ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Year: 2020

News

Copen­ha­gen — Nordic Capi­tal raises €6.1bn remo­tely for its largest fund. The vehicle, the firm’s largest capi­tal pool to date, has consider­a­bly surpas­sed its initial €5bn target within just six months. Laun­ched in April this year, the fund was enti­rely raised remo­tely amid the pande­mic, without any face-to-face meetings, the firm said.

The successful fund­rai­sing comes at a time when fund closings have slowed down due to the pande­mic travel rest­ric­tions and the econo­mic down­turn. Globally, 552 private equity funds reached their final close in the first half of the year, 31% fewer than in the same period last year, accor­ding to data provi­der Preqin.

“We laun­ched this fund in the middle of a global pande­mic, which requi­red inves­tors to comple­tely alter their invest­ment proces­ses to enable remote dili­gence. The success of the fund­raise despite these chal­lenges reflects the inves­tors’ considera­ble confi­dence in Nordic Capital’s stra­tegy and team,” Pär Norberg (print), head of inves­tor rela­ti­ons of Nordic Capi­tal, said.

Most of Nordic Capi­tal Fund X inves­tors are from North America, follo­wed by Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The firm’s exis­ting port­fo­lio perfor­mance since the Covid-19 pande­mic star­ted was one of the reasons for the strong appeal, the firm noted in a statement.

The fund, which sealed its first deal earlier this month, with the acqui­si­tion of Danish soft­ware busi­ness Siteim­prove for €500m, focu­ses on mid-market compa­nies prima­rily based in Europe. Its main targe­ted sectors are health­care, tech­no­logy and payments, finan­cial services, indus­trial and busi­ness services.

Apart from the Euro­pean focus, the stra­tegy has a mandate for global invest­ment in health­care as in the previous fund and an emer­ging smal­ler global mandate also for tech­no­logy and payments businesses.

“The econo­mic impact of the Covid-19 pande­mic will conti­nue to be felt for some time and the most successful fund mana­gers will be those who respond well to emer­ging trends and market dyna­mics to leverage new oppor­tu­ni­ties,” Kris­toffer Melin­der, the firm’s mana­ging part­ner, added.

Since its incep­tion in 1989, Nordic Capi­tal has inves­ted more than €15bn in more than 110 invest­ments, accor­ding to a statement.

Source: Private Equity News

News

Munich — Oakley Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in 7NXT GmbH from Cross­lan­tic Capi­tal. Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Oakley Capi­tal on this transaction.

7NXT GmbH is a leading digi­tal plat­form with three busi­ness segments: online fitness (Gymondo), nutri­tio­nal supple­ments (Shape Repu­blic) and merchan­di­sing (Brand Solu­ti­ons). The group has gained more than two million regis­tered custo­mers since its estab­lish­ment in 2013.

Advi­sors to Oakley Capi­tal: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich
Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Greta-Jose­fin Harnisch (both Corporate/Private Equity)
EGO HUMRICH WYEN, Munich, Germany
Dr. Alex­an­der Ego, Dr. Jan-Henning Wyen, Dr. Erika Ditler

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With more than 2,700 lawy­ers in 15 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

 

News

Frank­furt am Main — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Nort­hern Green Canada Inc. (NGC), the first priva­tely owned licen­sed canna­bis produ­cer from Canada with EU GMP certi­fi­ca­tion, on the forma­tion of Nort­hern Green Global GmbH, based in Unter­schleiss­heim, Germany, and conti­nues to assist Nort­hern Green in its global expan­sion. With the estab­lish­ment of this inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company, Nort­hern Green is consis­t­ently pursuing its expan­sion stra­tegy to enable the deli­very of canna­bi­noid medi­ci­nes to global markets.

Nort­hern Green Canada Inc. is a rese­arch- and deve­lo­p­ment-driven manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality medi­cal canna­bis focu­sed on provi­ding phar­maceu­ti­cal canna­bis products and deve­lo­ping canna­bi­noid formu­la­ti­ons to treat chro­nic dise­a­ses and enhance pati­ents’ quality of life. The company is curr­ently expan­ding its extra­c­tion capa­bi­li­ties to produce oils and is working with renow­ned part­ners on treat­ment-based canna­bis medicines.

Advi­sor NGC: Bird & Bird LLP
Part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (lead) with Asso­cia­tes Johanna Schind­ler, and Dr. Ann-Kris­tin Asmuß (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Niels Lutz­höft with Asso­cia­tes Dr. Simon Hembt and Dr. Chris­toph Hendel (all Commercial/ Regu­la­tory, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Barbara Geck with Asso­ciate Carina Seum (both Labor Law, Frankfurt).

Back­ground
Bird & Bird’s cross-juris­dic­tional and long-stan­ding exper­tise places it at the fore­front of advi­sing clients in the medi­cal canna­bis space. Our inter­na­tio­nal canna­bis group advi­ses the market-leading compa­nies in this fast-growing industry.

News

Colo­gne - dogado GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of the private equity fund Triton, has acqui­red Profi­host AG. With the acqui­si­tion of Profi­host AG, dogado GmbH conti­nues its buy-and-build stra­tegy. dogado was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

The dogado Group includes the brands alfah­os­ting, check­do­main, easy­name and busy­m­ouse. With over 170 employees and around 250,000 custo­mers, the Group is one of the leading cloud hosting provi­ders for busi­ness custo­mers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. After its foun­ding in 2001, the company initi­ally specia­li­zed in profes­sio­nal hosting services and later became one of the first German specia­lists for cloud-based enter­prise solu­ti­ons, with products ranging from clas­sic web hosting to colla­bo­ra­tion services and cloud platforms.

Profi­host AG, owner-mana­ged since its foun­ding in 1998, is based in Hano­ver and focu­ses on mana­ged hosting solu­ti­ons “Made in Germany”, offe­ring inno­va­tive cloud-based server systems, with a variety of high-quality services.

Advi­sor dogado: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Pär Johans­son (photo), Tim Remmel, LL.M. (both Corpo­rate, M&A), Cologne

SiWe Attor­neys at Law
Martin Sinz­ger, Susanne Laura Sinz­ger-Weger­hoff, Bernd Tschöpe, LL.M.

Leidl & Partner
Jakob Eisen­reich, Julia Riedl

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Mönchen Gald­bach — Haus­held AG, a provi­der of smart elec­tri­city meters and control systems for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the energy tran­si­tion, was able to gain Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (“DBAG”) as a finan­ci­ally strong share­hol­der in the context of a capi­tal increase. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed Haus­held on the transaction.

With the comple­ted capi­tal increase, Haus­held gains a long-term orien­ted part­ner for future growth. Haus­held offers so-called full roll­outs of smart meters to digi­tize the power grid of entire cities while ensu­ring the highest data protec­tion stan­dards. The funds raised will be used for growth and expan­sion of the market posi­tion. A total of around 50 million elec­tri­city meters in Germany will have to be intel­li­gently networked in the coming years.

For DBAG, the invest­ment is the first invest­ment within the frame­work of an expan­ded invest­ment stra­tegy, which also includes long-term, predo­mi­nantly mino­rity invest­ments in growth companies.

Haus­held AG, based in Mönchen­glad­bach, Germany, offers a market-ready solu­tion for the legally requi­red intro­duc­tion of smart elec­tri­city meters. Haus­held has deve­lo­ped a scalable, networked and intel­li­gent commu­ni­ca­tion network for a price-opti­mi­zed full roll­out of smart meters for muni­ci­pal utili­ties. “Haus­held is the only provi­der to date to offer a market-ready solu­tion for the govern­ment-requi­red estab­lish­ment of a scalable, inter­con­nec­ted, intel­li­gent commu­ni­ca­ti­ons network and has begun to bring its solu­tion to market with muni­ci­pal utili­ties in the elec­tri­city sector. The Haus­held full-service offe­ring is trans­fera­ble to other areas such as gas and water, where the same task will arise in the future. We ther­e­fore expect a dyna­mic growth rate for the company in a market with long-term growth poten­tial,” empha­si­zes Bernd Sexauer (photo), member of the Manage­ment Board at DBAG.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance
Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

About DBAG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG is a listed private equity company. We initiate closed-end private equity funds: DBAG funds enable insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to invest in the equity or equity-like instru­ments of unlis­ted compa­nies. DBAG advi­ses and mana­ges these funds. That is, it seeks, exami­nes, and struc­tures oppor­tu­ni­ties for parti­ci­pa­tion. Our focus is on medium-sized compa­nies. We nego­tiate invest­ment agree­ments, accom­pany the port­fo­lio compa­nies during the invest­ment period and design the dive­st­ment process. An entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes us a sought-after invest­ment part­ner. Since DBAG was foun­ded more than 50 years ago, we have provi­ded equity to more than 300 compa­nies toge­ther with the DBAG funds.

News

Kassel / Berlin — Dedrone, the market leader in airspace secu­rity, has secu­red around $12.1 million (the equi­va­lent of €10.3 million) in growth capi­tal. The successful finan­cing round was led by Tempo­Cap, one of the largest Euro­pean invest­ment compa­nies in the tech­no­logy sector.

Foun­ded in 2014 in Kassel, Germany, Dedrone is a soft­ware company alre­ady backed by inves­tors such as Feli­cis Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Target Part­ners and John Cham­bers, former CEO of Cisco Systems and foun­der of JC2 Ventures. With the invest­ment, Dedrone intends to further deve­lop its drone detec­tion, clas­si­fi­ca­tion and defense tech­no­logy to protect busi­nesses and orga­niza­ti­ons world­wide from ille­gal drone acti­vity. The drone defense system deve­lo­ped by Dedrone detects approa­ching drones with the help of radio frequency sensors and special camera and radar systems, the data from which is proces­sed and analy­zed by the intel­li­gent Drone­Tra­cker software.

