ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Aachen — The Tech­Vi­sion Fund I (TVF) will be increased by another 15 million euros. This means that the fund, which belongs to the S‑UBG Group, now has a total of 55 million euros in venture capi­tal available for start-up finan­cing in the Aachen region and the Lower Rhine area. TVF’s exis­ting inves­tors [1] are joined by Spar­kasse Neuss, Stadt­mar­ken GmbH and Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH as finan­ci­ally strong private inves­tors from Aachen. “We are plea­sed to be able to support and further deve­lop inno­va­tive start-up teams from the western Rhine­land even more stron­gly through more capi­tal and new inves­tors,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of S‑UBG AG and mana­ging direc­tor of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund.

Geogra­phi­cal expan­sion of finan­cing activities

“With Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, in addi­tion to seed invest­ments, we also aim to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds, Series A and B, of exis­ting and new port­fo­lio compa­nies,” Kugel empha­si­zed. The venture capi­tal fund specia­li­zes in finan­cing start-ups with a distinct opportunity/risk profile. “As a new inves­tor, we want to be a relia­ble finan­cial part­ner for start-ups in the grea­ter Neuss area as well. For all our down-to-earth­ness, we are very open to new products and tech­no­lo­gies,” says Marcus Longe­rich, Deputy Board Member of Spar­kasse Neuss. “Toge­ther with the other capi­tal provi­ders, we have made it our goal to further promote start-up acti­vi­ties in our region. We also want to support the struc­tu­ral change that is neces­sary because of the plan­ned energy turnaround.”

Norbert Hermanns, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Aache­ner Stadt­mar­ken GmbH, adds: “Thanks to the diverse rese­arch land­scape in the western Rhine­land, the region is predesti­ned to produce forward-looking ideas. Howe­ver, in order to make these marke­ta­ble, inno­va­tive young entre­pre­neurs need appro­priate finan­cial resour­ces.” Manuel Nadenau, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH, also sees the poten­tial: “An exci­ting new task lies ahead of us and we are plea­sed to be able to bring a breath of fresh air to the start-up scene toge­ther with the other inves­tors by support­ing young and inno­va­tive foun­ders from the region.”

Success stories made in the Rhineland

To date, the Seed Fonds Aachen and the Tech­Vi­sion Fonds have supported over 20 start-ups with capi­tal, stra­te­gic know­ledge and S‑UBG’s exten­sive network — inclu­ding taxy.io GmbH, a start-up dedi­ca­ted to provi­ding the basis for auto­ma­ted B2B tax advice using arti­fi­ci­ally intel­li­gent soft­ware. In TVF’s port­fo­lio since 2019, the young company has alre­ady been able to grow rapidly through two rounds of finan­cing and further expand its offe­ring in terms of indus­try and geogra­phy. The Tech­Vi­sion Fund port­fo­lio also includes the Düssel­dorf-based soft­ware deve­lo­per talent::digital and the mobi­lity plat­form MOQO — these start-ups have also achie­ved entre­pre­neu­rial mile­sto­nes through indi­vi­dual finan­cing models. In the health and biosci­ence sector, the invest­ment enab­led the compa­nies PL BioSci­ence and Protem­bis to further deve­lop their products and bring them to market maturity.

News

Berlin — SMP provi­ded legal advice to 1717 Life Science Ventures on the sale of its stake in drug deve­lo­per PENTIXAPHARM to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, Eckert & Zieg­ler acqui­red a direct majo­rity stake in PENTIXAPHARM, a joint venture between Scin­to­mics GmbH and 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH.

With a solid history of buil­ding successful radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal start­ups, the 1717 team has perso­nal expe­ri­ence in all key func­tions of an early-stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment company. PENTIXAPHARM is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors. Toge­ther with an inter­nal trans­fer, Eckert & Zieg­ler says it will directly hold around 83% of the shares in the Würz­burg-based company after the closing. The manage­ment of PENTIXAPHARM, which holds the remai­ning 17% of PENTIXAPHARM shares, also recei­ved put opti­ons on the remai­ning shares as part of the share sale. More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

SMP had alre­ady advi­sed on the estab­lish­ment of the joint venture in 2019.

1717 LSV empowers scien­tists and inves­tors to trans­form early stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal projects into attrac­tive assets for licen­sing part­ners in industry.

About 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH
By intro­du­cing early stage inves­tors to promi­sing new projects, 1717 LSV seeks to enable novel radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal thera­pies to traverse the early stages of manu­fac­tu­ring and clini­cal development.
We laun­ched 1717 LSV in March 2018 to trans­late scien­ti­fic results into pati­ents bene­fits by filling the opera­tio­nal and finan­cial gaps between the inven­tion of radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal subs­tances and their first clini­cal trials. We are focu­sed, but not limi­ted, to onco­logy indi­ca­ti­ons to apply the full concept of Theranostics.

Advi­sor 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Partner

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs more than 60 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. For more infor­ma­tion: www.smp.law and www.linkedin.com/company/smp.law.

News

London — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Inves­tec Bank plc (“Inves­tec”) on its stra­te­gic mino­rity invest­ment in three Capi­tal­mind Inter­na­tio­nal (“Capi­tal­mind”) compa­nies in France, Germany and the Nether­lands. The tran­sac­tion expands the rela­ti­onship between Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind and repres­ents an acce­le­ra­tion of both firms’ consul­ting strategies.

Investec’s parent company, Inves­tec plc, is listed on the two stock exch­an­ges in London and Johan­nes­burg. Investec’s banking busi­ness works with growth compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons and private equity funds, advi­sing clients on capi­tal and treasury risk management.

Focus on medium-sized transactions
Medium-sized tran­sac­tions (€20 — €250 million) in the form of group spin-offs, succes­sion solu­ti­ons, share­hol­der buy-outs, acqui­si­ti­ons and finan­cing are now taking place in an inter­na­tio­nal envi­ron­ment. While large corpo­ra­ti­ons have access to a wide range of profes­sio­nal consul­ting and finan­cing services via inter­na­tio­nal banks and brokers with their specia­li­zed depart­ments, the services for medium-sized tran­sac­tions are still quite regio­nally struc­tu­red, very frag­men­ted and confusing.

Capi­tal­mind is a leading Euro­pean finan­cial advi­sory firm working with family busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, private equity houses and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Investec’s invest­ment in mino­rity stakes in each of the three compa­nies provi­des Capi­tal­mind with a link to the UK, Ireland, Asia and Africa, while Capi­tal­mind links Investec’s consul­ting busi­ness to most of Western Europe, inclu­ding Germany, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Switzerland.

The follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys, toge­ther with Investec’s in-house team in London, advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion in four jurisdictions:

The inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate team was led by part­ner Clive Hope­well, who was supported by senior asso­ciate Richard Bloom­field and asso­ciate Char­lotte Hart (all corpo­rate, London). The French invest­ment was led by part­ner Gildas Louvel, who was supported by asso­ciate Pierre Lagresle (both Corpo­rate, Paris). The German invest­ment was made by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (photo), who was supported by asso­ciate Johanna Schind­ler (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), and the invest­ment in the Nether­lands was led by part­ner Michiel Wurf­bain, who was supported by part­ner and notary René Rieter and asso­cia­tes Nikita Gomme­ren and Musa Dinc (all Corpo­rate, The Hague).

Charles Barlow, who heads Investec’s cross-border corpo­rate finance busi­ness, said, “Bird & Bird under­stands what this tran­sac­tion means to us stra­te­gi­cally, and we are plea­sed to have them on board with their pan-Euro­pean office network to support the deve­lo­p­ment of our rela­ti­onship with Capitalmind.”

Clive Hope­well added: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to successfully assist Inves­tec in comple­ting this important stra­te­gic invest­ment in Euro­pean M&A advi­sory services. We wish the teams at Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind every success in deve­lo­ping this exci­ting new plat­form for M&A advi­sory services across much of Western Europe, parti­cu­larly at a time when demand is expec­ted to be signi­fi­cant post-pandemic.”

News

Frank­furt am Main — vitro­net GmbH (“vitro­net”) and Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH (“DING”), two invest­ments from the port­fo­lio of the private equity fund DBAG ECF mana­ged by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), are merging and will in future operate as the vitro­net Group in the fiber optic and energy infra­struc­ture market. The merger now agreed will create a group whose pro forma sales in 2020 amoun­ted to around 340 million euros and which now employs around 2,300 people at more than 30 loca­ti­ons in Germany.

In the fast-growing market for the expan­sion of fiber-optic and energy infra­struc­ture, a provi­der is emer­ging with broad regio­nal coverage and a range of services that covers all the main value-adding steps, from plan­ning and cons­truc­tion of the faci­li­ties to opera­tion and service. The vitro­net Group conti­nues to see good oppor­tu­ni­ties to actively drive forward the conso­li­da­tion of this frag­men­ted market.

In 2017, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) initi­ally struc­tu­red the manage­ment buy-out (MBO) of vitro­net GmbH along­side DBAG ECF. This was follo­wed in 2019 by the MBO of the STG Brauns­berg Group, which has since been opera­ting under the name Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH. In the year of acqui­si­tion, vitro­net gene­ra­ted sales of 42 million euros, DING 18 million euros. In recent years, both compa­nies have grown stron­gly; 15 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons to date have contri­bu­ted to this to a considera­ble extent. The Group’s pro forma sales have thus increased almost six-fold.

Since the start of the invest­ment, DBAG and DBAG ECF have inves­ted 49 million euros in the two compa­nies, of which DBAG accounts for 22 million euros. DBAG will hold a stake of around 39 percent in the newly formed vitro­net Group, while DBAG ECF will hold 46 percent; most of the remai­ning shares will be held by the Group’s manage­ment. The tran­sac­tion will have no further impact on the valua­tion of the invest­ments in DBAG’s balance sheet. Howe­ver, as of the most recent report­ing date of March 31, 2021, the value of the latest company acqui­si­ti­ons has been increased; these have also alre­ady been included in the fore­cast for fiscal 2020/2021, which was raised on March 26, 2021.

vitro­net, based in Essen, Germany, has so far focu­sed on acting as a gene­ral contrac­tor for fiber-optic projects. In recent years, various specia­list compa­nies along the value chain have been acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. vitro­net has thus deve­lo­ped into one of Germany’s leading end-to-end part­ners in what is known as FttH expan­sion (FttH: fiber to the home), meaning that it can offer all the essen­tial process steps for this expan­sion. DING, based in Bochum, has so far stood for effi­ci­ent infra­struc­ture expan­sion in the areas of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons (fiber optics, FttH, mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), energy (district heating, elec­tri­city, eMobi­lity) and utili­ties (gas, water, pipe­line) in Germany.

High market demand meets tight capacity

The Group is bene­fiting from the dyna­mic growth in demand for high-perfor­mance Inter­net connec­tions. This is trig­ge­ring strong demand for network expan­sion services, which is being met by a shortage of corre­spon­ding capa­city in the market. To date, around 70 percent of reve­nue has been gene­ra­ted by the fiber-optic infra­struc­ture busi­ness. The Group’s services range from project plan­ning for new networks and their cons­truc­tion to the opera­tion and servicing of fiber-optic networks. The service share in parti­cu­lar is to grow. Busi­ness in the energy and utili­ties market, which has so far accoun­ted for around 30 percent of sales, is set to bene­fit from the energy tran­si­tion, among other things: To enable eMobi­lity on a large scale, for exam­ple, the infra­struc­ture will have to be trans­for­med. The Group sees itself as one of the leading service provi­ders for infra­struc­ture expan­sion in Germany.

