ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich, Germany — Kumo­vis, deve­lo­per of the world’s first 3D prin­ter with clean­room inte­gra­tion, has successfully closed its Series A finan­cing round of €3.6 million. With Reno­lit SE and Solvay Ventures, the Munich-based start-up has found two more part­ners to further pursue its path of estab­li­shing indus­trial addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring systems for proces­sing high-perfor­mance poly­mers. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds and Ffilipa Venture Capi­tal, the two inves­tors who alre­ady supported Kumo­vis in the seed finan­cing, also parti­ci­pa­ted in the Series A. The co-foun­ders of Kumo­vis are Stefan Leon­hardt, Dr. Miriam Haerst, Alex­an­der Henham­mer, Sebas­tian Pammer, Stefan Fischer (photo from left to right).

The 3D prin­ting systems deve­lo­per is opening up new markets, acce­le­ra­ting growth and enab­ling medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­r­ers to realize the full poten­tial of high-perfor­mance poly­mers. “From the begin­ning, our goal has been to enable medtech compa­nies and clinics alike to 3D print high-perfor­mance poly­mers to produce medi­cal devices of virtually any type. The intro­duc­tion of the Kumo­vis R1 3D prin­ter in 2019 has taken addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring with medi­cally appro­ved poly­mers to a new level in terms of mecha­ni­cal proper­ties, aesthe­tics, repro­du­ci­bi­lity and usabi­lity,” Stefan Leon­hardt, co-CEO and co-foun­der of Kumo­vis.

Kumo­vis aims to streng­then its busi­ness case and acce­le­rate the company’s sustainable deve­lo­p­ment through its part­ner­ships with Reno­lit, a leader in poly­mer-based compon­ents for medi­cal devices, and Solvay, a global leader in high-perfor­mance specialty poly­mers. “We will use the invest­ment to enter new markets, further deve­lop our tech­no­logy and support the medi­cal commu­nity in brin­ging 3D-prin­ted medi­cal devices to pati­ents,” Stefan Leon­hardt, co-CEO and co-foun­der of Kumovis.

Decen­tra­liza­tion for shorter supply chains: Decen­tra­li­zed produc­tion capa­ci­ties through the use of 3D prin­ting tech­no­lo­gies shor­ten supply chains — and as a result, they also reduce the time it takes for medi­cal devices to reach pati­ents. The flexi­bi­lity of the Kumo­vis R1 system, which meets the requi­re­ments of medi­cal manu­fac­tu­ring, is parti­cu­larly advan­ta­ge­ous for manu­fac­tu­r­ers deal­ing with small series and pati­ent-adapted products. “By provi­ding an open 3D prin­ting system capa­ble of proces­sing a variety of ther­mo­pla­s­tic poly­mers, we are enab­ling our custo­mers not only to manu­fac­ture medi­cal products on-demand, but also to 3D print directly at the point of care. Now we at Kumo­vis are looking forward to taking the next steps toge­ther with our new as well as proven part­ners,” Dr. Miriam Haerst, Co-CEO and co-foun­der of Kumo­vis.

The impres­sive team, as well as the product quality and perfor­mance charac­te­ristics, make us confi­dent that Kumo­vis is ready to funda­men­tally change manu­fac­tu­ring in the deman­ding medi­cal device indus­try. Kumo­vis and Solvay will work toge­ther to acce­le­rate the shift to perso­na­li­zed medi­cine, expan­ding the scope of high-perfor­mance specialty poly­mers in health­care. Toge­ther, we have the poten­tial to do the same in other industries.

Stéphane Rous­sel, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Solvay Ventures commen­ted, “This invest­ment is an important step for Reno­lit Health­care to further its momen­tum towards health­care inno­va­tion with part­ners and to streng­then its presence in the medi­cal device space.

Thomas Sampers, head of Reno­lit Health­care adds to further improve its R1 3D prin­ter and grow the medi­cal 3D prin­ting ecosys­tem, Kumo­vis is conti­nuously expan­ding its team and working with tech­no­logy and mate­rial compa­nies. The startup and medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­r­ers are also colla­bo­ra­ting to advance health­care devices.

About Kumo­vis
Kumo­vis was foun­ded in 2017 as a spin-off by alumni of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich who successfully comple­ted cour­ses of study ranging from medi­cal to plas­tics engi­nee­ring — some of them with docto­ra­tes. The start-up enables the medi­cal field to process high-perfor­mance poly­mers in a repro­du­ci­ble and regu­la­tory-compli­ant manner using 3D prin­ting. Addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring is thus ready for health­care where­ver it is needed. In 2019, Kumo­vis laun­ched the R1 3D prin­ter, intro­du­cing the concept of an indus­try-speci­fic system for decen­tra­li­zed clean­room produc­tion. In addi­tion to support from inves­tors, the start-up is part of incu­ba­tion programs such as EXIST-Forschungs­trans­fer and ESA BIC Bayern.Contact.

About Solvay Ventures
SOLVAY VENTURES is Solvay’s venture capi­tal fund inves­t­ing in breakth­rough tech­no­lo­gies in the field of new mate­ri­als. Solvay Ventures has been opera­ting since 2005 and is curr­ently inves­t­ing from a global €80 million ever­green fund. Solvay Ventures focu­ses on early-stage (seed to Series B) invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with an empha­sis on start­ups solving problems in sustainable resour­ces, energy trans­for­ma­tion, increased well-being, and digi­tal age. In addi­tion to capi­tal, Solvay Ventures lever­a­ges Solvay’s resour­ces to acce­le­rate tech­no­logy and market adoption.

About Reno­lit SE
The RENOLIT Group is a global specia­list for high-quality films, sheets and other products made of plas­tic. With more than thirty subsi­dia­ries in over twenty count­ries and annual sales of €1,059 billion in fiscal 2019, the company, head­quar­te­red in Worms — about 70 km south of Frank­furt am Main — is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of plas­tic products. More than 4,800 employees conti­nuously deve­lop the know­ledge and know-how acqui­red over more than seventy years.

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 almost 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 from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 2.4 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,500 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

News

Invi­sion announ­ces the sale of Vantage Educa­tion AG (Vantage) to a group of Swiss inves­tors. Vantage, one of the leading provi­ders of educa­tion and trai­ning in Switz­er­land, remains inde­pen­dent and will conti­nue to be led by the exis­ting manage­ment team.

We are plea­sed that after 7 years of successful growth under Invision’s owner­ship, a good new home has been found for the Vantage. The new Swiss owners can draw on a wealth of expe­ri­ence in educa­tion invest­ment and a solid finan­cing base to successfully grow Vantage going forward and as a long-term commitment.

Over the last 7 years, Invi­sion supported Vantage through a series of conso­li­da­tion tran­sac­tions, ulti­m­ately brin­ging 5 acqui­si­ti­ons under one roof. The educa­tion compa­nies offer high-quality trai­ning and conti­nuing educa­tion programs in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion, sales, marke­ting, infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy and tourism manage­ment at 13 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Switz­er­land. With the self-image of sustainable student progress, Vantage conti­nuously inves­ted in educa­tio­nal offe­rings and trai­ning formats. Today, with more than 60 cour­ses, this includes in parti­cu­lar a wide range of cour­ses at the Higher Tech­ni­cal College (HF) level in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion, marke­ting, busi­ness infor­ma­tics and tourism.

Heinz Sommer, CEO of VantageThe unifi­ca­tion of diffe­rent educa­tion provi­ders under the umbrella of Vantage proved to be the right stra­tegy in order to expand the asso­cia­ted wide-ranging prac­tice- and trans­fer-orien­ted educa­tio­nal offe­ring, to ensure the conti­nuous deve­lo­p­ment of analog and digi­tal lear­ning content, and to jointly guaran­tee the quality of educa­tion, in addi­tion to the syner­gies. The students always come first; the educa­tion and trai­ning should bring them private and profes­sio­nal added value. Our contem­po­rary educa­tio­nal offe­ring, supported by our eLear­ning envi­ron­ment, enables us to be a trus­ted educa­tio­nal part­ner for our students both on campus and online. I look forward to further streng­thening our posi­tion and conti­nuously expan­ding our group and educa­tio­nal offe­rings with our new part­ners through addi­tio­nal educa­tio­nal companies.”

The new Swiss owners are commit­ted to support­ing Vantage’s stra­tegy and further expan­ding its strong posi­tion in the Swiss educa­tion land­scape. Jona­than Wynne, the new Chair­man of the Board of Vantage Educa­tion Group, comm­ents: “Vantage is a great exam­ple of a successful educa­tion group that focu­ses on the prac­ti­cal and trans­fer-orien­ted diver­sity of its offe­rings, the quality of its educa­tion and trai­ning, and the asso­cia­ted success of its students. We are plea­sed to support the group’s long-term ambi­ti­ons with our educa­tio­nal exper­tise and capi­tal resour­ces. We look forward to working with Heinz and the leader­ship team to build on Vantage’s impres­sive track record to date and to further streng­then and expand its posi­tion as the group of choice for students in Switzerland.”

Marco Martelli (photo), Part­ner at Invi­sion, comm­ents: “Buil­ding Vantage over the past years has been a great jour­ney and we are proud to have made a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the deve­lo­p­ment of the Group and the private educa­tion sector in Switz­er­land in gene­ral. I am very happy that we have found a good part­ner to take the schools forward and that Vantage will remain in Swiss hands”.

About VANTAGE
Vantage unites 3 strong educa­tio­nal compa­nies under one roof and accom­pa­nies over 5000 students on their educa­tio­nal path at 13 loca­ti­ons. Vantage is thus one of the leading private educa­tion provi­ders in the fields of busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion & manage­ment, marke­ting, infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy and tourism, parti­cu­larly in the area of higher educa­tion (HF). www.vantage.ch, www.hso.ch, www.bvs.ch, www.ist-edu.ch

About INVISION
Since its foun­da­tion in 1997, Invi­sion has successfully deve­lo­ped into one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies for corpo­rate succes­sion and growth finan­cing in Europe. Invi­sion has inves­ted more than EUR 750 million of equity in over 50 compa­nies during this time, achie­ving sustainable value growth. Invi­sion sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner for foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs and manage­ment teams. In its enga­ge­ments, Invi­sion places parti­cu­lar empha­sis on under­stan­ding the speci­fic needs of compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs and deve­lo­ping custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons. Invi­sion invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion plan­ning. www.invision.ch

News

Zurich — ETH spin-off PXL Vision has deve­lo­ped an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-based soft­ware plat­form for the secure and auto­ma­ted veri­fi­ca­tion of iden­ti­ties. Now the company is recei­ving CHF 4.6 million in a seed finan­cing round to expand its tech­no­logy and grow inter­na­tio­nally. The finan­cing round was led by SIX Fintech Ventures, with other inves­tors inclu­ding ZKB, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Arab Bank and expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels Beat Schil­lig and David Studer.

