Author: Tatjana Anderer

Hamburg — The Hansea­tic Broking Center Group (HBC), an owner-mana­ged plat­form for insu­rance brokers, welco­mes Bridge­point as a new share­hol­der. The globally active inves­tor with head­quar­ters in London is taking over the shares from Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Part­ners. The foun­ders and the manage­ment team will remain signi­fi­cantly inves­ted and will lead HBC into the next growth phase toge­ther with Bridgepoint. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2022, HBC has estab­lished itself as one of the leading inde­pen­dent insu­rance broker groups in the German-spea­king region. The company serves over 40,000 custo­mers in a variety of diffe­rent insu­rance sectors, mana­ges a premium volume of more than 600 million euros and has quadru­pled its EBITDA since it was foun­ded — through orga­nic growth and targe­ted acquisitions. 

“Our vision was clear from the start: we want to create a plat­form that offers SMEs access to specia­li­zed, inde­pen­dent advice and modern digi­tal solu­ti­ons — close to the custo­mer, profes­sio­nally strong and entre­pre­neu­rial,” explains Gert Schloss­ma­cher, Execu­tive Chair­man and co-foun­der of HBC. “Bridge­point brings not only a deep under­stan­ding of our market, but also the opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to realize our ambi­ti­ons at scale. Toge­ther we will acce­le­rate our growth stra­tegy and further deve­lop an attrac­tive ecosys­tem for custo­mers, part­ners and insu­r­ers. We thank PCP for buil­ding HBC toge­ther over the past three years” 

With the new part­ner­ship, HBC will conti­nue to drive forward the expan­sion of its MGA exper­tise, the digi­ta­liza­tion of its plat­form and its expan­sion in the DACH region. Recent acqui­si­ti­ons such as LTA (travel insu­rance), HYV Schoma­cker (yacht insu­rance) and Schin­ner (commer­cial property insu­rance) under­line HBC’s stra­te­gic ambi­tion to streng­then its posi­tion in line with the needs of its custo­mer groups. 

“We believe in the value of inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed consul­ting — espe­ci­ally for medium-sized compa­nies that are often under­re­pre­sen­ted in the market,” says Hauke Martin­sen, CEO and co-foun­der of HBC. “With Bridge­point, we have a part­ner at our side who not only faci­li­ta­tes growth finan­ci­ally, but also supports it with stra­te­gic exper­tise. This bene­fits not only us — but above all our custo­mers and partners.” 

Cars­ten Kratz, Part­ner at Bridge­point and Head of DACH, is deligh­ted: “SMEs form the back­bone of the German economy — but are clearly under­ser­ved when it comes to custo­mi­zed insu­rance solu­ti­ons. HBC impres­ses with its entre­pre­neu­rial team, clear specia­liza­tion and impres­sive growth. We see enorm­ous poten­tial to support the company in further expan­ding its exper­tise, digi­ta­liza­tion and regio­nal expansion.”

Chris Brack­mann, Part­ner at Bridge­point, respon­si­ble for DACH invest­ments, adds: “HBC is an outstan­ding company in a struc­tu­rally attrac­tive market: foun­der-led, fast-growing and with a clear track record. The condi­ti­ons for buil­ding a true cham­pion in the DACH region could hardly be better. We look forward to working with Gert, Hauke, Sebas­tian, Johan­nes and the team to make this vision a reality.”

It was a plea­sure to accom­pany Gert and his team during the start-up phase of HBC. In just three years, they have succee­ded in estab­li­shing one of the most dyna­mic and fastest-growing plat­forms in the Euro­pean insu­rance distri­bu­tion market. Our goal from the outset was to support the team in buil­ding a first-class plat­form for insu­rance distri­bu­tion. We are proud of what we have achie­ved toge­ther and look forward to watching HBC’s contin­ued progress under Bridge­poin­t’s leader­ship,” said Jeroen Bischops and Armin Holei­sen of Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Partners.

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the third quar­ter of 2025.

About HBC

Hansea­tic Broking Center (HBC) is a dyna­mi­cally growing, owner-mana­ged plat­form for insu­rance brokers and under­wri­ting agents based in Hamburg. Crea­ted in 2022 through the merger of seve­ral estab­lished specia­list brokers, HBC now serves over 40,000 custo­mers in 15 insu­rance sectors and mana­ges a premium volume of more than 600 million euros. The group combi­nes regio­nal custo­mer proxi­mity and profes­sio­nal specia­liza­tion with scalable struc­tures and digi­tal solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to the requi­re­ments of medium-sized companies. 

About Bridge­point

Bridge­point is one of the worl­d’s leading private asset inves­tors with a focus on high-growth mid-market compa­nies in the private equity, infra­struc­ture and private credit sectors. With over $75 billion in assets under manage­ment and a strong local presence in Europe, North America and Asia, Bridge­point combi­nes global invest­ment power with deep market know­ledge and indus­try exper­tise. — www.bridgepointgroup.com

About Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Partners

Preser­va­tion Capi­tal Part­ners (PCP) is a private equity firm specia­li­zing in the busi­ness and finan­cial services sector with a focus on growth invest­ments in Western Europe. Foun­ded in 2017, PCP invests in market-leading compa­nies and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in insu­rance distri­bu­tion, inclu­ding invest­ments in BMS, BPL and Optio. — www.preservationcapitalpartners.com

Advi­sor Bridge­point: Kirk­land & Ellis, Frankfurt

Sebas­tian Pitz (lead), Dr. Tobias Larisch (both Private Equity/M&A), Tim Nobe­reit (Tax, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Alex­an­der Herzog, Dr. Mattias Prange, Jenia Dimit­rova, Melissa Afraz, Fabian Water­höl­ter (all Private Equity/M&A; all three Munich)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Vanessa Xu, Alex­an­der Bond (both Debt Finance); Asso­ciate: Emma Shi (Debt Finance)

— www.kirkland.com

Frank­furt am Main — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has sold its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Zimmer & Hälbig Holding (“Zimmer & Hälbig”), a leading specia­list for refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. The buyer of the shares is VINCI Ener­gies, part of VINCI, one of the worl­d’s leading groups for cons­truc­tion, cons­truc­tion-rela­ted services and concessions. 

Zimmer & Hälbig, based in Biele­feld, West­pha­lia, is one of Germany’s leading provi­ders in the plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy and tech­ni­cal buil­ding services in non-resi­den­tial buil­dings. The company provi­des the tech­ni­cal know-how for project plan­ning (consul­ting, tech­no­logy selec­tion, cons­truc­tion plan­ning) and instal­la­tion of logi­sti­cally and tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion systems. The focus is on sustainable energy solu­ti­ons for complex buil­dings. Zimmer & Hälbig prima­rily serves fast-growing and non-cycli­cal indus­tries such as clean­rooms, data centers, health­care and the public sector and is charac­te­ri­zed by a decen­tra­li­zed struc­ture with seve­ral loca­ti­ons in Germany. 

VREP joined Zimmer & Hälbig, which now has over 320 employees, in 2022 as part of a manage­ment buy-out and supported the manage­ment in the consis­tent imple­men­ta­tion of the active orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth stra­tegy. This included the expan­sion to curr­ently seven loca­ti­ons and nine service centers, the expan­sion of the value chain through the estab­lish­ment of the new measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy divi­sion and the acqui­si­tion of the service and main­ten­ance specia­list Airtech GmbH in Tutt­lin­gen in Octo­ber 2023. Zimmer & Hälbig will be inte­gra­ted into the VINCI Ener­gies Buil­ding Solu­ti­ons network with 150 busi­ness units in Germany, thus expan­ding the range of multi-tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for buildings. 

“Zimmer & Hälbig has estab­lished itself as an extre­mely successful company thanks to its excel­lent market posi­tio­ning and the high quality of its manage­ment,” explains Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “The team’s strong entre­pre­neu­rial commit­ment, clear commer­cial focus and in-depth exper­tise have contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to this deve­lo­p­ment. We are convin­ced that Zimmer & Hälbig is well posi­tio­ned for the future and has found a good home and a strong part­ner for its future deve­lo­p­ment in VINCI Energies. ”

Achim Hense­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zimmer & Hälbig, adds: “VREP has been the right part­ner for us since 2022 to successfully imple­ment key growth steps — with stra­te­gic exper­tise, opera­tio­nal support and a clear focus on the essen­ti­als. The colla­bo­ra­tion has been charac­te­ri­zed by trust and profes­sio­na­lism right from the start. We would like to express our sincere thanks for this and are now looking forward to conti­nuing on our chosen course at VINCI Energies.”

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.
Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:

Michael Vogt (photo © Vrep), Alex­an­der Bernin­ger, Markus Huber, Jens Schöf­fel and Patrick Heinze

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP:

M&A: Cars­ten Burger, DC Advisory
Legal: Dr. Lars Laeger, ARQIS
Commer­cial: Matthias Müller, Deloitte
Finan­cial: Florian Teuner, Deloitte
Tax: Marcus Roth, Deloitte

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR S.p.A. (“Ambi­enta”), a leading Euro­pean invest­ment mana­ger pionee­ring sustainable envi­ron­men­tal invest­ments in private and public markets, announ­ces that its port­fo­lio company Offi­cine Macca­ferri S.p.A. (“Macca­ferri” or the “Group”), a leading global provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal engi­nee­ring solu­ti­ons, with a busi­ness presence in over 130 count­ries, has acqui­red CPT Group (“CPT”), an Italian company specia­li­zed in advan­ced mecha­ni­zed tunnell­ing tech­no­lo­gies and robo­tic prefa­bri­ca­tion systems for under­ground infrastructure.

CPT was foun­ded over 30 years ago and is based in Nova Mila­nese (Italy). The company supplies major cons­truc­tion compa­nies world­wide in the fields of tunnel cons­truc­tion and infra­struc­ture. Its product range includes robot-assis­ted prefa­bri­ca­tion systems (Robo­fac­tory), produc­ti­vity moni­to­ring soft­ware for tunnel boring machi­nes (TBM) and ecolo­gi­cally desi­gned spacers. As a pioneer in the appli­ca­tion of Indus­try 4.0 prin­ci­ples to the prefa­bri­ca­tion of tunnel boring machine (TBM) segments, CPT has helped to drive auto­ma­tion on under­ground cons­truc­tion sites. Its tech­no­lo­gies have alre­ady been successfully used by Macca­ferri for the instal­la­tion of its semi-auto­ma­tic steel ribs. CPT opera­tes in Europe, South East Asia and Austra­lia and is known for making the cons­truc­tion of tunnel linings in geolo­gi­cally complex envi­ron­ments more resource effi­ci­ent, safer and faster. 