“Drone tech­no­logy has evol­ved greatly in recent years. Drones are now used in disas­ter relief and medi­cine deli­very, as well as for myriad appli­ca­ti­ons by busi­nesses and consu­mers,” explains Dedrone’s CEO Aadi­tya Deva­ra­konda. At the same time, he warns of the dangers posed by the unman­ned aerial vehic­les: “In the wrong hands, drones can be very dange­rous. They are easy to obtain and control and can be easily over­loo­ked. They are used prima­rily for espio­nage, smugg­ling and terrorism.”

“We are simply deal­ing with cutting-edge tech­no­logy that makes a huge diffe­rence to govern­ments, busi­nesses and criti­cal natio­nal infra­struc­ture,” says Olav Ostin, mana­ging part­ner of Tempo­Cap. It’s a fast-growing market, and we believe we’re betting on the best in the business.”

“Thou­sands of people and busi­nesses have felt the impact of ille­gal drone use, and this threat will conti­nue to grow. We look forward to tack­ling this chall­enge head-on,” adds Phil­ipp Meindl, Invest­ment Part­ner at TempoCap.

About Dedrone
Dedrone is the market leader in airspace secu­rity. Dedrone’s drone defense system protects criti­cal infra­struc­ture, govern­ments, mili­tary instal­la­ti­ons, prisons and busi­nesses around the world from unwan­ted drones. Dedrone’s SaaS tech­no­logy can be flexi­bly hosted in the cloud or on-premise and combi­nes machine lear­ning soft­ware with market-leading sensors and defen­ses. The goal is to provide early warning, clas­si­fi­ca­tion and defense against all drones thre­ats. Dedrone was foun­ded in Kassel in 2014. Since 2016, the company has been head­quar­te­red in San Fran­cisco, with addi­tio­nal offices near Washing­ton, D.C., in Colum­bus, Ohio, and London. www.dedrone.com

About Tempo­Cap
Tempo­Cap is one of the leading Euro­pean inves­tors in fast-growing compa­nies in the tech­no­logy sector. Tempo­Cap offers capi­tal to acce­le­rate corpo­rate growth as well as attrac­tive and flexi­ble liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for entre­pre­neurs, venture capi­ta­lists and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Tempo­Cap has around 2 billion euros under manage­ment. In addi­tion to inves­t­ing in indi­vi­dual assets, TempoCap’s recom­men­ded funds make direct direct invest­ments by purcha­sing entire port­fo­lios from a variety of inves­tors, inclu­ding venture capi­tal funds, corpo­ra­ti­ons, banks or named part­ners. www.tempocap.com.

News

Rheine/ Munich — The Ossen­berg Group takes over Gany­med, based in Berg near Munich. The leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of aids for the walking impai­red thus expands its product port­fo­lio and confirms its expan­sion stra­tegy with the acqui­si­tion of the company, which has been highly deco­ra­ted with many design and product awards. Cars­ten Diek­mann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Ossen­berg Group says: “With the acqui­si­tion we can further expand our alre­ady strong market posi­tion in the DACH region. With the Gany­mede brand and the outstan­ding design products, we can now accom­pany our custo­mers even more compre­hen­si­vely.” He said the acqui­si­tion was a major entre­pre­neu­rial step forward. “We will conti­nue to expand inter­na­tio­nally with the Gany­mede brand.”

The previous mana­ging direc­tor and foun­der Karen Oster­tag is leaving the company with imme­diate effect for reasons of age. Produc­tion of the Gany­mede walking aids will in future take place at the Ossen­berg site in Rheine. This means that Gany­mede products remain “Made in Germany”. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial infor­ma­tion about the transaction.

Gany­mede serves custo­mers from hobby athle­tes to professionals
Archi­tec­ture and modern bionic design of Gany­mede fore­arm supports are unique in the market and are espe­ci­ally appre­cia­ted by athle­tes — from profes­sio­nals to amateurs and hobbyists.

The Ossen­berg Group deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes fore­arm walking aids, light metal canes and ortho­pe­dic aids. The medium-sized company, with around 100 employees, has been selling its products through specia­list dealers for around six deca­des — in recent years also very successfully worldwide.

The Osna­brück-based family equity company zwei.7 acqui­red a stake in the tradi­tio­nal company in 2019. For zwei.7, the now comple­ted acqui­si­tion of Gany­mede is an important step for the buy & build stra­tegy of the Ossen­berg Group, which has been pursued from the begin­ning. “We are plea­sed to expand the product port­fo­lio of the Ossen­berg Group with this acqui­si­tion and thus further streng­then our market posi­tion in Europe, says Kars­ten Wulf, foun­der and CEO of the zwei.7 Group. “The Ossen­berg Group has pursued a convin­cing growth stra­tegy in recent years and, as a medium-sized company from Rheine, has built up a quality brand world­wide with its products in the mobi­lity indus­try. The acqui­si­tion of Gany­med now comple­tes the product port­fo­lio,” says Kars­ten Wulf.

About two.7
The zwei.7 group was foun­ded in 2018 by Kars­ten Wulf (photo) in Osna­brück. The family equity house invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies and takes entre­pre­neu­rial risks with equity capi­tal. The aim is to estab­lish and expand a Euro­pean health care clus­ter of small and medium-sized successful compa­nies, and in doing so to contri­bute Kars­ten Wulf’s deca­des of expe­ri­ence as a medium-sized entrepreneur.

About Ossen­berg
The Ossen­berg Group is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of ortho­pe­dic aids for the walking impai­red. Foun­ded in 2007 in Rheine in eastern West­pha­lia, the tradi­tio­nal company now sells its products world­wide. Last summer, Ossen­berg took over its compe­ti­tor Erwin Kowsky from Neumüns­ter. The Ossen­berg Group employs around 100 people and repor­ted sales of €16.7 million in 2019.

News

Munich — The invest­ment holding company Armira has sold all its shares in M‑Sicherheitsbeteiligungen GmbH (Mehler Vario System Group) to the invest­ment company Deut­sche Private Equity (DPE). The parties invol­ved have agreed not to disc­lose all details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant authorities.

The Mehler Vario System Group is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of balli­stic protec­tive equip­ment. The product port­fo­lio includes an exten­sive range of high-quality balli­stic protec­tive vests, tacti­cal equip­ment and clot­hing, as well as balli­stic protec­tion solu­ti­ons for vehic­les. The Mehler Vario System Group includes Mehler Vario System GmbH as well as three German subsi­dia­ries and one each in Slove­nia and Serbia. The company is head­quar­te­red in Fulda, Germany, employs around 600 people at five loca­ti­ons and opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally in over 40 count­ries worldwide.

Mehler Vario System Group was acqui­red by Amira in 2014 and has since grown stron­gly both orga­ni­cally and inorganically.

Armira is a Munich-based invest­ment holding company that invests in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. The focus is on estab­lished, profi­ta­ble compa­nies with sales between 50 and 500 million euros. The unique capi­tal base of entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies gives Armira the flexi­bi­lity to invest without a fixed term and to focus on the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Armira Group curr­ently gene­ra­tes sales of over 1.5 billion euros and employs more than 8,000 people.

Legal advice: CMS Hasche Siegle
Lead Part­ner Dr. Hendrik Hirsch , Chris­tian Schu­bert, Coun­sel, Dr. Berrit Roth-Ming­ram, Senior Asso­ciate, Maxine Nots­tain, Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A,
Kai Neuhaus, Part­ner, Moritz Pottek, Asso­ciate, both Compe­ti­tion & EU,
Boris Alles, Coun­sel, Labor, Employ­ment & Pensions
Dr. Thomas Hirse, Part­ner, Phil­ippe Heinzke, Coun­sel, Sven Krause, Senior Asso­ciate, all Intellec­tual Property, Dr. Jakob Steiff, Part­ner, Real Estate & Public

CMS Slove­nia
Aleš Lunder, Part­ner, Robert Kordić, Asso­ciate, Saša Sodja

CMS Serbia
Radi­voje Petri­kić, Partner

Finan­cing advice to Amira: Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ner Winfried M. Carli, Asso­ciate Martina Buller (both Germany-Finance).

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

Appen­dix:

News

Berlin — German-Ameri­can venture capi­ta­list Bitkraft has laun­ched its first venture fund. With USD 165 million, the capi­tal raised by the fund, which is focu­sed on finan­cing start-ups in the gaming and e‑sports sector, signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the total volume targe­ted. Inves­tors include the family office of David Ruben­stein, co-foun­der of the Carlyle Group, and JS Capi­tal, an invest­ment firm run by Jona­than Soros. Toge­ther with the renow­ned US law firm Gunder­son Dett­mer, an SMP team led by Helder Schnitt­ker struc­tu­red Bitkraft Venture Fund I and advi­sed on tax and regu­la­tory issues.

“We are a good step closer to our goal of buil­ding the leading global invest­ment plat­form in the games and e‑sports indus­try,” explains Bitcraft foun­der Jens Hilgers.

