neer­pasch and is now jointly mana­ged by him and Cars­ten Petzold.

Doozer’s most important custo­mers include asset mana­gers, property manage­ment compa­nies and trades­men. Doozer serves well-known real estate compa­nies such as LEG, Adler and degewo. At the end of last year, Doozer reached the target of 1 billion euros in cons­truc­tion volume commis­sio­ned via the plat­form. A total of 170,000 apart­ments have been reno­va­ted using the Doozer plat­form to date.

The successful acqui­si­tion of Doozer is an important first step in Zig’s inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, Zig now has a strong and talen­ted local team in place for further expan­sion in Germany, lever­aging Zig’s exper­tise and best prac­ti­ces while streng­thening Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ presence in the real estate sector. Doozer’s manage­ment team will remain on board and conti­nue to be fully commit­ted to the company. At the same time, Zig will conti­nue to focus on its home market, the Nether­lands, and concen­trate on support­ing custo­mers with intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­ti­ons and helping them to succeed.

The acqui­si­tion is the fourth stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion since Main Capi­tal Part­ners ente­red into a part­ner­ship with Zig at the end of 2021. The move streng­thens the company’s foun­da­ti­ons, which is why Main is very confi­dent that it will be able to achieve its ambi­tious growth targets in the PropTech sector.

Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen have been advi­sing Main since the begin­ning of Main’s expan­sion into Germany and have alre­ady advi­sed the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor on a large number of plat­form and add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of PMG Projekt­raum Manage­ment GmbH, which supports its custo­mers with the modu­lar and cloud-based colla­bo­ra­tion plat­form PAVE in cons­truc­tion and real estate projects, by Pro4all, a Main Capi­tal port­fo­lio company that deve­lops soft­ware for cons­truc­tion and real estate manage­ment, and on the acqui­si­tion of the sycat group of compa­nies by the JobRou­ter Group, provi­der of the cross-indus­try low-code digi­tiza­tion plat­form JobRou­ter®, also a Main Capi­tal port­fo­lio company.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal: Deloitte Legal

Max Lüer­ßen, photo (©Lüer­ßen) (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, co-lead); Andreas Leclaire, LL.M. (Part­ner, Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf); Stefan Weste (Coun­sel, Employ­ment Law, Berlin); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Lara Sophie Worbs (Coun­sel, Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf), Pia Fran- ziska Kara­pa­nos (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Nicole Rurik (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Nicole Deneke (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Constanze Rass­feld (Asso­ciate, Commer­cial, Düsseldorf).

Advi­sor seller: Vogel Heerma Waitz Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Dr. Frank Vogel, LL.M. (Cantab.) (Part­ner); Dr. Andreas Wüst­hoff, LL.M. (UPenn) (Coun­sel, both Berlin)

Notary’s office: Michel.Partner, Berlin
Lawyer and notary Tobias Fuhrmann

Corpo­rate Finance Advi­sor Seller: Oaklins AG

Oliver Grigat (Direc­tor, Frank­furt); Felix Daetz (Asso­ciate, Hamburg); Iwen Boje (Analyst, Frankfurt)

About Zig

Since its foun­da­tion in 2001, Zig has deve­lo­ped into a leading company in the resi­den­tial real estate sector. The company offers a wide range of solu­ti­ons, inclu­ding ERP, CRM and BI. Zig provi­des its soft­ware to a broad custo­mer base of over 200 orga­niza­ti­ons. Custo­mers include De Alli­an­tie, Roch­dale, Sociale Verhu­ur­ders Haag- landen, DUWO, Mooi­land, Klik voor Wonen, Thuis in Limburg, Elkien, Bouw­in­vest and A.S.R. The company employs over 250 people. https://www.zig.nl/

About Doozer

Doozer is a German provi­der of real estate manage­ment soft­ware and a digi­tal plat­form that enables real estate compa­nies to digi­tally map, initiate and moni­tor reno­va­tion proces­ses. The company was foun­ded in 2014 and is based in Berlin. The company’s focus is on the resi­den­tial real estate sector with well-known clients such as LEG, Adler and degewo. Over 400,000 apart­ments are curr­ently regis­tered on the Doozer plat­form. https://www.doozer.de/

About Main Capital

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region, the Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately EUR 6 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve profi­ta­ble growth and create larger, outstan­ding soft­ware compa­nies. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 70 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main holds an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware compa­nies. The port­fo­lio compa­nies employ over 12,000 people in Summer. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. https://www.main.nl/

News

Vöhrin­gen, Bava­ria — Foun­ded in 1975, SMG Sport­platz­ma­schi­nen­bau GmbH (www.smg-machines.com) has long since estab­lished itself as a global leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of state-of-the-art machi­nes for the sports indus­try and is now used by teams such as Real Madrid, FC Bayern Munich and the Miami Dolphins. Toge­ther with Tobias and Daniel Owege­ser, who will remain share­hol­ders, Gimv will drive SMG’s further growth and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

SMG’s impres­sive port­fo­lio includes specia­li­zed machi­nes that are used in a variety of sports and leisure areas — from arti­fi­cial or hybrid turf to athle­tics faci­li­ties and tennis courts. SMG has been a pioneer in the field of synthe­tic sports surfaces and arti­fi­cial turf for almost 50 years and offers machi­nes that mix various compon­ents, lay base layers and line their surfaces. Their inno­va­tive arti­fi­cial turf machi­nes are known for the filling, care and main­ten­ance of sports pitches and offer both self-propel­led models and models with ride-on technology.

The machi­nes are deve­lo­ped and produ­ced in Germany. To this end, SMG works closely with leading mate­rial manu­fac­tu­r­ers and instal­la­tion compa­nies to ensure the highest quality at all times. The company, which serves over 1,200 custo­mers world­wide, is supported by 55 dedi­ca­ted employees in Vöhrin­gen and an exten­sive network of inde­pen­dent sales part­ners world­wide. The USA is curr­ently SMG’s largest market, with renow­ned custo­mers such as colleges, univer­si­ties, high schools and Ameri­can foot­ball clubs.

The part­ner­ship with Gimv marks the start of the next phase of SMG’s remar­kable jour­ney. The exper­tise of Gimv as the new majo­rity share­hol­der will help to streng­then further inter­na­tio­nal growth in the coming years and take the products to the next level.

Daniel and Tobias Owege­ser, co-owners of SMG, explain: “We have alre­ady grown stron­gly in recent deca­des and have laid the foun­da­ti­ons for the successful expan­sion of our busi­ness, parti­cu­larly in the USA. Toge­ther with our father Johann and our brot­her Markus, we have deci­ded to bring a strong part­ner on board in order to successfully conti­nue our growth story. With Gimv at our side, we now want to take the next steps toge­ther towards further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and make targe­ted use of the many oppor­tu­ni­ties abroad.”

Ronald Bartel, Part­ner Smart Indus­tries (photo © GIMV), explains: “With SMG, we are deligh­ted to welcome an excep­tio­nal and impres­sive new addi­tion to our Smart Indus­tries plat­form. We are deeply convin­ced by the product, the owners and the manage­ment team and look forward to support­ing SMG on its growth path.”

About GIMV

Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company listed on Euron­ext Brussels. As one of the market leaders, we are a part­ner to entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies in 5 future-orien­ted invest­ment areas. We curr­ently manage a port­fo­lio of around 60 compa­nies with a total turno­ver of EUR 4.0 billion and more than 20,000 employees.

Gimv has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship for over 40 years. Our flexi­ble approach is based on a solid balance sheet, pati­ent capi­tal and a long-term perspec­tive. Gimv is commit­ted to crea­ting sustainable value by successfully combi­ning the strengths of entre­pre­neu­rial, ambi­tious and talen­ted manage­ment teams with our dedi­ca­ted, compe­tent and well-connec­ted invest­ment teams. www.gimv.com

News

Leixlip, Ireland/ NY/ Santa Clara Calif. — Intel Corpo­ra­tion and Apollo announ­ced a defi­ni­tive agree­ment under which Apollo-mana­ged funds and affi­lia­tes will make an $11 billion invest­ment to acquire from Intel a 49% inte­rest in a joint venture rela­ted to Intel’s Fab 34.

The tran­sac­tion is Intel’s second agree­ment under the Semi­con­duc­tor Co-Invest­ment Program (SCIP). SCIP is an element of Intel’s smart capi­tal stra­tegy, a finan­cing approach desi­gned to create finan­cial flexi­bi­lity to acce­le­rate the company’s stra­tegy, inclu­ding invest­ments in its global manu­fac­tu­ring opera­ti­ons, while main­tai­ning a strong balance sheet.