In 2013, DBAG began inves­t­ing in compa­nies that expand or operate fiber-optic networks. The first two invest­ments (inexio and DNS:Net) were sold in 2019 and March 2021. In addi­tion to vitro­net and DING, DBAG, toge­ther with DBAG ECF and DBAG Fund VIII, holds invest­ments in three other compa­nies in the sector (netz­kon­tor nord, BTV and Deut­sche Giga Access).

Larger projects of tele­phone compa­nies, utili­ties and public utilities

“We have inves­ted in a growing market in which, howe­ver, speed in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the compa­nies is decisive for invest­ment success,” expres­sed Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion with regard to the 15 company acqui­si­ti­ons. “We will also support the newly formed group to conti­nue to watch inor­ga­ni­cally.” This invol­ves, for exam­ple, closing exis­ting gaps in the regio­nal offering.

“Our custo­mers are incre­asingly looking for provi­ders who can inde­pendently handle ever-larger projects throug­hout Germany,” says Marc Lützen­kir­chen, Chair­man of vitronet’s Manage­ment Board. “We can now fulfill this claim even better with the syner­gies of the Group and the deca­des of expe­ri­ence of our subsi­dia­ries.” Last but not least, the new size of the Group will also improve its access to the capi­tal market and thus the finan­cing opti­ons for further corpo­rate acquisitions.

About DBAG

DBAG has made six plat­form invest­ments rela­ted to broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons expan­sion in Germany since 2013. — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery, as tran­sac­tion coun­sel, advi­ses the issuer APONTIS PHARMA AG, its main share­hol­der, the invest­ment company Para­gon Part­ners, as well as the joint book­run­ners Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg on the IPO at the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

The place­ment price for the IPO was set at 19.00 euros per share. The place­ment volume totals 101 million euros. A total of 5,290,000 shares were placed with inves­tors as part of the IPO, which also included a U.S. tran­che in accordance with Rule 144A of the U.S. Secu­ri­ties Act. The place­ment includes 2,000,000 new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as 1,600,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a base deal, 1,000,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a top-up option and 690,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with an over-allot­ment option from the holdings of the main share­hol­der Para­gon Part­ners. The first day of trading on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange is sche­du­led for May 11, 2021. The exis­ting share­hol­ders Para­gon Part­ners and the manage­ment of APONTIS PHARMA will remain share­hol­ders in the company after the place­ment with a stake of 31% and 7%, respectively.

APONTIS PHARMA AG is a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal company for single pills in the German market. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the issu­ance of the new shares prima­rily for selec­ted invest­ments in the deve­lo­p­ment of new single pills, acce­le­ra­ting the deve­lo­p­ment and licen­sing of the exis­ting near-term product pipe­line, and expan­ding marke­ting and sales acti­vi­ties to capture addi­tio­nal market share and product acquisitions.

McDer­mott provi­ded compre­hen­sive capi­tal markets legal advice to all parties invol­ved. The McDer­mott team was also respon­si­ble for the corpo­rate struc­tu­ring in the run-up to the IPO.

Advi­sors APONTIS, Para­gon Part­ners and banks Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg:
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M./Düsseldorf
Capi­tal Markets/IPO Work­stream: Simon Weiß (Project Coor­di­na­tion; Capi­tal Markets), Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets; joint lead), Gregory M. Weig­and (Miami), Edwin C. Lauren­son (Coun­sel, San Fran­cisco; both US Law), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Munich), Dr. Monika Rich­ter (both Coun­sel, both Life Scien­ces); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Chris­toph Schä­fer, Ardalan Zargari (Staff Attor­ney); Corpo­rate Work­stream: Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Lead), Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Corpo­rate, both Düssel­dorf); Asso­ciate: Tom Schäfer

News

Munich — Munich-based tech startup Metis­Mo­tion has closed its second round of finan­cing and recei­ved another €1.5 million in fresh capi­tal. As in the first finan­cing round in Decem­ber 2018, the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), BORN2GROW — a subsi­diary of the ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn — and the SIEMENS Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor (STA) inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to prepare the market launch of the patent-protec­ted naXture actua­tor platform.

“MetisMotion’s core tech­no­logy is highly dyna­mic and light­weight, powerful actua­tors for auto­ma­tion appli­ca­ti­ons. Metis­Mo­tion has deve­lo­ped an actua­tor plat­form (compa­ra­ble to servo­mo­tors) that offers unpre­ce­den­ted, tech­ni­cal possi­bi­li­ties. — Imagine being able to replace pneu­ma­tic or hydrau­lic solu­ti­ons with great power poten­tial in exis­ting instal­la­tion spaces with highly effi­ci­ent elec­tri­cally opera­ted drives! This is usually not feasi­ble with conven­tio­nal elec­tric motors,” says Patrick Fröse, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MetisMotion

Based on the outstan­ding power density and effi­ci­ency of Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors, a network of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal pilot custo­mers has grown since the company was foun­ded in 2018, using Metis­Mo­tion solu­ti­ons to drive the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drive tasks.

With the capi­tal raised in the current finan­cing round, the tech­no­logy will now be made available to a broad custo­mer group. The launch of the naXture plat­form is plan­ned for late summer.naXture enables users to quickly and easily confi­gure indi­vi­dual actua­tors for the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. Actua­tor geome­try, available forces, speeds and travels, as well as the safety beha­vior are always based on the speci­fic requi­re­ments of the application.

“Metis­Mo­tion was alre­ady very close to the market and active in many appli­ca­tion areas at the time of the spin-off. Parti­cu­larly in the Heil­bronn region, the region of world market leaders, Metis­Mo­tion has alre­ady been able to win promi­sing custo­mers in the pilot custo­mer phase. The open­ness for inno­va­tion is obvious here and we are ther­e­fore looking forward to the further roll out. We see great market oppor­tu­ni­ties — not only natio­nally,” explains Thomas Villin­ger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn.

“The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of today’s inef­fi­ci­ent pneu­ma­tic and hydrau­lic actua­tors, parti­cu­larly in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, is an exci­ting growth oppor­tu­nity. Metis­Mo­tion can define a new segment here with its tech­no­logy! Exci­ting for inves­tors who are looking for disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies and want to parti­ci­pate in their success,” comm­ents Jens Baum­gärt­ner, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

“Metis­Mo­tion has proven with its launch custo­mers that it can design and manu­fac­ture high-perfor­mance actua­tors for the most deman­ding envi­ron­ments. We are ther­e­fore convin­ced of the company’s poten­tial and look forward to conti­nuing to contri­bute to its success as an inves­tor and through our network within Siemens and beyond,” says Dr. Rudolf Frey­tag, CEO of Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH.

About Metis­Mo­tion
Actua­ting Inno­va­tions — Follo­wing the Genius of Nature. Accor­ding to this guiding prin­ci­ple, Metis­Mo­tion GmbH has been deve­lo­ping bio-inspi­red actua­tor systems since 2018. The company is a spin-off from the Siemens Group and sets new stan­dards for the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drives with maxi­mum energy effi­ci­ency. Based on highly inte­gra­ted micro-hydrau­lic circuits, Metis­Mo­tion is able for the first time to combine a parti­cu­larly high force density with ultra-dyna­mic move­ments in the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. At the same time, Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors gene­rally require only a quar­ter of the energy compared to pneu­ma­tic solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple. Custo­mers include natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers from the factory and process auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and mobi­lity sectors.
The Munich site is curr­ently home to in-house deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring, marke­ting and sales.

About the ZFHN — Heil­bronn Future Fund

Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn has been one of the major venture capi­ta­lists in Germany. It prima­rily supports young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that are loca­ted in the Heil­bronn area or are prepared to settle there in the short to medium term. The Future Fund is priva­tely finan­ced and has equity capi­tal in the hundreds of milli­ons. It supports compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and cont­acts in the Heil­bronn econo­mic region. The goal is to further deve­lop Heil­bronn into a very successful tech­no­logy loca­tion. This also includes the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of clus­ters (MedTech, BioTech, Clean­tech) locally.

Since its foun­ding in 2013, Heil­bronn-based BORN2GROW GmbH & Co. KG has been support­ing inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in the seed and start-up phase. The seed fund supports young compa­nies by accom­pany­ing them from the proof-of-concept stage to market launch. This early-stage finan­cing enables fast-growing tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-up compa­nies to deve­lop their ideas and concepts. BORN2GROW, a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, coope­ra­tes with other venture capi­tal funds and busi­ness angels and makes fast and trans­pa­rent finan­cing decisions.Contact:
Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn GmbH & Co. KG. www.zf-hn.de

About the Siemens Tech­no­logy Accelerator
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH is a subsi­diary of Siemens AG and has been successfully commer­cia­li­zing inno­va­tive Siemens tech­no­lo­gies in appli­ca­ti­ons outside the stra­te­gic focus of Siemens busi­ness units for more than 20 years. This is done either by foun­ding venture capi­tal funded start-ups or by selling or licen­sing to estab­lished companies.Contact:
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH. www.siemens.com/sta

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 892.5 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 500 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the hard­ware, soft­ware, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors. More than €1.9 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in around 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has now successfully sold shares in 100 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de

News

Munich — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance streng­thens its German private equity team with the high-cali­ber part­ner addi­ti­ons of Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner (photo) and Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner as well as with the senior asso­ciate Dr. Samuel From­melt. All new hires will work out of Clif­ford Chance’s Munich office and will at the same time further streng­then the German and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion team with their exper­tise and market experience.

As an expe­ri­en­ced private equity specia­list, Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner advi­ses inves­tors, manage­ment teams and compa­nies in complex regio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal large cap and mid cap as well as M&A tran­sac­tions, in parti­cu­lar lever­a­ged buy-outs, carve-outs and joint ventures.

Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner has estab­lished hims­elf in the private equity scene thanks to his diverse expe­ri­ence from various high-profile acqui­si­ti­ons and is reco­gni­zed as one of the up-and-coming private equity part­ners of the new generation.

Dr. Samuel From­melt advi­ses private equity and finan­cial inves­tors on M&A tran­sac­tions. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence advi­sing clients across sectors, prima­rily on invest­ments in unlis­ted compa­nies, public take­overs, co-invest­ments and secon­dary transactions.

Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt join Clif­ford Chance from Kirk­land & Ellis in Munich. The exact date of the change has not yet been determined.

Dr. Peter Dieners, Mana­ging Part­ner of Clif­ford Chance in Germany: “For us, Munich and private equity advice belong toge­ther. Lawyer perso­na­li­ties such as Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt are ther­e­fore a perfect fit for us. With their excep­tio­nal market profile and at the same time great ambi­tion, they enrich us on our way to the top of the German market. With them, our important Munich presence will be ideally comple­men­ted and even more powerful, even for very large projects and tran­sac­tions. We also want to grow further in the private equity area.”

Dr. Anselm Raddatz, Head of the Private Equity Group at Clif­ford Chance in Germany, said: “We are very plea­sed with the new addi­ti­ons. The great new team in Munich shar­pens our private equity profile locally and will make a great contri­bu­tion to provi­ding our clients with even more know-how and clout for the successful and safe realiza­tion of their invest­ments for their tran­sac­tions in Germany and Europe.”

Clif­ford Chance is growing stra­te­gi­cally at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt and Munich. Parti­cu­larly in the strong Munich market, the firm is streng­thening its focus on broad-based and thus signi­fi­cantly more compre­hen­sive and effi­ci­ent tran­sac­tion and finan­cing advice for private equity houses and other finan­cial investors.

