ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Güters­loh — House­hold and commer­cial appli­ance manu­fac­tu­rer Miele has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Otto Wilde Gril­lers GmbH, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of grills. Miele was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by a cross-loca­tion M&A team from the law firm BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte, led by Güters­loh part­ners Dr. Franz Tepper (photo) and Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery. The tran­sac­tion was carried out by way of a share deal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

By acqui­ring 75.1% of the shares in the specia­list for gas barbe­cu­e­ing, the world-renow­ned Miele house­hold appli­ance group is further expan­ding its exper­tise in the field of outdoor cooking. In addi­tion to expan­ding the port­fo­lio, further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion is on the joint agenda.

Foun­ded in 2015 in Düssel­dorf, Germany, the family-owned company Otto Wilde Gril­lers deve­lops, builds and sells high-end grills along with access­ories. The devices are produ­ced by manu­fac­tu­ring part­ners in Germany and China. The company curr­ently employs 30 people.

Miele has many years of exper­tise in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and global marke­ting of premium built-in appliances.

BRANDI Rechts­an­wälte conti­nuously advi­ses Miele on tran­sac­tions and corpo­rate law issues, in parti­cu­lar on invest­ments in and acqui­si­ti­ons of start-ups. The advice on the invest­ment in Otto Wilde Gril­lers covered the due dili­gence, the purchase agree­ment, the invest­ment agree­ment and the nego­tia­ti­ons in the context of the transaction.

Advi­sors to Otto Wilde Gril­lers: LACORE Rechts­an­wälte, Berlin

Advi­sor Miele: BRANDI Attor­neys Gütersloh/Paderborn/Bielefeld
Dr. Franz Tepper (photo), Part­ner (Co-Lead, Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Cars­ten Chris­to­phery, Part­ner (Co-Lead, Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Nils Wigging­haus, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Eva-Maria Gott­schalk, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Gütersloh
Dr. Sörren Kiene, Part­ner (Commer­cial), Gütersloh
Dr. Sandra Vyas, Part­ner (Employ­ment Law), Paderborn
Dr. Chris­toph Rempe, Part­ner (IP/IT, Anti­trust Law), Bielefeld
Meike Pott­hast, Asso­ciate (Labor Law), Paderborn

Advi­sors to Otto Wilde Gril­lers GmbH: LACORE Rechts­an­wälte, Berlin
Nata­lie Vahsen, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A)
Stefa­nie Berges, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)
Paola Leiva, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)

News

Berlin — Fixico, Europe’s leading digi­tal car repair plat­form, announ­ces a €5 million expan­sion of its Series A funding round, closing it with a total of €12 million. The round is led by Auto­tech Venture. All exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding Fin Capi­tal, conti­nue to actively parti­ci­pate. In addi­tion, Fixico welco­mes Madrid-based Mundi Ventures to its inves­tor base. To date, Fixico has raised a total of €19.3 million. The new funds will acce­le­rate Fixico’s product deve­lo­p­ment, streng­then its presence in Germany and drive its expan­sion in Europe.

Digi­ta­liza­tion boost for the proces­sing of car repairs
Fixico is a fast-growing and award-winning Dutch tech company that aims to rede­fine the auto repair indus­try. In this field, which reflects a 120 billion euro market in Europe alone, time seems to have stood still and disrup­tion is long over­due. The repair process is time-consum­ing, inef­fi­ci­ent, and invol­ves nume­rous phone calls, emails, and physi­cal inspec­tions that are always the same — no matter what type of damage or vehicle is invol­ved. Howe­ver, modern vehic­les are beco­ming more and more tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted, making repairs more complex. Not every work­shop can do that. It ther­e­fore takes a tail­o­red approach to find the right workshop.

Fixico provi­des a digi­tal plat­form that makes vehicle damage repair seam­less for drivers, insu­r­ers and fleet owners, and enables intel­li­gent match­ma­king for diffe­rent types of vehicle damage and suita­ble repair shops. The plat­form provi­des a seam­less and much more effi­ci­ent repair assign­ment process. Custo­mers can thus quickly and easily iden­tify the best repair shop for their claim, taking into account criti­cal factors such as avai­la­bi­lity, exper­tise and price.

Fixico curr­ently works with over 150 leading compa­nies in the fleet, rental, insu­rance and leasing indus­tries. Through a cross-border and unique market­place network, the plat­form provi­des access to more than 2,500 work­shops. Fixico is curr­ently repre­sen­ted in six count­ries: Germany, the Nether­lands, Belgium, Luxem­bourg, France and South Africa.

