ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — The new year begins confi­dently for air up: The Munich-based startup air up recei­ves more than 2.3 million euros from its exis­ting inves­tors in an inte­rim finan­cing round. Exis­ting inves­tors are funding the scent bottle startup with another 2.3 million euros. The VC Oyster­Bay around Chris­toph Miller (photo) acts as lead inves­tor . Expe­ri­en­ced foun­der and ex-Free­le­tics CMO Chris­tian Hauth now on board as co-CEO.

Follo­wing the successful market launch in 2019, the funds from the new round will be used for product deve­lo­p­ment, marke­ting, company growth and regio­nal expan­sion. The venture capi­tal fund Oyster­Bay, which specia­li­zes in Food­Tech and is backed by the expe­ri­en­ced Hamburg-based beverage entre­pre­neur Chris­toph Miller, is acting as the lead inves­tor. He and other promi­nent inves­tors such as Ralf Dümmel and Frank Thelen alre­ady inves­ted in the drin­king system in mid-2018, which gives water a speci­fic taste only through scent.

“As big fans of air up, it was a plea­sure for Oyster­Bay to close this invest­ment as lead inves­tor. air up is a perfect combi­na­tion of sustaina­bi­lity, global IP, life­style as well as food and tech. The foun­ding team is highly moti­va­ted, commit­ted and profes­sio­nal!”, says Chris­toph Miller.

Expan­sion of manage­ment due to strong growth
The young company is on course for econo­mic success: the first produc­tion batch was sold out within a few weeks, and since August 2019 a total of more than 100,000 bott­les have been distri­bu­ted. As a result, the air up foun­ders plan to conti­nue to pursue their vision of a healthy and sustainable beverage revo­lu­tion and ensure product leader­ship in the scent-based drinks sector. The startup’s growth is also evident in terms of person­nel: since Febru­ary 2019, the team has grown from the five foun­ders to a total of 30 members now. In mana­ging the young team, air up has been supported since Janu­ary by siroop foun­der and ex-Free­le­tics CMO Chris­tian Hauth, who brings exten­sive manage­ment expe­ri­ence with fast-growing start­ups. As co-CEO, Hauth will take over the areas of stra­tegy, HR and orga­niza­tion from CEO Jannis Koppitz, who will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for finance, finan­cing and company development.

The 41-year-old Hauth has a great deal of expe­ri­ence in the manage­ment of young, rapidly expan­ding tech­no­logy compa­nies and special exper­tise in e‑commerce, online marke­ting and employee manage­ment. After foun­ding the Swiss online market­place siroop, which alre­ady reached a turno­ver of 60 million euros and a size of 180 employees after two years, he was Chief Marke­ting Offi­cer (CMO) at the well-known Munich-based fitness startup Free­le­tics for seve­ral years. “It feels a bit like start­ing up my own busi­ness, coming on board with air up at such an early stage. It provi­des fanta­stic oppor­tu­ni­ties to help shape the future of the team and the product. At the same time, having a team that is hungry and has an incre­di­ble power for change within them holds a lot of poten­tial. With air up, we want to achieve a small revo­lu­tion by giving people the oppor­tu­nity to improve their eating habits in a sustainable way.”

Expan­sion of brand aware­ness and further deve­lo­p­ment of the product portfolio
In addi­tion to Germany, air up will also focus on Austria and Switz­er­land from spring 2020. Here, air up was alre­ady available to order online, but few resour­ces have been used to increase brand aware­ness. The aim is to be available, as in Germany, in the company’s own web store, the leading market­places and in statio­nary retail outlets, thus visi­bly estab­li­shing the scent-based drinks segment. To date, the retro­na­sal hydra­tion system is unique in the world and has no compa­ra­ble products. In addi­tion to expan­ding marke­ting acti­vi­ties, the air up team also intends to use the new capi­tal to finance further product deve­lo­p­ments. In recent weeks, the raspberry-lemon and cherry flavors have alre­ady been laun­ched, for which there was parti­cu­lar market demand. As a result, Janu­ary 2020 was the highest reve­nue month to date in the startup’s e‑commerce chan­nels since the company’s foun­ding — doubling December’s online sales.

About air up
air up is the world’s first drin­king system that can flavor water just by adding scent. The foun­ders want to reduce the exces­sive consump­tion of sugar in the form of soft drinks and save plas­tic and CO2 at the same time. air up GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 and is head­quar­te­red in the heart of Munich. The star­ter sets and fragrance pods are available at www.air-up.com and at around 5,000 retail outlets, inclu­ding real, Edeka and Rewe.

The air up foun­ders spent three years deve­lo­ping their idea until, after more than 200 diffe­rent designs and further deve­lo­p­ments, the bottle was finally ready for market launch. The project origi­nally began with the product design studies of Lena Jüngst and Tim Jäger at the Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces in Schwä­bisch Gmünd. After Fabian Schlang, Jannis Koppitz and Simon Nüesch joined as addi­tio­nal foun­ders as students of the TU Munich, the office of the young company moved to the Munich Univer­sity. With the help of various start-up grants, they were able to win over well-known inves­tors, such as Ralf Dümmel and Frank Thelen, and thus start produc­tion of the first air up bottles.

About Oyster Bay
We mainly focus on later stage compa­nies in the plant-based, sustainable and/or func­tional food and beverage consu­mer goods space. We invest in Series A/B as well as in Secondary’s. Oyster Bay is commit­ted to invest in successful inno­va­tive food-tech, agri­cul­tu­ral-tech and food e‑commerce compa­nies which deli­ver finan­cial returns and measura­ble social and envi­ron­men­tal good. www.oyster-bay.vc

News

Munich — Reed Smith has advi­sed its long-time client Global Growth Capi­tal on a debt invest­ment in Lime­home Assets GmbH, a hospi­ta­lity startup that is leading the hotel indus­try into the new decade.

Global Growth Capital’s invest­ment is part of Limehome’s new €21 million funding round, with all exis­ting inves­tors, Lake­star, HV Holtz­brinck Ventures, and Picus Capi­tal, led by Lake­star, incre­asing their participation.

Lime­home Assets, based in Munich, rents apart­ments and furnis­hes them as apart­ments for short- and long-term rent. At the begin­ning of last year, 5 million euros alre­ady flowed into the startup, which was foun­ded in 2018 by Lars Stäbe and Josef Voll­mayr (photo from right to left: source Lime­home). The company auto­ma­tes all the tradi­tio­nal proces­ses of a hotel opera­tion via its proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form — from pricing, to booking, check-in, clea­ning, custo­mer service and invoi­cing — by combi­ning the design aspi­ra­ti­ons of a premium hotel with the effi­ci­ency of a consis­t­ently digi­tal opera­ting concept. Since laun­ching about 18 months ago, Lime­home has alre­ady opened more than 30 loca­ti­ons and contrac­ted another 35 proper­ties. This alone will make Lime­home the hotel concept with the second most loca­ti­ons in German-spea­king count­ries in 2020.

Global Growth Capi­tal orga­ni­zes custo­mi­zed, inno­va­tive debt capi­tal solu­ti­ons with ticket volu­mes between 5 and 50 million euros. The flexi­ble approach to struc­tu­ring and an effi­ci­ent decis­ion-making process enable tech­no­logy compa­nies and their entre­pre­neurs to achieve sustainable growth.

Advi­sor to Global Growth Capi­tal: Reed Smith
The legal team led by Florian Hirsch­mann (Private Equity/M&A) and Phil­ipp Johan­nes Berg­mann (Finan­cial Market) included Jane Grin­blat (Finan­cial Market), Tobias Schulz, Joshua Etspü­ler (both Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Etienne Richt­ham­mer and Frede­rik Laux (both Real Estate).

Advi­sor to Lime­home Assets GmbH: Hogan Lovells Inter­na­tio­nal LLP (Munich)

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I has doubled its subscrip­tion capi­tal to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 40 million after real­lo­ca­tion of the fund compared to the first closing. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the fund mana­ger, which is part of the S‑UBG Group, on all legal issues regar­ding fund struc­ture and distribution.

Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I is a venture capi­tal fund with an invest­ment focus on tech­no­logy compa­nies in the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach regi­ons. Origi­nally desi­gned for seed invest­ments, the Tech­Vi­sion Fund (form­erly Seed Fonds III Aachen & Mönchen­glad­bach) now aims to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies as well as a geogra­phi­cal expan­sion beyond the econo­mic region of Aachen, in addi­tion to early-stage investments.

The gene­ral part­ner led by the manage­ment team of the S‑UBG Group is FM Fonds-Manage­ment für die Region Aachen Betei­li­gungs GmbH. S‑UBG is a leading part­ner in provi­ding equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies as well as young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups. As an asso­cia­tion of regio­nal savings banks, S‑UBG can look back on more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in the field of equity capi­tal. With Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I, the fund manage­ment company mana­ges the third gene­ra­tion of its seed and early stage funds specia­li­zing in regio­nal companies.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the fund mana­ger compre­hen­si­vely on all contrac­tual, tax and regu­la­tory aspects of the fund struc­tu­ring as well as the distri­bu­tion with the follo­wing cross-loca­tion private funds team.
— Dr. Andreas Rodin, Photo (Part­ner, Private Funds/Tax Law, Frank­furt am Main)
— Jan Phil­ipp Neidel, LL.M. (UConn) (Senior Asso­ciate, Private Funds/Tax Law/Venture Capi­tal, Berlin), Dr. Simon Schachin­ger (Asso­ciate, Private Funds/Tax Law/Venture Capi­tal, Berlin)

News

Düsseldorf/Munich, Germany, Febru­ary 10, 2020 - ARQIS advi­sed Komori Corpo­ra­tion (Komori) on the acqui­si­tion of MBO Group (MBO), a Germany-based global company specia­li­zing in the manu­fac­ture and sale of post-press equip­ment. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory approval.

