Author: Tatjana Anderer

Zug (Switz­er­land) — INVISION VI (“INVISION”) has sold its stake in AK Group AG (“AK Group”), inclu­ding the subsi­dia­ries SkySale Schweiz GmbH (opera­tor of the e‑commerce plat­form Apfelkiste.ch) and Marein AG, to the listed company mobi­le­zone holding ag (“mobi­le­zone”). The tran­sac­tion under­lines the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the AK Group under the parti­ci­pa­tion of INVISION and gene­ra­tes an attrac­tive return for the INVISION VI Fund and its investors. 

The tran­sac­tion price (enter­prise value) is around CHF 180 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of June 2026.

Value crea­tion during the INVISION invest­ment period

INVISION acqui­red a stake in the AK Group in 2021 and has supported the company as an active and entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner ever since. Working closely with foun­der Pierre Droigk and the rest of the manage­ment team, key stra­te­gic mile­sto­nes were achie­ved: the Apfelkiste.ch e‑commerce plat­form was syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ded and the product range exten­ded to over 60,000 imme­dia­tely available products. The plat­form was successfully diver­si­fied and expan­ded beyond the core busi­ness through targe­ted trend reco­gni­tion and product range expan­sion. The acqui­si­tion of Marein AG in 2024 was also a stra­te­gi­cally important step that signi­fi­cantly streng­the­ned the Group’s exper­tise in retail bran­ding and sourcing. INVISION actively promo­ted the further deve­lo­p­ment of the orga­niza­tion by recrui­ting Marc Isler as opera­tio­nal CEO and expan­ding the manage­ment team, among other things. In addi­tion, profes­sio­nal report­ing struc­tures were intro­du­ced and central value-added func­tions such as marke­ting and IT were inter­na­li­zed. The origi­nal busi­ness plan was signi­fi­cantly exceeded. 

The AK Group curr­ently employs around 100 people and gene­ra­ted sales of over CHF 100 million with EBITDA of around CHF 20 million in 2025. There are no plans for chan­ges in opera­tio­nal manage­ment, employees or locations.

Comm­ents on the transaction

Pierre Droigk, foun­der and former Group CEO of the AK Group, explains: “INVISION has been a valuable part­ner for us, provi­ding us not only with capi­tal, but above all with stra­te­gic spar­ring and opera­tio­nal support. Toge­ther we have deve­lo­ped Apfel­kiste into one of the leading e‑commerce plat­forms in Switz­er­land. With mobi­le­zone, we are now embar­king on an exci­ting new chap­ter in which we can combine our strengths and further expand the custo­mer experience.”

Chris­tian Hemm­rich, Part­ner at INVISION, comm­ents: “We are proud of the deve­lo­p­ment of the AK Group achie­ved toge­ther with Pierre and the entire team. A successful, foun­der-led e‑commerce company has become a profes­sio­nally posi­tio­ned and diver­si­fied group with sales of over CHF 100 million. The sale to mobi­le­zone repres­ents an excel­lent stra­te­gic fit and enables AK Group to realize its full poten­tial as part of a listed group. We would like to thank Pierre, Marc and the entire team for the great colla­bo­ra­tion over the past few years and wish them all the best for the future. 

About the AK Group

AK Group AG, based in Switz­er­land, compri­ses the e‑commerce plat­form Apfelkiste.ch and Marein AG, a specia­list in retail bran­ding and sourcing. Apfelkiste.ch is a leading Swiss online plat­form for smart­phone access­ories and life­style products with over 60,000 imme­dia­tely available products. Marein, foun­ded in 1979 and part of the AK Group since 2024, specia­li­zes in trend scou­ting, product sourcing and private labels in the craft, crea­tive and life­style sectors. The AK Group employs around 100 people. —- www.apfelkiste.ch

About Invi­sion

Since its foun­da­tion in 1997, INVISION has deve­lo­ped into one of the leading mid-market invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region. The focus is on succes­sion plan­ning and growth capi­tal. INVISION has inves­ted in over 80 compa­nies and helped to realize and sustain­ably secure value increa­ses for various invest­ments. INVISION sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner for foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs and manage­ment teams. When making invest­ments, INVISION places parti­cu­lar empha­sis on under­stan­ding the speci­fic needs of compa­nies and entre­pre­neurs and deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solutions.
The AK Group is an invest­ment from the INVISION VI fund. — www.invision.ch

About mobi­le­zone

Foun­ded in 1999, mobi­le­zone holding ag is the leading inde­pen­dent Swiss tele­com specia­list. The regis­tered shares of mobi­le­zone holding ag (MOZN) are traded on the SIX Swiss Exch­ange AG. mobi­le­zone employs around 600 people at its sites in Rotkreuz and Urnäsch and in around 125 of its own stores throug­hout Switz­er­land. —- www.mobilezoneholding.ch

Berlin, London, Milan, Luxem­bourg — Luxem­bourg-based Join Capi­tal has laun­ched its third fund with the aim of raising €235 million to support Euro­pean deep-tech start-ups working on defense, dual-use, secu­rity and space tech­no­lo­gies. The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) has commit­ted €50 million — its largest invest­ment in the defense sector to date. 

Foun­ded in 2017, Joint Capi­tal invests in pan-Euro­pean venture capi­tal funds from its offices in Berlin, London and Milan. The company focu­ses on start-ups that offer asym­me­tric tech­no­lo­gi­cal advan­ta­ges and thus streng­then Euro­pe’s stra­te­gic auto­nomy. The port­fo­lio spans the enter­prise, indus­trial, space and defense sectors, with 36 compa­nies funded to date. There have been five successful exits. 

Fund III will support around 25 start-ups, helping them to scale solu­ti­ons that enhance mili­tary capa­bi­li­ties while offe­ring commer­cial appli­ca­ti­ons. The invest­ment will be made through the InvestEU Defence Equity Faci­lity, a €175 million initia­tive co-finan­ced by the Euro­pean Defence Fund and aimed at mobi­li­zing private funding for disrup­tive defence tech­no­lo­gies. The faci­lity is expec­ted to mobi­lize more than 500 million euros for Euro­pean companies. 

“This invest­ment is not just about finan­cing. The EIF’s credi­bi­lity also acts as a seal of appr­oval, signal­ing to other inves­tors the rele­vance of the aero­space and secu­rity and defense sector. With this support, we are confi­dent that further invest­ments will follow, helping Europe to build a robust ecosys­tem for inno­va­tive defense solu­ti­ons,” explains Marjut Falk­stedt, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the EIF (Photo: EIF).

About EIF

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) is part of the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank Group. Its main task is to faci­li­tate access to finance for micro, small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) in Europe. Its offe­ring includes venture and growth capi­tal, guaran­tees and micro­fi­nance products tail­o­red to this market segment. In this way, it promo­tes EU objec­ti­ves in the areas of inno­va­tion, rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, entre­pre­neur­ship, growth and employ­ment. —www.eib.org

Munich, March 13, 2026 — The Berlin-based tech­no­logy company Qdrant has raised USD 50 million in a Series B finan­cing round. Qdrant intends to use the fresh capi­tal to acce­le­rate the further deve­lo­p­ment of its tech­no­logy plat­form and drive its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. The commer­cial law firm Green­Gate Part­ners advi­sed Qdrant on this transaction. 

Qdrant is deve­lo­ping a powerful open source vector data­base for arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) appli­ca­ti­ons. The tech­no­logy enables compa­nies to effi­ci­ently manage large amounts of unstruc­tu­red data — inclu­ding text, images, audio and video — and search it in the form of high-dimen­sio­nal vector embeddings. 

In recent years, vector data­ba­ses have become a central infra­struc­ture compo­nent of modern AI appli­ca­ti­ons. They form the basis for nume­rous areas of appli­ca­tion, inclu­ding seman­tic search, recom­men­da­tion systems, anomaly detec­tion and retrie­val augmen­ted gene­ra­tion (RAG).

The funds from the finan­cing round will be inves­ted in parti­cu­lar in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form, the expan­sion of the engi­nee­ring and product teams and the global distri­bu­tion of Qdran­t’s vector search infra­struc­ture. This will further posi­tion the company as an important buil­ding block in the rapidly growing global AI tech­no­logy ecosystem. 

Advi­sor Qdrant: Green­Gate Partners

René Spitz, LL.M., photo © Green­gate (Corpo­rate, Lead Part­ner, Munich)
Ricarda Neukam, LL.M. (IT/IP, Salary Part­ner, Munich)
Constan­tin Forst­ner (Corpo­rate, Senior Asso­ciate, Munich)
Carl von Sydow (Corpo­rate, Asso­ciate, Munich) 

About Green­Gate Partners

Green­Gate Part­ners and its corpo­rate team specia­lize in the M&A and venture capi­tal sector, among others. The legal advice is compre­hen­sive and ranges from the foun­da­tion, through the indi­vi­dual finan­cing rounds, to the exit. Green­Gate Part­ners repea­tedly provi­des bench­marks in the German market. The firm advi­ses dome­stic and foreign venture capi­tal funds, stra­te­gic inves­tors, busi­ness angels as well as foun­ders, start-ups and
mana­gers. — www.greengate.legal

 

Munich/ Frank­furt a. M. / Lithua­nia — ETNA Capi­tal, a Danish private equity firm focu­sed on invest­ments in defense, cyber secu­rity and criti­cal infra­struc­ture protec­tion, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Brolis Defence Group, UAB (“Brolis”). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2026, subject to regu­la­tory approvals. 

A WEIL team led by Dr. Kamyar Abrar advi­sed coun­sel Dr. Julia Schö­fer (Private Equity, Munich) toge­ther with part­ner Susanne Decker (Private Equity, Frank­furt) ETNA Capi­tal on this transaction.

On the Lithua­nian side, SERAINEN has the ETNA Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in UAB Brolis Defense Group , on the Lithua­nian side. This is the largest private equity invest­ment in the defense sector in the Baltic States to date and the first invest­ment by ETNA Capi­tal, which was estab­lished last year. 

With the support of ETNA Capi­tal, Brolis intends to acce­le­rate product and tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment, expand its indus­trial capa­ci­ties and expand inter­na­tio­nally, ther­eby contri­bu­ting to Euro­pe’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­nty and resi­li­ence in the defense and secu­rity sector. Follo­wing the tran­sac­tion, the foun­ders will remain inves­ted with a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake of around 40% and will conti­nue to run the company toge­ther with ETNA Capital. 

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores Weil’s strong private equity prac­tice in the defense and secu­rity tech­no­logy sector and demons­tra­tes the firm’s exper­tise in advi­sing on complex, stra­te­gi­cally signi­fi­cant invest­ments invol­ving sensi­tive tech­no­lo­gies and multi­na­tio­nal regu­la­tory issues.

ETNA Capi­tal, foun­ded in 2025 and backed by leading Danish pension funds, is a pan-Euro­pean private equity firm head­quar­te­red in Copen­ha­gen with an addi­tio­nal office in Munich. The company focu­ses on invest­ments that streng­then Euro­pean resi­li­ence in stra­te­gi­cally criti­cal sectors, combi­ning private equity exper­tise with deep indus­try know­ledge and opera­tio­nal experience. 

Head­quar­te­red in Vilnius, Lithua­nia, Brolis is a leading deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of advan­ced sensor tech­no­lo­gies in the fields of elec­tro-optics, lasers and infrared. Foun­ded in 2011, the company opera­tes as a supplier to the defense sector and secu­rity agencies. 

WEIL acted as lead coun­sel to ETNA Capi­tal in all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding advice on regu­la­tory matters.

Team: Led by private equity part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Frank­furt) and coun­sel Dr. Julia Schö­fer (private equity, Munich) toge­ther with part­ner Susanne Decker (private equity, Frank­furt) and compri­sed part­ner Niklas Maydell (anti­trust, Brussels), part­ner Tom Richards and part­ner Kai Zhang (both finance, London), part­ner Neil Rigby (anti­trust, London), part­ner Shawn B. Cooley (Regu­la­tory, Washing­ton, D.C.), coun­sel Stef­fen Giolda (Regu­la­tory, Munich) and asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Roth­stein (Private Equity, Frank­furt), Alex­an­der Reich (Tax, Frank­furt), Hans-Chris­tian Mick (Finance, Frank­furt), Álvaro Salgado and Lucy Peck­ham (both Anti­trust, London/Brussels). WEIL worked closely with Sorai­nen as Lithua­nian legal coun­sel. — www.weil.com

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Austin, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, Los Ange­les, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the Ameri­can law firm has two offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The focus here is on provi­ding specia­li­zed advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients on cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions, high-profile liti­ga­tion manda­tes, complex restruc­tu­rings and finan­cings as well as tax structuring.

About ETNA Capital

ETNA (foun­ded 2025) is a private equity firm dedi­ca­ted to streng­thening Euro­pean resi­li­ence by inves­t­ing in defense, cyber­se­cu­rity and criti­cal infra­struc­ture protec­tion compa­nies. Our invest­ment mandate extends across Europe. — We bring leading indus­try exper­tise and an exten­sive network and have an in-house value crea­tion team to support and deve­lop the compa­nies we invest in — with the aim of buil­ding world-class busi­nesses. www.etna.capital

Munich/ Hamburg/Berlin — The Munich-based defense tech company Tytan has raised EUR 30 million as part of its Series A finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by Armira and the Nato Inno­va­tion Fund (NIF). YPOG acted as legal advi­sor to the venture capi­tal inves­tors Lake­star and Magne­tic on their parti­ci­pa­tion in the Series A finan­cing round of Tytan Tech­no­lo­gies. In addi­tion to Lake­star and Magne­tic, Visio­na­ries Club, OTB Ventures and D3 also parti­ci­pa­ted as exis­ting investors. 

