ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Year: 2019

News

Munich — ARQIS has advi­sed SkyFive GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of the key assets of Nokia ’s Air-to-Ground (A2G) busi­ness. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Nokia’s A2G tech­no­logy is parti­cu­larly suita­ble for provi­ding broad­band mobile connec­ti­vity for conti­nen­tal air traf­fic and has signi­fi­cant tech­no­logy and cost advan­ta­ges over satel­lite commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons commonly used today. With the acqui­red assets, SkyFive beco­mes the world’s first A2G commu­ni­ca­ti­ons specialist.

SkyFive takes respon­si­bi­lity for the end-to-end solu­tion, which consists of avio­nics, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and IT systems. Nokia conti­nues to be respon­si­ble for selling and imple­men­ting the back­bone network — an inte­gral part of the solu­tion — to commu­ni­ca­ti­ons service provi­ders, based on its strong tech­no­logy and global deli­very capa­bi­li­ties. Thors­ten Robrecht, CEO of SkyFive, said, “For us, this tran­sac­tion is an important step on our path to true broad­band connec­ti­vity services in the sky and serves as a spring­board for global expansion.”

SkyFive GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 by three senior NOKIA employees through a manage­ment buy-out to build a specia­list air-to-ground (A2G) solu­ti­ons and services company. The company’s mission is to enable a breakth­rough in the digi­tiza­tion of air travel and meet the growing connec­ti­vity needs of airlines with a high-perfor­mance, future-proof and cost-effec­tive solu­tion based on 4G and 5G standards.

Advi­sor SkyFive: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düsseldorf/Munich)
Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Corporate/M&A/Tax Law), Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Corpo­rate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier, Dr. Stepha­nie Lenze (both Labor Law), Chris­tian Wege­ner (Tax Law), Dr. Chris­tof Schnei­der (Corporate/M&A and Compli­ance), Elisa­beth Falte­rer (Corpo­rate); Bere­nike Gott­wald (Legal Support Specialist)

News

Tel Aviv — Israeli start-up Hi Auto will unveil the world’s first audio-visual commer­cial solu­tion for back­ground noise-free spea­ker recor­ding and speech enhance­ment. The company has comple­ted a seed phase with a $4.5 million invest­ment led by Israeli auto importer Delek Motors and Hi Auto’s acting chair­man Zohar Zisa­pel (pictu­red).

Other inves­tors included Allied Holdings (holding company of auto importer Cham­pion Motors), Singa­pore-based Gold­bell Group, a leader in indus­trial vehicle sales and leasing, and Plug & Play, which works with auto­mo­tive part­ners to innovate.

Hi Auto plans to use the seed stage funds to complete deve­lo­p­ment of its first product, launch distri­bu­tion and expand its team.

Speech reco­gni­tion plat­forms are curr­ently strugg­ling with the problem of poor reco­gni­tion rates in noisy envi­ron­ments, such as when there are child­ren in the back seat of a car, an ambu­lance drives by, or it is raining heavily. Hi Auto’s audio­vi­sual solu­tion elimi­na­tes all noise and ensu­res that the speech reco­gni­tion plat­form works relia­bly in all noise conditions.

The novel solu­tion can be used in a wide range of use cases in various fields where speech reco­gni­tion and clearly intel­li­gi­ble conver­sa­ti­ons are requi­red, such as in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, cont­act centers, video confe­ren­cing, or robots serving custo­mers in the hospi­ta­lity indus­try. Curr­ently, Hi Auto is focu­sed on the auto­mo­tive sector and envi­si­ons the new tech­no­logy as a solu­tion to the problem of voice-based vehicle control.

Hi Auto is based in Tel Aviv and was foun­ded in Febru­ary 2019 by CEO Roy Baha­rav, CTO Eyal Shapira and Zohar Zisa­pel, who serves as the company’s acting chair­man and inves­tor. Baha­rav recently retur­ned to Israel after living on the West Coast of the United States for 12 years. There he held various product manage­ment posi­ti­ons at Google’s Moun­tain View head­quar­ters in Cali­for­nia, as well as CEO of SeamBI, a company he foun­ded in 2006. In the past, he held senior posi­ti­ons in an elite intel­li­gence unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), such as comman­der of a divi­sion of 40 engi­neers and tech­ni­cal experts.

Eyal Shapira also comman­ded a detach­ment of some 40 engi­neers and specia­lists in an elite IDF tech­no­logy unit, in which he served and was awarded the Israel Defense Prize. After his mili­tary service, Shapira was a foun­der and admi­nis­tra­tor of start-up compa­nies and a consul­tant for compa­nies such as Intel and Broad­com. Zohar Zisa­pel, a major inves­tor in the auto­mo­tive sector, is one of Israel’s best-known high-tech entre­pre­neurs and mana­gers. Zisa­pel helped found and is chair­man of some of Israel’s best-known auto­mo­tive start-ups, inclu­ding Hailo, Argus and Innoviz.

Hi Auto will unveil a proto­type of the world’s first commer­cial driver voice reco­gni­tion solu­tion, which sepa­ra­tes the driver’s voice from all other voices in the vehicle, as well as noises inside and outside the vehicle, or hides all back­ground noise, at CES 2020 in Las Vegas from Jan. 7–10. Thus, for the first time, such a solu­tion is coming to the market that combi­nes a micro­phone placed in front of the inten­ded spea­ker with a camera that tracks his or her lips. The system is based on a deep-lear­ning soft­ware program instal­led on the device that elimi­na­tes noise, which cannot be achie­ved by using audio tech­ni­ques alone. The company has alre­ady estab­lished cont­acts with leading auto­mo­tive compa­nies, which are expec­ted to test its tech­no­logy in early 2020.

“Whether for use in purcha­sing train tickets, navi­ga­tion control or lane change commands, voice reco­gni­tion is rapidly beco­ming the most popu­lar device control method almost ever­y­where in the world,” said Roy Baha­rav, CEO and co-foun­der of Hi Auto. “Howe­ver, when the devices are opera­ted in envi­ron­ments with multi­ple spea­k­ers or in noisy envi­ron­ments, their relia­bi­lity decrea­ses drama­ti­cally. Our audio­vi­sual solu­tion is able to focus on the spea­ker and remove all back­ground noise, making it sound like they are in a recor­ding studio. Our solu­tion will make the expe­ri­ence around speech reco­gni­tion in the car, as well as in other envi­ron­ments, more satis­fy­ing for consu­mers and enable the intro­duc­tion of more complex and sensi­tive features by origi­nal equip­ment manufacturers.”

News

Colo­gne — Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed the manage­ment on the acqui­si­tion of NOBILIS Group GmbH, one of the most renow­ned German compa­nies for high-quality fragrance and perfume brands.

NOBILIS GROUP specia­li­zes in the distri­bu­tion of perfume brands and distri­bu­tes a wide port­fo­lio of brands such as Creed, Atkin­sons, Versace, Mont­blanc, Baldessa­rini, Coach, Acqua Colo­nia, Hollis­ter, Karl Lager­feld and many other inter­na­tio­nal perfume brands with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. It is conside­red a pioneer and driving force in the indus­try and covers the entire fragrance market, with a wide range of premium and luxury brands, through to life­style brands. The NOBILIS GROUP has also estab­lished itself as a service part­ner for Bulgari Parfums and Revlon/Elizabeth Arden, among others. The company cele­bra­ted its 25th anni­ver­sary in 2018, enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion and high reco­gni­tion in the indus­try, and was able to break the magic barrier of 100 million euros in sales for the first time last year.

With imme­diate effect, the previous Mana­ging Direc­tor Udo Heuser (51) and the long-stan­ding Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer Dr. Joachim Hense­ler (51) are respon­si­ble for the company as Mana­ging Part­ners with equal rights. Both have been perso­nally asso­cia­ted with the NOBILIS GROUP for a long time and stand for the grea­test possi­ble conti­nuity. They take over the company shares from the foun­ders Thomas C. Schnitz­ler and Detlef Rughöft, who thus leave the opera­tio­nal level and move to a newly foun­ded advi­sory board. In this way, their valuable indus­try cont­acts of many years’ stan­ding, their know-how and their acqui­si­tion strength will remain with the company in the long term. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Heuking team provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to the acqui­rer from the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion to the contract docu­men­ta­tion to the closing and on the financing.

Advi­sor­s­NO­BI­LIS GROUP: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek:
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher, photo (lead),
Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M.,
Laura Rilin­ger (all corporate/M&A), all Cologne
Dr. Guido Hoff­mann, LL.M.,
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (both Finan­cing), both Düsseldorf
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg

News

Berlin — The start-up inves­tor Rhein­gau Foun­ders is in a tangi­ble conflict with its own backers. As repor­ted by the busi­ness maga­zine ‘Capi­tal’ (issue 11/2019, EVT Octo­ber 24), one of them is the venture capi­ta­list Born2Grow, which is finan­ced by Lidl foun­der Dieter Schwarz. Seve­ral inves­tors are conside­ring lawsuits. Born2Grow is also nego­tia­ting a complete exit and sale of its invest­ments. The dispute was sparked by fund fees that Rhein­gau Foun­ders deman­ded from its financiers.

The foun­ders of the startup fund had come into money in 2014 through an early invest­ment in food deli­very service Lieferando. They then began to build their own compa­nies and formed an inves­tors’ club. In addi­tion to Born2Grow, the members include entre­pre­neurs such as Corne­lius Boersch and the Mende family from Karlsruhe.

A dispute arose as early as a year ago when Rhein­gau Foun­ders char­ged its inves­tors for start-up invest­ment costs, such as tax advi­sors and audi­tors. What was unusual was that the fund also clai­med costs retroac­tively — in some cases for a period of five years. Born2Grow, for exam­ple, was to pay a quar­ter of a million euros in fees. Some inves­tors ‘Capi­tal’ spoke to refu­sed to pay. The reason given: The suddenly accruing claims were too high and in part alre­ady time-barred.

Rhein­gau Foun­ders part­ners Phil­ipp Hart­mann and Tobias Johann, on the other hand, call Born2Grow’s beha­vior “unpro­fes­sio­nal.” The costs had been fixed in the contracts. Born2Grow had alre­ady taken the Berlin foun­ders to court at the time. Before a verdict was reached, the parties reached an out-of-court sett­le­ment. Now, new lawsuits could be on the horizon.