Clif­ford Chance’s global private equity prac­tice provi­des large teams in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and the US with market-leading exper­tise to advise finan­cial inves­tors and funds across the full spec­trum of their acti­vi­ties. Recently, the firm’s German teams have assis­ted clients in these high-profile tran­sac­tions, among others:

Medi­cal diagno­stics and labo­ra­tory services provi­der Synlab and finan­cial inves­tors Cinven, OTPP and Novo Holdings on Synlab’s IPO on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange; Perm­ira on the acqui­si­tion of leading Euro­pean CNS specialty pharma company Neur­ax­ph­arm from Apax; Triton on the acqui­si­tion of premium kitchen supplier SCHOCK from IK Invest­ment Partners.

About Clif­ford Chance

Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Berlin — RSBG SE, a subsi­diary of the RAG Foun­da­tion, has taken over the PR and event agency insglück. Raue advi­sed share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Detlef Wint­zen on the sale of his shares in insglück Gesell­schaft für Marken­in­sze­nie­rung mbH to RSBG SE.

insglück is one of the leading PR and event agen­cies with offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. Since 2001, insglück has stood for targe­ted, excep­tio­nal concep­tion and crea­tion as well as profes­sio­nal imple­men­ta­tion of measu­res in live and corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. In the course of the new part­ner­ship, the agency will expand its crea­tive and digi­tal exper­tise even more, push inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and actively deve­lop new busi­ness areas. insglück conti­nues to be mana­ged by Detlef Wint­zen (CEO), Chris­tian Poswa (COO), Chris­toph Kirst (CCO) and Frede­rik Nimmes­gern (Direc­tor Concept & Strategy).

RSBG SE is an invest­ment company of the RAG Foun­da­tion based in Essen. Foun­ded in 2014, the company sees itself as a long-term part­ner to medium-sized compa­nies and uses a buy-and-build stra­tegy to invest in successful SMEs.

Consul­tant Detlef Wint­zen: Raue, Berlin
Dr. Jörg Jaecks (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A)

About Raue

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

News

Berlin — With its plan­ned IPO, hear.com, the online hearing aid provi­der known in Germany as audi­bene, has finally joined the top league of inter­na­tio­nal TOP online start­ups. On April 19, the regis­tra­tion was submit­ted to the SEC (U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exch­ange Commis­sion). Hear.com’s “HCG” paper is thus to be traded on Nasdaq.

Audi­bene is taking a small detour, which is not unusual for German compa­nies: The Dutch company and the simul­ta­neous brand hear.com N.V. submit­ted the docu­ments because of the more favorable condi­ti­ons under stock exch­ange law for an IPO in the USA.

From startup to listed company

Berlin, Mainz, Miami, Denver, Toronto, Utrecht, Seoul, Gura­gon (India) and Kuala Lumpur: it is impres­sive what has become of the former startup foun­ded in the capi­tal in 2012 that wanted to “shake up the hearing aid market”.

Now, almost 10 years later, the success story is to be crow­ned by an IPO. Among the first inves­tors are none other than Morgen Stan­ley, J.P. Morgan, Deut­sche Bank and Gold­man Sachs. The former two are acting as Lead Book-Running Mana­gers for the propo­sed offe­ring and as repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of all signa­to­ries to the propo­sed offering.

Hear.com facts and figures

World­wide, hear.com had nearly 5,200 part­ner compa­nies as of the report­ing date of Sept. 30, 2020, inclu­ding 1,000 in Germany. 106,000 hearing aids were sold world­wide and exclu­ding returns at an average price of €1,426 per hearing aid. — This results in sales of 151 million euros (+26% compared to 2019 120 mill. euros). Over­all, the company gene­ra­ted a loss of €23.1 million (2019: €17.34 million). More than 1,500 employees work for hear.com, inclu­ding almost 200 techs.

Deve­lo­p­ment
Online hearing aid retailer Audi­bene was sold to hearing aid manu­fac­tu­rer Sivan­tos in 2015. The two foun­ders Paul Crusius and Marco Vietor remained on board as mana­ging direc­tors. As part of the tran­sac­tion, both foun­ders, who previously held a majo­rity stake in Audi­bene, will receive shares in Sivan­tos Group.

Venture capi­ta­lists Acton Capi­tal Part­ners and Sunstone Capi­tal, as well as an unknown number of busi­ness angels such as entre­pre­neur Stephan Schu­bert, had all sold their stakes in Sivan­tos. Berlin scene heads such as Project-A-Ventures CEO Florian Heine­mann, Edar­ling foun­ders Lukas Bros­se­der and David Khalil, as well as Zalando’s former head of marke­ting, Oliver Roskopf, were also inves­ted in the startup.

Invest­ments for more growth and independence

The company aims to raise $100 million through the IPO. Among other things, this will be used to repay share­hol­der loans to WS Audio­logy that fall due between 2021 and 2023. In addi­tion, a plan­ned restruc­tu­ring is to be put on a stable footing, and the rema­in­der is to be used for gene­ral corpo­rate purpo­ses, inclu­ding finan­cing further growth and imple­men­ting the busi­ness stra­tegy. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are also being considered.

The speci­fic areas in which further invest­ments are to be made remain open. But this is of course where the months after the IPO will be parti­cu­larly exci­ting. For inves­tors, howe­ver, the success story of the model itself and the expec­ted global increase in demand and the resul­ting growth fore­casts in gene­ral should be reason enough for an invest­ment. Whether they then jump into the topics of multich­an­nel sales (online and tradi­tio­nal retail), tech­no­logy (online hearing tests, consu­mer jour­ney) or remote fitting will certainly be some­thing to read about.

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has advi­sed the Viess­mann Group on the acqui­si­tion of 34.3% of the shares in Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group (VAE), an Austra­lian design, instal­la­tion and service company for heating, venti­la­tion and air condi­tio­ning. The new part­ner­ship enables Viess­mann to enter the growth market of Austra­l­asia. VAE, mean­while, can rely on an inter­na­tio­nal, stra­te­gic part­ner that has exten­sive exper­tise and inno­va­tive strength in the field of heating, venti­la­tion and air-condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy. In 2020, the family-owned company employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros.

In the context of the share acqui­si­tion, the Viess­mann Group was advi­sed by Rödl & Part­ner on all econo­mic issues.

About Viess­mann

The Viess­mann Group is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of heating, indus­trial and cooling systems. In 2020, the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1917, employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros. About VAE Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group was estab­lished in 1997 and today is one of Australia’s most advan­ced buil­ding services inte­gra­tors. The priva­tely owned company specia­li­zes in complete solu­ti­ons for large projects such as airports, univer­si­ties and hospi­tals. In the past decade of busi­ness, VAE has increased its reve­nue from one million Austra­lian dollars to a projec­ted $150 million (just under 100 million euros) in 2021. The company curr­ently employs 330 people.

Advi­sor Viess­mann Group: Rödl & Partner
Jochen Reis, Part­ner (Head of Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Finan­cial Inga Heßdör­fer, Senior Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Finan­cial Alex­an­der Wübbels, Asso­ciate, (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Financial

About Rödl & Partner
Rödl & Part­ner — The agile caret­a­ker for medium-sized global market leaders As lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 109 of our own loca­ti­ons in 49 count­ries. Our clients trust our 5,120 colle­agues world­wide. www.roedl.de

News

Hamburg — The two foun­ders Dr. Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare (photo) of Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy startup trace­l­ess mate­ri­als were able to convince three inves­tors in their first round of finan­cing: Planet A, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and b.value AG. Thus, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als secu­res a single-digit million invest­ment only seven months after its foundation.

Hamburg-based startup trace­l­ess mate­ri­als has deve­lo­ped a holi­stic sustainable mate­rial as an alter­na­tive for plas­tics and biopla­s­tics. The inno­va­tive mate­rial is fully compost­a­ble — even when it unin­ten­tio­nally ends up in nature — and thus contri­bu­tes to solving global plas­tic pollu­tion. For the female foun­ding team, the funding is the corner­stone to bring their inno­va­tive new mate­rial to market to solve global plas­tic pollution.

85% of all plas­tics produ­ced world­wide are still in land­fills or floa­ting in our oceans. The result is signi­fi­cant envi­ron­men­tal and marine pollu­tion, with unima­gi­ned conse­quen­ces for humans, animals and our planet. One of the EU’s stated goals in its Plas­tics Stra­tegy is to ensure that all plas­tic pack­a­ging must be recy­clable or reusable by 2030. For products that can easily end up in the envi­ron­ment, howe­ver, some­thing more is needed: mate­ri­als that can be degra­ded in nature in the shor­test possi­ble time and, above all, comple­tely. This is exactly what trace­l­ess mate­ri­als deals with. The speci­ally deve­lo­ped, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy makes it possi­ble for the first time to produce storage-stable films, solid mate­ri­als and ultra-thin coatings from by-products of the agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try, which offer the advan­ta­ge­ous proper­ties of plas­tics and yet are fully compost­a­ble in nature.

While trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are made from bio-based raw mate­ri­als, they do not conflict with food produc­tion or contri­bute to land use change. Unlike conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics, they require no harmful addi­ti­ves, solvents or chemi­cals and have up to 87% lower CO2 emis­si­ons. Since they are neither chemi­cally modi­fied nor synthe­ti­cally poly­me­ri­zed, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are not expec­ted to fall under the EU Plas­tics Direc­tive. Quali­ta­tively, the mate­ri­als are alre­ady compe­ti­tive with conven­tio­nal plas­tics and biopla­s­tics. Produ­ced on an indus­trial produc­tion scale, they will also be able to compete with conven­tio­nal plas­tics in terms of price. This makes trace­l­ess a solu­tion for people all over the world, in all walks of life and income levels.

The foun­ders will use the invest­ment to build and expand the core team and to advance the cons­truc­tion of a pilot plant. This will scale up produc­tion from labo­ra­tory scale to produce suffi­ci­ent mate­rial and bring the first pilot products to market in early 2022. Compa­nies from the consu­mer goods indus­try as well as pack­a­ging and plas­tics proces­sing compa­nies are alre­ady show­ing great inte­rest in the novel mate­ri­als. Legis­la­tive pres­sure, incre­asing custo­mer demand and the urgency to stop the nega­tive impact of plas­tic on the envi­ron­ment create a unique situa­tion for trace­l­ess to change the plas­tics market in a sustainable way.

“Based on Planet A’s scien­ti­fic impact assess­ment, we are confi­dent that trace­l­ess’ unique solu­tion has the poten­tial to make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to solving global plas­tic pollu­tion and sustain­ably trans­form the plas­tics market,” said Tobias Seikel, co-foun­der and part­ner at Planet A.