Tytan was foun­ded in 2023 by Balász Nagy (31) toge­ther with Batu­han Batu­han Yumurt­acı. Tytan deve­lops AI-control­led inter­cep­tor drones to defend against unman­ned aerial vehic­les and is now expan­ding its port­fo­lio to become a more compre­hen­sive provi­der of air defense solu­ti­ons. The fresh capi­tal will be used in parti­cu­lar to expand produc­tion capa­ci­ties, deve­lop addi­tio­nal air defense products and expand the work­force. Tytan plans to signi­fi­cantly increase its produc­tion capa­ci­ties by the end of 2026. 

Tytan is one of the fastest-growing Euro­pean “New Defense” compa­nies. In addi­tion to exis­ting orders in the mili­tary envi­ron­ment, the company’s solu­ti­ons are alre­ady being used in real opera­tio­nal scena­rios. The addi­tion of further indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced perso­na­li­ties to the manage­ment and advi­sory board under­lines Tytan’s ambi­tion to estab­lish itself as a Euro­pean provi­der of scalable air defense technology. 

“Tytan is exem­plary for a new gene­ra­tion of Euro­pean defense tech compa­nies with high tech­no­lo­gi­cal depth and a clear scaling stra­tegy. The fact that Lake­star and Magne­tic are support­ing the company over seve­ral finan­cing phases shows their long-term trust in the team and tech­no­logy,” says Dr. Adrian Haase, Part­ner at YPOG. 

YPOG has been advi­sing Lake­star and Magne­tic since the pre-seed phase and also supported the inves­tors in the seed finan­cing of Tytan. YPOG regu­larly advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal inves­tors on finan­cing rounds in the defense, dual-use and deep tech sectors. 

About Armira

Armira is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment holding company specia­li­zing in long-term part­ner­ships with entre­pre­neur-led and family-owned “hidden cham­pi­ons”. The company has more than €5 billion in assets under manage­ment and is backed by a broad base of entre­pre­neurs, entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies and long-term inves­tors. Armira provi­des capi­tal for the entire life cycle of a company, from mino­rity invest­ments to promote growth to majo­rity investments. 

About the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund

The NATO Inno­va­tion Fund is a €1 billion venture capi­tal fund backed by 24 NATO member nati­ons that invests in deep tech compa­nies to address defense, secu­rity and resi­li­ence chal­lenges. The fund invests inde­pendently, with 24 nati­ons support­ing the success of its port­fo­lio and enab­ling deep tech entre­pre­neurs to access both commer­cial and govern­ment markets. 

About Lake­star

Lake­star (CH) is one of Euro­pe’s leading venture capi­tal invest­ment plat­forms. Since its foun­ding by Klaus Hommels in 2012, Lake­star has been known for back­ing some of Euro­pe’s most successful unicorns. The company has raised more than USD 3 billion through various products and funds and actively mana­ges a port­fo­lio of invest­ments in eight diffe­rent early-stage and growth funds. Lake­star has recently laun­ched a dual-use/­re­si­li­ence fund. — www.lakestar.com

About Magne­tic

Magne­tic is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm that finan­ces trans­for­ma­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in syste­mi­cally rele­vant indus­tries. Magne­tic uses its capi­tal and exper­tise to support outstan­ding foun­ders at the inter­sec­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies and econo­mic systems. The company invests early and sees itself as a long-term capi­tal part­ner. —- https://mgntc.com/

Consul­tant Lake­star and Magne­tic: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg
Alex­an­dra Tafel (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Gerrit Breet­holt (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Benja­min Müller (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Miriam Peer (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

www.ypog.com

Munich/ Berlin — Interloom, a Munich-based plat­form for a know­ledge infra­struc­ture for AI agents that captures expert know­ledge and converts it into a perma­nent memory for AI agents, raises a seed funding round of 14.2 million euros. The invest­ment was led by DN Capi­tal, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Bek Ventures and exis­ting inves­tor Air Street Capital. 

“AI agents are rapidly moving to the front lines, but without a company’s speci­fic busi­ness know­ledge, they won’t have the answers or the ability to auto­mate anything,” says Fabian Jakobi, foun­der and CEO of Interloom. “We base their decis­i­ons on successful solu­ti­ons from the past — ensu­ring their work is guided by real opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence and driven by expert over­sight — crea­ting a memory that stays with the busi­ness forever.” 

Recent reports from EU start­ups high­light seve­ral simi­lar deals in this segment, inclu­ding happy­ho­tel (Germany, €6.5 million to deve­lop AI agents for hotel reve­nue manage­ment), Equixly (Italy, €10 million to scale AI-driven API secu­rity test­ing), Contents (Italy, €5.9 million to expand its AI work­flow plat­form), Rapi­data (Switz­er­land, €7.2 million to scale human feed­back infra­struc­ture for AI) Block­brain (Germany, EUR 17.5 million for the further deve­lo­p­ment of AI agents for compa­nies), Elyos AI (UK, EUR 11.1 million for the auto­ma­tion of field service work­flows), Toyo (UK, EUR 3.6 million for the deve­lo­p­ment of secure AI agents) and Plato (Germany, EUR 12.2 million for the auto­ma­tion of sales and ERP workflows).

Toge­ther, these finan­cing rounds amoun­ted to around EUR 74 million, reflec­ting the steady inflow of capi­tal into infra­struc­ture and appli­ca­ti­ons for enter­prise AI. Germany stands out as a parti­cu­larly active market, with seve­ral finan­cing rounds taking place in the same category. 

In this envi­ron­ment, Interloom’s focus on captu­ring tacit orga­niza­tio­nal know­ledge and turning it into persis­tent opera­tio­nal memory is in line with a broa­der trend to improve relia­bi­lity and context-aware­ness in enter­prise AI implementations.

“Our expe­ri­ence with enter­prise AI agent plat­forms like Cognigy has shown us the importance of context. An agent is only as good as the speci­fic know­ledge it can draw on. The problem is that context is dyna­mic, poorly docu­men­ted and lives on the front line in the day-to-day decis­i­ons of know­led­geable employees. Interloom excel­led by buil­ding an enter­prise context graph that conti­nuously captures real decis­i­ons and how orga­niza­ti­ons actually work, ” adds Guy Ward Thomas, Part­ner at DN Capi­tal (Photo: DN Capital).

Foun­ded in 2024, Interloom helps orga­niza­ti­ons capture the opera­tio­nal know­ledge of their experts and trans­form it into a memory layer for AI agents. By analy­zing how real work is perfor­med across systems and teams, the plat­form builds an enter­prise memory that enables orga­niza­ti­ons to auto­mate and conti­nuously improve complex workflows. 

While AI agents are making rapid progress, Interloom belie­ves that compa­nies are strugg­ling to deploy them in real-world opera­ti­ons because these systems lack a funda­men­tal compo­nent: know­ledge of how work is actually done.

These crucial expe­ri­en­ces remain stored in the minds of employees and get lost in milli­ons of emails, tickets and call logs. — Interloom wants to provide this miss­ing storage layer. Opera­tio­nal experts solve complex problems toge­ther with AI. Once an expert has solved a case, Interloom ensu­res that future employees and AI agents have access to this information. 

Interloom is alre­ady solving this problem for leading compa­nies such as Zurich Insu­rance, JLL and Fiege, proces­sing milli­ons of cases to close this “context gap”.

Advi­sor DN Capi­tal and Bek Ventures on the finan­cing of Interloom: V 14

Alexis von Krue­de­ner, Simo­nié Schlombs, Lasse Rambow, Dr. Simon Pfefferle

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

Munich — The Munich-based private equity firm GREENPEAK Part­ners (“GREENPEAK”) has successfully comple­ted various natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons via its plat­forms ATHAGORAS, enco­viva and VITAIRA. POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Green­peak and its plat­forms. In addi­tion, the VITAIRA Group recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice on the estab­lish­ment and stra­te­gic struc­tu­ring as a buy & build platform. 

GREENPEAK is a Munich-based private equity company and is one of the leading buy & build specia­lists. As an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor, the company invests in the estab­lish­ment and deve­lo­p­ment of plat­forms and actively supports them in their growth and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. — https://www.greenpeak-partners.com/news/

Consul­tant GREENPEAK and its plat­forms ATHAGORAS, enco­viva and VITAIRA: POELLATH

Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Gerald Herr­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Michael de Toma (Coun­sel, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, Munich)
Michael Andreas Haase (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate, Frank­furt aM)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Frank­furt aM)
Lukas Fell­höl­ter (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Nicole Kalten­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Marvin Ritt­meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Lennard Salve­ter (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich) 

About POELLATH
POELLATH is a leading, inter­na­tio­nally networked commer­cial and tax law firm with over 180 legal and tax profes­sio­nals in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for excel­lent advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment — legal and tax from a single source. Our specia­li­zed prac­tice groups not only know the law — toge­ther with our clients we shape best prac­ti­ces in the market. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list us as a leading law firm in our selec­ted specia­list areas . — www.pplaw.com

Frank­furt a.M. — As part of the tran­sac­tion, Würth is taking over the MRS head­quar­ters in Rott­weil as well as the company loca­ti­ons in Croa­tia, Poland and Turkey. MRS Elec­tro­nic will become part of the Würth Group, but will remain an inde­pen­dent company within Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS. — McDer­mott Will & Schulte advi­sed Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS GmbH & Co KG, a subsi­diary of the Würth Group, on the acqui­si­tion of the MRS Elec­tro­nic Group. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant anti­trust authorities. 

MRS Elec­tro­nic has been deve­lo­ping and produ­cing control, commu­ni­ca­tion and networ­king solu­ti­ons for elec­tro­nic vehicle systems for over 25 years, inclu­ding compact control­lers, relays, gate­ways, HMI displays and test systems for power semi­con­duc­tors. There has been a close supplier and deve­lo­p­ment part­ner­ship between MRS Elec­tro­nic and Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS for over 15 years 

Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS, head­quar­te­red in Niedern­hall-Wald­zim­mern and with bran­ches in France, the UK, Italy, the USA and India, is a system provi­der of elec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal and elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons for signal and power distri­bu­tion, func­tion control, display and opera­ting solu­ti­ons. Its main custo­mers include well-known manu­fac­tu­r­ers of cons­truc­tion and agri­cul­tu­ral machi­nery and commer­cial vehic­les. In 2025, the Würth Elek­tro­nik Group gene­ra­ted sales of EUR 1.06 billion. 

Advi­sor Würth Elek­tro­nik ICS GmbH & Co KG: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Frankfurt

Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin (Lead), Florian Lech­ner, Isabelle Suzanne Müller(Counsel; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz, Carina Kant (Düsseldorf/Cologne; both Anti­trust), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Tax), Stef­fen Woitz, LL.M. (IP/IT, Munich), Dr. Chris­tian Dries­sen-Rolf (Employ­ment Law); Asso­cia­tes: Jenni­fer Rogal­ski (Corporate/M&A), Matthias M. Bosbach (Finance, Düssel­dorf), Caro­lin Schu­ma­cher (Anti­trust Law, Colo­gne), Carina Schüt­ze­berg (Real Estate Law) 

McDer­mott Will & Schulte, USA: Meir Lewit­tes (Corporate/M&A/Private Equity, New York), Gregory Helt­zer, Anthony Ferrara (both Anti­trust, Washing­ton, DC), Timo­thy Carson (Coun­sel, Anti­trust, Washing­ton, DC), Raymond Paretzky(Counsel, Inter­na­tio­nal Trade, Washing­ton, DC); Asso­ciate: Mitch DaSilva (Tran­sac­tions, New York)

McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Paris: Frédé­ric Pradel­les; Asso­ciate: Mary Hecht (both Antitrust)

About McDer­mott Will & Schulte

McDer­mott Will & Schulte is a leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firm with more than 1,750 lawy­ers in over 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. In Germany, the firm has offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Colo­gne and Munich. Our teams cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial law with their exper­tise. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Schulte Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. — www.mwe.com/de/

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in Hipp Tech­no­logy Group (“Hipp”), a leading deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring part­ner for medi­cal tech­no­logy with a focus on implan­to­logy, surgi­cal instru­ments and surgi­cal instru­ment systems in the ortho­pae­dic and dental indus­try. DBAG Fund VIII, a fund advi­sed by DBAG, will acquire the majo­rity of the shares repre­sen­ted by the Swiss invest­ment company Endura AG from the previous owners as part of a manage­ment buy-out. 

Simi­lar to the invest­ment in MAIT, the tran­sac­tion was agreed via DBAG’s own network ahead of a poten­ti­ally broad-based struc­tu­red sales process. Foun­der and CEO Markus Hipp will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company and will conti­nue to actively shape the next growth phase. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Specia­list for implan­to­logy and high-precis­ion components

The Hipp Tech­no­logy Group is a specia­li­zed deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring part­ner for the ortho­pae­dic and dental indus­try. The company deve­lops and manu­fac­tures implants, bone proces­sing tools, surgi­cal instru­ments and complete system compon­ents for robot-assis­ted surgi­cal systems for leading medi­cal tech­no­logy companies.
Hipp has exten­sive exper­tise in implan­to­logy and supports its custo­mers along the entire value chain — from deve­lo­p­ment and proto­type produc­tion to series produc­tion, sterile pack­a­ging and dock-to-stock solutions. 