Bitkraft Ventures
Bitkraft Ventures is a global invest­ment plat­form for gaming, e‑sports and inter­ac­tive media. Foun­ded by e‑sports vete­ran Jens Hilgers, Bitkraft connects inno­va­tive start­ups and foun­ders into a global network to drive the buil­ding of future-proof virtual worlds. The inter­na­tio­nally posi­tio­ned Bitkraft team adds signi­fi­cant value to its port­fo­lio compa­nies by buil­ding early partnerships.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

Consul­tant Bitkraft: SMP
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Lead Part­ner, Fund Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Thomas Töben (Taxes), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz (Taxes), Senior Associate

News

Berlin — Dei meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH has closed a finan­cing round: a family office from Switz­er­land supports the inno­va­tive busi­ness model of the venture buil­der. With the multi-million finan­cing, the company will invest in the field of e‑mobility and further support the growth of the medi­cal tech­no­logy port­fo­lio companies.

meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a venture buil­der for promi­sing start-ups from two rese­arch-inten­sive and promi­sing indus­tries: medi­cal tech­no­logy and e‑mobility. Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, which specia­li­zes in urban solu­ti­ons for passen­ger and freight trans­port, was recently foun­ded for the new field of e‑mobility. Gerald Vollnhals (photo: 2nd from left), Mana­ging Direc­tor of meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH, looks back on years of expe­ri­ence in e‑mobility. Among other things, he co-foun­ded the elec­tric vehicle manu­fac­tu­rer Govecs and will expand the second busi­ness area of e‑mobility at meisterwerk.

Deve­lo­p­ment of a unique corona test
In the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector, the venture buil­der brings toge­ther two compa­nies under its umbrella. midge medi­cal, the first spin-off, is working on the deve­lo­p­ment of an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for science-based, low-cost and rapid gene and blood tests in the home and medi­cal envi­ron­ment. The current focus of midge medi­cal is on the deve­lo­p­ment of a compact and porta­ble COVID-19 gene­tic test. This comple­tely new test is desi­gned to enable rapid and cost-effec­tive evalua­tion. Just recently, midge medi­cal closed a finan­cing round in the mid-single-digit millions.

Foun­ded in 2018 by meis­ter­werk ventures, AICURA medi­cal provi­des a plat­form for the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of AI-based medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons. The AICURA plat­form makes medi­cal data available in hospi­tals for the deve­lo­p­ment of AI appli­ca­ti­ons. It also enables AI appli­ca­ti­ons to be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into clini­cal work­flows. Data protec­tion is always guaran­teed, as the data never leaves the hospi­tals at any time.

Years of expe­ri­ence in startups
“meis­ter­werk ventures has made it its mission to further deve­lop unique ideas and to successfully accom­pany them to market matu­rity in the long term. Our team consists of expe­ri­en­ced and highly moti­va­ted profes­sio­nals. The funding we have now recei­ved gives us even more oppor­tu­ni­ties to imple­ment our plans and drive tech­no­lo­gi­cal progress in e‑mobility and medi­cal tech­no­logy,” says Michael Diebold, Mana­ging Direc­tor of meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH.

Besi­des Gerald Vollnhals, Daniel Lich­ter­feld, Michael Diebold and Dr. Markus Ries­ter are part of the foun­ding team of meis­ter­werk ventures. The goal is to turn inno­va­tive ideas into mature solu­ti­ons and commer­cia­lize them in start-ups. The part­ners have a lot of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding compa­nies. Over the course of their care­ers, they have been invol­ved in the crea­tion of nume­rous start-ups. The first spin-off took place in 2016 with midge medi­cal GmbH, follo­wed by AICURA medi­cal GmbH in 2018, and Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, the third company of the Berlin-based venture buil­der, star­ted opera­ti­ons in 2020.

About meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH
meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a venture buil­der head­quar­te­red in Berlin. Foun­ded in 2016, the company specia­li­zes in buil­ding busi­nesses in medi­cal tech­no­logy and e‑mobility. Behind meis­ter­werk ventures GmbH is a team of expe­ri­en­ced inven­tors and tech­no­lo­gists who deve­lop novel tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons with disrup­tive thin­king and versa­tile engi­nee­ring know-how.

Port­fo­lio compa­nies include midge medi­cal GmbH, which is working on a novel tech­no­logy for mobile COVID-19 gene­tic test­ing, AICURA medi­cal GmbH, which is deve­lo­ping an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-based health plat­form for doctors and clinics, and Micro­mo­bi­lity services and solu­ti­ons GmbH, which specia­li­zes in e‑mobility. The team of meis­ter­werk has a lot of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding up compa­nies. In their care­ers, they have been invol­ved in the crea­tion of 21 start-ups and 38 patent appli­ca­ti­ons, as well as holding senior posi­ti­ons at well-known compa­nies. These include the medi­cal tech­no­logy company Biotro­nik, the Radio­logy-As-A-Service company medneo, the real estate portal ImmobilienScout24, the produ­cer of elec­tric vehic­les Govecs, the prin­ted circuit board manu­fac­tu­rer AT&S and the listed company ADVA.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Chr. Hansen Holding A/S (Chr. Hansen) in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Jenne­wein Biotech­no­lo­gie GmbH (Jenne­wein), a leading company in the market for human milk oligos­ac­cha­ri­des (HMOs). The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 310 million (on a debt-free basis). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close before the end of Septem­ber 2020.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, Chr. Hansen plans to invest more than EUR 200 million by 2025, inclu­ding in a new produc­tion faci­lity. This is inten­ded to expand HMO capa­city to meet anti­ci­pa­ted demand.

Jenne­wein is a leading inter­na­tio­nal biotech­no­logy company with a range of products in the field of human milk oligos­ac­cha­ri­des (HMOs) and rare monosac­cha­ri­des such as L‑fucose and sialic acid. Jenne­wein produ­ces a broad port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive HMO products, inclu­ding 2′-fucosyllactose, 3′-fucosyllactose, lacto-N-neote­tra­ose, and lacto-Ntetra­ose. These are rare sugars used in the food indus­try (espe­ci­ally in infant milk formula), in the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try and in the cosme­tics industry.

Chr. Hansen is a leading global life science company deve­lo­ping products based on natu­ral ingre­di­ents for the food, nutri­tion, phar­maceu­ti­cal and agri­cul­tu­ral indus­tries. This includes the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of cultures, enzy­mes, probio­tics and natu­ral colors for a variety of foods, confec­tion­ery, bever­a­ges, dietary supple­ments as well as animal feed and crop protec­tion products. This allows food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, for exam­ple, to reduce the use of chemi­cals and other arti­fi­cial substi­tu­tes, thus crea­ting “more” from “less,” which is what makes the food products in ques­tion special in today’s world. In 2019, Chr. Hansen was ranked the most sustainable company in the world by Corpo­rate Knights.

Advi­sor Chr. Hansen Holding A/S: Baker McKen­zie
Lead Corporate/M&A: Chris­tian Atzler, Foto (Part­ner, Frankfurt)
Team: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Peter Wand (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Markus Mörtel (Senior Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Jessica Köhler (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Rouven Reuter (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt), Esther Xiang (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Commer­cial: Dr. Johan­nes Teich­mann (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Ingmar Oltmanns (Asso­ciate, Frank­furt) Rebecca Romig, Isabel Weaver (both Asso­cia­tes, Frankfurt)
IP: Dr. Rembert Niebel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Alex­an­der Ritter (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich), Lena Weber (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
IT: Dr. Holger Lutz (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Born (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Regu­la­tory: Dr. Frank Pflü­ger (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Lebrecht (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Employ­ment: Dr. Chris­tian Reichel (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Felix Diehl (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Real Estate: Dr. Florian Thamm (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Till Pflug (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Banking & Finance: Dr. Oliver Socher (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Silke Fritz (Coun­sel, Frank­furt), Phil­ipp Thimm (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Foreign Trade Law: Anahita Thoms (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Ehrle (Asso­ciate, Berlin)
Anti­trust: Gavin Bushell (Part­ner, Brussels), Chris­tian Horst­kotte (Part­ner, Düsseldorf)

Inhouse Legal Chr. Hansen: Chris­tel May-Worre (Hørs­holm, Denmark)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie’s global Corporate/M&A team advi­ses on more cross-border tran­sac­tions than any other law firm. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed GEA on the sale of compres­sor manu­fac­tu­rer Bock to NORD, DBAG on an invest­ment in conga­tec Holding AG, benpac holding ag on the acqui­si­tion of Gallus Group, SAP on the sale of the SAP Digi­tal Inter­con­nect commu­ni­ca­ti­ons unit to Sinch AB, Para­gon Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Casto­lin Eutec­tic, Air Liquide on the sale of the Schülke Group to Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT, METRO AG on the sale of its China busi­ness and the estab­lish­ment of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Wumei, Bayer AG on the sale of its majo­rity stake in chemi­cal park opera­tor Currenta, SPIE on the acqui­si­tion of OSMO, Toppan Prin­ting Co. Ltd. on its acqui­si­tion of the German Inter­print Group, and Evonik on the sale of its methacry­la­tes group to Advent International.

News

Berlin/ Munich — The robo­tics company Maga­zino has closed a Series B finan­cing round of 21 million euros. Jung­hein­rich AG and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) lead the round, and exis­ting inves­tors also parti­ci­pa­ted. The capi­tal raised will be used to expand inter­na­tio­nal sales acti­vi­ties and, above all, to expand the “ACROS.AI” soft­ware stack — a soft­ware plat­form for intel­li­gent robots deve­lo­ped by Maga­zino, which is also used on third-party hard­ware. Once again, Maga­zino recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice on both equity and debt finan­cing from a team led by SMP

In addi­tion to the invest­ments made by the exis­ting share­hol­ders and Jung­hein­rich AG, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is provi­ding Maga­zino GmbH with venture debt finan­cing of up to 12 million euros. The EU Bank loan is backed by a guaran­tee from the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (EFSI). The EFSI is the center­piece of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe, under which the EIB and the Euro­pean Commis­sion work toge­ther as stra­te­gic part­ners to chan­nel private capi­tal into projects that streng­then the sustaina­bi­lity and compe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the Euro­pean economy. In many of these finan­cings, EIB invol­vement has an important signal­ing effect to private inves­tors, whose risk is often signi­fi­cantly redu­ced by the EU bank’s compre­hen­sive analy­sis and input.