There are further points of conflict between inves­tors and the start-up fund: Seve­ral Rhein­gau inves­tors complain that they have been inade­qua­tely infor­med about the busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment of their start-up invest­ments. One inves­tor even got into trou­ble with the tax office because docu­ments were miss­ing. Rhein­gau Foun­ders dispu­tes this, saying the fund has always “fully complied” with all report­ing requirements.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Hoch­stadt — The foun­ders of the Upper Fran­co­nian bedroom furni­ture specia­list Signet Wohn­mö­bel have handed over the majo­rity of their shares to indus­try expert and future CEO Thomas Schlos­ser as part of a succes­sion plan. A mino­rity share­hol­ding is acqui­red in equal parts by the invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner and a fund mana­ged by it. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close by Janu­ary 2020.

Signet, based in Hoch­stadt am Main, has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing indi­vi­dual func­tional furni­ture for almost 30 years. From the very begin­ning, the two foun­ders, Carola and Gerald Klimke, have focu­sed on time­l­ess design, high func­tion­a­lity and sustaina­bi­lity: The trade­mark is the so-called “moving forms”, raw mate­ri­als from regio­nal, control­led stocks are used and the pollutant-free proces­sing takes place exclu­si­vely in Germany — accor­ding to the strict quality guide­lines of the German Furni­ture Quality Asso­cia­tion (awarded with the quality mark “Golden M”). From a two-man opera­tion, a medium-sized family busi­ness with about 70 employees and a product range around the topics of sitting, lying, slee­ping, living and object has deve­lo­ped. Signet is one of Germany’s leading suppli­ers of high-quality sofa beds in particular.

Foun­der Gerald Klimke explains the reasons for choo­sing the succes­sor constel­la­tion: “A sense of respon­si­bi­lity has always been a central corpo­rate value for my wife and me. When we now pass on our life’s work after 30 years, we ther­e­fore want above all to do justice to our employees, custo­mers and suppli­ers. We are very plea­sed to have found part­ners with whom we have the good feeling that the company will be contin­ued in our spirit.” His succes­sor, Thomas Schlos­ser, has alre­ady held nume­rous manage­ment posi­ti­ons at various furni­ture manu­fac­tu­r­ers and is conside­red a specia­list for high-quality furni­ture. He says, “Signet is a special company and it is with great plea­sure that I succeed Mr. and Mrs. Klimke.”

“Since its foun­ding, Signet has consis­t­ently gone its own way and focu­sed on produc­tion in Germany and distri­bu­tion through local retail­ers — this is the core of Signet’s success and the basis for the good posi­tio­ning of the desi­gner furni­ture manu­fac­tu­rer,” summa­ri­zes Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. His company specia­li­zes in equity finan­cing and further deve­lo­p­ment of medium-sized companies.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is making the invest­ment toge­ther with its subsi­diary VR Equity Gesell­schaft für regio­nale Entwick­lung in Bayern mbH, which was provi­ded with funding from the Euro­pean Union for the promo­tion of inno­va­tive compa­nies in Bava­ria (ERDF funds) as part of a part­ner­ship with the Free State of Bava­ria. Direc­tor Daniel Schmidt outlines the future stra­tegy for Signet: “We want to conti­nue the successful path of Signet toge­ther with Thomas Schlos­ser and at the same time push growth with specia­list dealers, in the contract sector and with addi­tio­nal part­ners.” Selec­tive geogra­phi­cal expan­sion into neigh­bor­ing foreign markets is also envisaged.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH 
VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.vrep.de.

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:
Legal & Tax: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte, Düssel­dorf, with Dr. Lars Laeger, Chris­tian Wege­ner and Thomas Chwalek

Finan­cial & Commer­cial: First Park Advi­sory, Munich, with Michael Hinter­hol­zer and Stefan Schmidt

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed the foun­ders of parcel­Lab GmbH on a Series B finan­cing. The finan­cing round was struc­tu­red in the form of a bidding process in which inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors were also short­lis­ted. In addi­tion to some exis­ting inves­tors such as venture capi­tal inves­tor copa­rion, Capna­mic Ventures is now parti­ci­pa­ting in the company as a lead inves­tor.

parcel­Lab is the leading postal check­out expe­ri­ence plat­form in Europe. The company employs around 50 people in Munich, London and Paris and counts around 350 retail­ers and brands among its custo­mers, inclu­ding Ikea, Lidl, Media­Markt­Sa­turn and Fress­napf. The fresh capi­tal is to be used for further growth and the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal markets.

Martin Bött­ger (photo) has been advi­sing parcel­Lab and its foun­ding team Tobias Buxho­idt, Anton Ender and Julian Krenge since 2016.

Advi­sors to Parcel­Lab GmbH: SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Martin Bött­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate; Lead), Stefan Schi­cker (Part­ner, IP/IT); Asso­cia­tes: Amelie Schroth der Zweite, Wilhelm von Feilitzsch (both Corporate)

News

Munich, Frank­furt a. Main - Upfield Group B.V. has acqui­red Arivia S.A., a leading and inter­na­tio­nally active manu­fac­tu­rer of vegan cheese and owner of the VIOLIFE brand. Upfield Group B.V. was advi­sed by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and the usual closing condi­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Upfield Group is the marga­rine and spreads busi­ness spun off from the Dutch-British food group Unile­ver, which was acqui­red by finan­cial inves­tor KKR for EUR 6.83 billion at the end of 2017. The store includes tradi­tio­nal brands such as Rama, Becel, Lätta and Flora. The stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion of Arivia allows Upfield to enter a new busi­ness segment.

The Weil team for this tran­sac­tion was led by Munich Corpo­rate Part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and included part­ners Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Anti­trust, Frank­furt) and Britta Grauke (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt) as well as asso­cia­tes Manuel-Peter Fringer, Alex­an­der Pfef­fer­ler, Caro­lin Ober­maier, Ramona Fren­zel, Marcel Ander­sen (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Ansgar Wimber, Julian Schwa­ne­beck, Thomas Weise, Aurel Hille, Kai Neumann (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Benja­min Rapp, Dennis Reisich, Manuela Minsel (all Tax, Munich), Thomas Zimmer­mann, Dr. Alex­an­der Wandt (both Finance, Munich), Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frank­furt) as well as Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe and Dr. Barbara Sand­fuchs (both IP, Munich).

News

London — Promo­tion for Phil­ipp Freise (photo) — the KKR part­ner will become the new co-head of KKR’s Euro­pean private equity busi­ness with imme­diate effect. In the future, he will lead the company toge­ther with the Italian Mattia Caprioli. Both will jointly assume respon­si­bi­lity for day-to-day opera­ti­ons. They report to Johan­nes Huth, who heads KKR’s acti­vi­ties in Europe. Phil­ipp Freise had recently made a name for hims­elf with deals on the German media market.

With this move, KKR is restruc­tu­ring its private equity leader­ship. The posi­ti­ons Freise and Caprioli will assume in addi­tion to their exis­ting duties were previously headed by Johan­nes Huth.

News

Berlin — Since March 2018, Dr. Tanja Emmer­ling (41, photo) has headed the Berlin office of High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF). Now she has been appoin­ted part­ner. “After the extre­mely successful and rapid estab­lish­ment of the Berlin office, we are very plea­sed to streng­then the exten­ded manage­ment team with Tanja. This way, we gain even more impact for HTGF as a whole,” explains Dr. Alex von Fran­ken­berg, Mana­ging Part­ner of HTGF. This means that there are eleven part­ners in total, more than a quar­ter of whom are women.

Ms. Emmer­ling has been a member of the HTGF team since 2014. AI, IoT, Mobi­lity & Logi­stics, IT Secu­rity, Block­chain and SaaS compa­nies are her passion. She is invol­ved as a start-up mentor and is a welcome guest on various panels. Before joining HTGF, she was Head of New Ventures respon­si­ble for incu­ba­tion and corpo­rate ventures in a media company. “Being able to repre­sent Europe’s most active seed inves­tor as a part­ner in Berlin offers incre­di­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties to get new compa­nies off the ground,” Ms. Emmer­ling is plea­sed to say.

Berlin is an important loca­tion for HTGF. The metro­po­lis is a central hub for start-ups, inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors and compa­nies. A team of five invest­ment mana­gers is alre­ady working there. “But we have not only expan­ded the team in Berlin. New invest­ment mana­gers have also come on board at the Bonn office. With around 220 tran­sac­tions per year — that means new invest­ments, follow-up finan­cing and exits — the need for excel­lent invest­ment mana­gers has contin­ued to grow,” explains Dr. Alex von Frankenberg.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
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 550 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. www.htgf.de

News

Frankfurt/Stockholm/Boston — Alan­tra, a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment, has advi­sed US-based family-owned Rite-Hite, on the sale of Caljan, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for e‑commerce appli­ca­ti­ons, to private equity firm Invest­ment AB Latour (“Latour”). As part of the tran­sac­tion, Alan­tra had the exclu­sive M&A advi­sory mandate and conduc­ted a compe­ti­tive inter­na­tio­nal auction process. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to EU merger control approval.

Caljan is the market leader in auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy for parcel hand­ling in the logi­stics and e‑commerce sectors. The product range includes teles­co­pic convey­ors, auto­ma­ted docu­ment hand­ling and labe­l­ing solu­ti­ons, and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for parcel deli­very bases. Foun­ded in 1963, the company is head­quar­te­red in Denmark and has subsi­dia­ries in Germany, France, the UK, Latvia and the USA. Net sales are around 100 million euros, with an opera­ting margin of over 15% and strong growth. The company employs 450 people.

“We are very plea­sed with the outcome of this tran­sac­tion and are convin­ced that Latour is the right part­ner for Caljan and all of its employees. Alantra‘s sector know­ledge, exper­tise in the Scan­di­na­vian markets, and close and through support from expe­ri­en­ced staff were criti­cal to the success of this tran­sac­tion,” said Paul Maly, CEO of Rite-Hite.

Henrik Olesen, CEO of Caljan, added: “We have worked inten­si­vely with Alantra’s experts for much of 2019. Their deep sector know­ledge, under­stan­ding of our busi­ness, and commit­ment have been a great help throug­hout the sales process. In parti­cu­lar, we were impres­sed with how Alantra’s global sector experts worked as an inte­gra­ted team with Alantra’s Scan­di­na­vian and US offices.”

Frank Merkel, Mana­ging Part­ner at Alan­tra, said, “We are proud to have been selec­ted as advi­sors to Rite-Hite in the sale of Caljan. Follo­wing the sale of Trans­norm last year, this tran­sac­tion repres­ents another mile­stone for our Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery Prac­tice and high­lights our deep sector exper­tise. We wish Caljan well on its jour­ney as part of Latour.”

The sales process was led by the Indus­trial Auto­ma­tion & Machi­nery team in Frank­furt toge­ther with Alantra’s office in Stock­holm. The team was supported by inter­na­tio­nal Alan­tra offices in approa­ching local buyers.