The company also has exten­sive exper­tise in the high-precis­ion machi­ning of deman­ding mate­ri­als such as tita­nium and special alloys. These skills are also used in other tech­no­lo­gi­cally deman­ding indus­tries. For exam­ple, the Group manu­fac­tures precis­ion and system compon­ents for appli­ca­ti­ons in the aero­space indus­try, for litho­gra­phy and laser proces­sing systems and for sensor applications. 

The Group employs around 350 people at five loca­ti­ons and has long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with leading OEM custo­mers worldwide.

Growth through struc­tu­ral market trends

The invest­ment follows DBAG’s stra­tegy of making targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies opera­ting in struc­tu­rally attrac­tive markets. The market for ortho­pae­dic implants bene­fits from long-term growth drivers such as demo­gra­phic change, incre­asing outsour­cing by OEMs and rising regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. Hipp is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in this envi­ron­ment. The company has modern, highly auto­ma­ted produc­tion capa­ci­ties, a high level of verti­cal inte­gra­tion and exten­sive regu­la­tory exper­tise — inclu­ding with regard to the requi­re­ments of the U.S. Food and Drug Admi­nis­tra­tion (FDA) and the Euro­pean Medi­cal Device Regu­la­tion (MDR).

“Hipp is a true hidden cham­pion in a resi­li­ent market: the company supplies essen­tial products for opera­ti­ons that are perfor­med thou­sands of times a day around the world,” says Tom Alzin, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG. He adds: “Markus Hipp is an excep­tio­nal entre­pre­neur. Toge­ther we see considera­ble poten­tial to further acce­le­rate the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion — espe­ci­ally in the US as the worl­d’s largest medi­cal tech­no­logy market — and to further streng­then Hipp as a prefer­red part­ner of global OEMs.” 

Conti­nuity and long-term growth strategy
Since its foun­da­tion in 1993, Hipp has deve­lo­ped from a specia­li­zed contract manu­fac­tu­rer into an inter­na­tio­nally active contract manu­fac­tu­ring orga­niza­tion and an estab­lished supplier of implants, surgi­cal instru­ments and sterile surgi­cal instru­ment systems.

With DBAG Fund VIII as the new majo­rity share­hol­der, this growth course is to be consis­t­ently contin­ued. In addi­tion to expan­ding exis­ting custo­mer rela­ti­onships, the focus is on inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in parti­cu­lar. The company is also exami­ning stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in order to further expand its tech­no­lo­gies, exper­tise and market presence. 

Markus Hipp, foun­der and CEO of the Hipp Tech­no­logy Group, says: “For our custo­mers in the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector, quality, precis­ion and relia­bi­lity are the basis for pati­ent safety.” He adds: “In DBAG, we have found a part­ner who under­stands the German SME sector very well and at the same time shares our company’s entre­pre­neu­rial values. I parti­cu­larly appre­ciate the prono­un­ced under­stan­ding of values and the short decis­ion-making proces­ses. For our employees and our company, the invest­ment of DBAG Fund VIII is a stable and future-orien­ted solu­tion to further deve­lop the great poten­tial of our group and to drive both strong orga­nic growth and targe­ted stra­te­gic acquisitions.” 

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), which has been listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The sector focus is on produ­cers of indus­trial goods, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the busi­ness services, IT services, soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors. DBAG has also been active in Italy since 2020 and has had its own office in Milan since 2021. The assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to around 2.7 billion euros. ELF Capi­tal comple­ments DBAG’s range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs with private debt capi­tal. — www.dbag.de

 

Frank­furt a. M. — Will­kie advi­ses CVC Capi­tal Part­ners on the sale of 37% of its shares in Synte­gon to a group of inves­tors mana­ged by Apollo Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP advi­ses CVC Capi­tal Part­ners (“CVC”) on the sale of 37% of its shares in Synte­gon to a group of inves­tors mana­ged by Apollo.

CVC reta­ins a majo­rity stake with the remai­ning 63% of the shares. Follo­wing the successful trans­for­ma­tion of Synte­gon, this tran­sac­tion marks the start­ing point for the next growth phase. At the same time, it under­lines CVC’s approach of driving sustainable,
posi­tive corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment through long-term, part­ner­ship-based enga­ge­ment and the targe­ted selec­tion of stra­te­gic co-inves­tors. The Apollo team shares the stra­te­gic vision of CVC and Synte­gon and streng­thens the proven part­ner­ship with new momen­tum and local exper­tise for the important North Ameri­can market The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed to keep the finan­cial details of the agree­ment confi­den­tial. Will­kie previously advi­sed CVC on the acqui­si­tion of Syntegon. 

Advi­sor to CVC: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

The Will­kie team compri­sed part­ners Georg Linde (PE, Frank­furt), Dr. Nils Röver (PE, Munich/Hamburg, both lead), Jacob Ahme (PE, Munich/Hamburg), Dr. Sebas­tian Häfele (PE, Munich), Daniel Gendron, Timo­thy Sawyer (both Finance, London), Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment, Munich), Dr. Richard Roeder (Compli­ance, Munich), Jan Wilms (Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Georg Weiden­bach (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Tyler Born (Corpo­rate, Chicago), Simon Weiss (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt) and Coun­sel Martin Waśkow­ski (Employ­ment), Jan Voll­kam­mer (Anti­trust), Henning Aufder­haar (Real Estate, all Frank­furt) as well as Asso­cia­tes Nils Bock, Melina Terwes­ten (both PE, Frank­furt), Dr. Florian Kalb­fleisch, Nils Hörnig, Zeno Wirtz (all PE, Munich), Hiral Jain (Finance, London), Sascha Wink­ler (Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt), Jannis Strot­mann (Finance, Munich), Shuman Zhou (Corpo­rate, Chicago), Michael Wies­ner (PE, Munich), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schlutz (Compli­ance, Frank­furt), Tom Piepen­b­rock (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Fabiola Haas (PE, Munich), Laurin Havlik (Compli­ance, Munich), Andreas Mild­ner (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Kari Prochaska (Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Media & Privacy, London), Dillon Lehr (Corpo­rate, Chicago), David Mohl (Execu­tive Compen­sa­tion & Employee Bene­fits, Washing­ton), Alice Luciani (Corpo­rate, Paris), Denise Klasen (PE, Frank­furt), Sean Presteg­ord (Corpo­rate, New York), Ify White-Thorpe (IP, New York), Sophie Wollen­we­ber (PE, Frank­furt), Dr. Phil­ipp Stein­hau­sen (Finance, Frank­furt), Chris­to­pher Selwyn (Corpo­rate, London), Madi­son Wiles-Haff­ner (IP, New York), Patrick Kemper (PE, Frank­furt), Cara Hunt (Liti­ga­tion, New York), Sarah Bibas (Corpo­rate, Paris), Martin Kalb­henn (Capi­tal Markets, Frank­furt), Ceci­lia Pozzetti (Employ­ment, Milan), Isabella Zanetti (Corpo­rate, Milan), Ali Barc­zak (Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, Media & Privacy, Washing­ton) and Laura Liis­tro (Corporate/ Milan).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues that span markets and indus­tries. Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,300 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in around 45 areas of law. Find out more at www.willkie.com.

Frank­furt a.M. — 1AVista Reisen GmbH, one of Germany’s leading river cruise opera­tors, is setting the course for the future and is arran­ging its corpo­rate succes­sion with VR Equity Part­ner as a stra­te­gic inves­tor. — HEUKING provi­ded the share­hol­ders with legal and tax advice on the succes­sion plan and the entry of VR Equity Part­ner as a stra­te­gic investor. 

Foun­der and share­hol­der Hubert Schulte-Schmel­ter, who has provi­ded stra­te­gic support to the company in recent years, is reti­ring from the company comple­tely. The opera­tio­nal manage­ment remains in the proven hands of the three mana­ging direc­tors Hagen Mesters, Sascha Gülden­meis­ter, Raphael Dombrow­ski and Manuel Klou­bert as autho­ri­zed signa­tory. Raphael Dombrow­ski and Manuel Klou­bert join the company as new share­hol­ders, ther­eby expan­ding the owner­ship structure. 

VR Equity Part­ner, a private equity company specia­li­zing in succes­sion plan­ning for medium-sized compa­nies and a subsi­diary of DZ Bank, has acqui­red a mino­rity stake in the newly foun­ded holding company as a stra­te­gic part­ner. With this step, 1AVista Reisen is comple­ting a plan­ned gene­ra­tio­nal change that will ensure conti­nuity and stabi­lity while opening up new growth pros­pects. The parti­ci­pa­tion of VR Equity Part­ner secu­res addi­tio­nal finan­cial resour­ces for plan­ned invest­ments and contri­bu­tes many years of exper­tise in succes­sion processes. 

1AVista Reisen GmbH, based in Colo­gne, was foun­ded in 2007 and has since estab­lished itself as one of Germany’s leading river cruise opera­tors. The company specia­li­zes in river crui­ses on the rivers of Europe as well as on selec­ted long-distance routes such as the Nile. 

VR Equity Part­ner is a private equity company based in Frank­furt am Main that specia­li­zes in SME succes­sion plan­ning and growth finan­cing. The company supports owner-mana­ged medium-sized compa­nies with chan­ges of owner­ship and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment steps. VR Equity Part­ner pursues a part­ner­ship-based approach and atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to preser­ving estab­lished corpo­rate cultures and exis­ting manage­ment structures. 

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of 1AVista Reisen GmbH: HEUKING

Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann, LL.M., Düsseldorf/Frankfurt, Dr. Timo Piller, (both lead), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Ulrich Jork, Munich,
Robert Clev, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A), Düssel­dorf, Michael Below (public law), Düsseldorf,
Kers­tin Deiters (employ­ment law), Cologne,
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (real estate law), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Rein­hard Siegert, Ruth Jung­kind (both anti­trust law), both Munich,
Klaus Weinand-Härer, Sebas­tian Eibich (both tax law), both Frankfurt 

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Lars Laeger provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to VR Equi­typ­art­ner on the acqui­si­tion of the mino­rity stake. VR Equi­typ­art­ner once again relies on the advice of ARQIS. Dr. Laeger and his team recently advi­sed VREP on the sale of Zimmer & Hälbig to VINCI Energies. 

Advi­sor VR Equi­typ­art­ner: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Core team: Dr. Lars Laeger (Lead Part­ner), Benja­min Bandur (Coun­sel, Munich), Chris­tina Huck­schlag (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, all Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Dr. Fried­rich Gebert (Regu­la­tory), Johan­nes Landry (Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld (Tech Law), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP, Munich), Coun­sel: Chris­tian Judis (Compli­ance, Munich). Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Tobias Neufeld (Tech Law), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP, Munich), Coun­sel: Chris­tian Judis (Compli­ance, Munich), Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (both HR Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial, Munich), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Hannah Düwel, Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe, Luise Schü­ling (all Regu­la­tory), Anselm Graf (Munich), David Hudde (both Tran­sac­tions), Johanna Klin­gen (Tech Law), Marius Mesen­brink (Japan Desk), Rolf Tichy (IP, Munich), Asso­cia­tes: Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial, Munich), Paulina Hütt­ner (IP, Munich), Sabine Müller (HR Law, Munich), Lia Papis­me­dova (Real Estate)
 

 

Stutt­gart / Bönnig­heim — BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft (BWK) has sold its stake in Xactools GmbH, based in Bönnig­heim, to the Swedish company Calpen Indus­tries AB. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Calpen Indus­tries AB is acqui­ring all shares in Xactools. 

Xactools was foun­ded in 2012 and deve­lops and manu­fac­tures custo­mer-speci­fic auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons in the field of measu­re­ment and test­ing tech­no­logy. The focus is on systems and special machi­nes for auto­ma­ted quality control in indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring processes. 

BWK acqui­red a stake in Xactools in May 2018 as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. During the invest­ment phase, the diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the custo­mer base beyond the auto­mo­tive sector into the medi­cal tech­no­logy and tool­ma­king sectors was driven forward and the company’s commer­cial and finan­cial struc­tures were further deve­lo­ped in a targe­ted manner. — BWK has around EUR 300 million in invest­ment funds at its dispo­sal and curr­ently has around EUR 150 million inves­ted in 14 companies 

“In an incre­asingly chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment, Xactools has posi­tio­ned itself very well thanks to its strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal foun­da­ti­ons and quali­fied employees. With Calpen Indus­tries, we are gaining a stra­te­gic owner who will support the long-term deve­lo­p­ment of the company and consis­t­ently pursue the succes­sion solu­tion,” says Dr. Ing. Bernd Berg­schnei­der, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of BWK (Photo: BWK GmbH). “The deve­lo­p­ment of Xactools confirms our approach of provi­ding entre­pre­neu­rial support to medium-sized tech­no­logy compa­nies as part of succes­sion solu­ti­ons and setting them up speci­fi­cally for the next stage of growth,” adds Chris­tian Hieber, member of the BWK manage­ment team. 

Marvin Krebs, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Xactools GmbH, adds: “BWK has accom­pa­nied us as an entre­pre­neu­rial and long-term orien­ted share­hol­der, espe­ci­ally in the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of our commer­cial struc­tures and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. We are buil­ding on this toge­ther with Calpen Indus­tries AB.”