“Last year was tough for the auto repair indus­try. But even in the midst of a global pande­mic, Fixico was able to grow by 300%. This Series A round expan­sion gives us enough momen­tum to conti­nue our growth trajec­tory and become the digi­tal leader of the auto repair indus­try in Europe. In the next quar­ter, we will launch in three more Euro­pean count­ries: Italy, Austria and Denmark. In all likeli­hood, we will add three to five more count­ries to our expan­sion plans after that, with the UK and Spain at the top of our wish list. We are very exci­ted to now have Mundi Ventures on board, as they have tremen­dous know­ledge and access to a vast and cross-border insu­rance and mobi­lity network,” says Derk Rood­huy­zen de Vries, CEO and co-foun­der of Fixico.

Simon Roth­man beco­mes new member of the Execu­tive Board
Upon comple­tion of the finan­cing round, Simon Roth­man will be appoin­ted to Fixico’s Super­vi­sory Board. Roth­man is known as an early pioneer of online market­places and network effect compa­nies. He joined eBay when it was still a small U.S. auction house for coll­ec­ti­bles and helped scale the company to nearly 200 million users and gene­rate more than $40 billion in annual revenue.

During his time at eBay, Roth­man foun­ded eBay Motors. Within six years, he built eBay Motors into a global company with annual sales of 14 billion U.S. dollars and made it the world’s number one auto­mo­tive marketplace.

Simon Roth­man is a long-time angel inves­tor and venture capi­ta­list with a passion for market­places and mobi­lity. Roth­man served as an early stage board member at Tesla, Cargu­rus, Convoy and Nuro. He is also an advi­sor and/or angel inves­tor in successful tech­no­logy compa­nies such as Lyft, Lime, Getaround, Aurora, Fiverr and Poshmark.

“During my time at eBay Motors as well as at Tesla, I perso­nally deve­lo­ped a great passion for market­places and mobi­lity. It is now a unique oppor­tu­nity to find a company as promi­sing as Fixico, which sits at the inter­sec­tion of the market­place and the mobi­lity sector. From my perspec­tive, Fixico’s use of network dyna­mics to connect repair shops with vehicle owners has the poten­tial to funda­men­tally change the auto repair indus­try,” explains Simon Roth­man as a newly appoin­ted member of Fixico’s super­vi­sory board.

About Fixico
Fixico (https://fixico-business.com/de) is Europe’s leading repair manage­ment plat­form for car damage. Since its foun­ding in 2014 by Derk Rood­huy­zen de Vries, the portal has helped car owners and busi­ness part­ners quickly and conve­ni­ently find the ideal repair shop for their car and save on repair costs. Fixico thus digi­ti­zes and simpli­fies the entire repair manage­ment process for fleet, car rental, insu­rance and leasing compa­nies. Working with over 150 leading compa­nies and a network of more than 2,500 master craft­smen, the Dutch company offers stress-free, fast repairs and compe­ti­tive prices. More than 200,000 claims have alre­ady been sett­led via the compa­ri­son plat­form throug­hout Europe. The 60-strong team alre­ady enables hundreds of compa­nies — inclu­ding part­ners such as Lease­Plan, AXA, Avis, Sixt and Aon — to handle car repairs more effi­ci­ently and cost-effec­tively in 6 count­ries (Germany, the Nether­lands, Belgium, Luxem­bourg, France and South Africa) and conti­nues to expand across Europe. Fixico is supported by a group of leading investors.

About Mundi Ventures
Mundi Ventures is a venture capi­tal firm that invests prima­rily in tech­no­logy-based compa­nies with B2B busi­ness models during the A or B round. The VC’s head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Madrid. There are bran­ches in Barce­lona, London and Seattle.

News

Hamburg — DLA Piper has advi­sed Germany-based multi­na­tio­nal TRUMPF Group on the acqui­si­tion of the global busi­ness of Lantek Sheet Metal Solutions.

TRUMPF is one of the world’s leading compa­nies for machine tools, lasers and elec­tro­nics for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In fiscal 2019/20, the company gene­ra­ted sales of 3.5 billion euros with around 14,300 employees.

Lantek is a leading global provi­der of soft­ware systems and solu­ti­ons for compa­nies in the sheet metal working sector, and is repre­sen­ted in 14 countries.