With this acqui­si­tion, Offi­cine Macca­ferri will become one of the worl­d’s largest indus­trial compa­nies able to offer a fully inte­gra­ted plat­form for tunnel cons­truc­tion, inclu­ding both tradi­tio­nal systems (steel ribs, fibers, seals) and mecha­ni­cal solu­ti­ons (Robo­fac­tory, TBMs, digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies). The merged group will serve a growing addressa­ble market of EUR 1 billion and further conso­li­date Macca­fer­ri’s trans­for­ma­tion into a tech­no­logy leader in sustainable infrastructure. 

This tran­sac­tion is another mile­stone in Macca­fer­ri’s growth trajec­tory under Ambi­en­ta’s owner­ship. Since Ambi­en­ta’s entry at the begin­ning of 2024, the Group has pursued a targe­ted M&A stra­tegy while conti­nuing to grow orga­ni­cally and advan­cing its ESG commitment. 

The global tunnell­ing market is expe­ri­en­cing strong struc­tu­ral growth driven by incre­asing urba­niza­tion, climate-resi­li­ent infra­struc­ture invest­ments and the comple­xity of modern under­ground projects. Mecha­ni­zed tunnell­ing is beco­ming incre­asingly important due to its speed, safety and adap­ta­bi­lity to complex envi­ron­ments. At the same time, tradi­tio­nal excava­tion methods remain an important and widely used solu­tion in tunnel cons­truc­tion and remain an essen­tial part of Macca­fer­ri’s exper­tise and value propo­si­tion. In this context, the inte­gra­tion of CPT will allow Macca­ferri to expand its range of tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons to operate in high-growth regi­ons and meet the incre­asing demand of the global tunnel­ing market for dura­ble and envi­ron­men­tally friendly under­ground infrastructures. 

CPT’s tech­no­logy is directly aligned with Ambi­en­ta’s envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment (EIA). The Robo­fac­tory plat­form enables auto­ma­ted 24-hour produc­tion that signi­fi­cantly increa­ses produc­ti­vity while redu­cing envi­ron­men­tal impact — redu­cing the use of release oil by 25 percent and the number of concrete defects by 30 percent. These inno­va­tions contri­bute to safer cons­truc­tion sites, lower mate­rial consump­tion and better tracea­bi­lity of opera­ti­ons.

Andrea Ventu­rini, Private Equity Part­ner of Ambi­enta, said: “This acqui­si­tion demons­tra­tes Offi­cine Macca­fer­ri’s ambi­tion to become the global plat­form for tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for climate change adapt­a­tion. With CPT, the Group streng­thens its ability to deve­lop new busi­nesses, inte­grate cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies and act as a conso­li­da­tor in highly specia­li­zed indus­trial niches. This is a further step towards buil­ding a diver­si­fied and resi­li­ent leader in all key infra­struc­ture markets.”

Stefano Susani, CEO of Offi­cine Macca­ferri, added: “The inte­gra­tion of CPT provi­des us with a unique oppor­tu­nity to grow our tunnell­ing busi­ness into a global leader in mecha­ni­zed and tradi­tio­nal solu­ti­ons comple­men­ted by advan­ced indus­trial robo­tic auto­ma­tion. We see signi­fi­cant poten­tial to create long-term value by offe­ring major custo­mers world­wide an inte­gra­ted plat­form that supports the most complex and stra­te­gic under­ground infra­struc­ture projects through inno­va­tion, relia­bi­lity and sustainability.”

Klaus Pini, co-foun­der of CPT, said: “Joining Offi­cine Macca­ferri is a natu­ral evolu­tion for CPT. We share the same indus­trial values, the same long-term vision and the same commit­ment to tech­ni­cal excel­lence. This part­ner­ship will allow us to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of our tech­no­lo­gies and provide even grea­ter added value to our custo­mers and the tunnel­ing indus­try worldwide.”

About Ambi­enta

Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean invest­ment mana­ger foun­ded in 2007 and a pioneer in sustainable invest­ments in private equity, public markets and private credit. With offices in Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges over €4 billion in assets and is supported by a growing global inves­tor base. The company invests in compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services contri­bute to impro­ving resource effi­ci­ency or redu­cing pollu­tion. Using a science-based approach, Ambi­enta iden­ti­fies pioneers in the real economy — compa­nies that gene­rate strong finan­cial returns while having a measura­ble posi­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact. 

As an indus­try pioneer, Ambi­enta was one of the first signa­to­ries to the United Nati­ons Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) in 2012. In 2019, the company recei­ved certi­fi­ca­tion as a B Corpo­ra­tion — a seal of appr­oval for compa­nies that meet the highest stan­dards in terms of social and envi­ron­men­tal impact, trans­pa­rency and respon­si­bi­lity. In 2020, Ambi­enta joined the Insti­tu­tio­nal Inves­tors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), a leading Euro­pean initia­tive of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors for climate protec­tion. In 2023, Ambi­enta set another exam­ple and became one of the few asset mana­gers to become an indus­try role model by commit­ting to the Science Based Targets Initia­tive (SBTi), which defi­nes science-based climate targets for compa­nies. www.ambientasgr.com

Munich — The inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Egeria has acqui­red a stake in Junge Die Bäcke­rei, a leading provi­der of chain-based bakery and gastro­nomy concepts in nort­hern Germany. The Junge family will remain closely asso­cia­ted with the company as share­hol­ders and in an advi­sory capa­city. Toge­ther with Egeria, the company is pursuing the goal of further expan­ding its market posi­tion in exis­ting regi­ons and stra­te­gi­cally expan­ding into new markets. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details. Comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the usual offi­cial approvals.

The tradi­tio­nal company based in Lübeck was foun­ded by the Junge family in 1897 and today opera­tes 210 bran­ches and three produc­tion faci­li­ties in Lübeck, Rostock and Greifs­wald. Junge Die Bäcke­rei. stands for a high level of verti­cal inte­gra­tion, distinc­tive opera­tio­nal excel­lence and effi­ci­ency. With entre­pre­neu­rial vision and a unique, family-orien­ted corpo­rate culture, the company has deve­lo­ped into the leading provi­der of branch-based bakery and gastro­nomy concepts in nort­hern Germany. Junge Die Bäcke­rei. is parti­cu­larly well-known among its custo­mers for the high quality of its products, the variety of its range and the feel-good atmo­sphere and excel­lent service in its bran­ches. Today, the company employs over 5,000 people. 

EGERIA Group

Egeria, an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company specia­li­zing prima­rily in private equity, invests prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value of up to EUR 500 million. Egeria’s private equity port­fo­lio compri­ses invest­ments in more than 20 compa­nies with around 14,000 employees and a total turno­ver of around EUR 2.5 billion. —https://egeriagroup.com

Advi­sor Egeria: POELLATH advi­sed Egeria on all legal and tax aspects of the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing Munich team

Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte (Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation)
Dr. Tobias Deschen­halm (Coun­sel, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Michael de Toma (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation)
Corne­lius L. Roth (Senior Asso­ciate, Structure/Tax)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Link (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation)

www.poellath.com

Munich — Certi­vity has raised 13.3 million euros in a Series A finan­cing round. The Munich-based RegTech company is deve­lo­ping the first struc­tu­red, AI-supported plat­form for mana­ging tech­ni­cal compli­ance. The round was led by Almaz Capi­tal and UVC Part­ners, with rene­wed parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors Early­bird X, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and Plug and Play. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate the market launch stra­tegy, drive forward product deve­lo­p­ment and enable expan­sion into new sectors and inter­na­tio­nal markets.

Foun­ded in 2021 by Nico Waegerle, Bogdan Bereczki, Jörg Ulmer and Sami Vaara­ni­emi, Certi­vity addres­ses one of the most unde­re­sti­ma­ted but crucial problems in modern engi­nee­ring: regu­la­tory compli­ance. Engi­neers often spend 30 to 50 percent of their time working through frag­men­ted legal and regu­la­tory docu­ments to ensure that their products comply with appli­ca­ble regu­la­ti­ons and stan­dards. Errors in this process lead to product recalls, safety issues and billi­ons of dollars in fines. — Certi­vity will funda­men­tally change this. 

The company offers a struc­tu­red, AI-native SaaS plat­form that trans­forms complex regu­la­tory docu­ments into struc­tu­red, machine-reada­ble compli­ance infor­ma­tion. It auto­ma­tes the entire process — from reques­t­ing and conti­nuously updating regu­la­tory content to inte­gra­ting it into the process. Certi­vity enables compa­nies to deve­lop products faster while incre­asing secu­rity and compli­ance with all manda­tory regulations. 

“With this funding, we are scaling our plat­form to become the leading solu­tion in tech­ni­cal compli­ance — start­ing with the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Addi­tio­nally, we are scaling into other sectors such as rail, medi­cal devices, consu­mer goods, defense, aero­space and more,” says Nico Waegerle, CEO and co-foun­der of Certi­vity. “We are expan­ding our regu­la­tory coverage, impro­ving our AI and deepe­ning inte­gra­tion with common tools. This is how we trans­form compli­ance from a costly manda­tory requi­re­ment into a compe­ti­tive advan­tage for our customers.” 

“Certi­vity has funda­men­tally chan­ged our approach to regu­la­tory compli­ance. Our deve­lo­p­ment proces­ses are much more effi­ci­ent and we save a signi­fi­cant amount of manual effort,” says Nico­las Maurin, Mana­ger Regu­la­tion & Stan­dards at Aptiv.

How the plat­form works: trans­forming regu­la­tory comple­xity into struc­tu­red knowledge

Certi­vi­ty’s plat­form digi­ti­zes and struc­tures regu­la­tory content from over 50 juris­dic­tions using a proprie­tary digi­tiza­tion pipe­line and regu­la­tory know­ledge graph. This gives engi­nee­ring and compli­ance teams full tracea­bi­lity and real-time insight into regu­la­tory chan­ges. AI-based modu­les conso­li­date chan­ges to diffe­rent versi­ons of regu­la­ti­ons and clas­sify, extract and gene­rate tech­ni­cal requi­re­ments from unstruc­tu­red legal texts. 

Instead of mana­ging compli­ance in isola­ted docu­ments or Excel spreadsheets, teams can now orga­nize regu­la­tory requi­re­ments, inter­pre­ta­ti­ons, appr­ovals and legal refe­ren­ces in a struc­tu­red way in product-speci­fic compli­ance projects. Through deep inte­gra­tion with requi­re­ments manage­ment tools such as Jama, Pola­rion, DOORS and others, compli­ance infor­ma­tion flows seam­lessly into the deve­lo­p­ment process — crea­ting an inte­gra­ted, networked, audi­ta­ble and scalable process. 