About BWK GmbH

BWK GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft (www.bwk.de), based in Stutt­gart, is one of the oldest German private equity compa­nies and pursues a long-term invest­ment approach. The company, which focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies, was foun­ded in 1990 and employs 13 people. BWK has around 300 million euros in invest­ment funds at its dispo­sal and curr­ently has around 150 million euros inves­ted in 14 compa­nies. — www.bwk.de

Berlin — On-demand food deli­very company Flink has raised around 100 million US dollars in a finan­cing round. The main spon­sor of this finan­cing round is the invest­ment company Prosus, which is once again inves­t­ing in Flink along­side other exis­ting inves­tors. Prosus is alre­ady invol­ved in Deli­very Hero and Just Eat Takea­way. Btomor­row Ventures joins as a new inves­tor. Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer advi­sed Btomor­row Ventures, the corpo­rate venture capi­tal arm of British Ameri­can Tobacco, on this investment. 

The new finan­cing is inten­ded to drive forward Flin­k’s targe­ted expan­sion in its core markets of Germany and the Netherlands.

Flink, based in Berlin, has estab­lished itself as the market leader for on-demand grocery deli­very in Germany and the Nether­lands since it was foun­ded in 2021. The company reaches more than 22.5 million custo­mers in its core markets and employs over 10,000 people. 

Btomor­row Ventures was foun­ded in 2020 and mana­ges 350 million pounds in two stra­te­gic invest­ment funds. The company works with start-ups that are gene­rally in the pre-Series A to Series B+ finan­cing phase. 

Advi­sor to Btomor­row Ventures: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

Corporate/M&A: Gregor Klenk (Part­ner, lead, Frank­furt), Dylan Doran Kennett (Part­ner, London), Chris­toph Hempel (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)
Employ­ment law: Julia Ickstadt (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt)

About Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer (HSF Kramer) was formed in June 2025 from the merger of Herbert Smith Freeh­ills and Kramer Levin, estab­li­shing itself as one of the worl­d’s leading global commer­cial law firms. With 2,700 lawy­ers in 26 offices, HSF Kramer offers compre­hen­sive legal advice in all major regi­ons of the world. HSF Kramer is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to assist clients in reali­zing their ambi­tious projects and, in parti­cu­lar, to support them in complex tran­sac­tions and legal dispu­tes. — hsfkramer.com

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has advi­sed the manage­ment of UK-based Total­mo­bile Limi­ted, a leading provi­der of field service manage­ment soft­ware, in connec­tion with a manage­ment reinvest­ment follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of Total­mo­bile by Five Arrows and funds mana­ged by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG). With the sale of Total­mo­bile, Bowmark Capi­tal reali­zes its exit. 

Foun­ded in Belfast in 1985, Total­mo­bile Limi­ted is a leading global provi­der of field service manage­ment soft­ware. By offe­ring a cloud-based field-first plat­form, Total­mo­bile enables process opti­miza­tion that goes hand in hand with increased effi­ci­ency for Total­mo­bi­le’s customers. 

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG is an inves­tor in well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with growth poten­tial in the SME sector, prima­rily in the DACH region. The assets mana­ged and advi­sed by DBAG amount to around 2.6 billion euros. 

Five Arrows, Roth­schild & Co’s specia­list alter­na­tive invest­ments busi­ness, has €31 billion of assets under manage­ment globally. Five Arrows’ corpo­rate private equity busi­ness focu­ses on invest­ments in mid-market compa­nies with strong market posi­ti­ons in the data and soft­ware, tech­no­logy-enab­led busi­ness services and health­care sectors. 

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Mirjam Boche advi­sed the manage­ment of the Total­mo­bile Group on this tran­sac­tion. The advice included the nego­tia­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion program. ARQIS worked closely with the lead law firm Mish­con de Reya, which ARQIS had consul­ted on ques­ti­ons of German law. 

Consul­tant Total­mo­bile Manage­ment: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Mirjam Boche (Lead Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions), Coun­sel: Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Tran­sac­tions), Jens Knip­ping (Tax)

Mish­con de Reya LLP (London)

Part­ners: Kevin McCar­thy, James Pater­son (both Tran­sac­tions), Mana­ging Asso­ciate: Karine Bashar­dust (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate: Eve Drys­dale (Corpo­rate Tax)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm that opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Tech Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.arqis.com.

Frank­furt am Main/Schiltach/Holzgerlingen — Syng­roh Capi­tal GmbH (“Syng­roh Capi­tal”), the invest­ment company of the Grohe family of entre­pre­neurs, is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in Kraft & Bauer Holding GmbH (“Kraft & Bauer”), a leading supplier of fire protec­tion systems for machine tools. A corre­spon­ding agree­ment was concluded with the previous owners, the “DBAG Fund VII” fund advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), as well as the foun­ding Bauer family and mana­ging direc­tor Frank Foddi. The foun­ding Bauer family and Frank Foddi will re-invest in Kraft & Bauer as part of the tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the transaction.

Kraft & Bauer, based in Holz­ger­lin­gen, Swabia, specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion, instal­la­tion and servicing of fire protec­tion systems for a wide range of machine tool types. The focus is on auto­ma­tic, micro­pro­ces­sor-control­led extin­gu­is­hing systems, with which the company equips machi­nes from leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers and renow­ned indus­trial compa­nies. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Holz­ger­lin­gen, the company, which employs around 110 people, has 19 service loca­ti­ons in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy, Slova­kia and China. 

The systems from Kraft & Bauer are used in machi­nes with an increased fire risk, such as turning, milling and grin­ding machi­nes that work with parti­cu­larly high precis­ion and speed. The sensor-based protec­tion systems detect a fire and auto­ma­ti­cally initiate the extin­gu­is­hing process. They are either instal­led directly on the machi­nes by employees or supplied to the machine manu­fac­tu­r­ers as kits. Regu­lar inspec­tion and main­ten­ance of the extin­gu­is­hing systems rounds off the company’s range of services. Kraft & Bauer thus offers fire protec­tion tech­no­logy that guaran­tees opti­mum func­tion­a­lity, effi­ci­ency and reliability. 

With Syng­roh Capi­tal, Kraft & Bauer has gained a long-term orien­ted part­ner for the next phase of the company’s growth. The invest­ment company of the Grohe family stands for a unique combi­na­tion of sound finan­cial exper­tise, indus­try expe­ri­ence and entre­pre­neur­ship. It will contri­bute its expe­ri­ence and know­ledge to Kraft & Bauer as an active share­hol­der and thus support the company in its further inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and the deve­lo­p­ment of the service and instal­la­tion busi­ness, as well as tapping into new growth poten­tial. Syng­roh Capi­tal does not invest fund-linked and without prede­ter­mi­ned matu­ri­ties and can ther­e­fore think and plan for the long term in its invest­ments. This provi­des Kraft & Bauer with the desi­red opera­tio­nal continuity. 

Richard Grohe, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Syng­roh Capi­tal, said: “We are enthu­si­a­stic about compa­nies with convin­cing product and service ideas and entre­pre­neu­rial fire — in the case of Kraft & Bauer, the latter is not only inher­ent in the system in a figu­ra­tive sense. Within just three deca­des, the Bauer family has built up a company for highly inno­va­tive extin­gu­is­hing systems for precis­ion machi­nes and estab­lished it on the market in the long term. This success would not have been possi­ble without entre­pre­neu­rial passion. A convin­cing range of services, coupled with Swabian engi­nee­ring spirit and a high level of dyna­mism, are excel­lent prere­qui­si­tes for further growth. We look forward to support­ing the Bauer family of entre­pre­neurs and the company’s manage­ment in the process of further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and the further expan­sion of the business.”

Klaus Bauer, repre­sen­ta­tive of the foun­ding family of Kraft & Bauer, said: “It was important to our family to conti­nue to deve­lop Kraft & Bauer in a future-orien­ted manner while main­tai­ning opera­tio­nal conti­nuity in the inte­rests of relia­bi­lity for our custo­mers. With Syng­roh Capi­tal and the Grohe family, we now have part­ners at our side with whom we are not only on an equal footing cultu­rally, but also entre­pre­neu­ri­ally. This allows us to deve­lop our company toge­ther. We ther­e­fore see this part­ner­ship as a unique oppor­tu­nity to successfully conti­nue not only our busi­ness, but above all our values and tradi­ti­ons into the future.”

Robert Clau­sen (photo © Syng­roh), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Syng­roh Capi­tal’s invest­ment advi­sory company, said: “This tran­sac­tion is typi­cal for Syng­roh invest­ments: passio­nate entre­pre­neu­rial family, strong corpo­rate culture, attrac­tive perfor­mance program, niche market. The compa­nies in which we invest are looking for a long-term spar­ring part­ner at eye level. This is exactly what we offer with our unique combi­na­tion of finan­cial exper­tise, indus­try expe­ri­ence and entre­pre­neur­ship. We are convin­ced that our approach of being more than just an inves­tor is exactly right and we see the latest tran­sac­tion as proof of this.”

Tom Alzin, CEO of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, added: “The deve­lo­p­ment of Kraft & Bauer since 2018 is an exam­ple of how we create value: We have taken over a hidden cham­pion in German-spea­king count­ries and shaped it into an inter­na­tio­nally active systems provi­der with a strong service busi­ness. The fact that we are now handing the company over to a renow­ned entre­pre­neu­rial family like the Grohes is the best possi­ble scena­rio. It gives Kraft & Bauer the long-term perspec­tive it needs to take the next growth step and once again confirms the quality of our portfolio.”

Advi­sor Syng­roh Capital:

Baker McKen­zie (Legal) and Rödl & Part­ner (Finan­cial and Tax) 

Advi­sor Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG advi­sed DBAG Fund VII: Heuking (Legal)

About Syng­roh Capital

As a family invest­ment company, Syng­roh Capi­tal bund­les the entre­pre­neu­rial direct invest­ments acqui­red by the Grohe family. As entre­pre­neurs, the family members have them­sel­ves successfully maste­red a wide variety of chal­lenges and want to contri­bute this wealth of expe­ri­ence to further invest­ments in a value-orien­ted manner. Syng­roh Capi­tal invests in medium-sized compa­nies with convin­cing product and service ideas that are head­quar­te­red in German-spea­king count­ries and have an enter­prise value of between 10 and 200 million euros. The focus is on succes­sion solu­ti­ons, support for change and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion proces­ses and the carving out of non-core busi­ness areas. In line with the fami­ly’s entre­pre­neu­rial DNA, the entre­pre­neu­rial idea, value-driven action and a long-term growth stra­tegy play a decisive role in invest­ment decis­i­ons. — www.syngroh-capital.com

About Kraft & Bauer fire protec­tion systems

Kraft & Bauer, foun­ded in 1990, deve­lops, produ­ces and installs fire protec­tion systems for a wide range of machine tool types. The focus is on micro­pro­ces­sor-control­led extin­gu­is­hing systems that detect a fire based on sensors and initiate the extin­gu­is­hing process. Kraft & Bauer’s systems are used in machi­nes with an increased risk of fire, such as milling, turning and grin­ding machi­nes, which operate with parti­cu­larly high precis­ion and speed. With around 110 employees, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 30 million in 2024. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters in Holz­ger­lin­gen (Baden-Würt­tem­berg), Kraft & Bauer has another produc­tion site in Bann­wil (Switz­er­land) and 19 service loca­ti­ons in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy, Slova­kia and China. — https://kraft-bauer.com/

Berlin/ Paris — YPOG has advi­sed HV Capi­tal on the struc­tu­ring of its invest­ment in AMI Labs, the AI startup foun­ded by Meta’s former Chief AI Scien­tist Yann LeCun. YPOG’s legal advice included the struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ta­tion of special purpose vehic­les (SPVs) speci­fi­cally tail­o­red to HV Capi­tal’s invest­ment strategy. 

AMI Labs (Advan­ced Machine Intel­li­gence) focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment of the next gene­ra­tion of AI systems based on so-called “world models”. The aim is to enable machi­nes to better under­stand and draw conclu­si­ons about the real world. The company is head­quar­te­red in Paris and has offices in New York, Mont­real and Singa­pore and has attrac­ted a broad inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor base. Accor­ding to media reports, AMI Labs is aiming for a valua­tion in the billi­ons and has recei­ved commit­ments from renow­ned inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy and growth investors. 

The Paris-based company Advan­ced Machine Intel­li­gence Labs (AMI Labs for short) has thus raised the largest finan­cing round of its kind in Europe to date. — In addi­tion to nume­rous venture capi­ta­lists, the inves­tors include well-known compa­nies and private inves­tors, inclu­ding Nvidia, Samsung, Toyota as well as Amazon foun­der Jeff Bezos, inves­tor Mark Cuban and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 

“Having worked with HV Capi­tal on a number of complex blind pool fund struc­tures in recent years, we are deligh­ted to now extend this trus­ted part­ner­ship to the struc­tu­ring of single-asset SPVs for this signi­fi­cant AI invest­ment,” comm­ents YPOG Part­ner Stephan Bank.

YPOG has alre­ady advi­sed HV Capi­tal on nume­rous matters, inclu­ding the struc­tu­ring of HV Capi­tal’s current fund gene­ra­tion with a total volume of over EUR 700 million and the successful appli­ca­tion for a full BaFin license.