The acqui­si­tion of MBO will enable Komori to market the entire process chain from prin­ting to finis­hing as well as IoT-based cloud solu­ti­ons such as KP-Connect world­wide in the future. The acqui­si­tion is also expec­ted to faci­li­tate entry into post-press solu­ti­ons for commer­cial prin­ting — a new busi­ness area for the Komori Group.

The MBO Group, based in Germany, was foun­ded in 1965. It specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and sale of machi­nes and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for digi­tal and offset post­press and, with the Herzog+Heymann brand, for mailing, phar­maceu­ti­cal and special appli­ca­ti­ons. Produc­tion takes place at the sites in Oppen­wei­ler, Biele­feld (Herzog+Heymann) and Pera­fita near Porto in Portu­gal. In addi­tion to its own sales compa­nies in the USA, France and China, MBO main­ta­ins a world­wide network of sales and service part­ners. — Menold Bezler advi­sed the Binder family of entre­pre­neurs as share­hol­ders of the MBO Group on the sale of all shares to the Japa­nese Komori Group

Komori Corpo­ra­tion, foun­ded in 1923 and based in Japan, is a listed manu­fac­tu­rer of prin­ting pres­ses. The company manu­fac­tures web offset pres­ses, secu­rity pres­ses, sheet-fed offset pres­ses, pack­a­ging pres­ses, and print-rela­ted equipment.

ARQIS’ consul­ting services included legal due dili­gence support in a total of five juris­dic­tions, struc­tu­ral consul­ting, and contract draf­ting and nego­tia­tion. In this regard, ARQIS led an inter­na­tio­nal and multi­di­sci­pli­nary team consis­ting of Cuat­re­ca­sas (Portu­gal), Baker & Hostet­ler (USA), Gide (France) and FuJae (China), as well as RCAA (Anti­trust) and Held Jagut­tis (Public Law and Envi­ron­men­tal Law/Regulation).

Advi­sor Komori: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Dr. Shigeo Yama­guchi (photo), Dr. Meiko Dill­mann (both Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Dr. Deniz Günal (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Hendrik von Mellen­thin (Labor Law), Dr. Phil­ipp Maier (IP & Commer­cial); Asso­cia­tes: Thi Kieu Chinh Nguyen, Martin Wein­gärt­ner (both Labor Law), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate Law), Jenni­fer Sauder (Commer­cial), Fabian Schmidt (IP & Commer­cial); Legal Specia­list: Miho Kuram­ochi (Corporate/M&A).

Advi­sor to the Binder family of entre­pre­neurs as share­hol­ders of the MBO group: Menold Bezler
Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart): Rudolf Bezler (Part­ner), Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner, Lead, both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Jochen Bern­hard (Part­ner, Anti­trust), Nicole Brandt, Kers­tin Lauber (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Till Mahler (Part­ner, Commercial)
Winter­gerst Socie­tät für Unter­neh­mer-Bera­tung (Stutt­gart): Volker Winter­gerst, Jona­than Plap­pert, Chris­tian Kunz (M&A consultants)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 50 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law. www.arqis.com.

News

Stutt­gart — Globus SB-Waren­haus Holding GmbH & Co. KG and other compa­nies of the Globus Group St. Wendel has sold 19 tire centers to pitstop.de GmbH. The sale took the form of an asset deal. Menold Bezler advi­sed Globus SB-Waren­haus Holding on this tran­sac­tion. — The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

The family-owned Globus company based in St. Wendel opera­ted the tire centers on the premi­ses of the Globus SB depart­ment stores. As part of the take­over, this space will be leased to the buyer on a long-term basis and the tire centers will conti­nue to operate under the “pits­top” brand. The Essen-based company Pits­top, which is also family-run, is further expan­ding its network of around 330 auto­mo­tive service work­shops through this transaction.

In the past, Menold Bezler has frequently acted for Globus Fach­märkte, which also belongs to the Globus Group St. Wendel, in tran­sac­tions in the DIY sector. The mandate by Globus SB-Waren­haus Holding for a tran­sac­tion in the hyper­mar­ket sector, which has now taken place for the first time, builds on this successful cooperation.

Advi­sor Globus Group: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Dr. Jochen Stock­bur­ger (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Real Estate), Dr. Axel Klumpp (Part­ner, M&A), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Ralf-Diet­rich Ties­ler (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Stefan Meßmer (Part­ner), Daniel Klass (both Anti­trust Law)

Inhouse Legal: Maiko Zimmer (Head of Legal, Lead, M&A, Anti­trust), Alex­an­der Zipfel (Head of Legal, Real Estate), Dr. Swantje Wahlen (Head of Legal, Labor Law)

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, public compa­nies and non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Hamburg/ Miami — Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed listed global tourism group TUI AG (TUI) on one of the largest tran­sac­tions in the cruise business.

TUI is contri­bu­ting its luxury cruise busi­ness bund­led in Hapag-Lloyd Crui­ses to TUI Crui­ses, the Hamburg-based 50:50 joint venture between TUI and Miami-based Royal Carib­bean Crui­ses (Royal Carib­bean). The tran­sac­tion is valued at €1.2 billion (exclu­ding net debt). The tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and appr­ovals from the rele­vant regu­la­tory autho­ri­ties and is expec­ted to close in the summer of 2020.

With the sale, TUI and Royal Carib­bean have also agreed to further expand their part­ner­ship by using the proven joint venture struc­ture of TUI Crui­ses for the luxury and expe­di­tion cruise segment in the future. The part­ner­ship combi­nes Royal Caribbean’s ship­buil­ding, opera­tio­nal and digi­tal exper­tise with TUI’s strong brand and distri­bu­tion power.

Hapag-Lloyd Crui­ses is part of the TUI Group’s cruise busi­ness and the leading provi­der of luxury and expe­di­tion crui­ses in German-spea­king count­ries. Curr­ently, the fleet consists of two luxury ships in the five-star plus cate­gory and three expe­di­tion ships. As part of the tran­sac­tion, there are also plans to expand the luxury and expe­di­tion fleet in the coming years, as demand for luxury and expe­di­tion crui­ses is expec­ted to conti­nue to grow.

Advi­sors to TUI AG: Allen & Overy LLP
Part­ner Dr. Helge Schä­fer (photo ) and Coun­sel Dr. Jonas Witt­gens (both lead) as well as Asso­cia­tes Louisa Graub­ner and Dr. Moritz Merke­nich (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Part­ner Dr. Heike Weber and Asso­ciate Sven Bisch­off (both Tax, Frank­furt) as well as Part­ner Dr. Börries Ahrens and Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Ioan­nis Thanos (both Anti­trust, Hamburg). Part­ner Stephen Mathews (Corpo­rate, London) advi­sed on issues of British capi­tal markets law.

The tran­sac­tion was hand­led in-house at TUI by Marcus Beger and Mareike Acker­mann (both TUI Group Legal/M&A).

News

Hanover/ Frank­furt a. Main — HF Private Debt was advi­sed by Shear­man & Ster­ling on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Elec­tric Paper Evalua­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH (EPE), a leading specia­list in evalua­tion and audit soft­ware, by DRS Invest­ment.

Elec­tric Paper Evalua­ti­ons­sys­teme GmbH, based in Lüne­burg, Germany, is a leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for conduc­ting surveys that are auto­ma­ti­cally crea­ted, comple­ted and evaluated.

HF Debt GmbH, based in Hano­ver, Germany, is the exclu­sive advi­sor to the HF Private Debt Fund, SCSp, which specia­li­zes in provi­ding private debt finan­cing to middle-market compa­nies. With a clear focus on the DACH region, HF Debt invests in compa­nies with a history of seve­ral years in the case of growth finan­cing, succes­sion solu­ti­ons as well as buy-outs by private equity inves­tors. www.hf-debt.de.

Advi­sors HF Debt GmbH: Shear­man & Sterling
The team included part­ner Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger and asso­ciate Nils Holzg­refe (both Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — The law firm GOF Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed the tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners, Karls­ruhe on the stra­te­gic invest­ment in Enscape GmbH. The foun­ders Thomas Will­ber­ger and Moritz Luck as well as High-Tech Grün­der­fonds remain share­hol­ders in Enscape.

Enscape, based in Karls­ruhe, Germany, is a leading provi­der of real-time 3D rende­ring and visua­liza­tion products for the archi­tec­ture, engi­nee­ring and cons­truc­tion indus­tries. Compa­nies from over 80 count­ries and 85% of the inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned TOP 100 archi­tec­ture firms use Enscape software.

LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. GOF provi­ded legal support to LEA Part­ners in all phases of the tran­sac­tion process, inclu­ding finan­cing. Most recently, GOF advi­sed LEA Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Midoco Group in 2019.

Legal advi­sors LEA Part­ners: GOF Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk, Photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Software), Isabelle Vran­cken, Dr. Marcel Schmidt, Karl Ehren­berg, LL.M., Chris­to­pher Ghabel

Flick Gocke Schaum­burg, Munich
Chris­tian Schatz (Part­ner, Tax Law), Corina Hack­barth (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax Law)

Stau­dacher Annuß Labor Law, Munich
Ingo Sappa (Part­ner, Labor Law), Dr. Felix Half­meier (Asso­ciate, Labor Law)

Barnes & Thorn­burg LLP, Chicago
Timo Rehbock (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Marga­rita Escalante (Corporate/M&A)

Legal advi­sors to the sellers: PwC Legal (Nurem­berg, Munich, Düsseldorf)
Gerhard Wacker (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead Partner)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading commer­cial law firm based in Munich. The firm’s prac­tice areas are corpo­rate law, M&A, finance and liti­ga­tion with a focus on tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects.