Fab 34 is loca­ted in Leixlip, Ireland, and is Intel’s state-of-the-art high volume manu­fac­tu­ring (HVM) faci­lity for wafers manu­fac­tu­red using Intel 4 and Intel 3 process tech­no­lo­gies. To date, Intel has inves­ted 18.4 billion dollars in Fab 34. This tran­sac­tion will allow Intel to free up some of these invest­ments and rede­ploy them to other busi­ness areas while conti­nuing the expan­sion of Fab 34. As part of its restruc­tu­ring stra­tegy, Intel has inves­ted billi­ons of dollars to regain process leader­ship and build global capa­city for the manu­fac­ture of leading-edge wafers and advan­ced packaging.

Under the terms of the agree­ment, the joint venture will receive the rights to manu­fac­ture wafers in Fab 34 to meet the long-term demand for Intel’s products and provide capa­city for Intel Foundry’s custo­mers. Intel will hold a 51% majo­rity stake in the Joint Under­ta­king. Intel will retain full owner­ship and opera­tio­nal control of Fab 34 and its assets. The tran­sac­tion is inten­ded to improve the company’s solid balance sheet with capi­tal at a price below Intel’s cost of equity. It is expec­ted that the invest­ment in the joint venture will be trea­ted as equity-like from a ratings perspective.

“The agree­ment between Intel and Apollo provi­des us with addi­tio­nal flexi­bi­lity in execu­ting our stra­tegy to create the most resi­li­ent and sustainable semi­con­duc­tor supply chain in the world. Our invest­ments in state-of-the-art capa­city in the U.S. and Europe will be criti­cal to meeting the growing demand for sili­con as the global semi­con­duc­tor market doubles in the next five years,” said David Zins­ner, Intel’s CFO. “It also unders­cores our role as a trus­ted finan­cing part­ner lever­aging private capi­tal to build the new economy, inclu­ding next-gene­ra­tion AI tech­no­logy that will require major invest­ments in sustainable energy gene­ra­tion, data centers, found­ries and semi­con­duc­tor capacity.”

Details of the transaction

Cons­truc­tion of Fab 34 is largely complete, and large-scale produc­tion of Intel® Core™ Ultra proces­sors on Intel 4 tech­no­logy began there in Septem­ber 2023. The ramp-up of Granite Rapids, Intel’s next-gene­ra­tion data center product based on Intel 3 tech­no­logy, is also in full swing.

The joint venture will manu­fac­ture wafers for sale to Intel on a cost-plus-margin basis. Under the agree­ment, Intel is obli­ged to complete the expan­sion of Fab 34 and to purchase wafers from the joint venture for itself and for exter­nal custo­mers, with mini­mum quan­ti­ties for wafer requi­re­ments being promi­sed once the plant has been completed.

For the purpo­ses of finan­cial report­ing, Intel expects to conso­li­date the results of the joint venture via the net result and to include the result attri­bu­ta­ble to the 49% inte­rest in the net result of non-control­ling inte­rests. Intel assu­mes that the net profit attri­bu­ta­ble to non-control­ling inte­rests will be limi­ted in the first two years, but will increase there­af­ter as the factory is fully utilized.

Intel’s manu­fac­tu­ring sites in Ireland

Intel cele­bra­ted the opening of Fab 34 in Ireland in Septem­ber 2023, marking the first use of extreme ultra­vio­let (EUV) litho­gra­phy in high-volume manu­fac­tu­ring in Europe. Fab 34 is desi­gned for the high-volume produc­tion of Intel 3 and Intel 4 tech­no­lo­gies. In addi­tion to Fab 34, Intel has a second manu­fac­tu­ring faci­lity in Leixlip, Fab 24, which is an important site for the produc­tion of Intel’s 14-nano­me­ter sili­con micro­pro­ces­sors and is also prepa­ring to support Intel foundry custo­mers. The tran­sac­tion with Apollo rela­tes only to Fab 34.

Consul­tant

Gold­man Sachs & Co. acted as lead finan­cial advi­sor to Intel, while Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meag­her & Flom LLP and Ever­s­heds Suther­land acted as legal advi­sors to Intel.

The law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Whar­ton & Garri­son LLP is advi­sing the funds and affi­lia­tes mana­ged by Apollo, while Latham & Watkins LLP is provi­ding legal advice to Apollo’s co-inves­tors.

 

News

Malsch/ London/ Munich — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advi­sed Plati­num Equity on the acqui­si­tion and finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Sunrise Medi­cal, a global market leader in mobi­lity assis­tive devices, from Nordic Capital.

Sunrise Medi­cal deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes manual and elec­tric wheel­chairs, elec­tric scoo­ters and custo­mi­zed seats and support systems. The products are sold under the Quickie, Sopur, Zippie, Breezy, Ster­ling and JAY brands by sales part­ners in over 130 count­ries. The Sunrise Medi­cal Group is head­quar­te­red in Malsch, Germany and has over 2,800 employees worldwide.

Plati­num Equity is a leading global inves­tor with over USD 48 billion in assets under manage­ment and appro­xi­m­ately 50 port­fo­lio compa­nies. Plati­num Equity specia­li­zes in Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons & Opera­ti­ons of compa­nies in a variety of busi­ness sectors.
The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in Q3 2024 and is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Advi­sor Plati­num Equity: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Led by part­ner Nils Röver (Private Equity, Munich) with part­ners Gavin Gordon (Private Equity, London) and Michael Ilter (Private Equity, Frank­furt), coun­sel Jacob Ahme (Private Equity, Munich) and asso­ciate Will Buchanan (Private Equity, London) and further compri­sed part­ners Joe Kaczo­row­ski (Private Equity, Los Ange­les), Jane Scobie (Tax, London), Matthew Mako­ver (IP, New York), Aimee Contre­ras- Camua (Real Estate, Los Ange­les), Richard Roeder (Compli­ance, Munich), Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment, Munich), Jordan Messin­ger, Andrew Spital (both Employ­ment, New York), Andrew English (Compli­ance, Washing­ton), John Brennan (Liti­ga­tion, New York) and further coun­sel Sebas­tian Bren­ner (Private Equity, Frank­furt), Martin Waskow­ski (Employ­ment, Frank­furt), William Thomas (EHS, Washing­ton) and asso­cia­tes Nils Bock, Denise Kamme­rer, Jasper Wentz (all Private Equity, Frank­furt), Steven Merca­dante (Private Equity, Los Ange­les), Holly Dono­van, Isi Ijag­bone (both Private Equity, London), Taaj Reaves, (IP, Chicago), Rachel Terrell-Perica (IP, Palo Alto), Marga­ret West (IP, New York), Philip Thür­mer (Real Estate, Frank­furt), Maxi­mi­lian Schlutz (Compli­ance, Munich), Lianna Murphy (IP, New York), Yannis Yuen (Liti­ga­tion, London), David Levine (Compli­ance, Washing­ton), Adam Cohen (Employ­ment, New York), Nick Maetta (Private Equity, New York), Michael Tinti (Liti­ga­tion, New York) and Noni Brown (IP, New York).

The finan­cing was led by Daniel Gendron (Finan­cing, London), Jenni­fer Tait (Capi­tal Markets, London) and Cris­to­pher Greer (Capi­tal Markets, New York), with Part­ner David Grif­fiths (Capi­tal Markets, London), Coun­sel Timo­thy Sawyer, Asso­ciate Alec Young and Trai­nee Theodora Oancea (all Finan­cing, London).

About WILLKIE

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues span­ning diverse markets and indus­tries. Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 lawy­ers in 15 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in around 45 areas of law. www.willkie.com.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed funds advi­sed and mana­ged by Oakt­ree Capi­tal Manage­ment, L.P. (“Oakt­ree”) on the sale of its invest­ment in Life­Fit Group to Water­land Private Equity Invest­ments (“Water­land”).

As the previous majo­rity share­hol­der, Oakt­ree is selling its shares in the Life­Fit Group, a leading German fitness and health plat­form with more than 140 studios, inclu­ding the Fitness­First, Elbgym, Barry’s and Club Pila­tes brands. The acqui­si­tion by the buyer Water­land is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2024.

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2024. The Life­Fit Group is thus conti­nuing to pursue the growth course it has been on since its foun­da­tion in 2019, which is to be inten­si­fied with the new inves­tor Water­land. Since 2019, the Group’s gym port­fo­lio has grown from 50 to more than 140 clubs in 2024, where more than 400,000 people train, making Life­Fit one of the leading health and fitness plat­forms in Germany.