Laying the foun­da­tion for compli­ance on an indus­trial scale

“Certi­vity is setting a new stan­dard for how compli­ance is inte­gra­ted into product deve­lo­p­ment,” says Amanda Birken­holz, Prin­ci­pal at UVC Part­ners. “They solve a huge and cumber­some problem for any orga­niza­tion with regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. Compli­ance chal­lenges are no longer the excep­tion — they are the rule. The ques­tion today is no longer: Which products are subject to regu­la­tory requi­re­ments? It is: Which are not?” 

About Certi­vity

Certi­vity is a RegTech company that trans­la­tes regu­la­tory comple­xity into clarity and speed. With the help of modern AI tech­no­logy and Large Language Models (LLMs), we trans­form globally appli­ca­ble regu­la­ti­ons into struc­tu­red, machine-reada­ble data. This crea­tes a new form of compli­ance intel­li­gence that enables digi­tal and end-to-end work processes. 

Our plat­form supports deve­lo­p­ment and compli­ance teams in under­stan­ding regu­la­tory requi­re­ments more quickly, imple­men­ting them effi­ci­ently and inte­gra­ting them seam­lessly into exis­ting deve­lo­p­ment proces­ses. This lowers costs, redu­ces risks, impro­ves colla­bo­ra­tion — and acce­le­ra­tes the market launch of new products. 

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin-based early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B start­ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, deep tech, climate tech and mobi­lity. With more than €600 million in assets under manage­ment, the fund typi­cally invests between €1 million and €10 million initi­ally and up to €30 million in total per company. UVC Part­ners’ invest­ments include Flix, Isar Aero­space, planqc, Proxima Fusion, Reverion, Tacto, TWAICE, Deep­Drive and STABL. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading center for inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship, in parti­cu­lar to acce­le­rate market entry.

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CURA Group on the sale of its two clinic loca­ti­ons in Bad Saul­gau, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Follo­wing comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, the MEDIAN Group will take over the Klinik am schö­nen Moos and the Bad Saul­gau acute clinic from CURA, both of which specia­lize in psycho­so­ma­tic acute and reha­bi­li­ta­tion medi­cine. With around 150 employees, both hospi­tals treat around 2,200 pati­ents a year. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to merger control clearance by the German Fede­ral Cartel Office.

The CURA Group is a private provi­der of health­care services and has been opera­ting senior living and care faci­li­ties as well as reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinics since 1995. The Group employs over 5,300 people at 46 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Germany. 

The MEDIAN Group is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of mental health, specia­li­zed care and reha­bi­li­ta­tion services. With over 31,000 employees in 410 faci­li­ties in Germany, the UK and Spain, MEDIAN cares for more than 309,000 pati­ents and resi­dents every year. 

An ARQIS team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CURA Group on the sale of the two faci­li­ties as part of a bidding process. Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard, Part­ner in the Real Estate depart­ment at ARQIS, advi­sed with a team on real estate law aspects of the tran­sac­tion. ARQIS once again provi­ded CURA with legal support. 

Advi­sor CURA Group: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Part­ner, Lead), Seve­rin Stef­fens, photo © Arqis (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, both Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Part­ner, Real Estate), Part­ner: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping, Dennis Reisich (Munich, both Tax), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Laura Ally Rizzi, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Tran­sac­tions), Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Marina Bume­der (HR Law, Munich), Luise Schü­ling (Regu­la­tory), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe (Regu­la­tory), Lia Papis­me­dova (Real Estate), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia

M&A advi­sor for CURA: WMCF 

www.wm-cf.com

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, Data 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. — www.arqis.com

Berlin/London — Hypax, a Berlin and London-based private equity firm focu­sed on carve-outs and opera­tio­nal value crea­tion, has acqui­red 3A Compo­si­tes Mobi­lity AG (Switz­er­land) and 3A Compo­si­tes Mobi­lity SA (Poland) — which toge­ther operate under the name 3AC Mobi­lity — as part of a carve-out tran­sac­tion from Schwei­ter Tech­no­lo­gies AG (SWTQ:SWX). The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed. Schwei­ter Tech­no­lo­gies is a Tier 1 supplier of light­weight compon­ents for the rail, road and defense industries. 

3AC Mobi­lity is a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of high-perfor­mance compo­site compon­ents for the rail, road and defense indus­tries. The company opera­tes two inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­ring and deve­lo­p­ment sites in Alten­rhein, Switz­er­land, and Mielec, Poland. Toge­ther, they offer their custo­mers a unique one-stop store for modu­lar light­weight systems in 2D and 3D design, such as sand­wich floors, front modu­les, cock­pits, struc­tu­ral compon­ents and shelters. 

With a history of over 70 years in Swiss precis­ion manu­fac­tu­ring, 3AC Mobi­lity supplies well-known OEMs throug­hout Europe and has recently expan­ded successfully into high-growth defense appli­ca­ti­ons. The company has strong inno­va­tion and deve­lo­p­ment capa­bi­li­ties and a broadly diver­si­fied custo­mer base with long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with major rail and bus manufacturers. 

Phil­ipp Ster­kel, Mana­ging Part­ner at Hypax, comm­ents: “3AC Mobi­lity is exactly the kind of hidden cham­pion we are looking for: a company with proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies, a strong market posi­tion in a growing market and signi­fi­cant value crea­tion poten­tial. The mobi­lity and defense indus­tries are curr­ently under­go­ing funda­men­tal chan­ges — from the tran­si­tion to climate neutra­lity to increased geopo­li­ti­cal vola­ti­lity. 3AC Mobi­li­ty’s solu­ti­ons are directly aligned with these mega­trends and we see promi­sing oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand our market presence, product port­fo­lio and inter­na­tio­nal reach. As an inde­pen­dent company, 3AC Mobi­lity will bene­fit from our active support as we work toge­ther to acce­le­rate growth, drive opera­tio­nal excel­lence and further pene­trate the mobi­lity and defense markets. We are proud to welcome the team to the Hypax platform.” 

About 3A Compo­si­tes Mobility

3AC Mobi­lity is a leading supplier of light­weight compo­site compon­ents for the rail, road and defense indus­tries. With sites in Alten­rhein, Switz­er­land and Mielec, Poland, the company offers modu­lar compo­site systems such as sand­wich panels, front modu­les for trains, cock­pits and shel­ters. With over 300 employees, state-of-the-art produc­tion capa­ci­ties and long-stan­ding OEM rela­ti­onships, 3AC Mobi­lity is the prefer­red part­ner for high-quality light­weight solu­ti­ons in the mobi­lity sector. 

About Hypax

Hypax is a Berlin and London based invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in corpo­rate carve-outs and mid-market compa­nies where value can be enhan­ced through growth and opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments. The funds mana­ged by Hypax have capi­tal commit­ments of €120 million. With a strong opera­tio­nal focus, Hypax supports compa­nies and their manage­ment teams through peri­ods of tran­si­tion and stra­te­gic trans­for­ma­tion. — www.hypax.com

Hano­ver — The fitness studio groups all inclu­sive Fitness and FIT STAR will be joining forces in future. The plan­ned merger of the two chains in fall 2025 — subject to anti­trust appr­oval — will create one of the largest fitness provi­ders in Germany and the largest in Bavaria. 

all inclu­sive fitness with a focus on expansion

With the acqui­si­tion, the NORD Holding subsi­diary all inclu­sive Fitness is expan­ding its network by 20 addi­tio­nal studios and incre­asing Group turno­ver by around EUR 40 million. The number of loca­ti­ons grows to 160, the member­ship base to around 610,000 and the number of employees to around 2,750. The declared goal of beco­ming the leading provi­der in the Premium Value segment in the medium term and opera­ting 250 clubs with over one million members nati­on­wide by 2028 is thus a decisive step closer.

“This merger is a mile­stone for our vision of provi­ding people at every stage of life with access to high-quality fitness while conti­nuing to grow as a company,” says Stephan Schulan, CEO of all inclu­sive Fitness. “We are not only expan­ding our network, but also crea­ting new trai­ning offers and inspi­ring commu­nity experiences.” 

Relia­bi­lity for members

For the appro­xi­m­ately 140,000 members of FIT STAR, ever­y­thing will remain the same for the time being: Prices, opening hours, teams, trai­ning offers and the Ladies Areas will remain unch­an­ged. At the same time, they will bene­fit from an expan­ded port­fo­lio in future — inclu­ding inno­va­tive formats such as Hyrox, func­tional trai­ning and commu­nity events. The inte­gra­tion of the FIT STAR brand is plan­ned by the second quar­ter of 2026. From then on, all studios will be mana­ged under the joint all inclu­sive Fitness brand. Until then, the exis­ting clubs will conti­nue to operate under the FIT STAR name. 

“It is important to us that our members can rely on conti­nuity — with a breath of fresh air in the offe­ring at the same time,” empha­si­zes Andreas Bauer, former Mana­ging Direc­tor and foun­der of FIT STAR. “We are actively support­ing the tran­si­tion and are deligh­ted that we will be opera­ting toge­ther under the umbrella of all inclu­sive Fitness in the future.” 

Maxi­mi­lian Frey, Moritz Stolp and Niklas Thoma accom­pa­nied the tran­sac­tion on behalf of NORD Holding.

About all inclu­sive Fitness
all inclu­sive Fitness is one of the leading provi­ders in the premium value segment in Germany. The group was formed in 2020 from the merger of Jumpers Fitness and all inclu­sive Fitness. In 2025, all studios were brought toge­ther under the unified all inclu­sive Fitness brand to create a strong market presence. With 160 studios and around 610,000 members, all inclu­sive Fitness is now prima­rily repre­sen­ted in southern and western Germany. More than 2,750 employees ensure that members not only bene­fit from state-of-the-art equip­ment at central loca­ti­ons, but also expe­ri­ence a fami­liar and plea­sant trai­ning atmo­sphere. — www.ai-fitness.de

About NORD Holding

With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 4.0 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund investments. 

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved in over 13 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

The Fund Invest­ments divi­sion targets the micro and small cap segment of SME-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. — www.nordholding.de

Frank­furt a. M. — Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH (“Ank-Kaiser”) is conti­nuing its buy & build growth stra­tegy in Germany, estab­li­shing itself as one of the top 10 medi­cal supply retail groups in Germany. Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer, with bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwet­zin­gen in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, is now streng­thening its presence in the Rhine-Neckar region and is opera­ting as a comple­men­tary branch of Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing. 

In Octo­ber 2024, a fund advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­red Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing GmbH (“M&R”) via its port­fo­lio company Ank-Kaiser. M&R is a leading regio­nal chain of medi­cal supply stores in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, offe­ring a full range of medi­cal, reha­bi­li­ta­tion, after­care and health­care products through its now eleven medi­cal supply stores. 