News

Stutt­gart / Venlo — The Stutt­gart invest­ment company Finexx conti­nues to imple­ment the plat­form stra­tegy for the BioneXX Holding conti­nues: As part of a succes­sion plan, the Group, with the support of its majo­rity share­hol­der Finexx, has acqui­red the company Feel­good Shop based in Venlo, the Nether­lands, was acqui­red. Guido Gmei­ner remains Mana­ging Direc­tor at the e‑commerce plat­form specia­li­zing in natu­ral and orga­nic food supple­ments. The sellers of the wholly owned shares are private investors.

Feel­good Shop B.V. was the first online store (www.feelgood-shop.com) for natu­ral nutri­ents in the German-spea­king count­ries when it was foun­ded in 2003 and is now one of the leading suppli­ers of high-quality, certi­fied orga­nic food supple­ments and vital subs­tances there. The product range mainly compri­ses quality products on a natu­ral basis — inclu­ding vitamins, mine­rals, super­foods, vital subs­tance concen­tra­tes, anti-aging and diet products, as well as sports nutri­tion such as muscle-buil­ding products. With around 20 employees, Feel­good Shop is growing steadily.

“We are plea­sed to have contin­ued to successfully execute our buy-and-build stra­tegy in the nutri­tio­nal supple­ments space and to have been able to support BioneXX in this important acqui­si­tion,” said Finexx CEO Matthias Heining. “The market for health-conscious, orga­nic-orien­ted nutri­tion is booming, and the excel­lently posi­tio­ned Feel­good Shop will give BioneXX a new boost in growth, espe­ci­ally in online sales.” The invest­ment company Finexx, which supports medium-sized compa­nies in their growth with capi­tal, know-how and an exten­sive network, has built up a leading plat­form for certi­fied orga­nic and orga­nic food supple­ments in Europe under the umbrella of BioneXX Holding in recent years. The basis for this was the majo­rity share­hol­ding in the renow­ned GSE Vertrieb Biolo­gi­sche Nahrungs­er­gän­zungs- und Heil­mit­tel GmbH and natu­rity Vertriebs­ge­sell­schaft mbH at the end of 2018. In the mean­time, the former L’Oréal-LOGO­COS brand FITNE Health Care and JUVENTA Health­care also belong to the group.

The new part­ner­ship with Feel­good Shop is inten­ded to streng­then product deve­lo­p­ment in the BioneXX Group, bundle purcha­sing and logi­stics compe­ten­cies, and expand online sales capa­ci­ties. Total sales at BioneXX are expec­ted to be around 20 million euros in 2020. For Feel­good Shop, the focus is on lever­aging previously untap­ped sales poten­tial in addi­tio­nal Euro­pean markets, while meeting the steadily growing demand for health-main­tai­ning and health-promo­ting products with an even broa­der and bio-focu­sed product portfolio.

A CMS team led by lead part­ners Dr. Hendrik Hirsch and Dr. Heike Wagner provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the share­hol­ders of Feel­good Shop on the struc­tu­ring, nego­tia­tion and tax struc­tu­ring of the transaction.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is a consul­ting company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion plan­ning. Finexx invests long-term funds (equity capi­tal of between 5 and 50 million euros), mainly in the form of majo­rity share­hol­dings, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, inclu­ding insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

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

News

Zurich — Zurich-based startup 9T Labs is focu­sing on carbon 3D prin­ting and offers retro­fit kits for commer­ci­ally available 3D prin­ters to enable them to print from carbon. The company has now recei­ved finan­cing of 3.9 million euros. In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tor Wing­man Ventures, new inves­tors such as the Swiss VCs Inves­tiere and Tech­no­logy Fund also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. 9T Labs is also supported by the Euro­pean Space Agency Esa.

All-in-one solu­tion for carbon fiber 3D printing
A spin-off of ETH Zurich, Switz­er­land, 9T Labs was co-foun­ded by Ches­ter Houwink, Giovanni Cavo­lina and Martin Eichen­ho­fer in 2018. The company’s mission state­ment is to make “carbon fiber compo­site mate­ri­als as acces­si­ble as ordi­nary metal mate­ri­als” through 3D prin­ting. 9T Labs aims to achieve this goal by provi­ding an inte­gra­ted work­flow for produ­cing carbon fiber compo­site parts. Included in this work­flow is an all-in-one solu­tion of soft­ware, 3D prin­ting tech­no­logy, and post-proces­sing capabilities.

Curr­ently, in deve­lo­p­ment, 9T Labs’ tech­no­logy includes its Fibrify soft­ware, which allows users to moni­tor their 3D prin­ting acti­vity and opti­mize fiber place­ment accor­ding to the load case. The company is also deve­lo­ping its 3D prin­ter for carbon fiber compo­site produc­tion, known as the Red Series. It compri­ses two units: an FDM 3D prin­ter, equip­ped with a paten­ted prin­thead for conti­nuous carbon fiber produc­tion, and a system for post-proces­sing, named the Fusion Unit. With its 3D prin­ting tech­no­logy, 9T Labs claims that uses can produce carbon fiber parts with less than two percent void content, and up to sixty percent volu­metric carbon compo­site content.

9T Labs has also deve­lo­ped what is known as the Carbon­Kit. An add-on for FDM 3D prin­ters, the Carbon­Kit is made up of a carbon fiber PA12 spool, mate­rial box and prin­thead with dual extru­sion, provi­ding exis­ting machi­nes with carbon fiber 3D prin­ting capa­bi­li­ties. Thanks to its tech­no­logy, 3D Prin­ting Indus­try listed 9T Labs as one of the 3D prin­ting start­ups to watch at the MUST 3D Prin­ting event in 2018. In 2019, 9T Labs was also short­lis­ted for Startup of the Year at the 3D Prin­ting Indus­try Awards. (Source: https://3dprintingindustry.com)

News

Munich — Liberta Part­ners, a Munich-based multi-family holding company, is acqui­ring Ameropa, a subsi­diary of Deut­sche Bahn (DB). Liberta Part­ners invests speci­fi­cally in compa­nies with future poten­tial in German-spea­king count­ries and supports them in the further deve­lo­p­ment of their busi­ness models. ARQIS advi­sed Liberta Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Ameropa. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Ameropa, based in Bad Homburg near Frank­furt am Main, is a specia­list provi­der of short and rail adven­ture trips with 120 employees and around 500,000 custo­mers. The close coope­ra­tion between Ameropa and Deut­sche Bahn will conti­nue after the sale until further notice. Ameropa trips are offe­red in around 7,000 travel agen­cies and about 400 DB travel centers, as well as via the company’s own website and bahn.de.

“Ameropa conti­nues to stand for vaca­tion by rail. Many Ameropa custo­mers are rail custo­mers and we want even more to become so. We also pursued the claim of climate-friendly travel in our search for a suita­ble buyer and are very much looking forward to now conti­nuing the Ameropa success story with Liberta Part­ners,” says Dr. Michael Peter­son, CEO of DB Fernverkehr.

“Ameropa is a tradi­tio­nal company with strong part­ner­ships and inte­res­t­ing growth poten­tial,” said Nils von Wietz­low, part­ner at Liberta Part­ners. “Short city breaks and adven­ture trips are enjoy­ing high demand, and travel by rail is beco­ming incre­asingly popu­lar against the back­drop of the climate debate.”

Florian Korp (photo), part­ner at Liberta Part­ners, explai­ned, “We will help Ameropa realize its poten­tial, expand exis­ting part­ner­ships and deve­lop even more inno­va­tive offerings.”

“I’m looking forward to the new colla­bo­ra­tion with Liberta Part­ners and the remai­ning part­ner­ship with the rail­road,” says Kai de Graaff, who has led Ameropa as mana­ging direc­tor for seven years and will remain with the company in that capa­city, “toge­ther we’re taking Ameropa forward in a decisive way.”

Advi­sors to Liberta Part­ners: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A and Tax), Dr. Mirjam Boche (Corporate/M&A and W&I), Johan­nes Landry (Corporate/M&A), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Chris­tian Wege­ner (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Wolf­gang Bandur (Corporate/M&A)

About Ameropa
Ameropa-Reisen GmbH offers travel modu­les and package tours mainly for short city trips (2–4 days) by train in Germany and the DACH region. The offers consist mainly of hotel, travel and enter­tain­ment (musi­cals, concerts, sight­see­ing, etc.). Inter­na­tio­nal offers for luxury and special trains repre­sent another service segment. The company offers its products through part­ner­ships with other tour opera­tors and travel agen­cies (statio­nary and online) as well as through its own sales chan­nels (ameropa.de and its own call center). For more infor­ma­tion, visit: https://www.ameropa.de

About Liberta Partners
Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with a clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in corpo­rate spin-offs and succes­sion situa­tions. These are actively deve­lo­ped within the long-term “100% Core& Care” concept and bene­fit from the inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of profes­sio­nals from M&A, Opera­ti­ons and Legal. www.liberta-partners.com

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law. www.arqis.com.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Baker McKen­zie has advi­sed Berlin-based tech subscrip­tion service Grover on the closing of an asset-based finan­cing. An exis­ting debt finan­cing from Varen­gold Bank AG will be increased to €250 million. With the fresh capi­tal, the Circu­lar Economy company is ushe­ring in the next major phase of growth.

“With the successful closing of the finan­cing round, we were able to support our client in the imple­men­ta­tion of its growth stra­tegy and the further expan­sion of its product port­fo­lio,” commen­ted Dr. Patrick Mitt­mann, the lead part­ner at Baker McKen­zie on the transaction.

Varen­gold Bank AG is a German credit insti­tu­tion that was foun­ded in 1995 and since 2013 has had
has a full banking license. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Hamburg, the bank main­ta­ins bran­ches in
in London and Sofia. The core busi­ness areas are Market­place Banking and Tran­sac­tion Banking.
(Commer­cial Banking), the focus is on coope­ra­tion with Euro­pean fintechs, espe­ci­ally lending plat­forms. The port­fo­lio offe­red includes funding, debt and equity capi­tal markets products, fron­ting services of products requi­ring a banking license and inter­na­tio­nal payment services.