Advi­sor AMI Labs: YPOG

Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Corporate), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead) (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Michael Fili­po­wicz (Co-Lead/S­truc­tu­rin­g/­Cor­po­rate), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Dajo Sanning (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Axel Zirn (Corpo­rate), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dana Ritter (Corpo­rate), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Alina Shchukina (Inves­tor Onboar­ding), Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin

www.ypog.com

About HV Capital

HV Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in early-stage and growth compa­nies in the tech­no­logy and inter­net sectors. It has backed successful names such as Zalando, Deli­very Hero, SumUp, Depop, Enpal, Flix­bus, Senn­der, Quan­tum Systems and Isar Aero­space. The expe­ri­en­ced team supports start-ups from the earliest stages through to inter­na­tio­nal scaling.

Metzin­gen / San Diego — Ahead of an upco­ming €1 billion funding round for NEURA, NEURA Robo­tics (“NEURA”) and Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc. announce a long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to jointly deve­lop the next gene­ra­tion of robo­tics and physi­cal AI plat­forms. The colla­bo­ra­tion combi­nes Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies’ leader­ship in AI compu­ting, connec­ti­vity and robo­tics plat­forms with NEUR­A’s deep systems exper­tise in robo­tics and embo­died AI soft­ware. The joint goal is to scale robo­tic intel­li­gence even faster in real-world applications. 

The part­ner­ship focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment of intel­li­gent robots that work safely and effec­tively side-by-side with humans — whether in indus­trial, service, dome­stic or other envi­ron­ments. By combi­ning high-perfor­mance, energy-effi­ci­ent edge AI with full-stack robo­tics plat­forms, the compa­nies aim to acce­le­rate the path of robo­tics from rese­arch to produc­tion-ready, scalable implementation. 

»> German robo­tics pioneer Neura Robo­tics is repor­tedly on the verge of closing a colos­sal 1 billion euro finan­cing round. The backer is caus­ing raised eyebrows: Tether Holdings SA, the issuer of the worl­d’s largest stab­le­coin. If the deal is closed, Neur­a’s valua­tion would be cata­pul­ted to around 4 billion euros — secu­ring it a place in the abso­lute top tier of the booming market for huma­noid robots. 

This is not about specu­la­tive capi­tal for distant visi­ons of the future. Unlike many of its compe­ti­tors, Neura Robo­tics can alre­ady point to well-known custo­mers such as Kawa­saki Heavy Indus­tries Ltd. and Omron Corp. and reports an order book that is approa­ching the billion dollar mark. The capi­tal injec­tion is prima­rily inten­ded to acce­le­rate the tech­no­lo­gi­cal road­map in the field of “cogni­tive robo­tics”. The goal: robots that can perceive and hear their surroun­dings using multi­mo­dal AI and learn inde­pendently. At the heart of this is a plat­form called Neuraverse. 

Joint deve­lo­p­ment of new “brain and nervous system” architectures

The stra­te­gic alli­ance unders­cores NEUR­A’s belief that the race for cogni­tive and huma­noid robo­tics will not be won by going it alone, but through strong part­ner­ships. As part of this stra­tegy, the company is combi­ning its German engi­nee­ring excel­lence with Qual­com­m’s world-leading AI compu­ting power to set new stan­dards in cogni­tive robotics. 

Toge­ther, the part­ners are deve­lo­ping ground­brea­king “brain and nervous system” refe­rence archi­tec­tures, combi­ning highly complex cogni­tive capa­bi­li­ties (percep­tion, reaso­ning, plan­ning) with ultra-fast physi­cal respon­ses for human-like motion. Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies’ robo­tics proces­sors, inclu­ding the Dragon­wing IQ10 series, Physi­cal AI acce­le­ra­tion and soft­ware stack, and connec­ti­vity plat­forms are combi­ned with NEURA hard­ware plat­forms and Embo­died AI soft­ware stack to enable scalable solu­ti­ons for real-world deployment. 

Tech­no­logy focus: Compound AI, mixed criti­cal­ity and stan­dar­di­zed use

The colla­bo­ra­tion combi­nes Qual­com­m’s end-to-end robo­tics archi­tec­ture — consis­ting of hete­ro­ge­neous edge compu­ting, edge AI, mixed criti­cal­ity systems, soft­ware, machine lear­ning opera­ti­ons and an AI data flywheel — with NEUR­A’s plat­form stra­tegy. This makes stan­dar­di­zed use across diffe­rent robot forms possi­ble more quickly. To simplify the path of physi­cal AI from deve­lo­p­ment to produc­tion, the part­ners are also plan­ning a stan­dar­di­zed runtime and deploy­ment inter­face. This will enable engi­neers to use what has been deve­lo­ped ever­y­where. The same advan­ced appli­ca­ti­ons will ther­e­fore run on all robot vari­ants — from indus­trial robots to huma­no­ids — relia­bly and deterministically. 

Plat­form, ecosys­tem and deve­lo­per support

NEUR­A’s Neur­averse plat­form serves as a centra­li­zed envi­ron­ment for simu­la­tion, trai­ning, orchestra­tion and life­cy­cle manage­ment of physi­cal AI workloads for NEURA robots with Dragon­wing robo­tic proces­sors. The Neur­averse is the first cloud-based plat­form that connects cogni­tive robots in a network of coll­ec­tive intel­li­gence — any breakth­rough of a single robot can be instantly trans­fer­red to entire global fleets as “shared intelligence”. 

Toge­ther, the compa­nies plan to foster a global deve­lo­per ecosys­tem and market­place for physi­cal AI and robo­tics appli­ca­ti­ons that supports third-party inno­va­tion and takes the approach of making what has been deve­lo­ped usable everywhere.

Complex decis­i­ons directly on the robot

NEUR­A’s robo­tic systems — inclu­ding robo­tic arms, mobile robots, service and house­hold robots as well as huma­noid plat­forms — serve as refe­rence plat­forms for deve­lo­p­ment, test­ing and real-life vali­da­tion. The basic prin­ci­ples of coope­ra­tion are func­tional safety, real-time capa­bi­lity and human-cente­red design. Complex conclu­si­ons are drawn directly on the robot, not in the cloud. This ensu­res reflex-like speed for safety-criti­cal decis­i­ons and maxi­mum data protec­tion for inter­ac­tion in the real world. 

A future in which cogni­tive robots work safely with humans

“This colla­bo­ra­tion marks a criti­cal step in making Physi­cal AI a reality: open, scalable and trust­wor­thy,” said David Reger, CEO and foun­der of NEURA Robo­tics. “By uniting our cogni­tive robo­tics plat­forms and the Neur­averse ecosys­tem with Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies’ strength in edge AI and connec­ti­vity, we are acce­le­ra­ting a future where cogni­tive robots work safely along­side humans — across all indus­tries and in ever­y­day life.”

“Robo­tics repres­ents one of the most chal­len­ging edge AI use cases, where decis­i­ons need to be made instantly, relia­bly and locally without rely­ing solely on the cloud for safety-criti­cal respon­ses,” said Nakul Duggal, EVP and Group GM, Auto­mo­tive, Indus­trial and Embedded IoT and Robo­tics, Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc. “Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies has long been present in robo­tics, and contin­ued ecosys­tem deve­lo­p­ment with compa­nies like NEURA is helping to acce­le­rate scalable on-device intel­li­gence. NEUR­A’s approach to cogni­tive robo­tics demons­tra­tes the ongo­ing shift where cogni­tion and decis­ion-making happen directly on the device.”

Through the part­ner­ship, NEURA and Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies aim to acce­le­rate the commer­cia­liza­tion of huma­noid and gene­ral-purpose robo­tics and take Physi­cal AI from expe­ri­men­tal systems to scalable, real-world imple­men­ta­ti­ons across industries.

About NEURA

NEURA Robo­tics was foun­ded in 2019 by David Reger with the aim of closing key inno­va­tion gaps and ushe­ring in the age of cogni­tive robo­tics. The multi­ple award-winning inno­va­tors from Metzin­gen pursue a consis­tent “one-device” approach across their entire product port­fo­lio — from indus­trial robots to house­hold robots. 

With the Neur­averse, the company is laying the foun­da­ti­ons for a breakth­rough in robo­tics by bridging the gap between tech­no­logy and humans. All key inno­va­tions, inclu­ding arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, are deve­lo­ped in-house. NEUR­A’s cogni­tive robots can see, hear and have a sense of touch. They act comple­tely auto­no­mously and learn from expe­ri­ence. Today, NEURA is working on brin­ging the first huma­noid ever­y­day robot to the market — supported by a rapidly growing global part­ner network. — www.fgsglobal.com.

About Qual­comm

Qual­comm is driving inno­va­tion to make intel­li­gent compu­ting power available ever­y­where and help the world solve some of its most criti­cal chal­lenges. Buil­ding on over 40 years of tech­no­logy leader­ship in game-chan­ging inno­va­tion, the company offers a broad port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons based on leading AI, powerful and energy-effi­ci­ent compu­ting perfor­mance and unpar­al­le­led connectivity. 

Snapd­ra­gon® plat­forms enable excep­tio­nal consu­mer expe­ri­en­ces, while Qual­comm Dragon­wing™ products help busi­nesses and indus­tries reach new levels of perfor­mance. Toge­ther with ecosys­tem part­ners, Qual­comm is driving next-gene­ra­tion digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion to enrich peop­le’s lives, empower busi­nesses and evolve societies. 

Products bearing the Qual­comm brand are products of Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc. and/or its subsi­dia­ries. Qual­comm and Qual­comm Dragon­wing are trade­marks or regis­tered trade­marks of Qual­comm Incor­po­ra­ted. — https://www.qualcomm.com

Colo­gne — YPOG has provi­ded legal advice to REWE Group in connec­tion with its invest­ment in the Austrian NEOH AG. The invest­ment is part of a compre­hen­sive finan­cing round in which REWE Group is joined by ZINTINUS as co-lead inves­tor and Teseo Capital. 

NEOH deve­lops and markets sugar-redu­ced confec­tion­ery and has estab­lished “Zero+”, a tech­no­logy-based process for sugar reduc­tion that is inten­ded to comple­tely replace indus­trial sugar. Accor­ding to the company, the tech­no­logy is indus­tri­ally scalable and can be used across all product cate­go­ries. In addi­tion to the end custo­mer busi­ness, NEOH also sells its Zero+ tech­no­logy in the B2B segment. 

With this invest­ment, REWE Group is consis­t­ently expan­ding its commit­ment in the food tech sector. The retail and tourism group selec­tively invests in tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies with a clear level of inno­va­tion, scaling poten­tial and rele­vance for the core busi­ness. The focus is parti­cu­larly on the areas of alter­na­tive prote­ins, fermen­ta­tion tech­no­lo­gies, inno­va­tive ingre­di­ents and tech­no­logy-driven food brands. 

“An inno­va­tive process meets stra­te­gic capi­tal. We are deligh­ted to have successfully advi­sed our client on the legal struc­tu­ring of this forward-looking invest­ment in the food tech sector,” says Johan­nes Janning, Part­ner at YPOG.

About VC Zinitus

The Zinti­nus food fund is said to have a volume of 150 million euros. The foun­der is the former CEO of Metro, Olaf Koch. The money comes from family offices and high-net-worth indi­vi­du­als. Nume­rous mega­trends are chan­ging the context and struc­ture of the food indus­try. The rapidly growing demand for new solu­ti­ons offers unique oppor­tu­ni­ties for new solu­ti­ons. We are deter­mi­ned to help advan­ced start-up compa­nies achieve signi­fi­cant growth. — www.zintinus.com

Consul­tant REWE: YPOG

Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Tim Walter (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Janic Salce­das (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Cologne

The REWE Group in-house team was led by Dr. Ulrich Flei­scher (Senior Legal Coun­sel — M&A and Financing).

About REWE Group

The coope­ra­tive REWE Group is one of the leading retail and tourism groups in Germany and Europe. In 2024, the company achie­ved a total exter­nal turno­ver of over 96 billion euros. Foun­ded in 1927, REWE Group has around 380,000 employees and is present in 21 Euro­pean count­ries. Its sales lines include super­mar­kets and hyper­mar­kets under the REWE, REWE CENTER, nahkauf, BILLA, BILLA PLUS and ADEG brands, the discoun­ters PENNY and IKI, the BIPA drugs­to­res and the toom DIY stores. In addi­tion, there are the conve­ni­ence stores REWE To Go and the e‑commerce acti­vi­ties REWE Liefer- und Abhol­ser­vice as well as Zooroyal and Wein­freunde. The Lekker­land Group compri­ses the whole­sale acti­vi­ties of the corpo­rate group in the area of on-the-go supply. Under the umbrella of the DERTOUR Group, the tourism divi­sion includes over 2,000 travel agen­cies, tour opera­tors, hotel brands and online travel portals.

Vienna (Austria)/ Munich — ENPULSION, the world market leader for elec­tric satel­lite propul­sion systems from Austria, advi­sed on a EUR 22.5 million growth finan­cing by Nord­wind Growth (“Nord­wind”). ENPULSION was advi­sed by Pava Part­ners on this transaction. 

The invest­ment by Nord­wind marks the start of the next phase of ENPUL­SI­ON’s stra­tegy to become a global leader in space mobi­lity. With Nord­wind, ENPULSION gains an expe­ri­en­ced growth part­ner. This is Nord­win­d’s first invest­ment in the space sector. 