Advi­sor Oakt­ree: WEIL

The inter­na­tio­nal Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Munich-based private equity part­ner Manuel-Peter Fringer and compri­sed part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (tax, Munich), part­ner Neil Rigby (regu­la­tory, London), coun­sel Thomas Zimmer­mann (finance, Munich), Florian Wessel (private equity, Munich), Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (IP, Munich), Stef­fen Giolda (anti­trust, Munich), as well as asso­cia­tes Amelie Zabel, David Fier, Dr. Chris­to­pher Schlet­ter and Lucas Otto­witz (all private equity, Munich), Jannik Dutt­lin­ger (data protec­tion law, Frank­furt), Alex­an­der Reich, Daniel Reich (both tax law, Frank­furt), Hans-Chris­tian Mick (finance, Frank­furt), Silvia Lengauer (finance, Munich), Fabian Kraupe, Benja­min Köpple (both employ­ment law, Munich) and Daniel Mati­je­vic (litigation/IP, Munich).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Shang­hai, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax struc­tu­ring. www.weil.com

About Water­land

Foun­ded in 1999, the Euro­pean asso­cia­ted company Water­land opera­tes at 13 loca­ti­ons in eleven count­ries and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the fitness and health indus­try. From 2005 to 2013, Water­land inves­ted in the Dutch Health City­/­Ba­sic-Fit Group and deve­lo­ped it into the second-largest gym opera­tor in Europe. Water­land also held a majo­rity stake in the Exer­cite Group (Hanse­fit), which was deve­lo­ped into one of the largest specia­lists for corpo­rate health and well­ness offe­rings in Germany and the Nether­lands and was ulti­m­ately acqui­red by the Epassi Group in Febru­ary 2024. Water­land also curr­ently holds a stake in the German fitness chain FIT/One. www.waterlandpe.com

News

Paris/ Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment compa­nies, has raised EUR 530 million for the third gene­ra­tion of its growth plat­form, the Ardian Growth Fund III. In a chal­len­ging fund­rai­sing envi­ron­ment, the fund closed above the target figure of EUR 500 million, more than doubling the volume compared to its prede­ces­sor gene­ra­tion, which closed in 2018 with EUR 230 million.

The successful fund­rai­sing is the result of a clearly diver­si­fied LP base in terms of inves­tor type and global origin. In addi­tion, there was a high level of parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors in the prede­ces­sor fund. The Ardian Growth Fund III recei­ved commit­ments from inves­tors in 12 count­ries, inclu­ding major banks and insu­rance compa­nies, entre­pre­neurs, pension funds and govern­ment insti­tu­ti­ons. The parti­ci­pa­tion of almost 120 entre­pre­neurs is parti­cu­lar proof of inves­tors’ confi­dence in the team and its ability to iden­tify high-quality invest­ments and successfully manage their growth.

Buil­ding on the expe­ri­ence gained in previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons, the Growth team will conti­nue to draw on its powerful sourcing network across conti­nen­tal Europe to iden­tify profi­ta­ble, fast-growing compa­nies. The fund will conti­nue to pursue a sector-focu­sed invest­ment stra­tegy in the target indus­tries of the digi­tal economy (e.g. soft­ware, web and tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies), specia­li­zed B2B service provi­ders and compa­nies from the health and well­ness sector, parti­cu­larly those that bene­fit from the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and contri­bute to the disrup­tion of tradi­tio­nal value chains in their sector.

“Our approach has always been about more than provi­ding capi­tal: we work inten­si­vely with entre­pre­neurs to acce­le­rate their busi­ness growth, realize their ambi­ti­ons and expand their inter­na­tio­nal foot­print. The current market envi­ron­ment offers some of the most exci­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth invest­ments in the past 20 years, espe­ci­ally given the scale and speed of digi­ta­liza­tion. Our team of experts brings world-class exper­tise and in-depth indus­try know­ledge to support manage­ment teams in their growth. We have alre­ady made three invest­ments from the fund and will make further invest­ments based on our unique sourcing capa­bi­li­ties to support compa­nies in the next phase of their growth,” said Alexis Saada, Head of Growth & Senior Mana­ger at ARDIAN.

The fund has alre­ady inves­ted around 25 percent of its capi­tal in three tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding Théra­dial, a leading provi­der of dialy­sis solu­ti­ons in its sector, My Pie, an inno­va­tive snack­ing concept, and Aprium Phar­macie, a phar­macy fran­chise company.

The fund complies with Article 8 of the EU Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (SFDR) and inte­gra­tes sustaina­bi­lity aspects into its stra­tegy in order to create long-term value for all stakeholders.

The Ardian Growth team has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in inves­t­ing in the Euro­pean growth market and curr­ently consists of four part­ners in a team of 14 invest­ment profes­sio­nals. It mana­ges total assets of one billion euros and has supported more than 120 compa­nies since 1998.

About ARDIAN

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses assets tota­ling around US$ 164 billion for more than 1,600 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth indi­vi­du­als. Ardian’s employees are also the company’s largest share­hol­der group.

Ardian atta­ches great importance to their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of coope­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 19 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble invest­ment. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term.

www.ardian.com

News

Frank­furt — Index Ventures is lead inves­tor in the $300 million invest­ment round of DeepL, a leading German arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence company in the field of speech tech­no­logy, at a valua­tion of $2 billion. In addi­tion to the exis­ting inves­tors IVP, Atomico and WiL, other late-stage inves­tors such as ICONIQ Growth, Teachers’ Venture Growth, World Inno­va­tion Lab and others also parti­ci­pa­ted. The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird advi­sed Index Ventures on this transaction.

The invest­ment comes at a time of strong growth and momen­tum for DeepL, which has built a global network of more than 100,000 custo­mers consis­ting of compa­nies, govern­ments and other orga­niza­ti­ons. In response to incre­asing demand from global compa­nies, DeepL has acce­le­ra­ted its expan­sion efforts and stra­te­gic invest­ments in key markets over the past year. In Janu­ary 2024, DeepL step­ped up its invol­vement in the USA — now its third largest market — by opening its first branch in the region and has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its range of products tail­o­red to compa­nies over the last 12 months. The company laun­ched DeepL Write Pro, a writing assistant speci­fi­cally tail­o­red to writing busi­ness docu­ments and based on its own LLM (Large Language Model) tech­no­logy. In addi­tion, the number of languages supported by the plat­form has been further expan­ded with the recent addi­tion of Arabic, Korean and Norwe­gian, brin­ging the total number of languages on offer to 32.

“The success story of DeepL is some­thing of an open secret in the busi­ness world,” explains Danny Riemer (photo © Index Ventures), Part­ner at Index Ventures in London. The company takes a very careful approach to deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive AI products that bring real and imme­diate added value to its custo­mers. Jarek and the rest of the DeepL team attach great importance to both rese­arch and commer­cial orien­ta­tion. It is precis­ely these two factors that make the company so successful.”

The appoint­ment of Bird & Bird for the legal due dili­gence of DeepL by Index Ventures reflects Bird & Bird’s strong focus on tech­no­logy tran­sac­tions and its deep under­stan­ding of soft­ware and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence compa­nies. The firm’s highly specia­li­zed exper­tise combi­ned with its inter­na­tio­nal approach provi­ded Index Ventures with the neces­sary insight to assess DeepL’s busi­ness from a legal perspective.

Bird & Bird lead part­ner Dr. Marc Seeger said: “We were deligh­ted to support our client in this exci­ting project. Our team reviewed all rele­vant legal aspects of a leading AI-based busi­ness model, brin­ging in our deep under­stan­ding of the sector and tech­no­logy. The exper­tise of our AI-focu­sed commer­cial team was equally impres­sive and bene­fi­cial for the client and the other co-investors.”