Simon W. Geib, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus GmbH: “We warmly welcome Sani­täts­haus Hage­nauer to the Ank-Kaiser family. With its many years of expe­ri­ence, the local team offers a compre­hen­sive and inno­va­tive range of products and services rela­ting to health, care and mobi­lity in sport, work and ever­y­day life as well as state-of-the-art analy­sis and measu­re­ment tech­no­logy such as biome­cha­ni­cal analy­ses and foot pres­sure measu­re­ments. By combi­ning with M&R, we are adding indi­vi­dual large-scale ortho­pae­dics and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy to the port­fo­lio of the bran­ches in Plank­stadt and Schwetzingen.”

“With this acqui­si­tion, the Ank-Kaiser Group is conti­nuing its roll-up stra­tegy and further expan­ding its posi­tion as a top 10 medi­cal supply chain and nati­on­wide profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner with compre­hen­sive medi­cal care at 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany,” says Chris­toph D. Kauter, Mana­ging Part­ner and foun­der of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

About Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing
Sani­täts­haus Mayer & Rexing offers ortho­pae­dic, sports and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy products and services and is available to its custo­mers as a profes­sio­nal health­care part­ner at eleven loca­ti­ons in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
https://mayer-rexing.de

About Ank-Kaiser Sanitätshaus
Ank-Kaiser Sani­täts­haus is the leading medi­cal supply group in Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate, focu­sing on medi­cal supply and reha­bi­li­ta­tion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for its custo­mers. The Ank-Kaiser Group has expan­ded over the past deca­des and now has 31 loca­ti­ons in Germany, offe­ring compre­hen­sive medi­cal care as a full-range provider.
https://www.ank-sanitaetshaus.de

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners
Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company that acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and enter­tain­ment via the funds it advi­ses. This tran­sac­tion bene­fits from the support of the Euro­pean Union under the InvestEU fund.
— https://beyondcapital-partners.com

Hamburg — The X1F Group has acqui­red the accan­tec group as part of its growth stra­tegy. The accan­tec group has been opera­ting for over 20 years as a specia­li­zed consul­tancy and IT service provi­der for busi­ness intel­li­gence, data science and enter­prise soft­ware solu­ti­ons with a parti­cu­lar focus on SAP, Micro­soft, Jedox, SAS and IBM. 

Head­quar­te­red in Hamburg and with bran­ches in Frank­furt am Main, Colo­gne, Heidel­berg and Berlin, the accan­tec group employs over 70 BI experts who are active in deman­ding BI and data science projects. In addi­tion to archi­tec­ture design, advan­ced analy­tics and data warehousing, the range of services also includes the deve­lo­p­ment of cloud plat­forms on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure as well as compre­hen­sive mana­ged services — espe­ci­ally for custo­mers from regu­la­ted indus­tries such as banking, insu­rance, phar­maceu­ti­cals and healthcare. 

With this acqui­si­tion, X1F is expan­ding its service port­fo­lio in a stra­te­gi­cally rele­vant growth area.

The X1F Group unites specia­li­zed IT and consul­ting units under one roof to provide compa­nies with holi­stic support in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — from stra­tegy to tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, with a clear focus on quality, inno­va­tion and sustainability.

Advi­sor: As exclu­sive M&A advi­sor, Sanco­via initia­ted the tran­sac­tion and provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the X1F Group throug­hout the entire process.

About SANCOVIA

We are an owner-mana­ged, exclu­sive and inde­pen­dent M&A mid-market consul­tancy with ten offices in Zurich, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Munich, Ravens­burg, Leip­zig, Madrid, Amster­dam, London and Warsaw. We have a unique hands-on part­ner approach, seeing oursel­ves as a part­ner to the entre­pre­neur and remai­ning at their side until the desi­red success has been achieved. 

We speak the language of entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors and provide the top quality services that you would other­wise only get from large consul­tancies and the Big 4 for our medium-sized clients throug­hout Europe. —www.sancovia.com

Munich — The biotech­no­logy start-up Evla­Bio GmbH, which deve­lops inno­va­tive thera­pies for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in chro­nic kidney dise­ase, has raised € 21 million in its seed finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by the French VC firm Kurma Part­ners, with AdBio Part­ners (Paris, Barce­lona), Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, NRW.Venture (NRW Bank) and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds as co-inves­tors. The finan­cing round is one of the largest of its kind in the DACH region in recent years. 

Evla­Bio aims to acce­le­rate the comple­tion of precli­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment and the tran­si­tion to IND-enab­ling studies. — The start-up’s treat­ment approach origi­nally comes from Lead Disco­very Center GmbH (LDC), a company foun­ded in 2008 by the tech­no­logy trans­fer orga­niza­tion Max Planck Inno­va­tion, and was deve­lo­ped in colla­bo­ra­tion with KHAN Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund I GmbH & Co. KG (KHAN‑I).

Evla­Bio, with offices in Düssel­dorf and Zurich, is a life science start-up specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of a first-in-class thera­peu­tic for the treat­ment of left ventri­cu­lar hyper­tro­phy in pati­ents with chro­nic kidney disease.

An ARQIS team led by part­ner Dr. Mauritz von Einem, who regu­larly advi­ses start-ups, provi­ded Evla­Bio AG with compre­hen­sive legal support during this finan­cing round. The mandate came about through a perso­nal cont­act with the foun­der of Evla­Bio. Adves­tra advi­sed on Swiss law with a team led by Dr. Alex­an­der von Jeinsen. 

Advi­sor Evla­Bio GmbH: ARQIS (Munich)

Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Part­ner, Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Lead), Johan­nes Landry (Tran­sac­tions, Düssel­dorf), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), of Coun­sel: Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Coun­sel: Jens Knip­ping (Düssel­dorf), Dennis Reisich (both Tax), Dr. Roua Schmitz (HR Law, Venture Capi­tal), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal, Rolf. Roua Schmitz (HR Law), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Hanna Caesar (HR Law, Düssel­dorf), Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capi­tal), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­ciate: Giulia Kögel (Tran­sac­tions, Venture Capital).

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, Data 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. www.arqis.com.

Frank­furt a. Main — The leading medium-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company Ethy­ph­arm S.A.S., Saint-Clou­d/France has signed a purchase agree­ment for the rights to the Euro­pean Arga­tro­ban busi­ness of Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, Osaka/Japan and other compa­nies of the Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Group. Arga­tro­ban mono­hy­drate is a selec­tive anti­throm­bin agent used in the treat­ment of hepa­rin-indu­ced throm­bo­cy­to­pe­nia type II (HIT type II). Due to the company struc­tures, the comple­xity of the rights to the product and the invol­vement of other opera­tio­nal inter­me­dia­ries for the manu­fac­ture of the Arga­tro­ban active ingre­di­ent, the tran­sac­tion was carried out by way of an asset deal. 

Ethy­ph­arm is a leading mid-sized inter­na­tio­nal phar­maceu­ti­cal company with strong Euro­pean roots that manu­fac­tures and supplies essen­tial medi­ci­nes with a focus on hospi­tal care, central nervous system (severe pain and addic­tion) and inter­nal medi­cine. The acqui­si­tion streng­thens Ethy­phar­m’s port­fo­lio of essen­tial medicines. 

In addi­tion to Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Corpo­ra­tion, the sellers were its subsi­dia­ries Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma Europe Ltd, London/United King­dom and Mitsu­bi­shi Tanabe Pharma GmbH, Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Ethy­ph­arm: Schad­bach Rechtsanwälte

Kai Schad­bach, LL.M. (Photo © Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte, lead), Konstan­tin Warno­wizki and Sören Brost (all M&A), Dr. Petra Weipert and Annette Kuhlen-Leis (both employ­ment law) and Dr. Marco Brand (commer­cial law).

About Schad­bach Attor­neys at Law

Schad­bach Rechts­an­wälte is a natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firm based in Frank­furt am Main. Our clients are predo­mi­nantly medium-sized compa­nies and inter­na­tio­nal groups of compa­nies who value our firm’s exper­tise in corpo­rate law as well as our contrac­tual and tran­sac­tional expe­ri­ence, e.g. in the M&A and private equity market. In addi­tion to corporate/M&A, other areas of advice include (inter­na­tio­nal) commer­cial law, direc­tors’ and offi­cers’ liabi­lity and proce­du­ral law. — www.schadbach.com

Aachen — Follo­wing a successful final closing, the Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) II now has a fund volume of more than € 50 million. TVF II is the fourth gene­ra­tion of venture capi­tal funds1 mana­ged by the TVF Manage­ment GmbH team. The fund invests in the most promi­sing tech start-ups in various verti­cals from the pre-seed and seed phase onwards. The focus is on teams from the Rhineland/NRW and Eure­gio Meuse-Rhine (Netherlands/Belgium) regions. 

Public and private inves­tors back high-growth tech start-ups

The TVF relies on a strong inves­tor ecosys­tem. In addi­tion to NRW.BANK, Spar­kasse Aachen and other regio­nal savings banks, this also includes nume­rous entre­pre­neu­rial private inves­tors from the fund’s network. — New inves­tors include Helaba (Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen) and entre­pre­neurs such as Erich Borsch (Co-Foun­der Aixigo), Jürgen and Leo May (JM Holding), Alex­an­der Stoff­ers (next audit, Co-Foun­der Modell Aachen) as well as Dr. Reik Winkel and Dr. Chris­tian Augus­tin (foun­ders of indu­rad GmbH). 

Focus on early-stage companies

Since 2007, the expe­ri­en­ced TVF team has finan­ced and deve­lo­ped over 40 inno­va­tive start-ups in the fields of biotech, soft­ware, semi­con­duc­tors, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, deep tech, medtech and new mate­ri­als. Since the launch of TVF II in 2023, five start-ups have alre­ady been financed: 

membion GmbH: The company from Roet­gen (near Aachen) has deve­lo­ped an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for waste­wa­ter treat­ment. This can save up to 75 percent instal­la­tion space and over 90 percent energy compared to the current stan­dard. In Decem­ber 2023, TVF II inves­ted five million euros toge­ther with the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF).

Viva­lyx GmbH: Viva­lyx has crea­ted the liquid “Omni­sol” — a type of synthe­tic blood — to better preserve organs that are remo­ved for trans­plan­ta­tion. In combi­na­tion with its own “Flow­s­tore” trans­port system, it is possi­ble to trans­port organs over much longer distances and peri­ods of time without dama­ging them. In April 2024, TVF II inves­ted around EUR 7 million with co-inves­tors to tackle the appr­oval proces­ses in the USA (FDA) and Europe (CE).

Black Semi­con­duc­tor GmbH: The semi­con­duc­tor start-up from Aachen has deve­lo­ped an important tech­no­logy for connec­ting micro­chips based on graphene. This makes data trans­mis­sion more powerful and energy-effi­ci­ent, which is beco­ming incre­asingly important for data centers, espe­ci­ally in view of the growing compu­ting requi­re­ments of AI. Toge­ther with leading inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal funds and IPCEI funding from the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and the Fede­ral Repu­blic of Germany, the DeepT­ech company recei­ved around 250 million euros. 