Grover (Grover.com) is one of the Euro­pean market leaders in consu­mer elec­tro­nics rental commerce. As a pioneer of the Access Economy, Grover offers its custo­mers access to the latest tech­no­logy in a flexi­ble, monthly subscrip­tion model. Both consu­mers and busi­nesses can choose from more than 2,000 tech products — from smart­phones and laptops to gaming, VR and smart home gadgets. They bene­fit from special flexi­bi­lity and full usage rights for a frac­tion of the purchase price. Grover’s service allows its users to keep, change, buy or return products depen­ding on their indi­vi­dual needs. Grover rents products in Germany via its own plat­form (Grover.com) and its broad online and offline part­ner network, which includes Europe’s leading elec­tro­nics retail group Media­Markt­Sa­turn as well as Gravis, Conrad and others.

Baker McKenzie’s Banking & Finance team provi­des ongo­ing support for a large number of German and inter­na­tio­nal loan finan­cings. Regu­lar clients include ING Bank, DZ Bank, LBBW, Commerz­bank, MUFG, UBS, BNPP, DEKA, SCB, RBS and Berlin Hyp.

Legal advi­sor Grover: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Banking & Finance: Dr. Patrick Mitt­mann (Part­ner, Frankfurt)
Other lawy­ers invol­ved: Banking & Finance: Kath­rin Marchant (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Robert Wippel (Coun­sel, Vienna)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients at the offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Bochum — Grün­der­fonds Ruhr, NRW.BANK and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) invest a seven-figure sum in VISUS Indus­try IT. With its JiveX NDT test data and report manage­ment system, the start-up from Bochum digi­ti­zes indus­trial test proces­ses end-to-end; results can be archi­ved in a stan­dar­di­zed manner.

In quality assu­rance, mate­ri­als test­ing, inspec­tion and main­ten­ance of safety-rele­vant compon­ents or systems, digi­tal work is still not used throug­hout. In many cases, test results are only available on paper or, in the field of radio­gra­phy, on analog X‑ray film. This important data about the inter­nal condi­tion of compon­ents or systems is ther­e­fore not available to further (digi­tal) systems.

This is exactly where VISUS Indus­try IT comes in with JiveX NDT and closes exis­ting gaps between inspec­tion plan­ning systems of quality assu­rance, main­ten­ance and inspec­tion. Images, test reports and test docu­ments are stored in JiveX NDT in an audit-proof, but above all stan­dar­di­zed DICONDE format. The struc­tu­red data pool in JiveX is thus a quali­fied basis for teaching arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence systems.

In a pilot project, JiveX NDT successfully trai­ned an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to evaluate welds. The cumu­la­tive detec­tion rate of multi­ple error types was over 90%. With the JiveX NDT system, VISUS Indus­try IT wants to support inspec­tors and testers in the daily evalua­tion of test results, inte­grate IT systems and test equip­ment, and be the audit-proof archive and data pool for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence systems.

About VISUS Indus­try IT GmbH
VISUS Indus­try IT GmbH is a spin-off of VISUS Health IT GmbH from the health­care sector. After evalua­ting the indus­trial market, VISUS Indus­try IT was foun­ded in Janu­ary 2018 and took over the soft­ware licen­ses for the JiveX system estab­lished in medi­cine from the parent company for use in indus­try. After successful adapt­a­ti­ons and exten­si­ons of the soft­ware, VISUS Indus­try IT has a product ready for sale. The inves­tors’ money will be used to invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of JiveX NDT and, in parti­cu­lar, in sales and marke­ting. Custo­mers from the energy, oil & gas, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and test­ing services sectors have alre­ady been acqui­red. More custo­mers, inclu­ding in the chemi­cal, auto­mo­tive and aero­space sectors, are expec­ted to follow in 2020.

About the Grün­der­fonds Ruhr
The Grün­der­fonds was initia­ted jointly by Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK and is the first private-sector early-stage fund in the Ruhr region finan­ced by regio­nal indus­trial and finan­cial compa­nies. The fund invests in inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from the life science & health, digi­tal economy, chemi­cals & new mate­ri­als, energy & indus­try, and logi­stics & trade sectors. Prere­qui­si­tes are good growth and exit pros­pects as well as compe­tent manage­ment. As a multi-corpo­rate early-stage fund, it also opens up key indus­try access points for the respec­tive port­fo­lio companies.

About NRW.BANK
NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. In its three promo­tion fields “Economy”, “Housing” and “Infrastructure/Municipalities”, NRW.BANK uses a broad range of promo­tion instru­ments: from low-inte­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works toge­ther with all banks and savings banks in NRW on a compe­ti­tion-neutral basis. In its promo­tion acti­vi­ties, NRW.BANK also takes into account exis­ting offers from the fede­ral govern­ment, the state and the Euro­pean Union.

About High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF)
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of EUR 895.5 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 560 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also 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 busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

News

Frank­furt, a. Main — Baker McKen­zie advi­sed AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA on the sale of its subsi­diary GHOTEL hotel & living to Colo­gne-based Art-Invest Real Estate Group. The purchase price was 63 million euros inclu­ding trai­ling compon­ents. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still plan­ned for the first quar­ter of 2020.

The GHOTEL Group has been part of the AURELIUS Group port­fo­lio since 2006 and during this time has deve­lo­ped into a rapidly growing, dyna­mic opera­tor of busi­ness hotels with curr­ently 17 loca­ti­ons and a further seven plan­ned openings by 2023.

Baker McKen­zie advi­sed compre­hen­si­vely on all legal aspects of the sale in the context of an auction process.

AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties has many years of invest­ment and manage­ment expe­ri­ence in various indus­tries and sectors. When acqui­ring its Group compa­nies, it concen­tra­tes on iden­ti­fy­ing, analy­zing, buil­ding up and exploi­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties available on the market. By deploy­ing manage­ment capa­ci­ties and the neces­sary finan­cial resour­ces for invest­ments, the AURELIUS Group conti­nues to deve­lop its subsi­dia­ries. AURELIUS opera­tes world­wide. The shares of AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA are traded on all German stock exch­an­ges (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8, stock exch­ange symbol: AR4).

Art-Invest Real Estate is a long-term orien­ted inves­tor, asset mana­ger and project deve­lo­per of real estate in good loca­ti­ons with value crea­tion poten­tial. The focus is on metro­po­li­tan regi­ons in Germany, Austria and the UK. Art-Invest Real Estate pursues a “manage to core” invest­ment stra­tegy with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, selec­ted joint venture part­ners, and its own capi­tal. Invest­ments span the full spec­trum of returns and risks in office, down­town retail, hotel, resi­den­tial and data center sectors.

Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A team regu­larly advi­ses on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions and restruc­tu­rings. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed, for exam­ple, Bayer on the sale of its Currenta shares to Macqua­rie Infra­struc­ture and Real Assets, METRO on the sale of its retail busi­ness in China, Ever­g­rande Health on a joint venture with hofer power­train, SPIE on the acqui­si­tion of OSMO, Toppan Prin­ting Co. Ltd. on the acqui­si­tion of the German Inter­print Group and Evonik on the sale of its methacry­la­tes group to Advent International.

Legal advi­sor to AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Heiko Gotsche, Photo (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)
Other lawy­ers invol­ved: Corporate/M&A: Julia Braun (Coun­sel, Munich), Dr. Katja Heuter­kes (Coun­sel, Munich), Dr. Daniel Bork (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Cosima König-Mancini (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Julia Rossié (Asso­ciate, Munich)
IP: Andreas Jauch (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IT: Dr. Holger Lutz (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Simone Bach (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Banking & Finance: Dr. Oliver Socher (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Silke Fritz (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Tax: Sonja Klein (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ariane Schaaf (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)
Employ­ment: Dr. Anna Böhm (Coun­sel), Agnes Herwig (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Dr. Felix Diehl (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Corne­lius Zieg­ler (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Commer­cial: Katha­rina Spen­ner (Part­ner, Munich), Brigitte Estner (Asso­ciate, Munich), Rebecca Romig (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Public Law: Dr. Marc Gabriel (Part­ner, Berlin), Dr. Janet Butler (Coun­sel, Berlin), Dr. Claire Dietz-Polte (Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin), Vivien Vacha (Asso­ciate, Berlin)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients at the offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Nurem­berg, Germany — Shear­man & Ster­ling advi­sed SCHEMA Group, a port­fo­lio company of IK Invest­ment Part­ners, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Docware GmbH. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of TID Infor­ma­tik in April 2019, SCHEMA’s port­fo­lio will thus be expan­ded once again to include a manu­fac­tu­rer of a service infor­ma­tion system.

Docware GmbH, based in Fürth, Germany, is a specia­list in the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for after-sales service and spare parts manage­ment. With its stan­dard PARTS-PUBLISHER soft­ware, a modu­lar spare parts cata­log soft­ware, Docware holds a leading posi­tion in the market for elec­tro­nic parts cata­logs and digi­tal service infor­ma­tion systems.

SCHEMA GmbH was foun­ded in 1995 and is a medium-sized soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer from Nurem­berg. It deve­lops compo­nent content manage­ment and content deli­very solu­ti­ons for edito­rial teams that create product-rela­ted content. Soft­ware from SCHEMA GmbH supports compa­nies in describ­ing complex products and produ­cing and distri­bu­ting these descrip­ti­ons on various media.