Dr. Anne Lamp, inven­tor of the trace­l­ess tech­no­logy, and Johanna Baare (photo) co-foun­ded trace­l­ess in Septem­ber 2020: “We are parti­cu­larly proud to have the support of expe­ri­en­ced venture capi­tal inves­tors who under­stand our deep tech solu­tion, share our mission and want to work with us to maxi­mize our posi­tive impact. We are confi­dent that their diverse expe­ri­ence will help us on our jour­ney and toge­ther we can quickly and safely scale our tech­no­logy to indus­trial produc­tion levels. Toge­ther with our custo­mers, we plan to bring the first products made from trace­l­ess mate­ri­als to market in early 2022.” www.traceless.eu

“We evalua­ted diverse compa­nies deve­lo­ping sustainable plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves, but none of them excel­led as trace­l­ess did in combi­ning a strong manage­ment team, supe­rior tech­no­logy with distinct compe­ti­tive advan­ta­ges, supe­rior mate­rial proper­ties and holi­stic sustaina­bi­lity. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed to support the trace­l­ess team with our tech­ni­cal and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to drive the deve­lo­p­ment of the company and its products”, explains Corne­lia Bähr, Invest­ment Mana­ger at b.value

The close cont­acts between b.value and the German biotech indus­try open new doors for the team. For exam­ple, its network and port­fo­lio compa­nies include some of Germany’s most inno­va­tive deep-tech start­ups as well as expe­ri­en­ced bioe­co­nomy experts. In addi­tion, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) brings toge­ther seve­ral basic and specialty chemi­cals compa­nies invol­ved in poly­mers and ther­mo­pla­s­tic compo­si­tes that have inves­ted in its funds. In addi­tion to indus­try cont­acts and exper­tise, the consor­tium is in a posi­tion to make substan­tial follow-on invest­ments in later rounds.

“In the area of sustainable plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves, we are seeing a lot of inte­rest from the plas­tics proces­sing indus­try as well as from compa­nies in the consu­mer goods sector. In our view, trace­l­ess has the poten­tial to become a tech­no­logy and market leader in new mate­ri­als for pack­a­ging, for exam­ple,” explains Johan­nes Weber, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

About trace­l­ess materials

trace­l­ess mate­ri­als GmbH is a circu­lar bioe­co­nomy startup from Hamburg with a female foun­ding team that offers a holi­stic sustainable alter­na­tive to conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics with the mission to solve global plas­tic pollu­tion on land as well as in water.Their patent-pending tech­no­logy makes it possi­ble for the first time to use by-products of the agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try to produce shelf-stable films, solid mate­ri­als and ultra-thin coatings that offer the same bene­fi­cial proper­ties as plas­tics yet are fully degra­da­ble in nature. While trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are made from bioba­sed raw mate­ri­als, they do not conflict with food produc­tion and ther­e­fore do not contri­bute to land use change. Unlike conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics, trace­l­ess comple­tely elimi­na­tes the addi­tion of harmful plas­ti­ci­zers or solvents and has up to 87% lower CO2 emis­si­ons. Since they are neither chemi­cally modi­fied nor synthe­ti­cally poly­me­ri­zed, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are not expec­ted to fall under the EU Plas­tics Direc­tive. Manu­fac­tu­red on an indus­trial produc­tion scale, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are also price compe­ti­tive with conven­tio­nal plas­tics, making them a solu­tion for people around the world, across all demo­gra­phics and income levels. Be part of the solu­tion, not pollution!

About Planet A

Foun­ded in 2020, Planet A is an impact inves­tor targe­ting for-profit start­ups that are making a measura­ble posi­tive impact on the planet while buil­ding scalable busi­nesses. Planet A part­ners with Euro­pean early-stage compa­nies that have the poten­tial to scale globally. The start-ups must contri­bute to a signi­fi­cant posi­tive change in at least one of the follo­wing four key areas: climate protec­tion, waste reduc­tion, resource conser­va­tion and/or biodi­ver­sity protec­tion. For its port­fo­lio compa­nies, Planet A offers impact calcu­la­tion support (scien­ti­fic impact measu­re­ment, fore­cas­ting and visua­liza­tion), the Planet A Network (a diverse, exclu­sive network of expe­ri­en­ced German and Euro­pean entre­pre­neurs) and the Below One Fund as a long-term finan­cing part­ner (early-stage invest­ments with inte­rest in follow-on rounds). Planet A’s mission is to make impact inves­t­ing the new normal. www.planet‑a.com

About b.value AG

With a focus on biotech­no­logy, life scien­ces and chemis­try, b.value AG invests in start-ups in the pre-seed and seed phase in the D‑A-CH region. In addi­tion to its invest­ment, b.value AG actively supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment with its unique “company-buil­ding” approach. To this end, b.value AG combi­nes a high degree of tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in its opera­tio­nal team as well as more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence in the estab­lish­ment, manage­ment and deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy compa­nies and the commer­cia­liza­tion of biotech­no­lo­gi­cal products in its manage­ment. It also bene­fits from the accu­mu­la­ted expe­ri­ence of its board of direc­tors in a wide variety of posi­ti­ons in busi­ness, acade­mia and indus­try, as well as an exten­sive network of scien­tists, execu­ti­ves, inves­tors, policy makers and indus­trial and acade­mic thought leaders. b.value AG sees its specia­liza­tion and deep under­stan­ding of the indus­try as the key to success. b.value AG is growing and further expan­ding its current port­fo­lio of seven attrac­tive investments.
www.bvalue-ag.com.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de/

News

Frank­furt am Main — Sero GmbH (Sero), a company in the port­fo­lio of DBAG Fund VII, acqui­res Solid Semecs B.V. Like Sero, the Dutch company is a deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for EMS (Elec­tro­nic Manu­fac­tu­ring Services, complete contract manu­fac­tu­ring of elec­tro­nic assem­blies, devices and systems) and opera­tes on the market as Semecs. DBAG Fund VII will invest around 16 million euros in the purchase, of which 3.6 million euros will be inves­ted by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG).

The aim of the tran­sac­tion, which was agreed at the end of last week, is to broa­den the custo­mer base, open up new custo­mer sectors and expand produc­tion capa­ci­ties with a site in Eastern Europe. The seller is the Dutch company Rade­ma­ker Beheer B.V. The family behind the company is prima­rily invol­ved in machi­nery for large bake­ries; Semec’s acti­vi­ties are accor­din­gly outside its core busi­ness. The purchase is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties; the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by mid-year.

DBAG Fund VII, which was advi­sed by DBAG, had inves­ted in Sero in Novem­ber 2018 as part of a manage­ment buyout. DBAG had co-inves­ted around eleven million euros along­side the fund. It holds 21 percent of the shares in Sero. The current tran­sac­tion is the seven­te­enth corpo­rate acqui­si­tion struc­tu­red by a company from the DBAG port­fo­lio within the past twelve months. The objec­tive is predo­mi­nantly to acce­le­rate the perfor­mance of the respec­tive port­fo­lio compa­nies, for exam­ple by broa­de­ning the product range and regio­nal coverage or by conso­li­da­ting the market.

Semecs (www.semecs.com) assem­bles prin­ted circuit boards for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and also specia­li­zes in common assem­bly, cali­bra­tion and test­ing services. The company, head­quar­te­red in Uden, Nether­lands, employs 480 people, 450 of whom work at the produc­tion site in Vráble, Slova­kia, which was built in 2012. For the current year, the company expects sales of around 72 million euros.

The elec­tro­nic compon­ents produ­ced by Semecs in predo­mi­nantly small quan­ti­ties are used, for exam­ple, to control air-condi­tio­ning systems or the motors of e‑bikes, are found in elec­tro­nic elec­tri­city meters and mobile insu­lin pumps, and are instal­led in the LED light­ing or engine control systems of cars. Around 70 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted with indus­trial custo­mers; the remai­ning share is accoun­ted for by appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy and products for the auto­mo­tive industry.

is where Semecs differs from Sero: Sero is an estab­lished produc­tion part­ner to the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and gene­ra­tes around 85 percent of its sales there. With a high degree of auto­ma­tion, the company specia­li­zes in high-volume orders. Semecs, on the other hand, deals with orders above medium quan­ti­ties and a higher propor­tion of manual acti­vi­ties. Both compa­nies will bene­fit equally from the combi­na­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring opera­ti­ons invol­ving the Slova­kian site, ther­eby achie­ving a higher degree of flexi­bi­lity for diffe­rent order sizes and better posi­tio­ning in the acqui­si­tion of new busi­ness. The acqui­si­tion of Semecs thus broa­dens Sero’s custo­mer base and market access for the company, which employs around 220 people in Rohr­bach, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The newly formed group opera­tes in an attrac­tive market: for the core segments of indus­try, medi­cine and auto­mo­tive, growth rates above the alre­ady attrac­tive growth of the EMS market as a whole are expec­ted in the coming years.

“The compe­ten­cies of the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly,” said Jannick Hune­cke, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion. He added: “Toge­ther they can better serve the attrac­tive market and opti­mally combine their capa­bi­li­ties in produc­tion, so that with the company acqui­si­tion we are streng­thening and acce­le­ra­ting the further deve­lo­p­ment of our origi­nal investment.”

Sero CEO Dr. Bernd Welzel high­ligh­ted the stra­te­gic importance of the tran­sac­tion for Sero: “The company crea­ted from the two EMS specia­lists ensu­res a strong and compe­ti­tive presence in Europe with a broad range of manu­fac­tu­ring service offe­rings across diffe­rent market segments — this opens up a variety of oppor­tu­ni­ties for us and under­lines our expan­sion policy.” Semecs Mana­ging Direc­tor Jan-Fred­rik Kalee added, “We bring a well-trai­ned team to an attrac­tive loca­tion with a reco­gni­zed good quality assu­rance process and look forward to working with them.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Hanover/ Munich — Toge­ther with ARCUS Capi­tal from Munich, the HANNOVER Finanz Group acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the Löwen­stark Group. Toge­ther, the inves­tors will hold more than 75 percent of the shares in the leading online marke­ting service provi­der from Braun­schweig. In the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with company foun­der Marian Wurm — who remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved — and the manage­ment team around Löwen­stark CEO Hart­mut Deiwick, growth is to be further expan­ded and long-term succes­sion plan­ning is to be arran­ged. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

“Invest­ments in compa­nies with a focus on digi­tiza­tion are now a signi­fi­cant part of our port­fo­lio. With Löwen­stark, we have been able to convince another online company to join us. We see a lot of poten­tial in the Braun­schweig-based agency group, which is one of the leading online marke­ting service provi­ders in the D‑A-CH region. The part­ner­ship with ARCUS, an invest­ment company with expe­ri­ence in the online indus­try, is also an asset for our network,” says the HANNOVER Finanz Board Spokes­man Goetz HertzEi­chen­rode (photo) on the now comple­ted invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

With invest­ments in a wide variety of soft­ware, e‑commerce or digi­tiza­tion specia­lists, such as Corpo­rate Plan­ning AG, Media Concept GmbH or the Marken­film agency, equity part­ner HANNOVER Finanz has a wealth of expe­ri­ence in the marke­ting and digi­tal indus­tries. “Löwen­stark offers its custo­mers a truly holi­stic approach to consul­ting and solu­ti­ons that is unpar­al­le­led, espe­ci­ally in the SME segment. In addi­tion, we see strong growth poten­tial due to posi­tive market drivers and highly auto­ma­ted busi­ness proces­ses. We look forward to working with HANNOVER Finanz and the manage­ment to support the company on its successful course in the coming years and to set the course for further growth,” says Stefan Eishold, CEO of ARCUS, about the invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

Marian Wurm, foun­der of Löwen­stark: “In ARCUS and HANNOVER Finanz, we have found the right part­ners for Löwenstark’s stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. With their exten­sive indus­try and manage­ment expe­ri­ence and nume­rous cont­acts in the German SME sector, they will actively support us in our next growth steps.”

Advi­sor to the deal team of HANNOVER Finanz:

Ebner Stolz GmbH & Co. KG (Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence)
ecce­le­rate GmbH (Commer­cial Due Diligence)
KPMG Law Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH (Legal Due Diligence)
Gütt Olk Feld­haus Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB (finan­cing).