IonKraft GmbH: A spin-off from the Insti­tute of Plas­tics Proces­sing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity, IonKraft has deve­lo­ped a coating process for plas­tic contai­ners that inhi­bits diffu­sion into, out of and through them, makes them resistant to chemi­cals and protects the contents. This elimi­na­tes the need for multi-layer solu­ti­ons, replaces PFAS-contai­ning layers and ensu­res recy­cla­bi­lity. To acce­le­rate the company’s growth, TVF II inves­ted EUR 3.5 million toge­ther with co-inves­tors in Novem­ber 2024. 

Plan­ted GmbH: Plan­ted offers a SaaS plat­form for CSRD report­ing and ESG moni­to­ring to support service compa­nies in achie­ving their sustaina­bi­lity goals. Custo­mers are also able to auto­ma­ti­cally offset their emis­si­ons through their own climate protec­tion projects (refo­re­sta­tion). In Decem­ber last year, TVF II and co-inves­tors inves­ted a total of EUR 3.8 million in the Colo­gne-based company. 

From foun­da­tion to startup to inde­pen­dent company

TVF focu­ses on the early finan­cing phases of start­ups and is often the first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor. It sees itself as a go-to VC in the incre­asingly successful startup ecosys­tem in the Rhine­land and the border region in Belgium and the Nether­lands. The pool of inno­va­tions in this focus region is large: a start-up ecosys­tem has deve­lo­ped around inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons and univer­si­ties as well as with an estab­lished consul­ting and invest­ment network, which, with the NRW start-up capi­tal Aachen, is one of the leading ones in Germany. As a part­ner of the Gate­way Factory, which has just recei­ved milli­ons of euros in funding, the TVF is actively invol­ved in the further expan­sion and success of the Aachen-Düssel­dorf-Colo­gne start-up region. 

The fund will run until 2035. “We have the stay­ing power to support compa­nies until they are strong enough for inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund. “With our current resour­ces, we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned to enable further deep tech teams to become successful compa­nies. We are always at the side of the start-ups, not only as finan­ciers, but also as entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ners and strategists.” 

1 The prede­ces­sor funds were the Seed Fonds Aachen I + II and the still active Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I.

Marn­heim — The startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy has closed a Series A finan­cing round of EUR 5.7 million. The round was led by VC Five Seasons Ventures, which specia­li­zes in Food­Tech. Exis­ting inves­tors Slingshot Ventures, Feast Ventures and a family office in the consu­mer segment also parti­ci­pa­ted, along with seve­ral busi­ness angels from the industry. 

Hey Holy intends to use the fresh capi­tal prima­rily to expand the team, extend the product range and expand the digi­tal brand presence. Hey Holy’s goal is to estab­lish breed-speci­fic nutri­tion as the new stan­dard in the pet market. 

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels and Marie Hille­brand from the law firm V14 advi­sed the startup for breed-speci­fic dog food Hey Holy on a Series A finan­cing round in the amount of EUR 5.7 million.

www.heyholy.com

Consul­tant: V14

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels, Marie Hillebrand

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media. — www.v14.de

Munich — The invest­ment company Liberta Part­ners is support­ing the expan­sion of the NOBIX Group: With the acqui­si­tion of Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons GmbH, an IT system house based in Kehl and specia­li­zing in tax consul­tants and medium-sized compa­nies, the Group is further expan­ding its DATEV & VoIP exper­tise and streng­thening its presence in southwest Germany.

Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons supports tax firms and medium-sized compa­nies in the areas of IT infra­struc­ture, DATEV solu­ti­ons and modern VoIP tele­phony. Foun­der Sebas­tian Huth remains on board as Mana­ging Direc­tor and brings his many years of expe­ri­ence to the group. 

“The acqui­si­tion is a typi­cal exam­ple of our buy-and-build stra­tegy in the IT segment: focu­sed, effi­ci­ently imple­men­ted and with a high stra­te­gic fit. We value part­ner­ship-based tran­sac­tions that streng­then our plat­form in a targe­ted manner and enable sustainable growth.” — Nils von Wietz­low (photo), Part­ner at Liberta Partners.

The NOBIX Group, which is actively supported by Liberta Part­ners, unites specia­li­zed IT and digi­ta­liza­tion part­ners under one roof — with a focus on mana­ged services, appli­ca­ti­ons and infra­struc­ture for SMEs.

“The inte­gra­tion of Huth Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons is a logi­cal step in our buy-and-build stra­tegy. The specia­liza­tion in law firms and compa­nies in the region, coupled with a deep under­stan­ding of appli­ca­ti­ons and VoIP exper­tise, ideally comple­ments the exis­ting NOBIX port­fo­lio,” says Julius Wölfer, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment Mana­ger at Liberta Partners.

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners is an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company based in Munich. Since 2016, Liberta has been inves­t­ing in medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial — with a focus on sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and active further deve­lo­p­ment. —www.liberta-partners.com

About the NOBIX Group

The NOBIX Group is a medium-sized system house group with a focus on mana­ged print, infra­struc­ture and secu­rity solu­ti­ons as well as appli­ca­ti­ons such as DATEV and docu­ment manage­ment. The group has around 220 employees at seven loca­ti­ons in southern Germany and unites specia­li­zed IT compa­nies under one roof. — https://nobix-group.de

Berlin — Berlin-based start-up Peec AI has secu­red EUR 7 million in growth capi­tal in a rapid finan­cing round just five months after the company was foun­ded. The finan­cing round was led by early-stage inves­tor 20VC. Other inves­tors include TS Ventures, Antler, Fore­word VC, Identity.VC, Combi­na­tion VC and S20. 

The startup is deve­lo­ping an AI-supported search analy­sis plat­form for marke­ting teams to better under­stand and opti­mize brand presence in Large Language Model (LLM)-based search systems such as ChatGPT or Perple­xity. Florian Kozok, Jules Michels and Marie Hille­brand from the law firm 

Peec AI has achie­ved a considera­ble level of reve­nue in the past four months: EUR 650,000 in annual recur­ring reve­nue (ARR) with a current monthly increase of around EUR 80,000. Due to this rapid growth, the startup was able to conclude pre-seed finan­cing of EUR 1.8 million back in April. The seed invest­ment of EUR 5.2 million follo­wed just a few weeks later. — V14 advi­sed the Berlin-based startup Peec AI on both finan­cing rounds tota­ling EUR 7 million within a short period of time. 

The fresh capi­tal will be used for product deve­lo­p­ment, talent deve­lo­p­ment and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

Consul­tant Peec AI: V14

Florian Kozok, Jules Michels, Marie Hillebrand

About V14

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

Frank­furt / Vienna / Wetz­lar / Monheim am Rhein — multi­weigh GmbH (“multi­weigh”), a global market leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced combi­na­tion scales with a focus on the food indus­try, is streng­thening the port­fo­lio of Adeleon Invest GmbH (“Adeleon”). The sellers of the 100% stake — consis­ting of the Düssel­dorf-based invest­ment company INVICTO Holding (“INVICTO”) and the foun­der of multi­weigh Frank Schmehl — were exclu­si­vely advi­sed in the sales process by MP Corpo­rate Finance, a leading inter­na­tio­nal M&A consul­tancy specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean indus­trial sector. 

Tech­no­logy leader for precise weig­hing technology

multi­weigh GmbH, foun­ded in 2001 and based in Wetz­lar, Hesse, deve­lops and produ­ces modern combi­na­tion scales, control elec­tro­nics and soft­ware on an area of 5,000 m². The systems are used world­wide in the food indus­try, for exam­ple for salads, cheese, snacks, frozen vege­ta­bles, muesli, pet food and selec­ted non-food appli­ca­ti­ons. The products are charac­te­ri­zed by their modu­lar design, direct drive tech­no­logy, top perfor­mance in terms of hygiene and main­ten­ance-free opera­tion, as well as precise weig­hing results. Since 2017, the food tech player with an inter­na­tio­nal track record has been part of the port­fo­lio of INVICTO Holding, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in small-cap tran­sac­tions in Germany. With this tran­sac­tion, INVICTO — toge­ther with Frank Schmehl, the foun­der and previous share­hol­der of multi­weigh — is selling 100% of the shares to Adeleon Invest. 

Long-term growth stra­tegy with Adeleon Invest

Adeleon Invest is a family-run and long-term orien­ted invest­ment company based in Monheim am Rhein, which specia­li­zes in sustainable part­ner­ships in the DACH and Bene­lux regi­ons with a total of nine subsi­dia­ries and over 600 employees. Toge­ther with foun­der Frank Schmehl, who will conti­nue in his role as CEO as part of the tran­sac­tion, Adeleon aims to take multi­weig­h’s alre­ady strong market posi­tion as an inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy leader for high-quality food proces­sing machi­nes to a new level. 

MP Corpo­rate Finance further expands its sector expertise

For MP Corpo­rate Finance, the comple­ted sale marks the 63rd successfully advi­sed tran­sac­tion in the Elec­tro­nics, Tech & IoT sector. The M&A team led by Roman Göd, Foun­ding and Mana­ging Part­ner and expert for the elec­tro­nics sector at MP, once again demons­tra­tes its in-depth indus­try know­ledge and global inves­tor network in order to target suita­ble stra­te­gic and finan­cial inves­tors. Roman Göd comm­ents: “We are deligh­ted that with Adeleon Invest we have gained a long-term orien­ted part­ner who consis­t­ently supports multi­weig­h’s growth stra­tegy. The successful tran­sac­tion in this curr­ently very dyna­mic market envi­ron­ment once again confirms our exper­tise in the inter­na­tio­nal place­ment of leading tech­no­logy compa­nies in the indus­trial SME sector.” 

Frank Schmehl, foun­der and CEO of multi­weigh, adds: “MP was a relia­ble and profes­sio­nal part­ner throug­hout the entire process. The struc­tu­red approach, the high level of indus­try exper­tise and the inter­na­tio­nal network were decisive for the successful comple­tion of the transaction.”

Ferdi­nand von Hammer­stein from INVICTO Holding comm­ents: “Thanks to MP, we were able to achieve an excel­lent result. The clarity of commu­ni­ca­tion, the high level of relia­bi­lity and the targe­ted approach in a dyna­mic process envi­ron­ment are parti­cu­larly noteworthy.”