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a Euro­pean global venture capi­tal firm with two head­quar­ters in San Fran­cisco and London that invests in tech­no­logy-based compa­nies with a focus on e‑commerce, fintech, mobi­lity, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and secu­rity. www.indexventures.com

Advi­sor to Index Ventures: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Dr. Marc Seeger (Lead, Frank­furt), Coun­sel Andrea Schlote (Munich), Asso­ciate Felix Spind­ler, LL.M (Düssel­dorf, all Corporate/M&A), Part­ner Dr. Miriam Ball­hau­sen and Asso­cia­tes Alex­andre Franke and Fiona Gawlik (all Commercial/Technology & Commu­ni­ca­tion, Hamburg), Coun­sel Oliver Belitz (Commercial/KI, Frank­furt), Coun­sel Dr. Nils Lölfing (Data Protec­tion / AI, Düssel­dorf), Asso­ciate Dr. Simon Hembt (Intellec­tual Property / AI, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Simon Assion (Data Protec­tion, Frank­furt), Senior Coun­sel Elie Kauf­man, LL.M. and asso­ciate Finja Schling­mann (both real estate law, Frank­furt), part­ner Dr. Artur-Konrad Wypy­chand asso­ciate Dr. Karina Bisch­off (both employ­ment law, Düssel­dorf), part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann, asso­cia­tes Julia Fröh­der and Timo Förs­ter (all finan­cing & finan­cial regu­la­tion, Frankfurt);

Coun­sel Moritz Neidel (Patent Law, Hamburg), Asso­ciate Rick Wend­ler (Trade­mark Law, Düssel­dorf), as well as Part­ner Mark Rund­all (Corporate/M&A, London), Part­ner Ludo­mir Biede­cki (Corporate/M&A, Warsaw), Part­ner Pauline Vos (Corporate/M&A, The Hague) and their teams.

Advi­sor to exis­ting inves­tor Atomico: YPOG 

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Tobias Lovett (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Farina Weber (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Atomico

Atomico invests in early-stage tech­no­logy compa­nies through to IPO — with a parti­cu­lar focus on Europe — using its exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to acce­le­rate their growth. Since its incep­tion in 2006, Atomico has worked with over 130 ambi­tious teams — inclu­ding Klarna, Super­cell, Graph­core, Compass, Messa­ge­Bird, Master­class, Atten­tive Mobile, Pipedrive and Hinge Health. Atomico’s team of foun­ders, inves­tors and opera­tio­nal execu­ti­ves have been respon­si­ble for global expan­sion, hiring and marke­ting at compa­nies ranging from Skype and Google to Twit­ter and Uber. The company curr­ently has assets under manage­ment of US$5 billion. https://atomico.com

 

News

Zug, Switz­er­land — Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”), one of the most active and
the largest private equity firm in the DACH region with a strong presence in Italy, announ­ces the closing of its fourth fund, Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal IV (“Fund IV”), with capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling EUR2.65 billion. Fund IV was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed and closed successfully at its hard cap.

As with the previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons, Fund IV also achie­ved a high level of demand and was again able to attract seve­ral fami­lies and foun­ders as part of the more than 30 new investors.

Fund IV is adhe­ring to BU’s proven invest­ment stra­tegy, in which
core region to iden­tify “hidden cham­pi­ons” and forge part­ner­ships with start-up and family-run SMEs.

company. Fund IV provi­des indi­vi­dual commit­ments of between EUR 75 and 300 million to help leading regio­nal and global SMEs in attrac­tive market sectors such as soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­logy, busi­ness services and health­care to realize their potential.

The closing of Fund IV is another mile­stone on BU’s road to success. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the BU port­fo­lio compa­nies have been successfully deve­lo­ped in part­ner­ship with the 50-strong invest­ment team. BU’s port­fo­lio compa­nies achie­ved an increase in EBITDA of more than 20% p.a. during this period. To date, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted over EUR 3.0 billion in more than 100 company succes­si­ons in the SME sector with over 27,000 employees. More than 7,700 jobs were crea­ted in the process. Many entre­pre­neurs from the BU invest­ments are also inves­ted in Fund IV.

Advi­sor Bregal Unternehmerkapital

Good­win Proc­ter provi­ded the legal advice.
Camp­bell Luty­ens advi­sed on fundraising.

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich and Milan. With a total of EUR 7.0 billion in capi­tal raised since its foun­da­tion, BU is the largest mid-cap inves­tor head­quar­te­red in the DACH region. The funds advi­sed by BU invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Austria. With the mission to be the prefer­red part­ner for entre­pre­neurs and family businesses
BU focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth poten­tial. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted over EUR 3.0 billion in more than 100 compa­nies with over 27,000 employees. More than 7,700 jobs were crea­ted in the process. BU supports entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies as a stra­te­gic part­ner in order to further deve­lop their compa­nies, to
inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion, and helps them to do so,
respon­si­bly and with a view to the next gene­ra­tion, sustainable values.

 

News

Lyon / Frank­furt / London — Bridge­point and LumApps have announ­ced the upco­ming invest­ment of Bridge­point Europe VII (“BE VII”), a leading mid-market invest­ment fund, in the next gene­ra­tion cloud-based intra­net commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons provi­der. As part of the current tran­sac­tion, valued at USD 650 million, LumApps’ exis­ting inves­tors — Growth Equity from Gold­man Sachs Alter­na­ti­ves, Eura­zeo Growth, Bpifrance via its Large Venture Fund and IRIS — are selling their shares to Bridgepoint.

The foun­ders and manage­ment of LumApps will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion, which is expec­ted to close in July 2024 and is not subject to any condi­ti­ons precedent.

LumApps, head­quar­te­red near Lyon in France, is a cloud-based, social and colla­bo­ra­tive intra­net plat­form for compa­nies that supports employees in their work, commu­ni­ca­tion and colla­bo­ra­tion and thus increa­ses produc­ti­vity in the work­place. The company uses an AI-powered plat­form that inte­gra­tes with enter­prise soft­ware such as Google Workspace and Micro­soft 365, as well as hundreds of other busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons and HR resour­ces such as Work­day, ServiceNow, Zoom, Sales­force, Box and SAP Success­Fac­tors. These appli­ca­ti­ons, data and infor­ma­tion are centra­li­zed on a single plat­form and serve as a so-called “digi­tal front door” for employees, who can access them via an AI conver­sa­tion interface.

LumApps curr­ently has more than five million users and around 700 custo­mers world­wide. The company is at the fore­front of the next-gene­ra­tion intra­net market, which Bridge­point esti­ma­tes is growing by 15 percent annu­ally and is curr­ently worth an esti­ma­ted USD 9 billion. This growth is being driven by a signi­fi­cant move away from legacy and in-house systems, the need for a single plat­form to inte­grate dispa­rate appli­ca­ti­ons and an increased focus on employee enga­ge­ment and retention.

LumApps conti­nues to expand its presence in the employee expe­ri­ence indus­try by deve­lo­ping advan­ced features such as video and mobile, as well as inno­va­tive new products such as the Gen-AI Compa­n­ion and micro-lear­ning solu­ti­ons. With world-class tech­no­logy and the ability to lead the market in inno­va­tion, LumApps has been able to expand its market share in all markets in which it opera­tes, inclu­ding the US, Western Europe and Japan.

Bridge­point will support LumApps in acce­le­ra­ting its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, with a focus on the US. At the same time, the company will conti­nue to invest in product deve­lo­p­ment to improve the employee expe­ri­ence through advan­ced AI and machine lear­ning tech­no­lo­gies, commer­cia­lize new products and conti­nue M&A activities.

Bridgepoint’s stra­te­gic invest­ment in LumApps builds on the company’s proven track record of support­ing soft­ware compa­nies that serve enter­prise custo­mers in expan­ding markets and have multi­ple levers to drive growth. Previous invest­ments include Kyriba, Fenergo, Calypso, eFront and Brevo.

This tran­sac­tion is the seventh acqui­si­tion by BE VII.

Sébas­tien Ricard, CEO of LumApps, said: “The stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Bridge­point repres­ents a logi­cal and signi­fi­cant step in LumApps’ growth trajec­tory, follo­wing the successful comple­tion of our Series A, B and C finan­cings and the profi­ta­ble growth we have achie­ved. By ente­ring the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment, we want to acce­le­rate our growth and inno­va­tion in key areas of our busi­ness. This includes exten­ding our leader­ship in packa­ged intra­net solu­ti­ons and expan­ding into the broa­der employee expe­ri­ence market with AI-powered tools to offer the only solu­tion that deli­vers commu­ni­ca­tion, colla­bo­ra­tion and lear­ning on the same plat­form. With Bridge­point as a part­ner, we are well equip­ped to conti­nue inves­t­ing in inno­va­tion to actively shape the future of enga­ge­ment and colla­bo­ra­tion in the workplace.”