Accor­ding to Maga­zino, the capi­tal raised will be used both to expand inter­na­tio­nal sales and to opti­mize the company’s proprie­tary soft­ware plat­form for intel­li­gent robots.

About Maga­zino
Maga­zino GmbH deve­lops and builds intel­li­gent, mobile robots that perceive their envi­ron­ment and make decis­i­ons them­sel­ves. The auto­no­mous robots work in paral­lel with humans and make proces­ses in the areas of e‑commerce, fashion and produc­tion logi­stics more flexi­ble and effi­ci­ent. With over 100 employees at the Munich site, Maga­zino provi­des the largest advan­ced robo­tics team in Europe. Magazino’s inves­tors include Körber AG, Zalando and Fiege Logistik.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Maga­zino: SMP
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Associate
Matthias Kres­ser (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate

News

Paris/ Frank­furt am Main — Ardian, a leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm, today announ­ced the successful fund­rai­sing of €2 billion for its latest expan­sion fund, Ardian Expan­sion Fund V. Despite the chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment due to Covid-19, Ardian Expan­sion has thus doubled the fund size compared to the previous gene­ra­tion in just six months, which also speaks for the unch­an­ged high attrac­ti­ve­ness of high-growth Euro­pean mid-cap companies.

Ardian Expan­sion Fund V has a global and diver­si­fied inves­tor base. While more than one-third of inves­tors inves­ted with Ardian for the first time, inves­tors in previous gene­ra­ti­ons of funds repre­sent half of the new fund’s volume, a testa­ment to their long-term confi­dence in the expan­sion team and the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the asset class. Thanks to new inves­tors from the Asia and Middle East regi­ons, the fund has also broa­dened its geogra­phi­cal focus.

In addi­tion, the fund expan­ded its inves­tor base, which now includes a sove­reign wealth fund for the first time along­side insu­rance compa­nies, high net worth indi­vi­du­als and pension funds. Seve­ral mana­gers from Ardian Expansion’s port­fo­lio compa­nies have also subscri­bed to fund units. They account for nearly five percent of the fund’s assets, unders­coring the good rela­ti­onships the expan­sion team has built with the manage­ment teams of their port­fo­lio companies.

With a total of 27 profes­sio­nals in Paris, Frank­furt am Main, Milan and Luxem­bourg, the Ardian Expan­sion team will conti­nue its stra­tegy of support­ing successful entre­pre­neurs in imple­men­ting their growth plans. On average, Ardian Expansion’s port­fo­lio compa­nies have each grown orga­ni­cally by more than ten percent in the past and have reali­zed almost four acqui­si­ti­ons on average. Thus, the stra­te­gic value of the compa­nies was increased through acce­le­ra­ted transformation.

Fran­çois Jerpha­gnon, Head of Ardian Expan­sion, said: “We are hono­red by the trust our inves­tors have placed in us. To double the fund size from our prede­ces­sor fund in just six months speaks to the success of our stra­tegy and the finan­cial perfor­mance it is deli­ve­ring for our inves­tors. Part of this invest­ment philo­so­phy, which we have culti­va­ted for 20 years, is to build strong rela­ti­onships with expe­ri­en­ced and dedi­ca­ted manage­ment teams and acce­le­rate value crea­tion for all stake­hol­ders through the Ardian platform.”

Ardian’s expan­sion team is focu­sed on buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with manage­ment teams — on average, there are about three years between first meeting and an invest­ment. As part of its flexi­ble invest­ment approach, the team is able to take both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. This approach is also reflec­ted in the team’s strong track record of support­ing manage­ment teams in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion and sustaina­bi­lity. For exam­ple, the team supports digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects at Diam and CCC, as well as native digi­tal busi­ness models, such as at CLS and Berlin Brands Group. As a pioneer in the imple­men­ta­tion of profit-sharing, Ardian and the Expan­sion Team distri­bute a portion of the profits reali­zed through growth to the employees of its port­fo­lio compa­nies upon dive­st­ment. Since the intro­duc­tion of this concept ten years ago, around 15 port­fo­lio compa­nies of Ardian Expan­sion have alre­ady bene­fi­ted from the profit-sharing scheme.

Despite the econo­mic down­turn in the COVID-19 pande­mic, Ardian Expan­sion contin­ued to make new invest­ments. The team has focu­sed on compa­nies that have strong orga­nic and exter­nal growth poten­tial and operate in robust sectors. The new fund is alre­ady 10 percent inves­ted. In May 2020, i.e. still during the lock-down, the purchase agree­ment was signed for Swiss­bit, a provi­der of NAND flash-based storage as well as embedded IoT solu­ti­ons for deman­ding niche appli­ca­ti­ons with substan­tial orga­nic growth poten­tial. This was follo­wed in July 2020 by the acqui­si­tion of Finaxy, a leading French broad-based insu­rance broker with a track record of strong orga­nic as well as exter­nal growth. The strong manage­ment teams in each case were among the decisive factors in the closing of these transactions.

About Ardian
Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$100 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

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

The company has a global network of more than 690 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

News

Düssel­dorf — McDer­mott has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of MACH AG, a market-leading soft­ware provi­der for public admi­nis­tra­tion. The foun­ding Müller-Ontjes family remains the active owner. The joint growth stra­tegy will focus on expan­ding the product and tech­no­logy offe­ring through orga­nic as well as inor­ga­nic growth.

MACH AG, foun­ded in 1985 and head­quar­te­red in Lübeck, specia­li­zes in the digi­tiza­tion of public admi­nis­tra­tion. The company provi­des soft­ware, consul­ting and opera­ti­ons for more than 100,000 users in fede­ral and state agen­cies, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, church admi­nis­tra­ti­ons, teaching and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons, and non-govern­men­tal orga­niza­ti­ons. With more than 400 employees, MACH AG gene­ra­tes sales of 44 million euros.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a stra­te­gic inves­tor focu­sed on the soft­ware sector in the Bene­lux, DACH and Scan­di­na­via with offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf and Stock­holm. With a long-term invest­ment hori­zon for successful part­ner­ships with manage­ment teams, its goal is to build larger soft­ware groups. Main Capi­tal Part­ners mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €1 billion in assets for invest­ment in mature and growing soft­ware companies.

About Main Capital
Main Capi­tal is a stra­te­gic inves­tor in the soft­ware indus­try. We focus on acce­le­ra­ting busi­ness growth and gene­ra­ting busi­ness value. Expe­ri­ence and lessons lear­ned from the soft­ware market are bund­led in our Market Intel­li­gence prac­tice. This dedi­ca­ted group focu­ses on prac­ti­cal indus­try analy­sis to help our compa­nies iden­tify oppor­tu­ni­ties and achieve opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Bench­mar­king, process opti­miza­tion and segment / terri­tory analy­sis are just a few of the topics addres­sed by the team to deve­lop an adapted growth stra­tegy for each indi­vi­dual company. www.main.nl

Advi­sors to Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery (Düssel­dorf)
Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger, Norman Wasse (both Lead, Corporate/Private Equity), Dr. Kian Tauser (both Frank­furt), Dr. Nils Chris­tian Wighardt (Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; Frank­furt; all Tax), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski, Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Labor Law), Daniel von Brevern (Anti­trust), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law), Dr. Chris­tian Masch (IT/IP, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Tobias Riemen­schnei­der, Isabelle Müller (all Corporate/M&A, all Frank­furt), David Schä­fer (Finan­cing), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Julian Jäger (Labor Law), Tina Zeller (Real Estate, Frank­furt), Mirjam Büsch, Lene Niemeier (both Public Law)

News

Iceland / Frank­furt — Marel hf , a public limi­ted company listed on the Icelan­dic Nasdaq OMX and Euron­ext Amster­dam, based in Garda­baer / Iceland, has acqui­red the entire busi­ness shares of TREIF Maschi­nen­bau GmbH (TREIF), inclu­ding all rele­vant busi­ness acti­vi­ties of the group. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2020, subject to regu­la­tory approval.

TREIF, a family-owned company based in Ober­lahr, Germany, is a cutting machine manu­fac­tu­rer for the food and espe­ci­ally the meat indus­try. The company was foun­ded in 1948, curr­ently employs around 500 people at loca­ti­ons in Europe, the USA and China, and most recently gene­ra­ted annual sales of over 80 million euros.

Marel is an Icelan­dic manu­fac­tu­rer of food proces­sing equip­ment with more than 6,300 employees in over 30 count­ries with annual sales of 1.3 billion euros. The acqui­si­tion follows Marel’s stra­te­gic goal to become a full-service provi­der of advan­ced food proces­sing and stan­dard equip­ment solu­ti­ons and to further expand its global market presence.

Advi­sors to TREIF Maschi­nen­bau GmbH: Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (Bonn/Hamburg)
Dr. Stephan Göcke­ler, Dr. Chris­tian Bochmann (both lead, M&A/Corporate; Bonn/Hamburg), Dr. Chris­tian Pitzal, Dr. Bastian Lieg­mann (both Tax; Berlin), Dr. Florian C. Haus (Anti­trust), Alex­an­der Lösch­horn (IT); Asso­cia­tes: Fabian Schmidt (Anti­trust), Dr. Verena Roder-Hieße­rich (IP), Alex­an­der Heinen, Dr. Paul Schirr­ma­cher (both M&A/Corporate; Hamburg)

Advi­sors to Marel hf: Allen & Overy
Part­ners Dr. Michiel Huizinga (Lead, Corporate/M&A) and Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax, both Frank­furt) and Coun­sel Dr. René Galle (Anti­trust, Hamburg), Peter Wehner (Pensi­ons) and Dr. Udo H. Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, both Frank­furt). Further­more, the team compri­sed Senior Asso­cia­tes Dr. Marcus Grühn (Real Estate Law, Hamburg), Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law), Stefa­nie Günther (Public Law, both Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion, Düssel­dorf) as well as Asso­cia­tes Laura Reuther (Corporate/M&A), Sven Bisch­off, Paul Kess­ler (both Tax Law), Dr. Anna Jung (Public Law, all Frank­furt), Anna Kräling (IP, Düssel­dorf), Katrin Pilgram (Real Estate, Hamburg) and Senior Tran­sac­tion Offi­cer Nadine Gommel (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt).