With the rapid expan­sion of global mega-constel­la­ti­ons, incre­asing geopo­li­ti­cal frag­men­ta­tion and growing demands for sove­reign satel­lite infra­struc­ture, precise mobi­lity in orbit is beco­ming a stra­te­gic neces­sity. — Since its foun­da­tion, ENPULSION has deve­lo­ped into a global market leader in the field of elec­tric propul­sion systems for micro- and nano­sa­tel­li­tes in a capi­tal-inten­sive indus­try with high capi­tal efficiency. 

Buil­ding on its globally proven elec­tric propul­sion tech­no­logy and its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in space with over 320 propul­sion systems in orbit, ENPULSION will offer compre­hen­sive mobi­lity solu­ti­ons for satel­li­tes in the future. The aim is to ensure all aspects of move­ment, posi­tio­ning and maneu­vera­bi­lity in orbit in an inte­gra­ted manner and to deve­lop mission-speci­fic solu­ti­ons toge­ther with custo­mers. The growth capi­tal will be used for the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties, inter­na­tio­nal market pene­tra­tion and the deve­lo­p­ment of the next product gene­ra­tion in the field of inte­gra­ted space mobi­lity systems. While ENPULSION conti­nues to conso­li­date its posi­tion in Europe, the US market is beco­ming incre­asingly stra­te­gi­cally important for the company. ENPULSION is bene­fiting there from the rapidly growing demand for inde­pen­dent and scalable mobi­lity solu­ti­ons for satellites. 

For this tran­sac­tion, Pava Part­ners worked with space experts Sven-Olof Koop­mann and Hale Reynolds of PULSAR Space Consul­ting, who brought valuable indus­try and tech­no­logy exper­tise as well as a strong global network in the space industry.

ENPULSION via Pava Partners

“Pava Part­ners enab­led us to realize a key finan­cing round for our global growth in record time. Their excel­lent network and consis­t­ently effi­ci­ent process execu­tion made the diffe­rence,” says Dr. Alex­an­der Reiss­ner, CEO of ENPULSION. 

About ENPULSION

ENPULSION deve­lops and produ­ces modu­lar elec­tric propul­sion systems based on FEEP (Field-Emis­sion Elec­tric Propul­sion) tech­no­logy for micro and nano­sa­tel­li­tes. With over 320 systems in orbit and more than 500 cumu­la­tive years of opera­tion, ENPULSION is one of the worl­d’s leading and most flown propul­sion manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the small satel­lite segment. ENPULSION is ISO 9001:2015 certi­fied and supplies inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial and insti­tu­tio­nal space custo­mers. — www.enpulsion.com

About Nord­wind Growth

Nord­wind Growth is a Munich-based growth fund that specia­li­zes in Euro­pean tech­no­logy compa­nies with proven market poten­tial and scalable busi­ness models. The fund accom­pa­nies its port­fo­lio compa­nies as an active part­ner on their path to sustainable, inter­na­tio­nal growth. —www.nordwindgrowth.com

 

09Frankfurt a. M. — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advised
, the selling share­hol­der and the banking syndi­cate as tran­sac­tion coun­sel on the IPO of Gabler Group AG (the “Company”) with an issue volume of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 132.8 million (assum­ing full exer­cise of the green­shoe option).

Gabler Group AG, based in Lübeck, Germany, was foun­ded in 1962 and is an estab­lished deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of mission-criti­cal under­wa­ter tech­no­lo­gies, gene­ra­ting the majo­rity of its reve­nues from defense and defense-rela­ted solu­ti­ons. The banking syndi­cate consis­ted of Cantor as Sole Global Coor­di­na­tor and Joint Book­run­ner and Bank­haus Metz­ler as addi­tio­nal Joint Bookrunner. 

The IPO of Gabler Group AG is the first by a German company this year. It takes place against the back­drop of the invest­ment surge in the Euro­pean defense sector and under­lines the increased inves­tor inte­rest in compa­nies with defense-rela­ted busi­ness models. 

The offer compri­sed new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as exis­ting shares from the holdings of the Possehl Group, an estab­lished private equity inves­tor and indus­trial group based in Lübeck, which will remain the majo­rity share­hol­der of the company after the IPO. The company’s shares will be included for trading in the Scale segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exchange. 

Will­kie acted as tran­sac­tion coun­sel in the tran­sac­tion and advi­sed the company, the selling share­hol­der Possehl Group and the bank consor­tium compre­hen­si­vely on all capi­tal market and corpo­rate law issues.

The core team was led by part­ners Simon Weiß and Joseph Marx and included asso­cia­tes Martin E. Kalb­henn and Niklas Keller (all Capi­tal Markets; Frank­furt). Part­ner Jacob Ahme (Corpo­rate; Hamburg) led the corpo­rate work­stream and was supported by asso­ciate Dr. Patrick Kemper (Corpo­rate; Frank­furt). In addi­tion, the tran­sac­tion was advi­sed by part­ners Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment; Munich); Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax; Frank­furt), Dr. David Jansen (Regu­la­tory; Frank­furt), Benja­min Nixon (Capi­tal Markets; New York), Jenni­fer Carlson (Capi­tal Markets; Chicago), coun­sel Martin Waskow­ski (Employ­ment; Frank­furt), Wolf­gang Münchow (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Cathe­rine A. Harring­ton (Tax; New York), Richard F. Jack­son (Asset Manage­ment; Washing­ton) as well as asso­cia­tes Sascha Wink­ler (Employ­ment; Frank­furt), Marcel Seemaier (Tax; Frank­furt), Dr. Laurin Havlik (Global Trade; Munich), Bene­dikt Schwarz (Finance; Frank­furt), Joshua Baskin (Tax; New York), Shay Moyal (Tax; New York) and Jakob Edson (Asset Manage­ment; Washing­ton). —www.willkie.com

Vienna — The digi­tal health company nyra health, a leading provi­der of an AI-based plat­form for neuro­lo­gi­cal therapy, announ­ces the successful closing of a Series A finan­cing of EUR 20 million. The round is led by Armira Growth, with exis­ting inves­tors Welling­ton Part­ners, Crane Venture Part­ners (who manage the invest­ments of Mass­Mu­tual Ventures) and EVER Pharma parti­ci­pa­ting again. The capi­tal will be used for inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, product deve­lo­p­ment and the expan­sion of the AI-based neuro­the­rapy platform. 

The core product is the MDR Class IIa-certi­fied “myReha” plat­form, which accor­ding to the company is alre­ady being used in over 100 neuro­lo­gi­cal clinics. In addi­tion, the appli­ca­tion is part of the stan­dard care provi­ded by Deut­sche Renten­ver­si­che­rung and is reim­bur­sed by 28 statu­tory and private health insu­rance compa­nies. More than 40 million insu­red persons thus have access to digi­tal neuro-rehabilitation. 

Inte­gra­tion into inpa­ti­ent and outpa­ti­ent care proces­ses is parti­cu­larly rele­vant for hospi­tal manage­ment. nyra health addres­ses the frequently criti­ci­zed gap in care between discharge from an acute or reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinic and outpa­ti­ent after­care. The plat­form connects pati­ents and health­care profes­sio­nals digi­tally throug­hout the entire reco­very process. In addi­tion to the “myReha” therapy soft­ware, the offe­ring includes the “nyra insights” manage­ment system, which maps therapy inten­sity, language deve­lo­p­ment and progress data in real time and auto­ma­tes docu­men­ta­tion processes. 

Stron­ger impro­ve­ments in cogni­tive and lingu­i­stic functions 

Accor­ding to the company, a rando­mi­zed control­led study shows signi­fi­cantly grea­ter impro­ve­ments in cogni­tive and lingu­i­stic func­tions with addi­tio­nal use of the plat­form compared to stan­dard therapy. The multi­mo­dal AI models analyze pronun­cia­tion, word retrie­val, syntax and seman­tic struc­ture as well as reac­tion times and trai­ning dyna­mics, among other things. The therapy adapts adap­tively to perfor­mance level and progress. 

In terms of health econo­mics, the model addres­ses the rising costs of neuro­lo­gi­cal dise­a­ses, for exam­ple after a stroke or trau­ma­tic brain injury. Digi­tal home therapy with real-time feed­back can increase therapy density and at the same time reduce the workload of specia­lists — a key aspect given the scar­city of person­nel resour­ces in neuro-rehabilitation. 

With the finan­cing, nyra health plans to increase its market pene­tra­tion in the DACH region and enter the US market. At the same time, the company is inves­t­ing in the further deve­lo­p­ment of multi­mo­dal AI models, inclu­ding as part of a funded rese­arch project. 

The market is considera­ble: neuro­lo­gi­cal dise­a­ses cost 65 billion euros a year in Germany alone. The increase in neuro­lo­gi­cal dise­a­ses, prima­rily due to the rising average age of the popu­la­tion, offers considera­ble growth potential. 

 

Hanover/ London/ Munich — With the acqui­si­tion of Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging, the funds advi­sed by NORD Holding, toge­ther with the exis­ting port­fo­lio company OR Tech­no­logy, are estab­li­shing a globally active imaging tech­no­logy holding company in the vete­ri­nary sector. With a cross-loca­tion team, McDer­mott Will & Schulte advi­sed the funds advi­sed by NORD Holding on the acqui­si­tion and finan­cing of Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging. 

The acqui­si­tion of Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging, toge­ther with OR Tech­no­logy and with the parti­ci­pa­tion of funds advi­sed by NORD Holding, crea­tes a globally active imaging tech­no­logy holding company in the vete­ri­nary sector and beyond. — This repres­ents a signi­fi­cant mile­stone as it is the second acqui­si­tion in less than a year since the part­ner­ship between OR Tech­no­logy and NORD Holding began. 

With more than 200 employees in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, the newly formed group brings toge­ther tech­no­lo­gies, brands and exper­tise across a wide range of imaging moda­li­ties. Hall­marq brings its exper­tise in the deve­lo­p­ment of advan­ced MRI and CT solu­ti­ons speci­fi­cally desi­gned for vete­ri­nary appli­ca­ti­ons. OR Tech­no­logy comple­ments this with its port­fo­lio of digi­tal X‑ray systems, ultra­sound solu­ti­ons and imaging soft­ware, inclu­ding AI-powered diagno­stics for compa­n­ion animals and horses. 

The combi­na­tion crea­tes a unique medi­cal tech­no­logy plat­form cove­ring multi­ple imaging moda­li­ties, soft­ware solu­ti­ons, clini­cal appli­ca­ti­ons and custo­mer segments. Toge­ther, the compa­nies are uniquely posi­tio­ned to further acce­le­rate inno­va­tion, expand their global foot­print and deli­ver value to their custo­mers through a compre­hen­sive and inte­gra­ted imaging offering. 

André Seidel, Part­ner at NORD Holding, commen­ted: “This tran­sac­tion is another important step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our invest­ment. The combi­na­tion of comple­men­tary tech­no­lo­gies, high inno­va­tion power and inter­na­tio­nal reach crea­tes an excel­lent basis to build a global leader in the field of multi­mo­da­lity vete­ri­nary imaging.”

The funds advi­sed by NORD Holding conti­nue to support the Group’s long-term growth stra­tegy, which focu­ses on sustainable value crea­tion, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and further invest­ments in medi­cal tech­no­logy and personnel.

About Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging

Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging is a leading global provi­der of advan­ced diagno­stic imaging solu­ti­ons desi­gned speci­fi­cally for vete­ri­nary prac­tice. Foun­ded in 2001, the company is a pioneer in species-speci­fic MRI and CT tech­no­lo­gies — from the worl­d’s first upright MRI for horses to helium-free 1.5T MRI systems for small animals and vision CT systems that improve diagno­stic accu­racy, speed and acces­si­bi­lity in equine and small animal medi­cine. With a clear commit­ment to inno­va­tion, quality and animal health, Hall­mar­qin ‘s products and compre­hen­sive services are in use in prac­ti­ces and refer­ral centers in more than 28 count­ries world­wide, helping vete­ri­na­ri­ans achieve better outco­mes for their pati­ents. — www.hallmarq.net

NORD Holding is a private equity and asset manage­ment company with assets under manage­ment of around EUR 4 billion and over 200 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. NORD Holding is charac­te­ri­zed by a part­ner­ship approach at eye level, focu­sing on the trans­for­ma­tion of medium-sized busi­ness models. We deve­lop the value of compa­nies and part­ner with the most ambi­tious mana­gers and leading inves­tors. — https://www.nordholding.de/

McDer­mott has alre­ady advi­sed NORD Holding on various tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of OR Technology.

Advi­sor NORD Holding: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

Holger H. Ebers­ber­ger, LL.M., Jason Zemmel (London; both Private Equity), Mark Fine (Finance, London; all lead), Alex­an­dra Prato, Dr. Manuel Weiß (both Coun­sel, Private Equity), Brian Casil­las (Employ­ment, Los Ange­les), Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Finance), Alex Jupp (Tax, London), Kath­ryn Linsky (Data, Privacy & Cyber­se­cu­rity, New York), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Parsin Walsi, LL.M., Mitch DaSilva (New York), Henry McCar­ron, Daniel Weston (both London; all Private Equity), Bethany Dray­ton, William Gibson-Dancer (both Finance, London), Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf).

— www.mwe.com/de/

Princ­ton, NJ & Eepoo, Finland — IQM Finland Oy, a global leader in full-stack super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters (“IQM”, “IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters”) and Real Asset Acqui­si­tion Corp (Nasdaq: RAAQ), a Special Purpose Acqui­si­tion Company (SPAC), announ­ced that they have ente­red into a defi­ni­tive merger agree­ment wher­eby IQM will become a publicly traded company and have Ameri­can Depo­si­tary Shares listed on one of the two leading U.S. stock exch­an­ges. The tran­sac­tion values IQM at a pre-money equity value of appro­xi­m­ately USD 1.8 billion. 

