News-Kategorie: Venture Capital

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

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

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

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

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

About Rebike Mobi­lity GmbH

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

About BayBG Venture Capital

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About MOSA MEAT

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

About BLUE HORIZON VENTURES

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

About NUTRECO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the 32 companies.

Vienna/Leobersdorf — Logsta, the logi­stics scale-up from Austria, with warehouse loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, UK and USA, impro­ves the effi­ci­ency of logi­stics proces­ses many times over with its highly inno­va­tive IT plat­form. For the company with over 860 satis­fied custo­mers like NEOH and Novrit­sch, the new year starts with posi­tive invest­ment news. The company secu­res a 7‑digit finan­cing from the Vien­nese invest­ment fund for growth finan­cing, Round2 Capi­tal, in order to conquer further inter­na­tio­nal markets and expand the IT plat­form, among other things. The high­light: Logsta does not give away shares in the company as usual, but instead Round2 Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­tes in the company’s sales until a prede­fi­ned upper limit has been reached.

Many people today rely — full-time or part-time — on e‑commerce to sell their products. Howe­ver, many SMBs, sole proprie­tors and start­ups invol­ved in e‑commerce that only distri­bute small quan­ti­ties or have special or crea­tive pack­a­ging needs often face the diffi­culty of finding a logi­stics company willing to work with them and provide a digi­ti­zed logi­stics process solu­tion for busi­nesses of any size. Georg Weiß, Chris­toph Glatzl and Domi­nik Bier­in­ger reco­gni­zed this in 2017 and laun­ched the logi­stics startup Logsta.

The goal of the three foun­ders was to support compa­nies that were simply too small or had too high digi­ta­li­zed requi­re­ments for the clas­sic logi­stics compa­nies with uncom­pli­ca­ted and custo­mi­zed logi­stics services world­wide from a single source and at fair prices: From inno­va­tive IT tools, warehouse loca­ti­ons in the USA, Germany, Austria and England, fast support for world­wide ship­ments to modern e‑fulfillment as well as favorable ship­ping condi­ti­ons. Now outgrown its start-up shoes, the scale-up has over 860 inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers and over 2 million products in its warehou­ses. With the speci­ally deve­lo­ped Logsta-Connec­tor, custo­mers can control and check their logi­stics world­wide free of charge, it enables 24/7 inven­tory check, expi­ra­tion date manage­ment, batch manage­ment, order status insight and much more.

In order to realize further expan­sion plans, the three foun­ders have raised a 7‑digit euro amount from Round2 Capi­tal, the invest­ment fund for growth finan­cing. The Vienna-based invest­ment fund is a Euro­pean pioneer in reve­nue-based finan­cing, inves­t­ing in leading scale-ups in the tech­no­logy and soft­ware sectors in Europe. It is a simple, trans­pa­rent and flexi­ble finan­cing instru­ment for compa­nies in the growth phase, which offers non-dilu­tive finan­cing against reve­nue sharing up to a prede­fi­ned cap. The advi­sor for this growth finan­cing was i5Invest, which sees this measure as an important step for Logsta in terms of scaling and internationalization.

“We have found the ideal part­ner for us in Round2. They convince with their flexi­ble finan­cing solu­tion, which gives us the chance to acce­le­rate our growth and conquer more inter­na­tio­nal markets,” said the foun­ders of Logsta.

Chris­tian Czer­nich, CEO and Co-Foun­der Round2 Capi­tal Part­ners: “We are impres­sed by the dyna­mism and inge­nuity of the Logsta team. The foun­ders have mana­ged to build a highly inno­va­tive and now globally opera­ting company in a short period of time without exter­nal funding. Logsta’s digi­tal logi­stics solu­ti­ons enable both large and small compa­nies to get their products sold online to the end custo­mer quickly, relia­bly and cost-effectively.”