About MP Corpo­rate Finance

MP Corpo­rate Finance is the leading inter­na­tio­nal M&A consul­tancy specia­li­zing in the indus­trial sector. As an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner, MP supports medium-sized compa­nies and manage­ment teams, private equity decis­ion-makers as well as entre­pre­neu­rial confi­dants in complex tran­sac­tions on both the sell and buy side and provi­des support in the context of capi­tal procu­re­ment, buy-and-build stra­te­gies, carve-outs or throug­hout the entire private equity life­cy­cle. MP was foun­ded in Vienna in the 1990s by Roman Göd and Gregor Nischer as the first Euro­pean M&A firm with a sector-focu­sed advi­sory approach. Today, the company employs more than 85 expe­ri­en­ced hands-on experts at five loca­ti­ons world­wide — in Vienna, Frank­furt, London, Istan­bul and Chicago — making it the largest indus­trial M&A team in Europe. With its unique sector focus, MP has successfully advi­sed on more than 700 indus­trial tran­sac­tions invol­ving invest­ment compa­nies, SMEs and corpo­ra­ti­ons. — www.mp-corporatefinance.com

Basel, Switz­er­land / Munich, Germany — NUCLIDIUM, a clini­cal-stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal company deve­lo­ping a proprie­tary copper-based ther­ano­stic plat­form, announ­ced the closing of its Series B finan­cing round of CHF 79 million (EUR 84 million). The round was led by Kurma Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund, Ange­lini Ventures, Welling­ton Part­ners and Neva SGR (Intesa Sanpaolo Group), with parti­ci­pa­tion from DeepT­ech & Climate Fonds (DTCF), Bayern Kapi­tal, Vives Part­ners, Eura­zeo, NRW.BANK and High­Light Capi­tal, as well as exis­ting investors. 

The proceeds will be used to advance the clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment of NUCLI­DI­UM’s copper-61/cop­per-67 (61Cu/67Cu) ther­ano­stic pipe­line in various onco­logy indi­ca­ti­ons. In paral­lel, the company will expand its produc­tion and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties through a global manu­fac­tu­ring network. 

NUCLI­DI­UM’s diffe­ren­tia­ted plat­form combi­nes tumor-targe­ting mole­cu­les with copper isoto­pes — copper-61 for diagno­stics and copper-67 for therapy — to over­come current limi­ta­ti­ons in radio­ther­ano­stics, such as subop­ti­mal clini­cal effi­cacy and manu­fac­tu­ring comple­xity. Diagno­stic results from initial clini­cal studies in these indi­ca­ti­ons show better lesion detec­tion and tumor-to-back­ground ratios compared to clini­cally appro­ved tracers. Initial data was recently presen­ted at SNMMI 2025 by Dr. Gary Ulaner, MD, PhD, demons­t­ra­ting a favorable safety profile and poten­ti­ally impro­ved imaging perfor­mance of 61Cu-Nuri­Pro™ compared to current PET imaging stan­dards, suggest­ing great clini­cal poten­tial and broa­der poten­tial for the ther­ano­stic pairing of 61Cu/67Cu. Early thera­peu­tic data from the two lead compounds Nuri­Pro™ and Trace­NET™ show good tumor-to-back­ground ratios in meta­sta­tic prostate cancer and neuro­en­do­crine tumors, inclu­ding breast cancer. 

“NUCLIDIUM is ente­ring the next clini­cal phases with its compounds for the diagno­sis and treat­ment of meta­sta­tic prostate cancer, neuro­en­do­crine tumors and breast cancer,” said Leila Jaafar, PhD, CEO and co-foun­der of NUCLIDIUM. “Our copper-based radio­ther­ano­stics are desi­gned for seam­less use in hospi­tal work­flows, care and waste manage­ment, making these thera­pies more acces­si­ble worldwide.” 

With this finan­cing, NUCLIDIUM will further expand its global produc­tion and manu­fac­tu­ring network for diagno­stics and thera­peu­tics, grow its inter­na­tio­nal team and streng­then its stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with hospi­tals and acade­mic centers, initi­ally in Europe and North America.

In connec­tion with the finan­cing round, Dr. Daniel Parera, Part­ner at Kurma Part­ners, Dr. Regina Hodits, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ange­lini Ventures, and Liliana Nord­bakk, Life Scien­ces Part­ner at Neva SGR, will join the Board of Direc­tors of NUCLIDIUM.

Consul­tant NUCLIDIUM:

The Series B finan­cing was supported by VISCHER AG and Walder Wyss, Switz­er­land, as legal advisors.

About NUCLIDIUM

NUCLIDIUM AG is a clini­cal-stage biotech­no­logy company pionee­ring the deve­lo­p­ment of next-gene­ra­tion copper-based radio­phar­maceu­ti­cals for the diagno­sis and treat­ment of cancer. Through the use of copper isoto­pes — copper-61 for diagno­stics and copper-67 for therapy — NUCLIDIUM is crea­ting a diffe­ren­tia­ted plat­form that has the poten­tial to over­come exis­ting limi­ta­ti­ons in radiotheranostics. 

The company’s opera­ti­ons in Switz­er­land and Germany combine inno­va­tive chemis­try, deep clini­cal exper­tise and stra­te­gic manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties to provide scalable, acces­si­ble and clini­cally supe­rior ther­ano­stic solu­ti­ons to pati­ents world­wide. NUCLI­DI­UM’s mission is to increase the reach and effi­cacy of radio­ther­ano­stics while addres­sing criti­cal unmet medi­cal needs in onco­logy and women’s health.

Home

Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen — Dürr AG has ente­red into an agree­ment with a subsi­diary of Stellex Capi­tal Manage­ment LLC (Stellex) on the sale of its envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness with an enter­prise value of € 385 million. This compri­ses the areas of exhaust air puri­fi­ca­tion tech­no­logy and sound insu­la­tion systems and forms the Clean Tech­no­logy Systems Envi­ron­men­tal divi­sion within the Dürr Group. With this sale, the mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring company is comple­ting the simpli­fi­ca­tion of the Group struc­ture announ­ced a year ago and under­li­ning its stra­te­gic focus on the auto­ma­tion of produc­tion proces­ses. At the same time, the Group is acqui­ring a stake of around 25% in Envi­ron­men­tal Technology. 

The enter­prise value of the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness is around € 385 million. After deduc­ting the costs for the acqui­si­tion of the reverse take­over and other tran­sac­tion-rela­ted costs, the Dürr Group expects net proceeds of around € 250 million. This is to be used to streng­then the Group by redu­cing debt. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual appr­oval requi­re­ments and is expec­ted to take place in the fourth quar­ter of 2025. 

Dürr had announ­ced in mid-2024 that it was exami­ning stra­te­gic opti­ons for the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness, inclu­ding a possi­ble sale. The sale that has now been agreed will enable the Group to achieve its goal of a leaner struc­ture with just three divi­si­ons instead of five. At the same time, the company is now focu­sing consis­t­ently on its core busi­ness with auto­ma­ted and sustainable produc­tion tech­no­lo­gies. Dürr had alre­ady sold the Danish filling tech­no­logy company Agram­kow in the previous year as part of the simpli­fi­ca­tion of the Group struc­ture. In addi­tion, the busi­ness with the auto­mo­tive indus­try was bund­led in the new Auto­mo­tive divi­sion at the begin­ning of 2025. 

With its owner Stellex, the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness is well posi­tio­ned to expand its leading posi­tion and has the resour­ces to support the expec­ted growth. In 2024, the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness gene­ra­ted sales of € 407 million and employed around 1,300 people, inclu­ding around 450 in Germany. The head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Bietig­heim-Bissin­gen, and the busi­ness is opera­ted at 16 loca­ti­ons in 12 count­ries worldwide. 

Dürr’s envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy systems are used in various end markets and sectors, for exam­ple in the chemi­cal indus­try, auto­mo­tive produc­tion and odor removal.

Concen­tra­tion on the core business 

Dr. Jochen Weyrauch, CEO of Dürr AG: “The envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy busi­ness has grown stron­gly in recent years and has estab­lished itself as a global market leader. Howe­ver, it lies outside our stra­te­gic core busi­ness around auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy. The new owner, Stellex, ther­e­fore offers better oppor­tu­ni­ties for further growth in envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. The sale will make the Dürr Group leaner and shar­pen its stra­te­gic focus. We will use the proceeds from the sale to streng­then our company.”

Kart­hik Achar, Part­ner at Stellex: “We are deligh­ted to become the new owner of Dürr’s Clean Tech­no­logy Systems Envi­ron­men­tal divi­sion. We see the divi­sion as a leading global provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal filtra­tion and air pollu­tion control solu­ti­ons, which are key tech­no­lo­gies for a wide range of indus­trial and adja­cent markets. The long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships are proof of the company’s tech­ni­cal expertise.” 

New fore­cast for net finan­cial status and review of the
Admi­nis­tra­tive structures

Based on the expec­ted net proceeds from the sale, Dürr AG is adjus­ting its forecast
for the net finan­cial status as at Decem­ber 31, 2025 to € ‑250 to ‑300 million.
The previous fore­cast was € ‑500 to ‑550 million. — The dispo­sal of Envi­ron­men­tal Tech­no­logy and the sale of Agram­kow, which will be comple­ted in 2024, will reduce the Dürr Group by around 10% in terms of sales. Against this back­drop, the company is curr­ently revie­w­ing its admi­nis­tra­tive struc­tures. The aim is to adapt the admi­nis­tra­tive area to the new size of the company and at the same time make it more efficient. 

Advi­sor Dürr AG: Blätt­chen & Partner 

Blätt­chen & Part­ner provi­ded Dürr Systems AG with econo­mic advice on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in the sale of the envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy business.
— www.blaettchen.de

About Dürr AG

Rheinau/ Nidderau/ Ulm/ Munich — The Gimv port­fo­lio company E.GRUPPE, a leading provi­der of elec­tro­tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons for indus­trial and energy custo­mers, is expan­ding its range of services and regio­nal coverage with the acqui­si­tion of the LET Group.

The E.GRUPPE was foun­ded in 2021. The aim is to build a leading elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring company with a focus on energy and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy and a high degree of verti­cal inte­gra­tion: from consul­ting and plan­ning to engi­nee­ring, produc­tion, instal­la­tion, service and main­ten­ance of custo­mer-speci­fic elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring systems. 

With over 50 years of market expe­ri­ence, the LET Group, with the compa­nies LET Lüdde­cke, LET Services, ESV Erfur­ter Schalt­schrank­bau and IMB Energy Systems, will now supple­ment the E.GRUPPE’s exis­ting service and product port­fo­lio with addi­tio­nal tech­ni­cal exper­tise such as unin­ter­rup­ti­ble power supplies. In addi­tion, the acqui­si­tion will deepen exis­ting exper­tise in distri­bu­tion and control cabi­net cons­truc­tion as well as auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy. Follo­wing the take­over, the E.GRUPPE will unite 365 employees at 10 loca­ti­ons and thus achieve signi­fi­cant coverage in central and southern Germany. The aim is to offer custo­mers a broad range of services and products with exten­sive exper­tise in custo­mi­zed elec­tro­tech­ni­cal systems in energy and auto­ma­tion technology. 