About Flick Gocke Schaumburg
Flick Gocke Schaum­burg has more than 350 profes­sio­nals in Berlin, Bonn, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg, Munich, Stutt­gart and Zurich, advi­sing corpo­rate groups and family busi­nesses, private clients, NPOs and the public sector on tax law, corpo­rate and commer­cial law as well as audi­ting and busi­ness valuation.

About Allen & Overy
Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,500 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in more than 40 loca­ti­ons world­wide. An up-to-date over­view of Allen & Overy’s offices can be found here: allenovery.com/locations.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 47 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law.

This press release is issued by Allen & Overy LLP. In this press release, “Allen & Overy” refers to “Allen & Overy LLP or its affi­lia­tes.” The named part­ners are either share­hol­ders, advi­sors or employees of Allen & Overy LLP and/or its affiliates.

News

Wie / Frank­furt a. M. — In addi­tion to lead inves­tor APEX Digi­tal Health, exis­ting inves­tors Entre­pre­neur First, SOSV and seve­ral high-ranking busi­ness angels also parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed round for Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin. Deep­Spin says it plans to use the fresh capi­tal to expand the team and further deve­lop the tech­no­logy it has developed.

Alre­ady in Q2, a team led by SMP part­ner Martin Scha­per advi­sed APEX Digi­tal Health on its invest­ment in Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin, as well as acting as lead inves­tor in the seed finan­cing round of Berlin-based startup Phan­tasma Labs. Other inves­tors include Signals VC, IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, Wi Ventures, Entre­pre­neur First, and seve­ral high-profile busi­ness angels. Accor­ding to Phan­tasma Labs, the capi­tal raised will be used to expand the team as well as product development.

“We are very plea­sed that we were able to advise APEX Ventures on two finan­cing rounds at the same time. The invest­ments in DeepT­ech and Health­Tech under­line the ever incre­asing importance of these sectors in the VC market”, says Martin Schaper.

APEX Ventures
APEX Ventures is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on DeepT­ech start­ups with unique IP and extra­or­di­nary market poten­tial. APEX Ventures has comple­ted nume­rous invest­ments in Europe as well as in the U.S., inclu­ding AI for medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, quan­tum and laser tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous mobi­lity, compu­ter vision, and digi­tal foren­sics. APEX Ventures is in close colla­bo­ra­tion with the foun­ding teams to work toge­ther on go-to-market stra­te­gies and acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth. For an effec­tive selec­tion of talen­ted teams and their best possi­ble support, APEX Ventures is in close exch­ange with acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons, entre­pre­neur­ship programs and other inter­na­tio­nal VC partners.

APEX Digi­tal Health
APEX Digi­tal Health — the second fund under the APEX Ventures umbrella — invests in early-stage health­care compa­nies. As in the first fund, which has alre­ady made 16 successful invest­ments, the focus is on DeepT­ech compa­nies with defen­si­ble intellec­tual property in the DACH region. Howe­ver, invest­ments are also plan­ned in the rest of Europe, the USA and Israel. Since the fund was regis­tered in Janu­ary 2020, four invest­ments have been comple­ted, in patho­logy, radio­logy and neurology.

Deep­Spin
Based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Berlin-based medtech startup Deep­Spin is deve­lo­ping a novel magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) system. Compared to conven­tio­nal systems, DeepSpin’s solu­tion is said to be a frac­tion of the cost, size and weight. The company’s goal is to make MRI acces­si­ble to all pati­ents world­wide through the use of its tech­no­logy, thus estab­li­shing a new stan­dard of care in this specialty. The company was foun­ded in 2020 by Clemens Tepel and Pedro Silva.

Phan­tasm Labs
Phan­tasma Labs offers a solu­tion to improve self-driving systems. Using virtual simu­la­tion and novel AI tech­no­logy, Phan­tasma Labs’ soft­ware will help self-driving cars predict and under­stand human beha­vior, for exam­ple. In the simu­la­ti­ons, entire cities such as London or New York are recrea­ted virtually, in which an auto­no­mously driving system encoun­ters real-life situa­tions with other road users or even pede­stri­ans. The company was foun­ded in 2018 by Rama­krishna Nanjun­daiah and Maria Meier, who previously met in the Talent Inves­tor Entre­pre­neur First program.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Advi­sor APEX Ventures: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead/Corporate), Part­ner, Dr. Chris­tian Jois­ten (Tax), Asso­ciate Pia Dürre (Corpo­rate) Associate

Advi­sor APEX Digi­tal Health: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Corpo­rate Law), Part­ner, Jonas Huth (Corpo­rate Law), Associate

News

Munich — In the future, 45-year-old Michael Riemen­schnei­der will be part of the manage­ment team of the Strüng­mann family’s single family office Athos.

For half a year it was quiet around Michael Riemen­schnei­der, the former mana­ging direc­tor of Reimann Inves­tors, where he made nume­rous direct invest­ments. Then it became known that Riemen­schnei­der has been one of three mana­ging direc­tors since the begin­ning of July, along with Helmut Jeggle and Thomas Maier. Athos is the single family office of brot­hers Thomas and Andreas Strüng­mann, the foun­ders and former owners of Hexal.

The 45-year-old was previously Mana­ging Direc­tor of the Single Family Office of those members of the Reimann family of entre­pre­neurs who parted with their stake in the former family busi­ness at the end of the 1990s for more than 13 years. He had left the family office at the end of 2019. From 2000 to 2005, the indus­trial engi­neer with a docto­rate in busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion was a stra­tegy consul­tant at the Boston Consul­ting Group.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed giro­pay GmbH on the sale of giro­pay to paydi­rekt GmbH. paydi­rekt GmbH takes over all rele­vant parts of giro­pay GmbH in order to provide the online payment proce­dure giro­pay in the future. The German banks and savings banks are thus bund­ling their two account-based online payment proces­ses. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is sche­du­led for Decem­ber 2020.

giro­pay GmbH, foun­ded in 2005 by Post­bank, the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe (Star Finanz GmbH), and the coope­ra­tive Finanz­gruppe (Fidu­cia & GAD IT AG), provi­des an account-based service that enables “regis­tra­tion-free” payments on the Inter­net via online banking. As a payment method in German e‑commerce, giro­pay curr­ently proces­ses over one million tran­sac­tions per month in a wide range of industries.

Advi­sors to giro­pay GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M.
Dr. Michael Cziesla (Lead Part­ner), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A), Daniel von Brevern (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Florian Lech­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Tech­no­logy Law); Asso­ciate: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (Corporate/M&A)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 20 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, 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. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

News

Berlin/ Munich — Berlin-based acade­mic publisher De Gruy­ter has acqui­red eight acade­mic jour­nals from Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag. Carl Hanser Verlag will trans­fer the jour­nals “Inter­na­tio­nal Jour­nal of Mate­ri­als Rese­arch,” “Inter­na­tio­nal Poly­mer Proces­sing,” “Kern­tech­nik,” “Mate­ri­als Test­ing,” “Prac­ti­cal Metall­o­gra­phy,” “Tenside Surfac­tants Deter­gents,” “ZWF-Zeit­schrift für wirt­schaft­li­che Fabrik­be­trieb” and “HTM-Jour­nal of Heat Treat­ment and Mate­ri­als” to De Gruy­ter on Janu­ary 1, 2021. Raue advi­sed Berlin-based acade­mic publisher De Gruy­ter on the transaction.

De Gruy­ter is an inde­pen­dent acade­mic publisher with head­quar­ters in Berlin and offices in Basel, Boston, Munich, Beijing, Warsaw and Vienna. De Gruy­ter publishes more than 1,300 new book titles and more than 900 jour­nals a year, is a world leader in open access, and provi­des digi­tal access to scho­larly content to more than 12 million users a year on its website, degruyter.com.

Carl Hanser Verlag is one of Germany’s leading publishers of lite­ra­ture as well as applied engi­nee­ring, tech­no­logy, compu­ter science and business.

Advi­sor Walter De Gruy­ter GmbH: Raue (Berlin)
Dr. Jörg Jaecks (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner Corpo­rate Law, M&A), Dr. Michael K. Berg­mann (Part­ner, Anti­trust Law), Dr. Johan­nes Modest (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law)

About Raue
Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com

News

Munich/ Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, acqui­res a stake in Threema GmbH. Toge­ther with the foun­ders Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved after the tran­sac­tion, Afinum will support the growth course of the past years. Toge­ther with Afinum, the company intends to further expand its own market posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean secure messen­ger for private and corpo­rate customers.

Threema (www.threema.ch), based in Pfäf­fi­kon, Switz­er­land, is a leading Euro­pean secure messa­ging provi­der for private users, public insti­tu­ti­ons as well as compa­nies. With Threema’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons, neither meta­data nor chat content is stored, which is a strong diffe­ren­tia­tor from other commer­cial messen­gers. This reflects the primary goal of ensu­ring custo­mer data secu­rity and privacy. Threema’s app for private users is used by custo­mers in over 90 count­ries. The corpo­rate custo­mer solu­tion Threema Work has become the market leader in the DACH region in recent years and is used by a large number of DAX 30 compa­nies, govern­ment agen­cies, NGOs and educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons. — Threema is to become open source.