David Nicault, Part­ner, and Nadia Cid, Direc­tor at Bridge­pointsaid: “LumApps is a global market leader with world-class products and tech­no­lo­gies. This is under­pin­ned by an impres­sive growth rate that is double that of the market. With its strong French roots and an estab­lished presence in key markets such as the US and Japan, LumApps fits perfectly into Bridgepoint’s plat­form stra­tegy. We are deligh­ted to be able to support LumApps in its global growth with our strong Euro­pean presence and indus­try exper­tise to help the company achieve its goal of beco­ming the leading employee expe­ri­ence platform. ”

Benoist Gross­mann, Senior Mana­ging Part­ner, and Anne-Char­lotte Phil­bert, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Eura­zeo, said: “As active members of the LumApps Board of Direc­tors and repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of Eura­zeo on this board, we are very proud to have been able to support the manage­ment team in reali­zing a shared vision for LumApps. LumApps has successfully estab­lished itself as a global market leader in the field of digi­tal employer expe­ri­ence for companies.

Consul­tant Bridgepoint: 

Deut­sche Bank (M&A Advi­sor), Latham & Watkins (Legal Advi­sor), Bain (Commer­cial), Cross­lake (Tech Due Dili­gence), EY (Finan­cial and Tax Due Dili­gence), D’Orn­ano + Co (Growth Due Dili­gence), ERM (ESG Due Dili­gence) and Marsh (Insu­rance Due Diligence).

Consul­tant LumApps:

William Blair (M&A Advi­sor), DLA Piper (M&A Legal Advi­sor), Squire Patton Boggs (VDD Legal Advi­sor), Dune (Corpo­rate Legal Advi­sor), EY-Parthe­non (VDD Commer­cial and Tech­no­lo­gi­cal Advi­sor), EY (VDD Finan­cial Advisor) .

About LumApps

LumApps is a next-gene­ra­tion intra­net SaaS plat­form that allows employees to connect to their orga­niza­tion and work from anywhere. By provi­ding a modern, intel­li­gent digi­tal hub, LumApps is revo­lu­tio­ni­zing employee inter­ac­tion, produc­ti­vity and lear­ning in the work­place. LumApps uses an AI-powered plat­form to make intel­li­gent, targe­ted inter­nal commu­ni­ca­tion effort­less and centra­lize key HR resour­ces and busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons on a single plat­form, regard­less of the colla­bo­ra­tion suite: Google Workspace or Micro­soft 365.

With more than five million users and around 700 custo­mers world­wide, LumApps is reco­gni­zed as a Leader in the 2023 Gart­ner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intra­net Packa­ged Solu­ti­ons. LumApps is part of the French Tech 120 program.

About Bridge­point

Bridge­point Group plc is a listed inter­na­tio­nal alter­na­tive asset mana­ger focu­sed on mid-market compa­nies. With assets under manage­ment of over EUR 62 billion (inclu­ding ECP after closing of the tran­sac­tion), the company employs around 200 invest­ment experts in Europe, North America and Asia. Bridge­point combi­nes global reach with local market know­ledge and sector exper­tise to consis­t­ently deli­ver compel­ling returns across econo­mic cycles. Bridge­point pursues a diver­si­fied invest­ment stra­tegy in four verti­cal areas: Mid-Cap, Smid-Cap, Growth and Credit. Bridge­point has a track record of land­mark tran­sac­tions in the tech­no­logy sector, inclu­ding eFront, Calypso, Kyriba and Brevo.

https://www.bridgepoint.eu

News

Berlin — The share­hol­ders of the AI start-up Aaron.ai have sold to the French e‑health company Docto­lib. With the acqui­si­tion of the provi­der of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-based tele­phone assistant, Docto­lib is expan­ding its own offe­ring to reli­eve prac­tice teams in their day-to-day work. This is the French company’s first acqui­si­tion in Germany.

Docto­lib was foun­ded in Paris in 2013 by Stan Niox-Chateau (photo 1st from left; © Docto­lib), who was previously invol­ved in a company that enables online restau­rant reser­va­tions. — Doclib is now active in France, Germany, Italy and the Nether­lands and employs 2800 people. The start-up Aaron, which has now been acqui­red by Docto­lib, was foun­ded in 2015 by Richard von Schae­wen, Iwan Lappo Dani­lew­ski and Tobias Wagen­füh­rer and is curr­ently the leading provi­der of AI-based tele­phone assis­tance solu­ti­ons for medi­cal prac­ti­ces in Germany.

Aaron has deve­lo­ped an AI assistant that answers calls instead of medi­cal assistants. The AI-supported soft­ware-as-a-service solu­tion was deve­lo­ped in coope­ra­tion with Humboldt- Inno­va­tion GmbH, a subsi­diary of Humboldt-Univer­si­tät zu Berlin, and is curr­ently used by more than 3,500 doctors.

Through the acqui­si­tion, Docto­lib now also wants to reach pati­ents who still make appoint­ments by tele­phone, which accounts for around half of all medi­cal appoint­ments in Germany. By acqui­ring the Berlin-based company, Docto­lib is expan­ding its product range in one of its most important growth markets.

About Aaron.ai

Aaron GmbH was foun­ded in Berlin in 2015. Toge­ther with hundreds of medi­cal assistants and doctors, the company has deve­lo­ped Aaron, an AI-control­led tele­phone assistant that supports medi­cal prac­ti­ces on the phone. The start-up uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to adapt human-machine commu­ni­ca­tion to the needs of people and not the other way around.

Advi­sor Aaron.ai: YPOG
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg, Barbara Hasse (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Melisa Keme (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin; Florian Bacher (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin Cyra Ditt­ber­ner (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin Amelie Insel­mann (Tax). Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law .

News

Munich/ Frank­furt a. M. — Clever­soft, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners (LLCP), acqui­res Tetra­log Systems. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Clever­soft on the acqui­si­tion of Tetra­log Systems AG.

With this acqui­si­tion, Clever­soft is expan­ding its port­fo­lio to include Wealth­Tech solu­ti­ons for port­fo­lio analy­sis and opti­miza­tion, among other things, and is conti­nuing its growth strategy.

Foun­ded in 2004 and head­quar­te­red in Munich, Clever­soft Group is a leading provi­der of regu­la­tory soft­ware and services for the finan­cial services indus­try. The Group provi­des over 1,000 finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons world­wide with solu­ti­ons for opti­mi­zing busi­ness-rele­vant compli­ance processes.

Tetra­log Systems AG has been digi­tiz­ing the invest­ment advi­sory process for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons in Europe for more than 30 years. Its clients include well-known Tier 1 banks and asset mana­gers. As part of Clever­soft, Tetra­log will conti­nue to operate on the market under its tradi­tio­nal name.

Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners is a mid-market private equity firm with $9.3 billion in assets under manage­ment and offices in Los Ange­les, New York, Chicago, Char­lotte, Miami, London, Stock­holm, The Hague and Frankfurt.

LLCP acqui­red Clever­soft from Main Capi­tal in 2023. A team from McDer­mott Will & Emery also advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion at the time.

Advi­sor Clever­soft: McDer­mott Will & Emery 

Under the leader­ship of Holger H. Ebers­ber­ger (Part­ner, Private Equity, Munich) and Dr. Thomas Diek­mann (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Munich); the team also included Marion Dalvai-König (Asso­ciate, Real Estate Law, Munich), Dr. Armin Teymouri (Asso­ciate, Private Equity, Munich), Stef­fen Woitz (Part­ner, IP/IT, Munich), Lukas Deutz­mann (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law, Munich), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Frankfurt).

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 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. www.mwe.com/de

News

Aachen — The sustainable end-to-end battery recy­cling company cylib closes its Series A finan­cing round of 55 million. The finan­cing round, the largest ever raised by a Euro­pean battery recy­cling company, was comple­ted less than 24 months after the start of operations.

The round was led by Europe’s leading climate-tech VC, World Fund, and Porsche Ventures, the venture arm of sports car manu­fac­tu­rer Porsche AG. Other inves­tors include Bosch Ventures, DeepT­ech & Climate Fonds, NRW.Venture as well as exis­ting inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Vsquared Ventures, Speed­in­vest and well-known busi­ness angels.

The finan­cing round is the first venture co-invest­ment by the indus­trial giants Porsche and Bosch in Germany. At the same time, expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors from the climate and deep tech sectors, the auto­mo­tive sector, indus­try and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors are inves­t­ing toge­ther in a battery recy­cling company for the first time. This under­lines the joint effort to build a sustainable battery infra­struc­ture in Europe.