The manage­ment team of the LET Group comm­ents on the growth poten­tial within the E.GRUPPE: “The merger with the E.GRUPPE is an important step for us to further drive our growth and to be able to offer our custo­mers even more compre­hen­sive elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring. LET stands for tech­no­lo­gi­cal excel­lence and uncom­pro­mi­sing relia­bi­lity in complex, syste­mic solu­ti­ons for our deman­ding custo­mers. As part of a strong group, we gain addi­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand our regio­nal presence, further deve­lop our services and tap into new poten­tial. At the same time, we are crea­ting a stable, future-orien­ted envi­ron­ment with long-term pros­pects for our employees.”

Maja Marko­vic, Part­ner at Gimv’s Sustainable Cities Plat­form in the DACH region (photo © Gimv), adds: “With the acqui­si­tion of the LET Group, we as E.GRUPPE are crea­ting a leading provi­der of custo­mer-speci­fic elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring in the growing and attrac­tive market with incre­asing requi­re­ments due to elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. Toge­ther with the manage­ment and employees, we are conti­nuing the E.GRUPPE’s growth trajec­tory in order to bundle exper­tise and offer a compre­hen­sive, future-orien­ted port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons along the elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring value chain.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. Further finan­cial details are not disclosed.

About Gimv

Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with over 45 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity, listed on Euron­ext Brussels and a member of the Euron­ext BEL ESG Index. Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of more than EUR 1.6 billion, consis­ting of around 61 port­fo­lio compa­nies with a total turno­ver of EUR 4.5 billion and more than 20,000 employees. 

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them sustain­ably on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the five invest­ment plat­forms Consu­mer, Health­care, Life Scien­ces, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts. www.gimv.com

About E.GRUPPE

The E.GRUPPE aims to bundle tech­ni­cal exper­tise, exploit growth poten­tial in a targe­ted manner and offer custo­mers compre­hen­sive, future-orien­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring from a single source. Through orga­nic growth and the inte­gra­tion of specia­li­zed and regio­nally estab­lished compa­nies, a leading group of compa­nies has emer­ged in the highly frag­men­ted elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring sector. The E.GRUPPE offers its compa­nies and employees long-term growth and deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects — and crea­tes the basis for sustainable joint success. You can find more infor­ma­tion about E.GRUPPE at www.egruppe.com/

About LET Group

The LET Group, head­quar­te­red in Ulm, is a provi­der of compre­hen­sive elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring solu­ti­ons for indus­trial and energy custo­mers. The company specia­li­zes in switch cabi­net and distri­bu­tion board cons­truc­tion as well as solu­ti­ons for unin­ter­rup­ti­ble power supplies and impres­ses with its tech­ni­cal exper­tise and highly available system compon­ents deve­lo­ped in-house. The LET Group compri­ses the four compa­nies LET Lüdde­cke, LET Services, ESV Erfur­ter Schalt­schrank­bau and IMB Energy Systems, which are repre­sen­ted at a total of seven loca­ti­ons with around 200 employees. The group supports its custo­mers along the entire process chain — from plan­ning, produc­tion and commis­sio­ning through to service and main­ten­ance — and thus offers relia­ble, custo­mer-speci­fic solu­ti­ons from a single source. Further infor­ma­tion about the LET Group can be found at www.let-gruppe.de/

Colo­gne — Oppen­hoff has advi­sed Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain on the sale of Müns­ter­land-based Saint-Gobain Brüg­ge­mann Holz­bau GmbH, inclu­ding all opera­ting proper­ties, to Köster Holding SE. — Saint-Gobain Brüg­ge­mann, which specia­li­zes in the manu­fac­ture of timber modu­les and the cons­truc­tion of turn­key buil­dings in timber cons­truc­tion, employs 190 people and has successfully comple­ted nume­rous resi­den­tial and commer­cial buil­dings as well as educa­tio­nal buil­dings in timber cons­truc­tion since its foun­da­tion in 1957. 

As an inter­na­tio­nal leader in sustainable cons­truc­tion, Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes mate­ri­als and services for the cons­truc­tion sector and indus­trial markets. Saint-Gobain is present in 80 count­ries worldwide. 

Köster Holding SE, head­quar­te­red in Osna­brück, is one of the leading cons­truc­tion compa­nies in Germany with around 2,000 employees at over 20 loca­ti­ons. The company offers complete solu­ti­ons for cons­truc­tion projects in the fields of buil­ding cons­truc­tion, civil engi­nee­ring and turn­key construction. 

The Oppen­hoff team, led by Myriam Baars-Schil­ling (Corporate/M&A), compri­sed Sebas­tian Gutmann, Dr. Maike Mestmä­cker, Dr. Matthias Klefisch (all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Stefa­nie Minzen­may, Julia Höyng, Anto­nia van Dam (all Real Estate), Dr. Gunnar Knorr, Martin Bran­den­bur­ger-Nonnast (both Tax), Dr. Daniel Dohrn, Dr. Agnès Rein­hold (both Anti­trust), Jörn Kuhn, Moritz Coché and Dr. Johan­nes Kaes­bach (all Employment).

The tran­sac­tion was hand­led in-house at Compa­gnie de Saint-Gobain by Matthias Zenner (Head of Legal and Compli­ance) and Eva Beutin (in-house lawyer).

Oppen­hof­f’s M&A team, which has recei­ved nume­rous awards in indus­try hand­books, has been advi­sing natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies on tran­sac­tions and corpo­rate law matters for deca­des. Most recently, the team advi­sed the MRH Trowe Group on the acqui­si­tion of Heubeck AG, the SCHELL share­hol­ders on the sale to Para­gon Part­ners and the Sicame Group on the take­over of Kronen­berg Frei­lei­tungs­ar­ma­tu­ren GmbH. 

About Oppen­hoff

The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 lawy­ers advise on all important areas of commer­cial and tax law.
Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. A list of the part­ners autho­ri­zed to repre­sent the firm is available at https://www.oppenhoff.eu/de/

Munich/ Ravens­burg — The Munich-based edtech start-up Edurino has secu­red 17 million euros in its Series B. The team plans to use the fresh capi­tal for inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, new products and a stron­ger retail presence. The round is led by Ravens­bur­ger Next Ventures as lead inves­tor and summi­teer, the invest­ment company of series foun­der Sven Schulz. 

In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tors such as b2venture, DN Capi­tal, Tengel­mann Ventures, FJ Labs, Emerge, G‑FUND and Jens Bege­mann, busi­ness angels such as Stefan Winners and Frede­rik Vollert also parti­ci­pa­ted. Edurino intends to use the new capi­tal in parti­cu­lar to expand its digi­tal plat­form, double the number of trading part­ners and expand into new markets — inclu­ding an immi­nent market entry in the UK. 

The start-up is pursuing three key growth targets: the further deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form with new lear­ning content and hybrid products, the inter­na­tio­nal roll­out — inclu­ding to the UK — and doubling its presence in bricks-and-mortar retail by the end of 2025.

EDURINO was foun­ded in Munich in 2021 by Irene Klemm and Fran­ziska Meyer to give child­ren a respon­si­ble, playful intro­duc­tion to the world of digi­tal educa­tion. The plat­form combi­nes educa­tio­nal games, ergo­no­mic input tools and anima­ted charac­ters that teach clas­sic school and future skills such as reading, logi­cal thin­king, coding and envi­ron­men­tal know­ledge. EDURINO has alre­ady sold over one million products. 

Ravens­bur­ger sees the Edurino concept as a pionee­ring combi­na­tion of analog play and digi­tal educa­tion. Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ravens­bur­ger Thomas Bleyer says: “Edurino has succee­ded in buil­ding a meaningful bridge between analog play and digi­tal educa­tion. With its clear educa­tio­nal concept and child-friendly imple­men­ta­tion, the team not only impres­ses child­ren and parents, but also us as a part­ner. We see Edurino as having the poten­tial to help shape digi­tal early educa­tion world­wide in the long term.”

Sven Schulz, foun­der of Summi­teer, empha­si­zes: “Edurino combi­nes pedago­gi­cal exper­tise with state-of-the-art tech­no­logy to create a lear­ning plat­form that inspi­res child­ren and convin­ces parents. We see Edurino as having great poten­tial to make a lasting impact on the educa­tio­nal land­scape and look forward to actively shaping this jour­ney as a partner.”

Consul­tant Ravens­bur­ger and b2venture: V14, Berlin

Dr. Clemens Waitz, Falko Brüg­ge­mann, Alexis von Krue­de­ner and Simo­nié Schlombs from the law firm V14 advi­sed Ravens­bur­ger and b2venture on the finan­cing of Edurino.

Dr. Clemens Waitz
Falko Brüggemann
Alexis von Kruedener
Simo­nié Schlombs

About V14

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

About Ravens­bur­ger Next Ventures

“Next Ventures” is Ravens­bur­g’s program for inno­va­tion projects and start-up invest­ments. The Group provi­des a double-digit million euro sum for this purpose and invests in up to four projects per year. The focus is on busi­ness areas that fit thema­ti­cally with Ravens­bur­ger. Inte­res­ted start-ups and foun­ding teams can cont­act the invest­ment team via nextventures@ravensburger.com. “Next Ventures” is part of the company’s stra­tegy to grow through inno­va­tion, invest­ment and inter­na­tio­nal orien­ta­tion. — www.ravensburger-group.com/nextventures

About Ravens­bur­ger

Ravens­bur­ger AG is an inter­na­tio­nal group of compa­nies with seve­ral renow­ned toy brands. Its mission is: “We inspire people to disco­ver what is really important.” The company’s most important brand, the Ravens­bur­ger blue triangle, is one of the leading Euro­pean brands for games, puzzles and crea­tive products as well as for German-language books for child­ren and young people. Toys bearing the blue triangle are sold world­wide. In addi­tion, the inter­na­tio­nal brands BRIO and Think­Fun expand the Group’s product range. Since its foun­da­tion in 1883, Ravens­bur­ger has been a family busi­ness charac­te­ri­zed by tradi­tion and estab­lished values. In 2024, 2,483 employees gene­ra­ted a turno­ver of 790 million euros. Ravens­bur­ger has its own facto­ries in Ravens­burg, Poli­cka (Czech Repu­blic) and Banská Bystrica (Slova­kia).