The inter­na­tio­nal DLA Piper team on this tran­sac­tion was led jointly by part­ner Teresa Zueco (Corpo­rate, Madrid) and the German Coun­try Mana­ging Part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran, Photo (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) — who is also DLA Piper’s global Client Rela­ti­onship Part­ner for the TRUMPF Group — supported by a core team consis­ting of Corpo­rate Asso­cia­tes Héctor Gómez, Alejan­dra Casta­ñeda and Carlos Fuerte (all Madrid). DLA Piper’s cross-border team also included colle­agues from more than ten juris­dic­tions, inclu­ding the UK, the US, France, Germany and China.

TRUMPF was advi­sed in-house by Dewi Kusuma (in-house counsel).

About DLA Piper

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

News

Munich — EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, one of the leading private equity firms for medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region, is leading an inves­tor consor­tium, inclu­ding the private equity firm Gimv, to take the digi­tal company sofa­tu­tor into its next growth phase. This replaces the previous shareholders.

sofa­tu­tor is the most compre­hen­sive digi­tal educa­tion plat­form for students in the German-spea­king world for grades 1 to 12 (K‑12). Number of users increased to more than one million students in 2020, the year of success. Further digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings and inte­gra­tion into school opera­ti­ons repre­sent a key growth lever. sofa­tu­tor plans to close the gap in online lear­ning and improve access to first-class educa­tion with further inno­va­tive offe­rings. In this way, the strong growth of recent years is to be continued.

Foun­ded in 2008, the company curr­ently has more than one million users. In addi­tion, sofa­tu­tor is now used by around 25 percent of all teachers throug­hout Germany, as well as in the German states of Saxony and Bremen. sofa­tu­tor thus sees itself as the most compre­hen­sive provi­der of digi­tal lear­ning assis­tance in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, a market with a total of more than eleven million students.

The product and service port­fo­lio of sofa­tu­tor includes a wide range of more than 11,000 videos as well as exer­ci­ses and work­s­heets for 14 diffe­rent school subjects. Students can flexi­bly access mate­ri­als and have a real-time chat on home­work with quali­fied teachers through sofatutor’s web-based plat­form or app.

Dr. Chris­tian Näther, Foun­ding Part­ner of EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, says: “Good educa­tion is a signi­fi­cant factor for a country’s society. That is why we want to support sofa­tu­tor in conti­nuously expan­ding its lear­ning offe­ring. Alre­ady, sofa­tu­tor is expe­ri­en­cing high demand for its digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings, which has been further streng­the­ned by home­schoo­ling and COVID-19. We would like to conti­nue this success story.” Matthias Ober­meyr, Part­ner at EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, adds: “Thanks to its compre­hen­sive digi­tal offe­rings, inno­va­tive strength and good value for money, sofa­tu­tor alre­ady has a strong market posi­tion. An expan­sion of this digi­tal product offe­ring as well as the further deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal lear­ning models also offers signi­fi­cant growth potential.”

Stephan Bayer, CEO of sofa­tu­tor and foun­der of the company, explains: “With more than one million users and the large network of teachers who inte­grate sofatutor’s digi­tal lear­ning content into their lessons, sofa­tu­tor has long been the leading provi­der of digi­tal lear­ning services. With the new inves­tor consor­tium, we now have another strong inves­tor group at our side that will very compe­tently accom­pany and support the company in the next growth phase. Inno­va­tive digi­tal lear­ning offe­rings will conti­nue to form our DNA in the future. We want to support schools, teachers and students not only in the after­noons, but also provide digi­tal lear­ning content in the mornings when schools are in session.”

Dr. Sven Oleow­nik, Part­ner and Head of Germany at the Euro­pean invest­ment company Gimv, which specia­li­zes in growth companies.With its invest­ment in sofa­tu­tor, Gimv rein­forces its ambi­tion to invest in future-orien­ted compa­nies along the funda­men­tal consu­mer trends of digi­ta­liza­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and conve­ni­ence. Toge­ther with EMERAM, Gimv supports an excel­lently mana­ged company whose digi­tal offe­ring perfectly addres­ses the United Nati­ons goals of high-quality educa­tion and digi­tal inno­va­tion. Koen Bouck­aert, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head Consu­mer at Gimv, added: “We are ther­e­fore parti­cu­larly plea­sed to allo­cate part of our recently laun­ched Sustainable Bond to sofatutor’s growth story and thus make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the company’s development.”

Advi­sor to the inves­tor consor­tium around EMERAM and Gimv:
IEG Invest­ment Banking Group (M&A), GLNS and McDer­mott (Legal), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax and Commer­cial) and Xperify (Tech/Marketing) advised.

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

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.
image002.jpg

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

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