Threema was foun­ded in 2014 by the three soft­ware deve­lo­pers Martin Blat­ter, Manuel Kasper and Silvan Enge­ler, who will conti­nue to lead the company. By ente­ring into this part­ner­ship, Threema lays the foun­da­tion for conti­nuity and gains resour­ces to grow beyond German-spea­king Europe. Threema will conti­nue to improve its own soft­ware and deve­lop addi­tio­nal features to conti­nue provi­ding custo­mers with the most secure secure messen­ger. Thanks to the inno­va­tive cross-plat­form multi-device solu­tion, Threema will also be usable on multi­ple devices in paral­lel in the future, without leaving perso­nal data on a server. In addi­tion, Threema will fully disc­lose the source code of Threema apps in the coming months to allow anyone to check the secu­rity and func­tion­a­lity of Threema itself and verify that the published source code matches the instal­led app.

The invest­ment in Threema is the ninth plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG.

About AFINUM
AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

News

Septem­ber 2020, Hano­ver, Germany — NORD Holding, toge­ther with an indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team led by Mana­ging Direc­tor Mr. Wilhelm Evers, is pursuing a buy-and-build stra­tegy in the premium hearing care segment. With part of the oton-/ Ohrwerk Group (a total of 29 estab­lished specialty stores), the foun­da­tion has now been laid for the inor­ga­nic growth plan­ned to more than 150 specialty stores. The compa­nies will be united in perspec­tive under a common appearance as “OHRWERK Hörge­räte” in the stron­gly growing market of premium hearing acoustics.

“With these invest­ments, audiO­sono will directly join the ranks of the largest hearing care compa­nies in Germany. Thanks to Mr. Evers’ indus­try expe­ri­ence and network, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in the strong growth in the hearing care market in the best possi­ble way and are very much looking forward to support­ing him in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the new company,” says Phil­ipp von Mitzlaff, Member of the Execu­tive Board at NORD Holding.

“We give our hearing care profes­sio­nals the oppor­tu­nity to concen­trate fully on their craft: Advi­sing custo­mers in the best possi­ble way, fitting hearing aids opti­mally and selling them. With this in mind, we want to be the most attrac­tive buyer and, above all, employer for hearing care profes­sio­nals in Germany,” says Wilhelm Evers, Mana­ging Direc­tor of audiOsono.

“We are plea­sed to have found strong part­ners in NORD Holding and audiO­sono, who share our corpo­rate philo­so­phy of respon­si­ble hearing care craft­sman­ship and will conti­nue the group’s growth course on this basis. In the future, I will concen­trate more on support­ing the oton & friends network part­ners,” says Andreas Roberg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of oton.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tions were accom­pa­nied by Phil­ipp von Mitzlaff, André Seidel and David Wössner.

About audiO­sono
With audiO­sono, NORD Holding is addres­sing the incre­asing demand for high-quality hearing aids and custo­mer-orien­ted advice in clear distinc­tion to the estab­lished branch concepts. As a buy-and-build plat­form with a focus on hearing acou­stics, audiO­sono prima­rily bene­fits from the high degree of frag­men­ta­tion in the German market and the incre­asing pene­tra­tion and accep­tance of hearing aids in society. audiO­sono parti­ci­pa­tes in estab­lished hearing care stores with a strong local presence as well as natio­nally active chains throug­hout Germany, offe­ring inde­pen­dent acou­sti­ci­ans an alter­na­tive to selling to a large chain store.

About oton and Ohrwerk
The Group opera­tes a total of 29 own stores with approx. 75 employees under the two umbrella brands oton — Die Hörakus­ti­ker and Ohrwerk Hörge­räte with seve­ral regio­nal clus­ters throug­hout Germany (esp. NRW, nort­hern Germany and Bava­ria). With its own hearing aid coll­ec­tion, an attrac­tive finan­cing concept, broad service port­fo­lio and various trai­ning programs, the Group is a leading entity in Germany in terms of custo­mer proxi­mity, quality aware­ness and employee deve­lo­p­ment. www.oton-hoerakustik.de/ and www.ohrwerk-gmbh.info/

Advi­sor Nord Holding: BPG Bera­tungs- und Prüfungsgesellschaft 
Andreas Hoff­mann, WP and Part­ner (Over­all Manage­ment), Alex­an­der Schnei­der, Asso­ciate (Finan­cial), Ludger Fang­mann, StB and Part­ner (Tax), and Jan Phil­ipp Kruse, Asso­ciate (Tax).
www.bpe.de

About NORD Holding
With its 50-year history and assets under manage­ment of € 2.5 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the Direct Invest­ments and Fund Invest­ments busi­ness areas. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the small-cap segment of the Euro­pean private equity market and focu­ses on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished in the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor investor.

News

Berlin / Vienna — Berlin-based fintech with a branch office in Vienna Bambus.io has closed another finan­cing deal with a total volume in the mid-six-figure range. The round was led by Calm/Storm Ventures, a new fund initia­ted by Lucas Polag­noli (pictu­red right) and Michael Ströck (pictu­red left). In addi­tion to the lead inves­tor, busi­ness angels and exis­ting inves­tors inves­ted in the fintech company specia­li­zing in real estate lending. Bambus.io was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on corpo­rate and regu­la­tory law by a team led by SMP part­ners Benja­min Ullrich and Lenn­art Lorenz.

“Bambus.io helps real estate owners to increase their liqui­dity and informs them about the diffe­rent capi­tal raising alter­na­ti­ves as well as the asso­cia­ted condi­ti­ons of more than 400 banks,” explains SMP part­ner Benja­min Ullrich. “We are plea­sed that we were able to advise FinTech on both corpo­rate and regu­la­tory matters — the tran­sac­tion is not only exem­plary for our close rela­ti­onship with Austria, but also demons­tra­tes the success of our inte­gra­ted approach of corpo­rate and regu­la­tory advice.”

Bamboo.io
Bambus.io is a fintech with offices in Berlin and Vienna. The company, which specia­li­zes in real estate lending, was foun­ded in 2019 by Patrick Woll­ner and Franz Hoerhager.

Consul­tant Bambus.io: SMP
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory Law), Senior Associate

Advi­sor Bambus.io: Brandl & Talos (Austrian law)
MMag. Roman Rericha (Tran­sac­tions), Partner

About Calm/Storm
Calm/Storm is an exclu­sive foun­der network and boutique venture capi­tal firm.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

News

Garching b. Munich — 3YOURMIND, a leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring (indus­trial 3D prin­ting), today announ­ced the successful closing of a new finan­cing round. The Series A+ is led by EnBW New Ventures (ENV), the venture capi­tal subsi­diary of EnBW, one of Europe’s largest energy and infra­struc­ture opera­tors. ENV and exis­ting inves­tors UVC Part­ners, AM Ventures, TRUMPF Venture and copa­rion are inves­t­ing a total of EUR 4.7 million in the Berlin-based soft­ware company. The current invest­ment round will not only acce­le­rate 3YOURMIND’s further growth in key indus­tries such as aero­space, auto­mo­tive and engi­nee­ring, but will also streng­then its posi­tion in the energy sector and infra­struc­ture. Today, 3YOURMIND custo­mers alre­ady include more than 50 compa­nies from nume­rous count­ries — with the soft­ware suite ensu­ring the smooth 3D prin­ting of seve­ral compon­ents every day.

3YOURMIND’s work­flow soft­ware is at the heart of manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies that rely on addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring. This enables them to opti­mize their value chain, save up to 40 percent in costs, and achieve up to 18 percent shorter lead times compared with conven­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­ring. In addi­tion, indus­trial users are put in a posi­tion to help deter­mine the next gene­ra­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring at an early stage and use it for their own bene­fit. The work­flow soft­ware from 3YOURMIND is used prima­rily by compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries that manu­fac­ture spare parts cost-effec­tively on demand, effi­ci­ently replace outda­ted machi­nery or switch to a digi­tal warehouse. Although most of 3YOURMIND’s custo­mers alre­ady rely heavily on addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring in their day-to-day produc­tion, the work­flow soft­ware also offers an opti­mal entry point for compa­nies that have yet to iden­tify use cases for indus­trial 3D prin­ting or want to plan and simu­late the use of agile manu­fac­tu­ring in their own production.

“The current econo­mic situa­tion in the wake of the Corona Lock­downs is just forcing many compa­nies to review their supply chains and look for alter­na­ti­ves,” says Alek­san­der Ciszek, co-foun­der and CEO of 3YOURMIND GmbH. “Our custo­mers are alre­ady bene­fiting from our work­flow soft­ware, which opti­mally controls decen­tra­li­zed produc­tion, increa­ses flexi­bi­lity in supply networks and thus ensu­res the indus­trial value chain at all times. We are plea­sed that ENV and our port­fo­lio inves­tors share our vision of next-gene­ra­tion effi­ci­ent manu­fac­tu­ring and support it through this Series A+ investment.”

The current invest­ment round enables 3YOURMIND to signi­fi­cantly increase its soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment capa­ci­ties. In addi­tion, the deve­lo­p­ment of new markets is to be massi­vely acce­le­ra­ted, in addi­tion to the exis­ting loca­ti­ons in Europe and the USA.