The tran­sac­tion will provide funding to acce­le­rate IQM’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal and commer­cial deve­lo­p­ment towards fault-tole­rant quan­tum compu­ting, further streng­thening its posi­tion as a leading quan­tum compu­ter provider.

IQM, which is head­quar­te­red in Finland, is also conside­ring a dual listing wher­eby IQM’s ordi­nary shares would be traded on the Helsinki Stock Exch­ange. This listing is expec­ted to take place after comple­tion of this tran­sac­tion. — With a turno­ver of at least 35 million euros in 2025 and over 20 systems sold, IQM under­lines its claim to be the market leader for full-stack quan­tum systems at the IQM Quan­tum Compu­ter IPO 2026.

IQM is a quan­tum compu­ting company that deve­lops full-stack, open archi­tec­ture systems that can be deployed on-premise or utili­zed via the cloud. IQM pursues a verti­cally inte­gra­ted busi­ness model and has a unique combi­na­tion of proprie­tary infra­struc­ture ranging from its own chip design tool and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment plat­form to a quan­tum chip factory, produc­tion line and data center. This enables the company to acce­le­rate its inno­va­tion cycles, provide best-in-class quan­tum compu­ting solu­ti­ons to its custo­mers and foster the growth of the quan­tum ecosystem. 

Tran­sac­tion highlights

Follo­wing comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, IQM’s cash on balance sheet at closing is expec­ted to be in excess of US$450 million (inclu­ding IQM’s exis­ting cash), provi­ding scope for further broad econo­mic benefits:

Appro­xi­m­ately $175 million of cash in RAAQ’s escrow account (based on the current amount in escrow and assum­ing no redemptions);
Appro­xi­m­ately $134 million of proceeds from a PIPE finan­cing at a price of $10.00 per share from leading new and exis­ting insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to be comple­ted concurr­ently with the busi­ness combi­na­tion, subject to satis­fac­tion of certain custo­mary closing conditions;

Expec­ted proceeds of USD 24 million from the cash exer­cise of outstan­ding IQM warrants prior to closing; Exis­ting cash on IQM’s balance sheet of USD 172 million (unau­di­ted at year-end 2025).
The tran­sac­tion values IQM at a pre-money equity value of around USD 1.8 billion, reflec­ting its enorm­ous growth potential.

Jan Goetz, co-foun­der and Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer of IQM (photo: IQM), said: “We built IQM from the ground up with one goal in mind: to put working quan­tum compu­ters into the hands of people who will use them to solve real-world problems. Not some­day. Now. Quan­tum compu­ting is no longer a scien­ti­fic project. It’s an indus­try where custo­mers own, operate and build on advan­ced quan­tum compu­ters. That’s what IQM makes possible.”

Peter Ort, Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer and Co-Chair­man of Real Asset Acqui­si­tion Corp, said: “IQM has built and deli­vered more local quan­tum systems than any other competitor5 — to some of the most deman­ding rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons in the world. This tran­sac­tion will acce­le­rate the growth of a company that has alre­ady estab­lished a posi­tion in this space with real custo­mers and opera­ting real quan­tum systems.”

Sierk Poet­ting, Chair­man of IQM’s Board of Direc­tors, said: “The IPO is not a change of direc­tion, but rather an acce­le­ra­tion. The Board of Direc­tors is fully commit­ted to IQM’s mission and goals of making quan­tum infra­struc­ture as funda­men­tal and acces­si­ble as clas­si­cal computing.”

Exis­ting IQM share­hol­ders will not sell any shares or receive any cash payments as part of the tran­sac­tion and all signi­fi­cant IQM share­hol­ders have ente­red into a custo­mary lock-up agree­ment to complete this transaction.

The Boards of Direc­tors of IQM and RAAQ have each unani­mously appro­ved the propo­sed merger. The comple­tion of the propo­sed merger is subject to, among other things, the appr­oval of the merger agree­ment by the share­hol­ders of RAAQ and IQM and the satis­fac­tion of other custo­mary closing conditions. 

Addi­tio­nal infor­ma­tion about the propo­sed busi­ness combi­na­tion, inclu­ding a copy of the busi­ness combi­na­tion agree­ment, will be provi­ded in a Current Report on Form 8‑K to be filed by RAAQ with the Secu­ri­ties and Exch­ange Commis­sion (the “SEC”).

Consul­tant from IQM

J.P. Morgan SE acts as finan­cial advi­sor and capi­tal markets advi­sor to IQM.
J.P. Morgan Secu­ri­ties LLC and TD Cowen are acting as PIPE place­ment agents for IQM.
Roth­schild & Co. acts as finan­cial and capi­tal markets advi­sor to IQM and its Manage­ment Board.
TD Cowen acts as finan­cial advi­sor and capi­tal markets advi­sor to RAAQ.
Cohen & Company Capi­tal Markets is acting as capi­tal markets advi­sor to RAAQ.
Cooley LLP and Boren­ius Attor­neys Ltd are acting as legal advi­sors to IQM;

Perkins Coie LLP, Kroge­rus Attor­neys Ltd and Cony­ers Dill & Pear­man LLP are acting as legal advi­sors to RAAQ.DLA Piper LLP (US) is acting as legal advi­sor to J.P. Morgan Secu­ri­ties LLC and TD Cowen.

The Blue­shirt Group acts as inves­tor rela­ti­ons advi­sor to IQM.

About Real Asset Acqui­si­tion Corp.

Real Asset Acqui­si­tion Corp., based in Prince­ton, New Jersey, is a Nasdaq-listed (Nasdaq: RAAQ) special purpose entity formed for the purpose of effec­ting a merger, stock exch­ange, asset acqui­si­tion, stock purchase, reor­ga­niza­tion or simi­lar busi­ness combi­na­tion with one or more compa­nies. RAAQ’s team consists of expe­ri­en­ced quan­tum compu­ting experts with in-depth tech­ni­cal and indus­try-speci­fic knowledge. 

About IQM Quan­tum Computers

IQM Finland Oy (“IQM”, “IQM Quan­tum Compu­ters”, “Company”) is a leading global provi­der of super­con­duc­ting quan­tum compu­ters. IQM offers both local full-stack quan­tum compu­ters and a cloud plat­form for acces­sing its systems. IQM’s custo­mers include leading high-perfor­mance compu­ting centers, rese­arch labs, univer­si­ties and enter­pri­ses that require unrest­ric­ted access to quan­tum hard­ware and software. 

IQM has over 300 employees and is head­quar­te­red in Finland with offices in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Singa­pore, South Korea, Taiwan, the United King­dom and the United States. — https://meetiqm.com/

Munich — Orbem, the Munich-based deep tech company that turns magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) into a powerful AI-powered tool to unco­ver hidden insights in food and biology, has raised a €55.5 million Series B funding round. The round is led by Euro­pean deep-tech specia­list Inno­va­tion Indus­tries, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Super­nova Invest and signi­fi­cant parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Gene­ral Cata­lyst, 83North, The Venture Coll­ec­tive, Possi­ble Ventures and seve­ral angel investors. 

The new capi­tal will drive Orbe­m’s entry into the US market, scaling its proven solu­ti­ons in the poul­try indus­try and exten­ding its actionable insights to new chal­lenges in food and human health. By combi­ning advan­ced MRI sensors and powerful verti­cal AI, Orbe­m’s solu­ti­ons reveal what we can’t see on the outside of biolo­gi­cal mate­ri­als, enab­ling rapid, non-inva­sive analysis. 

Orbem has deve­lo­ped a breakth­rough plat­form that makes MRI tech­no­logy fast, afforda­ble and scalable, enab­ling non-inva­sive analy­sis of biolo­gi­cal mate­ri­als on an indus­trial scale. The company is buil­ding the largest and most compre­hen­sive biolo­gi­cal data­set in the indus­try today. Orbem is alre­ady profi­ta­ble and a leading provi­der of in-ovo sexing in five Euro­pean count­ries, a posi­tion based on its deep under­stan­ding of proces­ses in the poul­try indus­try. The company will use the new capi­tal to further its expan­sion into the United States, laun­ching new solu­ti­ons for the poul­try indus­try and ente­ring the multi-billion dollar fruit and vege­ta­ble market. In addi­tion, Orbem will invest in its vision to apply its actionable insights to the field of human healthcare. 

Orbem uses AI to indus­tria­lize MRI 

Orbem uses AI to indus­tria­lize MRI, provi­ding non-inva­sive insight into ever­y­thing from fruit to eggs to the human body. The company is trans­forming the worl­d’s largest coll­ec­tion of biolo­gi­cal data into actionable infor­ma­tion to help food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, rese­ar­chers and other inno­va­tors make better decis­i­ons. By provi­ding previously inac­ces­si­ble infor­ma­tion — the sex of an embryo in an egg, the health of a seed, the quality of an avocado without cutting it open — Orbem serves global custo­mers in the agri­cul­ture, food and health sectors. Their rapid, non-destruc­tive insights, based on a deep under­stan­ding of indus­try proces­ses, for exam­ple in poul­try farming, reduce waste, increase quality and trans­pa­rency and acce­le­rate the shift towards a more sustainable and healt­hier future. 

A new era of growth: scaling and expansion

The Series B funding will acce­le­rate Orbe­m’s mission to solve global chal­lenges by unco­ve­ring what we can’t see about food and biology from the outside. Key initia­ti­ves include:
— US Market Entry: Follo­wing the estab­lish­ment of its first US office in Hous­ton, Texas in 2025, Orbem is brin­ging its proven solu­ti­ons for poul­try to one of the largest agri­cul­tu­ral markets in the world.
— Expan­ded Poul­try Plat­form: Orbem will further streng­then its commit­ment to the poul­try indus­try and scale its exis­ting solutions.
— New Area: Fruit and Vege­ta­bles: The company is expan­ding its actionable insights for sustainable food produc­tion to the fruit and vege­ta­ble sector. Orbe­m’s non-destruc­tive tech­no­logy can inspect the inside of produce such as water­me­lons, avoca­dos and mangoes to detect inter­nal defects and assess quality without cutting them open. This helps growers to accu­ra­tely sort their produce, ensure consis­tent quality and drasti­cally reduce food waste before the produce reaches the consumer.
— Health­care: What Orbem learns from scan­ning milli­ons of eggs and avoca­dos leads to a deeper under­stan­ding of biology. The company is buil­ding the worl­d’s largest biolo­gi­cal data­set. This unique resource is the basis for AI models that will find profound appli­ca­ti­ons in the field of human health and make non-inva­sive insights more accessible. 

Dr. Pedro Gómez, co-foun­der and CEO of Orbemsays: “We are the first and so far only company in the world to demons­trate the use of MRI in less than a second and without human inter­ven­tion. We have star­ted to show the poul­try indus­try what is possi­ble when you can see the inside of an egg, and we are just getting star­ted. This new funding will allow us to acce­le­rate our expan­sion in the US and help more food manu­fac­tu­r­ers and health­care provi­ders make better decis­i­ons with data. Our scalable plat­form and fast-growing proprie­tary biolo­gi­cal data­set are the perfect foun­da­tion to accom­plish this. We are proud of the trust our inves­tors have placed in us and our vision to help the world see from the inside out.”

Pleuni Hooij­man, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Inno­va­tion Indus­tries, explains: “Orbem is truly excep­tio­nal. Few compa­nies manage to make such a complex tech­no­logy acces­si­ble and scalable for so many indus­tries. Orbem is alre­ady trans­forming entire indus­tries with its plat­form and we are deligh­ted to accom­pany them on this journey.”

Michaël Thomas, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Super­nova Invest, adds: “We are deligh­ted to be working with Orbem, a visio­nary company that perfectly embo­dies Euro­pe’s excel­lence in deep tech. By combi­ning cutting-edge AI and MRI tech­no­logy, Orbem is deli­ve­ring concrete answers to some of the biggest chal­lenges of our time, from redu­cing animal suffe­ring to tack­ling food waste and buil­ding a more sustainable global food system. This invest­ment under­lines our belief that Europe can lead the way in physi­cal AI and turn scien­ti­fic breakth­roughs into major indus­trial innovations.”

