ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — Munich-based Rebike Mobi­lity GmbH, opera­tor of two e‑bike plat­forms, has successfully closed its Series B finan­cing round. BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft was invol­ved as lead inves­tor. The exis­ting inves­tors Vorwerk Ventures and STS Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the Series B round. The debt portion was arran­ged by Maturus Finance.
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With the fresh capi­tal, the startup, which was foun­ded in 2018 and more than doubled its annual reve­nue again in 2020 to nearly €7 million, is further expan­ding its service and deve­lo­ping its plat­forms and e‑bike port­fo­lio. The company sells used premium e‑bikes in mint condi­tion via the plat­form www.rebike.de.

Via the portal www.ebike.abo.de, the company rents out new brand-name e‑bikes or S‑pedelecs for three to 18 months.

“With the eBike subscrip­tion, we enable people to get on or switch to an e‑bike. Also our offer of cheap used e‑bikes on rebike.de meets the nerve of the time. As a result, our busi­ness has deve­lo­ped very dyna­mi­cally. Now is the right time to further expand our market posi­tion and scale our busi­ness. With BayBG, we have gained another finan­ci­ally strong inves­tor who will accom­pany us in the long term,” explain Rebike foun­ders Thomas Bernik and Sven Erger (photo).

“We see enorm­ous poten­tial in the company, the market and the product,” says Otto Hopf­ner, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at BayBG, describ­ing the reasons for the invest­ment. “The facts speak for them­sel­ves. Accor­ding to the German Bicy­cle Indus­try Asso­cia­tion (ZIV), nearly two million elec­tric bicy­cles were sold in 2020, 43.4 percent more than in the previous year. E‑bikes are the means of trans­por­ta­tion of the moment, as more and more people want to get around sustain­ably and healt­hily. We are very much looking forward to shaping tomorrow’s mobi­lity toge­ther with Rebike and making e‑bikes available to everyone.”

Dirk Meurer, Mana­ging Part­ner of Vorwerk Ventures, also sees his invest­ment confirmed: “Rebike Mobi­lity has been able to conti­nuously and very successfully build up and expand its busi­ness since it was foun­ded just over two years ago. An outstan­ding perfor­mance by the entire team, which impres­si­vely proves that Rebike is on the right track with its corpo­rate stra­tegy. We conti­nue to see strong poten­tial and are ther­e­fore happy to be part of the Series B round.”

About Rebike Mobi­lity GmbH

Rebike Mobi­lity GmbH, Munich is an e‑mobility startup foun­ded in 2018. The inno­va­tive busi­ness model offers the right solu­tion for every need: used, as-new premium eBikes (www.rebike1.de) at a reasonable price, an attrac­tive eBike subscrip­tion model (www.ebike-abo.de) and eBike rental stati­ons (www.rebike-verleih.de) in popu­lar vaca­tion regi­ons. The product port­fo­lio exclu­si­vely includes e‑bikes and S‑pedelecs from leading brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers. The company’s own value chain means that the life cycle of each indi­vi­dual e‑bike can be signi­fi­cantly exten­ded, making an important contri­bu­tion to climate protec­tion. Foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors are Sven Erger, long-time moun­tain biker and connois­seur of the bike scene, and Thomas Bernik, successful serial entre­pre­neur. www.rebike.de.

About BayBG Venture Capital

With its venture capi­tal team, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH, Munich (BayBG), invests in Series A finan­cing rounds and later in tech start-ups. Curr­ently, the venture capi­tal port­fo­lio consists of over 30 tech­no­logy compa­nies. With an inves­ted volume of 310 million euros, BayBG is one of the largest invest­ment compa­nies in Germany. In addi­tion to venture capi­tal for start-ups, BayBG offers medium-sized compa­nies equity capi­tal (equity and / or mezza­nine) across all company phases and finan­cing occa­si­ons. BayBG thus enables the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tion and growth projects, the opti­miza­tion of the capi­tal struc­ture or the regu­la­tion of company successions.

Advi­sor BayBG: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (lead manage­ment) consis­ted of Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (both VC / M&A, Munich), Dr. Corne­lius Renner (IT Law and Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Clau­dia Knuth and Xenia Verspohl (both Labor Law, Berlin), Ute Schenn and Nina There­sia Mutsch­ler (both Commer­cial, Stutt­gart) and Katha­rina Kend­ziur (Regu­la­tory, Munich).

News

Luxem­bourg — The second Triton Mittel­stands­fonds (“TSM II”) has successfully closed at €815 million due to strong inves­tor demand, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding the target of €600 million. The fund is the second invest­ment vehicle advi­sed by Triton to focus on invest­ments in low market capi­ta­liza­tion compa­nies. It follows the first Triton Mittel­stands­fonds (“TSM I”), which closed in 2017 with a volume of €448 million.

All fund­rai­sing was done virtually and recei­ved exten­sive pled­ges from exis­ting and new insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from around the world.

Peder Prahl, Direc­tor of the Gene­ral Part­ner for the Triton Funds, said, “I would like to thank all of our exis­ting and new inves­tors for their support and trust. With TSM II, we will conti­nue to invest in smal­ler and mid-sized compa­nies and in the same sectors and regi­ons as the larger company-focu­sed fund Triton V. Our goal is to create better compa­nies and help them reach their full potential.

TSM II will typi­cally acquire a majo­rity stake in compa­nies that require an equity invest­ment of between €40 million and €100 million. The fund will build on the TSM I invest­ment stra­tegy and invest in compa­nies that are leaders in their niche but are not yet reali­zing their full poten­tial. Triton will work with manage­ment to create value through further profes­sio­na­liza­tion, expan­sion and digi­tiza­tion of the businesses.

Andi Klein (photo) , Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of TSM, added: “Triton has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence with invest­ments in small and medium-sized compa­nies. We help manage­ment teams realize the full poten­tial of their busi­nesses by future-proofing the stra­te­gic, opera­tio­nal or finan­cial course and lever­aging the broad Triton plat­form, inclu­ding access to an exten­sive network of indus­try and opera­tio­nal experts. A key focus of TSM is to acce­le­rate growth and scale through digi­tiza­tion, buy-and-build and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, where our know-how, indus­try exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal network can create signi­fi­cant value.”

The TSM team consists of 18 invest­ment advi­sory profes­sio­nals focu­sed on sourcing, evalua­ting and deve­lo­ping compa­nies in the Triton region, prima­rily in the German-spea­king and Nordic count­ries and the Bene­lux countries.

About Triton

Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched ten funds and focu­sed on compa­nies in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors.

The Triton funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Europe and support their posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment. Triton’s goal is to successfully deve­lop its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the long term by working toge­ther as partners.

Triton and its manage­ment strive to gene­rate posi­tive change and growth through the sustainable impro­ve­ment of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and struc­tures. At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 47 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 18.4 billion and around 101,400 employees . www.triton-partners.de

 

News

Hamburg / Werl — Menold Bezler has advi­sed the specia­list and retail book­sel­ler A. Stein’sche Medi­en­gruppe GmbH from Werl on the acqui­si­tion of ims Inter­na­tio­na­ler Medien Service GmbH & Co. KG based in Hamburg.

The A. Stein’sche Medi­en­gruppe, which has been in exis­tence since 1713, is thus conti­nuing its stra­te­gic expan­sion stra­tegy and further expan­ding its B2B busi­ness in parti­cu­lar. With the take­over, the loca­tion in Hamburg with 42 jobs as well as the company name will be retai­ned. The manage­ment will be taken over jointly by the current Mana­ging Direc­tor Phil­ipp Woer­mann and Alex­an­der Stein, Mana­ging Part­ner of A. Stein’sche Mediengruppe.

ims was foun­ded in 2007 as a joint venture between Axel Sprin­ger and the press whole­sa­ler PVG Group GmbH & Co. KG and was a subsi­diary of the PVG Group from 2015. The busi­ness acti­vi­ties cover the area of analog and digi­tal specia­list media procu­re­ment and use in compa­nies and the public sector.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of Haufe Disco­very (now LSL) and Thieme subsi­diary froh­berg in 2020, Menold Bezler also provi­ded legal and tax advice to A. Stein’sche Medi­en­gruppe in connec­tion with this transaction.

Advi­sors to A. Stein’sche Medi­en­gruppe GmbH: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Jens Schmelt, Photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Nico Haldy (Part­ner), Clemens Mauch (both Tax)

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

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Good­win has advi­sed JMI Equity on a stra­te­gic growth invest­ment in Canto, a leading provi­der of digi­tal asset manage­ment software.

Foun­ded in Berlin in 1990, Canto, which now has offices in San Fran­cisco and Frank­furt, will use the addi­tio­nal funds to expand its sales teams, opti­mize product deve­lo­p­ment and drive growth in its target markets.

JMI Equity is a growth equity firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in leading soft­ware compa­nies. Since its foun­ding in 1992, JMI Equity has inves­ted in more than 155 compa­nies, successfully comple­ted more than 105 exits and raised more than $6 billion in commit­ted capital.

Good­win advi­sed JMI Equity with a team of lawy­ers in the U.S. and Frank­furt led by private equity part­ners Joshua Klatz­kin (Washing­ton, DC), Amy Keller (San Fran­cisco) and Gregor Klenk (Frank­furt).

Advi­sors JMI Equity: Good­win Frank­furt a.M./Washington
Joshua Klatz­kin (Washing­ton, DC), Amy Keller (San Fran­cisco), Gregor Klenk (Frank­furt; all Lead, all Private Equity); Heiko Penn­dorf (Tax), Felix Krue­ger (Coun­sel, Tax; both Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Joana Pamu­kova, Chris­tina Papa­di­mi­triou, Caro­lin Kefer­stein, Stefan Rieg­ger (Trai­nee; all Private Equity, Frank­furt) and other Good­win lawy­ers from the Boston, New York, San Fran­cisco, Santa Monica, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, DC offices.

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are selling their majo­rity stake in Oikos Group, a leading Euro­pean provi­der of prefa­bri­ca­ted houses head­quar­te­red in Schlüch­tern, Hesse. The buyer of the group is West Street Capi­tal Part­ners VIII, a fund mana­ged by Gold­man Sachs.

Equis­tone had acqui­red the group of compa­nies — consis­ting of the Bien-Zenker, Hanse Haus and Living Haus brands — at the begin­ning of 2018 and targe­ted the group’s growth stra­tegy as well as the areas of digi­ta­liza­tion and opera­tio­nal excel­lence. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the tran­sac­tion. The sale is still subject to the usual appr­oval by the rele­vant authorities.