Every year, billi­ons of perso­nal data records are stolen and often used for frau­du­lent purpo­ses. Trust in digi­tal inter­ac­tions is ther­e­fore central, and more and more compa­nies are moving to iden­tify their custo­mers beyond doubt. To do this, they need digi­tal solu­ti­ons that are secure, cost-effec­tive, easy to manage, and comply with regu­la­tory requirements.

Flexi­ble iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion in real time
PXL Vision has deve­lo­ped a digi­tal KYC veri­fi­ca­tion plat­form that is parti­cu­larly modu­lar compared to the compe­ti­tion and can ther­e­fore be used very flexi­bly by busi­ness custo­mers. The plat­form uses Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence to authen­ti­cate an iden­tity docu­ment via the smart­phone camera with mini­mal user inter­ac­tion and verify the user’s iden­tity via a liveness check and facial match with a video selfie. In addi­tion to Swis­sID, the leading Swiss iden­tity provi­der, major compa­nies such as Sunrise, Salt, UPC and ZKB also rely on PXL Vision’s technology.

There are many areas of appli­ca­tion for these compa­nies: From taking out a cell phone subscrip­tion online, regard­less of loca­tion, to opening bank accounts elec­tro­ni­cally in just a few minu­tes, such as with ZKB’s Frankly app for saving for retirement.

Growth finan­cing completed
Since its foun­da­tion three years ago, PXL Vision has estab­lished itself in the Swiss market. The team size has grown from four to over forty members and important entre­pre­neu­rial awards such as the Swiss Econo­mic Award 2019, the W.A. De Vigier Award 2019 and the Swiss­com Startup Chall­enge Award 2019 have been won. The company also successfully comple­ted both the SAP.iO and F10 Fintech Incu­ba­tor & Acce­le­ra­tor programs.

“Having proven that we can compete against large and estab­lished play­ers in a very compe­ti­tive market, it is now time to expand beyond the country’s borders,” said PXL Vision CEO Michael Born (photo: 2nd from left), who foun­ded the company in 2017 toge­ther with Nevena Shamoska (photo: 1st from left), Roxana Porada (photo: 4th from left), Lucas Sommer and Karim Nemr (photo: 3rd from left). The inter­di­sci­pli­nary and expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team had alre­ady worked toge­ther for seve­ral years at Dacuda AG and had successfully sold Dacuda assets to Florida-based Magic Leap before foun­ding PXL Vision in March 2017.

Andreas Iten, Head of SIX Fintech Ventures, who will support PXL Vision as a board member in the upco­ming growth phase.

Access to growth capi­tal will enable PXL Vision to further expand its product port­fo­lio and enter new markets and indus­tries. The funding is expec­ted to move PXL Vision forward quickly. “We are inves­t­ing prima­rily in the intel­li­gence and scala­bi­lity of our tech­no­logy, as well as in buil­ding the busi­ness inter­na­tio­nally. We will substan­ti­ally expand the sales, marke­ting and deve­lo­p­ment teams to further drive growth,” said Karim Nemr, PXL Vision’s chief busi­ness officer.

About PXL Vision
PXL Vision AG is a Swiss high-tech spin-off of the Swiss Fede­ral Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (ETH). PXL Vision provi­des leading solu­ti­ons for auto­ma­ting and impro­ving iden­tity veri­fi­ca­tion and custo­mer onboar­ding through auto­ma­ted soft­ware solu­ti­ons based on the latest deve­lo­p­ments in compu­ter vision and machine lear­ning. PXL is head­quar­te­red in Zurich, Switz­er­land, and has R&D centers in Novi Sad, Serbia, and Yere­van, Armenia.

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 almost 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 from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas.

More than EUR 2.4 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,500 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 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

Digi­tal employ­ment service provi­der Zenjob has successfully closed a €27 million ($30 million) Series C funding round. The lead inves­tor is Forestay Capi­tal, an affi­liate of Ernesto Bertarelli’s (photo) family office Waypo­int Capi­tal. Other inves­tors include exis­ting inves­tors Redal­pine, Acton Capi­tal, AXA Venture Part­ners and Atlan­tic Labs.

Zenjob uses an app to place student assistants with large and medium-sized compa­nies in the logi­stics, retail and office sectors. New custo­mers are intro­du­ced digi­tally to all proces­ses and can then request staff via an online booking portal. In this way, compa­nies can quickly and flexi­bly find tempo­rary staff to respond to short-term person­nel requi­re­ments or seaso­nal fluc­tua­tions. Job candi­date matching also allows students to find a job in their area on the same day. By its own account, Zenjob reaches 15,000 students every day via the app. Curr­ently, the Berlin-based company is alre­ady repre­sen­ted in 14 cities.

Zenjob enables its custo­mers to achieve high effi­ci­ency gains and takes care of the entire process for tempo­rary staf­fing, from recrui­ting to invoi­cing. Algo­rithms will also help to predict person­nel demand even better.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed Forestay Capi­tal, a fund belon­ging to Waypo­int Capi­tal Group, on the finan­cing round with the follo­wing team:

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur.(Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin), Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin), Adal­bert Makos (Coun­sel, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich), Andreas Kühnert (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich), Markus Döll­ner (Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

News

Munich — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed the share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor of OPUS ONE Recruit­ment GmbH, Sascha Yassine, on the sale of a majo­rity stake to the univa­tiv Group.

OPUS ONE Recruit­ment GmbH, based in Munich, was foun­ded in 2011. The company provi­des tempo­rary and perma­nent staf­fing services for the banking indus­try, as well as in the areas of office, finance, tax, legal and IT. Sascha Yassine will remain with the company as mana­ging direc­tor and will syste­ma­ti­cally deve­lop the company toge­ther with the univa­tiv Group.

The univa­tiv Group, head­quar­te­red in Darm­stadt, is one of the market-leading provi­ders of specia­li­zed person­nel services in the German-spea­king region. The univa­tiv Group was acqui­red by the Triton Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund (TSM) in July 2017.

Gütt Olk Feld­haus provi­ded legal advice to Sascha Yassine in all phases of the tran­sac­tion process.

Legal advi­sors to Sascha Yassine: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Chris­to­pher Ghabel (Senior Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance), Matthias Uelner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)
Stau­dacher Annuß, Munich: Ingo Sappa, Dr. Felix Half­meier (both Labor Law)
Kind & Drews, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Ernesto Drews (Tax Law)

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

News

Berlin — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Osborne Clarke has advi­sed Alpha Foods on the sale of its food busi­ness to Vendis Capital’s port­fo­lio company Sylphar.

Fast-growing OTC company Sylphar, which part­ne­red with Vendis Capi­tal in May 2017 to acce­le­rate its growth both orga­ni­cally and through buy-and-build acqui­si­ti­ons, has moved a step closer to its goal of beco­ming one of Europe’s leading omnich­an­nel play­ers in consu­mer health with the acqui­si­tion of Alpha Foods, an estab­lished supplier of dietary supple­ments and vegan nutri­tion products to the German market.

Alpha Foods, foun­ded by Wolf­gang Dorf­ner, deve­lops, markets and distri­bu­tes a range of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments and vegan nutri­tio­nal products, which are sold through the company’s own web store as well as Amazon. Due to his former acti­vi­ties at Face­book and Google, Wolf­gang Dorf­ner has profound know-how regar­ding online plat­forms and was thus able to build a passio­nate online commu­nity for Alpha Foods.

Wolf­gang Dorf­ner will join Sylphar to further drive Alpha Foods’ growth and bring his online marke­ting exper­tise to the other brands in the group.

The Osborne Clarke team, led by Robin Eyben (Corporate/M&A), consis­ted of Thies Gold­ner, Alex­an­dra Nautsch (both Corporate/M&A), Konstan­tin Ewald, Leonie Schnei­der (both IP/IT) and Florian Merkle (Tax). Also invol­ved were lawy­ers from Osborne Clarke Belgium: David Haex, Laurant De Pauw (both Corpo­rate, M&A) and Benja­min Docquir (IP/IT). From Best Friends law firm Venable (USA), Thomas Baxter (Corporate/M&A) supported.

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed AVS Verkehrs­si­che­rung GmbH (AVS), a port­fo­lio company of Triton Fund IV, on the acqui­si­tion of Gerding GmbH Verkehrs­tech­nik and MIS GmbH (Gerding/MIS), a renow­ned provi­der in the field of traf­fic engi­nee­ring based in Senden/Münsterland. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Gerding and MIS have many years of expe­ri­ence in traf­fic engi­nee­ring as well as with mobile conges­tion warning systems. With the plan­ning, deli­very and instal­la­tion of traf­fic signs and gant­ries, Gerding works closely with state deve­lo­pers, cities and muni­ci­pa­li­ties as well as private cons­truc­tion compa­nies nati­on­wide. As a service provi­der, MIS GmbH offers fully auto­ma­tic, stand-alone traf­fic jam warning systems and mobile LED varia­ble message signs.

“The company is known as a long-stan­ding, relia­ble and inno­va­tive service provi­der. For the AVS Group, the acqui­si­tion of Gerding/MIS is an ideal expan­sion of compe­ten­cies in the segment of conges­tion warning systems and mobile signage,” explains Andreas Schwin­ge­ler, COO at AVS.

About AVS Traf­fic Safety
AVS Verkehrs­si­che­rung is a leading specia­list provi­der of traf­fic safety services in Germany and Europe. The company is head­quar­te­red in Lever­ku­sen, Germany, and offers all essen­tial services rela­ted to road safety projects. This includes compre­hen­sive consul­ting and the neces­sary appr­oval proce­dure for all traf­fic safety equip­ment, as well as instal­la­tion, marking work, main­ten­ance & inspec­tion runs, and removal and demar­king. AVS is repre­sen­ted throug­hout Germany at over 25 loca­ti­ons nati­on­wide. Inter­na­tio­nally, AVS has more than 10 loca­ti­ons in Belgium, Denmark and Latvia. AVS employs around 1,100 people.

