Münster/Paris — eCAPI­TAL (Müns­ter) and Deme­ter Part­ners (Paris) have signed a coope­ra­tion agree­ment to mutually comple­ment their exper­tise in the common invest­ment areas of Clean­tech, Indus­try 4.0 and New Mate­ri­als and to jointly deve­lop a compre­hen­sive sector under­stan­ding at Euro­pean level. The part­ner­ship means addi­tio­nal added value for both the inves­tors in the funds and the entre­pre­neurs in the investments.

As part of the coope­ra­tion, the two venture capi­tal compa­nies will support each other in moni­to­ring indus­tries and invest­ment trends, exch­ange coun­try-speci­fic know­ledge, provide the partner’s port­fo­lio compa­nies with access to their own networks and support each other in fundraising.

Deme­ter (www.demeter-im.com) is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor in the field of ecolo­gi­cal trans­for­ma­tion and energy tran­si­tion. The company’s funds invest amounts ranging from €500,000 to €30 million to support compa­nies in this sector at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment: thus, Deme­ter accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive start-ups, high-growth SMEs, as well as mid-cap compa­nies and infra­struc­ture projects. The Deme­ter team, consis­ting of 33 employees in Paris, Greno­ble, Metz and Madrid, mana­ges a total of €1 billion and has reali­zed 120 invest­ments in the last twelve years.

eCAPI­TAL (www.ecapital.de) is a leading German venture capi­tal firm that invests in inno­va­tive compa­nies in early to later stage phases. For almost two deca­des, eCAPI­TAL has been support­ing fast-growing compa­nies in the areas of Clean­tech, Indus­try 4.0, Soft­ware / IT and New Mate­ri­als — with the goal of deve­lo­ping them into global market leaders. Curr­ently eCAPI­TAL mana­ges six funds with a subscrip­tion capi­tal of more than € 220 million.

“On the one hand, the coope­ra­tion between Deme­ter and eCAPI­TAL allows both compa­nies to further focus as well as build on their strengths in their respec­tive home markets, while on the other hand, the reach in terms of addi­tio­nal Euro­pean networks is increased to best support the global ambi­ti­ons of the port­fo­lio compa­nies,” says Willi Mann­heims, Mana­ging Part­ner at eCAPI­TAL.

“We are very exci­ted about the part­ner­ship of our compa­nies, which share a common vision and culture. Our primary goal is to enable the deve­lo­p­ment of cham­pi­ons of envi­ron­men­tal change and energy tran­si­tion, and to support them in moving into new dimen­si­ons in these markets,” says Stéphane Ville­croze, Mana­ging Part­ner at Deme­ter.