About Alan­tra
Alan­tra is a global invest­ment banking and asset manage­ment firm focu­sed on the mid-market segment with offices in Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America. With over 330 experts, the Invest­ment Banking unit provi­des inde­pen­dent advice on M&A, corpo­rate finance, loan port­fo­lios and capi­tal market tran­sac­tions. The Asset Manage­ment unit mana­ges assets of around 4.5 billion euros in the asset clas­ses private equity, active funds, private debt, real estate and wealth manage­ment. www.alantra.com.

News

Paris/Frankfurt am Main — Idin­vest Part­ners, the Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in the SME segment, has announ­ced the successful final closing of its third fund focu­sed on the digi­tal economy, Idin­vest Digi­tal Fund III, at €350 million. The fund thus exceeds its origi­nal target volume of 300 million euros. In addi­tion, Digi­tal Fund III signi­fi­cantly exceeds its predecessor’s volume of 154 million euros.

The fund, which is mana­ged by a nine-person invest­ment team, includes a number of new inves­tors from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. In addi­tion, a large number of inves­tors who had alre­ady inves­ted in Digi­tal Fund II also participated.

The new fund has alre­ady inves­ted €85 million in 15 inno­va­tive and fast-growing compa­nies in the Euro­pean digi­tal economy. These include German tele­me­di­cine startup Tele­Cli­nic, as well as Acinq, Kactus, Octo­ber, Malt Commu­nity, Orni­kar and Meero. They are all shaping tomorrow’s busi­ness models in a wide variety of digi­tal economy sectors: enter­prise soft­ware, fintech, insur­tech, deept­ech (arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, big data, virtual reality, Inter­net of Things, cyber secu­rity) and digi­tal health.

Idin­vest Part­ners is one of the most active conti­nen­tal Euro­pean venture capi­tal (VC) inves­tors. The invest­ment focus is on the digi­tal economy, smart cities and health­care sectors. In Germany, the company has so far inves­ted in ten compa­nies, the current port­fo­lio includes:
Allt­hings, a PropTech company that provi­des digi­tal services that make the daily lives of buil­ding users easier, connect people and improve communication.
Campanda, a plat­form where custo­mers can rent motor­ho­mes world­wide from commer­cial opera­tors and private motor­home owners.
The e‑scooter rental company Circ.
Sunfire, a supplier of rene­wa­ble tech­ni­cal gas and fuel produc­tion equipment.
Tele­me­di­cine company Tele­Cli­nic, which offers around-the-clock video and phone consul­ta­ti­ons with specia­lists and primary care physicians.
Wefox, one of the leading insurtechs that helps consu­mers manage and opti­mize their insu­rance online.

The total volume of Idin­vest Part­ners’ venture capi­tal invest­ments in Germany amounts to 78 million euros. In terms of invest­ment volume and number of port­fo­lio compa­nies, Germany ranks third among the count­ries in which the company has inves­ted in the venture capi­tal sector.

Benoist Gross­mann, Mana­ging Part­ner at Idin­vest Part­ners, said: “The goal of our invest­ment acti­vity is to create an ecosys­tem that provi­des foun­ders with opti­mal deve­lo­p­ment condi­ti­ons. We are ther­e­fore extre­mely plea­sed with the fund­rai­sing success of our team. This success under­lines our exten­sive exper­tise in the digi­tal sector and the trust placed in us by leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and corpo­ra­tes in Europe and internationally.”

Matthieu Baret (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Idin­vest Part­ners, added: “The start-up scene in Europe is growing and deve­lo­ping steadily. This offers excel­lent invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, espe­ci­ally in the digi­tal sector. For many years now, Idin­vest Part­ners has been helping the most inno­va­tive and dyna­mic compa­nies in the Euro­pean tech­no­logy sector achieve their goals with a long-term, part­ner­ship-based approach that we will conti­nue to follow.”

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm focu­sed on the mid market. Curr­ently, Idin­vest Part­ners mana­ges assets of around €8 billion with more than 90 employees and has offices in Paris, Frank­furt, Madrid, Shang­hai and Seoul. The company has three busi­ness units: Venture & Growth Capi­tal, Private Debt and Private Funds Group. The company was foun­ded in 1997 as part of the Alli­anz Group and has been inde­pen­dent since 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners became part of the Eura­zeo Group. The merger crea­ted a leading global invest­ment company with €17.7 billion in assets under manage­ment (inclu­ding nearly €11.6 billion from invest­ment part­ners) inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of nearly 400 corpo­rate holdings. www.idinvest.com

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — HQS Quan­tum Simu­la­ti­ons enables chemi­cal and mate­ri­als scien­tists with quan­tum chemi­cal and advan­ced mate­ri­als simu­la­ti­ons using mid-term NISQ proces­sors. UVC Part­ners, HTGF and btov lead the seed funding round.

From the deve­lo­p­ment of more powerful batte­ries to highly effi­ci­ent solar cells, the search for new mate­ri­als with speci­fi­cally prede­fi­ned proper­ties is crucial. Until now, our ability to deve­lop new mate­ri­als using simu­la­tion tools has been limi­ted by the lack of suffi­ci­ent compu­ting power. The deve­lo­p­ment of new mate­ri­als requi­res an under­stan­ding of mate­rial proper­ties at the atomic level, where the laws of physics are gover­ned by quan­tum mecha­nics. Even super­com­pu­ting centers can solve, at most, tiny quan­tum problems. Howe­ver, with the advent of quan­tum compu­ting, our ability to deve­lop enti­rely new mate­ri­als will change dramatically.

HQS provi­des the soft­ware to faci­li­tate the coming revo­lu­tion in compu­ter-aided mate­ri­als design. HQS is a spin-off of the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy and offers soft­ware for quan­tum compu­ters. It was foun­ded in 2017 by Dr. Iris Schwenk, Dr. Sebas­tian Zanker, Dr. Jan Reiner and Dr. Michael Martha­ler.

The four foun­ders had worked toge­ther at KIT for four years and then took the step of closing the gap between science and indus­try. Origi­nally backed by angel inves­tors Fried­rich Hoepf­ner and Manfred Zieg­ler, HQS has now closed a seed round of €2.3 million with expe­ri­en­ced deep tech inves­tors UVC Part­ners, HTGF and btov.

“At HQS, we drive inno­va­tion by brin­ging toge­ther a group of outstan­ding scien­tists from physics, chemis­try and quan­tum infor­ma­tion in a work envi­ron­ment that combi­nes crea­ti­vity with a clear focus on product deve­lo­p­ment,” says COO Iris Schwenk. HQS is looking to signi­fi­cantly expand its team in the coming quar­ters and invi­tes top talent with exper­tise to apply.

“HQS’ broad exper­tise in quan­tum deco­he­rence, noisy quan­tum gates, and solid-state physics makes them ideally suited to trans­fer quan­tum chemi­cal and advan­ced mate­ri­als simu­la­ti­ons to mid-term NISQ proces­sors. We look forward to when these simu­la­ti­ons even­tually lead to supe­rior results that realize a quan­tum advan­tage,” says Chris­tian Reit­ber­ger of the btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies team.

HQS has well-estab­lished colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with BASF, Bosch and Merck. These colla­bo­ra­ti­ons link the chemi­cal indus­try, which has been very successful in Germany for more than a century, with a highly inno­va­tive field of the future. Quan­tum compu­ting can massi­vely increase the speed of mate­ri­als deve­lo­p­ment, making it a criti­cal tech­no­logy for the chemi­cal industry.

“HQS’ proxi­mity to strong inno­va­tive compa­nies in the chemi­cal indus­try has been of great bene­fit. It has allo­wed us to deve­lop our products with a clear view of what our custo­mers actually need. We are very plea­sed that our deve­lo­p­ment is now supported by three inves­tors who have the pati­ence needed for a complex field like quan­tum compu­ting,” says CEO Michael Marthaler.

“The team at HQS combi­nes leading tech­ni­cal and busi­ness skills, making them well posi­tio­ned to make quan­tum compu­ting acces­si­ble to their indus­trial custo­mers,” said Benja­min Erhart, part­ner at UVC Partners.

Yann Fiebig, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF adds: “The deve­lo­p­ments in quan­tum compu­ting over the last few years open up unima­gi­ned oppor­tu­ni­ties in a wide range of indus­tries. With this strong inves­tor consor­tium, HQS has found the right part­ners to open up quan­tum simu­la­ti­ons entrepreneurially.”

About HQS Quan­tum Simulations
HQS Quan­tum Simu­la­ti­ons predicts mate­rial proper­ties using quan­tum compu­ters. We acce­le­rate deve­lo­p­ment cycles in the chemi­cal and phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­tries. Quan­tum compu­ters can perform calcu­la­ti­ons impos­si­ble for even the most powerful super­com­pu­ters. Current quan­tum compu­ters suffer from intrin­sic faults that limit their perfor­mance. At HQS, we deve­lop algo­rithms for quan­tum compu­ters that can deal with these errors and enable our custo­mers to bene­fit from the perfor­mance advan­tage of quan­tum compu­ters earlier than their compe­ti­tors. In addi­tion, we offer custo­mi­zed simu­la­tion solu­ti­ons for conven­tio­nal compu­ters with an inte­gra­tion of high-end simu­la­tion methods and the possi­bi­lity to use the upco­ming quan­tum computers.

About btov Partners
btov Part­ners, foun­ded in 2000, is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm foun­ded and funded by serial entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels, focu­sing on indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and digi­tal leaders in the Euro­pean economy. The company mana­ges an invest­ment volume of 420 million euros and reviews over 3,000 invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties annu­ally. The btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies team supports indus­tri­ally rele­vant compa­nies ranging from hard­ware compa­nies with embedded soft­ware to appli­ca­tion and infra­struc­ture soft­ware provi­ders for various indus­try segments. The focus is on robo­tics & auto­no­mous vehic­les, indus­try 4.0 and indus­trial IoT, cyber-physi­cal secu­rity, elec­tro­nics & photo­nics, addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring, energy conver­sion and storage, and medi­cal and quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies. Past invest­ments include Black­lane, Data Artisans, DeepL, Dyem­an­sion, Effect Photo­nics, Elec­tro­chaea, ORCAM, Quanta, Raisin, SumUp, Volo­c­op­ter and XING. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.btov.vc/industrial-technologies.