At present, Triton’s port­fo­lio includes 42 compa­nies with total sales of around EUR 17.2 billion and around 81,400 employees.

This is now the seventh tran­sac­tion that ARQIS has accom­pa­nied for AVS. Most recently, Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze’s team advi­sed AVS on the acqui­si­tion of Imple­nia SVA GmbH, a renow­ned provi­der in the field of cons­truc­tion site safety based in Saarbrücken.

Advi­sors AVS Verkehrs­si­che­rung GmbH: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Johan­nes Landry (Commer­cial), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate); Coun­sel: Dr. Stepha­nie Lenze (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Thomas Chwa­lek, Kamil Flak (both Corporate/M&A), Thi Kieu Chinh Nguyen (Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate); Legal Specia­lists: Gloria Bitt­ner-Schüt­zen­dorf, Dr. Liliia Sagun (both Commercial)

News

Berlin - Neocase Soft­ware, an inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of an HR manage­ment plat­form, is recei­ving around six million euros in a new round of finan­cing from Entre­pre­neur Venture, Sofiouest and the manage­ment team and long-time share­hol­der Iris Capi­tal. The funds will be used for services for HR digi­tiza­tion in SMEs.

This invest­ment enables Neocase Soft­ware to now target medium-sized compa­nies in addi­tion to large enter­pri­ses and to acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth — inclu­ding in Germany and Scandinavia.

The SaaS company saw 22 percent growth in 2019 and is targe­ting more than 20 percent growth in 2020 despite the Covid 19 crisis.

HR Digi­tiza­tion Services for SMEs
Neocase Soft­ware has been one of the leading provi­ders in the field of HR service manage­ment for almost two deca­des and has so far prima­rily addres­sed the needs of large compa­nies with more than 10,000 employees. With offices and teams in Paris (head­quar­ters), London, Amster­dam and Boston, Neocase Soft­ware is now further expan­ding its offe­ring in the DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. There, the company alre­ady serves custo­mers in the auto­mo­tive, secu­rity and finan­cial services industries.

Neocase Soft­ware is also expan­ding its R&D and sales programs to make its services available to mid-sized compa­nies with more than 1,500 employees. In this way, HR services in these compa­nies can be digi­ti­zed and the workload redu­ced with the HR Ready© plat­form. This new deve­lo­p­ment is supported by a strong part­ner network consis­ting of soft­ware compa­nies such as Work­day, Talent­soft, CoreHR and service compa­nies such as CGI, TCS, Sopra Steria, etc.

Neocase Soft­ware curr­ently has more than 150 custo­mers world­wide and is active in 180 count­ries directly and through inte­gra­tors. Custo­mers include Société Géné­rale, Air France, Cap Gemini, Thales, World­Bank, Peugeot-Opel, Axa, Sand­vik, UCB, Penn State Univer­sity, Harrods, United Health Service, MGM Resorts, and AG2R La Mondiale.

Didier Moscatelli, CEO of Neocase Soft­ware: “We support compa­nies world­wide in the digi­tiza­tion of HR employee commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. The digi­tiza­tion of commu­ni­ca­tion in the HR envi­ron­ment is an abso­lute must, espe­ci­ally in large compa­nies. Our 15 years of expe­ri­ence is the key that enables compa­nies to improve their Employee Expe­ri­ence. The invest­ment gives us the oppor­tu­nity to now also serve the high demand of mid-sized compa­nies for our SaaS solu­tion and to enter new markets such as the DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. We look forward to this new chap­ter and the support of our inves­tors such as Entre­pre­neur Venture, Iris Capi­tal and Sofiouest.”

Pierre-Alexis De Vauplane, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Entre­pre­neur Venture, comm­ents: “We are plea­sed to provide Neocase Soft­ware with the resour­ces neces­sary to conti­nue to grow. We have been in close cont­act for seve­ral months and are exci­ted about Didier Moscatelli’s dyna­mism. The Corona crisis has also once again shown the poten­tial of Neocase for compa­nies and their employees.”

Curt Gunsen­hei­mer (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Iris Capi­tal, adds: “We have been support­ing Neocase Soft­ware for many years. We are proud to now start this inter­na­tio­nal growth phase toge­ther — espe­ci­ally in the DACH region, where we will also promote the new offe­ring for medium-sized compa­nies through our first-class network.”

About Neocase Software
Neocase is an expert in digi­ta­liza­tion in the HR sector. Foun­ded in 2001, the company provi­des SaaS soft­ware solu­ti­ons for HR service centers to improve the employee expe­ri­ence while redu­cing admi­nis­tra­tive costs. With curr­ently more than five million employees in 180 count­ries, Neocase soft­ware solu­ti­ons are used daily by indus­try-leading compa­nies inclu­ding Société Géné­rale, Chanel, Thales, Air France, AG2R La Mondiale, Tata Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons Services, UCB Pharma, Natio­nal Oil Varco, PSA Group and many more. www.neocasesoftware.com

About Iris Capital
Iris Capi­tal is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm specia­li­zing in the digi­tal economy. Iris Capi­tal invests in compa­nies at various stages of growth, from start­ups to late-stage and growth play­ers. Due to its parti­cu­lar specia­liza­tion in indi­vi­dual indus­tries and over 30 years of expe­ri­ence, as well as the support of its corpo­rate spon­sors, Iris Capi­tal actively accom­pa­nies the compa­nies in its own port­fo­lio. Iris Capi­tal has offices in Paris, Berlin, San Fran­cisco, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Dubai.

Iris­Next is a fund of Iris Capi­tal, backed as inves­tors by leading compa­nies such as Orange, Publi­cis, Valeo and Bridge­stone, as well as finan­cial inves­tors and insti­tu­ti­ons such as Bpifrance and BRED Banque Popu­laire. Its holdings include Adjust, Careem, Happy­Car, Kyriba, Open-Xchange, Mojio, reBuy, Scality, Searchme­trics, Shift Tech­no­logy, Studi­temps, Talend, Talon.One and Unu Motors. www.iriscapital.com

News

Munich/ Berlin/ London — Construyo, a tech­no­logy company for digi­tal cons­truc­tion plan­ning, has closed a EUR 2 million seed finan­cing round.

The new inves­tor is the London-based venture capi­tal firm Talis Capi­tal. Talis Capi­tal thus joins previous inves­tors Florian Swoboda, foun­der of Liberty Ventures and Jan Kanieß, co-foun­der of Payone.

Construyo is a holi­stic cons­truc­tion design service provi­der that aims to bring the cons­truc­tion indus­try into the digi­tal age. This is done with a mix of project consul­ting, project manage­ment soft­ware, and a network of archi­tec­ture, engi­nee­ring, and cons­truc­tion vendors. The goal is to increase trans­pa­rency, reduce costs and increase effi­ci­ency in the reno­va­tion and cons­truc­tion of real estate. The start-up was foun­ded in 2018 by Leon­hard Jeub and Fabian Müller in Berlin.

The invest­ment will be used to further deve­lop and expand Construyo’s plat­form and part­ner network into a complete end-to-end solution.

Advi­sor Construyo: P+P Pöllath + Partners
Chris­tian Tönies, Photo, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin), Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich/Berlin), Dr. Jesko von Mirbach, LL.M., EMBA (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Berlin/Munich), Markus Döll­ner (Asso­ciate, M&A/Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

News

Lever­ku­sen — The global WuXi Biolo­gics Group has acqui­red a sterile filling and freeze-drying plant from Bayer AG. The plant is desi­gned for the filling and freeze-drying of the blood coagu­lant Koval­try®. The plant is opera­ted on the Chem­park site in Lever­ku­sen. WuXi was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by a team led by Dirk W. Kolven­bach of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Under the asset purchase agree­ment signed in Janu­ary, WuXi Biolo­gics took over plant opera­ti­ons, purcha­sed plant equip­ment and signed a long-term cons­truc­tion lease. Equip­ped with a state-of-the-art filling line for phar­maceu­ti­cal products, the plant will offer sterile filling and freeze-drying of up to ten million vials per year.

“We are plea­sed to enter into this signi­fi­cant agree­ment with Bayer and to estab­lish our second site in Europe,” said Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biolo­gics. “With this new faci­lity in Germany, we can better serve our global custo­mers by imple­men­ting the unique manu­fac­tu­ring para­digm of ‘global dual sourcing’ through our robust and high-quality supply chain. We will conti­nue to enable our global part­ners to deve­lop and manu­fac­ture biolo­gics that bene­fit pati­ents worldwide.”

WuXi Biolo­gics is a leading global open access tech­no­logy plat­form for biolo­gics. The company provi­des end-to-end solu­ti­ons to help compa­nies disco­ver, deve­lop and manu­fac­ture biolo­gics from concept to commer­cial produc­tion. To support the fight against COVID-19, WuXi Biolo­gics has dona­ted more than 1,600 masks to medi­cal faci­li­ties in Lever­ku­sen, Germany.

Advi­sor to WuXi Biolo­gics: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dirk W. Kolven­bach, Photo (lead) Düssel­dorf, Michael Pauli, LL.M. (Corpo­rate), Colo­gne; Wolf­ram Meven, Jörn Matu­szew­ski (both Tax), Dr. Rainer Velte (Anti­trust), Düssel­dorf; Fabian Gerst­ner, LL.M., Bettina Nehe­i­der (both Cons­truc­tion Law), both Munich; Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M., Mathis Dick, LL.M. (both Real Estate), both Düsseldorf
Dr. Bodo Dehne (Invest­ment Control), Dr. Tobias Plath, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Tors­ten Groß, LL.M. (Labor Law), Sarah Radon, LL.M. (Commer­cial)

Advi­sors to Bayer: Rede­ker Sell­ner Dahs
Dr. Markus Dierks­meier (Corpo­rate), Bartho­lo­mäus Aengen­vo­ort, Alex­an­der Leidig (both Real Estate), all Bonn

News

Saarbrücken/ Frank­furt a. Main — Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP) acqui­res specialty phar­maceu­ti­cal distri­bu­tor Lucien Ortscheit. King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed Silver Invest­ment Part­ners (SIP) on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Lucien Ortscheit GmbH (Lucien Ortscheit).