The Oikos Group is one of the leading B2C provi­ders of single-family and two-family homes with a focus on crea­ting future-proof and sustainable living space and combi­nes the Bien-Zenker, Hanse Haus and Living Haus brands under one roof. Thanks to its multi-brand stra­tegy, the Group has an excel­lent posi­tio­ning in the market for prefa­bri­ca­ted houses and is able to serve a wide variety of custo­mer groups with future-orien­ted cons­truc­tion methods and indi­vi­dual living concepts: From shell cons­truc­tion to ready-to-occupy living solu­ti­ons, Oikos offers its custo­mers houses at all stages of produc­tion as well as the highest quality and sustaina­bi­lity stan­dards. The group, which is parti­cu­larly active in the core markets of Germany, Austria, the UK and Switz­er­land, curr­ently employs around 1,300 people and increased its sales to more than 400 million euros in 2020.

Bien-Zenker, foun­ded in 1906, has estab­lished itself as one of the market leaders and best-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers of prefa­bri­ca­ted houses in Germany and is also one of the pioneers in prefa­bri­ca­ted energy-saving houses. Head­quar­te­red in Schlüch­tern, Hesse, the company has a nati­on­wide sales network throug­hout Germany and has posi­tio­ned itself stron­gly with its inno­va­tive prefa­bri­ca­ted house solu­ti­ons, parti­cu­larly in the mid-price segment. With the launch of the inde­pen­dent Living Haus brand in 2015, the company expan­ded its range of products to include the quality-conscious but more price-sensi­tive prefa­bri­ca­ted house concept.

Hanse Haus, based in Ober­leich­ters­bach in Lower Fran­co­nia, is one of the pioneers in Germany in the cons­truc­tion of turn­key prefa­bri­ca­ted houses. Since its foun­ding in 1929, the company has evol­ved from a carpenter’s busi­ness into a full-service provi­der of high-quality living solu­ti­ons, serving prima­rily the mid-range and higher price segments with its product portfolio.

Equis­tone acqui­red majo­rity stakes in Bien-Zenker and Hanse Haus in Janu­ary 2018. By estab­li­shing a best-prac­tice approach between the compa­nies, a group with a shared vision was crea­ted. In recent years, Equis­tone has successfully supported the growth of the various brands under the Oikos Group umbrella, not least by conti­nuously streng­thening opera­tio­nal excel­lence and expan­ding digi­ta­liza­tion, parti­cu­larly in the areas of sales and custo­mer journey.

Stefan Maser, Part­ner at Equis­tone, says: “In the past years, Oikos Group has deve­lo­ped excel­lently. The initia­ti­ves driven toge­ther with the manage­ment have streng­the­ned the company sustain­ably. As a result, Oikos has succee­ded in further expan­ding its market-leading posi­tion vis-à-vis compe­ti­tors and also in further incre­asing sales.”

Marco Hammer, CEO of Oikos Group, adds: “Toge­ther with Equis­tone, we have been able to streng­then our leading posi­tion across Europe, targe­ting key areas such as digi­ta­liza­tion as well as the expan­sion of our compe­ten­cies in ESG and a sustainable marke­ting stra­tegy. We look forward to conti­nuing this successful growth path with Gold­man Sachs in the future.

“With a strong and inno­va­tive product and brand port­fo­lio, Oikos has successfully estab­lished itself as a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of prefa­bri­ca­ted houses. We are exci­ted to invest in the future of sustainable home buil­ding with Oikos and to support Oikos’ growth ambi­ti­ons,” added Mike Ebel­ing, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Gold­man Sachs. “We are impres­sed with the high quality and leader­ship of the Oikos manage­ment team, led by Marco Hammer, and are very exci­ted about our joint partnership.”

Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Tanja Berg are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equistone.

Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Alan­tra (M&A and Debt), Boston Consul­ting Group (Commer­cial), Ernst & Young (Finan­cial + Tax), Latham & Watkins (Legal) and ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal).
West Street Capi­tal Part­ners VIII, a fund mana­ged by Gold­man Sachs, was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Gold­man Sachs Invest­ment Banking Divi­sion (M&A), Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), Ernst & Young (Tax), Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Legal), Allen & Overy (Legal Debt), Herter & Co (Debt), ERM (Envi­ron­men­tal), Aon (Insu­rance) and Arup and CBRE (Tech­ni­cal) advised.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 160 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 40 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.de.

About Oikos Group
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.oikos-group.de.

News

Munich — Para­gon sells Novu­mIP to Ques­tel. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Para­gon is inves­t­ing in the Ques­tel Group in addi­tion to its exis­ting share­hol­ders. The acqui­si­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and appr­oval by Bafin.

Novu­mIP was crea­ted by the merger of PAVIS and Nova­graaf in 2019. The aim of this was to offer the two compa­nies’ custo­mers an even broa­der range of IP consul­ting, manage­ment and tech­no­logy-based services and to become the central point of cont­act for all IP-rela­ted inqui­ries, along the entire value chain.

Ques­tel is a leading global IP solu­ti­ons provi­der with an end-to-end inte­gra­ted plat­form of soft­ware and tech­no­logy-based services that address the needs of corpo­ra­ti­ons and law firms throug­hout the IP lifecycle.

“After the combi­na­tion of PAVIS and Nova­graaf to form Novu­mIP, the merger with Ques­tel is the next step on the way to beco­ming the leading global provi­der of end-to-end IP solu­ti­ons,” elabo­ra­tes Dr. Krischan von Moel­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner at Para­gon, adding, “We would like to thank Rein­hard Ottway (Execu­tive Board Member, Novum IP), Lutgarde Liezen­berg (CEO, Nova­graaf) and Thomas Gruber (CEO, PAVIS), their manage­ment team and all employees for their contri­bu­tion and extra­or­di­nary commit­ment over the past years.” Max Moser von Fils­eck, Prin­ci­pal at Para­gon, adds “Toge­ther we have achie­ved great succes­ses in the past years, which serve as a basis for conti­nuing and further acce­le­ra­ting the strong growth momen­tum, which toge­ther with Ques­tel will gain even more momentum. ”

Para­gon and Novu­mIP were supported in the tran­sac­tion by Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial), Baker McKen­zie (Law), KPMG (Tax) and Roth­schild (M&A).

About Nova­graaf
For more than 130 years, Nova­graaf has been helping well-known brands and inno­va­tive compa­nies around the world build their compe­ti­tive advan­tage. As one of the leading IP consul­tancies in Europe, Nova­graaf specia­li­zes in the protec­tion and global manage­ment of IP rights, inclu­ding trade­marks, patents, designs, domain names and copy­rights. Nova­graaf is head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands and has 18 offices world­wide. In 2020, Nova­graaf acqui­red Thom­sen Tram­pe­dach — a firm that excels at provi­ding clients with tail­o­red legal exper­tise, effi­ci­ency-enhan­cing admi­nis­tra­tive services and proac­tive commer­cial insights. www.novagraaf.com.

About PAVIS
PAVIS is a leading global provi­der of IP manage­ment services. For more than 40 years, PAVIS has been a valuable part­ner for law firms and corpo­rate IP depart­ments with large IP port­fo­lios. Inno­va­tive tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons, relia­ble proces­ses and a high level of auto­ma­tion have made PAVIS one of the most effi­ci­ent and relia­ble IP manage­ment service provi­ders. PAVIS has a focus on patent and trade­mark rene­wals. The subsi­diary PAVIS Payments is offi­ci­ally licen­sed as a regu­la­ted payment service provi­der under the Payment Services Super­vi­sion Act (Zahlungs­diens­te­auf­sichts­ge­setz — ZAG) and is thus able to provide all services in compli­ance with the legal requi­re­ments. www.pavis.com.

About Ques­tel
Questel’s mission is to faci­li­tate the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tion in an effi­ci­ent, safe and sustainable manner. Ques­tel is a provi­der of compre­hen­sive end-to-end intellec­tual property solu­ti­ons. The company offers a compre­hen­sive soft­ware suite for sear­ching, analy­zing and mana­ging inven­ti­ons and IP assets. Ques­tel also provi­des services along the entire IP life­cy­cle, inclu­ding prior art sear­ches, patent draf­ting, inter­na­tio­nal filings, trans­la­ti­ons and rene­wals. These solu­ti­ons, combi­ned with Questel’s IP cost manage­ment plat­form, provide their clients with an average savings of 30–60% over the entire patent prose­cu­tion budget. www.questel.com.

Advi­sor to Ques­tel, IK Invest­ment Part­ners, Eura­zeo and Raise Inves­tis­se­ment: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher
The multi­di­sci­pli­nary Will­kie team from two offices was coor­di­na­ted by Paris-based part­ner Eduardo Fernan­dez (Corpo­rate) and led in Frank­furt by part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Corpo­rate).

About Para­gon
Para­gon is an owner-mana­ged invest­ment company and has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries since its foun­da­tion in 2004. Para­gon works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to ensure sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The invest­ment port­fo­lio covers various indus­tries and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. Para­gon is based in Munich and curr­ently mana­ges €1.2 billion in equity. More infor­ma­tion can be found at www.paragon.de.

Legal advi­sor PARAGON PARTNERS: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A:
Dr. Ingo Strauss (Part­ner), Dr. Heiko Gotsche (Part­ner, both Düsseldorf)
Other lawy­ers involved:
Corporate/M&A: Manuel Metz­ner (Coun­sel, Frank­furt), Juan Garcia Jacob­sen (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Lena von Richt­ho­fen (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Jana Upschulte (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Stefan­ink (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Celina Zaim (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Denise Tayler (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IT: Dr. Holger Lutz (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Simone Rieken (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Public Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust: Dr. Nico­las Kredel (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Florian Kotman (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Jonas Brueck­ner (Coun­sel, Berlin)
Labor Law: Dr. Chris­tian Reichel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Sebas­tian F. Pfrang (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Real Estate: Dr. Daniel Bork (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf)
Tax: Chris­toph Becker (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ariane Schaaf (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)
IP: Nadine Neumeier (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Banking & Finance: Phil­ipp Thimm (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Commer­cial: Joachim Fröh­lich (Coun­sel, Munich)

Other Baker McKen­zie offices: Attor­neys from Baker McKen­zie offices in Belgium, Nether­lands, UK, France, Switzerland.

News

Colo­gne, Germany — Trading app Next­mar­kets has raised around €25 million ($30 million) in another finan­cing (FinanceFwd repor­ted). The round was led by publicly traded Cryp­to­logy Asset Group, Europe’s largest publicly traded crypto invest­ment company, in which Chris­tian Anger­mayer is a share­hol­der. Accor­ding to the commer­cial regis­ter, the invest­ment company Finlab AG has also inves­ted again.