About Unter­neh­mer­tum Venture Capi­tal Partners
Unter­neh­mer­tum Venture Capi­tal Part­ners (UVC Part­ners) is an early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests speci­fi­cally in tech­no­logy-based start­ups in the Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies, Enter­prise Soft­ware and Mobi­lity sectors. Per invest­ment round € 0.5 — 3 million are inves­ted and in successful invest­ments up to € 12 million in total.
Port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team and from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With its more than 180 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM has many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. Through the part­ner­ship, UVC Part­ners can offer start­ups unique access to talent, custo­mers and part­ners. The port­fo­lio includes invest­ments such as Flix­Bus, Carjump (Free2Move), KONUX, Blick­feld, 3YOURMIND and Vimcar.
www.uvcpartners.com

About Hoepf­ner Bräu
Foun­ded in 1798 as a home brewery, Hoepf­ner Bräu now works as a deve­lo­per of high-end real estate and as a busi­ness angel for hi-tech start­ups. Hoepf­ner foun­ded Cyber­Fo­rum, now Europe’s leading network for hi-tech start­ups, and was the first Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund part­ner at the Euro­pean Angel Fund (EAF). Hoepf­ner has been support­ing HQS since the end of 2018. https://hoepfner-braeu.de/hoepfner-strategie/beteiligungen/

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
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 550 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

Munich / Schaan — Liberta Part­ners (“Liberta”) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG (“FMA”), a medium-sized manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for mecha­tro­nic assem­blies, based in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, as part of a succes­sion part­ner­ship. The previous main share­hol­der, Stefan Dürr, will remain active in the company as mana­ging part­ner. FMA was acqui­red through Liberta-initia­ted Liberta Part­ners Fund II, which was laun­ched in April 2019. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

FMA deve­lops and manu­fac­tures highly complex mecha­tro­nic assem­blies and system compon­ents and supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. FMA’s unique selling points include, in parti­cu­lar, its many years of exper­tise in mecha­tro­nic manu­fac­tu­ring and its outstan­ding effi­ci­ency, precis­ion and deli­very relia­bi­lity from batch size 1.

Stefan Dürr, mana­ging part­ner of FMA, said: “With Liberta, we have an opera­tio­nal part­ner at our side who acts with long-term and fore­sight. With our custo­mi­zed product solu­ti­ons, we plan to expand our custo­mer base in Germany and neigh­bor­ing count­ries. Liberta will actively support us in our further development.”

Dr. Peter Franke and Florian Korp, Part­ners at Liberta, add: “We are very plea­sed that Stefan Dürr has chosen Liberta to manage his succes­sion and successfully align the company for the future. FMA will bene­fit from our broad indus­try network as well as our M&A exper­tise for suita­ble add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. In the coming years, we will provide FMA with entre­pre­neu­rial support in imple­men­ting the jointly defi­ned growth targets. In doing so, our top prio­rity is to conti­nue to meet the high inno­va­tion demands of our customers.”

About FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG
Foun­ded in 1955 and head­quar­te­red in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, the company star­ted with the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of simple mecha­ni­cal parts. Since the take­over by Mr. Stefan Dürr in the 1990s, FMA has deve­lo­ped into a renow­ned mecha­tro­nics service provi­der. As such, FMA supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: https://www.fma.li/

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 as part of the long-term “100% Core& Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of profes­sio­nals from M&A, Opera­ti­ons and Legal. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Essen, Germany — Abalos Thera­peu­tics announ­ced the closing of a €12 million Series A finan­cing round and its corpo­rate debut. The company’s goal is to deve­lop new immuno-onco­logy thera­peu­tics. This approach is based on a speci­fic type of arena­vi­rus that prefe­ren­ti­ally infects and repli­ca­tes in cancer cells, gene­ra­ting a strong immune response against the cancer cells. The Series A round was jointly led by Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) and Grün­der­fonds Ruhr and included invest­ments from NRW.BANK and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF). The newly formed Super­vi­sory Board of the company will be joined by repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of all investors.

As part of the finan­cing, Abalos further announ­ced the appoint­ment of Dr. Marcus Kostka as Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer and Dr. Jörg Voll­mer as Chief Scien­ti­fic Offi­cer. Both have many years of expe­ri­ence in corpo­rate development.

“Abalos’ goal is to leverage the potent immune acti­va­tion and highly speci­fic tumor tropism of arena­vi­ru­ses to deve­lop a diffe­ren­tia­ted immune-onco­logy approach and vali­date it clini­cally,” said Marcus Kostka, M.D., CEO of Abalos Thera­peu­tics. “Having alre­ady supported and finan­ced a number of biotech compa­nies over the last few years, what attrac­ted me to Abalos in parti­cu­lar was the promi­sing tech­no­logy. The oppor­tu­nity to build a company toge­ther with Jörg Voll­mer, an expe­ri­en­ced immu­no­logy expert, also repres­ents an extre­mely attrac­tive opportunity.”

The funding round will enable Abalos to advance its arena­vi­rus-based drug candi­da­tes into clini­cal vali­da­tion. The first product candi­da­tes are being deve­lo­ped using the company’s proprie­tary Fast Evolu­tion plat­form, which gene­ra­tes viral strains with opti­mal anti-tumor proper­ties. These candi­da­tes are selec­ted based on their poten­tial to repro­gram the immune system and elimi­nate mali­gnant tumor tissue in a targe­ted and effi­ci­ent manner. The approach is based on the inno­va­tive rese­arch of immu­no­lo­gists Prof. Dr. Karl Lang, Head of the Depart­ment of Immu­no­logy at the Medi­cal Faculty of the Univer­sity of Duis­burg-Essen, and Prof. Dr. Phil­ipp Lang, Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Mole­cu­lar Medi­cine II at the Univer­sity of Düssel­dorf. Abalos opera­tes in close coope­ra­tion with the univer­si­ties of Duis­burg-Essen and Düsseldorf.

Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos from Grün­der­fonds Ruhr commen­ted: “We see signi­fi­cant progress in the field of immuno-onco­logy, howe­ver, there is still a need for product candi­da­tes that should enable the full power of the entire immune system to be harnes­sed. It is parti­cu­larly important that these not only attack the primary tumor but also more distant meta­sta­ses. We are plea­sed to support Abalos’ expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and its dedi­ca­ted scien­tists as they work towards an arena­vi­rus-based solution.”

Dr. Frank Hensel, Prin­ci­pal of High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, adds: “Abalos Thera­peu­tics is an excel­lent exam­ple of first-class scien­ti­fic achie­ve­ments at univer­si­ties in Germany. The combi­na­tion with an indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team has resul­ted in a company that is capa­ble of taking a decisive step in cancer treatment.”

Dr. Marcus Kostka is a seaso­ned indus­try expert with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in various posi­ti­ons at Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim (BI) where he iden­ti­fied and drove inno­va­tion. Most recently, Dr. Kostka was a venture fund part­ner at BI and held super­vi­sory board posi­ti­ons at seve­ral compa­nies. He was also invol­ved in the successful exits of Rigon­tec and ICD Therapeutics.

Dr. Jörg Voll­mer brings to his posi­tion as CSO at Abalos Thera­peu­tics exten­sive know­ledge and expe­ri­ence in the fields of immu­no­logy, onco­logy and infec­tious dise­a­ses. He has acqui­red these in the course of his career in various R&D and manage­ment posi­ti­ons. Most recently, Dr. Voll­mer was CSO at Rigon­tec, where he was invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment of a novel immuno-onco­logy treat­ment approach and its clini­cal vali­da­tion. He also led the company’s R&D acti­vi­ties until its acqui­si­tion by MSD in 2017.

About Abalos
Abalos Thera­peu­tics is using the unique immune stimu­la­tion of arena­vi­ru­ses to deve­lop a new approach to fight­ing cancer. This should enable the full power of the entire immune system to be used speci­fi­cally against cancer cells. The goal of Abalos’ arena­vi­rus-based product candi­da­tes is to acti­vate the body’s innate and adap­tive immune response by propa­ga­ting the viru­ses in cancer cells. As a result, all rele­vant immune cell types speci­fi­cally attack the primary tumor and also distant meta­sta­ses. Led by expe­ri­en­ced biotech entre­pre­neurs and immu­no­logy pioneers, Abalos aims to make a quan­tum leap in immuno-oncology.

About Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Corpo­rate Venture Fund (BIVF)
Foun­ded in 2010, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund GmbH (BIVF) invests in biotech­no­logy compa­nies focu­sed on breakth­rough new thera­pies to drive inno­va­tion in biome­di­cal rese­arch. The BIVF seeks signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments in pati­ent care through ground­brea­king scien­ti­fic disco­veries as well as their clini­cal trans­la­tion by buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with scien­tists and entre­pre­neurs. The focus of the BIVF is to explore novel thera­peu­tic approa­ches that address high unmet medi­cal needs in immuno-onco­logy, rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine, infec­tious dise­a­ses, and digi­tal health. These concepts may include, but are not limi­ted to, novel plat­form tech­no­lo­gies in response to previously untreata­ble dise­a­ses, next-gene­ra­tion vacci­nes, and/or New Biolo­gi­cal Enti­ties, such as onco­ly­tic viral therapy.

The BIVF takes an active role vis-à-vis the compa­nies in its port­fo­lio and adds signi­fi­cant value through its own exten­sive expe­ri­ence in drug disco­very, science and manage­ment. BIVF mana­ges EUR 250 million and curr­ently over­sees a port­fo­lio of over 25 companies.
boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com.

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 important indus­try access points for the respec­tive port­fo­lio companies.
gruenderfondsruhr.com.

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.
nrwbank.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
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 550 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

Colo­gne — Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek wins M&A expert Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg (photo) toge­ther with team from Görg. Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg, LL.M. (54) and Dr. Alex­an­der Jüngst (37) will join the Colo­gne office of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek as equity part­ners as of Janu­ary 1, 2020. Toge­ther with them, asso­cia­tes Dr. Kers­tin Goeck and Maxi­mi­lian Spitz­horn-Storck join Heuking from Görg.

The renow­ned M&A part­ner von Rosen­berg has many years of expe­ri­ence in advi­sing on German and cross-border M&A tran­sac­tions. His clients include large private equity funds and compa­nies in the energy sector. With his team, he regu­larly advi­ses medium-sized compa­nies and large family busi­nesses as well as family offices. He also has exten­sive exper­tise in the area of restructuring.

Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg comple­ted his law studies at the Ruhr Univer­sity Bochum and George­town Univer­sity Law Center. In 1999, he worked as Foreign Coun­sel at one of the leading law firms in the U.S. in Los Ange­les. Prior to joining Görg in 2016, von Rosen­berg was a part­ner (since 1995 as an attor­ney) at Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger from 2002 to 2016. In his subse­quent three years as a part­ner at Görg, he contin­ued to secure manda­tes for large cap funds such as CVC Capi­tal Part­ners, Ardian and Oakley, as well as nume­rous large medium-sized compa­nies for his team.