About Round2 Capi­tal Partners

Round2 Capi­tal is a fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment firm with €30 million under its manage­ment. The Vienna-based company is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean scale-ups with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Since its incep­tion in 2017, Round2 Capi­tal has been pionee­ring reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe and is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria and the Nordic count­ries. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 14 diffe­rent compa­nies, with Logsta being the newest company in the port­fo­lio. www.round2cap.com

Bonn, Germany — Kranus Health, the digi­tal men’s health plat­form, today announ­ced a seven-figure seed funding. HTGF, A Round Capi­tal, Venture Base­camp and Dr. Ralph Müller are new inves­tors in Kranus Health. In addi­tion to the new inves­tors, exis­ting busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Konstan­tin Mehl (foun­der Foodora + Kaia Health), have again parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed round.

With the fresh capi­tal, Kranus Health will conti­nue to expand its men’s health plat­form and take the next step of laun­ching a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy as a sustainable solu­tion for erec­tile dysfunc­tion. The exis­ting expert network of urology specia­lists will also be further expan­ded to reach even more men with Kranus Health solutions.

The digi­tal health company Kranus Health was foun­ded in 2020 by Jens Nörters­häu­ser, Thilo Klein­schmidt, Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov and Profes­sor Kurt Miller. The goal is to rethink men’s health­care and improve it using digi­tal solu­ti­ons. Men’s life expec­tancy is still up to 6 years behind women’s, thou­sands of men world­wide die too early due to unhe­althy life­styles and lack of preven­tive care and preven­tion — there is a lack of health awareness.

Kranus Health is on a mission to change that. Digi­tal and thus easily acces­si­ble pati­ent jour­neys lower men’s inhi­bi­ti­ons about consul­ting a doctor for their problems and sustain­ably support a healthy life­style because users inter­act with the digi­tal offe­ring in an uncom­pli­ca­ted and frequent manner. The first offe­ring being deve­lo­ped is a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy for erec­tile dysfunc­tion (DiGA as an “app on prescrip­tion”). In this clini­cal picture, there is a close connec­tion with serious cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses such as heart attacks, the risk factors of which should also be redu­ced by Kranus Health therapy. The startup works closely with medi­cal specia­lists and has alre­ady built up a broad network of experts from German urologists.

“Kranus Health has deve­lo­ped an offe­ring based on scien­ti­fic evidence that provi­des urolo­gists with enti­rely new and, most importantly, root cause-orien­ted opti­ons in trea­ting their pati­ents, accor­ding to Profes­sor Kurt Miller,” Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer at Kranus Health

With the fresh capi­tal and the inves­tors’ network, the digi­tal therapy will be further deve­lo­ped this year and laun­ched as a reim­b­ursable product, and the digi­tal plat­form for men’s health will also be expan­ded with addi­tio­nal offerings.

“In the clini­cal picture of erec­tile dysfunc­tion, current offe­rings such as medi­ca­ti­ons are aimed at alle­via­ting the symptoms, but not the causes. With its digi­tal solu­tion, Kranus is helping to improve the quality of life of a large number of men in a long-term and goal-orien­ted manner,” explains Louis Heinz, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF

About Kranus Health

Kranus Health aims to help men live healt­hier, longer lives by provi­ding easy, straight­for­ward access to the latest medi­cal care. Foun­ders Thilo Klein­schmidt and Jens Nörters­häu­ser have known each other for many years through their time toge­ther at McKin­sey & Company, and both have been passio­nate about the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion for years. But both also had a keen inte­rest in the health­care sector. Jens is origi­nally a bio-engi­neer and has years of profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence in the phar­maceu­ti­cal field. Thilo comes from a medi­cal family, his father is a urolo­gist. The idea of foun­ding Kranus at the begin­ning of 2020 was ther­e­fore an obvious one and also took place against the back­drop of regu­la­tory chan­ges, in parti­cu­lar the Digi­tal Utility Act (DVG). Since then, it has been possi­ble to signi­fi­cantly improve health­care in Germany through digi­tal therapies.

Profes­sor Kurt Miller, former Chief of Urology at Charité Berlin, and CTO Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov (Celo­nis, among others) comple­ment the foun­ding team to jointly imple­ment Kranus’ vision. For this purpose, Kranus Health deve­lops digi­tal thera­pies based on current scien­ti­fic findings supported by tele­me­di­cal care from medi­cal specia­lists. The spec­trum of services ranges from thera­pies for taboo dise­a­ses such as erec­tile dysfunc­tion to early detec­tion and preven­tion (e.g. cardio­vas­cu­lar diseases).