With the fresh capi­tal, the Colo­gne-based company intends to grow further in a market that has so far been led prima­rily by the U.S. model Robin­hood and its German coun­ter­part Trade Republik.

Next­mar­kets was foun­ded in 2014 by the two brot­hers Manuel and Domi­nic Heyden. The startup first made a name for itself by having profes­sio­nal trad­ers give invest­ment tips via the app. Mean­while, the startup has a secu­ri­ties trading bank license and offers about 7,000 stocks and 1,000 ETFs that can be traded via the app free of charge.

With stock market coaches, the Colo­gne-based company wants to stand out from the compe­ti­tion. Paypal co-foun­der Peter Thiel had alre­ady inves­ted in Next­mar­kets in 2016. The enter­prise value is esti­ma­ted at appro­xi­m­ately 58 million euros ($70 million). For compa­ri­son: Robin­hood is about to go public, Trade Repu­blic is valued at around 600 million euros. For Next­mar­kets is curr­ently said to have about 40 employees.

News

Rostock — In its Series A, Rostock-based insu­rance startup Heps­ter has recei­ved about €8.4 million ($10 million). New entrants are London-based fintech VC Element Ventures and Paris-based sumup inves­tor Seven­ven­ture Part­ners. The former share­hol­ders Mittel­stän­di­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern and GPS Ventures have also joined in.

The startup by Hanna Bach­mann, Chris­tian Range and Alex­an­der Hornung, which is just under five years old, offers insu­rance, such as acci­dent or theft insu­rance, to more than 700 corpo­rate custo­mers from the mobi­lity, sports, elec­tri­cal equip­ment and travel sectors.

Since its launch in spring 2017, the Rostock-based insur­tech has alre­ady convin­ced more than 700 part­ners and around 70,000 custo­mers of its insu­rance products.

heps­ter deve­lops indi­vi­dual and tailor-made insu­rance products based on the needs of today’s people as well as the busi­ness models of our part­ners. Special atten­tion is paid by heps­ter to flexi­ble and trans­pa­rent contract design as well as uncom­pli­ca­ted insu­rance conclu­sion in order to ensure an opti­mal custo­mer expe­ri­ence. Close coope­ra­tion with various reinsu­r­ers enables fast product solu­ti­ons tail­o­red to the needs of the coope­ra­tion part­ners. On the one hand, insu­rance poli­cies can be booked in the online store with just a few clicks and comple­tely digi­tally. On the other hand, the insu­rance products can be inte­gra­ted seam­lessly and comple­tely digi­tally into exis­ting and new proces­ses with the help of various interfaces.

About Element Ventures LLP
Element Ventures LLP, based in London, UK, opera­tes as a venture capi­tal company. The Company provi­des invest­ment in early-stage, high poten­tial, and growth start-up companies.

News

Wismar — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills has advi­sed PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal as majo­rity share­hol­der on an invest­ment toge­ther with Wismar Pellets to finance the plan­ned biomass coge­nera­tion plant in Wismar. For PEARL, the tran­sac­tions mark its entry into the German biomass market. PEARL comple­ted the final closing in March 2020 with a total volume of 280 million euros (invest­ment capa­city approx. 1.2 billion euros).

The biomass coge­nera­tion plant, jointly deve­lo­ped by Green Invest­ment Group (GIG) and Wismar Pellets, will gene­rate up to 18 MWe of elec­tri­city and 27 MWth of heat, supp­ly­ing local manu­fac­tu­rer Wismar Pellets and sawmill ILIM Nordic Timber. The plant is expec­ted to be opera­tio­nal in Q4 2022.

PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal is a private equity invest­ment fund focu­sed on the energy and green tran­si­tion in Europe. PEARL comple­ted the final closing in March 2020 with a total volume of 280 million euros (invest­ment capa­city of appro­xi­m­ately 1.2 billion euros); invest­ments will be made in Euro­pean rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion faci­li­ties such as biomass coge­nera­tion plants, waste recy­cling and water cycle management.

Advi­sor PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal: Herbert Smith Freehills
Silke Gold­berg (Corporate/Energy, London), Dr. Marius Boewe (Energy Law, Düssel­dorf; both Lead), Dr. Chris­toph Nawroth, Dr. Sebas­tian Schü­rer (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A, both Düssel­dorf), Kai Liebrich (Finance), Thomas Kess­ler (Real Estate), Dr. Stef­fen C. Hörner (Tax; all Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Anne Ecken­roth (Foreign Lawyer), Kris­tin Kattwin­kel (both Energy Law, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Julius Brandt (Consul­tant, Frank­furt), Stefa­nie Strahl (both Corpo­rate; Düssel­dorf), Dr. Hannes Jacobi, Dr. Galina Matjusch­kin (both Finance, both Frank­furt), Gelena Minkov, Yvonne Spatz, Chris­tina Friess, Ja Yeon Youm (Profes­sio­nal Support Lawyer; all Real Estate), Tatiana Guens­ter (Tax; all Frank­furt), Martin Bitt­ner, Sam Cund­all, Jannis Bille, Ania Sharp, Julia Osten­dorf (Trai­nee Soli­ci­tor), Tara Theiss (Para­le­gal; all Corporate/Energy), Elinor Richard­son (Dispu­tes; all London)

News

Zurich — Funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”) are acqui­ring the Franke Water Systems divi­sion, a divi­sion of the Franke Group and a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of kitchen and sani­tary faucets for the resi­den­tial, public and commer­cial sectors. Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, form­erly CEO of Hans­g­rohe SE and WMF AG, is invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion as co-inves­tor. The seller of the Franke Water Systems Divi­sion, which consists of the two busi­ness units KWC Group (“KWC”) and WS Commer­cial Group (“WSC”), is Franke Holding AG (“Franke Group”). The exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to drive the company’s growth stra­tegy in the future. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

Franke Water Systems is a divi­sion of the Franke Group, foun­ded in 1911 in Rorschach, Switz­er­land, a leading global supplier of solu­ti­ons and equip­ment for dome­stic kitchens, private bath­rooms, semi-public/­pu­blic wash­rooms, profes­sio­nal system cate­ring and coffee prepa­ra­tion. Franke Water Systems was estab­lished as an inde­pen­dent divi­sion of the Franke Group and consists of the two busi­ness units KWC and WSC. Franke Water Systems has produc­tion sites and compe­tence centers in Europe, the United Arab Emira­tes and Asia. In 2020, the company recor­ded sales of more than 192 million Swiss francs with around 900 employees.

KWC is the Swiss market leader for resi­den­tial sani­tary, resi­den­tial kitchen and commer­cial kitchen fittings, head­quar­te­red in Unter­kulm. The tradi­tio­nal company offers its custo­mers solu­ti­ons from the medium to the luxury price segment. Thanks in parti­cu­lar to the high-quality mate­ri­als and work­man­ship of its products, as well as the inno­va­tive design and a promise of quality “Made in Switz­er­land”, the company enjoys great popu­la­rity among instal­lers and architects.

WSC offers its custo­mers high-quality stain­less steel fittings and compon­ents for the commer­cial and (semi-)public sani­tary sector. WSC products are used in wash­rooms of public faci­li­ties such as office and admi­nis­tra­tion buil­dings, sports stadi­ums as well as hotels and hospi­tals, among others. WSC has inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons and is distin­gu­is­hed, among other things, by its compre­hen­sive and high-quality product port­fo­lio as well as its high level of service competence.

Equis­tone supports the carve-out of Franke Water Systems from the Franke Group. Toge­ther with Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, form­erly CEO of Hans­g­rohe SE and WMF AG, and the exis­ting manage­ment team, Equis­tone will drive the expan­sion of the inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness as well as the orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth of Franke Water Systems — buil­ding on the solid busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. A parti­cu­lar focus will be on further deve­lo­ping the inno­va­tive product range and expan­ding the company’s strong brand positioning.

“We are deligh­ted about the inves­tors’ confi­dence in the manage­ment team. Toge­ther with Equis­tone, we want to conti­nue to offer our custo­mers high-quality solu­ti­ons for kitchens and sani­tary faci­li­ties and successfully deve­lop Franke Water Systems,” says Patrick Trutt­mann, CFO of Franke Water Systems.

“Franke Water Systems has excel­lent people on its team and enjoys an excel­lent market posi­tion in key Euro­pean markets, as well as great poten­tial for further profi­ta­ble growth,” says Thors­ten Klapproth.

“The Euro­pean market for kitchen and sani­tary products has been deve­lo­ping very satis­fac­to­rily for years. Franke Water Systems is ideally posi­tio­ned to play an important role in this market envi­ron­ment. With Thors­ten Klap­p­roth, we were able to gain a proven indus­try expert with many years of expe­ri­ence, who has repea­tedly proven that it is possi­ble to successfully deve­lop strong brands with enthu­si­a­stic employees and inno­va­tive products — both orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally,” says Stefan Maser, Part­ner at Equis­tone Part­ners Europe.

Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman Emanuel Hegglin are respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equistone.

Advi­sor Equistone:
Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), tkhd (Commer­cial), KPMG (Finan­cial), Bär & Karrer (Legal, Tax), ERM (Envi­ron­ment), Marsh/Kessler (Insu­rance), GCA Altium (Debt Advi­sory) and Enqcor (M&A Advisory).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 160 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion.

News

Amsterdam/ Munich/ Berlin — Digi­tal busi­ness banking plat­form Penta Fintech GmbH (“Penta”) has closed a top-up Series B+ finan­cing round. Lead inves­tor was ABN AMRO Ventures along­side exis­ting inves­tors finleap, HV Capi­tal, RTP Global, Presight Capi­tal, S7V and VR Ventures.

This is the third round of finan­cing after Penta closed two rounds of finan­cing with new inves­tors last year. The total invest­ment now amounts to EUR 30 million.

Penta is the digi­tal plat­form for busi­ness banking for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as solo self-employed and free­lan­cers. Within minu­tes, busi­nesses can digi­tally apply for a busi­ness account and receive a German IBAN, debit cards, digi­tal expense manage­ment and many other finan­cial solu­ti­ons. As an offi­cial DATEV market­place part­ner, Penta also enables the trans­fer of accoun­ting data via the offi­cial inter­face to DATEV. Penta says it has well over 25,000 custo­mers. The company is head­quar­te­red in Berlin with another office in Belgrade.