Advi­sor Löwen­stark Digi­tal GmbH: Norton Rose Fulbright

Lead Part­ner Dr. Phil­ipp Grzimek (M&A/Private Equity, Part­ner, Munich).
He was supported by part­ners Tino Duttiné (tax law), Dr. Chris­toph Ritzer (data protec­tion law and IT law) and Dr. Andrea Spel­ler­berg (banking law). Coun­sel Clau­dia Poslu­schny (employ­ment law) and Oliver Paasch (banking law), Senior Asso­cia­tes Jan-Peter Heise (M&A) and Julia Gallin­ger (tax law) as well as Asso­ciate Olivia Reinke (employ­ment law) were also involved.

MONTIS Corpo­rate Finance acted as M&A advi­sor to Löwenstark.

About Löwen­stark
www.loewenstark.com With over 5,000 custo­mer projects for 19 years, Löwen­stark Digi­tal Group GmbH is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and successful digi­tal service provi­ders for online marke­ting in the DACH region. More than 150 employees are active at ten loca­ti­ons in all disci­pli­nes of online marke­ting for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers along the maxim “thorough analy­sis, consis­tent opti­miza­tion and sustainable success”. The focus is on holi­stic solu­ti­ons in the areas of perfor­mance marke­ting (search engine opti­miza­tion, search engine marke­ting, market­place marke­ting), brand marke­ting (repu­ta­tion manage­ment, social media, affi­liate and e‑mail marke­ting), and web deve­lo­p­ment (CMS, store systems and usabi­lity opti­miza­tion). The custo­mer base includes more than 500 natio­nal and international

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

News

Munich / Bonn / Vienna — Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for the textile indus­try: The robo­tics start-up sewts has closed a seed finan­cing round tota­ling seven figu­res. sewts is deve­lo­ping a soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) solu­tion that helps indus­trial compa­nies auto­mate proces­ses in which easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als are proces­sed, for exam­ple texti­les or films. Initi­ally, the tech­no­logy will be used in indus­trial laun­dry lines; in the long term, cross-sector appli­ca­ti­ons are plan­ned in the textile indus­try as well as in the high-tech sector. APEX Ventures, Bayern Kapi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. The exis­ting inves­tor Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and a consor­tium of expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels have also confirmed their commitments.

In the manu­fac­tu­ring and proces­sing indus­tries, there are many robo­tics and AI-based solu­ti­ons for hand­ling solid, dimen­sio­nally stable raw mate­ri­als such as metals. The auto­ma­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring or assem­bly proces­ses in which, on the other hand, easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als are proces­sed still poses enorm­ous problems for compu­ters and image proces­sing programs today, because the demands on the requi­red compu­ting power are too great. Curr­ently available robots and grip­ping systems can ther­e­fore only inade­qua­tely perform such simple opera­ti­ons for humans, such as grip­ping a towel or piece of clot­hing. Foun­ded in 2019, Munich-based sewts GmbH and its appro­xi­m­ately 20 employees have ther­e­fore deve­lo­ped inno­va­tive control and image proces­sing soft­ware that enables robots to predict the beha­vior of shape-unsta­ble mate­ri­als during grip­ping in real time based on intel­li­gent algo­rithms deve­lo­ped in-house. At the core of the tech­no­logy is a unique approach to gene­ra­ting arti­fi­cial trai­ning data for AI, which is based on high-precis­ion, so-called finite element method (FEM) simu­la­ti­ons. With the help of this novel approach, sewts can auto­mate a wide range of indus­trial proces­ses that were previously tech­ni­cally unfe­a­si­ble — such as the hand­ling of texti­les or carbon fiber and semi-finis­hed products.

Wide range of applications

Indus­trial laun­d­ries, for exam­ple, bene­fit from this tech­no­logy: indi­vi­dual steps, such as sort­ing dirty texti­les or placing laun­dry in folding machi­nes, still have to be carried out there by hand. Many laun­d­ries can hardly find employees for this stre­nuous work. With sewts, this step can be auto­ma­ted by robots. In the long term, this should increase the produc­ti­vity of a textile washing line by up to 100 percent, while allo­wing the laun­dry to use its person­nel capa­ci­ties more effectively.

The areas of appli­ca­tion for this inno­va­tive tech­no­logy are constantly expan­ding and are alre­ady opening up comple­tely new produc­tion possi­bi­li­ties in the textile indus­try, for exam­ple in the manu­fac­ture of clot­hing. In the long term, the ambi­ti­ons of the three foun­ders Alex­an­der Bley, Tim Doerks and Till Rickert also include opening up other manu­fac­tu­ring sectors, for exam­ple in the proces­sing of films and foams. They plan to invest the new finan­cial resour­ces in the further deve­lo­p­ment of their soft­ware into a series product, the expan­sion of the deve­lo­p­ment team and the acqui­si­tion of medium and long-term inte­gra­tion and sales partners.

“We are very plea­sed to have convin­ced capi­tal-strong and tech­no­lo­gi­cally savvy inves­tors of our disrup­tive tech­no­logy. Their cross-indus­try market exper­tise will be of great help to us on our way to series produc­tion,” says sewts co-foun­der and co-mana­ging direc­tor Alex­an­der Bley.

Dr. Wolf­gang Neubert, part­ner at APEX Ventures, says: “We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed in the team by the combi­na­tion of high profes­sio­nal exper­tise, tech­ni­cal crea­ti­vity and the ability to think quickly into indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons of the sewts tech­no­logy and derive their econo­mic impact.”

Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “sewts has the poten­tial to signi­fi­cantly simplify proces­ses in a wide range of indus­tries that could not previously be auto­ma­ted — a scalable tech­no­logy from which many compa­nies could bene­fit, parti­cu­larly in the indus­trial nation of Germany, but also beyond. An exci­ting inno­va­tion project in the field of robo­tics that we are happy to support in its upco­ming growth steps.”

Johan­nes Weber, invest­ment mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, says: “With deep lear­ning algo­rithms, sewts enables the sophisti­ca­ted hand­ling of texti­les with indus­trial robots for the first time. Through the scalable SaaS busi­ness model, we see high poten­tial to address broad user groups and look forward to support­ing the start-up on this path.”

About sewts
Foun­ded in 2019, Munich-based sewts GmbH is a provi­der of inno­va­tive control and image proces­sing soft­ware that pushes the boun­da­ries of robo­tics in the proces­sing of easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als. sewts has deve­lo­ped a unique tech­no­logy that uses high-precis­ion finite element method (FEM) simu­la­ti­ons to effi­ci­ently train machine lear­ning algo­rithms. The intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­tion enables count­less appli­ca­ti­ons in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, such as the proces­sing of texti­les in indus­trial laun­d­ries or the produc­tion of clot­hing. The company is backed by APEX Ventures, Bayern Kapi­tal, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and a number of highly expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels. www.sewts.de

About APEX Ventures
APEX Ventures is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal inves­tor focu­sing on deep-tech start-ups with unique IP and extra­or­di­nary market poten­tial. APEX Ventures has comple­ted nume­rous invest­ments with its funds in Europe as well as in the U.S., inclu­ding in the areas of AI for medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, quan­tum and laser tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous mobi­lity, compu­ter-based vision, and digi­tal foren­sics. APEX Ventures is in close colla­bo­ra­tion with the foun­ding teams to work toge­ther on go-to-market stra­te­gies and acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth. For an effec­tive selec­tion of talen­ted teams and their best possi­ble support, APEX Ventures is in close exch­ange with acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons, entre­pre­neur­ship programs and other inter­na­tio­nal VC part­ners. www.apex.ventures

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 compa­nies. www.htgf.de

News

Toronto, Frank­furt, Löbau — Cana­dian intel­li­gent trans­por­ta­tion systems provi­der Quar­terhill Inc. through its wholly owned subsi­diary Inter­na­tio­nal Road Dyna­mics Inc. (“IRD”) acqui­red all shares in VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH, a German-based provi­der of high-precis­ion traf­fic moni­to­ring equipment.

VDS, based in Löbau, Germany, deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes statio­nary and mobile traf­fic moni­to­ring devices that measure vehicle speed and record red light viola­ti­ons. VDS’s devices are curr­ently the only radar-based products certi­fied under the new regu­la­ti­ons in Germany, allo­wing direct track­ing of traf­fic viola­ti­ons. VDS has a produc­tion faci­lity and two service centers in Germany and will be inte­gra­ted into Sensor Line GmbH, which was acqui­red by Quarterhill/IRD in Janu­ary 2021. Sensor Line is one of the largest suppli­ers of VDS for opto­elec­tro­nic sensors (www.vds-verkehrstechnik.de).

Quar­terhill is a growth-orien­ted company in “Intel­li­gent Trans­por­ta­tion Systems” and a leader in intellec­tual property licen­sing (for more infor­ma­tion: www.quarterhill.com). IRD is a dyna­mic ITS tech­no­logy company enga­ged in the deve­lo­p­ment of key compon­ents and advan­ced systems for the next gene­ra­tion of trans­por­ta­tion networks (for more infor­ma­tion: www.irdinc.com).

In the tran­sac­tion, the share­hol­der and the mana­ging direc­tor of VDS were compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed by an M&A team of the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner (FGvW) in Frei­burg and Frank­furt under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Hendrik Thies. The share­hol­der was exten­si­vely advi­sed in the area of commer­cial, stra­te­gic and orga­niza­tio­nal M&A tran­sac­tion advice by MNI Part­ners LLC under the leader­ship of part­ner Domi­nik Lutz. FGvW regu­larly carries out complex, often inter­na­tio­nal M&A projects toge­ther with MNI Partners.

Advi­sor Quar­terhill: Norton Rose Fulbright
Paul Amirault (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Ottawa), Nils Rahlf (Part­ner), Dr. Ariane Theis­sen (Asso­ciate) and Andre Hart­mann (Asso­ciate) (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt); Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Coun­sel), Micha­els Zenkert (Asso­ciate); Olivia Reinke (Asso­ciate) (Employ­ment, Munich); Michael Mehler (Coun­sel), Daniela Kowalsky (Senior Asso­ciate) (Real Estate, Frank­furt); Tino Duttiné (Part­ner), Sarah Heufel­der (Asso­ciate) (Tax, Frank­furt); Tiffany Zilliox (Senior Asso­ciate, Intellec­tual Property, Munich).

Advi­sor to share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Frei­burg and Frankfurt
Dr. Hendrik Thies (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law, M&A)
Dr. Till Bött­cher (Real Estate Law)
Annette Rölz (Labor Law)

MNI Part­ners LLC
Domi­nik Lutz, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, M&A Tran­sac­tion Advisory)

About MNI Part­ners: MNIP is a specia­li­zed boutique M&A stra­tegy and tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm in the U.S., Germany and India with a focus on smal­ler and mid-sized tran­sac­tions that are hand-picked, often cross-cultu­ral and below the radar of typi­cal market parti­ci­pants and invest­ment banks. MNIP’s clients, prima­rily on the sell side, are profi­ta­ble compa­nies owned by fami­lies and foun­ders or smal­ler corpo­rate spin-offs with $3 — $30 million in annual revenues.

About Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 100 lawy­ers, 35 of whom are part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels. In total, the firm has around 250 employees. www.fgvw.de.

News

Munich — Scin­to­mics GmbH has sold its stake in Pentix­a­Ph­arm GmbH to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. It was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Gütt Olk Feld­haus (GOF). Part of the conside­ra­tion consis­ted of shares in Eckert & Zieg­ler. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Pentix­a­Ph­arm is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors that can be used for both the diagno­sis and treat­ment of cancer. In Febru­ary 2021, Pentix­a­Ph­arm had recei­ved confir­ma­tion from the Euro­pean Medi­ci­nes Agency (EMA) that its drug candi­date Pentix­a­For can advance directly into Phase III clini­cal trials.