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas.

Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, 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, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

Hamburg/ Bonn — GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH, a biotech company deve­lo­ping gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of muscu­los­ke­le­tal dise­a­ses, announ­ces the closing of a €5.4 million Series A finan­cing round and the raising of €3.65 million in conver­ti­ble loans and grants.

The Series A finan­cing round is led by Pacira BioSci­en­ces, Inc (Parsippany, USA), a US-based phar­maceu­ti­cal company focu­sed on pain manage­ment and rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine. Other inves­tors include High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (Bonn), which has alre­ady inves­ted in GeneQuine, as well as Noshaq SA (Liège, Belgium) and Samum Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tungs GmbH (Hamburg). Pacira Biosci­en­ces, Inc. and Samum Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tungs GmbH also provide conver­ti­ble loans in the amount of €2.75 million. A further €0.9 million comes in the form of subsi­dies from the Inves­ti­ti­ons­bank des Landes Brandenburg.

GeneQuine will use the funds raised to deve­lop lead candi­date GQ-303 for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis through to a Phase 1 clini­cal trial. Further­more, the deve­lo­p­ment of new gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of inter­ver­te­bral disc dege­ne­ra­tion will be advan­ced, and GeneQuine’s gene therapy vector plat­form will be further expan­ded. GeneQuine alre­ady expan­ded its work­force last year and estab­lished a subsi­diary in Liège (Belgium). GeneQuine has its head­quar­ters in Hamburg and a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment labo­ra­tory in Lucken­walde (Grea­ter Berlin).

GeneQuine uses a gene therapy vector plat­form based on “Helper-depen­dent Adeno­vi­ral Vectors” (HDAd) to trans­form tissues and organs affec­ted by dise­ase into “facto­ries” for local produc­tion of thera­peu­tic prote­ins. A single, local injec­tion of a gene therapy drug could thus lead to protein produc­tion over seve­ral years without the need for repea­ted appli­ca­tion requi­red for most conven­tio­nal drugs.

GQ-303 is an HDAd vector that produ­ces the protein proteo­gly­can 4 and is curr­ently in precli­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment. Proteo­gly­can 4 (also known as lubri­cin) has been shown to have a dual mecha­nism of action in the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis: On the one hand, it has a biome­cha­ni­cal effect due to lubri­ca­ting proper­ties, and on the other hand, it has effects on mole­cu­lar mecha­nisms that lead to the inhi­bi­tion of pain, inflamm­a­tion and carti­lage dege­ne­ra­tion. Ther­e­fore, GQ-303 has the poten­tial to have both sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing effi­cacy in the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis, which has alre­ady been demons­tra­ted in seve­ral precli­ni­cal in vivo models.

GeneQuine is in advan­ced nego­tia­ti­ons with a suita­ble contract manu­fac­tu­rer for the produc­tion of GQ-303 for toxi­co­logy and clini­cal studies. Follo­wing produc­tion and formal toxi­co­logy studies with GQ-303, appr­oval for a Phase 1 clini­cal trial will be sought. GeneQuine’s former lead candi­date, an HDAd vector that produ­ces the protein interleukin‑1 (now refer­red to as FX201), was sold in 2017 to the phar­maceu­ti­cal company Flexion Thera­peu­tics, Inc. (Burling­ton, USA).

Flexion has since initia­ted a Phase 1 clini­cal trial and trea­ted multi­ple pati­ents in two dose groups with FX201. Because both GQ-303 and FX201 are HDAd vectors and both are injec­ted intra-arti­cu­larly (directly into the joint), GeneQuine esti­ma­tes that most vector-rela­ted deve­lo­p­ment risks for GQ-303 are mini­mi­zed. Although GQ-303 and FX201 are both being deve­lo­ped for knee osteo­ar­thri­tis, GeneQuine will focus on a speci­fic pati­ent popu­la­tion with GQ-303 that can poten­ti­ally bene­fit most from the dual mecha­nism of action of proteo­gly­can 4.