ABN AMRO Ventures is the corpo­rate venture capi­tal arm of ABN AMRO Bank in the Nether­lands, head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam. The focus is on stra­te­gic invest­ments in tech­no­logy compa­nies that are rele­vant for the bank and the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of its products and services. The fund has a total volume of EUR 150 million and a port­fo­lio of now 15 compa­nies, inclu­ding 1 successful exit.

Advi­sors to ABN AMRO Ventures: POELLATH P+P Partners

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Markus Döll­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

News

Munich/ Karlsruhe/ Boulder — Brand­Ma­ker, foun­ded in 2008 and head­quar­te­red in Karls­ruhe, is a manu­fac­tu­rer of soft­ware in the areas of marke­ting opera­ti­ons and marke­ting resource manage­ment and has deve­lo­ped a SaaS plat­form that enables large orga­niza­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar to control, opti­mize and auto­mate the entire marke­ting value chain. The plat­form redu­ces the comple­xity of marke­ting by enab­ling smooth coor­di­na­tion of marke­ting processes.

US finan­cial inves­tor Rubicon Tech­no­logy Part­ners was foun­ded in 2012 as a mid-cap private equity firm focu­sed on part­ne­ring with foun­ders and manage­ment teams of enter­prise soft­ware companies.

Foun­ded in 2008, Karls­ruhe-based Brand­Ma­ker has deve­lo­ped a SaaS plat­form that enables large orga­niza­ti­ons in parti­cu­lar to manage, opti­mize and auto­mate the entire marke­ting value chain. The plat­form redu­ces marke­ting comple­xity by elimi­na­ting silos and enab­ling smooth coor­di­na­tion of marke­ting processes.

Advi­sors to Rubicon Tech­no­logy Part­ners: P+P Pöllath + Partners

Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Tax Law)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Regulatory)
Dr. Laura Grei­mel (Coun­sel, M&A, Private Equity)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, IP/IT)
Benja­min Aldeg­ar­mann, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity)
Marina Hennings (Asso­ciate, Real Estate Law)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity)

Advi­sor to share­hol­ders of Brand­Ma­ker GmbH: King & Wood Mallesons

Dr. Michael Roos, Markus Herz, Lorenz Liebsch, Simon Brandt (PSL) (all Corporate/M&A)
Markus Hill, Rüdi­ger Knopf, Vikto­ria Rosbach (all tax)

News

Berlin, March 5, 2021 — SMP advi­sed a fund mana­ged by Dutch Rhein Manage­ment B.V. (Rhein Invest) on the acqui­si­tion of Spie­gel Insti­tut Holding GmbH & Co KG, Spie­gel Insti­tut Mann­heim GmbH & Co KG, Spie­gel Insti­tut Ingol­stadt GmbH and Spie­gel Insti­tut Shang­hai Co Ltd (toge­ther Spie­gel Insti­tut) in the course of a manage­ment buy-in. The previous owners of Spie­gel Insti­tut will retain a stake in the company and will conti­nue to support the manage­ment in an advi­sory capacity.

Rhein Invest was accom­pa­nied by a team led by Jörn Wöbke and Moritz Diek­gräf. SMP’s scope of advice in this tran­sac­tion included corpo­rate and tax advice on the acqui­si­tion as well as on the future group struc­ture and the corpo­rate and tax struc­tu­ring with regard to the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion as well as the return parti­ci­pa­tion of the sellers. The parties agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

About Rhein Invest
Rhein Invest is a Dutch invest­ment company focu­sed on majo­rity invest­ments in profi­ta­ble, small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) in the indus­trial, busi­ness services, soft­ware, agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy and leisure sectors in the Nether­lands and Germany. Parti­cu­lar empha­sis is placed on a strong DNA, expan­da­ble market posi­tion and prono­un­ced inno­va­tive strength of the investments.

The Mirror Institute
The Spie­gel Insti­tute is an inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting rese­arch and consul­ting insti­tute for consu­mer rese­arch and user expe­ri­ence consul­ting. Foun­ded as early as 1950 by Prof. Dr. Bernt Spie­gel as the first market psycho­logy insti­tute in Germany, it now has loca­ti­ons in Mann­heim, Ingol­stadt, Stutt­gart, Hamburg, Munich and Shang­hai. From there, the Spie­gel Insti­tute is active world­wide for its renow­ned custo­mers. By inclu­ding the user and consu­mer perspec­tive in the deve­lo­p­ment process of products and services, the Spie­gel Insti­tute thus actively contri­bu­tes to the success of its custo­mers, which prima­rily include global players.

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. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Rhein Invest: SMP
Dr. Jörn Wöbke, Photo (Lead/M&A/Corporate Law), Partner
Dr. Moritz Diek­gräf (Co-Lead/M&A/Corporate Law), Associate
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Taxes), Senior Associate
Moritz von Saß (M&A/Corporate Law), Rese­arch Associate

News

Berlin, March 2021 — The Ameri­can-French luxury inves­tor L Catter­ton has acqui­red a stake in BIRKENSTOCK. The indi­rect share­hol­ders of the Birken­stock Group, Chris­tian and Alex Birken­stock, retain an econo­mic inte­rest. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the details of the agree­ment. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant compe­ti­tion authorities.

The stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with L Catter­ton is the next step for the global life­style brand BIRKENSTOCK to conti­nue to grow stron­gly in future markets such as China and India. In Europe and America, BIRKENSTOCK will further streng­then its leading market posi­tion by inves­t­ing in its German sites and expan­ding produc­tion, logi­stics and sales. In addi­tion, further deve­lo­p­ment of the direct-to-consu­mer busi­ness and expan­sion of the company’s own e‑commerce plat­forms are planned.

Deloitte provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to Birken­stock GmbH & Co KG during the prepa­ra­tion of the entry of an inves­tor and the imple­men­ta­tion of a bidding process until the successful sale to the stra­te­gic part­ner L Catter­ton. Thanks to the inter­di­sci­pli­nary coope­ra­tion of Deloitte Legal’s legal advi­sors with Deloitte experts from the Tax and Finan­cial Advi­sory areas and the compre­hen­sive consu­mer goods indus­try exper­tise, the rele­vant aspects for this complex tran­sac­tion were covered. Seam­less coope­ra­tion with the teams of the Ameri­can invest­ment bank Gold­man Sachs, which was brought in to find an inves­tor, also contri­bu­ted to the success of the transaction.

Advi­sor Birken­stock Group: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Julia Peter­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Berlin, Lead), Chris­to­fer Mellert (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Albrecht Kind­ler (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Klaus Pilz (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Berlin), Dr. Juliane Wert­her-Bontje (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A Berlin), Dr. Moritz Erkel (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Berlin), Nata­lia Vost (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Berlin) Dr. Char­lotte Sander (Part­ner Labor Law, Hano­ver), Alex­an­der Deja (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Hano­ver), Felix Skala, LL.M. (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Katha­rina Zicker­mann, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust, Hamburg), Sebas­tian von Rueden (Part­ner, IT/IP, Düssel­dorf), Sonja Baier (Asso­ciate, IT/IP Düssel­dorf) Deloitte Tax: Stefan Grube (Part­ner, MP Tax & Legal Deloitte Germany, Düssel­dorf), Olga Metcher (Direc­tor, Düssel­dorf), Ann-Pascale Horst­mann (Consul­tant, Düssel­dorf), Marc Puls (Senior Mana­ger, Düssel­dorf), Chris­tian Dohm­gans (Senior Mana­ger, Düssel­dorf) Deloitte Finan­cial Advi­sory: Kars­ten Holl­asch (Part­ner, Sector Lead Consu­mer Indus­try Deloitte Germany, Dussel­dorf) Roland Basler (Direc­tor, Dussel­dorf), Caro­lin Kopy­ciok (Mana­ger, Dussel­dorf), Jaque­lien Ursprung (Senior Mana­ger, Dussel­dorf); Felix Bauchro­witz (Mana­ger) and Julian Opfer­kuch (Senior) For USA: Gibbons P.C.: Terry Myers, Frank Cannone, Peter Flagel Invest­ment Bank: Gold­man Sachs

News

Frank­furt a.M. — The brow­ser provi­der Brave has acqui­red the search engine Tail­cat. Tail­cat is an open search engine built on an inde­pen­dent index that does not coll­ect IP addres­ses or use perso­nal data to improve search results.

Tail­cat was deve­lo­ped by the team previously respon­si­ble for the search and brow­ser products at Cliqz, a Hubert Burda Media holding.

Tail­cat is inten­ded to act as the foun­da­tion for Brave Search. Brave Search and the Brave brow­ser provide an inde­pen­dent, privacy-friendly alter­na­tive to big-tech brow­sers and search engines.

Advi­sor Brave Soft­ware, Inc.: Good­win, Frank­furt a.M./Silicon Valley
Gregor Klenk, Photo (Part­ner, Private Equity, Frank­furt), Anthony J. McCus­ker (Part­ner, Tech­no­logy, Sili­con Valley; both Lead), Heiko Penn­dorf (Part­ner, Tax, Frank­furt), Caro­lin Kefer­stein (Asso­ciate, Private Equity, Frank­furt), Chris­tina Papa­di­mi­triou (Asso­ciate, Private Equity, Frank­furt), Eliza­beth Tele­fus (Asso­ciate, Tech­no­logy, Sili­con Valley)

News

Düssel­dorf — The invest­ment company Arca­ris takes over MAGRO Verbin­dungs­ele­mente GmbH as part of the company’s succes­sion. The sole share­hol­der of MAGRO was advi­sed by GvW Graf von West­pha­len on the sale to Arcaris.

MAGRO is a medium-sized family busi­ness based in Wupper­tal. Specia­li­zing in the procu­re­ment and logi­stics of indus­trial fasten­ers, the company supplies the auto­mo­tive and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring indus­tries in parti­cu­lar with appli­ca­ti­ons such as turned, milled and pres­sed parts.

Arca­ris Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company foun­ded by entre­pre­neurs. Through them, a broad network of entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies invests in German SMEs. Arca­ris exclu­si­vely repres­ents long-term orien­ted inves­tors who support their invest­ments in many ways as part­ners and assume respon­si­bi­lity. The focus of these invest­ments is on the manu­fac­tu­ring and service sectors.

Advi­sor to Magro: GvW Graf von Westphalen
GvW advi­sed the family-owned company through a Frank­furt team consis­ting of Titus Walek (lead), Jan Hüni­ken (both M&A), Andrea Torka (real estate law), Kars­ten Kujath (labor law), Dr. Frank Tsche­sche and Soufian Hjiri (both tax law).

About Graf von Westphalen
GvW is a part­ner­ship of 160 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors. With offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Munich, Stutt­gart and foreign offices/representative offices in Brussels, Istan­bul and Shang­hai, the firm is one of the largest inde­pen­dent law firms in Germany. www.gvw.com.