Lucien Ortscheit, based in Saar­brü­cken, Germany, is a leading inter­na­tio­nal specialty phar­maceu­ti­cal distri­bu­tor with a focus on unli­cen­sed medi­ci­nes and clini­cal trial compa­ra­tors. The company trades world­wide in medi­ci­nes that are tempo­r­a­rily unavailable or unap­pro­ved in the target coun­try. Lucien Ortscheit was foun­ded in 1963 and taken over by the Kloos family in 2002. Since its foun­da­tion, the company has steadily deve­lo­ped and today alre­ady counts seve­ral thousand custo­mers from over 60 count­ries among its widely diver­si­fied and loyal custo­mer base.

SIP is an inde­pen­dent inves­tor for equity finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. As an entre­pre­neu­rial, expe­ri­en­ced and relia­ble part­ner, SIP is invol­ved in majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments in compa­nies with sales between 5 and 100 million euros, with a focus on compa­nies with sales between 10 and 50 million euros.

The previous owners, the Kloos family, will retain a mino­rity stake in the company. Mr. Kloos will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the opera­tio­nal busi­ness as Mana­ging Direc­tor in the medium term. SIP supports Lucien Ortscheit’s sustainable growth stra­tegy. To further deve­lop the company, growth oppor­tu­ni­ties such as inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, expan­sion of the product range and further suita­ble acqui­si­ti­ons in the natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal attrac­tive niche market are to be exploited.

Advi­sors Silver Invest­ment Part­ners: King & Wood Mallesons
Dr. Michael Roos (Part­ner), Dr. Peter Polke (Coun­sel), Dr. Katrin Thoma (Asso­ciate), Lorenz Liebsch (Asso­ciate), Simon Brandt (PSL) (all Corporate/M&A);
Markus Hill (Part­ner), Vikto­ria Rosbach (Asso­ciate) (both Tax)

News

Hano­ver — The private equity inves­tor CGS Manage­ment AG(CGS) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH, Pfat­ter, through its port­fo­lio company, EOL Pack­a­ging Experts GmbH, Kirchlen­gern. Ebner Stolz accom­pa­nied the tran­sac­tion on the buyer side by prepa­ring a finan­cial and tax due diligence.

The inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting EOL Group, consis­ting of EOL Pack­a­ging Experts GmbH and its subsi­dia­ries, A+F Auto­ma­tion + Förder­tech­nik GmbH, Kirchlen­gern, and Stan­dard-Knapp Inc., Portland/USA, has many years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of end-of-line pack­a­ging machi­nes and systems.

With this new invest­ment, the EOL Group is further advan­cing its stra­te­gic plan­ning and orien­ta­tion to be the market leader for end-of-line pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for the food and beverage indus­try. BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH is an estab­lished system provi­der for inno­va­tive sort­ing systems, modern dry parts solu­ti­ons and flexi­ble repack­a­ging solutions.

Ebner Stolz has alre­ady advi­sed CGS on various tran­sac­tions in the past. In the course of the majo­rity invest­ment in BMS Maschi­nen­fa­brik GmbH, Ebner Stolz supported CGS in the context of a finan­cial and tax due diligence.

Team Ebner Stolz: Hans-Peter Möller, photo (lead part­ner), Stef­fen Fleit­mann (both finan­cial due dili­gence), Chris­tian Mertens, Karina Minich (tax due diligence)

 

News

Munich — GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Opti­mas Group on the sale of its compa­nies in Germany, Italy, Belgium and Bulga­ria to Munich-based Accur­sia Capi­tal.

Opti­mas is the world’s leading indus­trial distri­bu­tor and service provi­der specia­li­zing in fastening and supply chain solu­ti­ons for manu­fac­tu­r­ers looking to improve effi­ci­ency and profi­ta­bi­lity. Opti­mas is owned by Ameri­can Indus­trial Part­ners, a New York (USA) based private equity firm focu­sed on the mid-cap segment.

The four compa­nies, with a total of around 230 employees and annual sales of around EUR 70 million, will operate under the name “Strong­hold” in the future.

Nunzi­ante Magrone Studio Legale Asso­ciato (Rome) advi­sed on the Italian legal aspects of the transaction.

Advi­sor Opti­mas Group: GSK Stockmann
Dr. Markus Söhn­chen (F’oto), Dr. Gerhard Gündel (Corporate/M&A), Domi­nik Berka (Tax), Dr. Phil­ipp Kuhn (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Lieor Koblenz (Corporate/M&A), Nicole Depa­rade (Labor Law)

About Accur­sia Capital
Our stra­tegy pursues a long-term invest­ment hori­zon. The over­ri­ding objec­tive is to expand the indus­trial holding company by acqui­ring comple­men­tary compa­nies and to increase the compe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the indi­vi­dual holdings through syner­gies. Our invest­ment focus is on compa­nies with increased poten­tial for opera­tio­nal value growth.

We take respon­si­bi­lity for our port­fo­lio. We support our port­fo­lio compa­nies in all opera­tio­nal, finan­cial and stra­te­gic issues with the aim of incre­asing their compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and profi­ta­bi­lity. In addi­tion to capi­tal for invest­ment and growth, we support the manage­ment of the acqui­red compa­nies with exten­sive entre­pre­neu­rial experience.

News

Hamburg, Germany —
Back­Mar­ket
, the world’s leading online plat­form for used and refur­bis­hed elec­tro­nic products, has raised €110 million in a Series C finan­cing round. Inves­tors are Gold­man Sachs, Aglaé Ventures (the venture arm of Groupe Arnault) and Eura­zeo Growth. Among other things, the French fair­tech startup intends to use the fresh capi­tal to conso­li­date its role in Germany and expand its inter­na­tio­nal market leader posi­tion in the DACH market as well. Previously, Back Market had successfully comple­ted two rounds of finan­cing tota­ling €48 million from Aglaé Ventures, Eura­zeo Growth and Daphni.

Expan­sion in the DACH market: Focus on Germany
Back Market laun­ched in France more than five years ago as the first online market­place to focus exclu­si­vely on used and rema­nu­fac­tu­red elec­tro­nics and elec­tri­cal appli­ances (“refur­bis­hed”). In the mean­time, the green tech pioneer is active with its inno­va­tive busi­ness model in seven other count­ries (Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, the United King­dom, Belgium and the United States). In the DACH market, Back Market has been opera­ting in Germany since 2016 and now also in Austria since the begin­ning of 2020. Plans are in place to open an office in Germany this year to acce­le­rate expan­sion here. Expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing Austria is also to be mana­ged from Germany. Invest­ments are incre­asingly being made in the areas of busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment, marke­ting and new talent.

“The finan­cing is a defi­ni­tive signal of matu­rity, not only for Back Market, but also for the rapidly growing refur­bis­hed indus­try,” commen­ted Thibaud Hug de Larauze, CEO and co-foun­der of Back Market. “We have crea­ted a global brand and estab­lished a name that is not only synony­mous with ‘refur­bis­hed,’ but also with ‘quality. The task now is to anchor this para­ble even more firmly in the DACH region. Germany is a key market for us: the German market is one of the most dyna­mic markets in terms of e‑commerce and at the same time shows a strong envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness among consumers.”

Back Market’s mission: reduce e‑waste and CO2 worldwide
“Inves­tors have reco­gni­zed the shift curr­ently taking place towards ‘ethi­cal consump­tion’ and Back Market’s unique posi­tion in the market,” Hug de Larauze conti­nues. “Our mission is to achieve a funda­men­tal shift in mind­set among consu­mers and coun­ter­act the trend of constantly buying new electronics.”

To that end, the fair-tech startup offers value for money, with discounts of 30 to 70 percent off the price of new, while crea­ting an easy-to-use means of comba­ting the unfol­ding “e‑waste” crisis. Globally, over 44 million tons of elec­tro­nic waste was produ­ced in 2016, with an annual growth rate of 3–4%. That number is expec­ted to grow to 52.2 million tons by next year.

Giving “refur­bis­hed” a good name: Back Market focu­ses on quality
Another large part of the invest­ment sum is to flow into quality control: With the help of the addi­tio­nal finan­cial resour­ces, Back Market intends to triple the team size in this segment. In addi­tion, the startup wants to improve its own algo­rithm with a machine lear­ning unit, intro­duce new services around logi­stics and repair, and expand its own exper­tise in terms of rema­nu­fac­tu­ring (procu­re­ment of equip­ment, spare parts, test proto­cols, R&D, etc.) for the bene­fit of its sellers.

Back Market alre­ady works with more than 1,000 certi­fied part­ner work­shops that inspect and refur­bish used equip­ment before it goes into resale. As a sign of confi­dence in quality control, Back Market in Germany and Austria equips all products with a 36-month warranty. This offers consu­mers a safe and attrac­tive alter­na­tive to buying new.

Alex­andre Flavier, Inves­tor Gold­man Sachs Growth: “Back Market is a prime exam­ple of our stra­tegy to support visio­nary entre­pre­neurs in deve­lo­ping alter­na­tive models for the world of tomor­row. We are very exci­ted to be working with Thibaud and his talen­ted team. They can play an important role in the circu­lar economy and be a mile­stone on the road to more sustainable growth. We look forward to provi­ding Back Market with the best possi­ble support during this phase and as they expand internationally.”

Antoine Loison, co-foun­der and gene­ral part­ner of Aglaé Ventures, said, “Aglaé Ventures is proud to be an early inves­tor in Back Market. We look forward to support­ing its foun­ders for the long term and contri­bu­ting to the deve­lo­p­ment of a gree­ner envi­ron­ment for buying and selling elec­tro­nic products.”

Yann du Rusquec, Mana­ging Direc­tor Eura­zeo Growth: “The current Corona crisis proves the incre­di­ble resi­li­ence of Back Market’s model. The combi­na­tion of good value for money, stable local supply chains and a strong sustaina­bi­lity mission enables the company to respond to consu­mer needs even in these chal­len­ging times. Need­less to say, Back Market is curr­ently performing extre­mely well.”

About Back Market­Foun­ded in France in 2014, the startup Back Market is the first online market­place focu­sed on brin­ging thou­sands of elec­tro­nics refur­bis­hed by certi­fied repair shops to consu­mers. Foun­ders Thibaud Hug de Larauze, Quen­tin Le Brous­ter and Vian­ney Vaute (photo Back­mar­ket © Julie Glass­berg) firmly believe that consu­mer wants and needs can be met by rema­nu­fac­tu­red appli­ances. As a driver of the circu­lar economy, Back Market wants to make a decisive contri­bu­tion to a funda­men­tal change in menta­lity and reduce e‑waste.

Curr­ently present in eight count­ries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United King­dom, Austria, Belgium and United States), the company now employs around 280 people in Paris, Bordeaux and New York.