Scin­to­mics is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, licen­sing and commer­cia­liza­tion of radio-phar­maceu­ti­cal know-how and radio­phar­maceu­ti­cals and was a foun­ding share­hol­der in PentixaPharm.

Eckert & Zieg­ler is a listed company head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, which holds inte­rests in compa­nies in the fields of medi­cal and isotope tech­no­logy as well as radio-phar­macy and nuclear medi­cine, among others.

Legal advi­sors to Scin­to­mics GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, both Corporate/M&A)

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

News

Wupper­tal — The globally active Chinese group WuXi Biolo­gics has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of a plant for biolo­gi­cal subs­tances from Bayer AG in Wupper­tal. The closing took place in Colo­gne on April 30, 2021. A team led by Dirk W. Kolven­bach, Part­ner at the Düssel­dorf office, and Michael Pauli from the Colo­gne office of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to the Chinese group on the purchase. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is around €150 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2021 and is subject to regu­la­tory review.

The new faci­lity in Wupper­tal is one of the largest vaccine produc­tion sites in Germany and will be used to manu­fac­ture highly sought-after subs­tances for COVID-19 vacci­nes and other biolo­gics. WuXi Biolo­gics plans addi­tio­nal invest­ments in process equip­ment at the Wupper­tal site. “We are very proud to have provi­ded legal support for the purchase of this major vaccine produc­tion faci­lity,” said attor­ney Dirk W. Kolven­bach. “Through this tran­sac­tion, we can also make an important contri­bu­tion on an advo­cacy level for vaccine manu­fac­tu­ring, inclu­ding COVID-19 vacci­nes, in Germany.”

With the conclu­sion of the agree­ment, Bayer and WuXi Biolo­gics have at the same time ente­red into a long-term sublease and a service agree­ment. Bayer will provide various services to WuXi Biolo­gics during the start-up of the plant, contri­bu­ting its own resour­ces. The signing alre­ady took place on Decem­ber 21, 2020. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is over 150 million euros.

WuXi Biolo­gics is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exch­ange and is a leading global open access biolo­gics tech­no­logy plat­form. The company provi­des end-to-end solu­ti­ons to help compa­nies disco­ver, deve­lop and manu­fac­ture biolo­gics from concept to commer­cial produc­tion. For Kolvenbach’s team, this is not the first tran­sac­tion for WuXi. Heuking had alre­ady advi­sed WuXi Biolo­gics on the acqui­si­tion of a drug formu­la­tion plant from Bayer in 2020.

Advi­sor to WuXi Biolo­gics: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dirk W. Kolven­bach (Corpo­rate Law/ Project Coor­di­na­tion), Düsseldorf
Michael Pauli, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law/Project Coor­di­na­tion), Cologne
Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate), Düsseldorf
Michael Below, (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Bodo Dehne (invest­ment control), Düsseldorf
Wolf­ram Meven (Tax Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Rainer Velte (Anti­trust Law), Düsseldorf
Fabian Gerst­ner, LL.M., Munich, Bettina Nehe­i­der (both Cons­truc­tion Law), Munich
Dr. Tobias Plath, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Tors­ten Groß, LL.M. (Labor Law), Sarah Radon, LL.M. (Commer­cial), all Düsseldorf

News

Aachen — The “Seed Fonds II für die Region Aachen GmbH & Co. KG” (Seed Fonds Aachen), toge­ther with KfW Banken­gruppe, Qiagen co-foun­der Dr. Jürgen Schu­ma­cher and Dr. Robert Huber, Profes­sor of Biopro­cess Engi­nee­ring, have sold their shares in the Aachen-based start-up aquila biolabs GmbH to Scien­ti­fic Biopro­ces­sing, Inc. (SBI), subsi­diary of Scien­ti­fic Indus­tries, Inc. and deve­lo­per of opti­cal sensors for non-inva­sive real-time moni­to­ring of cell culture systems, was divested.

This ends a six-year invest­ment part­ner­ship that began in 2015 with the entry of Seed Fund II, the prede­ces­sor of Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, with a seven-figure invest­ment in the biotech­no­logy company. “It is grati­fy­ing that we can accom­pany such a great foun­ding team to a successful exit with our early-stage funds. I look forward to seeing the success story of aquila biolabs conti­nue along this path,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, CEO of the S‑UBG Group.

Expan­ding the platform’s reach worldwide

Foun­ded in Aachen at the end of 2014, aquila biolabs GmbH deve­lops a plat­form of intel­li­gent sensors and soft­ware for the non-inva­sive moni­to­ring and analy­sis of biopro­ces­ses in the labo­ra­tory. With the help of the paten­ted measu­re­ment methods, rese­ar­chers can auto­ma­ti­cally moni­tor process para­me­ters and observe the cells as they grow, without having to take samples. This signi­fi­cantly redu­ces deve­lo­p­ment times and costs and sustain­ably impro­ves biopro­ces­ses in acade­mic and indus­trial rese­arch. The products of aquila biolabs GmbH are now used by custo­mers in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­lo­gi­cal and chemi­cal indus­tries in over 25 countries.

“We are exci­ted to join SBI and expand the reach of our unique plat­form to biopro­cess scien­tists around the world,” says Daniel Grünes, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, who will assume the role of Vice Presi­dent of R&D and Opera­ti­ons at SBI. Jens Bayer, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, adds: “We would like to thank our inves­tor consor­tium once again for the very good and harmo­nious coope­ra­tion over the past years. Espe­ci­ally the enorm­ous wealth of expe­ri­ence of inves­tors like Mr. Schu­ma­cher and the Seed Fonds Aachen, who have frequently accom­pa­nied tech­no­logy compa­nies from the start-up phase to the exit, was very helpful for us.” aquila biolabs will conti­nue to offer its products and services around the globe from its head­quar­ters in Baes­wei­ler, where the company curr­ently employs 16 people.

SBI expands presence in Europe

“When SBI was explo­ring the available tech­no­lo­gies that could drive digi­tally simpli­fied biopro­ces­sing, aquila’s approach stood out as the most impres­sive,” said Rein­hard Vogt, chair­man of SBI and former vice presi­dent and member of the Sarto­rius AG Execu­tive Board. “In addi­tion to offe­ring a broad range of advan­ced sensors and data analy­tics tools, this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion also adds new talent to our strong team and streng­thens our presence in Europe.”

About the S‑UBG Group

The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company.

2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Düssel­dorf M&A part­ners Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both lead part­ners) advi­sed SIX Swiss Exch­ange-listed Imple­nia Group, one of Switzerland’s leading cons­truc­tion and real estate services compa­nies, on the plan­ned sale of German-based Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH to Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, which was signed on April 16, 2021 and is expec­ted to be comple­ted on May 31, 2021 (closing), all sites and ongo­ing projects with a total of 199 employees of the Main­ten­ance divi­sion will be trans­fer­red to Karrié Bau.

Imple­nia is dispo­sing of the main­ten­ance busi­ness in order to focus further on the defi­ned core port­fo­lio in line with its stra­tegy. Karrié Bau plans to assume respon­si­bi­lity for ongo­ing projects after the acqui­si­tion is comple­ted. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the condi­ti­ons were crea­ted for a seam­less carve-out of the main­ten­ance busi­ness and its successful conti­nua­tion by Karrié Bau.

In the imple­men­ta­tion of the project, the Deloitte Legal team was able to contri­bute to the success through a combi­na­tion of first-class legal advice, tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence and goal-orien­ted commu­ni­ca­tion. The close coope­ra­tion with colle­agues from Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Deloitte Tran­sac­tion Services Switz­er­land and Deloitte Tax Germany enab­led compre­hen­sive inter­di­sci­pli­nary advice on all commer­cial, legal and tax aspects mate­rial to the tran­sac­tion. www.deloittelegal.de

Advi­sor Imple­nia: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both Lead, Corporate/M&A), Thilo Hoff­mann (Coun­sel), André Giesen (Senior Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Tran­sac­tion Services, Switz­er­land: Stephan Brücher, Benja­min Lechuga, Maxi­mi­lian Hornung, Nico­las Bornitz Deloitte Tax: Fabian Borkowski

Advi­sor Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG: EY Law
Dr. Thors­ten Erhard, Dr. Robert Schil­ler, Dr. Timo Rinne EY: Chris­toph Serf, Hagen Reiser, Jan-Hendrik Pirwitz, Thors­ten Schnei­der, Tobias Kampmann

About Imple­nia
As a leading Swiss cons­truc­tion and real estate service provi­der, Imple­nia deve­lops and reali­zes living spaces, working envi­ron­ments and infra­struc­ture for future gene­ra­ti­ons in Switz­er­land and Germany. Imple­nia also plans and builds complex infra­struc­ture projects in Austria, France, Sweden and Norway. Imple­nia can look back on around 150 years of cons­truc­tion tradi­tion. The company brings toge­ther the exper­tise of highly quali­fied consul­ting, plan­ning and execu­tion units under one roof to form an inte­gra­ted, multi­na­tio­nal leading cons­truc­tion and real estate service provider.

With its broad range of services and the in-depth expe­ri­ence of its specia­lists, the Group is able to realize complex large-scale projects and support struc­tures throug­hout their entire life cycle and in close proxi­mity to custo­mers. The focus is on the needs of custo­mers and a sustainable balance between econo­mic success and social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bi­lity. Imple­nia, head­quar­te­red in Opfi­kon near Zurich, employs more than 8,500 people across Europe and gene­ra­ted sales of almost CHF 4 billion in 2020. For more infor­ma­tion, visit implenia.com. About Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH Imple­nia Instand­set­zung is a leading full-service part­ner in Germany for struc­tu­ral resto­ra­tion of buil­dings, infra­struc­ture struc­tures or parts thereof.

News

Vienna — Round2 Capi­tal, the Vienna-based growth finance invest­ment fund and Euro­pean pioneer in reve­nue-based finan­cing, closes the first quar­ter with seven invest­ments. The exis­ting port­fo­lio of 13 compa­nies will thus be expan­ded by tech scale-ups from Germany, the UK, Austria, France and Sweden. Chris­tian Czer­nich, Round2 Capi­tal foun­der and CEO, explains why the alter­na­tive finan­cing form of reve­nue-based finan­cing is so in demand right now.

The first quar­ter ended parti­cu­larly successfully for the Round2 Capi­tal team: 7 new compa­nies now expand the port­fo­lio of the Vienna-based invest­ment fund, which is prima­rily dedi­ca­ted to reve­nue-based finan­cing. Invest­ments are made far beyond natio­nal borders and scale-ups from Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France and, of course, Austria are welco­med into the family of port­fo­lio compa­nies. The new invest­ments are:

Logsta (AT), next-gene­ra­tion soft­ware-enab­led logi­stics company with warehouse loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, the UK, France and the US.

Projekt­eins (DE), B2B soft­ware plat­form for the inte­gra­tion of various e‑commerce applications.

Dracoon (DE), cyber­se­cu­rity busi­ness cloud with the highest encryp­tion standards.

Hamil­ton Apps (FR), a leading work­place tech­no­logy provi­der offe­ring a wide range of solu­ti­ons within a single inte­gra­ted platform.

Sales Impact Academy (UK), an e‑learning plat­form for B2B salespeople.

Subscrip­tion-based sports commu­nity (UK)

Inter­net Yield (SE), acqui­res, owns and opera­tes reve­nue-gene­ra­ting websites curr­ently selling 40 million ad impres­si­ons per month.