Advi­sor SCHEMA Group: Shear­man Sterling
The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ners Winfried M. Carli and Andreas Breu (both Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling is repre­sen­ted at the Frank­furt office. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses Munich-based Alpha­Pet Ventures on both the acqui­si­tion of Healthfood24 and the rela­ted equity finan­cing (Series E). BMH Bräu­ti­gam advi­ses capi­ton on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Alpha­Pet Ventures as part of the finan­cing round. In addi­tion to the new lead inves­tor capi­ton, Muzi­nich & Co. supports the acqui­si­tion of Healthfood24 with acqui­si­tion financing.

Alpha­Pet Ventures GmbH stands for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the pet market and the multi-chan­nel distri­bu­tion of premium pet food. Heathfood24 sets among other things with its in the premium dog food segment leading brand Wolfs­blut the dog food offers of the large, conven­tio­nal dog food manu­fac­tu­r­ers a species-appro­priate premium dog food against. Alpha­Pet Ventures and Healthfood24 have a long-stan­ding and successful busi­ness rela­ti­onship. With this acqui­si­tion, Alpha­Pet Ventures will consis­t­ently expand its posi­tion as a leading premium provi­der with multi-chan­nel distri­bu­tion. The company is posi­tio­ning itself as a strong player in the market with sales of almost three-digit milli­ons. This market posi­tion will also be further streng­the­ned at Euro­pean level through the acqui­si­tion of Healthfood24, ther­eby further estab­li­shing healthy pet food in the mainstream.

The private equity inves­tor capi­ton accom­pa­nies medium-sized compa­nies in the imple­men­ta­tion of their growth targets — as does Alpha­Pet Ventures. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, capi­ton and its fund capi­ton V will acquire 36% of the shares in Alpha­Pet Ventures, ther­eby finan­cing the acqui­si­tion. In addi­tion to capi­ton, Reimann Inves­tors and Venture Stars, among others, hold major stakes in Alpha­Pet Ventures.

The acqui­si­tion and the purchase of shares by capi­ton are still subject to appr­oval by foreign anti­trust authorities.

Advi­sors Alpha­Pet Ventures: LUTZ | ABEL
The advi­sory team around Dr. Marco Eick­mann and Phil­ipp Hoene (both M&A/VC, Munich) consists of Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (M&A/VC, Munich), Frank Hahn (M&A/VC, Hamburg), Dr. Marius Mann (Commer­cial, Stutt­gart), Dr. André Schmidt (IP/IT, Hamburg), Clau­dia Knuth (Labor Law, Hamburg), and Sebas­tian Schrei­ber (Real Estate, Hamburg).

Further legal advi­sors to Alpha­Pet Ventures: Luther, Chris­toph Schau­en­burg (Finance, Frank­furt a.M.) BRP Renaud und Part­ner, Dr. Martin Beutel­mann (Anti­trust, Stuttgart)

BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­ses the lead inves­tor capi­ton on the invest­ment and acqui­si­tion. The advi­sory team consists of Dr. Patrick Auer­bach-Hohl, Dr. Matthias Rüping, Katha­rina Erbe, Janina Erich­sen, Raoul Moritz Nissen, Dr. Julian Schroe­der (all Venture Capi­tal), Dr. Andrea Reichert-Clauß, Dr. Manuel Holz­mann, Tina Schmidt, Dr. Sylko Wink­ler (all Private Equity ǀ Corporate/M&A).

Other advi­sors to capi­ton: CODEX Part­ners and MTA Part­ners (Commer­cial, Tech­no­logy), KPMG (Finan­cial), EY (Tax and Struc­tu­ring), AvS (Manage­ment Audit), Tauw (ESG), Ferber & Co. (Deal Advisory)

About LUTZ | ABEL
With almost 70 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.lutzabel.com.

News

Munich — In a Series C finan­cing round, Munich-based startup Perso­nio raised $75 million. This brings the total invest­ment volume of the company, which was only foun­ded in 2015, to $130 million. Since the new invest­ment, the company has been valued at a total of $500 million — half­way to beco­ming a unicorn.

The finan­cing round was announ­ced back in Decem­ber, and has now been comple­ted. Leading this Series C round is Accel, an inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor with roots in Sili­con Valley. Accel has alre­ady inves­ted in compa­nies such as Slack and Face­book and helped strea­ming service Spotify go public.

In addi­tion to Accel, Lightspeed Venture Part­ners and Lars Dalgaard are also joining the HR soft­ware provi­der. Dalgaard is the foun­der and CEO of Success­fac­tors. He sold his cloud-based HR soft­ware to SAP in 2011 for $3.4 billion, but he is going private with Perso­nio. The Munich-based startup’s previous backers, Index Ventures, North­zone, Global Foun­ders Capi­tal and Pius Capi­tal, also parti­ci­pa­ted again in the funding round.

Demand from the inves­tor side was high
Actually, a new finan­cing round had been plan­ned for a much later date, Hanno Renner (photo), CEO and co-foun­der of Perso­nio, announ­ced. The invest­ment was only made because of the high demand from inves­tors. Howe­ver, he is very plea­sed to know that the finan­cing round has brought other such expe­ri­en­ced part­ners to the startup’s side.

The invest­ment is prima­rily inten­ded to further the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion of the soft­ware provi­der. Curr­ently, Perso­nio has nearly 2,000 custo­mers in over 40 count­ries, accor­ding to the company. The company plans to have 700 employees at three sites by 2020.

News

Munich — YIELCO Invest­ments AG, a specia­list inves­tor in alter­na­tive invest­ments, has successfully further expan­ded its infra­struc­ture equity fund of funds stra­tegy and announ­ces the successful final subscrip­tion closing of the multi-mana­ger program YIELCO Infra­struk­tur II as well as the launch of two infra­struc­ture manda­tes tota­ling almost EUR 600 million. In addi­tion, YIELCO streng­thens its acti­vi­ties in Switz­er­land by opening a loca­tion in Pfäf­fi­kon (SZ) and gains another private markets expert for its Advi­sory Board.

YIELCO Invest­ments AG, a finan­cial services provi­der specia­li­zing in invest­ment solu­ti­ons (multi-mana­ger programs) in the infra­struc­ture, private debt and private equity sectors, announ­ced on Decem­ber 19, 2019 the final closing of its infra­struc­ture multi-mana­ger program “YIELCO Infra­struc­ture II” at approx. EUR 310 million was carried out. In addi­tion, two large insti­tu­tio­nal infra­struc­ture manda­tes of EUR 280 million were recently won, brin­ging YIELCO’s total new funds successfully raised for its infra­struc­ture stra­tegy to almost EUR 600 million.

For the follow-up program to the very successful first program concluded in Decem­ber 2016, the
infra­struc­ture fund of funds, a broad group of German and Swiss insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors was once again won over. With ten fund subscrip­ti­ons amoun­ting to approx. EUR 270 million, YIELCO Infra­struc­ture II is alre­ady in the final third of its commit­ment cycle. The fund of funds, which focu­ses prima­rily on Europe and the USA, will have a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of approx. 12 fund holdings in mana­gers (some with rest­ric­ted access) and thus build up more than 150 under­ly­ing infra­struc­ture invest­ments. Invest­ments are broadly diver­si­fied globally across diffe­rent sectors, stra­te­gies and multi­ple commit­ment years. The invest­ment focus here is on brown­field and core+, with a prono­un­ced focus on small-mid market tran­sac­tions. The launch of the follow-up program YIELCO Infra­struc­ture III is plan­ned for the summer of 2020.

Uwe Fleisch­hauer, foun­ding part­ner and board member of YIELCO Invest­ments AG, comm­ents: “Both gene­ra­ti­ons of the YIELCO infra­struc­ture programs show a very plea­sing return deve­lo­p­ment that exceeds the origi­nal plans. Thanks to its many years of expe­ri­ence and broad rela­ti­onship networks, YIELCO has once again succee­ded in buil­ding up a port­fo­lio of high-quality fund mana­gers — despite incre­asing compe­ti­tion and access rest­ric­tions. YIELCO’s focus is on expe­ri­en­ced fund mana­gers who proac­tively imple­ment value enhance­ment measu­res at their port­fo­lio compa­nies, buy below market average and aim for mode­rate leverage. We thank our inves­tors for the trust they have placed in us and look forward to a long-term and successful partnership.”

In addi­tion, YIELCO announ­ces the geogra­phi­cal expan­sion of its acti­vi­ties into Switz­er­land. As of Janu­ary 20, 2020, YIELCO has opened an office in Pfäf­fi­kon (SZ) under the manage­ment of Mr. Marc Schulz. Marc Schulz joins YIELCO as a new member of the manage­ment team and was previously branch mana­ger of a Swiss univer­sal bank. Prior to that, he spent more than 10 years at the leading univer­sal bank in the Canton of Zurich, where he held a manage­ment posi­tion in the private client busi­ness. Dr. Peter Laib, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of YIELCO Invest­ments AG comm­ents: “We are plea­sed to now be able to support our Swiss inves­tors directly with a local team in the imple­men­ta­tion of their alter­na­tive invest­ment stra­te­gies. With Marc Schulz we streng­then oursel­ves with an expert with proven local finan­cial market expe­ri­ence of over 20 years.”

In addi­tion, the addi­tion of Ms. Tanja Gharavi to the YIELCO Indus­try Advi­sory Board was another high-profile addi­tion. Ms. Gharavi was most recently respon­si­ble for invest­ments at Hambur­ger Pensi­ons­ver­wal­tung (HPV) until 2019. Here, it deve­lo­ped and imple­men­ted an inno­va­tive invest­ment stra­tegy with a high propor­tion of private market invest­ments as early as 2001. Previously, Ms. Gharavi was respon­si­ble for mana­ging assets at C.H. Donner Bank, Metz­ler Invest and Beren­berg. Dr. Peter Laib, Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of YIELCO Invest­ments AG, comm­ents: “With Ms. Gharavi we are gaining another expert with many years of expe­ri­ence in the field of capi­tal invest­ments and the private markets for the inter­na­tio­nal YIELCO Indus­try Advi­sory Board. The inten­sive exch­ange with the
members of the Advi­sory Board allows us to add addi­tio­nal value e.g. gene­rate in evalua­ting econo­mic condi­ti­ons and invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for our investors.”