About the Merchant Banking divi­sion of Gold­man Sachs
Foun­ded in 1869, Gold­man Sachs Group, Inc. is a global leader in invest­ment banking, secu­ri­ties and invest­ment manage­ment. The Gold­man Sachs Merchant Banking Divi­sion (MBD) is the primary center for the firm’s long-term prin­ci­pal invest­ment acti­vi­ties. MBD is one of the world’s leading private equity inves­tors, with invest­ments in private equity, growth equity, infra­struc­ture, private debt and real estate.

About Groupe Arnault
Groupe Arnault is the family holding company of Bernard Arnault, the main share­hol­der of the LVMH Group. Groupe Arnault has been inves­t­ing in compa­nies with a strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal focus for more than 20 years and has been instru­men­tal in helping them grow into some of the world’s leading compa­nies. Follo­wing its initial invest­ment through Aglaé Ventures, its early-stage invest­ment program, Groupe Arnault is incre­asing its invest­ment during this third round of financing.

About Eura­zeo
With a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately €16 billion in assets under manage­ment, inclu­ding €10 billion from third parties, Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment firm with offices in Paris, Luxem­bourg, New York, Shang­hai and Sao Paulo. Its mission is to iden­tify, acce­le­rate and improve the trans­for­ma­tion poten­tial of the compa­nies in which it invests. As a global long-term share­hol­der, the firm provi­des the compa­nies it serves with deep indus­try exper­tise, a gate­way to global markets, and a stable foot­hold for trans­for­ma­tio­nal growth.

About Daphni
Daphni is a Euro­pean VC firm inves­t­ing in user-centric start­ups with Euro­pean DNA and strong inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons. The company is supported by daphni­po­lis, a tight-knit commu­nity of more than 300 entre­pre­neurs, execu­ti­ves, acade­mics, artists and consul­tants, and a digi­tal plat­form to ensure both effi­ci­ency and full trans­pa­rency. The company was foun­ded in 2015 and is based in Paris, France.

News

Berlin/Tel Aviv — Zeit­gold, the intel­li­gent soft­ware plat­form for small busi­ness accoun­ting auto­ma­tion, raised €27 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new inves­tor Vintage Invest­ment Part­ners, a leading global venture firm. Exis­ting inves­tors Battery­Ven­tures, HV Holtz­brinck Ventures, Saban Ventures, and btov Part­ners, as well as insu­rance company AXA Germany (AXA Inno­va­tion Campus) and Deut­sche Bank, also parti­ci­pa­ted in the invest­ment round. The new round brings the total fund­rai­sing of the German-Israeli tech company (with offices in Berlin and Tel Aviv) to more than €50 million. Photo Zeit­gold: Foun­ders Stefan Jeschon­nek, Kobi Eldar, Dr. Jan Deepen.

Zeit­gold will invest the new capi­tal to further deve­lop its proprie­tary AI-powered soft­ware and conti­nue the strong growth of the busi­ness to ulti­m­ately become the leading accoun­ting auto­ma­tion plat­form in Europe. Today, more than 80% of all booking scena­rios are alre­ady auto­ma­ted by the arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence of the Zeit­gold soft­ware, which consis­t­ently surpas­ses human indus­try stan­dards for accuracy.

Using Zeit­gold, busi­ness owners can signi­fi­cantly reduce the amount of work requi­red to prepare their books and can ther­e­fore devote more resour­ces to their core busi­ness. Busi­ness owners simply scan receipts and invoices using the Zeit­gold app and the soft­ware auto­ma­ti­cally matches these docu­ments with bank account tran­sac­tions. All docu­ments and data is then auto­ma­ti­cally trans­fer­red to their tax advi­sor. The tax advi­sor also uses the Zeit­gold soft­ware to auto­mate the majo­rity of stan­dard bookings and increase effec­tive commu­ni­ca­tion thanks to paper­less proces­ses. As a result, tax advi­sors and their staff can focus on complex tran­sac­tions and compre­hen­sive consul­ting for their clients.

Since the previous funding round in early 2019, Zeit­gold has grown its busi­ness massi­vely on both sides of the plat­form. Zeitgold’s SMB user base has grown by more than 300 percent, and with the launch of its tax advi­sor soft­ware in late 2019 Zeit­gold has successfully respon­ded to the rising demand from tax advi­sors seeking seam­less book­kee­ping automation.

Stefan Jeschon­nek, co-foun­der and CEO of Zeit­gold, said, “We are thril­led to welcome Vintage as a new lead inves­tor in Zeit­gold. I’m proud of how much our tech­no­logy alre­ady simpli­fies the colla­bo­ra­tion between small busi­ness owners and tax advi­sors, allo­wing both parties to focus on what matters most to their busi­ness. Toge­ther with Vintage and our exis­ting inves­tors, we are now better posi­tio­ned than ever to estab­lish Zeit­gold as the stan­dard for book­kee­ping auto­ma­tion in Europe.”

Asaf Horesh, Gene­ral Part­ner at Vintage Invest­ment Part­ners, added, “Zeitgold’s cutting-edge tech­no­logy will radi­cally simplify the way milli­ons of small busi­ness owners and tax advi­sors work. We are deligh­ted to support Stefan, Jan, Kobi and their world-class team as they conti­nue to deve­lop their inno­va­tive tech­no­logy and to rapidly grow their business.”

About Zeit­gold
Zeit­gold is an intel­li­gent soft­ware plat­form for small busi­ness accoun­ting auto­ma­tion. Using Zeitgold’s AI-powered web and smart­phone apps, busi­ness owners prepare their book­kee­ping digi­tally and highly auto­ma­ted in a frac­tion of the time. Tax advi­sors receive fully digi­ti­zed docu­ments and accu­rate booking sugges­ti­ons for more than 80 percent of their clients’ tran­sac­tions, allo­wing them to fina­lize the books more effi­ci­ently. In addi­tion, tax advi­sors and their clients can colla­bo­rate digi­tally and effi­ci­ently using the Zeit­gold plat­form. Zeit­gold was foun­ded in 2015 by Stefan Jeschon­nek (MBA, Stan­ford), Jan Deepen (PhD, WHU) and Kobi Eldar (8200). Jeschon­nek and Deepen previously co-foun­ded fintech company SumUp. Eldar previously led a cyber­se­cu­rity unit in the Israeli Defense Forces and had leading roles in seve­ral Israeli tech compa­nies. Zeit­gold curr­ently employs 120 team members in Berlin and Tel Aviv.

About Vintage Invest­ment Partners
Vintage Invest­ment Part­ners is a global venture firm combi­ning fund-of-funds, secon­dary funds and co-invest, direct funds. With appro­xi­m­ately $2 billion under manage­ment across theUS, Europe and Israel, Vintage is inves­ted in seve­ral of the world’s leading venture funds with expo­sure to appro­xi­m­ately two thousand tech­no­logy compa­nies. Vintage uses its unmat­ched network to connect start­ups across the world to hundreds of corpo­ra­ti­ons seeking support in their digi­tal jour­neys, helping drive the ecosys­tem to maxi­mize its poten­tial. The Vintage part­ners are Alan Feld, Abe Finkel­stein, Amit Fren­kel, Asaf Horesh and Orly Glick along with 30 team members.

News

Hamburg, Walters­hau­sen — Daet­wy­ler has sold its civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness to repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the exis­ting manage­ment team. The manage­ment buy-out was supported by the Hamburg-based invest­ment company BPE, which has specia­li­zed in tran­sac­tions in the German SME sector for over 20 years (photo: BPE manage­ment team).

Daet­wy­ler Seal­ing Tech­no­lo­gies Deutsch­land GmbH, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted opera­ting real estate, is being sold. The company combi­nes the civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness with elas­to­mer profiles for appli­ca­ti­ons in tunnels, civil engi­nee­ring and track super­s­truc­tures at the German site in Walters­hau­sen. Around 180 employees gene­rate annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately CHF 40 million. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transactions.

Follo­wing the previously announ­ced sale of the Distrelec and Nedis distri­bu­tion compa­nies, the Daet­wy­ler Group will in future focus on high-growth, high-margin seal­ing compon­ents for attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas, food & beverage and gene­ral industry.

About Daet­wy­ler Holding Inc.
Datwy­ler is a leading provi­der of high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents. Datwy­ler is focu­sing on high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents and has leading posi­ti­ons in attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas and food & beverage. With its reco­gni­zed core compe­ten­cies and tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, the company deli­vers added value to custo­mers in the markets served. Datwy­ler concen­tra­tes on markets that offer oppor­tu­ni­ties to create more value and sustain profi­ta­ble growth. With a global presence with more than 20 opera­ting compa­nies, sales in over 100 count­ries and more than 7,000 employees Datwy­ler, head­quar­te­red in Switz­er­land, gene­ra­tes annual sales of more than CHF 1,000 million. The Group has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exch­ange since 1986 (secu­rity no. 3048677).

About BPE Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH
Philo­so­phy: “As a specia­list in manage­ment buy-outs/ins, we have been turning mana­gers into entre­pre­neurs since 1998 and streng­thening, crea­ting or safe­guar­ding the inde­pen­dence and inno­va­tive strength of German SMEs.” The company’s philo­so­phy is to provide more than just equity. The aim is to work towards opti­mi­zing the company after it has been taken over by support­ing its opera­tio­nal manage­ment. This may include an opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic realignment to be initia­ted by the manage­ment of the company, the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and realiza­tion of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial in order to sustain­ably increase the value of the company.

News

Berlin/Frankfurt — Gapless, the plat­form for things you love, has closed a seven-figure funding round. The block­chain start-up from Berlin around the foun­ding trio (photo) Jan Karnath (CEO), Malte Häus­ler (CFO) and Andreas Joeg­bes (CTO) has raised a total of 5.5 million euros from investors.

Lead inves­tor is FinLab EOS VC Fund — a joint venture between FinLab AG (ISIN: DE0001218063) and EOSIO block­chain deve­lo­per Block.one, global experts in block­chain tech­no­logy. In addi­tion to the fund, insu­rance entre­pre­neur Kers­ten Jodex­nis and his family office LA ROCA Capi­tal and Porsche AG, which has alre­ady inves­ted in Gapless since 2018, are also invol­ved in the financing.