News

Luxem­bourg — The public shares of Lake­star SPAC 1 SE, the first so-called Special Purpose Acqui­si­tion Company (SPAC) focu­sed on an acqui­si­tion in the tech­no­logy sector in Europe, have been admit­ted to the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Gene­ral Stan­dard) on Monday. In addi­tion, SPAC’s public warrants were intro­du­ced to the over-the-coun­ter market at Börse Frank­furt Zerti­fi­kate AG. — The spon­sors of Lake­star SPAC 1 SE were advi­sed on the IPO by a team from the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Arendt & Meder­nach specia­li­zing in capi­tal market tran­sac­tions, led by part­ners Alex­an­der Olli­ges and Fran­çois Warken.

Within two days, Luxem­bourg-based Lake­star SPAC I SE raised EUR 275 million from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. It is the first shell company of its kind in Germany in more than ten years. SPAC has two years to iden­tify and buy one or more promi­sing tech compa­nies. The focus is on publicly traded compa­nies worth between EUR 750 million and EUR 4 billion.

The pros­pec­tus was appro­ved in Luxem­bourg on Febru­ary 19, 2021 by the Commis­sion de Surveil­lance du Secteur Finan­cier (CSSF) in its capa­city as compe­tent autho­rity. In addi­tion, Lake­star SPAC 1 SE has issued spon­sor shares and spon­sor warrants. This tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to pave the way for the come­back of other Luxem­bourg-based SPACs on Euro­pean stock exchanges.

The SPAC as an alter­na­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­nity and alter­na­tive to going public

A SPAC is an acqui­si­tion vehicle typi­cally formed by profes­sio­nals in a parti­cu­lar field (such as in the case of Lake­star SPAC 1 SE tech­no­logy). The primary objec­tive is to acquire, through a busi­ness combi­na­tion, an opera­ting company or group that is often itself in the early stages of an IPO. Such an acqui­si­tion will be finan­ced by SPAC’s capi­tal raising in the course of its own IPO. Proceeds raised in this manner are held in an escrow account for quick deploy­ment when needed. Once a poten­tial acqui­si­tion target has been iden­ti­fied, the busi­ness combi­na­tion must be appro­ved by a majo­rity of the votes cast at a share­hol­ders’ meeting of the SPAC and, as a rule, comple­ted within a period of two years from its listing. Other­wise, the SPAC will be liquidated.

SPAC’s public share­hol­ders thus have the oppor­tu­nity to invest directly in an acqui­si­tion vehicle while enjoy­ing the legal guaran­tees of a listed company: regu­la­tion and trans­pa­rency, as well as the right to have a say in the busi­ness combi­na­tion. If this is appro­ved, the public share­hol­ders who do not approve of the plan­ned busi­ness combi­na­tion can demand the repurchase of their shares. For the target company, the busi­ness combi­na­tion repres­ents an attrac­tive alter­na­tive to a tradi­tio­nal IPO of its own.

New poten­tial for Luxembourg

The launch of Luxembourg’s first SPAC in more than a decade points to attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties for Europe and Luxem­bourg alike. Thanks to its busi­ness-friendly envi­ron­ment, invest­ment focus and specia­li­zed regu­la­tory autho­ri­ties, Luxem­bourg is ideally posi­tio­ned as a loca­tion for laun­ching SPACs. Expert assis­tance in areas speci­fic to SPAC forma­tion (inclu­ding capi­tal markets regu­la­tion, corpo­rate law, M&A, and tax) is essen­tial to the successful forma­tion of a SPAC.

“SPAC offers a new way of going public that meets today’s desire for effi­ci­ency and shor­tened time-to-market,” explains Fran­çois Warken, part­ner and head of Arendt & Medernach’s capi­tal markets law prac­tice in Luxem­bourg. “Lake­star SPAC 1 SE is also a very apt exam­ple of the versa­ti­lity of Luxem­bourg company law and rele­vant corpo­rate gover­nance rules, which allow the key features of a U.S. SPAC to be accu­ra­tely repli­ca­ted in a Luxem­bourg company while fully comply­ing with EU secu­ri­ties and stock exch­ange regulations.”

“This type of acqui­si­tion is a great oppor­tu­nity for Luxem­bourg: right in the heart of Europe and also with good access to all major Euro­pean stock exch­an­ges,” empha­si­zes Alex­an­der Olli­ges, Part­ner in Arendt & Medernach’s Corporate/M&A prac­tice in Luxem­bourg. “The acces­si­bi­lity of the regu­la­tor and its know­ledge of the product and condi­ti­ons, the flexi­bi­lity of Luxem­bourg company law in imple­men­ting market condi­ti­ons for a SPAC and the unique inter­na­tio­nal envi­ron­ment allow projects to be reali­zed quickly — espe­ci­ally in the field of tech­no­logy and inno­va­tion, as we have seen in the case of Lake­star SPAC 1 SE.”

The team of Arendt & Meder­nach was compo­sed of Alex­an­der Olli­ges (Part­ner, Lead Corpo­rate), Fran­çois Warken (Part­ner, Lead Capi­tal Markets) and Jan Neuge­bauer (Part­ner, Tax) as well as Senior Asso­cia­tes Noémi Gémesi (Capi­tal Markets) and Maria Gros­busch (Corpo­rate) on the side of Lake­star SPAC 1 SE.

The IPO in Frank­furt was hand­led by the law firm Sulli­van & Crom­well under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Cars­ten Berrar.

About Arendt & Medernach

Arendt & Meder­nach is the leading and inde­pen­dent law firm in Luxem­bourg. The firm’s inter­na­tio­nal team of more than 350 lawy­ers and attor­neys specia­li­zes in provi­ding legal advice and legal repre­sen­ta­tion to Luxem­bourg and foreign clients in the area of finan­cial and commer­cial law. Arendt & Meder­nach has offices in Luxem­bourg, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, Paris and New York. In Decem­ber 2020, the firm was named Euro­pean Law Firm of the Year and Law Firm of the Year for Bene­lux by The Lawyer magazine.

News

Palo Alto — Plume®, the company behind the smart home service offe­rings of more than 170 inter­net service provi­ders (CSPs) in over 22 million homes world­wide, today announ­ced the closing of a $270 million mino­rity invest­ment by global venture capi­tal and private equity firm Insight Part­ners. This Series E finan­cing round brings the $1.35 billion valued company’s equity finan­cing to a total of $397 million.

Plume was foun­ded on the premise that a device is only as smart as the network it is connec­ted to. In this respect, the exis­ting smart home services show clear defi­cits. Plume’s goal is not just to improve WLAN coverage through decen­tra­li­zed hard­ware, but to rely on an enti­rely diffe­rent solu­tion: a compre­hen­sive set of cloud-driven front-end services deli­vered over an intel­li­gent, soft­ware-defi­ned network. The Plume Home­Pass™ front-end services suite provi­des adap­tive and self-opti­mi­zing Wi-Fi throug­hout the home, AI-driven cyber­se­cu­rity and protec­tion for IoT devices, sophisti­ca­ted paren­tal controls, and secure access control and motion detec­tion. Comple­men­ting Home­Pass is a powerful, data-driven back-end opera­ti­ons plat­form that provi­des nume­rous useful tools through Plume’s Haystack™ and Harvest™ suites: for real-time custo­mer support that is also predic­tive, network control center appli­ca­ti­ons, detailed analy­tics, compre­hen­sive dash­boards, custo­mer beha­vior and satis­fac­tion insights, churn fore­cas­ting, and reten­tion marke­ting services for CSPs.

Plume will use the funding to inten­sify its invest­ment in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and increase its focus on sales, marke­ting and part­ner­ships. The company also plans to conti­nue its rapid deve­lo­p­ment in the areas of products, sales, custo­mers, distri­bu­tion chan­nels and geogra­phic expan­sion, hiring new employees in all loca­ti­ons in North America, Europe and Asia.

“The market for smart home products is lite­rally explo­ding, but the custo­mer expe­ri­ence often falls by the wayside,” said Ryan Hinkle, mana­ging direc­tor of Insight Part­ners, who joined Plume’s board of direc­tors. “We believe Plume’s scalable cloud data plat­form, highly effi­ci­ent go-to-market stra­tegy, strong deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, best-in-class finan­cial perfor­mance across all SaaS KPIs — inclu­ding reve­nue, growth rates, gross margin, and effi­ci­ency and reten­tion metrics — and world-class team will open up enti­rely new hori­zons in this space. We are plea­sed to be able to accom­pany and support this exci­ting journey.”

Custo­mers bene­fit from the ever-expan­ding Plume plat­form through Open­Sync™, the most widely supported open source sili­con-to-cloud frame­work for smart spaces. With Open­Sync, CSPs can offer their services in a hard­ware-inde­pen­dent manner and quickly curate and deploy new services using a vendor-neutral, open-plat­form archi­tec­ture. Mana­ged through a highly scalable cloud control plane, new services can be deployed mostly without new equip­ment, redu­cing capi­tal expen­dit­ures and exten­ding the useful life of exis­ting infra­struc­ture. Since its incep­tion in 2018, Open­Sync has been active on more than 26 million access points and swit­ches across a wide range of chip­set and device plat­forms, and has attrac­ted many exter­nal deve­lo­pers and supporters.

“We are exci­ted to welcome Ryan Hinkle to our board and look forward to working with the entire Insight team,” said Fahri Diner, co-foun­der and CEO of Plume. “Using machine lear­ning and AI, cloud data, open source, close ecosys­tem part­ner­ships, and a scalable plat­form, we are uniquely bridging the gap between the expec­ta­ti­ons of smart spaces and the ability of service provi­ders to deli­ver perfect expe­ri­en­ces — while buil­ding a leading, high-growth SaaS busi­ness in a large, under­ser­ved market. Our streng­the­ned finan­cial resour­ces from this invest­ment, coupled with our opera­tio­nal scale advan­tage, set the stage for Plume to conti­nue to invest confi­dently in its future.”

Jeffe­ries acted as finan­cial advi­sor to Plume in the transaction.

About Plume

Plume® has deve­lo­ped the world’s first globally deployed SaaS expe­ri­ence plat­form for commu­ni­ca­ti­ons service provi­ders (CSPs) and their subscri­bers. As the only open and hard­ware-inde­pen­dent solu­tion, Plume enables rapid deploy­ment of new services to connec­ted homes (and beyond) at scale. Custo­mers bene­fit from self-opti­mi­zing WLAN, cyber­se­cu­rity, access controls, paren­tal controls, motion detec­tion and much more. CSPs get relia­ble back-end appli­ca­ti­ons that provide unpre­ce­den­ted visi­bi­lity and both reac­tive and preven­ta­tive support. Plume lever­a­ges Open­Sync™, an open source frame­work pre-inte­gra­ted on and supported by the leading chip­set, CPE and plat­form SDKs.