Cylib was foun­ded in 2022 as a spin-off of RWTH Aachen Univer­sity by Lilian Schwich (CEO), Paul Sabarny and Dr. Gideon Schwich and specia­li­zes in the hydro­me­tall­ur­gi­cal recy­cling of used lithium-ion cells. — The company offers a market-leading tech­no­logy for the end-to-end recy­cling of lithium-ion batte­ries and has alre­ady reali­zed a successful pilot line and projects with major car manu­fac­tu­r­ers and battery producers.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to drive forward the indus­trial scaling of produc­tion and the expan­sion of the inter­di­sci­pli­nary team. Since Septem­ber 2023, the start-up has been opera­ting a pilot plant in Aachen and imple­men­ting projects with car manu­fac­tu­r­ers, suppli­ers and refi­ne­ries. The plant in a former chemi­cal produc­tion faci­lity in North Rhine-West­pha­lia is sche­du­led to start produc­tion in 2026.

Consul­tant cylib: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About World­Fund

The Berlin-based VC was foun­ded in 2021 by Daria Saha­rova, Dani­jel Više­vić, Tim Schu­ma­cher and Craig Douglas. It has offices in Berlin, Munich, Colo­gne and Amster­dam as well as an invest­ment team with scien­ti­fic and entre­pre­neu­rial make-up. The World Fund has alre­ady supported 15 market-leading compa­nies, inclu­ding IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters, Space Forge, Planet A Foods, Juicy Marbles and GENUG Foods. Other invest­ments making head­lines include invest­ments in the battery manu­fac­tu­rer CustomCells, the recy­cling company Cylib and in Aedi­fion and Ecoworks for proptech start-ups.
www.worldfund.vc

About 10x Founders

10x Foun­ders is a network-driven inves­tor backed by over 200 entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels. The foun­ding part­ners (Andreas Etten, Andrej Henk­ler, Clau­dius Jablonka, Felix Haas, Jan Becker, Jan Reichelt and Robert Wuttke) have alre­ady made over 300 invest­ments and are now conti­nuing these early-stage invest­ments as part of 10x Foun­ders. At the begin­ning of 2021, they joined forces with the vision of crea­ting the best early-stage inves­tor for Europe’s most ambi­tious startup foun­ders. The aim is to support the next gene­ra­tion of foun­ders to help build world-leading tech­no­logy compa­nies from Europe. The “Entre­pre­neur-to-Entre­pre­neur” invest­ment plat­form is the back­bone of 10x Foun­ders and helps to bring toge­ther the best foun­ders with the best and most suita­ble co-investors.
www.10xfounders.com

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
http://www.ypog.law

News

Berlin — Captain T Cell GmbH, a biotech­no­logy company deve­lo­ping next-gene­ra­tion T cells against solid tumors, has successfully closed a seed finan­cing round of 8.5 million euros. A consor­tium of expe­ri­en­ced life science inves­tors, inclu­ding i&i Biotech Fund I SCSp, Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH and HIL-INVENT Ges.m.b.H, parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

In addi­tion, the Fede­ral Minis­try of Educa­tion and Rese­arch (BMBF) supports the company through its renow­ned GO-Bio program. The finan­cing also marks the appoint­ment of biotech vete­ran Jörn Aldag as Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board. — Dr. Lorenz Frey and Dr. Frank Vogel from the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed Captain T Cell.

The capi­tal from the seed finan­cing round will be used to bring a new gene­ra­tion of T‑cell thera­pies against solid tumors into the clinic.

Captain T Cell is deve­lo­ping TCR‑T cells with increased effi­cacy for solid tumors that cannot be trea­ted with exis­ting thera­pies. Using a series of novel tech­no­lo­gies, Captain T Cell gene­ra­tes TCR‑T cells with increased persis­tence and the ability to effec­tively coun­ter­act the hostile tumor microen­vi­ron­ment of diffi­cult-to-treat solid tumors. In precli­ni­cal in vivo models, the company has succee­ded in comple­tely rejec­ting aggres­sive tumors with these effi­cacy-enhan­ced T cells. A key tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by the Captain T Cell team is the company’s proprie­tary TCR-ALLO plat­form for off-the-shelf treat­ment of solid tumors. The TCR-ALLO plat­form is a univer­sal tool that can be exten­ded to a variety of cancer indications.

The company is a spin-off of the renow­ned Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, Germany, a leading Euro­pean biome­di­cal rese­arch insti­tu­tion. The Insti­tute provi­ded valuable finan­cial and infra­struc­tu­ral support during the pre-seed phase and, toge­ther with its tech­no­logy trans­fer part­ner Ascen­ion, remains a close part­ner for future ventures.

Captain T Cell is based in Schönefeld/Berlin and is supported by the expe­ri­en­ced Euro­pean inves­tors i&i Biotech Fund I SCSp, Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH and HIL-INVENT Ges.m.b.H.. Captain T Cell was foun­ded by an ambi­tious team of immuno-onco­logy experts. The tech­no­lo­gies were deve­lo­ped at the Max Delbrück Center for Mole­cu­lar Medi­cine in the Helm­holtz Asso­cia­tion in Berlin. www.captaintcell.com

Consul­tant: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Lorenz Frey, Dr. Frank Vogel

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

News

Hamburg/Alsdorf — Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners has acqui­red the VEDA Group. The Cana­dian Impe­rial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) reali­zed the €17 million finan­cing of the VEDA Group and recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from YPOG.

VEDA is an indus­try-leading provi­der of HR soft­ware and Payroll-as-a-Service based in Alsdorf (Germany). Foun­ded in 1977, the company offers soft­ware for payroll accoun­ting, time and secu­rity manage­ment and payroll-as-a-service for medium-sized compa­nies in Germany. VEDA will use the finan­cing from CIBC to streng­then its market posi­tion in the DACH region and to expand into inter­na­tio­nal markets such as Bene­lux, the UK and Scan­di­na­via, and will conti­nue to pursue its buy-and-build stra­tegy with a focus on payroll soft­ware and payroll services companies.

The YPOG team led by Matthias Kres­ser has alre­ady advi­sed CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking seve­ral times on loan finan­cing of this and simi­lar types. Team:
Matthias Kres­ser (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Jan Stamm­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg

About CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking

CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking provi­des stra­te­gic advice, cash manage­ment and finan­cing to inno­va­tive compa­nies in North America, the UK and selec­ted Euro­pean count­ries at every stage of their busi­ness cycle, from start-up to IPO and beyond. With offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Durham, London, Menlo Park, Mont­real, New York, Reston, Seat­tle, Toronto and Vancou­ver, the team has exten­sive expe­ri­ence and a strong, colla­bo­ra­tive approach that spans CIBC’s Commer­cial Banking, Private Banking, Wealth Manage­ment and Capi­tal Markets businesses.

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
http://www.ypog.law

News

Zurich/Unterkulm/Pogno — The KWC Group, desi­gner and manu­fac­tu­rer of faucets and access­ories for kitchens, bath­rooms and wash­rooms and part of the Equis­tone Funds port­fo­lio since 2021, is selling its Home busi­ness to the Italian sani­tary specia­list Paini S.p.A. Rubi­net­te­rie (“Paini”). KWC Home and Paini are thus conti­nuing their long-stan­ding part­ner­ship under one roof. Details of the tran­sac­tion will not be disclosed.

KWC Group — form­erly a divi­sion of the Swiss Franke Group opera­ting under the name Franke Water Systems — is an inter­na­tio­nally active premium manu­fac­tu­rer and system provi­der for sani­tary equip­ment, fittings and water manage­ment systems. Follo­wing the successful sale of the KWC Medi­cal divi­sion to the Alum­bra Group in Janu­ary 2024, the Group, head­quar­te­red in Unter­kulm, Switz­er­land, now serves a broad custo­mer base with its three divi­si­ons — KWC Home, KWC Profes­sio­nal and OEM. In addi­tion to private end custo­mers, this also includes (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons such as airports, shop­ping centers, schools, sports and leisure faci­li­ties, hotels as well as hospi­tals, nursing homes and reti­re­ment homes. The KWC Group has seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons and compe­tence centers world­wide, inclu­ding in Switz­er­land, Germany, the UK, China and the Middle East, and curr­ently employs around 1,000 people.

Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe acqui­red a majo­rity stake in KWC Group in April 2021. Toge­ther with the support of Equis­tone, the Group is now selling its fast-growing Home divi­sion. KWC Home is the market leader in Switz­er­land in the manu­fac­ture of high-quality bath­room, kitchen and cate­ring fittings and serves custo­mers in the private sector. In recent years, the KWC Group has conti­nuously deve­lo­ped its Home busi­ness with the support of Equis­tone: With targe­ted invest­ments in the areas of digi­ta­liza­tion and IT, as well as in the product port­fo­lio — inclu­ding the intro­duc­tion of new products — KWC Home was able to further streng­then its alre­ady leading posi­tion in the Swiss dome­stic market as well as in Germany. Another important mile­stone was the successful repo­si­tio­ning of the divi­sion follo­wing the carve-out from the Franke Group and the estab­lish­ment of a strong bran­ding presence for KWC Home as an expe­ri­en­ced, inno­va­tive sani­tary partner.

Toge­ther with the new owner Paini, the growth of KWC Home is now to be taken to a new level: “In recent years, as part of the KWC Group and with the support of Equis­tone, we have succee­ded in further streng­thening our leading market posi­tion in Switz­er­land and expan­ding our presence in Germany. We look forward to conti­nuing this successful course with our new owner and long-stan­ding part­ner Paini,” explains Urs Tschopp, CEO at KWC Home.

“KWC Home is excel­lently posi­tio­ned on the market. With Paini, we have found the ideal new part­ner for KWC Home to conti­nue the growth course we have initia­ted and to further deve­lop the tradi­tio­nal KWC brand in the future,” adds David Zahnd, Part­ner at Equis­tone, Zurich (photo © Equistone).

Roman E. Hegglin, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Equis­tone, adds: “The Equis­tone funds will now focus on the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the KWC Profes­sio­nal busi­ness, which is well posi­tio­ned for further growth.

On the Equis­tone side, the funds were advi­sed by Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin.

Advi­sors Equis­tone: DC Advi­sory (M&A), Bär & Karrer (Legal) and KPMG (Finan­cial).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio of Equis­tone funds curr­ently compri­ses around 40 compa­nies across Europe. www.equistonepe.com

About KWC Group
https://kwc.com/de_DE

About KWC Home
https://kwc.com/de_CH/home

About Paini S.p.A. Rubinetterie
https://www.paini.com/

News

Munich — FSN Capi­tal, a private equity firm with offices in Scan­di­na­via and Germany, has successfully comple­ted fund­rai­sing for a new special fund. Insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have pled­ged more than EUR 400 million for invest­ments in parti­cu­larly ESG-orien­ted SMEs. This excee­ded the origi­nal target set for the new Compass Fund. The capi­tal commit­ments come from well-known insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as foun­da­ti­ons, pension funds and insu­rance compa­nies as well as private inves­tors; more than half of the funds come from North America and around 30 percent from Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region.

Respon­si­ble invest­ment approach

Robin Mürer, Co-Mana­ging Part­ner at FSN Capi­tal in Munich, says: “The addi­tio­nal small-cap focus comple­ments our exis­ting mid-cap stra­tegy. The FSN funds have inves­ted in eight compa­nies in the DACH region over the past seven years and we have found that our respon­si­ble invest­ment approach has been very well recei­ved in our second home market — in this respect, the Compass Fund is a logi­cal exten­sion of our previous invest­ment acti­vi­ties. It enables exci­ting growth part­ner­ships with smal­ler, soci­ally commit­ted compa­nies for which our value crea­tion model and ESG focus are attrac­tive. And we see this in Germany in parti­cu­lar, where sustaina­bi­lity is play­ing an incre­asingly important role in busi­ness and society.”

Epista Life Science alre­ady in the portfolio

The Compass Fund has alre­ady made its first invest­ments, inclu­ding in the company Epista Life Science. The signi­fi­cantly growing IT service and consul­ting company for the biopharma indus­try has 150 employees in Germany, Switz­er­land, Sweden and Denmark who support life science compa­nies world­wide with digi­ta­liza­tion, compli­ance and quality assu­rance. A parti­cu­lar focus is the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tive proces­ses and tech­no­lo­gies that enable custo­mers to successfully adapt to new regu­la­tory requi­re­ments and at the same time drive inno­va­tion in the health­care sector. With this inter­face between busi­ness, poli­tics and society, the invest­ment is a prime exam­ple of the Compass Fund’s invest­ment approach.

Support in achie­ving ESG goals

FSN Capi­tal has alre­ady laun­ched six funds for invest­ments in larger medium-sized compa­nies over the past 25 years; over EUR 1.8 billion was raised for the last fund FSN Capi­tal VI in 2021. The Compass Fund, with its focus on SMEs that address the major social chal­lenges of the coming decade with their products and services, builds on the previous stra­tegy and is mana­ged by the same team with proven proces­ses and strategies.

Accor­ding to Rebecca Svensøy, Head of ESG at FSN Capi­talThe Compass Fund uses an indus­try-leading ESG approach, ther­eby conso­li­da­ting FSN Capital’s posi­tion as a parti­cu­larly respon­si­ble private equity company: “For us, ESG is not just about risk mini­miza­tion and report­ing compli­ance — in addi­tion to value crea­tion, we are prima­rily concer­ned with the full deve­lo­p­ment of exci­ting, sustainable poten­tial. We actively support compa­nies in imple­men­ting their ESG goals.”

About FSN Capital

FSN Capi­tal, one of the leading Nort­hern Euro­pean private equity firms, was foun­ded in 1999 and has four offices in Oslo, Stock­holm, Copen­ha­gen and since 2017 also in Munich The four funds advi­sed by FSN Capi­tal have four billion euros under manage­ment; for the latest Fund VI, 1.8 billion euros were raised for invest­ments in Scan­di­na­via and the DACH region The funds make majo­rity invest­ments in growth-orien­ted compa­nies in order to support them on their further path to success and to make them even more sustainable, compe­ti­tive, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed and profi­ta­ble. FSN Capital’s 97-strong team (29 of whom are based in Munich) is commit­ted to inves­t­ing respon­si­bly, achie­ving a posi­tive ESG impact on the port­fo­lio and deli­ve­ring market-leading returns, true to the motto “We are decent people making a decent return in a decent way”. The current port­fo­lio compa­nies in Germany include Bäcker Görtz, MEGABAD (Swash Group), Ecovium, Lobs­ter, impreg, Adra­gos Pharma, Rame­der and TASKING.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fsncapital.com.

News

Colo­gne, May 2024 — Armira Growth has raised €200 million for its first growth fund with a final closing volume at hard cap of €200 million. In addi­tion to entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies from Armira’s special inves­tor base, public inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing. With its fund, Armira Growth will prima­rily invest in Euro­pean compa­nies from the growth sector, with a focus on the DACH region.

Armira Growth invests in fast-growing compa­nies in Europe that are driving tech­no­lo­gi­cal change and chal­len­ging tradi­tio­nal value chains with inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons. Armira Growth accom­pa­nies leading tech­no­logy compa­nies through growth invest­ments as a long-term and trust­wor­thy part­ner. — The selec­tive invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on a limi­ted number of selec­ted compa­nies and provi­des funds of between EUR 10 and 50 million each, ther­eby promo­ting a mino­rity part­ner­ship approach.

YPOG provi­ded Armira Growth with compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice on the struc­tu­ring and fund­rai­sing of its first growth fund with a final closing volume at the hard cap of €200 million.

Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Corporate), Part­ner, Cologne
Lenn­art Lorenz (Co-Lead) (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Andreas Bergt­hal­ler (Structuring/Corporate), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Legal Operations/Investor Onboar­ding), Senior Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin Dr. Julian Albrecht (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Jens Kretz­schmann (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Regu­la­tory), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Dana Ritter (Structuring/Corporate), Asso­ciate, Cologne

About Armira Growth

Armira Growth is a Munich-based venture capi­tal and private equity inves­tor that provi­des capi­tal to high-growth Euro­pean tech compa­nies with proven busi­ness models.

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners is plea­sed to announce the successful sale of the Dutch company Opti­mi­zers to Orisha. Orisha is a French provi­der of busi­ness soft­ware for the cons­truc­tion, real estate, retail/wholesale and health­care sectors, supported by TA Asso­cia­tes. During the part­ner­ship with Main, Opti­mi­zers trans­for­med its profile into a compre­hen­sive Euro­pean e‑commerce enablem­ent soft­ware provi­der, offe­ring its inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base valuable solu­ti­ons to improve their e‑commerce proces­ses across the entire value chain.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners made its stra­te­gic invest­ment in Opti­mi­zers in 2019. With Main’s support, Opti­mi­zers has expan­ded its product offe­ring into a compre­hen­sive e‑commerce soft­ware suite and further streng­the­ned its inter­na­tio­nal presence in North West Europe and the USA and curr­ently employs around 170 people.