The all-in-one app for the vehicle — and more Gapless is the all-in-one app for the vehicle — enab­ling users to create a complete and compre­hen­sive vehicle history and use vehicle-rela­ted third-party services. “With FinLab EOS VC Fund as well as EOS VC, the venture capi­tal arm of Block.One, we have found the part­ner of choice for the further deve­lo­p­ment of our young company,” says Gapless CEO Jan Karnath about the successful seed finan­cing. “We are now taking the next step toge­ther to become the ‘plat­form, for things you love’.”

Toge­ther with Malte Häus­ler and Andreas Joeb­ges, Karnath foun­ded the plat­form in 2018 with the aim of safe­guar­ding the value and emotio­nal signi­fi­cance of vehic­les for the future. Block­chain archi­tec­ture exten­sion Block.one is the deve­lo­per of the leading block­chain proto­col EOSIO, which was released in June 2018. EOSIO is widely regarded as the first powerful enter­prise block­chain plat­form and is curr­ently one of the most active block­chain soft­ware plat­forms in the world. Gapless intends to invest the newly raised capi­tal in the product, block­chain archi­tec­ture expan­sion and user growth of the platform.

“We are plea­sed to welcome Gapless as a new invest­ment in our port­fo­lio,” said Stefan Schütze, Mana­ging Direc­tor of FinLab EOS VC Fund. “Gapless shows how block­chain tech­no­logy can trans­form services from the ground up — always thin­king from the user’s perspec­tive. FinLab AG mana­ges the FinLab EOS VC Fund and is one of the largest fintech and block­chain inves­tors in Europe. Part­ner from the very begin­ning: Porsche Since the foun­ding of Gapless, the Stutt­gart-based sports car manu­fac­tu­rer Porsche has stood by the side of the Berlin-based block­chain start-up, which today employs 20 people. Since Septem­ber 2018, Gapless
ancho­red in the Zuffen­hau­sen ecosys­tem and was also part of Porsche’s “Next Visi­ons” inno­va­tion agenda at the Slush Confe­rence in Helsinki and the IAA in Frank­furt am Main.

In addi­tion, the global inno­va­tion plat­form STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play has included the young Berlin-based company in its current program. More than 50,000 regis­tered vehic­les Today, Gapless alre­ady mana­ges more than 50,00 vehic­les on the plat­form, with most of the users of the so-called digi­tal gara­ges coming from the USA, the UK and Germany. By the end of the year, block­chain specia­lists expect up to 100,000. www.gapless.app.

About Gapless
Gapless is the world’s first block­chain plat­form for vehicle owners. At www.gapless.app, users can manage their vehic­les online and create digi­tal, complete vehicle histo­ries or have them crea­ted by Gapless. All docu­ments, photos and infor­ma­tion belon­ging to the car are in one secure place and can be acces­sed online at any time, mana­ged or shared in the form of digi­tal expo­sés with veri­fied histo­ri­cal entries. This includes, among other things, infor­ma­tion on previous vehicle recalls, data on equip­ment features or even expenses.

About Block.one and EOS VC
Block.one’s EOS VC program helps deve­lo­pers and entre­pre­neurs launch commu­nity-based busi­nesses using EOSIO. It provi­des support in the form of venture capi­tal part­ner­ships prima­rily aimed at sustainable use of the EOSIO ecosys­tem by inves­t­ing in a concen­tra­ted and diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of block­chain-orien­ted compa­nies based on the EOSIO soft­ware. The EOS VC initia­tive aims to foster a global network of indi­vi­du­als from diffe­rent disci­pli­nes by holding events. As part of its mission and vision, EOS VC regu­larly colla­bo­ra­tes with the block­chain deve­lo­per commu­nity. More infor­ma­tion is available online at www.Block.one and at www.vc.eos.io.

About Porsche
The Dr. Ing. h.c.. F. Porsche AG, head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart-Zuffen­hau­sen, is one of the most profi­ta­ble auto­mo­bile manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the world. In 2019, Porsche deli­vered 280,800 vehic­les of the 911, 718 Boxs­ter, 718 Cayman, Cayenne, Macan, Panamera and Taycan models to custo­mers around the world. This was ten percent more than in the previous year. Porsche opera­tes plants in Stutt­gart and Leip­zig as well as a deve­lo­p­ment center in Weiss­ach. The sports car manu­fac­tu­rer employs 35,429 people. Porsche is commit­ted to inno­va­tion, and many of its tech­no­lo­gies have their orig­ins in motorsport.

About FinLab AG
Listed FinLab AG (WKN 121806 / ISIN DE0001218063) is one of the first and largest inves­tors in finan­cial services tech­no­lo­gies (“fintech”) and block­chain in Europe. To this end, FinLab’s focus is on provi­ding venture capi­tal to start-ups. FinLab aims to provide active and long-term support for its invest­ments. FinLab supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their respec­tive deve­lo­p­ment phases with its network and know-how. In addi­tion, FinLab acts as an asset mana­ger and mana­ges assets in the triple-digit million range.

News

Munich — Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), an invest­ment company advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the sara­cus consul­ting group. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion. Photo: Moritz Greve, foun­der of Maxburg Capi­tal Partners.

sara­cus consul­ting deve­lops custo­mi­zed on-premise and cloud-based solu­ti­ons in the areas of Data Manage­ment, Data Warehouse, Data Analy­tics & Data Science as well as Busi­ness Intel­li­gence. Current focus topics are the cloud migra­tion of analy­ti­cal and dispo­si­tive systems as well as the analy­sis of big data using AI-based methods such as self-lear­ning algo­rithms or neural networks. The company was foun­ded in 1991. Custo­mers include insu­rance compa­nies, finan­cial service provi­ders and public administration.

Maxburg is an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region, which invests with a flexi­ble mandate along the capi­tal struc­ture in priva­tely held as well as listed compa­nies. The Maxburg invest­ment compa­nies have capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling around EUR 600 million at their disposal.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg with the follo­wing Munich team: Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Lead, Tax Law), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax Law), Tobias Deschen­halm (Asso­ciate, Tax Law).

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners regu­larly advi­ses Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners on tax matters, most recently for exam­ple on the acqui­si­tion of majo­rity stakes in the tech­no­logy company STARFACE GmbH and GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH.

News

Paris/Munich — Stefan Kalten­ba­cher (56), photo, will head Bryan, Garnier and Co. ’s German-spea­king invest­ment banking acti­vi­ties in the life scien­ces sector (DACH region) from May 1, 2020. The new Mana­ging Direc­tor has exten­sive gene­ral manage­ment expe­ri­ence in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and medi­cal tech­no­logy indus­try as well as in private equity: Among other things, he was respon­si­ble for the Nort­hern and Central Euro­pean busi­ness of the medi­cal tech­no­logy company Care­Fu­sion (now part of Becton Dick­in­son), led the medi­cal device sector of John­son & John­son in Germany and Austria, and was a member of John­son & Johnson’s Stra­tegy Team Europe. Prior to that, he worked in Paris and London as direc­tor for the inter­na­tio­nal diagno­stics divi­sion of Bayer AG. Most recently, as Mana­ging Direc­tor of an owner-mana­ged, inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancy, he advi­sed a large number of growth compa­nies and estab­lished compa­nies in the German-spea­king region and was Senior Advi­sor to Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, Frank­furt, on its enga­ge­ments in the life scien­ces sector.

“Parti­cu­larly in the life scien­ces sector, indus­try expe­ri­ence is abso­lut­ely essen­tial and we are deligh­ted to have gained such an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try expert for our German team,” empha­si­zes Falk Müller-Veerse, who as Part­ner is respon­si­ble for Bryan, Garnier & Co.’s busi­ness in the DACH region.

The health­care indus­try is a central focus of the invest­ment bank for tech­no­logy compa­nies, which was foun­ded in Paris and London in 1996: Bryan, Garnier & Co. was invol­ved in the successful Nasdaq IPO of biotech company BionTech, accom­pa­nied medi­cal tech­no­logy company Medar­tis to the Swiss stock exch­ange, and orchestra­ted a number of private finan­cing rounds of life scien­ces start-ups with global inves­tors, among others.

About Bryan, Garnier & Co
Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with a presence in London, Paris, Munich, Stock­holm, Oslo, Reykja­vík, New York, Palo Alto and Shang­hai. As an inde­pen­dent full-service invest­ment bank, it offers compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the entire life cycle of its clients — from initial finan­cing rounds to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-up finan­cing. The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A advi­sory for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on the growth sectors of tech­no­logy, health­care, bran­ded and consu­mer goods, and busi­ness services. Bryan Garnier is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US.

News

Hamburg — BÖAG Börsen AG acqui­res the majo­rity of shares in ICF BANK AG from the company’s foun­ders. As part of the tran­sac­tion, BÖAG Börsen AG (photo: Hamburg Stock Exch­ange), the spon­so­ring company of the stock exch­an­ges in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg and Hano­ver, also secu­red an option on further shares. With the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity of shares, BÖAG Börsen AG streng­thens its posi­tion and sets the course for further joint inno­va­tive growth. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by boards and the rele­vant regu­la­tory authorities.

The current stra­te­gic part­ner­ship between BÖAG Börsen AG and ICF BANK AG is based on years of successful coope­ra­tion. Since 2017, ICF BANK AG has acted as a market maker in Quotrix, the elec­tro­nic trading system of the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange. Since the begin­ning of 2020, she has been respon­si­ble for trading in equi­ties, bonds, invest­ment funds as well as ETPs on the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange as an order book mana­ger. The posi­tio­ning in the “Capi­tal Markets” and “Brokerage Services” busi­ness areas opens up addi­tio­nal sources of growth and earnings along­side the origi­nal secu­ri­ties trading business.

BÖAG Börsen AG is the owner of the broker-supported stock exch­an­ges in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg and Hano­ver as well as the elec­tro­nic trading plat­forms Quotrix and LS Exch­ange. Toge­ther, the three exch­an­ges, inclu­ding their trading plat­forms, have more than 50,000 listings of secu­ri­ties (equi­ties, open-end funds/ETFs, bonds, parti­ci­pa­tion certi­fi­ca­tes and certificates/ETCs). Trading parti­ci­pants include dome­stic credit insti­tu­ti­ons and finan­cial services companies.

ICF BANK AG is a secu­ri­ties trading bank with around 65 employees head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt. With its IT subsi­dia­ries ICF SYSTEMS AG and Novis Soft­ware GmbH, it is one of the leading service and solu­tion provi­ders for all aspects of secu­ri­ties trading in Germany.