GeneQuine is also deve­lo­ping HDAd vector-based gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion. Despite the very high unmet medi­cal need in the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion — one of the main causes of chro­nic low back pain — no dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs are available for this indi­ca­tion. GeneQuine’s data show that gene therapy with HDAd vectors has great poten­tial in the deve­lo­p­ment of sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs for this disease.

“We are very plea­sed to have closed this finan­cing round and will now use the capi­tal effi­ci­ently to bring GQ-303 into the clinic, expand our gene therapy program for the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion, and expand our HDAd vector plat­form. We would like to thank all inves­tors in this finan­cing round for their trust and support. In parti­cu­lar, we are plea­sed to have Pacira as an inves­tor with their strong exper­tise in clini­cal drug deve­lo­p­ment in the muscu­los­ke­le­tal field,” Kilian Guse, CEO of GeneQuine (photo).

“Our equity invest­ment in GeneQuine repres­ents a signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in the deve­lo­p­ment of what we believe is an exci­ting dise­ase-modi­fy­ing gene therapy for osteo­ar­thri­tis. GeneQuine is conduc­ting precli­ni­cal work to support the initia­tion of human studies in appro­xi­m­ately two years. In addi­tion to our confi­dence in this tran­sac­tion as a sound invest­ment, we enthu­si­a­sti­cally look forward to the matu­ra­tion of data and for further oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in GeneQuine’s successful precli­ni­cal program and entry into the clinic. Importantly, this invest­ment is consis­tent with our mission to advance inno­va­tive pain manage­ment and rege­ne­ra­tive health solu­ti­ons,” Ron Ellis, Senior Vice Presi­dent, Corpo­rate Stra­tegy and Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment at Pacira.

“GeneQuine is a great exam­ple of a typi­cal HTGF invest­ment: a new gene­ti­cally engi­nee­red drug disco­very plat­form that broke comple­tely new scien­ti­fic ground when we made our seed invest­ment in 2012. That combi­ned with a strong team capa­ble of advan­cing gene therapy agents toward the clinic as effi­ci­ently as possi­ble. We look forward to support­ing GeneQuine toge­ther with the inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor consor­tium and Pacira’s exper­tise in deve­lo­ping their promi­sing pipe­line,” Martin Pfis­ter, Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Gründerfonds

About GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH

GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH is a biotech company deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of muscu­los­ke­le­tal dise­a­ses. GeneQuine uses a gene therapy plat­form to turn tissues and organs affec­ted by dise­ase into “facto­ries” for local produc­tion of thera­peu­tic prote­ins. Lead candi­date GQ-303 is being deve­lo­ped as a topi­cally applied drug for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis and has shown great poten­tial to have sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing effi­cacy in multi­ple animal models. GeneQuine’s former lead candi­date for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis, which is based on the same gene therapy vector tech­no­logy as GQ-303, was sold in 2017 to phar­maceu­ti­cal company Flexion Thera­peu­tics, Inc. (Burling­ton, USA) and is curr­ently being tested in a Phase 1 clini­cal trial. GeneQuine has a head office in Hamburg and branch offices in Lucken­walde (Grea­ter Berlin) and Liège (Belgium). www.genequine.com

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 in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. Over €2.8 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Tübingen/ Tutt­lin­gen — SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH from Tübin­gen is parti­ci­pa­ting as lead inves­tor in the Tutt­lin­gen-based specia­list for func­tional spinal implants Blue Ocean Spine GmbH.

For SHS and the foun­der of Blue Ocean Spine, Gunt­mar Eisen, this is alre­ady the second colla­bo­ra­tion — the joint company EIT Emer­ging Implant Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH was sold to an inter­na­tio­nal medi­cal tech­no­logy group in 2018. Unlike tradi­tio­nal cage implants for inter­ver­te­bral spaces, Blue Ocean Spine’s implants will allow surge­ons to elimi­nate the need for addi­tio­nal screw fixa­tion. In addi­tion, they will no longer need to stock a multi­tude of implant vari­ants in diffe­rent sizes and dimen­si­ons. This should make proce­du­res more effi­ci­ent for surge­ons and safer for patients.