Plume’s inves­tors include Char­ter Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Comcast Cable, Foxconn, Insight Part­ners, Jack­son Square Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Presi­dio Ventures, Qual­comm, Samsung, Service Elec­tric Cable­vi­sion, Shaw Ventures, Sili­con Valley Bank and UpBeat Venture Part­ners. www.plume.com, www.plume.com/homepass, andwww.opensync.io.

Plume, Home­Pass, Haystack, Harvest and Open­Sync are trade­marks or regis­tered trade­marks of Plume Design, Inc.

About Insight Partners

Insight Part­ners is a leading global venture capi­tal and private equity firm that invests in high-growth tech­no­logy and soft­ware scale-up compa­nies driving disrup­tive change in their indus­tries. Since its foun­ding in 1995, Insight Part­ners has inves­ted in more than 400 compa­nies world­wide and raised more than $30 billion in invest­ment capi­tal through a series of funds. Insight’s goal is to find, fund and successfully part­ner with visio­nary entre­pre­neurs by provi­ding them with prac­ti­cal, real-world soft­ware exper­tise to enable long-term success. Through its people and port­fo­lio, Insight fosters a culture based on the belief that ScaleUp compa­nies and growth create oppor­tu­ni­ties for all. www.insightpartners.com

News

Maas­tricht (NL) — Mosa Meat, the Euro­pean food tech­no­logy company that laun­ched the world’s first hambur­ger made from farmed beef in 2013, announ­ced the third and final closing of its Series B finan­cing. This third closing of $10 million brings the total amount of the finan­cing round to $85 million. New inves­tors include Blue Hori­zon Ventures and Nutreco.

Inves­tors in this latest deal include new and exis­ting inves­tors such as Nutreco, a global leader in pet food and aqua feed, and Jitse Groen, CEO of Just Eat Takeaway.com. The funding brings toge­ther leading global inves­tors with a wealth of know­ledge that will help Mosa Meat grow its produc­tion of real beef in a sustainable and safe way.

“We are exci­ted to expand our colla­bo­ra­tion with exis­ting part­ners and welcome new part­ners to this round,” said Maar­ten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat. “The comple­tion of the Series B funding brings us one step closer to our mission of deve­lo­ping a clea­ner and gent­ler way to produce real beef. Our part­ners bring immense stra­te­gic capa­bi­li­ties and exper­tise and share our strong commit­ment to incre­asing the sustaina­bi­lity of our global food system.”

Mosa Meat will use the funds to expand the current pilot produc­tion faci­lity at the Maas­tricht site, deve­lop an indus­trial-scale produc­tion line, grow the team and intro­duce tasty cultu­red beef to consumers.

Rob Korem­ans, CEO of Nutreco, says: “I am deligh­ted that Mosa Meat has reached the next mile­stone on the road to large-scale produc­tion of real meat. Nutreco is inves­t­ing in its ‘Feeding the Future’ mission, which requi­res protein produc­tion from tradi­tio­nal and alter­na­tive protein produc­tion methods. Our part­ner­ship with Mosa Meat is an important part of our stra­tegy to meet the growing demand for high-quality protein.”

The Series B funding round is led by Luxem­bourg-based Blue Hori­zon Ventures, a food tech­no­logy fund that aims to support and promote a posi­tive global impact on the envi­ron­ment, human health and animal welfare. Mosa Meat welco­mes this strong group of mission-driven inves­tors follo­wing successful Series A funding in 2018 led by M Ventures and Bell Food Group.

About MOSA MEAT

Mosa Meat is a Nether­lands-based food tech­no­logy company pionee­ring a clea­ner, gent­ler way to produce real beef. The team intro­du­ced the world’s first cultu­red beef hambur­ger in 2013 by growing it directly from cow cells. Foun­ded in 2016, Mosa Meat is now ramping up produc­tion of the same beef people love, but it’s more animal-friendly, envi­ron­men­tally friendly and safer to eat. They are a diverse and growing team of nutri­tion-conscious problem solvers united in their mission to funda­men­tally trans­form the global food system. www.mosameat.com.

About BLUE HORIZON VENTURES

Blue Hori­zon Ventures was foun­ded in 2018 by serial entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors Roger Lien­hard and Michael Kleindl and mana­ges assets of €183 million. The funds are inten­ded to support the move­ment toward a more sustainable food system through inno­va­tion, tech­no­logy and entre­pre­neur­ship. Special empha­sis is placed on plant-based meat, cultu­red meat, synthe­tic biology and sustaina­bi­lity. The Fund’s under­ly­ing mission is to promote a posi­tive global impact on the envi­ron­ment, human health and animal welfare. One of its requi­re­ments is that all its port­fo­lio compa­nies contri­bute to the 2030 Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals set by the UN Gene­ral Assem­bly. www.bluehorizonventures.com.

About NUTRECO

Every day, Nutreco’s 12,100 dedi­ca­ted employees in more than 37 count­ries around the world tire­lessly pursue our mission to feed the future in a way that ensu­res sustaina­bi­lity is at the fore­front of ever­y­thing we do. Our solu­ti­ons go beyond nutri­tion — we provide world-class advice and tech­no­logy to help our custo­mers produce more food in a sustainable way to feed our growing popu­la­tion. With more than 100 years of expe­ri­ence, Nutreco is a world leader in animal nutri­tion with its Trouw Nutri­tion divi­sion and in aqua feed with its Skret­ting divi­sion. Our NuFron­tiers team works to iden­tify, deve­lop and invest in next-gene­ra­tion breakth­rough inno­va­tions across the value chain. In 2019, Nutreco achie­ved net sales of EUR 6.4 billion. The company is a subsi­diary of SHV Holdings N.V., a family-owned multi­na­tio­nal company with net sales of €19.2 billion in 2019.
nutreco.com.

News

Berlin — SMP advi­sed the newly foun­ded early-stage inves­tor Revent Capi­tal (Revent) on the struc­tu­ring of its venture capi­tal fund with impact focus “Revent Ventures I”. The Revent team’s target fund size is 50 million euros.

In addi­tion to Benja­min Otto, who has alre­ady co-finan­ced two well-known German funds with e.ventures and Project A, the anchor inves­tors include Verena Paus­der (Fox & Sheep), Sascha Konietzke (Contentful), Max Tayen­thal (N26), Luis Hane­mann (e.ventures), Benja­min Roth (Urban Sports Club) and Florian Heine­mann (Project A) as well as other well-known entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors from the Berlin scene. — In the next step, the VC plans to attract further insti­tu­tio­nal backers as inves­tors for Revent Ventures I. Revent recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice from a team led by SMP part­ner Stephan Bank.

“With Revent, another VC fund with an impact focus enters the Euro­pean stage, which wants to show that profit and purpose can not only be combi­ned, but that attrac­tive returns can be achie­ved precis­ely through soci­ally as well as soci­ally respon­si­ble actions and econo­mic acti­vi­ties,” says Stephan Bank. “Although the market is still young, it is enjoy­ing rapid growth and is thus beco­ming incre­asingly important. We are very plea­sed to have been able to accom­pany Revent in the launch of the first gene­ra­tion of funds and are eagerly follo­wing further deve­lo­p­ments in the field of impact inves­t­ing,” adds Joel El-Qalqili.

About Revent
Revent is an early stage inves­tor with an impact focus, commit­ted to addres­sing envi­ron­men­tal and social chal­lenges. In the course of pre-seed to Series A finan­cing rounds, Revent invests across Europe for this purpose prima­rily in the areas of Clima­te­Tech, EdTech as well as Digi­tal Health and in compa­nies that pursue a clear purpose in addi­tion to profit. Revent, based in Berlin with an addi­tio­nal office in London, was foun­ded in 2020. A quar­tet consis­ting of Otto Birn­baum, Lauren Harri­son Lentz, Emily Brooke and Henrik Grosse Hokamp form the foun­ding part­ners of the fund, whose port­fo­lio compa­nies include Tomor­row Bank, Sylvera, Tomor­row and Net Purpose.

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. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Revent: SMP
Dr. Stephan Bank, Photo (structuring/lead manage­ment), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Jens Kretz­schmann (Taxes), Partner
Joel El-Qalqili (Structuring/Supervisory), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Florian Wilbrink (Struc­tu­ring), Associate

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Düssel­dorf-based corporate/M&A lawy­ers Michael von Rüden (Partner)and Thilo Hoff­mann (Coun­sel, both lead) advi­sed HM3T GmbH and its share­hol­ders on the sale of Dres­den-based tele­ma­tics company Yellow­Fox GmbH to a private equity fund mana­ged by ECM.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, the manage­ment and the previous share­hol­ders of Yellow­Fox were inte­gra­ted into the acqui­ring company in a way that was essen­tial for all parties involved.

Toge­ther, the part­ners aim to further drive YellowFox’s growth, parti­cu­larly in the area of modu­lar, cloud-based SaaS soft­ware solu­ti­ons for digi­tal fleet and property manage­ment, tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons and other product inno­va­tions, acquire new custo­mers and expand sales partnerships.

In the imple­men­ta­tion of the project, the Deloitte Legal team was able to draw on the exper­tise gained in the course of accom­pany­ing a large number of tran­sac­tions in the IT and tech envi­ron­ment, thus contri­bu­ting to a successful course of the project for all parties involved.

The close coope­ra­tion with colle­agues from BSKP and Deloitte Tax as well as the Berlin M&A advi­sor CARL enab­led compre­hen­sive inter­di­sci­pli­nary advice on all commer­cial, legal and tax aspects essen­tial to the transaction.