Advi­sors to BÖAG Börsen AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Michael Dröge, Dr. Jörg Schewe(both M&A/Corporate), both lead, Julia Cramer (Capi­tal Markets), Sven Johann­sen (Capi­tal Markets, Banking Super­vi­sion), all Hamburg

News

Munich - Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie (HSCie) exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Reifen Baier­la­cher KG on the sale to the Goodyear Group. The manage­ment team, inclu­ding mana­ging part­ner Manuel Baier­la­cher, will remain with the company and, toge­ther with the new inves­tor, will conti­nue to actively drive Reifen Baierlacher’s growth stra­tegy in the future. With this tran­sac­tion, Goodyear further expands its sales and distri­bu­tion struc­ture, adds value to its products and brands and streng­thens its presence in an important key market.

Reifen Baier­la­cher will conti­nue to operate with a high degree of inde­pen­dence and flexi­bi­lity, main­tai­ning its medium-sized custo­mer and employee focus while bene­fiting from the strong brand reco­gni­tion and struc­tures of a globally active tire manu­fac­tu­rer. “This tran­sac­tion repres­ents the combi­na­tion of one of Germany’s leading tire trading compa­nies with one of the world’s best-known tire brands. The combi­na­tion with Goodyear will enable Baier­la­cher to further roll out its successful busi­ness model and posi­tion itself even more stron­gly in a conso­li­da­ting market envi­ron­ment. We are plea­sed to have advi­sed the Baier­la­cher family in the sales process,” explains Sabine Moel­ler (photo), part­ner at HSCie.

HSCie advi­sed the sellers in all steps of the sales process. The mana­ging part­ner comm­ents: “We reali­zed from the very first minute that the decis­ion to choose HSCie as our M&A advi­sor was the right one. Throug­hout the entire consul­ting period, we recei­ved extre­mely compe­tent, friendly and goal-orien­ted support. The profes­sio­na­lism and compe­tence of our cont­act persons was impres­sive. We are glad to have chosen HSCie and thank the consul­tants involved.”

About Reifen Baierlacher
Reifen Baier­la­cher is a German tire whole­sale and retail company based in Weil­heim near Munich. Retail compri­ses the busi­ness with new repla­ce­ment tires and comple­men­tary services for end custo­mers in the Southern Germany region. Whole­sale compri­ses the Europe-wide busi­ness with repla­ce­ment tires. For more infor­ma­tion on Reifen Baier­la­cher, visit www.baierlacher.com.

About HSCie
Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie, is an inter­na­tio­nally active, inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firm based in Munich. In recent years, HSCie has comple­ted more than 160 tran­sac­tions in various indus­tries with a total volume of more than € 17 billion. HSCie is one of the leading consul­ting firms in Germany in the segment of medium-sized transactions.

News

Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien GmbH & Co. KG(THEE) is expan­ding its port­fo­lio with two exis­ting wind farms in Bran­den­burg and Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate and two solar farms in Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia. This increa­ses THEE ’s wind energy port­fo­lio by 13.6 MW to appro­xi­m­ately 282 MW. In 2018/2019, THEE had alre­ady acqui­red six solar parks, some of which are opera­ted by its subsi­diary THEE Solar GmbH & Co. KG. With the current acqui­si­tion of the two addi­tio­nal projects, THEE’s solar energy port­fo­lio increa­ses by 3.2 MWp to 14.2 MWp. The muni­ci­pal inves­tor thus curr­ently opera­tes a total of 27 wind farms and eight solar farms. Taylor Wessing ’s energy team, led by Hamburg-based part­ner Cars­ten Bartholl (pictu­red), provi­ded legal advice to THEE on the acqui­si­ti­ons, as it has seve­ral times in the past. These are not isola­ted cases: last year alone, the firm’s energy team advi­sed on rene­wa­ble energy projects with a scope of more than 2,500 MW at various stages of deve­lo­p­ment in Europe and overseas.

Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien GmbH & Co. KG (THEE), based in Hamburg, is a joint venture between seve­ral compa­nies in the Thüga Group. All compa­nies are mino­rity share­hol­ders in THEE. In prin­ci­ple, parti­ci­pa­tion in THEE is open to all compa­nies of the Thüga Group. THEE invests in rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion projects with a focus on Germany. The aim of THEE is to bundle know-how and capi­tal in order to expand its own energy produc­tion from rene­wa­ble sources in the coming years.

Legal advi­sors Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien: Taylor Wessing
Lead Part­ner Cars­ten Bartholl (Part­ner M&A/Corporate, Head of Energy), Hannes Tutt (Salary Part­ner, Commer­cial Real Estate, Hamburg), Dr. Markus Böhme, LL.M. (Salary Part­ner, Regu­la­tory Energy Law, Düssel­dorf), Lars Borchardt (Asso­ciate, Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning & Regu­la­tory); Chris­tian Kupfer (Asso­ciate, Corporate/Energy), Jasmin Schlee (Asso­ciate, Corporate/Energy), all Hamburg, unless other­wise stated.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Mark­grö­nin­gen — Kälte Eckert GmbH, a refri­ge­ra­tion equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer based in Mark­grö­nin­gen, Germany, has acqui­red Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH. The seller of the shares is the hitherto sole share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Frank Keil, who will conti­nue to manage the company opera­tio­nally. The aims of the part­ner­ship are to expand the service network and the quali­fied employee base and to bundle know-how. For the port­fo­lio company of VR Equi­typ­art­ner (photo: Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor), this is the second add-on acqui­si­tion within a few months: Only in Novem­ber 2019, the merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik laid the foun­da­tion for a successful plat­form strategy.

Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, advi­sed Kälte Eckert GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH.

Gart­ner, Keil & Co. Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH specia­li­zes in consul­ting and sales of indi­vi­dua­li­zed systems in the fields of refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy, cold storage tech­no­logy, cold and deep-freeze rooms as well as special plant engi­nee­ring. Foun­ded in 1990, the company is based in Neuluß­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, and employs 16 people.

Kälte Eckert GmbH has focu­sed on special plant engi­nee­ring for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with an empha­sis on indus­trial kitchens, indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning. In addi­tion, the company is the nati­on­wide tech­no­logy leader in the field of alter­na­tive ecolo­gi­cal coolants. Custo­mers include Daim­ler, UniCre­dit and LBBW. The company was foun­ded in 1966 and is now mana­ged by Michael Eckert and Holger Eckert, the sons of the company founder.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Herschlein’s team most recently advi­sed Kälte Eckert on its merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik GmbH in Novem­ber 2019.

Advi­sors to VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead, Corpo­rate), Stuttgart
Char­lotte Schmitt, LL.M. (Corpo­rate, M&A), Stuttgart

About VR Equitypartner
VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

News

Tett­nang — Euro­pean tech­no­logy inves­tor Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Avira Holding GmbH & Co KG and ALV GmbH & Co KG (“Avira”) for US $180 million. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the sellers and the Avira manage­ment in the course of the transaction.

Avira is a multi­na­tio­nal company for soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the field of cyber secu­rity and anti-virus programs with head­quar­ters in Tett­nang, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Avira serves both the OEM (origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer) and consu­mer end markets and protects over 500 million end devices world­wide. Foun­ded in 1986, the company focu­ses on anti-malware, threat intel­li­gence and IoT solu­ti­ons. Avira soft­ware protects against viru­ses and malware and provi­des users with secu­rity for online iden­tity as well as for finan­ces and other private data.

The buyer, Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners, focu­ses on inves­t­ing in mid-market tech­no­logy compa­nies with a focus on data, analy­tics, IT secu­rity and fintech/payments. The Avira acqui­si­tion is the seventh deal from the $400 million fourth tech­no­logy fund and the third acqui­si­tion of a soft­ware company in the DACH region in 18 months, noted Gilbert Kami­e­niecky (pictu­red), mana­ging direc­tor and head of Investcorp’s tech­no­logy private equity divi­sion.

Advi­sors to AVIRA: P+P provi­ded legal and tax advice with the follo­wing Munich team
Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax), Laura Grei­mel (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity), Annika Jung­in­ger (née Anders, Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity).

News

Colo­gne — Emma — The Sleep Company has sold shares to the Haniel Group. All exis­ting inves­tors sold their shares to Haniel as part of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion did not include a finan­cing round, as Emma is profi­ta­ble and growing on its own. The two foun­ders Manuel Müller (left: photo: Moritz Reich) and Dr. Dennis Schmoltzi will remain share­hol­ders in the company with 24.95 percent each and will conti­nue to drive the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion as well as the acqui­si­tion of further market shares of Emma toge­ther with Haniel as active co-CEOs. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the contrac­tual arran­ge­ments. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

With a team led by Dr. Oliver Bött­cher and Kris­tina Schnei­der from the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Emma — The Sleep Company (Bett­zeit GmbH) on the tran­sac­tion with Haniel.

Emma — The Sleep Company was foun­ded in 2013 and in just six years has grown from an online plat­form for mattres­ses and sleep systems to an inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting sleep tech provi­der that is one of Europe’s fastest growing compa­nies. The popu­lar direct-to-consu­mer brand Emma is available in 21 count­ries around the globe and has alre­ady estab­lished itself as the leading bed-in-a-box provi­der in the constantly growing market for sleep-rela­ted products in many Euro­pean count­ries. The rapid growth is reali­zed by a team that now consists of 350 people and is charac­te­ri­zed by product inno­va­tions, the rapid imple­men­ta­tion of ideas and indi­vi­dua­li­zed stra­te­gies for each market. Other factors in the company’s success include a high level of concen­tra­tion on tech­no­logy-supported proces­ses and a parti­cu­lar focus on rese­arch and the conti­nuous further deve­lo­p­ment of products.

Advi­sors to Emma — The Sleep Company (Bett­zeit GmbH): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher, Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M. (Photo)Laura Rilin­ger (all Corpo­rate), Markus Schmül­l­ing (Labor Law), all Cologne;
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (anti­trust law), Düsseldorf

News

Lands­hut / Frank­furt am Main / Munich — main incu­ba­tor, early-stage inves­tor of the Commerz­bank Group, and Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, are taking a seven-figure stake in Scom­pler Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH as part of a seed finan­cing round. The Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) solu­tion from the Munich-based company covers all stra­te­gic content manage­ment (SCOM) proces­ses and brings toge­ther all corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and marke­ting content on a clearly struc­tu­red plat­form. Scom­pler is inves­t­ing the funds from the finan­cing round in the further deve­lo­p­ment and expan­sion of the range of func­tions of its product.