Dr. Alex­an­der Jüngst has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in advi­sing on M&A and private equity tran­sac­tions as well as restruc­tu­ring. In addi­tion to tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence, Jüngst also has special exper­tise in stock corpo­ra­tion and group law, limi­ted liabi­lity company law, corpo­rate gover­nance and capi­tal markets law.

Jüngst comple­ted his law studies at the Albert Ludwig Univer­sity in Frei­burg im Breis­gau, the Univer­sité de Lausanne, Switz­er­land, and the Univer­sity of Colo­gne. He star­ted his career at Link­la­ters in Corporate/M&A before joining Görg in Janu­ary 2019.

“We are extre­mely plea­sed to have Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg and Dr. Alex­an­der Jüngst join us with their asso­cia­tes. The expe­ri­en­ced colle­ague Dr. von Rosen­berg and his team are an excel­lent addi­tion to our Corporate/M&A prac­tice,” said Dr. Pär Johans­son, Mana­ging Part­ner of the firm and based in Colo­gne. “With the four new addi­ti­ons, we are expan­ding our exper­tise in M&A not only in Colo­gne, but across all firms.”

Dr. Oliver von Rosen­berg is also convin­ced that the change is wort­hwhile for both sides. “I am looking forward to my new role at a firm that has one of its main areas of focus in M&A,” von Rosen­berg said of his team’s move.

News

Berlin — Iris Capi­tal, one of Europe’s leading venture capi­tal firms, brings Itziar Este­vez Latasa (photo) on board as a part­ner. Based in Munich, she will be respon­si­ble for late-stage invest­ments in the DACH region.

Itziar Este­vez Latasa brings over ten years of VC expe­ri­ence and specia­li­zes in late stage and growth capi­tal invest­ments. Its focus here is prima­rily on invest­ments in the areas of B2B soft­ware, data analy­tics, cyber secu­rity and Indus­try 4.0.

Most recently, she spent ten years as a venture inves­tor at Next47 and Siemens Venture Capi­tal. Her previous invest­ments and port­fo­lio respon­si­bi­li­ties include Black Duck (acqui­red by Synop­sys), Brain­cube, Pola­rion (acqui­red by Siemens), Wurld­tech (acqui­red by GE), Ence­lium (acqui­red by OSRAM).

Prior to that, Itziar Este­vez Latasa worked at The Boston Consul­ting Group as a consul­tant specia­li­zing in private equity and energy projects and in project manage­ment at BMW.

Iris Capital’s Germany team is led by Curt Gunsen­hei­mer, Mana­ging Part­ner: “We are very happy and proud to welcome Itziar as our new late-stage part­ner. Her expe­ri­ence in indus­trial and corpo­rate envi­ron­ments toge­ther with her exper­tise in tech inves­t­ing will be a great addi­tion to our team in Berlin. We see her as a key figure in iden­ti­fy­ing emer­ging German compa­nies and unicorns.”

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

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

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to funds advi­sed by EMH Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in AVANTGARDE Gesell­schaft für Kommu­ni­ka­tion (AVANTGARDE). The sellers of the shares are the growth inves­tor AFINUM and the AVANTGARDE manage­ment team, which will conti­nue to hold a signi­fi­cant stake in the company.

AVANTGARDE is Germany’s leading service provi­der in the field of brand expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Munich, the Group is repre­sen­ted at five other loca­ti­ons in Germany as well as in Austria, Switz­er­land, Great Britain, Dubai, China and Brazil. Its custo­mers are prima­rily inter­na­tio­nal blue-chip compa­nies. In fiscal year 2018, AVANTGARDE gene­ra­ted fee reve­nue of more than 80 million euros.

EMH Part­ners is a Euro­pean invest­ment company by entre­pre­neurs for entre­pre­neurs, foun­ded by brot­hers Sebas­tian and Maxi­mi­lian Kuss (photo left). The next-gene­ra­tion private equity firm bridges the gap between venture capi­tal and buyout funds by support­ing the growth of medium-sized compa­nies with capi­tal and digi­tiza­tion exper­tise. With its seventh invest­ment in total, EMH is ente­ring the brand expe­ri­ence market segment. Previous invest­ments advi­sed by EMH include Brain­lab, a global leader in soft­ware-enab­led medi­cal tech­no­logy; Occhio, a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality light­ing; and Design Offices, the German indus­try leader in corpo­rate coworking.

Advi­sors to EMH Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery
Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs (Lead Part­ner)Dr. Tobias Kopp­mann (both Private Equity, Munich), Dr. Germar Enders, Dr. Nadine Hartung (both Coun­sel, both Private Equity, Munich), Stef­fen Woitz (IP Liti­ga­tion, Munich), Nina Siewert (Tax, Frank­furt), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Thomas Gennert, Dr. Sandra Urban-Crell (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Finance, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finance, Düssel­dorf). Oliver Hahn­elt (Finance, Frank­furt), Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finance, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Matthias Wein­gut, Robert Feind, Frank Weiss (all Private Equity, Munich), Colin Winter­berg, Jose­pha Hettich (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Richard Gräbe­ner, Dr. Philip Uecker (both IP Liti­ga­tion, Munich and Düsseldorf)

Inhouse: Dirk Kramer (Gene­ral Counsel)

News

Norderstedt/ Munich/Frankfurt am Main — The private equity company River­side Europe Part­ners LLC (River­side) has acqui­red a stake in TOOLPORT GmbH. River­side was advi­sed by Allen & Overy LLP on the finan­cing of the transaction.

The finan­cing included a unitran­che and super senior term loan finan­cing provi­ded by funds advi­sed by Apera Asset Manage­ment and by Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co. KG was provided.

TOOLPORT, based in Norder­stedt, Germany, is the leading online supplier of profes­sio­nal tents and rela­ted access­ories and spare parts in Europe, offe­ring its products through seven coun­try-speci­fic online stores. The part­ner­ship with River­side gives the company the oppor­tu­nity to imple­ment its ambi­tious inter­na­tio­nal growth strategy.

About River­side
River­side is a global private equity firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in growing compa­nies with enter­prise values of up to $400 million. Since its foun­ding in 1988, River­side has been invol­ved in more than 600 tran­sac­tions. The company’s inter­na­tio­nal port­fo­lio includes more than 100 investments.

Advi­sor River­side: Allen & Overy
Part­ner Dr. Astrid Krüger and Asso­ciate Tobias Hugo (both Lead, Corporate/M&A and Private Equity, Munich), Part­ner Thomas Neubaum and Coun­sel Dr. Mark Hallett (both Lead Finan­cing, Banking and Finance, Frank­furt), Part­ners Dr. Börries Ahrens (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Dr. Michael Ehret and Dr. Heike Weber (both Tax, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Heiner Meck­len­burg (Anti­trust, Hamburg) and Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (employ­ment law, Frank­furt), asso­cia­tes Melissa Baude­wig (IP, Düssel­dorf), Sven Bisch­off (tax law, Frank­furt), Louisa Drew­niok (banking and finance law, Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (data protec­tion, Düssel­dorf), Jonas Hamm (corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Simon König (real estate law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Lisa Müller (employ­ment law, Frankfurt).

News

Munich — The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is provi­ding EUR 12 million to the fast-growing Fazua GmbH. The finan­cing is provi­ded under the EU Bank’s venture debt product, a type of venture capi­tal for inno­va­tive compa­nies. The loan is secu­red by a guaran­tee from the “Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments” (EFSI). UVC Part­ners is provi­ding the remai­ning 3 million euros. The VC fund of Unter­neh­mer­TUM was alre­ady invol­ved as lead inves­tor in the last finan­cing round of 6.5 million euros.

FSI is a central compo­nent of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe, better known as the “Juncker Plan”, in which the EIB and the Euro­pean Commis­sion work closely toge­ther as stra­te­gic part­ners to make Europe’s economy more compe­ti­tive. Munich-based Fazua GmbH will use the money to expand the company and for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment activities.

The e‑bike market is growing. And that’s what Fazua wants, too. With its detacha­ble drive system for e‑bikes, the Munich-based startup is alre­ady the market leader in some sectors such as bicy­cle racing. In order to open up new markets and to expand its own product range, Fazua is able to raise growth finan­cing of 15 million euros. In addi­tion to legacy inves­tor UVC Part­ners, the startup will also receive money from the Euro­pean Fund EFSI, which is mana­ged by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB). This fund, which totals 21 billion euros, is inten­ded, among other things, to support compa­nies in the start-up phase, growth and expan­sion by provi­ding venture capital.

Consis­tent and profi­ta­ble growth
Fabian Reuter, CEO of Fazua, is deligh­ted with the success.

Foun­ded in 2013, the young company manu­fac­tures extre­mely light­weight eBike drive systems that are fitted with the motor and battery in the down tube of the bikes. With its drive systems aimed prima­rily at sporty riders who want to expe­ri­ence optio­nal assis­tance, espe­ci­ally at special moments, Fazua closes the gap between conven­tio­nal eBike drives and conven­tio­nal non-moto­ri­zed bikes. Since ente­ring the market, Fazua has built up a custo­mer base that now includes more than 35 Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­r­ers offe­ring bikes in the “eMoun­tain­bike”, “eUrban”, “eGra­vel” and “eRace­bike” segments, where Fazua holds a leading market position.

 

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Unsere Cham­pi­ons GmbH on further acqui­si­ti­ons. The company took over Child Care Company GmbH, Zwer­gen­welt GmbH as well as MD Kita­Part­ner GmbH.

Child Care Company and Zwer­gen­welt operate kinder­gar­tens and daycare centers, respec­tively, in Munich. MD Kita­Part­ner will be taken over by Our Cham­pi­ons in the plan­ning phase for a new daycare center in Munich and will be accom­pa­nied in the conti­nua­tion of the project.

Our cham­pi­ons operate kinder­gar­tens and daycare centers at seve­ral loca­ti­ons in Bava­ria and Baden-Würt­tem­berg. The majo­rity share­hol­ders of Unsere Cham­pi­ons GmbH are the French Enjoy Group, which has alre­ady built up a network of over 40 daycare centers in France under the name Crèche 1, 2, 3 Soleil, and the Luxem­bourg-based Lavorel Group, which only joined as a new inves­tor at the begin­ning of the year.

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses Our Cham­pi­ons on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of Munich-based daycare group Isarkids in the first half of 2019.