Advi­sor HM3T / HM3T share­hol­ders: Deloitte Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH

Deloitte Legal (Legal and Struc­tu­ring): Dr. Michael von Rüden (Part­ner), Thilo Hoff­mann (Coun­sel) (both Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead)

BSKP (Legal): Chris­tian Franz (Dres­den)
CARL (M&A): Felix Engel­hardt (Head of M&A), Guglielmo Balzola (Senior Analyst) (both Berlin) Deloitte Tax: Clemens Peter­sen (Part­ner, Frankfurt)

Advi­sor ECM/German Equity Partners:
Taylor Wessing (legal), Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (struc­tu­ring), Codex (market due dili­gence), Ebner Stolz (finance & tax), Code & Co (IT) and Willis Towers Watson (insu­rance)

About Yellow­Fox
Foun­ded in 2003, Yellow­Fox (https://www.yellowfox.de) provi­des tele­ma­tics solu­ti­ons for a wide range of indus­tries, vehicle types and company sizes. Busi­ness acti­vi­ties include the manu­fac­ture and sale of tele­ma­tics systems for vehicle track­ing and for purpo­ses of tacho data manage­ment, mobile time recor­ding, acti­vity records, order manage­ment and navi­ga­tion, consump­tion and driving style analy­ses, auto­ma­tic expense reports, elec­tro­nic forms and driver’s license moni­to­ring. The company employs about 70 people. With ECM, a stra­te­gic part­ner has joined Yellow­Fox for further strong growth.

 

 

News

Munich/ Leip­zig — ARQIS advi­sed the former share­hol­ders of the Leip­zig-based IT company forcont busi­ness tech­no­logy gmbh on the sale of all shares. With the sale, the former share­hol­ders Christa Gaud­litz, Matthias Kunisch and Invent­ment GmbH — who foun­ded the company 30 years ago — were able to imple­ment a succes­sion plan that ensu­res the inde­pen­dence, contin­ued exis­tence and further growth of the Leip­zig IT company.

The acqui­rer group of forcont consists of Matthias Koch, who initia­ted the acqui­si­tion as a manage­ment buy-in (MBI), WMS Wachs­tums­fonds Mittel­stand Sach­sen (repre­sen­ted by Thomas Tetten­born), and Thomas Fahrig, one of the previous mana­ging direc­tors of forcont. Matthias Koch, who as the new mana­ging part­ner will be the entre­pre­neu­rial head of forcont, has been active as a mana­ger in the ECM indus­try in German-spea­king count­ries for more than 20 years. In addi­tion to forcont Mana­ging Direc­tor Thomas Fahrig, autho­ri­zed signa­tory Achim Anhalt and the entire manage­ment team will conti­nue their successful work.

Foun­ded as IXOS Anwen­dungs-Soft­ware GmbH, the company offers stan­dar­di­zed ECM products, prima­rily for digi­tal person­nel and contract manage­ment as well as indi­vi­dual file solu­ti­ons. The appro­xi­m­ately 400 custo­mers include the ALBA Group and Deut­sche Wohnen SE.

The ARQIS team around Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (photo) regu­larly accom­pa­nies tech­no­logy-rela­ted M&A tran­sac­tions and company succes­si­ons. In 2018, for exam­ple, it also advi­sed the share­hol­ders of IT secu­rity and cloud provi­der Brain­loop AG on its sale to US compe­ti­tor Dili­gent. The largest share­hol­der there was also Invent­ment GmbH, with whose sole share­hol­der von Einem has enjoyed deca­des of close, trus­ting cooperation.

Advi­sor to former share­hol­ders of forcont: ARQIS (Munich)
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead; of Coun­sel), Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Co-Lead; both Corporate/M&A), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP); Coun­sel: Tanja Kurt­zer (Pensi­ons); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Corporate/M&A), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Düssel­dorf; Pensions)

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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Colo­gne — NETWORK Corpo­rate Finance (NCF) advi­sed the Execu­tive Board of Bastei Lübbe AG on the restruc­tu­ring of its entire corpo­rate finan­cing, inclu­ding an acqui­si­tion finan­cing for the purchase of the “smar­ti­cu­lar” publi­shing house.

Tran­sac­tion
As part of this restruc­tu­ring of Bastei Lübbe AG’s corpo­rate finan­cing, the entire debt finan­cing was aligned for the long term and supple­men­ted by acqui­si­tion finan­cing for the purchase of the publi­shing house “smar­ti­cu­lar”, which specia­li­zes in sustaina­bi­lity. This allo­wed the old, very complex syndi­ca­ted finan­cing to be repla­ced by flexi­ble, cost-effec­tive finan­cing on a bila­te­ral basis.

About Bastei Lübbe AG
Listed Bastei Lübbe AG is one of Germany’s largest and best-known publi­shing houses, specia­li­zing in the publi­ca­tion of books, audio books, and e‑books with fiction and popu­lar science content, as well as peri­odi­cal novel issues. Inter­na­tio­nal and natio­nal best­sel­ling authors such as Ken Follett, Dan Brown, Jeff Kinney, Rebecca Gablé, Petra Hüls­mann, Andreas Esch­bach, Timur Vermes and many more have been publi­shing their books at the Colo­gne publi­shing house, in some cases for deca­des. With the acqui­si­tion of “smar­ti­cu­lar,” Bastei Lübbe AG is expan­ding and supple­men­ting its content on the topic of sustaina­bi­lity. www.luebbe.de

About NCF
Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

News

Hamburg — DLA Piper has advi­sed Hamburg-based KRAHN Chemie Group, part of the globally active Otto Krahn Group, on the acqui­si­tion of majo­rity stakes in six compa­nies from Jollis AB & Part­ners, Sweden. In order to bundle the new acti­vi­ties, KRAHN Nordics AB was foun­ded, in which KRAHN Chemie holds the majo­rity with the parti­ci­pa­tion of some of the previous owners of the acqui­red compa­nies. With annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.3 billion, the Otto Krahn Group has around 1,600 employees at 36 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

The acqui­red compa­nies include Gothen­burg-based AmphoChem AB, a leading Scan­di­na­vian distri­bu­tor of indus­trial chemi­cals, addi­ti­ves as well as specialty chemi­cals, and Pemco Addi­ti­ves AB, another leading Scan­di­na­vian distri­bu­tor active in the fuel, lubri­cants and petro­che­mi­cal industries.

In addi­tion, the tran­sac­tion included the indi­rect acqui­si­tion of shares in Temper Tech­no­logy AB, Gothen­burg, which produ­ces sustainable and energy-effi­ci­ent heat trans­fer fluids and anti­freeze, BGM Logi­stics AB, Gothen­burg, a provi­der of logi­stics solu­ti­ons for warehousing, third-party logi­stics and distri­bu­tion in Sweden, and Pemco-Trigue­ros Addi­ti­ves Spain S.L., Alicante, which covers the distri­bu­tion of addi­ti­ves and base oils for use in fuels, indus­trial and auto­mo­tive formu­la­ti­ons in Spain.

In the course of the tran­sac­tion, KRAHN Chemie also acqui­red 100% of Petrico Ltd., Sand­bach, England, in which Pemco Addi­ti­ves AB was previously the indi­rect majo­rity owner. Petrico distri­bu­tes highly specia­li­zed petro­leum products and chemi­cal products for the lubri­cants and addi­ti­ves industry.

DLA Piper, under the lead manage­ment of Sebas­tian Decker (photo)In recent years, we have successfully advi­sed the Otto Krahn Group on various natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of shares in the Greek company Inter­Ac­tive S.A. at the begin­ning of 2020 and previously on the acqui­si­tion of eMBe by KRAHN Chemie as well as on the acqui­si­tion of the WIPAG Group by ALBIS PLASTIC and its joint venture with William Barnet & Son in the USA.

“Sebas­tian Decker and his team are very prudent and thorough, yet prag­ma­tic and respon­sive, even in complex tran­sac­tions. The team­work within the DLA team and with the client is outstan­ding and the willing­ness and ability to get invol­ved in the — also commer­cial — details of a tran­sac­tion are parti­cu­larly note­wor­thy” says Axel Sebbesse, Chief Deve­lo­p­ment Offi­cer and Head of M&A at Otto Krahn Group.

The inter­na­tio­nal team of DLA Piper was under the joint lead of part­ner Sebas­tian Decker and senior asso­ciate Sophie von Mandels­loh (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg). Also present from the Frank­furt office were Part­ner Semin O, Coun­sel Sergej Bräuer and Asso­ciate Alex­an­der Rösch (all Anti­trust), from Leeds, UK, Part­ners Andrew Davies (Corpo­rate) and Jane Hannon (Employ­ment) and Asso­cia­tes Simon Winterburn (Corpo­rate) and Char­lotte Need­ham (Employ­ment), from Stock­holm, Sweden, part­ners Magnus Oskars­son (Corpo­rate) and Björn Rustare (Employ­ment), senior asso­ciate Kris­tina Stavne and asso­ciate Björn Torsteins­rud (both Corpo­rate), and from the Madrid, Spain, office, legal direc­tor Remei Sanchez and asso­ciate Maria Gutier­rez (both Corporate).

The in-house team of the Otto Krahn Group was led by Axel Sebbesse (Chief Deve­lo­p­ment Offi­cer and Head of M&A) and Fabian Maerz (Direc­tor Tax & Legal).

About DLA Piper

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

News

Fank­furt a. Main — IK Invest­ment Part­ners (“IK”) has announ­ced that the IK VIII Fund has signed an agree­ment to sell its invest­ment in SCHOCK GmbH (“SCHOCK” or “the Company”) to Triton Fund V, advi­sed by Triton (“Triton”). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

SCHOCK has a leading global market posi­tion in the design and produc­tion of high-quality quartz compo­site kitchen sinks with a diverse base of more than 2,000 custo­mers in over 70 count­ries. The company stands for inno­va­tive, high-quality products and has a strong focus on sustaina­bi­lity. This is under­li­ned, among other things, by the recently laun­ched Green Line product line, whose sinks are made from over 99 percent natu­ral, rene­wa­ble or raw mate­ri­als. In addi­tion to the compre­hen­sive range of kitchen sinks with over 200 models in 40 diffe­rent colors, SCHOCK also offers faucets, shower trays and rela­ted access­ories. The company, based in Regen, Bava­ria, employs more than 500 people and produ­ces exclu­si­vely in Germany.

Since IK’s invest­ment in 2016, SCHOCK has pursued a successful stra­tegy based on the three main elements of gaining new custo­mers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and conti­nuous product inno­va­tion. As a result, the company achie­ved signi­fi­cant orga­nic growth and more than doubled its opera­ting profit. At the same time, substan­tial funds were inves­ted in the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties, opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency and product development.

As part of the tran­sac­tion now agreed, IK is selling its shares to the invest­ment company Triton, which will further deve­lop the company as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner toge­ther with the exis­ting manage­ment team headed by Ralf Boberg.

Ralf Boberg, CEO of SCHOCK, stated, “We are very grateful to the IK team for their guidance and support over the past four years. During this time, we have inves­ted in our inno­va­tive and sustainable product range and streng­the­ned our brand and repu­ta­tion in the market for high-quality, dura­ble and contem­po­rary sinks. We look forward to working with Triton to build on this foun­da­tion and conti­nue our growth trajectory.”