“The success of Indus­try 4.0 is based on addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring,” says Crispin Leick, Mana­ging Direc­tor at ENV. “Thanks to 3YOURMIND’s soft­ware, compa­nies can easily and effi­ci­ently inte­grate addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring into their exis­ting produc­tion proces­ses. At the same time, this supports the sustaina­bi­lity of many manu­fac­tu­ring and MRO (Main­ten­ance, Repair & Opera­ti­ons) appli­ca­ti­ons. We are extre­mely plea­sed with our invest­ment in a company like 3YOURMIND that is play­ing a major role in shaping the future of indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring.” ENV invests prima­rily in strong and inno­va­tive compa­nies that can have a major impact on the energy and mobi­lity market in the future.

“Even in this econo­mic year, domi­na­ted by a globally rampant virus and ther­e­fore unpre­ce­den­ted, we at 3YOURMIND expect to double our sales for the third year in a row,” says Stephan Kühr, CEO of 3YOURMIND GmbH and respon­si­ble for the company’s growth. “The invest­ment round, carried by ENV and our exis­ting inves­tors UVC Part­ners, AM Ventures, TRUMPF Venture and copa­rion, opens up new and very good pros­pects for us in terms of strong global expansion.”

Simi­lar to other energy suppli­ers, EnBW opera­tes nume­rous power plants of diffe­rent ages and an exten­sive infra­struc­ture for relia­ble energy supply. In order to relia­bly supply its more than six million custo­mers and ensure smooth opera­ti­ons, the company has to find effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons to main­tain and renew outda­ted equip­ment. Addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring has proven to be a parti­cu­larly viable solution.

About 3YOURMIND
When 3YOURMIND was foun­ded in 2014, the goal was to provide wide­spread access to addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring. In the first few years, corpo­rate custo­mers such as Siemens Energy, DB and Volks­wa­gen are added. This made it possi­ble to directly address the needs of enter­prise produc­tion and deve­lop soft­ware that is ready for the future of manu­fac­tu­ring. From 2020, the Agile Manu­fac­tu­ring Soft­ware Suite will offer modu­les for opti­mi­zing AM work­flows along the entire value chain. This provi­des your custo­mers with trans­pa­rency and scala­bi­lity for the entire industry.
www.3yourmind.com

About UVC Partners
Unter­neh­mer­tum Venture Capi­tal Part­ners (UVC Part­ners) is an early-stage venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Berlin that invests speci­fi­cally in tech­no­logy-based start­ups in the areas of indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies, enter­prise soft­ware and mobi­lity. 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 240 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 Blick­feld, Carjump (Free2Move), Flix­Bus, KONUX, TWAICE and Vimcar.
https://www.uvcpartners.com/

News

Berlin — Aigno­stics, a spin-off of Charité — Univer­si­täts­me­di­zin Berlin and the Berlin Insti­tute of Health (BIH) that deve­lops AI-based solu­ti­ons for patho­logy, today announ­ced the closing of a €5m seed funding. Böhrin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) acted as lead inves­tor, with parti­ci­pa­tion from High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), the VC Fonds Tech­no­lo­gie of IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, and Future Capital.

Formally, the deve­lo­p­ment of Aigno­stics began in early 2018 when rese­ar­chers from Charité and TU Berlin were accepted into BIH’s Digi­tal Health Acce­le­ra­tor (DHA) program to further deve­lop their inno­va­tive rese­arch in AI-based patho­logy and “Explainable AI” into a spin-off company.

Howe­ver, the foun­da­tion for Aigno­stics was laid much earlier, by Prof. Frede­rick Klau­schen, deputy. Direc­tor of the Insti­tute of Patho­logy at Charité, and rese­ar­chers from the Fraun­ho­fer Gesell­schaft and TU Berlin, led by Prof. Klaus-Robert Müller, Direc­tor of the Berlin Center for Machine Lear­ning (BZML), who filed their first patent for AI-based patho­logy back in 2011. Prof. Klau­schen, who studied physics as well as medi­cine, reco­gni­zed the poten­tial of AI for patho­logy early on. “While patho­lo­gists are excel­lent at compre­hen­si­vely analy­zing the morpho­lo­gi­cal features of tissues in indi­vi­dual samples, AI is parti­cu­larly well-suited for evalua­ting indi­vi­dual features in a stan­dar­di­zed and quan­ti­ta­tive manner, as well as unco­ve­ring corre­la­ti­ons in larger data­sets, such as clini­cal trials,” explains Prof. Klauschen.

Aigno­stics’ proprie­tary “Explainable AI” plat­form is parti­cu­larly well suited for such unco­ve­ring of new contexts. It is based on rese­arch by the Fraun­ho­fer Gesell­schaft, Charité and TU Berlin and allows to over­come the often criti­ci­zed “black box” problem of AI in patho­logy. “Explainable AI is a new and exci­ting field in modern AI rese­arch with a lot of poten­tial for both acade­mia and indus­try,” said Prof. Müller. “For exam­ple, we can train our AI with tissue samples that have a posi­tive or nega­tive response to therapy. We can then have the AI graphi­cally “explain” to us which morpho­lo­gi­cal charac­te­ristics distin­gu­ish the posi­tive cases from the nega­tive cases,” Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Alber, CTO of Aigno­stics, explains further. “This tech­no­logy is not only essen­tial for routine diagno­stics, where it can help verify the func­tio­ning of AI appli­ca­ti­ons, but is also a very inte­res­t­ing approach to find poten­tial new biomar­kers that can predict therapy response,” adds Prof. Klauschen.

“What makes us unique, howe­ver, is not only our tech­no­logy, but also our orga­niza­tio­nal struc­ture. We have exten­sive access to multi­mo­dal data as well as patho­lo­gists, which allows us to deve­lop tail­o­red algo­rithms for a wide variety of issues, from diagno­stics to rese­arch to CDx. In addi­tion, our close networ­king with Charité and TU Berlin is a great advan­tage, as we deve­lop our appli­ca­ti­ons in constant exch­ange with compu­ter scien­tists, rese­ar­chers, as well as patho­lo­gists as “end users”,” explains Viktor Matyas, CEO of Aigno­stics. “We are also very grateful for the support of Charité, BIH and Ascen­ion, without which we would not have come this far,” Matyas continues.

Aigno­stics will use the finan­cing to expand its port­fo­lio in phar­maceu­ti­cal rese­arch as well as fund longer-term projects aimed at deve­lo­ping companion/complementary diagno­stics (CDx) for routine diagno­stics. “We find Aigno­stics’ approach very promi­sing and think that more speci­fic diagno­stics will enable more perso­na­li­zed, effec­tive treat­ment for pati­ents,” said Dr. Alex­an­der Ehlgen of BIVF.

About Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund GmbH
The Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) supports early-stage rese­arch and tech­no­lo­gies through stra­te­gic invest­ments. Led by Frank Kalk­bren­ner, Global Head of the Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund. With a volume of €300 million, the BIVF invests in biotech and start-up compa­nies that have the poten­tial to deve­lop breakth­rough tech­no­lo­gies. The BIVF port­fo­lio curr­ently consists of 34 compa­nies. In addi­tion, the BIVF supports the crea­tion of new compa­nies based on promi­sing rese­arch projects at univer­si­ties or acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons. The BIVF’s inte­rest in young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies reflects its commit­ment to promo­ting inno­va­tive ideas and new scien­ti­fic approa­ches. The BIVF thus crea­tes oppor­tu­ni­ties for Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim to expand into new busi­ness areas with a focus on onco­logy, rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine, infec­tious dise­a­ses and digi­tal health. www.boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the 32 companies.

About Future Capital
Future Capi­tal (www.future-capital.com) is a public-private part­ner­ship between the state of Hesse and Sanofi-Aven­tis Deutsch­land GmbH. Since 1999, we have been support­ing early-stage and start-up compa­nies in the health­care sector with capi­tal, network and know-how. The company is head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt and we invest in our region, but also in Germany and Europe.

About IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft(www.ibb-bet.de) provi­des venture capi­tal to inno­va­tive Berlin-based compa­nies and has estab­lished itself as the market leader in early stage finan­cing in Berlin. The funds are prima­rily used for the deve­lo­p­ment and market launch of inno­va­tive products or services and for busi­ness concepts in the crea­tive indus­tries. Since March 2015, two funds mana­ged by IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft are in the invest­ment phase, the VC Fonds Tech­no­lo­gie Berlin II with a fund volume of EUR 60 million and the VC Fonds Krea­tiv-Wirt­schaft Berlin II with a fund volume of EUR 40 million. Both VC funds are finan­ced by funds from Inves­ti­ti­ons­bank Berlin (IBB) and the Euro­pean Regio­nal Deve­lo­p­ment Fund (ERDF), mana­ged by the State of Berlin. Since 1997, IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has provi­ded appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.52 billion to over 210 Berlin-based crea­tive and tech­no­logy compa­nies in consor­tia with part­ners, of which IBB Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has inves­ted EUR 217 million as lead, co-lead or co-investor.

About Ascen­ion
Ascen­ion GmbH (www.ascenion.de) is an inde­pen­dent tech­no­logy trans­fer company with parti­cu­lar exper­tise in the life scien­ces. It is a part­ner of more than 30 rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons, univer­si­ties and univer­sity hospi­tals in Germany and Europe. Parti­cu­lar strengths are the support of spin-offs and project deve­lo­p­ment. As a tech­no­logy trans­fer part­ner of BIH and Charité, Ascen­ion accom­pa­nied the foun­ders and scien­tists and helped to launch the spin-off toge­ther with the BIH-Digi­tal Health Acce­le­ra­tor. In close coor­di­na­tion with BIH, Ascen­ion accom­pa­nied the nego­tia­tion of essen­tial contracts on the way to the foun­da­tion and finan­cing. www.ascenion.de

News

Berlin — SMP advi­sed venture capi­ta­list La Fami­glia on the launch of its second fund. With a volume of 50 million, the fund is signi­fi­cantly larger than the first gene­ra­tion of funds laun­ched in 2017 and is desi­gned to support Tran­sTech compa­nies. Skype foun­der Niklas Zenn­ström as well as fund foun­der Jean­nette zu Fürs­ten­berg, the family offices of the Oetker, Hymer and Swarov­ski fami­lies as well as other well-known inves­tors parti­ci­pate in La Fami­glia II. La Fami­glia was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on legal and tax matters by the team led by SMP part­ner Fabian Euhus.