About YIELCO Invest­ments AG
YIELCO is an inde­pen­dent, global, specia­li­zed inves­tor and service provi­der in the field of alter­na­tive invest­ments. As of Q1 2020, the company mana­ges over EUR 3.8 billion in capi­tal commit­ments from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family offices for the infra­struc­ture, private debt and private equity segments. In the infra­struc­ture sector, YIELCO mana­ges around EUR 1.5 billion in inves­tor funds, mostly for invest­ments in the USA and Europe.

News

Frank­furt a. M., Munich — Bright Capi­tal supports the further growth of the family-run SieVa­Tek GmbH, the specia­list for online hire-purchase portals, with a long-term loan. In addi­tion, Bright Capi­tal toge­ther with HF Debt provi­ded unitran­che finan­cing for Family Trust Beteiligungsholding’s invest­ment in Dietsch Pols­ter­mö­bel and for DPK Deut­sche Privat­ka­pi­tal ’s invest­ment in GCM Gastro Concept Manage­ment GmbH and Wurst­teu­fel GmbH. All invest­ments were made from the 2nd Vintage Fund laun­ched in summer 2019. — The foun­der of Bright Capi­tal is Matthias Matthieu, who is respon­si­ble for deal gene­ra­tion and struc­tu­ring, port­fo­lio manage­ment and inves­tor rela­ti­ons. He is also a member of the Invest­ment Committee.

The owner-mana­ged SieVa­Tek GmbH, based in Wetz­lar, Germany, was foun­ded in 1986. SieVa­Tek offers a secure online-based payment model with the aim of provi­ding a bank-inde­pen­dent finan­cing plat­form for end custo­mers and opera­tes, among other things, the online portal Rent2BuyMusic.de. Rent2BuyMusic is the No. 1 install­ment plan portal with the most ongo­ing contracts in the music and event equip­ment sector. As the company conti­nues to grow and expand its online store offe­rings, Bright Capi­tal (Vintage 2) has provi­ded long-term financing.

The Dietsch Group, head­quar­te­red in Schmal­kal­den, Thurin­gia, is a fully inte­gra­ted uphols­te­red furni­ture manu­fac­tu­rer with around 200 employees cove­ring the entire value chain from design to frame cons­truc­tion to uphols­tery in one of Europe’s most modern uphols­te­red furni­ture produc­tion faci­li­ties. Today, the family-run company is known among end custo­mers and specia­list retail­ers for excel­lent value for money “Made in Germany”. — Bright Capi­tal (Vintage 2) and HF Debt jointly provi­ded acqui­si­tion finan­cing for the majo­rity stake from Munich-based inves­tor Family Trust. Family Trust has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the tradi­tio­nal company as part of an early corpo­rate succession.

Bright Capi­tal provi­ded Krall­mann with a long-term loan repa­ya­ble at matu­rity. With the fresh capi­tal, Krall­mann was able to market its newly deve­lo­ped and inno­va­tive tech­no­logy and invest in the neces­sary auto­ma­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion. Krall­mann has deve­lo­ped into an inno­va­tion leader for Inte­gra­ted Metal-Plas­tic Injec­tion Molding (IMKS) and the asso­cia­ted mold making. In recent years, the Krall­mann Group has stra­te­gi­cally expan­ded the value chain and successfully comple­ted the evolu­tion from contract injec­tion molding to a market leader in process and product innovation.

About Bright Capital
We offer finan­cing solu­ti­ons and selec­ted equity invest­ments from a single source. Our focus is on smal­ler mid-sized compa­nies, which we believe have little access to alter­na­tive finan­cing. In doing so, we invest in all sectors. As part of our invest­ment stra­tegy, we can invest along the entire capi­tal struc­ture. The aim is to create substan­tial corpo­rate value with indi­vi­dual and custo­mi­zed investments.

Bright Capi­tal is a value-orien­ted, long-term inves­tor. We invest in compa­nies that gene­rate stable cash flows, have a robust market posi­tion and excel­lent manage­ment. Compa­nies should be leaders in their field in the German-spea­king region and show substan­tial growth poten­tial. Our target compa­nies are usually family- or owner-mana­ged, or are port­fo­lio compa­nies of invest­ment compa­nies. — We support compa­nies in all indus­tries. We can tailor the finan­cing and compen­sa­tion struc­ture to meet speci­fic capi­tal requi­re­ments and the company’s situation.

News

Paris/Frankfurt — With a volume of €3 billion, Ardian is laun­ching its largest private debt plat­form to date — meaning that the fourth gene­ra­tion of the private debt plat­form has signi­fi­cantly excee­ded its origi­nal target of €2.5 billion. The Private Debt unit was estab­lished in 2005 and provi­des finan­cing solu­ti­ons for mid-market compa­nies throug­hout Europe. Ardian’s Private Debt team has comple­ted more than 120 tran­sac­tions since the division’s incep­tion and mana­ges $7 billion in assets.

The latest fund has signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the origi­nal fund­rai­sing target of €2.5 billion, buil­ding on the success of the third gene­ra­tion fund, which raised €2 billion in 2015. The focus of the current plat­form remains on provi­ding flexi­ble and indi­vi­du­ally tail­o­red finan­cing solu­ti­ons for Euro­pean compa­nies. The offe­ring was also expan­ded to include so-called “stret­ched senior debt” in order to gain further market share in the M&A busi­ness and in compe­ti­tion with banks. Stret­ched senior debt is a hybrid finan­cing struc­ture that is prima­rily used in corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons and dispo­sals and combi­nes various loan tran­ches — simi­lar to unitran­che financing.

More than 90 inves­tors from 15 count­ries have provi­ded funding for the new plat­form, inclu­ding from Europe, Asia and North America. They include insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, banks, foun­da­ti­ons and govern­ment orga­niza­ti­ons. In parti­cu­lar, the increased share of inves­tors from Asia and North America reflects Ardian’s global posi­tio­ning and diver­si­fied inves­tor base.

Vincent Gombault, Member of the Execu­tive Commit­tee and Global Head of Fund of Funds and Private Debt, said: “With our fifteen-year track record across four fund gene­ra­ti­ons, Ardian has clearly posi­tio­ned itself as one of the leading provi­ders of private debt to Euro­pean mid-market compa­nies. The successful fund­rai­sing is testa­ment to our expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment team, Ardian’s exten­sive asset manage­ment exper­tise and its global network. As a long-stan­ding active player in the private debt market across diffe­rent credit cycles, Ardian is very well posi­tio­ned to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties arising with the incre­asing rele­vance of private debt in the global finan­cial market.”

Mark Brenke (photo), Head of Ardian Private Debt and Mana­ging Direc­toradded: “The recent fund­rai­sing high­lights the current momen­tum of Ardian Private Debt and the incre­asing attrac­ti­ve­ness of this asset class. Demand for finan­cing from dyna­mi­cally growing mid-market compa­nies in Europe conti­nues to grow. Based on our strong track-record, we will take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties presen­ted to us through the expan­ded plat­form in its offe­ring and gradu­ally pene­trate areas previously served exclu­si­vely by banks.”

Thanks to a conti­nuously growing team and diver­si­fied global deal flows, Ardian Private Debt has provi­ded more than one billion euros in finan­cing annu­ally over the past years. At the same time, the number of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties under inten­sive review by Ardian has increased signi­fi­cantly. Ther­e­fore, the team acts very selec­tively and focu­ses its selec­tion process to realize only the best opportunities.

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging appro­xi­m­ately US$96 billion in assets on behalf of its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 640 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

News

Munich — A team led by Prof. Dr. Georg Streit advi­sed HANS IM GLÜCK Fran­chise GmbH on the sale of the Hans im Glück burger chain. The former majo­rity share­hol­der AML Invest Treu­hand­ge­sell­schaft mbH sold and trans­fer­red its stake in HANS IM GLÜCK Fran­chise GmbH to a group of inves­tors. This group of inves­tors includes GAB Grundstücks‑, Finanzierungs‑, Verwal­tungs- und Betei­li­gungs GmbH, which has alre­ady been a mino­rity share­hol­der, and the foun­ders of the Back­werk bakery chain, Dr. Dirk Schnei­der and Dr. Hans-Chris­tian Limmer. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The new share­hol­ders want above all to streng­then and further expand the fran­chise system. The two current mana­ging direc­tors Johan­nes Bühler and Jens Hall­bauer will remain with HANS IM GLÜCK Fran­chise GmbH.
In the months leading up to the tran­sac­tion, the Heuking team was entrus­ted with legal support, parti­cu­larly with regard to corpo­rate and M&A, in the context of a complex situa­tion and was invol­ved in multi-laye­red negotiations.

HANS IM GLÜCK was foun­ded in 2010 by Thomas Hirsch­ber­ger in Munich and most recently held via his family holding AML Invest Treu­hand­ge­sell­schaft mbH. With 81 stores, the brand is on course for growth. In 2019, HANS IM GLÜCK Fran­chise GmbH recor­ded its stron­gest sales growth since its foun­ding, with more than 147 million euros in exter­nal sales.

Advi­sors to HANS IM GLÜCK Fran­chise GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Prof. Dr. Georg Streit (Lead Part­ner, Restructuring)
Dr. Kai Büch­ler (Restruc­tu­ring),
Dr. Stephan Degen (Tax), all Munich

News

Hamburg — Asto­rius successfully closed its private equity fund of funds Asto­rius Capi­tal PE Fonds IV (“ACF IV”) at the maxi­mum size of 81 million euros. The invest­ment focus is tradi­tio­nally on buyout and growth stra­te­gies in the Euro­pean midmarket.