Advi­sors to Unsere Cham­pi­ons GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Norman Wasse (Lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Coun­sel, both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Thomas Gennert (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Marion von Grön­heim (both Corporate/M&A), Tina Zeller (Real Estate), Jose­pha Hettich (Labor Law, Düsseldorf)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,100 lawy­ers, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. There is a stra­te­gic alli­ance with MWE China Law Offices in Shang­hai. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP www.mwe.com

News

Frank­furt - Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed STG Brauns­berg Group (STG) on its sale of shares to DBAG Expan­sion Capi­tal Fund (DBAG ECF).
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

STG is a service provi­der in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons indus­try. The range of acti­vi­ties includes fiber optic cons­truc­tion, opera­tion, upgrading and subse­quent main­ten­ance of fiber optic networks. Custo­mers include muni­ci­pal utili­ties, local autho­ri­ties and network opera­tors. In addi­tion, STG main­ta­ins the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons network infra­struc­tures within the buil­dings for real estate compa­nies, on which its own as well as Inter­net and tele­vi­sion products are also offe­red by third parties.

As part of a manage­ment buyout, DBAG ECF will acquire the majo­rity of shares in STG from the previous owners Günter and Hermann Brauns­berg. They will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company and be part of the manage­ment of the STG Group. DBAG will support the STG Group in reali­zing its growth poten­tial by provi­ding the neces­sary capi­tal and its many years of expe­ri­ence in the expan­sion of fiber optic networks.

Advi­sors to STG Brauns­berg Group: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M. and asso­cia­tes Michael Maier (both Frank­furt) and Laura Müller (Düssel­dorf), all Corpo­rate / M&A.

Back­ground
Dr. Hans Peter Leube has been and conti­nues to be on the side of funds advi­sed or mana­ged by DBAG in seve­ral tran­sac­tions and refi­nan­cings (most recently in the acqui­si­tion of shares in the soft­ware company FLS GmbH or most recently in the closing of the invest­ment in inexio, a provi­der of fiber-optic-based high-speed Inter­net connec­tions). The fact that he once again nego­tia­ted on the seller side (most recently for the BTV Group) is due in parti­cu­lar to his proven exper­tise in the fiber optics sector, not least through his opera­tio­nal in-house time at Tele­Co­lum­bus and Prima­Com, and shows that our corporate/M&A prac­tice with its know-how is extre­mely well accepted by sellers as well as private equity inves­tors in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sector (broad­band infrastructures).

News

Frank­furt a. Main - Bridge­point acqui­res a stake in Vermaat Groep B.V., the Dutch market leader for high-quality cate­ring and hospi­ta­lity services. Bridge­point is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the company from Swiss-listed finan­cial inves­tor Part­ners Group, which will remain a mino­rity inves­tor in the company.

Vermaat was foun­ded in 1978 as a deli­ca­tes­sen and is a specia­list in custo­mi­zed gastro­nomy. The company provi­des premium outsour­ced cate­ring services to a variety of markets inclu­ding corpo­ra­ti­ons, muse­ums, hospi­tals and travel centers. Today, Vermaat opera­tes more than 350 food and beverage stores in the Nether­lands, inclu­ding restau­rants, cafés and canteens, and also has an incre­asing presence in Germany. The company serves a number of high-profile custo­mers and employs over 4000 people. Sales of €300 million are expec­ted for 2019. Part­ners Group acqui­red Vermaat Groep B.V. from the foun­ding family in 2015.

Olivier van Riet Paap, Head of Bridgepoint’s invest­ment acti­vi­ties in Bene­luxsaid: “Vermaat is a clear Euro­pean leader thanks to its repu­ta­tion for crea­ti­vity in formats, quality and food inno­va­tion. In a frag­men­ted Euro­pean market which is under­ser­ved by larger groups, the Vermaat plat­form, working with Bridge­point, will have the resour­ces and inter­na­tio­nal reach to further deve­lop its German presence and to enter new markets across Europe.” The premium outsour­ced cate­ring segment is the fastest growing segment in the larger cate­ring market and is curr­ently valued at over €2 billion within the combi­ned Dutch and German cate­ring markets valued at €13 billion.

Advi­sors Bridge­point: Roth­schild (Corpo­rate Finance), EY (Finan­cial and Commer­cial), White­Space Part­ners (Commer­cial), Fresh­fields (Legal), ERM (ESG).

News

Paris - Ardian, one of the world’s leading invest­ment houses, acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Staci, a leading Euro­pean specialty logi­stics company from Copeba. The manage­ment team led by Thomas Mortier parti­ci­pa­tes along­side Ardian as well as Société Générale’s invest­ment teams.

Foun­ded in 1989, Staci is a Euro­pean market-leading inde­pen­dent provi­der of inno­va­tive B2B and B2B2C logi­stics solu­ti­ons for busi­nesses. Staci has unique exper­tise in mana­ging complex and scalable logi­stics opera­ti­ons, such as deal­ing with a variety of suppli­ers and deli­very points, small quan­ti­ties, special formats, and products with and without barcodes. In parti­cu­lar, the company has deve­lo­ped strong exper­tise in the logi­stics of adver­ti­sing and promo­tio­nal media.

Staci employs around 1,900 people and gene­ra­ted sales of more than 250 million euros in 2018. The company opera­tes 25 warehou­ses in Bene­lux, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Staci has a leading posi­tion in its market niche, based on a model of pooling its warehou­ses and resour­ces and its port­fo­lio of services, which are all built around a proprie­tary IT system. Staci is present throug­hout Europe with a wide spec­trum of clients ranging from multi­na­tio­nal groups to local compa­nies across seve­ral sectors, inclu­ding food, health and cosme­tics, tele­coms and finan­cial services. Staci has about 1,900 employees and gene­ra­ted more than 250 million euros in turno­ver in 2018.

Thomas Mortier, CEO of Staci, said: “Staci employees are deligh­ted to open this new page in the company’s history with Ardian. The manage­ment team has reinves­ted very signi­fi­cantly in the busi­ness and we share the same values and vision with the Ardian team with regards to Staci’s deve­lo­p­ment stra­tegy in France and abroad. I would like to thank our employees, part­ners and share­hol­ders for their commit­ment, support and profes­sio­na­lism, which every day contri­bute to the quality of the services we provide to our customers.”

Lise Faucon­nier, Mana­ging Direc­tor, and Alex­andre Vannelle, Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout, said: “We are proud to invest in Staci to acce­le­rate the next phase of its deve­lo­p­ment and to support Thomas Mortier and his team. The high quality of the rela­ti­onships estab­lished, and their strong growth reflect the company’s excel­lence. Along­side the manage­ment team, we will conti­nue to deve­lop Staci and conso­li­date its presence in key geogra­phi­cal areas through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, in a market that is still very fragmented.”

Jean-Marie Laurent Josi, CEO, and Charles-Henri Chaliac, Member of the Execu­tive Commit­tee of Cobepa, said: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to support Thomas Mortier and his team in the execu­tion of a truly trans­for­ma­tive stra­te­gic plan for the Staci Group, which has been able to both streng­then its posi­tion in its local market, while fulfil­ling its inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons and simul­ta­neously streng­thening links with its main custo­mers. The Group’s unique know-how, coupled with its strong poten­tial for orga­nic and acqui­si­tive growth, enables it to move smoothly into its new deve­lo­p­ment phase with the support of Ardian.”

Staci is the fifth invest­ment of Ardian’s buyout team in 2019. With 49 employees in Paris, Frank­furt, Milan and London, the team invests in high-quality mid- and large-cap compa­nies across Western Europe, apply­ing trans­for­ma­tion stra­te­gies that enable them to become world leaders in their niche markets.

News

Landshut/Munich — Munich-based lead­t­ri­bu­tor GmbH raises its Series A finan­cing round as plan­ned and recei­ves a seven-digit amount from exis­ting inves­tors as well as from a new inves­tor. The young company intends to use the funds for further tech­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment of the product and to build up the distri­bu­tion network in order to open up further markets. Bayern Kapi­tal, an inves­tor in lead­t­ri­bu­tor since June 2017, is also parti­ci­pa­ting again in this Series A3 round toge­ther with the Swiss Base­Tech Ventures AG and the former CEO of Sage Soft­ware GmbH, Peter Dewald. New on board is Hamm Manage­ment Consul­ting GmbH.

lead­t­ri­bu­tor GmbH has deve­lo­ped a soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) solu­tion of the same name for compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries whose sales chan­nels are complex, multi-level and, to date, often orga­ni­zed manu­ally. The start­ing point: These compa­nies support their respec­tive sales part­ners in gene­ra­ting demand and leads and invest marke­ting funds for this purpose. The cont­acts gene­ra­ted from marke­ting acti­vi­ties were previously forwarded manu­ally to specia­list dealers, distri­bu­tors or sales part­ners. From this point on, compa­nies have very limi­ted or no over­view of whether and to what inten­sity these leads are being follo­wed up by the sales part­ner, what the current proces­sing status is, and how many leads have been conver­ted to actual orders. This need gave rise to the idea for lead­t­ri­bu­tor: In the course of the digi­tiza­tion wave, many compa­nies have to solve the ques­tion of how to digi­tize their multi-level sales chan­nels and colla­bo­ra­tion with sales part­ners, which is curr­ently diffi­cult to map with common CRM systems. To date, there is no compa­ra­ble solu­tion on the market.

leadtributor’s custo­mers include major inter­na­tio­nal IT compa­nies such as Adobe, Huawei, Sage and Haufe-Lexware. In addi­tion, lead­t­ri­bu­tor had expan­ded its offe­ring to other indus­tries — whose start­ing points are simi­lar to those of the IT indus­try and who use complex, indi­rect sales chan­nels or offer products that require expl­ana­tion. Even compa­nies from the sani­tary, heating, air-condi­tio­ning and buil­ding services engi­nee­ring sectors are now part of the eleven-sector lead­t­ri­bu­tor custo­mer portfolio.

Last year, lead­t­ri­bu­tor had alre­ady increased the Series A round from 2017 as plan­ned and used these funds for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the IT infra­struc­ture and the hiring of new employees. lead­t­ri­bu­tor also made great progress on the earnings side: the young company now gene­ra­tes six times as much license reve­nue as before Bayern Kapital’s investment.

Roman Huber, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “The team of lead­t­ri­bu­tor has achie­ved a lot in the past months and is fully on sche­dule. The perfor­mance of the IT has been signi­fi­cantly impro­ved and the data secu­rity has become a bit higher again. What is clear is that the market poten­tial for leadtributor’s solu­tion is there, as many compa­nies need soft­ware to make progress in digi­tiz­ing their own sales and busi­ness processes.”