Round2 Capi­tal focu­ses on young digi­tal SaaS compa­nies that are in the growth phase and alre­ady employ 20 — 150 people. As a rule, these compa­nies have alre­ady reached the opera­ting brea­k­e­ven point. The majo­rity of the port­fo­lio compa­nies were able to reach this level without exter­nal finan­cing and are now pursuing a growth stra­tegy that enables growth even without high burn rates. The Round2 port­fo­lio includes e.g. the German cyber secu­rity company Myra Secu­rity, the Swiss EduTech scale-up Aval­lain or the Finnish, multi­ple award-winning scale-up Vainu, all of which have mana­ged to grow to a sales volume of between 5- 15 million euros without exter­nal equity financing.

Reve­nue-based finan­cing is a rela­tively new finan­cing instru­ment in Europe, which has been successfully estab­lished not least through the work of Round2 Capi­tal. The high­light of this form of growth finan­cing is that the company does not have to give up any company shares, as instead the fund parti­ci­pa­tes in the company’s sales until a prede­fi­ned repay­ment amount is reached. The monthly repay­ments auto­ma­ti­cally adjust to the company’s turno­ver and thus do not cause any cash flow problems. Since leng­thy nego­tia­ti­ons on company valua­tions are no longer neces­sary, the tran­sac­tion process is also signi­fi­cantly faster. All these advan­ta­ges make reve­nue-based finance a simple, flexi­ble and fully trans­pa­rent finan­cing tool.

The capi­tal provi­ded by Round2 is mostly used by the young compa­nies to expand sales, marke­ting and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In other words, for measu­res that quickly lead to sales growth.

Today, Round2 Capi­tal mana­ges over 30 million euros from mainly entre­pre­neurs and family offices from Sweden, Germany, and Austria. Wher­eby plans are alre­ady under­way to open the fund to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and signi­fi­cantly increase the capi­tal under management.

How Reve­nue-based Finan­cing Works

Reve­nue-based finan­cing consists of a subor­di­na­ted loan whose repay­ment is linked to the reve­nue of the company in which the invest­ment is made. This share is between 2–6%, depen­ding on the amount finan­ced and sales, and consists of both a repay­ment and a royalty compo­nent. The reve­nue share is paid until a certain multi­ple of the finan­cing amount, which is between 1.35x — 2.15x, has been paid. When this is reached after 4–6 years, the finan­cing auto­ma­ti­cally expi­res. The finan­cing volume is initi­ally between EUR 500,000 and EUR 2 million and can be gradu­ally increased to over EUR 10 million by supple­men­ting it with equity. Since in some cases it can be well combi­ned with an equity invest­ment and even replace it, Round2 Capi­tal selec­tively also offers a combi­na­tion of these two invest­ment models.

The advan­tage of reve­nue-based finan­cing over other venture debt finan­cing is that repay­ments are linked to sales and thus to the company’s cash flow. In this way, this cannot become unba­lan­ced due to the repay­ment obligations.

About Round2 Capi­tal Partners
Round2 Capi­tal is a fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment firm with over €30 million in capi­tal under manage­ment. Based in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm, the company is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean scale-ups with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Since its incep­tion in 2017, Round2 Capi­tal has been pionee­ring reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe and is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria, UK and the Nordic count­ries. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 20 diffe­rent compa­nies. www.round2cap.com

News

Frank­furt a. M./ POELLATH advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity, the AUVESY manage­ment team and other share­hol­ders on the sale of their stake in the AUVESY Group, a tech­no­lo­gi­cal global market leader for data manage­ment systems, to Hg Capi­tal. The exis­ting AUVESY manage­ment team will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company, while the former majo­rity owner Brock­haus Private Equity will exit completely.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Landau in der Pfalz, AUVESY GmbH is a leading global provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for version control and change manage­ment in auto­ma­ted indus­trial envi­ron­ments. The soft­ware enables auto­ma­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties and other intel­li­gent machi­nes, as well as their machine data and infor­ma­tion, to be auto­ma­ti­cally backed up and centrally mana­ged. The company employs around 90 people and mana­ges over 5 million indus­trial “Inter­net-of-Things” devices in 45 countries.

POELLATH alre­ady advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity on the acqui­si­tion of AUVESY in 2017 from the then foun­ders and now also accom­pa­nied the sale to Hg Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still pending.

Advi­sor Brock­haus Private Equity: POELLATH with the follo­wing cross-loca­tion team:
Tobias Jäger (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Matthias Meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)

News

Stutt­gart — The invest­ment company Finexx has acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria as part of a succes­sion plan. Volpini is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer in Central Europe of Pack­a­ging cups and films. The exis­ting manage­ment will conti­nue to support the company in all opera­tio­nal matters to ensure a seam­less tran­si­tion of manage­ment. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The new invest­ment, which stra­te­gi­cally fits perfectly into Finexx’s invest­ment stra­tegy, takes into account an increase of Finexx Fund II to the total volume of 30 million euros. The high-growth mid-market inves­tor from Stutt­gart now mana­ges a total of around EUR 65 million.

Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria, based in Spit­tal an der Drau, Austria, was origi­nally foun­ded in 1811. Since 1970, the tradi­tio­nal company with its current work­force of around 60 employees has specia­li­zed in the produc­tion of plas­tic pack­a­ging, in parti­cu­lar sustainable pack­a­ging cups (yogurt pots) and ther­mo­forming sheets. In the field of Desto cups, which are conside­red to be parti­cu­larly sustainable, Volpini plays a leading role in the Central Euro­pean market. The company has modern produc­tion faci­li­ties that are opti­mally adapted to the requi­re­ments of medium-sized and large custo­mers in the food indus­try. Most recently, Volpini gene­ra­ted annual sales of around 13 million euros.

With the acqui­si­tion of Volpini, Finexx further expands its presence and exper­tise in the food indus­try. With the orga­nic food inno­va­tor BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding with the brands GSE, Fitne and Feel­good Shop, the port­fo­lio of the indus­try specia­list alre­ady includes two market-leading plat­forms in the field of orga­nic baking and cooking ingre­di­ents as well as food supple­ments and heal­ing products.

“The food indus­try is in a state of flux. Not only is the market for health-conscious nutri­tion growing rapidly, but compa­nies and inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the field of sustainable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons are also booming. Volpini is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned in this area. In addi­tion, we see both orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial at Volpini. With its market-leading posi­tion, the company is ther­e­fore the opti­mal stra­te­gic addi­tion to our indus­try-orien­ted port­fo­lio,” says Finexx CEO Matthias Heining.

Accom­pany­ing the tran­sac­tion, Finexx Fund II, which was closed at the end of last year, was increased from 20 to now 30 million euros. The Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based invest­ment company, which specia­li­zes in growth invest­ments and succes­sion plan­ning, now mana­ges a total of around 65 million euros. Finexx’s cross-sector invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with sales of 10 million euros or more.

“Our invest­ment philo­so­phy is to support medium-sized compa­nies with indus­try exper­tise, capi­tal and an exten­sive network in their growth or in chal­len­ging succes­sion situa­tions as part­ners. In our self-image as an insti­tu­tio­nal family share­hol­der, we wanted to conti­nue this proven stra­tegy with our second fund from the outset. The increase of our Finexx Fund II by around ten million euros shows that we are on the right track with our entre­pre­neu­rial convic­tion,” says Dr. Markus Seiler, CEO of Finexx.

In addi­tion to Volpini, BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding in the pack­a­ging and food indus­try, Finexx has a stake in Sicko, a medium-sized specia­list in indus­trial auto­ma­tion in wood processing.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth, invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds from insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds, among others, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, predo­mi­nantly within the frame­work of majo­rity share­hol­dings. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­try network. www.finexx.de

News

Berlin — BMH BRÄUTIGAM accom­pa­nies with Reds­tone the invest­ment of the Family Office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten in the context of the recently closed finan­cing round of the AI- tech startup German Autolabs. In addi­tion to Schwarz­wäl­der Boten as lead inves­tor and share­hol­der of some of Germany’s largest media groups, exis­ting inves­tors Target Part­ners, nbr Tech Ventures and Copa­rion are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round.

German Autolabs, foun­ded in 2016 by serial entre­pre­neur Holger G. Weiss, specia­li­zes in voice assis­tance solu­ti­ons for profes­sio­nal drivers, couriers and deli­very people and became known for the first retro­fit­ta­ble smart voice assistant for cars. The modu­lar voice AI plat­form enables compa­nies in the logi­stics indus­try to opti­mize ever­y­day work­flows and proces­ses by linking deli­very addres­ses, deli­very speci­fics, and route info from various data sources to further improve deli­very quality.

With the growing success of voice assistants, the need for verti­cal solu­ti­ons in the auto­mo­tive sector will increase. Important diffe­ren­tia­tors in this area are data secu­rity, the very speci­fic use case in the vehicle, and the possi­bi­lity of addres­sing one’s own custo­mers directly. German Autolabs does not see itself as a compe­ti­tor to hori­zon­tal play­ers such as Amazon or Google. His approach is verti­cally and comple­men­ta­rily integrable.

Holger G. Weiss, co-foun­der and CEO of German Autolabs: “Since produc­tion cycles in the auto­mo­tive indus­try are tradi­tio­nally too long to itera­tively deve­lop and train voice AI, our retro­fit approach is one of the major advan­ta­ges of our stra­tegy.” The new multi-million funding will now be used to acce­le­rate the roll­out of the voice assis­tance platform.

The team of BMH BRÄUTIGAM has repea­tedly acted along­side Reds­tone in the context of this invest­ment. Having alre­ady advi­sed on the invest­ments of venture capi­ta­list VR Ventures and the family office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten in Right­Now at the end of last year, we are very plea­sed to be able to further streng­then and expand the rela­ti­onship with Reds­tone. www.bmh-partner.com

Consul­tant Reds­tone and the Family Office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten: BMH BRÄUTIGAM, Berlin

Dr. Patrick Auer­bach, Edzard Rothen (both Venture Capital)

News

Paris/ Frank­furt am Main — Eura­zeo laun­ches Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture, a thema­tic fund to finance envi­ron­men­tally friendly infra­struc­ture and tech­no­logy in the mari­time sector. The Fund enables sustainable deve­lo­p­ment as defi­ned in Article 9 of Regu­la­tion (EU) 2019/2088 (known as the “Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion”) and thus directly contri­bu­tes to Eurazeo’s ESG stra­tegy called “O+”, through which the company aims to achieve carbon neutra­lity by 2040. The target size of the fund is 300 million euros, and seve­ral renow­ned state and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have alre­ady pled­ged their participation.

Curr­ently, 90 percent of the world’s goods are trans­por­ted by sea. Carbon dioxide reduc­tion in the mari­time sector is thus crucial to halting climate change. To meet this chall­enge, the fund will finance mainly in three areas: Ships equip­ped with advan­ced tech­no­lo­gies and ther­e­fore more envi­ron­men­tally friendly, inno­va­tive port faci­li­ties, and capi­tal equip­ment used in the deve­lo­p­ment of offshore rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion facilities.

The Euro­pean Commission’s Green Deal envi­sa­ges Europe achie­ving the goal of climate neutra­lity by 2050. The Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture will finance around fifty projects or faci­li­ties in the mari­time indus­try across Europe that contri­bute to achie­ving this goal. Germany is to play a key role in this as an invest­ment loca­tion. The mari­time indus­try in this coun­try has an annual sales volume of up to 50 billion euros, the coun­try is one of the largest ship­buil­ding nati­ons in the world, and around 20 percent of global contai­ner capa­city comes from here (as of 2018).

The Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture fund is mana­ged by Idin­vest Part­ners, a subsi­diary of Eura­zeo. As a leasing fund, it offers its inves­tors a parti­cu­larly secure risk profile, as the invest­ments are colla­te­ra­li­zed by the finan­ced capi­tal goods. Through the asset finance model, it gene­ra­tes quar­terly distri­bu­ti­ons from lease payments recei­ved and has an advan­ta­ge­ous solvency capi­tal requi­re­ment of less than ten percent.

As of Janu­ary 1, 2020, ship­ping compa­nies must signi­fi­cantly reduce their emis­si­ons (from 3.5 to 0.5 percent) under the new Inter­na­tio­nal Mari­time Orga­niza­tion (IMO) regu­la­tion to reduce the sulfur content of fuels. This regu­la­tion is part of a global stra­tegy by the IMO and aims to reduce total green­house gas emis­si­ons from the ship­ping indus­try by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2008 levels. The fund will help reduce both green­house gas emis­si­ons and emis­si­ons of sulfur oxides (Sox) and nitro­gen oxides (NOx), which are parti­cu­larly harmful to the air.

The emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved with the help of the fund invest­ments are measu­red using quan­ti­ta­tive indi­ca­tors whose measu­re­ment metho­do­logy has been veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and which are checked as part of an annual exter­nal survey.

In Janu­ary 2020, Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture recei­ved the LuxFLAG label (“Appli­cant Fund Status”). The label certi­fies that funds take ESG crite­ria into account at every stage of the invest­ment process.

Chris­to­phe Bavière, member of Eurazeo’s Execu­tive Board, said, “We are very plea­sed to offer our inves­tors an option that meets the ‘Article 9’ crite­ria with Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture. Many inves­tors are looking for invest­ments that make a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to decar­bo­niza­tion and envi­ron­men­tal change. In addi­tion, the fund is charac­te­ri­zed by a parti­cu­larly high level of capi­tal protection.”

Daniel Emers­le­ben, who serves as invest­ment direc­tor for the fund, added:
“Our new fund is a finan­cing instru­ment that will help reduce green­house gases and sulfur. We measure the emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved, have the values veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and disc­lose them to our inves­tors. The imple­men­ta­tion of this process, which was deve­lo­ped in a trans­pa­rent process toge­ther with inde­pen­dent orga­niza­ti­ons, demons­tra­tes our commit­ment to deploy­ing capi­tal in a way that makes a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to addres­sing the envi­ron­men­tal and climate chal­lenges of our time.”

About the O+ ESG strategy

Eurazeo’s sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, called “O+”, was laun­ched in 2020 and has two main components:

A net zero carbon emis­si­ons target for Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies by 2040. The Company is guided by the crite­ria of the Science Based Targets initia­tive. This goal will be achie­ved by inves­t­ing in low-carbon compa­nies, redu­cing carbon costs and risks in the port­fo­lio, and measu­ring the carbon foot­print throug­hout the invest­ment cycle.
Promo­ting grea­ter inclu­sion and soli­da­rity by achie­ving at least 40 percent leader­ship of the under­re­pre­sen­ted gender at Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies, estab­li­shing systems to ensure that all stake­hol­ders bene­fit from the value crea­ted by Eurazeo’s invest­ments, and initia­ti­ves to improve access to health­care and promote equity and philanthropy.

Eura­zeo is the only private equity company listed in the indi­ces of the five leading rating agen­cies for non-finan­cial crite­ria. With an AA rating in MSCI’s ESG ranking (as of March 2020), Eura­zeo is among the top 20 percent of best-rated compa­nies, above the indus­try average. In 2020, Eura­zeo also achie­ved the maxi­mum score (A+) in the four PRI (Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment) assess­ment cate­go­ries rele­vant to its busi­ness: Stra­tegy & Gover­nance, Private Equity (indi­rect), Private Equity (direct) and Fixed Income (direct). In each of these cate­go­ries, Eurazeo’s scores are thus above the median for the sector.

About Eura­zeo

Eura­zeo is a leading inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company mana­ging €21.8 billion in assets across a diver­si­fied invest­ment port­fo­lio of more than 450 compa­nies. 15.0 billion euros of the assets under manage­ment came from invest­ment part­ners. With its compre­hen­sive exper­tise in private equity, real estate and private debt, Eura­zeo supports compa­nies of all sizes. A team of nearly 300 profes­sio­nals with deep sector exper­tise as well as access to global markets supports the deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and provi­des them with a respon­si­ble and stable growth plat­form. The solid share­hol­der struc­ture, consis­ting of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family share­hol­ders, in combi­na­tion with a robust balance sheet without struc­tu­ral debt and a flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon allow Eura­zeo to accom­pany port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term.

Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

News

Frei­burg — The Schölly family has sold the majo­rity of its shares in Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH to Aescu­lap AG, a subsi­diary of phar­maceu­ti­cal group B. Braun SE, but will retain a 30 percent stake. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Schölly Fiber­op­tic was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed on the sale by a corpo­rate and M&A team from the law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, led by Dr. Barbara Mayer. FGvW thus once again unders­cores the strong health­care exper­tise of its M&A prac­tice. FGvW previously advi­sed Schölly Fiber­op­tic on the sale of its robo­tics endo­scopy busi­ness to Intui­tive Surgi­cal in 2019. Schölly was advi­sed on tax matters by Hanns-Georg Schell and Clau­dio Schmitt of the audi­ting and tax consul­ting firm BANSBACH GmbH in Frei­burg. Aescu­lap AG was advi­sed by a team from the law firm Brei­ten Burk­hardt under the leader­ship of Dr. Chris­tian Ulrich Wolf in Hamburg.

The medi­cal tech­no­logy company Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH, based in Denz­lin­gen / Baden-Würt­tem­berg, specia­li­zes in engi­nee­ring and the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed visua­liza­tion systems in the busi­ness areas of Medi­cal Endo­scopy and Visual Inspec­tion. Since 1998, the owners of the globally active company have been both the Schölly family and Aescu­lap AG in Tutt­lin­gen. Schölly Fiber­op­tic was foun­ded in 1973 and curr­ently employs about 550 people.

Aescu­lap AG, with around 3,600 employees and head­quar­ters in Tutt­lin­gen, is a leading global supplier of products and services in the field of medi­cal tech­no­logy. The company is part of the B. Braun Group.

Advi­sors to Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Barbara Mayer, Frei­burg, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Jan Barth, Frei­burg, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Daniel Rombach, Frei­burg, Asso­ciate (Merger Control)

BANSBACH GmbH, Freiburg
Hanns-Georg Schell, Mana­ging Part­ner (Tax Law)
Clau­dio Schmitt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law)

News

Vienna (ÖS) — GoStu­dent recei­ves 70 million euros in fresh money. Led by new inves­tor Coatue toge­ther with exis­ting part­ners Left Lane Capi­tal and DN Capi­tal, GoStu­dent has also successfully comple­ted its next round of finan­cing — raising €70 million in fresh money. In 2020, the lear­ning assis­tance plat­form had been able to coll­ect a total invest­ment of 13.3 million euros.

GoStu­dent with seat in Vienna could to its fifth birth­day its offer for on-line Nach­hilfe, which took its begin­ning from Vienna in the German-spea­king count­ries, at the begin­ning of the year to five further Euro­pean markets expan­ded. The past Corona year has seen a boom in lear­ning plat­forms. The Berlin-based provi­der Gostu­dent also profi­ted, which is now rewarded with a large funding.

Exis­ting and new inves­tors have confi­dence in the digi­tal educa­tion startup’s contin­ued expo­nen­tial growth. This is inten­ded to further advance the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of GoStu­dent and streng­then its presence in major tuto­ring markets such as France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ireland.

Lear­ning assis­tance plat­form aims to become top player in Europe
Turkey and Greece, among others, will follow in the first half of 2021. In addi­tion, GoStu­dent will invest heavily in brand buil­ding and product impro­ve­ment. The ambi­tious goal: GoStu­dent wants to posi­tion itself as a top player in Europe for high-quality educa­tion and make it widely acces­si­ble. By the end of the year, the company plans to be active in at least 15 Euro­pean count­ries and to expand the team to over 800 employees and more than 10,000 tutors.

 

News

Berlin — Plus­Den­tal has raised EUR 35 million in another finan­cing round. Jebsen Capi­tal and BioNTech SE led the finan­cing round. PING AN, HV Capi­tal, Lake­star, Kreos Capi­tal, Cadence Growth Capi­tal and World­Cup star Mario Götze also parti­ci­pa­ted. Plus­Den­tal Dr. was advi­sed by the Berlin law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz.

Just under a year ago, the Berlin-based health startup raised 32 million euros in a Series C round. At the time, Hong Kong-based insu­rance group Ping An made a new entry through its Global Voya­ger Fund.

PlusDental’s mission is to provide all pati­ents with access to high-quality, inno­va­tive denti­stry. As a pioneer in digi­ta­liza­tion, Plus­Den­tal has mana­ged to become a leading Euro­pean digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for dentists. Plus­Den­tal is led by indus­trial engi­neer and expe­ri­en­ced mana­ger Eva-Maria Meij­nen, former McKin­sey consul­tant Dr. Peter Baum­gart and well-known entre­pre­neur and angel inves­tor Lukas Brosseder.

Plus­Den­tal is now one of the top four medtech start­ups in Germany in which the most has been inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate growth in Europe and China.

Consul­tant Plus­Den­tal: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner) and Lorenz Frey

 

 

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed BME Group on the acqui­si­tion of Mahler Group — a leading buil­ding mate­ri­als and tile distri­bu­tor in Bava­ria. The share sale is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the course of 2021.

BME is one of the leading buil­ding mate­ri­als trading compa­nies in Europe and is active in Germany in the sale of buil­ding mate­ri­als under the brands Bauking (gene­ral buil­ding mate­ri­als trading) and Paul­sen Gruppe, Dete­ring, Berg­mann & Franz (all sani­tary, heating and instal­la­tion trading). With the acqui­si­tion of the Mahler Group, Bauking will expand its presence to southern Germany.

The Mahler Group compri­ses the brands Bauwa­ren Mahler, Mahler Baye­ri­sche Bauwa­ren, Mahler Flie­sen & Glas­bau and Hillari Flie­sen­cen­ter. The group has a network of five bran­ches and employs a total of 273 people.

The ARQIS focus group Tran­sac­tions around Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze advi­sed BME for the second time. When Dete­ring was acqui­red in the summer of 2020, it was the first time the team worked for the then newly formed BME Group. Previously, ARQIS had alre­ady comple­ted the acqui­si­ti­ons of the Paul­sen Group and the Berg­mann & Franz Group for the former parent company CRH plc. accompanied

Advi­sor BME: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (Commer­cial & IP/IT; Munich), Tobias Neufeld (Pensi­ons & Data Protec­tion); Coun­sel: Thomas Chwa­lek (Corporate/M&A), Sina Janke (Compli­ance; Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Kamil Flak, Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah (both Corporate/M&A), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (both Commer­cial & IP/IT; both Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Pensi­ons & Labor), Eva Kraszkie­wicz, Juliane Lewen (both Data Privacy), Walde­mar Rembold (Risk); Legal Specia­list: Gloria Bitt­ner-Schüt­zen­dorf (Commer­cial)
Niit­väli (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­väli (Anti­trust)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients.

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