In many compa­nies, the areas of marke­ting and commu­ni­ca­tion are beco­ming incre­asingly complex and exten­sive as a result of digi­ta­liza­tion. Content is usually not crea­ted uniformly and across disci­pli­nes, but is distri­bu­ted uncoor­di­na­ted and without a long-term stra­tegy. The lack of trans­pa­rency and coor­di­na­tion between depart­ments leads to dupli­ca­tion of effort and addi­tio­nal costs, which ulti­m­ately makes commu­ni­ca­tion compli­ca­ted and expen­sive. The hoped-for effect of the campaign fails to mate­ria­lize. Scom­pler aims to solve precis­ely this problem: With the help of the combi­na­tion of soft­ware solu­tion and stra­tegy consul­ting, content can be orga­ni­zed across chan­nels and projects as a struc­tu­red edito­rial and topic plan and subse­quently published.

With Scom­pler, complex marke­ting and commu­ni­ca­tion campaign compon­ents that were previously orga­ni­zed in a decen­tra­li­zed manner come toge­ther at a single hub, where they can be plan­ned and imple­men­ted across chan­nels by all parti­ci­pants via a common plat­form. While other tools often only work accor­ding to a coll­ec­tion and check­list prin­ci­ple, Scom­pler is the tool to centrally orga­nize content marke­ting and social media campaigns, mapping and stra­te­gi­cally coor­di­na­ting all invol­ved proces­ses. The intui­tive tool thus links the indi­vi­dual depart­ments of compa­nies in an inter­di­sci­pli­nary manner: commu­ni­ca­tion focal points such as public rela­ti­ons, search engine opti­miza­tion (SEO), online marke­ting or social media are control­led from one cock­pit, which ulti­m­ately conser­ves capa­ci­ties and resources.

Scom­pler has alre­ady won a large number of well-known custo­mers, inclu­ding ADAC, BASF, Commerz­bank, Deut­sche Bahn, Merck and Nestlé. Up to 300 users work there in paral­lel and across projects on theme plans and commu­ni­ca­tion campaigns. The start-up was foun­ded in 2018 by Mirko Lange and curr­ently employs 30 people. The funds from the finan­cing round will prima­rily be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the Scom­pler plat­form. Among other things, the inte­gra­tion of func­tions for media moni­to­ring and analy­sis of the company’s own content is plan­ned. In the long term, for exam­ple, natu­ral language proces­sing (compu­ter-aided content analy­sis) is to be used to iden­tify devia­ti­ons from defi­ned stra­te­gies at an early stage.

Mirko Lange, Foun­der and CEO of Scom­plersays: “Mana­ging commu­ni­ca­tion content across all chan­nels in a way that is appro­priate for the target group is a very complex task given the incre­asing hete­ro­gen­eity and digi­tiza­tion. This is exactly where we come in as a holi­stic soft­ware solu­tion. Unlike almost any other plat­form, Scom­pler is able to digi­tally map even complex commu­ni­ca­tion stra­te­gies and imple­ment them across chan­nels. Last year in parti­cu­lar, we were very successful with this. The new finan­cial resour­ces will be a great help to us in incor­po­ra­ting a whole range of new tech­no­lo­gies and functions.”

Roman Huber (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “In many compa­nies, commu­ni­ca­tion and marke­ting are at a turning point: The exter­nal presen­ta­tion must incre­asingly address the speci­fic needs of their target groups in order to stand out from the compe­ti­tion. That’s why we see considera­ble market poten­tial in Scom­pler: In the age of digi­ta­liza­tion, the young high-tech company is fully hitting the nerve of the times with its sophisti­ca­ted solu­tion. Inno­va­tive approa­ches in a high-growth area ther­e­fore make invest­ments in IT compa­nies like Scom­pler parti­cu­larly inte­res­t­ing for Bava­ria as a loca­tion of the future.”

“The produc­tion of rele­vant content is both a bott­len­eck and a success factor for custo­mer-centric commu­ni­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the ever-incre­asing number of distri­bu­tion chan­nels leads to incre­asing comple­xity and thus to a grea­ter need for solu­ti­ons to deal with this comple­xity. Mirko Lange and his team, through their deca­des of consul­ting work, know the many chal­lenges large compa­nies face in the over­ar­ching topic manage­ment in the commu­ni­ca­tion stra­tegy and have found the right answer with Scom­pler,” explain Moritz Schwarz and Sebas­tian Scheib, respon­si­ble invest­ment mana­gers at main incubator.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 385 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 310 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 275 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 7,500 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.
www.bayernkapital.de

About main incubator
main incu­ba­tor is the early-stage inves­tor and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group. It inves­ti­ga­tes future tech­no­lo­gies that are rele­vant to the economy and society, and promo­tes and deve­lops sustainable solu­ti­ons. He deve­lops proto­ty­pes based on future tech­no­lo­gies such as addi­tive prin­ting, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cross reality, Inter­net of Things, networks, robo­tics and quan­tum compu­ting, often in colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners from indus­try and rese­arch. In this way, it actively helps to shape future-proof products, solu­ti­ons and infra­struc­tures. Through stra­te­gic invest­ments in young tech-driven start­ups, the main incu­ba­tor supports inno­va­tions at an early stage and makes them acces­si­ble to Commerz­bank and its custo­mers. Further­more, the main incu­ba­tor promo­tes the tech ecosys­tem through active parti­ci­pa­tion in opinion-forming proces­ses and commit­tee work as well as through its own events, such as the monthly tech startup event series “Between the Towers”.

Main Incu­ba­tor GmbH, or main incu­ba­tor for short, is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank AG based in Frank­furt am Main. www.main-incubator.de

News

Zeven — REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed DMK Group on the sale of its subsi­diary sanot­act GmbH to the family office of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family through its invest­ment arm FLOTTE Holding.

sanot­act is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal specialty suppli­ers of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments, such as effer­ve­s­cent tablets with vitamins and mine­rals and lactase products, which are sold in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Germany, sanot­act is mainly repre­sen­ted in drugs­to­res and food retail­ers. With 190 employees, sanot­act produ­ces and distri­bu­tes not only dietary supple­ments but also func­tional confec­tion­ery, espe­ci­ally breath fres­he­ners and dextrose products. Many consu­mers are fami­liar with the colorful dextrose rolls of the “intact” brand from phar­macies; with a market share of 60 percent, sanot­act has been the market leader there for more than 30 years. Through focu­sed expan­sion of the product range and the deve­lo­p­ment of new, inter­na­tio­nal sales markets, the company has deve­lo­ped very successfully in recent years.

DMK Group wants to focus on its core compe­tence dairy products in the future and has ther­e­fore deci­ded to divest under the lead of REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance. FLOTTE Holding was able to prevail in a compe­ti­tive M&A bidding process against natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal stra­te­gic inte­res­ted parties, finan­cial inves­tors and other family offices. The manage­ment has inves­ted in the company toge­ther with FLOTTE and will conti­nue the successful growth strategy.

With sales of 5.6 billion euros and 7,700 employees, DMK Group is the largest dairy coope­ra­tive in Germany and one of the leading dairy compa­nies in Europe. The product port­fo­lio ranges from cheese, dairy products and ingre­di­ents to baby food, ice cream and whey products with brands such as MILRAM, Olden­bur­ger, Unie­kaas, Alete and Humana.

The acqui­rer FLOTTE Holding is the invest­ment arm of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family, which is in the process of buil­ding a direct invest­ment port­fo­lio focu­sed on sustainable companies.

About REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance
REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance specia­li­zes in advi­sing on the sale and acqui­si­tion of compa­nies (M&A), MBO/MBI and struc­tu­ring of finan­cing. As “M&A specia­list for medium-sized compa­nies” REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance offers perso­nal M&A consul­ting for owner- and family-mana­ged compa­nies with a turno­ver between EUR 10 million and EUR 100 million as well as their share­hol­ders and inves­tors. Foun­der Kai Sessing­haus (photo) has 25 years of expe­ri­ence in this segment and is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced M&A advi­sors for medium-sized tran­sac­tions in Germany.

News

Frank­furt — Baker McKen­zie advi­ses the French indus­trial gases group Air Liquide on the plan­ned sale of the Schülke Group to the Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT. In a bidding process for the sale of Schülke, EQT prevai­led as the bidder. The sale is subject to labor consul­ta­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. In addi­tion to EQT, inves­tors Ardian, PAI and Plati­num were also among the inte­res­ted parties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the tran­sac­tion volume.

Foun­ded in 1889 in Hamburg, Schülke & Mayr GmbH (today: Schülke) is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in the fields of hygiene infec­tion preven­tion(photo: products to prevent conta­mi­na­tion and infec­tion, among others). It supplies disin­fec­tants, anti­sep­tics, preser­va­ti­ves, bioci­des, medi­cal skin care products, deodo­rants and system clea­ners. Schülke employs more than 1,250 people world­wide, distri­bu­tes its products in more than 100 count­ries and, in addi­tion to Germany, also manu­fac­tures in France and Brazil. Schülke’s sales in 2019 were around 335 million euros.

Air Liquide is the global market leader in gases, tech­no­lo­gies and services for indus­try and health­care. With more than 50,000 employees in 80 count­ries, Air Liquide supplies oxygen, nitro­gen, hydro­gen and other gases to more than 2 million custo­mers and patients.

An inter­na­tio­nal team of Baker McKen­zie lawy­ers is advi­sing Air Liquide on the legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. The advice included the prepa­ra­tion and support of the bidding process and the draf­ting of contracts and nego­tia­ti­ons with seve­ral bidders as well as the carve-out of Schülke from the Air Liquide Group. — In 2019, Baker McKen­zie alre­ady advi­sed Schülke on the sale of its Tech­ni­cal Bioci­des divi­sion to Vink Chemicals.

Legal advi­sor Air Liquide: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Florian Kästle (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ulrich Weide­mann (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)

Advi­sors to EQT: Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Munich)
Dr. Wessel Heukamp (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Juliane Hilf (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Ramb (Berlin; both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Uta Itzen (Anti­trust Law; Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Josen­hans (Finance Law; Frank­furt), Dr. David Beutel (Tax), Dr. René Döring (Labor Law; Frank­furt), Juliane Ziebarth (Anti­trust Law; Düsseldorf).

Latham & Watkins: Domi­nic Newcomb (London), Thomas Weit­kamp (Munich), William Lam (London).

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