About Orbem — The Inside Out Company

Orbem uses AI to indus­tria­lize MRI, provi­ding non-inva­sive insight into ever­y­thing from fruit to eggs to the human body. The company is trans­forming the worl­d’s largest coll­ec­tion of biolo­gi­cal data into actionable infor­ma­tion to help food manu­fac­tu­r­ers, rese­ar­chers and other inno­va­tors make better decis­i­ons. By provi­ding previously inac­ces­si­ble infor­ma­tion — the sex of an embryo in an egg, the health of a seed, the quality of an avocado without cutting it open — Orbem serves global custo­mers in the agri­cul­ture, food and health sectors. Head­quar­te­red in Munich, Germany, with offices in Hous­ton, Texas, the Orbem team uses its inside-out intel­li­gence to change the way huma­nity sees and under­stands biolo­gi­cal matter. — www.orbem.ai

About Inno­va­tion Industries

Inno­va­tion Indus­tries is a leading Euro­pean deep-tech venture capi­tal firm with €1 billion of capi­tal under manage­ment. The company invests in visio­nary science-based compa­nies that address the worl­d’s most pres­sing chal­lenges. Convin­ced that deep tech can deli­ver both supe­rior finan­cial returns and global impact, Inno­va­tion Indus­tries part­ners with excep­tio­nal entre­pre­neurs and rese­ar­chers to turn scien­ti­fic breakth­roughs into trans­for­ma­tive compa­nies. The company provi­des long-term capi­tal and stra­te­gic support from lab to market and actively bridges the gap between acade­mia and indus­try by working closely with leading tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties, rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons and indus­try part­ners. Inno­va­tion Indus­tries has offices in Amster­dam, Eind­ho­ven and Munich. https://www.innovationindustries.com/

About Super­nova Invest

Super­nova Invest is the leading deep-tech venture capi­tal firm in Europe with appro­xi­m­ately €800 million in assets under manage­ment. The current port­fo­lio compri­ses more than 80 inno­va­tive and impact-orien­ted compa­nies deve­lo­ping products and services that leverage disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies in four future-orien­ted sectors: Clean­tech, Digi­tal, Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies and Health­care. For 20 years, Super­nova Invest has provi­ded long-term capi­tal, opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence and stra­te­gic support to foster the sustainable growth of tomor­ro­w’s deep tech and indus­trial cham­pi­ons throug­hout the venture capi­tal life­cy­cle: seed, early, late and growth stage. Super­nova Invest also brings toge­ther the entire deep-tech value chain to support the port­fo­lio compa­nies: Compa­nies, rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons and co-investors.
Super­nova Invest is backed by both Amundi, the largest asset mana­ger in Europe, and CEA, the most inno­va­tive public rese­arch orga­niza­tion in Europe. 

 

Munich/ Berlin — sofa­tu­tor, a port­fo­lio company of EMERAM, has acqui­red the French lear­ning plat­form School­Mouv. With this acqui­si­tion, sofa­tu­tor, supported by EMERAM, is imple­men­ting the first major add-on in the French market, a decisive step in the imple­men­ta­tion of the joint inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion strategy. 

The acqui­si­tion marks a stra­te­gic mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of sofa­tu­tor from a leading provi­der in German-spea­king count­ries to a Euro­pean EdTech company. EMERAM actively supports this growth path and sees the tran­sac­tion as an important step towards buil­ding a leading digi­tal educa­tion plat­form in Europe. 

With more than 2 million users, around 7,000 lear­ning videos and over 200,000 inter­ac­tive exer­ci­ses, sofa­tu­tor is one of the most compre­hen­sive digi­tal lear­ning plat­forms in the German-spea­king world. In addi­tion to the core plat­form sofatutor.com, the port­fo­lio also includes the early lear­ning app sofa­tu­tor KIDS for child­ren aged 2 to 6. 

School­Mouv, foun­ded in Toulouse in 2013, is an online lear­ning plat­form geared towards the French curri­cu­lum with videos, struc­tu­red cour­ses, inter­ac­tive quiz­zes, a flash­card product and AI-supported gene­ra­tion of lear­ning content. The company employs around 40 people and will conti­nue to operate on the market as an inde­pen­dent brand with its own management. 

“For EMERAM, this tran­sac­tion marks a key mile­stone in sofa­tu­tor’s Euro­pean growth stra­tegy,” says Dr. Sven Oleow­nik, Part­ner at EMERAM. “The joint plat­form offers excel­lent condi­ti­ons for reali­zing further growth steps in Europe through signi­fi­cant syner­gies in marke­ting, content and technology.” 

“The acqui­si­tion of School­Mouv marks a signi­fi­cant step on our joint growth path with EMERAM. With the support of our part­ner, we are consis­t­ently imple­men­ting the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of sofa­tu­tor and crea­ting the basis for a leading pan-Euro­pean educa­tio­nal offe­ring,” adds Colin Schlü­ter, CEO and Mana­ging Direc­tor of sofa­tu­tor. “School­Mouv ideally comple­ments our port­fo­lio and opens up new synergy poten­tial in marke­ting as well as in the cross-product and cross-brand deve­lo­p­ment of features and content.” 

The Euro­pean K‑12 market offers sustainable growth pros­pects in view of the shortage of teachers, growing hete­ro­gen­eity in schools and the incre­asing digi­ta­liza­tion of educa­tion. EMERAM will conti­nue to actively support sofa­tu­tor in its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and further stra­te­gic add-ons. — Further details of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed. 

Advi­sors to sofa­tu­tor: Aramis and LARK (Legal) and Forvis Mazars (Finance, Tax, Legal) 

About EMERAM — EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM provide more than 700 million euros of capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of growing compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, energy tran­si­tion and health & well­be­ing. EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner and promo­tes the sustainable growth — both orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons — of its port­fo­lio compa­nies. EMERAM also consis­t­ently focu­ses on the imple­men­ta­tion of holi­stic ESG concepts. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses nine plat­form invest­ments with a total of more than 3,000 employees. The compa­nies conti­nuously achieve double-digit orga­nic sales growth. More than 30 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons have also acce­le­ra­ted growth and enab­led inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion. — www.emeram.com

About SOFATUTOR — sofa­tu­tor was foun­ded in Berlin in 2008 and is now one of the most compre­hen­sive digi­tal teaching and lear­ning plat­forms in the German-spea­king world. With a wide range of lear­ning videos, adap­tive inter­ac­tive exer­ci­ses, AI func­tion­a­li­ties for students and teachers and much more, the plat­form supports students and teachers in all grades and subjects. — www.sofatutor.com

About SCHOOLMOUV — Foun­ded in 2013 in Toulouse, School­Mouv offers an online lear­ning plat­form aligned to the French curri­cu­lum with videos, struc­tu­red cour­ses, inter­ac­tive quiz­zes, a flash­card product and AI-powered lear­ning content gene­ra­tion. —www.schoolmouv.fr

Colo­gne — Odewald KMU II’s port­fo­lio company Educa­tion part­ners GmbH has acqui­red Berger Bildungs­in­sti­tut GmbH. A team from the law firm HEUKING led by Dr. Pär Johans­son advi­sed Educa­tion part­ners GmbH on this transaction. 

Berger Bildungs­in­sti­tut GmbH is a certi­fied trai­ning provi­der and offers voca­tio­nal trai­ning, retrai­ning and company trai­ning cour­ses throug­hout Germany. The trai­ning cour­ses are predo­mi­nantly digi­tal and focus on indus­trial and tech­ni­cal profes­si­ons, in parti­cu­lar quali­fi­ca­ti­ons in CAD, SAP and PLC. 

Odewald KMU II specia­li­zes in invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. The focus is on compa­nies in the German engi­nee­ring, intel­li­gent services, health­care, IT and soft­ware sectors. Part of the port­fo­lio is the Educa­tion part­ners Group, which occu­p­ies a leading market posi­tion in the attrac­tive market for profes­sio­nal trai­ning through its trai­ning acade­mies and can streng­then this posi­tion through the acqui­si­tion of Berger Bildungs­in­sti­tut GmbH. 

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: HEUKING

Dr. Pär Johans­son (lead, corpo­rate law/M&A),
Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP Media & Technology),
Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Employ­ment Law),
Susanne Monsig, Elisa Schü­lert (both Public Sector & Public Procurement)
Svea Kunz, Lena Kurth, LL.M. (both IP Media & Technology),
Julien Krause, Chiara Diek­mann (both Corporate/M&A), all Cologne.

Munich — Afinum 9 has ente­red into a growth part­ner­ship with reinves­t­ing foun­ders Robin Wenne­muth and Patrick Pfau. This tran­sac­tion expands our stra­tegy to build an SAP-focu­sed verti­cal soft­ware group for the life science indus­try, which was initia­ted with the invest­ment in myme­di­set GmbH. 

p36 was foun­ded in 2015 and is head­quar­te­red in Bad Hers­feld, Germany. The company supports life science and medtech compa­nies world­wide in meeting key regu­la­tory and compli­ance requi­re­ments. The company’s 47-strong team offers two central soft­ware suites: Unique Device Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (UDI) and Cloud Service Quali­fi­ca­tion (CSQ). The UDI solu­ti­ons are aimed at MedTech custo­mers seeking holi­stic and highly auto­ma­ted compli­ance with UDI regu­la­ti­ons world­wide, while the CSQ solu­tion ensu­res GxP compli­ance for life science custo­mers in cloud infrastructures. 

Looking ahead, p36 is well posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties arising from the incre­asing comple­xity of regu­la­tory and compli­ance requi­re­ments within the SAP ecosys­tem and beyond. Robin Wenne­muth and Patrick Pfau will remain Mana­ging Direc­tors and will conti­nue to drive the company’s growth. 

Advi­sor to AFINUM: 

Valan­tic, Green­fort, Alva­rez & Marsal and Ebner Stolz supported the tran­sac­tion process.

About AFINUM

Afinum Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent finan­cial inves­tor that is wholly owned by its manage­ment and has offices in Munich, Frank­furt and Zurich. The company specia­li­zes in majo­rity invest­ments in finan­ci­ally sound, ambi­tious medium-sized compa­nies, prima­rily in the DACH region. As a renow­ned succes­sion specia­list, Afinum has supported more than 100 compa­nies over the last 25 years in their tran­si­tion from entre­pre­neur-led to mana­ger-led orga­niza­ti­ons and has estab­lished itself as a trus­ted part­ner. — www.afinum.de

 

Munich/ Freu­den­stadt — The NOBIX Group, a port­fo­lio company of Liberta Part­ners, has acqui­red the IT & DATEV specia­list netmin from Freu­den­stadt in the Black Forest. With this acqui­si­tion, the NOBIX Group streng­thens its presence in southern Germany and expands its exis­ting port­fo­lio in the DATEV area as well as in the support of tax consul­tants, audi­tors and lawyers. 

Netmin is the NOBIX Group’s second acqui­si­tion in 2026 after Alba­kom, under­li­ning its ambi­tion to estab­lish itself as the leading mana­ged service provi­der for SMEs in Germany in the long term.

Streng­thening the regio­nal presence & expan­ding the service portfolio

netmin Compu­ter GmbH was foun­ded in 2008 by Alex­an­der Stengle and Roland Schröpf­ler and curr­ently employs 22 people. The company supports around 400 medium-sized compa­nies in the Karls­ruhe to Villin­gen-Schwen­nin­gen area in all matters rela­ting to IT and appli­ca­ti­ons. The main areas of focus include finan­cial accoun­ting, IP tele­phony with Star­face, Micro­soft 365, network support and clas­sic IT infra­struc­ture — from servers and clients to cloud systems, which netmin opera­tes in highly available German data centers with data sovereignty. 

As a DATEV Solu­tion Part­ner, netmin has been support­ing tax consul­tants, audi­tors and law firms with specia­li­zed IT services rela­ting to DATEV soft­ware since the company was foun­ded. In addi­tion, netmin’s custo­mers include well-known cate­ring and hotel busi­nesses throug­hout Germany as well as compa­nies from the furnis­hing and property sector. 

Conti­nuity and further deve­lo­p­ment in partnership

The current manage­ment team, consis­ting of the two foun­ders and Mana­ging Direc­tor Marcus Umho­fer, who joined in 2021, will remain with the company. They will also contri­bute their exper­tise to the Manage­ment Board of the NOBIX Group, both in the expan­sion of the joint NOBIX service unit, which is respon­si­ble for all deli­very issues, and in driving the further deve­lo­p­ment of the Group in the southwest region. At the same time, netmin is expan­ding its port­fo­lio through the inte­gra­tion into the NOBIX Group to include mana­ged service offe­rings such as Work­place, Confe­rence and Backup-as-a-Service and Mana­ged Print Services. 

Liberta Part­ners as a long-term deve­lo­p­ment partner
Liberta Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive support for the tran­sac­tion — from stra­te­gic prepa­ra­tion and finan­cial struc­tu­ring through to opera­tio­nal and orga­niza­tio­nal inte­gra­tion. “This acqui­si­tion is another mile­stone in our consis­tent buy-and-build stra­tegy in the IT services sector,” explains Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner at Liberta Part­ners. “Toge­ther with the manage­ment of the NOBIX Group, we are making further progress in buil­ding a powerful plat­form and reali­zing sustainable growth.” 

Julius Wölfer, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment Mana­ger at Liberta Part­ners, adds: “With netmin, the NOBIX Group is streng­thening its presence in southern Germany and further expan­ding its exis­ting exper­tise in the DATEV area. The merger is ther­e­fore an ideal stra­te­gic fit and actively contri­bu­tes to the Group’s consis­tent mana­ged service strategy.”

In addi­tion to further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth, the colla­bo­ra­tion will focus in parti­cu­lar on scaling the service port­fo­lio and streng­thening manage­ment structures.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is a Munich-based invest­ment company that acqui­res and deve­lops medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region. The focus is on succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. With a clear buy-and-build approach and its own corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment team, Liberta Part­ners supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in sustainable and successful corpo­rate development. 

About NOBIX Group

The NOBIX Group is a nati­on­wide mana­ged service provi­der with a focus on mana­ged services for infra­struc­ture, cloud, secu­rity and core busi­ness appli­ca­ti­ons. The Group employs around 300 people at 12 loca­ti­ons in Germany. 

About netmin
Netmin is a southern German IT & DATEV specia­list system house from Freu­den­stadt. In the region around the Black Forest, netmin and its 22 employees support over 400 tax consul­tants, audi­tors, lawy­ers and medium-sized custo­mers from the private sector.