“Asto­rius Capi­tal PE Fund IV is our largest private equity product for semi-profes­sio­nal inves­tors to date, making it one of the most successful place­ments in this segment in the German market,” said Julien Zornig (photo), part­ner at Asto­rius Capi­tal. In addi­tion to many new inves­tors, a large propor­tion of repeat custo­mers are now among the subscri­bers who imple­ment the model of gradual port­fo­lio buil­ding with Astorius.

The total volume of ACF IV of 81 million euros repres­ents the most successful fund­rai­sing in the company’s history to date. “The signi­fi­cant increase in volume but also the high propor­tion of repeat subscri­bers shows that we have firmly estab­lished oursel­ves in the market as a fund of funds specia­list,” adds Zornig.

Attrac­tive portfolio
“The port­fo­lio is alre­ady almost fully inves­ted with six target funds,” explains part­ner Thomas Wein­mann. In addi­tion to four coun­try funds and two Pan-Euro­pean funds, at least one more target fund will be linked to close the invest­ment. A number of corpo­rate invest­ments have alre­ady been acqui­red by the target funds, and Asto­rius expects to acquire around 70 corpo­rate invest­ments at peak.
“The market envi­ron­ment remains posi­tive for medium-sized company invest­ments. The past few years have been charac­te­ri­zed by stable, attrac­tive purchase price levels, which is reflec­ted in the plea­sing results of the prede­ces­sor funds,” says Weinmann.

Chal­len­ging inves­tor environment
In addi­tion to private indi­vi­du­als, smal­ler insti­tu­tio­nal custo­mers and foun­da­ti­ons were again attrac­ted as inves­tors. “We have contin­ued to focus on the needs of our direct custo­mers and part­ners and are constantly acting on the latest legal requi­re­ments” under­lines Julien Zornig. In addi­tion, Thomas Wein­mann empha­si­zes that “the trans­pa­rency crea­ted by Asto­rius and the insti­tu­tio­nal selec­tion process, which we are conti­nuously impro­ving, remain a decisive factor.”

About Asto­rius
Asto­rius was foun­ded in Hamburg in 2012 and is now one of the leading German provi­ders of private equity invest­ment solu­ti­ons for semi-profes­sio­nal clients. The invest­ment and wealth experts offer inves­tors the oppor­tu­nity to invest in funds of funds laun­ched by Asto­rius. More than 900 Euro­pean fund mana­gers are evalua­ted for this purpose with the help of a proprie­tary data­base in an insti­tu­tio­nal analy­sis process.

The Asto­rius funds of funds successfully laun­ched to date invest exclu­si­vely in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies in Europe. Asto­rius also advi­ses family offices on their private equity invest­ments and invest­ment stra­te­gies. In this fast-growing busi­ness segment, the wealth and invest­ment profes­sio­nals recently mana­ged an invest­ment volume of more than 650 million euros.

News

Munich Janu­ary 2020 — Munich-based medi­cal tech­no­logy company Mecu­ris GmbH has successfully comple­ted a new finan­cing round of €3.6 million. In addi­tion to the seed inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), the inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company Mulcan, the life science venture capi­tal inves­tor Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal and Sana Klini­ken AG, one of the top five hospi­tal asso­cia­ti­ons in Germany, are again on board.

A clear yes from the ortho­pe­dic tech­no­logy indus­try to digitization
The Munich-based start-up has set out to revo­lu­tio­nize ortho­pe­dic tech­no­logy. The Mecu­ris Solu­tion Plat­form is the start­ing point for the decisive change process. This online plat­form repres­ents a digi­tal work­shop with which pati­ent-speci­fic pros­the­ses and ortho­ses can be desi­gned quickly and easily and reali­zed using 3D prin­ting. The digi­tal process chain behind it enables ortho­pe­dic tech­ni­ci­ans and users to work toge­ther to create a device that is opti­mi­zed in terms of color, shape and function.
The primary goal at Mecu­ris was initi­ally to fami­lia­rize ortho­pe­dic tech­no­logy with the online plat­form and to digi­tize tradi­tio­nal craft­sman­ship — where reason­ably possi­ble and time-saving. The company came a great deal closer to achie­ving this goal last year:

“The deve­lo­p­ment of Mecu­ris into a provi­der of digi­tal algo­rithms is now clearly accepted by part­ners in ortho­pe­dic pati­ent care as a step into the future. In order to consis­t­ently conti­nue on this path and due to the mile­sto­nes achie­ved in 2019, all inves­tors in the Series A round have deci­ded, as plan­ned, to conti­nue to provide the company with the neces­sary resour­ces,” says indus­try expert Johan­nes Schnei­der-Litt­feld, who took over the chair­man­ship of the Mecu­ris Advi­sory Board in the middle of the year.

In 2020, the field of ortho­tics will also be digitally
Mecu­ris will use the funds both to increase its pene­tra­tion of the Euro­pean market and to expand its plat­form in ortho­tics, which is sche­du­led for the end of March. From then on, the Digi­tal Prosthe­tic Work­shop for the crea­tion of indi­vi­dual pros­the­ses will be supple­men­ted by the Digi­tal Ortho­tic Work­shop. This provi­des the ortho­tist with a simple, intui­tive and, above all, time-saving option for crea­ting ortho­ses comple­tely or using partial steps in a web-based workflow.

About Mecu­ris GmbH
Mecu­ris works closely with certi­fied ortho­tists (OTs) to bring ortho­tics & prosthe­tics into the digi­tal age. By bund­ling 3D tech­no­lo­gies in a digi­tal work­shop, the online-based Mecu­ris Solu­tion Plat­form , Mecu­ris OTs offers the possi­bi­lity to design custo­mi­zed ortho­ses & pros­the­ses in a cost- and time-saving way. This makes their daily work much easier. OTs are enab­led on the plat­form to adapt product ideas to speci­fic pati­ents without CAD design know­ledge and to realize design wishes toge­ther with the user. This impro­ves the quality of life of the users enorm­ously: they have the chance to quickly become active again and live their indi­vi­dua­lity. Thanks to CE marking and ISO certi­fi­ca­tion, the products crea­ted in the Mecu­ris digi­tal work­shop meet the highest safety stan­dards and are reim­bur­sed by all health insu­rance compa­nies in Germany.

News

Eschborn/Nuremberg, Janu­ary 2020 — Rödl & Part­ner has advi­sed Smart AdSer­ver (Smart), a port­fo­lio company of Cathay Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of the global demand side plat­form Liqu­idM. Prior to its acqui­si­tion by Smart, Liqu­idM was part of the Bertels­mann Group. The current mana­ging direc­tors Phil­ipp Simon and Thomas Hille will conti­nue to support the Berlin-based company in this capacity.

With the acqui­si­tion of Liqu­idM, Smart aims to acce­le­rate its product deve­lo­p­ment and ther­eby better align supply and demand. With the help of LiquidM’s sophisti­ca­ted tech­no­logy, adver­ti­sers and digi­tal publishers will be able to achieve grea­ter finan­cial and opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency. They are provi­ded with a bran­ded and data secure envi­ron­ment through the provi­sion of deal manage­ment, audi­ence acti­va­tion and data control. This allows them to further expand their program­ma­tic adver­ti­sing busi­ness with consu­mer privacy as a cornerstone.

About Liqu­idM
Liqu­idM is a self-service demand side plat­form (DSP) opera­ting world­wide. It enables agen­cies, adver­ti­sers and trading desks to achieve their marke­ting goals using the power and effi­ci­ency of program­ma­tic adver­ti­sing. As a full-stack demand side provi­der, Liqu­idM offers compre­hen­sive campaign manage­ment capa­bi­li­ties. With a clean and intui­tive user inter­face, Liqu­idM simpli­fies the process of defi­ning, scaling, opti­mi­zing and editing adver­ti­sing campaigns. Foun­ded in 2013 in Berlin, the company is one of the first DSPs on the market with exten­sive exper­tise in mobile adver­ti­sing, a more tech­ni­cally complex envi­ron­ment than desk­top advertising.

About Smart
Smart is the leading inde­pen­dent adver­ti­sing mone­tiza­tion plat­form. The fully trans­pa­rent plat­form and the shared inte­rest approach enable premium publishers and brands to receive a fair share of the ad value at any time on their terms. The holi­stic archi­tec­ture effi­ci­ently dove­tails direct and program­ma­tic adver­ti­sing inven­tory and empowers market­ers, publishers and website opera­tors to take complete control of all marke­ting chan­nels. Smart works directly with more than 1,000 publishers world­wide. Inter­na­tio­nally, Smart can count Finan­cial Times, Groupe Marie Claire, Trac­Fone, Le Figaro, Lebon­coin, Altice Media Publi­cité and IMGUR among its clients. Global provi­des smart display, video, rich media, and native adver­ti­sing for over 50,000 websites and apps. In German-spea­king count­ries, Smart works with most of the top AGOF publishers. The company opera­tes twelve offices world­wide and has estab­lished itself as a leading player in buil­ding a trans­pa­rent and high-quality ecosystem.