Back pain is proba­bly more preva­lent in Western socie­ties than any other pain. While most back complaints are nowa­days trea­ted conser­va­tively, i.e. with drugs and physio­the­rapy, severe dege­ne­ra­tive dise­a­ses, which are usually accom­pa­nied by insta­bi­lity of the spine, can only be trea­ted with surgery.

This usually invol­ves the use of a fusion implant to stabi­lize the spine. The disc place­hol­der, called a cage, is implan­ted and fixed between the verte­brae. In most cases, addi­tio­nal stabi­liza­tion is achie­ved with screws and rod systems.

Inno­va­tive, custo­mizable spinal implant

Expe­ri­en­ced engi­neer Gunt­mar Eisen is now deve­lo­ping a port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive, func­tional and adap­ta­ble cage systems with his Tutt­lin­gen-based company Blue Ocean Spine — some of these implants should be able to do comple­tely without addi­tio­nal screw fixation.

“With Blue Ocean Spine’s systems, we’re deal­ing with next-gene­ra­tion cage implants,” said Patrick Frohn­hei­ser, invest­ment mana­ger at SHS. “Inter­ven­ti­ons will thus be faster and safer. We are convin­ced that these systems will become popu­lar and want to support Blue Ocean Spine with equity and our large network.”

Blue Ocean Spine’s various implants are manu­fac­tu­red using the 3D prin­ting process. This can result in a signi­fi­cant cost advan­tage compared to compe­ti­tive systems. So-called expan­da­ble cages can be adjus­ted inde­pendently in height, width and lordo­sis angle. Previously, a clinic had to stock a variety of rigid cage implants in diffe­rent designs for diffe­rent pati­ents. This is time-consum­ing and expen­sive. The new gene­ra­tion of Blue Ocean Spine Cages will signi­fi­cantly reduce these costs in the future. Other models in the Blue Ocean Spine port­fo­lio have inte­gra­ted anchors that can be secu­rely fixed between the patient’s verte­brae by the surgeon in just a few steps, support­ing mini­mally inva­sive access tech­ni­ques. In some cases, addi­tio­nal screw fittings become obsolete.

Conti­nua­tion of a successful partnership

“We are plea­sed to have SHS as an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try inves­tor back on board as a part­ner and can now work at full speed on the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of our inno­va­tive cage implants,” says company foun­der Gunt­mar Eisen, who has been active in spine surgery for more than 25 years and has alre­ady foun­ded and sold a number of inno­va­tive compa­nies. “If all goes accor­ding to plan, we will apply for FDA appr­oval in the U.S. as early as 2022, which is the largest market for spinal implants.”

“Gunt­mar Eisen is one of the most successful German entre­pre­neurs in medi­cal tech­no­logy. We are very plea­sed to conti­nue our trustful coope­ra­tion. Blue Ocean Spine is an excel­lent addi­tion with a lot of poten­tial for our fifth fund gene­ra­tion,” says Dr. Bern­hard Schirm­ers, Mana­ging Part­ner of SHS.

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

Tübin­gen-based SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment invests in medi­cal tech­no­logy and life science compa­nies with a focus on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. In doing so, SHS enters into both mino­rity and majo­rity share­hol­dings. As an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try inves­tor, the company, which was foun­ded in 1993, supports the growth of its port­fo­lio compa­nies through a network of colla­bo­ra­ti­ons, for exam­ple in the intro­duc­tion of new products, regu­la­tory issues or entry into addi­tio­nal markets. The German and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in SHS funds include profes­sio­nal pension funds, pension funds, stra­te­gic inves­tors, funds of funds, family offices, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity invest­ment of the AIFM-regis­tered company is up to € 30 million, volu­mes excee­ding this can be imple­men­ted with a network of co-inves­tors. Curr­ently, SHS is inves­t­ing from its fifth fund. The fund has recei­ved capi­tal commit­ments of over 130 million euros.