“Deve­lo­pers of trans­for­ma­tive tech­no­lo­gies are on a mission to improve human well-being. This important endea­vor will be further advan­ced with the launch of the new La Fami­glia Fund. We are plea­sed to have served as legal advi­sors to the team in this effort,” said SMP part­ner Fabian Euhus.

About La Famiglia
La Fami­glia is a venture capi­ta­list based in Berlin. The VC is mana­ged by Jean­nette zu Fürs­ten­berg (photo r.) and Judith Mutters­bach-Dada (photo l.).

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners have been reco­gni­zed natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.

Consul­tant La Fami­glia: SMP
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Lead Part­ner, Fund Struc­ture), Partner
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax), Partner
David John (Fund), Associate
Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz (Tax), Senior Associate
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory), Associate

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has The new private equity mana­ger Maguar Capi­tal has acqui­red HR soft­ware provi­der HRworks with its first funds (Maguar I Fund). A select group of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding Aber­deen Stan­dard Invest­ments, EMZ Part­ners, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners and LFPE, are co-inves­t­ing with the Maguar I Fund.

The acqui­si­tion finan­cing is provi­ded by Joh. Beren­berg, Goss­ler & Co.KG provi­ded. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in Septem­ber 2020.

HRworks is an inte­gra­ted Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) provi­der of HR soft­ware with a focus on the SME segment (small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses) in Germany. The company focu­ses on key HR func­tions such as time manage­ment, travel, people manage­ment, recruit­ment and employee bene­fits. HRworks was foun­ded in 1999 and curr­ently serves 210,000 users and over 1,700 custo­mers. The company opera­tes a scalable tech­no­logy plat­form and curr­ently employs 60 FTEs in its offices in Berlin, Frank­furt and Frei­burg im Breisgau.

Maguar Capi­tal is a German private equity mana­ger focu­sing exclu­si­vely on small cap soft­ware invest­ments in the DACH region. Foun­ded in 2019 by Arno Poschik, Gunther Thies and Matthias Ick, Maguar specia­li­zes in part­ner­ships with foun­der-led B2B soft­ware compa­nies that have an EBITDA of circa one million to six million euros. Maguar supports these compa­nies in reali­zing their growth potential.

Clif­ford Chance Finance Part­ner Barbara Mayer-Traut­mann said, “We are plea­sed to advise Maguar, the new private equity mana­ger, on this tran­sac­tion in turbu­lent times in the highly dyna­mic tech­no­logy-rela­ted private equity market.”

Arno Poschik, foun­der of Maguar, comm­ents: “It was important, espe­ci­ally for this tran­sac­tion, to have Clif­ford Chance, an expe­ri­en­ced legal advi­sor in the private equity sector, on our side. The Clif­ford Chance team impres­sed us with its effi­ci­ency and commer­cial approach. We hope that more invest­ments will follow shortly.”

Advi­sor Maguar Capi­tal GmbH: Clif­ford Chance
Manage­ment Part­ner Barbara Mayer-Traut­mann (Finance, Munich)

About Clif­ford Chance
Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

London/ Frankfurt/ Munich — Finan­cial inves­tor Advent Inter­na­tio­nal acqui­res a 30% stake in Aareon AG. Accor­ding to Aareal Bank AG, the purchase price for the invest­ment amounts to EUR 260 million. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the company was paid approx. EUR 960 million. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, with closing expec­ted in Q4 2020. The London and German offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed the finan­cial inves­tor Advent Inter­na­tio­nal on the acqui­si­tion of a 30% stake in Aareon AG

Mainz-based Aareon AG is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the property sector and a subsi­diary of Aareal Bank AG, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of finan­cing solu­ti­ons and services, parti­cu­larly in the property sector.

Advi­sor Advent: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The combi­ned London/German Weil team was led on this tran­sac­tion by Corpo­rate Part­ners Jona­than Wood (London) and Dr. Ansgar Wimber, photo (Frank­furt) and was supported by Coun­sel Max Oppen­hei­mer and Ellie Fialho (both Corpo­rate, London), Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Munich) and Svenja Wach­tel (Liti­ga­tion, Munich) as well as Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Bren­ner, Kai Neumann (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Florian Wessel, Andreas Fogel, Sandra Kühn, Corne­lia Tu (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Barbara Sand­fuchs (IP/IT Law, Munich), Markus Cejka (Finance, Frank­furt), Mareike Pfeif­fer and Lili­anna Ranody (both Labor Law, Frankfurt).

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) invests in conga­tec Holding AG (conga­tec), a leading supplier of compu­ter modu­les for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In the context of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO), DBAG Fund VIII, which is advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire the majo­rity of the shares from the foun­ding share­hol­ders. DBAG will invest around 23 million euros along­side the fund; in future, it will hold around 20 percent of the shares. In addi­tion, the conga­tec manage­ment will also parti­ci­pate. The closing of the purchase agree­ment is subject to the appr­oval of the anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is sche­du­led for the fourth quar­ter of 2020. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The MBO of conga­tec Holding AG is the second invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII, which invests in medium-sized compa­nies — mainly in German-spea­king count­ries. The fund’s invest­ment period had star­ted on August 1, 2020; in the middle of the month, DBAG had struc­tu­red the fund’s first tran­sac­tion with the MBO of Multi­mon AG.

Global market leader in computer-on-modules
conga­tec Holding AG (www.congatec.com), head­quar­te­red in Deggen­dorf, Bava­ria, is a fast-growing tech­no­logy company in the field of embedded compu­ting with a focus on high-perfor­mance so-called compu­ter-on-modu­les (CoM) and indus­trial single-board compu­ters (SBC). conga­tec focu­ses on the hard­ware design of CoMs, which account for around 80 percent of sales. CoMs are used for speci­fic appli­ca­ti­ons within a broa­der system, for exam­ple in indus­trial robots, image proces­sing or ultra­so­nic devices, and typi­cally have to meet speci­fic requi­re­ments, for exam­ple high relia­bi­lity as well as longe­vity even under adverse condi­ti­ons, real-time proces­sing or zero error tole­rance, often imple­men­ted in small sizes. CoMs are complete compu­ting units, they consist of a proces­sor, memory and proces­sor peri­pherals and are opti­mi­zed for speci­fic appli­ca­ti­ons. CoMs are essen­tial prere­qui­si­tes for advan­cing digi­tiza­tion because, for exam­ple, they make it possi­ble to network physi­cal and virtual objects and have them work toge­ther through infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies. CoMs are also needed for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence applications.

In the compu­ter-on-module segment, the company, foun­ded in 2004, is the global market leader with a broad custo­mer base ranging from start-ups to inter­na­tio­nal blue-chip compa­nies. conga­tec has subsi­dia­ries in the USA, Taiwan, China, Japan and Austra­lia as well as in Great Britain, France and the Czech Repu­blic. 270 employees gene­ra­ted $126 million in reve­nue in 2019. This reve­nue is spread across a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons — as a result, the company has so far hardly been affec­ted by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Growth through inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and new proces­sor types
More than two thirds of congatec’s custo­mers come from the Euro­pean econo­mic area, and the share of sales to custo­mers in the USA or Asia is growing. This is expec­ted to acce­le­rate in the coming years. In addi­tion to grea­ter inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, an expan­sion of the product range to include CoMs for new proces­sor types is also expec­ted to drive the company’s growth. A key driver here is also the rapidly growing demand for higher-perfor­mance compu­ting solu­ti­ons in edge appli­ca­ti­ons, among others, in which CoMs in a network provide compu­ting power in real time on a decen­tra­li­zed basis — unlike cloud solu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, congatec’s RTS Hyper­vi­sor is an inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­tion that can set new stan­dards in terms of real-time perfor­mance — both as a stand-alone soft­ware solu­tion and in conjunc­tion with the CoMs produ­ced by congatec.

“We expect contin­ued strong growth in digi­tiza­tion,” said Dr. Rolf Schef­fels (photo), member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board, on the occa­sion of the contract signing. He contin­ued, “The pande­mic has given another strong boost to the ‘Inter­net of Things’ and ‘Indus­try 4.0’ — this will give a further boost to demand for the compu­ter compon­ents requi­red for this.” In recent years, DBAG has been inten­si­vely invol­ved with compa­nies in the embedded elec­tro­nics sector and has alre­ady inves­ted in a compa­ra­ble busi­ness model with its stake in duagon Holding AG. “This expe­ri­ence has now paid off in the assess­ment of the invest­ment oppor­tu­nity,” said DBAG board member Dr. Scheffels.

The Chair­man of congatec’s Manage­ment Board, Jason Carlson, today poin­ted to the diverse market poten­tial: “In DBAG, we have found a part­ner for the further deve­lo­p­ment of our company that is well versed in key end markets for our custo­mers and brings finan­cing exper­tise and M&A expe­ri­ence to the table — with DBAG and DBAG Fund VIII, we are well posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of market opportunities.”

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG
Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. DBAG focu­ses on indus­trial sectors in which German SMEs are strong by inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the new focus sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. The capi­tal mana­ged and advi­sed by the DBAG Group amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 2.5 billion euros.

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