Consul­tant Smart AdSer­ver: Rödl & Partner
Jochen Reis, Part­ner, Photo (Head of Tran­sac­tion Services), Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Financial
Simon Nieder­mann, Senior Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion Services), Esch­born — Financial
Michael Wiehl, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal
Jens Linhardt, Senior Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal
Sebas­tian Dittrich, Senior Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal
Dr. Chris­toph Kurz­böck, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Labor Law) — Legal
Marta Wiśniewska, Senior Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal
Juliane Krafft, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A), Nurem­berg — Legal
Florian Kaiser, Part­ner (Tax Law), Nurem­berg — Tax
Dr. Ramona Christ, Asso­ciate (Tax Law), Nurem­berg — Tax

News

Berlin — Shell Ventures has announ­ced an invest­ment in Berlin-based digi­tal freight forwar­der Inst­aFreight. The company said it wanted to “help shape the future of the Euro­pean trans­port market”. Follo­wing the funding round, Inst­aFreight will coope­rate with the new backer in expan­ding its digi­tal offe­rings for freight opera­tors in Europe, he said, aiming to further acce­le­rate the digi­tiza­tion of road freight and the trans­for­ma­tion of the freight market.

Most recently, the New York hedge fund 683 Capi­tal had inves­ted a double-digit million sum in Inst­afreight toge­ther with the exis­ting inves­tors. Instafreight’s target group is B2B custo­mers who want to send indi­vi­dual pallets or complete truck­loads on their way. Photo Inst­aFreight (left to right): Markus J. Doetsch, Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer, Phil­ipp Ortwein, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor, Maxi­mi­lian Schae­fer, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Director.

Conti­nue growth
The bottom line is that fleet opera­tors are offe­red a conve­ni­ent way to get the right deal, track their vehic­les as they trans­port goods across Europe, and get paid quickly and relia­bly. “The freight forwar­ding indus­try is alre­ady under­go­ing a profound trans­for­ma­tion, in which digi­tal approa­ches are beco­ming more successful and more preva­lent,” belie­ves Phil­ipp Ortwein, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Inst­aFreight. The company said it intends to use the capi­tal raised to conti­nue its rapid growth, further improve its tech­no­logy and make its services available to even more ship­pers and freight carri­ers across Europe.

Colla­bo­ra­tion in the further deve­lo­p­ment of services
By part­ne­ring with Inst­aFreight, SHELL aims to help carri­ers opti­mize their utiliza­tion with matching busi­ness, become more profi­ta­ble and provide them with real-time visi­bi­lity. Jermaine Saal­tink, Venture Prin­ci­pal of Shell Ventures, was convin­ced by the manage­ment team and the rapid growth that the digi­tal freight forwar­der has achie­ved in a short time. The coope­ra­tion should be more than a one-time finan­cial invest­ment. The two compa­nies will work closely toge­ther on the further deve­lo­p­ment of services. The part­ner­ship opens up the oppor­tu­nity to deve­lop new mobi­lity solu­ti­ons as well as expand and scale exis­ting trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons and drive growth in freight brokerage in inter­na­tio­nal markets, Shell Ventures believes.

About Inst­afreight: The digi­tal freight forwarder
Inst­aFreight sees itself as a digi­tal freight forwar­der for road freight in Europe. Foun­ded in 2016, the company repor­tedly employs more than 100 people across Europe and carries out more than 5,000 trans­ports per month. The digi­tal plat­form bund­les the cargo space of more than 10,000 freight compa­nies, which ship­pers can access.

News

Brussels — Belgian micro-mobi­lity start-up Cowboy (www.cowboy.com), maker of the epony­mous elec­tric design bike, has raised over €4.7 million in its first crowd­fun­ding campaign. The company thus excee­ded its funding target of €1.4 million by 340 percent, which was reached within just 12 minu­tes. Cowboy plans to use the funds to drive the micro-mobi­lity revo­lu­tion across Europe and improve trans­por­ta­tion in cities.

A total of 3155 inves­tors from 70 count­ries supported Cowboy via the crowd­fun­ding plat­form Crowd­cube (www.crowdcube.com) with an average of 1,510 euros. This makes the Belgi­ans’ campaign the most successful in the clean­tech sector that Crowd­cube has listed to date.

“The campaign has clearly excee­ded our expec­ta­ti­ons. Our origi­nal goal was to give our custo­mers and fans the chance to become part of our company and grow with us in the years to come. Howe­ver, it quickly became appa­rent that Cowboy was attrac­ting the atten­tion of many other inves­tors who wanted to be part of our micro-mobi­lity move­ment to posi­tively impact the future of cities,” said Adrien Roose, foun­der and CEO of Cowboy.

Cowboy raised funds of €13.2 million from inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors (inclu­ding Index Ventures, Tiger Global, and Hard­ware Club) in its Series A round in the fall of 2018. The first model of the elec­tric bike sold out in Belgium in a very short time last year. This spring, Cowboy laun­ched its second version and expan­ded to Germany, France, the Nether­lands, Austria, UK, Spain and Italy during the year. Compared to the previous year, Cowboy has grown fivefold.

In 2019 alone, Cowboy sold more than 5,000 bikes — 40 percent of which were sold in Germany, Cowboy’s largest market. The Cowboy commu­nity is made up of loyal fans of the brand and has alre­ady covered more than 3.4 million kilo­me­ters on the elec­tric bikes; 1.5 million kilo­me­ters of them by German Cowboy riders. The so-called “iPho­nes among e‑bikes” have won nume­rous awards and recei­ved posi­tive reviews in tests.

About cowboy
Cowboy is a Belgian company that deve­lops inno­va­tive elec­tric design bikes for urban riders. Cowboy’s main goal is to improve inner-city mobi­lity and get urba­ni­tes to their desti­na­ti­ons in a plea­sant, sustainable and effi­ci­ent way. Cowboy was foun­ded in 2017 by start-up entre­pre­neurs Adrien Roose, Karim Slaoui and Tanguy Goretti and is head­quar­te­red in the Belgian capi­tal Brussels. Cowboy is the winner of the Euro­bike 2017, the Red Dot Bicy­cle Design Award 2018 and the Red Dot “Best of the Best” award for the proto­type of the new 2019 model.

News

Hohen­lohe-Fran­ken, Janu­ary 2020 — The listed Japa­nese OSG Group has acqui­red the compe­ti­tor BASS from Hohen­lohe-Fran­ken. The seller of the shares in the BASS Group is the previous mana­ging part­ner. The Nieder­stet­ten-based company BASS thus beco­mes part of the Japa­nese OSG Group.

OSG and BASS are world leaders in thre­a­ding solu­ti­ons. Toge­ther, the compa­nies repre­sent more than 150 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for the manu­fac­tu­ring industry.

BASS GmbH & Co KG is a medium-sized family busi­ness. Since its foun­da­tion in 1947, BASS has been deve­lo­ping, manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­ting high-precis­ion products for indus­trial thre­a­ding. The company’s custo­mer segments include prima­rily the auto­mo­tive and aero­space indus­tries, as well as the mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and medi­cal tech­no­logy sectors.

Advi­sor BASS Group: P+P Pöllath + Partners 
Dr. Andrea von Drygal­ski, Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/PE, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Michaela Lenk (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)

The share­hol­der of the BASS Group was also advi­sed in the area of tax by REVISA Treu­hand GmbH — Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft — (Stefan Schwarz, Dipl.-Betriebswirt (BA), Wirt­schafts­prü­fer und Steu­er­be­ra­ter, Neckarsulm).

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS accom­pa­nied the second finan­cing round at Neodi­gi­tal Versi­che­rung AG, a digi­tal property and casu­alty insurer from Neun­kir­chen, on the side of the exis­ting inves­tors, copa­rion and the Schnei­der­Gol­ling Group. In addi­tion to ALSTIN Capi­tal, Mr. Cars­ten Maschmeyer’s venture capi­tal fund (photo), Deut­sche Rück­ver­si­che­rung AG also parti­ci­pa­ted. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the investment.

Neodi­gi­tal was foun­ded in 2016 by Dirk Witt­ling and Stephen Voss as a consis­t­ently digi­ti­zed insu­rance company and was the first comple­tely digi­tal insu­rance company with a BaFin license in the German market. With market-leading digi­tal proces­ses and an indi­vi­du­ally confi­gura­ble insu­rance buil­ding block, Neodi­gi­tal offers the market an insu­rance-as-a-service model that is unpar­al­le­led in terms of modu­la­rity and perfor­mance. As an insurer, Neodi­gi­tal works with a high degree of auto­ma­tion in ongo­ing opera­ti­ons and claims proces­sing. But also through digi­tal end-to-end commu­ni­ca­tion, Neodi­gi­tal is a pioneer in a market that is often only orien­ted towards new busi­ness and recom­mends itself as an alter­na­tive to pure inven­tory manage­ment systems.
Market parti­ci­pants can use Neodi­gi­tal to quickly and easily deve­lop their own comple­tely digi­ti­zed insu­rance products and launch them on the market imme­dia­tely. In order to catch up digi­tally, the insu­rance indus­try in Germany will be even more depen­dent on digi­tal as-a-service solu­ti­ons in the future.

“We are very plea­sed that our comple­tely digi­tal approach has not only convin­ced custo­mers, sales part­ners and other insu­rance compa­nies, but that we have also been able to inspire new inves­tors with our unique insu­rance-as-a-service model,” explains Stephen Voss, Foun­der and Chief Marke­ting and Sales Offi­cer of Neodi­gi­tal. “The expan­ded group of inves­tors confirms the success of our end-to-end digi­tal busi­ness model and allows us — just one and a half years after ente­ring the market — to signi­fi­cantly expand our offering.”

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze’s team regu­larly advi­ses both clients; toge­ther, for exam­ple, on their entry into Neodi­gi­tal. SG Group most recently on a dive­st­ment to Clark and copa­rion on nume­rous venture investments.

Advi­sor to the inves­tors Schnei­der­Gol­ling and copa­rion: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (lead), Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah, Kamil Flak (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Mirjam Boche (M&A/insurance law)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting in Germany and Japan. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 at its current offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 45 profes­sio­nals advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on the core issues of German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. The focus is on M&A, corpo­rate law, private equity, venture capi­tal, employ­ment law, private clients, intellec­tual property, liti­ga­tion as well as real estate law and tax law.

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