Welcome

About Blue Ocean Spine GmbH

Blue Ocean Spine GmbH, based in Tutt­lin­gen, Germany, deve­lops and markets inno­va­tive, func­tional spinal implants to support mini­mally inva­sive fusion surgery in spine surgery. The company uses addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses to combine better func­tion­a­lity and unique product features with cost effi­ci­ency. Expan­da­ble fusion cage designs allow for better adapt­a­tion to indi­vi­dual pati­ent anatomy and precise resto­ra­tion of segmen­tal height and realignment of spinal curvat­ure. This signi­fi­cantly redu­ces the stock in clinics. Inte­gra­ted, exten­da­ble anchors in ALIF and late­ral fusion scages support mini­mally inva­sive surgi­cal approa­ches to the spine and allow secure fixa­tion in the inter­ver­te­bral space without addi­tio­nal screw fixation.
www.blueoceanspine.com for more information.

Frank­furt a.M. — Good­win advi­sed the legal tech company Right­Now GmbH on a Series A finan­cing of $10.5 million. Lead inves­tors are venture capi­ta­list VR Ventures and the family office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten, which in turn was advi­sed by VC inves­tor Redstone.

VR Ventures also faci­li­ta­ted an invest­ment in the bond issued by Right­Now to purchase govern­ment-guaran­teed Covid19 travel vouchers.

Right­Now had alre­ady recei­ved $2.1 million in a pre-Series A finan­cing in a first closing that included parti­ci­pa­tion from the foun­ders of Triv­ago in 2019.

Foun­ded in 2017, Right­Now GmbH is conside­red one of the pioneers in the moder­niza­tion of consu­mer protec­tion. The start-up, which specia­li­zes in “consu­mer claims purcha­sing,” buys claims from consu­mers against airlines, tour opera­tors, hotels, insu­rance compa­nies and other compa­nies and asserts the claims at its own risk. Right­Now foun­ders Dr. Torben Antret­ter, Phil­lip Eischet and Dr. Bene­dikt M. Quarch were recently named to the “30 under 30” by Forbes magazine.

Advi­sor Right­Now GmbH: Good­win, Frank­furt a.M.

Gregor Klenk (Part­ner, Private Equity, Lead), Heiko Penn­dorf (Part­ner, Tax), Joana Pamu­kova (Asso­ciate, Private Equity)

About VR Ventures

Foun­ded in Febru­ary 2020, the venture capi­tal fund VR Ventures sees itself as an inno­va­tion driver in the finance and real estate indus­try. The fund’s invest­ment focus is on start­ups in FinTech and PropTech as well as adja­cent digi­tal busi­ness solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. Invests in the best teams and solu­ti­ons across Europe from the late seed stage.

VR Ventures is backed by the Berli­ner Volks­bank Ventures team, which has been mana­ging Berli­ner Volksbank’s startup invest­ments since 2015. The exis­ting part­ner­ship with Reds­tone Digi­tal will also conti­nue. Andreas Laule (Mana­ging Direc­tor, VR Ventures): “The idea of VR Ventures is to build on the expe­ri­ence of Berli­ner Volks­bank Ventures and provide parti­ci­pa­ting inves­tors with imme­diate access to stra­te­gi­cally rele­vant start­ups in addi­tion to an attrac­tive return.”

Timo Fleig (Mana­ging Direc­tor, VR Ventures): “We invest in indus­tries where we know our way around and where our inves­tors do busi­ness them­sel­ves. This market know­ledge not only helps us to select strong port­fo­lio compa­nies, rather we want to bring our expe­ri­ence and strong network to the colla­bo­ra­tion and seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties of digi­ta­liza­tion toge­ther with our port­fo­lio companies.”

For the Volks- und Raiff­ei­sen­ban­ken, VR Ventures is another leap into the future of banking. In addi­tion to Berli­ner Volks­bank, the follo­wing other Volks­banks and Raiff­ei­sen­banks are invol­ved in VR Ventures: Bank 1 Saar, Rhein­gauer Volks­bank, Verbund Volks­bank OWL, Volks­bank Biele­feld-Güters­loh, Volks­bank Kassel Göttin­gen, Volks­bank Rhein-Ruhr, VR-Bank Südpfalz and VR-Bank Würz­burg. In addi­tion, IDEAL Lebens­ver­si­che­rung, a company outside the Genos­sen­schaft­li­che Finanz­Gruppe, was won as an inves­tor. A total of ten inves­tors have inves­ted a total of around €40 million in the fund. Over the next twelve months, parti­ci­pa­tion in VR Ventures is open to addi­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal investors.