About lead­t­ri­bu­tor GmbH
lead­t­ri­bu­tor GmbH was foun­ded in 2015 and is based in Munich. The company deve­lops and distri­bu­tes lead­t­ri­bu­tor, the SaaS solu­tion for lead manage­ment with sales part­ners. The soft­ware controls the rapid proces­sing and moni­to­ring of leads to sales part­ners. It is compa­ti­ble with popu­lar CRM systems and inter­faces with marke­ting auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons. In this way, it guaran­tees abso­lute trans­pa­rency of all chan­nel acti­vi­ties 24 hours a day and impro­ves coor­di­na­tion between marke­ting and sales depart­ments. www.leadtributor.de

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 325 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 305 million euros of venture capi­tal in over 270 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 7,500 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.
www.bayernkapital.de

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Shear­man & Ster­ling has acqui­red the Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler KG (“Beren­berg”) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Novo­press KG by ZHG Zangen Holding GmbH. One of the sellers was Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Novo­press, foun­ded in 1969 and head­quar­te­red in Neuss, Germany, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of elec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal pres­sing tools used by heating and plum­bing contrac­tors to join copper, stain­less steel or plas­tic pipes. The pres­sing tech­ni­que is tech­no­lo­gi­cally and cost-wise supe­rior to other pipe joining tech­ni­ques such as welding or bolting. Through contin­ued high invest­ment in rese­arch and equip­ment deve­lo­p­ment, Novo­press has succee­ded in achie­ving a tech­no­lo­gi­cally leading market posi­tion and conti­nuously expan­ding it.

With its Wealth and Asset Manage­ment, Invest­ment Banking and Corpo­rate Banking divi­si­ons, Beren­berg is one of Europe’s leading private banks. From its head­quar­ters in Hamburg, Beren­berg has built up a strong presence in the finan­cial centers of Frank­furt, London and New York in recent years and is repre­sen­ted by around 1,600 employees in 15 loca­ti­ons in Europe and America.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ner Winfried M. Carli and asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Martina Buller (all Germany-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling:
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 23 offices in 14 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

Frank­furt am Main -Allen & Overy LLP has advi­sed commu­ni­ca­ti­ons tech­no­logy specia­list KATHREIN SE on the sale of its mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons antenna and filter busi­ness to Swedish tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons equip­ment supplier Erics­son. The closing of the shell purchase agree­ment alre­ady concluded in Febru­ary, on the basis of which indi­vi­dual asset deals in a number of juris­dic­tions were linked, took place as plan­ned on Octo­ber 1, 2019.

The sale is an essen­tial part of a long-term down­si­zing of the KATHREIN Group. After beco­ming inde­pen­dent, the remai­ning subsi­dia­ries will operate under the names KATHREIN Solu­ti­ons GmbH, KATHREIN Sach­sen GmbH, KATHREIN Digi­tal Systems GmbH and KATHREIN Broad­cast GmbH. Thus, the restruc­tu­ring of the KATHREIN Group is largely completed.

Follo­wing the announce­ment of the sale of the mobile antenna and filter busi­ness from KATHREIN SE to Erics­son on Febru­ary 25, 2019, the sale was offi­ci­ally comple­ted with the comple­tion of all regu­la­tory appr­oval proce­du­res on Septem­ber 30, 2019. Erics­son thus expands its radio system port­fo­lio with a wide range of advan­ced antenna solu­ti­ons. Nearly 3,500 KATHREIN employees world­wide will trans­fer to Ericsson.

The Allen & Overy team, led by restruc­tu­ring part­ner Peter Hoegen, advi­sed in parti­cu­lar on the amend­ment of the finan­cing docu­men­ta­tion with a syndi­cate of banks in Germany and a bila­te­ral bank in Mexico requi­red due to the closing of the tran­sac­tion. Another focus of acti­vity was the nego­tia­tion and conclu­sion of various colla­te­ral release agree­ments in Germany, Mexico, Roma­nia and the USA.
The Allen & Overy team included part­ner Peter Hoegen (lead), senior asso­ciate Dr. Chris­to­pher Kranz, asso­cia­tes Moritz Probst, Evan­ge­lina Wiegand and Simon Kirsch­ner (all banking and finance/restructuring, Frankfurt).
Further­more, KATHREIN was repre­sen­ted by Noerr LLP (Prof. Dr. Chris­tian Pleis­ter, Kenny Koa), Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger LLP (Dr. Chris­tian Sister­mann, Dr. David Beutel, Dr. Martin Rehberg).

Ziems & Part­ner (Hans-Joachim Ziems, Elmar Geis­sin­ger, Stephan Maas, Marcus Mertens) had over­all respon­si­bi­lity for the tran­sac­tion as part of the ongo­ing restructuring.
The banking consor­tium was advi­sed by Latham & Watkins LLP (Dr. Jörn Kowa­lew­ski, Dr. Daniel Splitt­ger­ber, Dr. Ann-Sophie Rosenhagen).
Allen & Overy had alre­ady advi­sed Rosen­heim-based KATH­REIN-Werke KG in 2018 on the conclu­sion of a restruc­tu­ring agree­ment and a restruc­tu­ring loan agree­ment. The agree­ment concluded at the end of March 2018 prepared the ground for a consen­sual restruc­tu­ring of the KATHREIN Group, which KATH­REIN-Werke KG and its legal succes­sor, KATHREIN SE, had agreed upon with their main finan­ciers. In addi­tion, the Allen & Overy team had also advi­sed KATHREIN SE in 2018/2019 on the sale of KATHREIN Auto­mo­tive GmbH, a specia­list in trans­mis­sion and recep­tion systems for vehic­les based in Hildes­heim, to the auto­mo­tive supplier Continental.

News

Berlin, Germany — Taca­lyx, a biotech­no­logy company focu­sed on the disco­very and deve­lo­p­ment of novel anti-TACA (“Tumor Asso­cia­ted Carbo­hy­drate Anti­gens”) cancer thera­pies, announ­ced that it has successfully closed a EUR 7 million finan­cing round. The capi­tal increase invol­ves a consor­tium of leading Euro­pean inves­tors from the life scien­ces and tech­no­logy sectors, jointly led by Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund and Kurma Part­ners, with Idin­vest Part­ners, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), copa­rion and Crea­thor Ventures also participating.

Taca­lyx, a spin-out of the Max Planck Insti­tute (MPI) for Colloid and Inter­face Rese­arch, will use the proceeds to build its disco­very plat­form, select appro­priate “lead” candi­da­tes and begin their precli­ni­cal development.

TACAs repre­sent novel targets for cancer thera­pies due to their speci­fic expres­sion on a variety of tumors. At the same time, TACAs are viru­lence factors for tumor growth and spread, and ther­e­fore their masking and/or down­re­gu­la­tion impairs vital func­tions of the tumor cell. Due to the low immu­no­ge­ni­city of TACAs, the gene­ra­tion of speci­fic anti­bo­dies is a major chall­enge and requi­res inno­va­tive approa­ches as well as exten­sive know­ledge of the tech­no­logy used.

Tacalyx’s disco­very plat­form enables the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and vali­da­tion of speci­fic TACAs as tumor targets, as well as the gene­ra­tion of “lead” mole­cu­les direc­ted against these complex targets, with the goal of deve­lo­ping novel immu­no­the­ra­pies for more effec­tive cancer control. The company uniquely combi­nes its ability to synthe­size suffi­ci­ent quan­ti­ties of ultra-pure and highly complex TACA struc­tures for use in appro­priate analy­ti­cal and scree­ning plat­forms with its expe­ri­ence in gene­ra­ting anti­bo­dies against non-peptide targets.

Taca­lyx secu­res through the Max Planck Inno­va­tion GmbH has access to licen­ses and know-how of the under­ly­ing tech­no­lo­gies as well as to the inven­ti­ons of its scien­ti­fic co-foun­ders Prof. Dr. Peter H. Seeber­ger (Direc­tor at the MPI of Collo­ids and Inter­faces and world leading expert in glyco­sci­ence) and Dr. Oren Mosco­vitz (Group Leader at the MPI of Collo­ids and Inter­faces and expert in glyco­bio­logy and glycoon­co­logy). Seeber­ger and Moscovitz’s disco­veries in glyco-science and its role in cancer, with finan­cial support from Max Planck Society Tech­no­logy Trans­fer funds, led to the deve­lo­p­ment of the proprie­tary Taca­lyx plat­form, which includes the gene­ra­tion of glycan-binding antibodies.

Dr. Peter Sonder­mann, CEO of Taca­lyx, said, “This funding from highly expe­ri­en­ced life science and tech­no­logy inves­tors repres­ents an important vali­da­tion of our plat­form and deve­lo­p­ment stra­tegy and will help posi­tion us at the fore­front of this ground­brea­king approach. In addi­tion to estab­li­shing the company and our lead gene­ra­tion disco­very plat­form, we will use these funds to study rele­vant TACA biology in detail and further evaluate and charac­te­rize our first lead anti­bo­dies and their func­tional role in cancer therapy. In addi­tion, in vivo phar­ma­co­logy studies to evaluate the safety and effi­cacy of our “lead” anti­bo­dies will provide further func­tional vali­da­tion to advance at least one of these anti­bo­dies into clini­cal development.”

Dr. Detlev Menne­rich, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund GmbH, said:

“We are plea­sed to have built this syndi­cate of leading inves­tors, follo­wing our stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in breakth­rough, thera­peu­tics-focu­sed biotech­no­logy compa­nies that are gene­ra­ting inno­va­tion in biome­di­cal rese­arch. The gene­ra­tion of anti-TACA anti­bo­dies requi­res expert know­ledge to produce speci­fic high-affi­nity binders for TACAs. Tacalyx’s TACA synthe­sis chemis­try, under­stan­ding of TACA biology, and ability to gene­rate and charac­te­rize anti-TACA anti­bo­dies against these weakly immu­no­ge­nic targets will enable the company to leverage their signi­fi­cant poten­tial in the treat­ment of quite a few cancers.”

As part of the finan­cing, Dr. Lena Krzy­zak (High-Tech Grün­der­fonds), Ulrich Mahr (Max Planck Inno­va­tion), Dr. Detlev Menne­rich (Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund), Dr. Peter Neubeck (Kurma Partners/Idinvest Part­ners), Dr. Sebas­tian Pünze­ler (copa­rion) and Karl­heinz Schme­lig (Crea­thor) will join Prof. Dr. Peter H. Seeber­ger (MPI for Collo­ids and Inter­faces) on Taca­lyx’ Super­vi­sory Board.