Under Main’s leader­ship, Opti­mi­zers has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its addressa­ble market and grown its soft­ware busi­ness both orga­ni­cally and through three stra­te­gic (inter­na­tio­nal) acqui­si­ti­ons. As a result, recur­ring income increased seven­fold during this period. Opti­mi­zers is well posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on these succes­ses in the coming years and is now supported by Orisha.

Stefan van Digge­len, CEO of Opti­mi­zers, comm­ents on the merger with Orisha: “We can look back on a fruitful colla­bo­ra­tion with Main, in which we were able to signi­fi­cantly expand our market posi­tion and also opti­mize our orga­niza­tio­nal effi­ci­ency in order to increase the over­all perfor­mance of the company. We look forward to opening this new chap­ter for Opti­mi­zers toge­ther with Orisha. This part­ner­ship not only impro­ves our access to addi­tio­nal exper­tise and expe­ri­ence, but more importantly streng­thens our ability to provide a consis­tent trading expe­ri­ence to our custo­mers worldwide.”

“We are deligh­ted to announce this important mile­stone for Orisha. The acqui­si­tion of Opti­mi­zers opens up exci­ting new pros­pects for the Group. Thanks to this tran­sac­tion, Orisha will become a major player in omnich­an­nel unified commerce in Europe and will actively parti­ci­pate in the trans­for­ma­tion of this sector. We look forward to comple­ting this tran­sac­tion with Main Capi­tal and explo­ring the new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties it pres­ents us with,” adds Jacques Olli­vier, CEO of Orisha.

Ivo van Deude­kom, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main Capi­tal and member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Opti­mi­zers, concludes: “Through Main’s specia­li­zed invest­ment stra­tegy, we have helped the company trans­form into a resi­li­ent busi­ness model by incre­asing the propor­tion of the company’s recur­ring revenues.

Strong (inter­na­tio­nal) auto­no­mous growth, comple­men­ted by three stra­te­gic add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, follo­wed by strong up- and cross-sell execu­tion, resul­ted in a seven-fold increase in recur­ring reve­nues. We congra­tu­late Opti­mi­zers on this successful sale to Orisha; we believe Orisha is a perfect new home for Opti­mi­zers to conti­nue this impres­sive growth story.”

About Opti­mi­zers

Opti­mi­zers, foun­ded in 2006, is a compre­hen­sive Euro­pean provi­der of e‑commerce enablem­ent soft­ware and offers a versa­tile plat­form of solu­ti­ons for B2B and B2C digi­tal commerce excel­lence under three strong brands: Tweak­wise, Core-suite and Vendre. Opti­mi­zers’ soft­ware suite enables its custo­mers to improve their e‑commerce proces­ses across the entire value chain. It includes search & disco­very solu­ti­ons, e‑commerce plat­form and sales portal rela­ted solu­ti­ons, sales force soft­ware, warehouse manage­ment & EDI soft­ware solu­ti­ons and a driver appli­ca­tion for trans­por­ta­tion & (home) deli­very. The suite is deli­vered to a variety of indus­tries in more than 25 count­ries. The company is head­quar­te­red in Nijkerk, the Nether­lands, and has subsi­dia­ries in the Nether­lands, Sweden (Stock­holm) and the USA (New York). It employs around 170 people and supplies almost 1,500 custo­mers worldwide.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region, the Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately EUR 6 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve profi­ta­ble growth and larger, outstan­ding soft­ware groups. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 70 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware compa­nies. The under­ly­ing port­fo­lio employs over 12,000 people. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. www.main.nl

 

News

Gütersloh/London — Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”), a leading pan-Euro­pean mid-market private equity inves­tor, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in vitro­con­nect, a leading open access plat­form in Germany, through its Oakley Capi­tal Origin Fund II. This was announ­ced by the company. The invest­ment is being made toge­ther with foun­der and CEO Dirk Paster­nack and the manage­ment team, who will conti­nue to lead the company. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the first half of 2024, subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory approvals.

Güters­loh-based vitro­con­nect brings broad­band connec­tion provi­ders toge­ther with resel­lers using a proprie­tary soft­ware plat­form and inter­face logic. The company’s custo­mers include most of the leading tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons provi­ders in Germany. In addi­tion, vitro­con­nect offers process auto­ma­tion, network opera­tion, trading and white label services via its “Carrier Aggre­ga­tion Plat­form” (CAP).

The CAP-gene­ra­ted open access process services from vitro­con­nect help custo­mers to use broad­band networks more effi­ci­ently and reduce the tran­sac­tion costs of all parties invol­ved. Thanks to this unique offe­ring, the company has conti­nuously expan­ded its custo­mer base of network opera­tors and resel­lers. In addi­tion, mini­mal custo­mer fluc­tua­tion, strong custo­mer loyalty and a high propor­tion of recur­ring sales have contri­bu­ted to consis­tent and profi­ta­ble double-digit growth over the past three years.

As a pioneer of whole­sale acti­vi­ties in the highly frag­men­ted and tech­no­lo­gi­cally hete­ro­ge­neous German broad­band market, vitro­con­nect has an excep­tio­nally good market posi­tion to bene­fit from the strong growth in “Fiber to the Home” (FTTH) tech­no­logy and to help reduce the gap between Germany and other Euro­pean count­ries in the fiber optic market.

Curr­ently, the propor­tion of German house­holds with a connec­tion to the fiber-optic broad­band network lags far behind the rest of Europe. This will lead to signi­fi­cant invest­ments and considera­ble growth poten­tial in the coming years, with a simul­ta­neous increase in the number of house­holds with fiber optic connec­tions from 3 million today to 29 million in 2029 and 39 million in 2035.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect fits seam­lessly into Oakley’s long track record of part­ne­ring with high-growth, profi­ta­ble, foun­der-led compa­nies. Oakley’s most rele­vant tran­sac­tions in adja­cent sectors include soft­ware compa­nies such as WebPros, Hori­zons Opti­cal and Alerce.

The invest­ment in vitro­con­nect is the first invest­ment from Origin Fund II and follows the recently announ­ced acqui­si­tion of Hori­zons Opti­cal via its prede­ces­sor fund, Origin Fund I.

Peter Dubens, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Oakley Capi­talsaid: “vitro­con­nect is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from the market uphe­aval in Germany trig­ge­red by the switch to fiber optic tech­no­logy. The company has an excep­tio­nally strong market posi­tion based on custo­mer focus, high tech­ni­cal compe­tence and an excel­lent manage­ment team. We look forward to working with Dirk Paster­nack and his team, combi­ning vitroconnect’s core compe­ten­cies with our own indus­try exper­tise and acce­le­ra­ting the company’s future growth together.”

Dirk Paster­nack, foun­der and CEO of vitro­con­nect, said: “We were convin­ced by Oakley’s exten­sive exper­tise in the soft­ware and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector and their proven ability to support compa­nies in phases of market disrup­tion. In Oakley, we have found an ideal part­ner to jointly embark on the next phase of vitroconnect’s growth plan.”

News

Munich — H&Z Unter­neh­mens­be­ra­tung AG advi­sed funds advi­sed by PREMIUM Equity Part­ners GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the Fila­Tech Group, Rema­gen­/R­hi­ne­land-Pala­ti­nate, during the commer­cial due diligence.

For more than 25 years, Fila­Tech has been the world’s leading inde­pen­dent system supplier of hollow fiber spin­ning systems that produce membrane fibers for the manu­fac­ture of dialy­zers used to wash the blood of kidney pati­ents. In view of the high growth rates of kidney dise­ase world­wide and the predo­mi­nant use of end-stage dialy­sis, there is a growing need for dialy­zers. Fila­Tech is also active in the produc­tion of gas sepa­ra­tion and water puri­fi­ca­tion systems, which are based on simi­lar prin­ci­ples for filter production.

The two senior mana­ging direc­tors and company foun­ders, Dr. Thomas Müller and Heinz Lands­berg, will remain on the manage­ment board for a tran­si­tio­nal period and then move to the company’s advi­sory board. — Toge­ther with the fami­lies invol­ved and the new CEO Robert de Deugd, PREMIUM will support the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and promote both geogra­phi­cal diver­si­fi­ca­tion and the broa­de­ning of the product range.

Advi­sor PREMIUM Equity: H&Z

Dr. Markus Cont­zen (Part­ner M&A Advi­sory and Private Equity)
Sascha Taglia­ferri (Senior Project Mana­ger M&A Advi­sory and Private Equity)

www.hz.group

 

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