Mirko Jablon­sky, Part­ner at IK and advi­sor to the IK VIII Fund, said: “It has been a privi­lege for us to work with SCHOCK as a market leader in an attrac­tive segment of the kitchen indus­try. The uncom­pro­mi­sing focus on quality and the undis­pu­ted ability to inno­vate while setting new tech­no­lo­gi­cal stan­dards will enable SCHOCK to win new custo­mers and expand its product range and market presence. We wish Ralf Boberg and the team every success with their new shareholder.”

Ruth Linz, Co-Head Consu­mer at Triton, commen­ted: “We are plea­sed to accom­pany the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment at SCHOCK with our invest­ment. The oppor­tu­nity to work with such a strong brand, which also has excep­tio­nal growth poten­tial, does not come around often — we see oppor­tu­ni­ties here parti­cu­larly in the US and through targe­ted M&A acti­vi­ties. We look forward to part­ne­ring with SCHOCK and taking the company to the next level of growth.”

Parties invol­ved:

IK Invest­ment Part­ners: Detlef Dinsel, Mirko Jablon­sky, Daniel-Vito Günther
Seller M&A advi­sor: William Blair (Phil­ipp Mohr, Dirk Felsmann)
Seller legal advi­sor: Latham & Watkins (Henning Schnei­der, Nils Röver)
Seller commer­cial advi­sor: EY Parthe­non (Björn Reineke)
Seller finan­cial advi­sor: EY (Hinrich Grun­waldt, Sandra Krusch)
Seller ESG advi­sor: EY (Robert Seiter)

About IK Invest­ment Partners

IK Invest­ment Part­ners is a Euro­pean private equity firm with an invest­ment focus on the Nordic count­ries, the DACH region, France, Bene­lux as well as the UK. Since 1989, IK has laun­ched funds with a cumu­la­tive equity volume of more than 13 billion euros and inves­ted in more than 145 Euro­pean compa­nies. The IK Funds support compa­nies with signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial and their manage­ment teams in deve­lo­ping busi­ness models for the future, streng­thening the compa­nies’ market posi­tion and thus crea­ting outstan­ding long-term deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. www.ikinvest.com

About Triton

Triton was foun­ded in 1997 with the goal of working with boards, mana­gers and employees to build better compa­nies. We are entre­pre­neurs who invest capi­tal where we see an oppor­tu­nity to create long-term value. We are aware that the decis­i­ons we make affect people’s lives. The 46 compa­nies curr­ently in our port­fo­lio play an important role in their respec­tive loca­ti­ons in Nort­hern Europe. They employ around 101,000 people and gene­rate combi­ned annual sales of around €18.2 billion. In 2018, we raised €5.2 billion for our latest private equity fund, Triton V. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.triton-partners.com

About SCHOCK

SCHOCK is the inven­tor of the granite sink and has been the global tech­no­logy and quality leader in this field for more than 40 years. The paten­ted combi­na­tion of quartz with high-quality acrylic crea­tes a premium product that is three times harder than natu­ral granite and is also supe­rior in many product proper­ties to sinks made of other mate­ri­als. The SCHOCK range includes sinks for every kitchen style and taste type. Custo­mers in over 70 count­ries rely on SCHOCK products, which are produ­ced exclu­si­vely at the company head­quar­ters in Regen in the Bava­rian Forest. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.schock.de

News

Frank­furt — The commer­cial law firm 
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
 (FGvW) is further expan­ding its office in Frank­furt am Main. With Dr. Annette Böde­ker, the firm gains a proven corporate/M&A expert and notary as a new part­ner. FGvW thus also streng­thens the notary’s office in Frank­furt, which since April 2020 has been 
Dr. Chris­toph Börskens
 was newly established.

Dr. Annette Böde­ker will join the firm on March 1, 2021, from Arnold & Porter, where she was a part­ner in the firm’s sole German office and respon­si­ble for the firm’s corporate/M&A busi­ness. She star­ted her career at Henge­ler Muel­ler, then moved to Link­la­ters, where she was a part­ner in the corpo­rate depart­ment for seve­ral years. Dr. Böde­ker also has many years of expe­ri­ence in U.S. law firms, having been with Orrick in 2009 and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scho­ler since 2012. In addi­tion to the social consul­ting of large, inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and banks, the focus of their acti­vi­ties is the support of compa­nies from the medium-sized busi­ness sector. As a part­ner of Arnold & Porter, Dr. Böde­ker also advi­sed on tran­sac­tions from the Arnold & Porter network, where she regu­larly worked closely with colle­agues from London and the USA.

“Our Frank­furt am Main loca­tion has recei­ved a considera­ble boost in recent months — we are consis­t­ently conti­nuing along this path,” explains Mana­ging Partner 
Dr. Barbara Mayer
. “We are plea­sed that with Dr. Annette Böde­ker we are gaining another renow­ned and profes­sio­nally excel­lent rein­force­ment in the area of Corporate/M&A. After having expan­ded the Frank­furt office in recent years, espe­ci­ally in real estate law, employ­ment law, IP and the notary’s office, we will now also conti­nue to grow in the tran­sac­tional area,” adds Mana­ging Part­ner Annette Bödeker. 
Cars­ten Laschet
.

FGvW’s corpo­rate prac­tice has a strong presence nati­on­wide. In cross-office coope­ra­tion, FGvW has built up exper­tise in all matters of corpo­rate law — company forma­ti­ons, reor­ga­niza­tion of group struc­tures, prepa­ra­tion of share­hol­ders’ meetings and gene­ral meetings, corpo­rate finance issues. This also includes advi­sing inves­tors on the acqui­si­tion of listed compa­nies, tradi­tio­nal M&A busi­ness and advi­sing on joint ventures in Germany and abroad.

“Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is a leading German law firm with an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and strong inter­na­tio­nal orien­ta­tion,” commen­ted Dr. Annette Böde­ker on her decis­ion to join FGvW. “I alre­ady know long-stan­ding clients of FGvW from the phar­maceu­ti­cal and medi­cal tech­no­logy sectors as clients of Arnold & Porter. With FGvW’s Berlin office, the firm also has proven experts in tech­no­logy and venture capi­tal tran­sac­tions. FGvW is thus the ideal plat­form for my stron­gly inter­na­tio­nally orien­ted business.”

News

Zurich — Neural Concept, the Swiss soft­ware company in the field of Compu­ter Aided Design (CAD) and Engi­nee­ring (CAE), is plea­sed to announce new mile­sto­nes in the company’s deve­lo­p­ment. At the begin­ning of the year, the exis­ting inves­tors, Constan­tia New Busi­ness and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, support the next growth phase with seed exten­sion finan­cing. Both inves­tors alre­ady led the seed round 18 months ago. With the fresh capi­tal, Neural Concept can acce­le­rate and realize its mission — to bring the enorm­ous poten­tial of Deep Lear­ning into the hands of design engi­neers for real-time simu­la­tion and inter­ac­tive design optimization.

Paral­lel to the finan­cing round, a new advi­sory board was estab­lished to comple­ment the exis­ting board of direc­tors. The two new advi­sory board members, Evrard Van Zuylen and Roberto Schett­ler, bring exten­sive expe­ri­ence in foun­ding, growing and mana­ging successful B2B soft­ware compa­nies in the areas of machine lear­ning and design engineering.

Pierre Baqué, foun­der and CEO of Neural Concept: “I am deligh­ted to advise Neural Concept on its future growth. The company’s disrup­tive deep lear­ning algo­rithms will set the new stan­dard in the simu­la­tion industry

Evrard Van Zuylen, Neural Concept Advi­sory Board: “Neural Concept has foun­ded a new world of simu­la­tion. Deep Lear­ning will not only speed up simu­la­ti­ons and demo­cra­tize them in all areas of design and deve­lo­p­ment. I am convin­ced that this will finally enable itera­tive design of better products at low cost. Rather than seeing this as a mere vision of the future, compa­nies can make it a reality today with Neural Concept’s soft­ware products.”

About Evrard Van Zuylen
Evrard van Zuylen is co-foun­der (2006) and mana­ging direc­tor of darts-ip, world’s leading AI-based data provi­der for IP liti­ga­tion until its acqui­si­tion by Clari­vate plc. Foun­der (2000) and CTO of Trans­wide, now part of Alpega N.V. Previously, he worked at BCG and IBM.Evrard holds a master’s degree in mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring from l’Ecole Poly­tech­ni­que de Louvain and an MBA from the Univer­sity of Chicago Booth School of Business.

About Roberto Schettler
Roberto was CEO of Real­time Tech­no­logy (RTT), a leading 3D soft­ware and services company for the auto­mo­tive and aero­space sectors. Under his leader­ship, he grew the company to nearly 1,000 employees before RTT was acqui­red by Dassault Systems in 2014. He subse­quently also served as CEO of the rebran­ded company 3DExcite. Previously, he co-foun­ded Core­Op­tics, which was later acqui­red by Cisco Inc. was purcha­sed, and worked as a consul­tant at Think­Team as well as BCG. Here, he helps tech­no­logy compa­nies in both Europe and the U.S. grow to new levels.

About Constan­tia New Busi­ness (CNB Capital)
CNB Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent early-stage inves­tor focu­sed on B2B product compa­nies that have achie­ved initial market vali­da­tion. An expe­ri­en­ced team of invest­ment mana­gers actively supports foun­ders in func­tional areas, espe­ci­ally sales and marke­ting. The ever­green invest­ment approach supports the long-term orien­ta­tion of CNB’s stra­tegy in buil­ding substan­tial busi­nesses together.

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 32 companies.

News

Munich — GENUI acqui­res a stake in FACT-Finder. FACT-Finder is the Euro­pean market leader for search, navi­ga­tion and merchan­di­sing in eCom­merce. Since the early 2000s, the company has been deve­lo­ping AI-based search tech­no­lo­gies to help online shop­pers find the right products. Inter­na­tio­nally, the tech­no­logy is used in more than 1,800 stores. GENUI was advi­sed on this invest­ment by Pöllath & Partners.

GENUI is a company foun­ded by renow­ned entre­pre­neurs and invest­ment experts who believe in “Good Entre­pre­neur­ship”: GENUI only makes long-term commit­ments to compa­nies with the aim of crea­ting sustainable growth and social value. Compa­nies gain access to special entre­pre­neurs with indus­try-rele­vant exper­tise and the asso­cia­ted network as part of profes­sio­nal governance.

POELLATH advi­sed GENUI on the invest­ment with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Tim Kauf­hold, Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/IT, Frankfurt)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Matthias Ober­bauer (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)

About PPLAW

POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

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