About the Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund
The Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) was estab­lished in 2010 and invests in breakth­rough biotech­no­logy compa­nies focu­sed on thera­peu­tics to drive inno­va­tion in biome­di­cal rese­arch. The BIVF seeks signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments in pati­ent care through ground­brea­king science and clini­cal trans­la­tion by buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with scien­tists and entre­pre­neurs. The focus of the BIVF is on unpre­ce­den­ted thera­peu­tic concepts that address high medi­cal needs in immuno-onco­logy, rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine or infec­tious dise­a­ses. These may include novel plat­form tech­no­lo­gies to address previously unusable targets, new gene­ra­tion vacci­nes, and/or novel biolo­gics such as onco­ly­tic viral therapy, and digi­tal health. The BIVF takes an active role with its port­fo­lio compa­nies — deli­ve­ring signi­fi­cant value through its own exten­sive drug disco­very, scien­ti­fic and manage­ment exper­tise. The BIVF mana­ges 250 million euros and curr­ently over­sees a port­fo­lio of 25 compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com.

About Kurma Partners
Foun­ded in July 2009, Kurma Part­ners is a major Euro­pean player with offices in Paris and Munich in finan­cing health­care and biotech­no­logy inno­va­tion, from crea­tion to growth capi­tal, nota­bly through Kurma Biofund I to III and Kurma Diagno­stics via stra­te­gic part­ner­ships with renow­ned Euro­pean rese­arch and medi­cal insti­tu­ti­ons. The new Kurma Biofund III fund invests in appro­xi­m­ately twelve to fifteen private compa­nies focu­sed on thera­peu­tic areas with high unmet medi­cal needs, of which appro­xi­m­ately 40% are early-stage finan­cings and start-ups such as Tacalyx.
www.kurmapartners.com

About copa­rion
copa­rion is a venture capi­tal inves­tor for young, German tech­no­logy compa­nies. With a fund volume of 275 million euros, copa­rion makes a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the rapid and sustainable growth of young tech­no­logy compa­nies. Copa­rion support entre­pre­neu­rial vision with know-how without inter­fe­ring in the opera­tio­nal busi­ness. Thanks to its many years of expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal and in buil­ding up compa­nies, the fund manage­ment reco­gni­zes poten­tial and opens up new perspec­ti­ves. copa­rion finan­ces exclu­si­vely toge­ther with co-inves­tors. copa­rion invests up to 10 million euros per company, usually in seve­ral finan­cing rounds of 1–5 million euros each. The focus of the fund is on German compa­nies in the start-up and young growth phase.
www.coparion.vc

About Crea­thor Ventures
Crea­thor Ventures invests in tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies that are advan­cing perso­na­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion in health­care, as well as indus­try and enter­prise auto­ma­tion. The regio­nal focus is on Germany and Switz­er­land. From its offices in Bad Homburg and Zurich, the 15-strong team curr­ently supports over 30 tech­no­logy and health­care compa­nies. The manage­ment team has finan­ced over 200 compa­nies as lead or co-lead inves­tors over the past 30 years. More than 20 compa­nies were listed on inter­na­tio­nal stock exch­an­ges. Crea­thor Ventures curr­ently mana­ges a fund volume of over 230 million euros.
www.creathor.com

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean mid-market private equity firm. With EUR 8 billion in assets under manage­ment, the firm has tapped into various segments, inclu­ding inno­va­tive start-up venture capi­tal tran­sac­tions, mid-sized private debt, i.e. single-tran­che, senior and subor­di­na­ted debt, advice on primary and secon­dary invest­ments, and private equity. Idin­vest Part­ners was foun­ded in 1997 and was part of the Alli­anz Group until 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners, previously an inde­pen­dent company, became a subsi­diary of Eura­zeo, a leading global invest­ment firm, with a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of EUR 17 billion in assets under manage­ment, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately EUR 11 billion from invest­ment part­ners inves­ted in over 350 compa­nies. www.idinvest.com

About Max Planck Innovation
As the tech­no­logy trans­fer orga­niza­tion of the Max Planck Society, Max Planck Inno­va­tion is the link between indus­try and basic rese­arch. With our inter­di­sci­pli­nary team, we advise and support the scien­tists of the Max Planck Insti­tu­tes in the evalua­tion of inven­ti­ons, the filing of patents, and the estab­lish­ment of compa­nies. We offer indus­try central access to the inno­va­tions of the Max Planck Insti­tu­tes. In this way, we fulfill an important task: the trans­fer of basic rese­arch results into econo­mic­ally and soci­ally useful products.
www.max-planck-innovation.de

About Taca­lyx
Taca­lyx is a priva­tely held onco­logy company focu­sed on the disco­very and deve­lo­p­ment of anti-TACA (Tumor Asso­cia­ted Carbo­hy­drate Anti­gen) anti­bo­dies for the treat­ment of cancer. TACAs are formed during mali­gnant trans­for­ma­tion in a micro­evo­lu­tio­nary process. Expres­sion of TACAs is eleva­ted in many tumor types, making TACAs attrac­tive poten­tial targets for cancer treat­ment, against which appro­priate thera­peu­tics are being deve­lo­ped using the proprie­tary tech­no­logy platform.

Taca­lyx was foun­ded by an expe­ri­en­ced team that has successfully deve­lo­ped drugs in seve­ral compa­nies, inclu­ding Glycart, Roche, Suppre­Mol, Baxalta, Vaxxilon, GlyXera and Glyco­Uni­verse. The foun­ders of the company include BIVF (repre­sen­ted by Dr. Detlev Menne­rich, Invest­ment Mana­ger), Dr. Peter Sonder­mann, CEO of Taca­lyx, Prof. Dr. Peter H. Seeber­ger, Direc­tor at the Max Planck Insti­tute of Collo­ids and Inter­faces, Dr. Oren Mosco­vitz, Group Leader at the MPI of Collo­ids and Inter­faces, and the Max Planck Society (repre­sen­ted by Ulrich Mahr, Member of the Execu­tive Board of Max Planck Innovation).

Taca­lyx is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and is backed by leading Euro­pean life science and tech­no­logy inves­tors such as Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF), Kurma Part­ners, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), copa­rion, Crea­thor Ventures and Idpart­ners. www.tacalyx.com

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 550 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.

 

News

Capi­tal for further growth at Munich-based fintech: wealth­pi­lot closes finan­cing round

Munich — Munich fintech wealth­pi­lot recei­ves capi­tal for further growth The busi­ness model of the fast-growing Munich-based finan­cial tech­no­logy company wealth­pi­lot is aimed at hybrid wealth manage­ment. Seve­ral inves­tors contri­bu­ted a total of 2.6 million euros in a finan­cing round. Of this amount, EUR 1.1 million comes from a new inves­tor and EUR 1.5 million from exis­ting inves­tors such as Bayern Kapi­tal. With the funds from the new round, wealth­pi­lot intends to expand sales and marke­ting as well as drive inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and product development.

wealthpilot’s digi­tal infra­struc­ture enables wealth advi­sors, asset mana­gers, family offices, banks or broker pools to conti­nue serving their clients perso­nally in the future. This hybrid approach combi­nes the advan­ta­ges of perso­nal consul­ting with wealthpilot’s effi­ci­ent soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) plat­form. The model is incre­asingly in demand: advi­sors are now analy­zing more than EUR 12 billion in assets with the wealth­pi­lot soft­ware, up from around EUR 4 billion in August 2018.

The finan­cial tech­no­logy company wealth­pi­lot was foun­ded in 2017 and now has over 30 employees at its expan­ded Munich loca­tion and in the Graz office, which will open in July 2019. In total, more than 4,500 banks, insu­rance compa­nies, broker pools, asset advi­sors and mana­gers, tax consul­tants, family offices and their private clients curr­ently work with wealthpilot’s solu­tion, compared with around 1,500 twelve months ago. With wealthpilot’s SaaS plat­form, finan­cial services firms and advi­sors can service all assets and asset clas­ses of new and exis­ting custo­mers, deli­ver a world-class custo­mer expe­ri­ence, and achieve signi­fi­cant time savings through process auto­ma­tion. “Since the begin­ning of 2019 alone, we have acqui­red ten major banks and insu­rance compa­nies as custo­mers. Our market entry into the enter­prise segment has thus been very successful. There are now over twelve billion euros in assets that advi­sors and private custo­mers analyze with our soft­ware,” says Stephan Schug (photo), one of the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors of wealthpilot.

“wealth­pi­lot has deve­lo­ped very well since our invest­ment last year. The company’s growth rates are impres­sive,” says Bayern Kapi­tal Mana­ging Direc­tor Dr. Georg Ried. “High-quality custo­mer care based on a sophisti­ca­ted yet user-friendly SaaS plat­form is in demand among wealth advi­sors and mana­gers. Using wealth­pi­lot saves them time that can be spent on perso­nal consul­ting. We were happy to parti­ci­pate in the follow-up finan­cing round to lay the foun­da­tion for the company’s further growth,” conti­nues Dr. Ried.

Now, the addi­tio­nal capi­tal from the finan­cing round concluded in June is to be used prima­rily to further deve­lop auto­ma­ted data aggre­ga­tion and analy­sis of asset values as well as intel­li­gent scena­rio analy­ses for wealth advi­sors and private custo­mers. In addi­tion, the funds will be used to expand mobile iOS and Android appli­ca­ti­ons. “We have become a leading provi­der of cloud-based soft­ware for hybrid wealth manage­ment. The fact that we have been able to win a large number of new custo­mers in the enter­prise and SME sectors in recent months is proof of the strong demand for inno­va­tive finan­cial tech­no­logy that impro­ves and simpli­fies advi­sory services in wealth manage­ment. In addi­tion, the strong commit­ment of a new inves­tor and the rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion of exis­ting inves­tors shows that we can both gain and retain trust over the long term. We are excel­lently posi­tio­ned for the next growth steps of our company,” explains Schug.

With its approach, wealth­pi­lot also wants to “demo­cra­tize” wealth manage­ment to a certain extent, as Schug explains: “Custo­mers should be able to use tools for wealth advice and finan­cial plan­ning regard­less of their asset situa­tion, which are other­wise only available to the very wealthy with assets in excess of milli­ons,” he says.

About wealth­pi­lot
wealth­pi­lot GmbH, based in Munich and Graz, is a fast-growing tech­no­logy company provi­ding a digi­tal infra­struc­ture for the perso­nal wealth manage­ment of the future. Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) is one of the leading solu­ti­ons in wealth manage­ment and enables wealth mana­gers and advi­sors to achieve a symbio­sis of digi­tal and perso­nal wealth advice. wealth­pi­lot is alre­ady in use by over 4,500 users, who analyze and plan assets of over 12 billion euros with wealth­pi­lot every day. www.wealthpilot.de

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