About Summi­teer

Summi­teer is an invest­ment company foun­ded by entre­pre­neur and former Akasol CEO Sven Schulz that invests in start-ups and growth compa­nies with scalable, sustainable and inno­va­tive busi­ness models. Summi­te­er’s mission is to create sustainable value with the compa­nies in its port­fo­lio, support­ing the prospe­rity of our society while play­ing an active role in shaping an envi­ron­men­tally friendly future. — www.summiteer.com

Munich/ Grün­wald — Ston­e­peak, a leading alter­na­tive invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in infra­struc­ture and real estate, has acqui­red an appro­xi­m­ately 50% stake in IFCO Group (“IFCO”), a leading global provi­der of reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for fresh food, from a wholly-owned subsi­diary of the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Autho­rity (“ADIA”). The tran­sac­tion was carried out toge­ther with the exis­ting majo­rity share­hol­der Triton Part­ners, which will retain co-control over IFCO. — POELLATH provi­ded legal and tax advice to IFCO’s manage­ment on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in connec­tion with the sale. 

IFCO, based in Pullach (Germany), is a leading global provi­der of reusable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons for fresh food and supports custo­mers in over 50 count­ries in the circu­lar economy. With over 400 million contai­ners in circu­la­tion, IFCO supports more than 2.5 billion ship­ments annu­ally. Its reusable crates help preserve fresh­ness, reduce costs and food waste, and mini­mize envi­ron­men­tal impact compared to single-use packaging. 

Ston­e­peak is a leading invest­ment firm focu­sed on infra­struc­ture and real assets with appro­xi­m­ately USD 73 billion under manage­ment. The firm invests in resi­li­ent compa­nies around the world, targe­ting long-term value and high risk-adjus­ted returns. Ston­e­peak provi­des capi­tal, opera­tio­nal support and stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, parti­cu­larly in areas such as trans­por­ta­tion, digi­tal infra­struc­ture, energy tran­si­tion and real estate. The company is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in major cities around the world. 

Advi­sor to IFCO Group on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in connec­tion with the sale: POELLATH 

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax)
Michael Schwarz (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax)
Ida Süss (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)
Nata­lie Tafel­ski (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, M&A/PE)

Bad Birnbach/ London (UK) — Foto­Fin­der Group wins GHO Capi­tal Part­ners as new majo­rity share­hol­der. Foto­Fin­der Group starts a new chap­ter toge­ther with GHO Capi­tal Part­ners. GHO, a Euro­pean specia­list inves­tor in the Global Health­Care sector, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Foto­Fin­der. EMZ Part­ners remains on board as a mino­rity share­hol­der. — Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed GHO compre­hen­si­vely on the tran­sac­tion in an inte­gra­ted team with Slaugh­ter and May (Harry Bacon, Alee­zeh Liaqat). 

Since its foun­da­tion in 1991 by Andreas and Rudolf Mayer, Foto­Fin­der has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading provi­ders of inno­va­tive skin imaging solu­ti­ons. The port­fo­lio includes tech­no­logy for the early detec­tion of skin cancer using total body mapping and AI-supported dermo­scopy as well as solu­ti­ons for hair analy­sis and aesthe­tics. With the acqui­si­tion of Derm­Lite 2024, Foto­Fin­der has added market-leading analog dermo­sco­pes to its product port­fo­lio and crea­ted a unique offering. 

“I am proud of what we have built toge­ther over more than 30 years,” says Andreas Mayer, CEO of the Foto­Fin­der Group. “We have taken important steps with EMZ, espe­ci­ally the acqui­si­tion of Derm­Lite. The part­ner­ship with GHO now marks a new mile­stone. Their indus­try expe­ri­ence and inter­na­tio­nal network will give us a tail­wind to conti­nue our growth, drive inno­va­tion and further expand our inter­na­tio­nal presence.” 

Klaus Maurer, Senior Part­ner at EMZ Part­ners, also empha­si­zes this: “Since our entry, Foto­Fin­der has consis­t­ently expan­ded its market leader­ship. Toge­ther with GHO and the strong manage­ment team, we have crea­ted the best condi­ti­ons to take advan­tage of the next growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to conti­nuing to support Foto­Fin­der as a share­hol­der in the future.”

Ken Eich­mann and Stuart Quin, part­ners at GHO Capi­tal, empha­size: “Foto­Fin­der is a pioneer in the field of skin imaging and has set stan­dards with the highest level of inno­va­tion. We see great poten­tial to utilize the syner­gies between Foto­Fin­der and Derm­Lite to further deve­lop the plat­form globally. We are very much looking forward to working with Andreas Mayer, John Bott­jer and the entire team.”

Rising skin cancer rates, an ageing popu­la­tion and growing aware­ness of the need for regu­lar skin checks are incre­asing the demand for precise diagno­stic tools world­wide. Foto­Fin­der offers solu­ti­ons that speed up diagno­ses, opti­mize work­flows and improve care — making an important contri­bu­tion to early detection. 

“We look forward to conti­nuing on this path toge­ther with our teams in Bad Birn­bach and Aliso Viejo as well as our part­ners and custo­mers,” empha­si­zes Andreas Mayer. “GHO has all the prere­qui­si­tes to accom­pany the Foto­Fin­der Group into the next phase of inter­na­tio­nal expansion.” 

The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted in the coming weeks.

About EMZ Partners

EMZ is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm with offices in Paris and Munich. Over the last 25 years, EMZ has backed more than 160 compa­nies with invest­ments of more than €5 billion. EMZ covers the small and mid-cap segments with invest­ments between €15 million and €150 million. EMZ is owned by its partners.
EMZ views manage­ment teams as the primary drivers of value crea­tion and places them at the center of its invest­ment stra­tegy. Our approach supports mana­gers, foun­ders and family share­hol­ders in their growth projects. The part­ner­ships we enter into with them are based on the alignment of inte­rests and balan­ced and trust-based gover­nance. — https://emzpartners.com/

About GHO

GHO Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor specia­li­zing in health­care, buil­ding leading global health­care compa­nies that deli­ver better, faster and more acces­si­ble health­care. — https://ghocapital.com/

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for GHO Capital

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Martin Ulbrich (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ingo Berner (Berlin, both lead), Dr. Katha­rina Hesse (all part­ner), Dr. Okan Isikay (both Düssel­dorf), Dr. David Negen­born (Munich, both senior asso­ciate), Oleg Gold­schmidt (Düssel­dorf), Elmar Willem­sen (Berlin), Leon­hard Kappen­ha­gen, Van Nguyen (both Düssel­dorf, all associate),

Tax law: Dr. Markus Ernst (Part­ner, Munich), Jan Adami (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt),
Anti­trust law: Dr. Anja Balitzki (Coun­sel, Düsseldorf),
Finan­cing: Dr. Henning Hilke (Part­ner), Dr. Tobias Chowd­hury (Coun­sel, both Frankfurt),
Employ­ment law: Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner), Musa Müjdeci (Senior Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),
IP/IT: Dr. Andrea Schlaffge (Coun­sel, Nina Macken­stedt, Johan­nes Jäkle (both Asso­ciate, all Düssel­dorf), Andrea Schlaffge (Coun­sel), Nina Macken­stedt, Johan­nes Jäkle (both Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf),
Public Commer­cial Law/Healthcare: Dr. Susanne Koch (Coun­sel), Dr. Sandra Plötz (Senior Asso­ciate), Tanja Peschen (Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf),
FDI: Jan Schül­ting (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf).

About Henge­ler Mueller

Henge­ler Muel­ler is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, London and Munich. With around 354 lawy­ers, 93 of whom are part­ners, the firm specia­li­zes in provi­ding legal advice in complex tran­sac­tions, conten­tious dispu­tes and special situa­tions. Henge­ler Muel­ler’s clients include major commer­cial enter­pri­ses as well as leading inves­tors and family busi­nesses in Europe and worldwide.

Tübingen/ Riet­heim-Weil­heim — The health­care inves­tor SHS Capi­tal has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH. The aim of the invest­ment is to further expand Acker­man­n’s core busi­ness and to estab­lish a leading global medi­cal tech­no­logy group through targe­ted part­ner­ships with other compa­nies in the region. 

Rolf Acker­mann will remain a mino­rity share­hol­der. Peter Grassl will conti­nue to lead Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH as Mana­ging Direc­tor and conti­nue on the growth path. 

Acker­mann Instru­mente, based near Tutt­lin­gen, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality surgi­cal instru­ments with a focus on endo­scopy, implan­to­logy and gene­ral surgery. Verti­cally inte­gra­ted in-house produc­tion ensu­res high product quality, cost effi­ci­ency and full control along the value chain. Thanks to its strong regu­la­tory exper­tise and opera­tio­nal flexi­bi­lity, Acker­mann has estab­lished itself as a relia­ble part­ner for medi­cal profes­sio­nals and MedTech compa­nies. Conti­nuous sales growth and a diver­si­fied and growing custo­mer base make the company an attrac­tive part­ner to bene­fit from the global trend towards mini­mally inva­sive surgi­cal proce­du­res — espe­ci­ally in emer­ging markets. 

SHS sees great poten­tial in Acker­man­n’s scalable busi­ness model and in the company’s inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. In the coming years, Acker­mann will conti­nue to streng­then its core busi­ness, expand its market presence and drive inno­va­tion in a targe­ted manner. 

In an incre­asingly conso­li­da­ting Euro­pean MedTech market, driven by MDR requi­re­ments and corpo­rate succes­sion, Acker­man­n’s global distri­bu­tion chan­nels provide an attrac­tive plat­form for stra­te­gic part­ner­ships and acqui­si­ti­ons in the region and beyond. SHS aims to build a leading medtech group with other compa­nies in the region and beyond to realize distri­bu­tion syner­gies based on Acker­man­n’s global distri­bu­tor network and econo­mies of scale rela­ted to the Medi­cal Device Regu­la­tion (MDR)

“SHS is the right part­ner for company succes­sion in medi­cal tech­no­logy,” says Rolf Acker­mann, former majo­rity share­hol­der of Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH. “A trust­wor­thy address with a deep under­stan­ding of the indus­try and a long-term approach — that’s what convin­ced us.” 

“With SHS, we have the oppor­tu­nity to posi­tion Acker­mann as a plat­form for buil­ding a powerful medi­cal tech­no­logy group,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor Peter Grassl. “The combi­na­tion of regu­la­tory pres­sure from the MDR, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion poten­tial and possi­ble econo­mies of scale makes this step stra­te­gi­cally sensi­ble for many companies.” 

Dr. Corne­lius Maas, Part­ner at SHS Capi­tal, adds: “Acker­mann is a hidden cham­pion of German medi­cal tech­no­logy — exactly the kind of company we part­ner with. The team has built a highly profi­ta­ble, inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting company that offers a compel­ling value propo­si­tion to users and indus­try part­ners alike. We look forward to shaping the next chap­ter of growth toge­ther, both orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted part­ner­ships and acquisitions.” 

About Acker­mann Instru­mente GmbH

For over seven deca­des, the Acker­mann Group has been deve­lo­ping, manu­fac­tu­ring and distri­bu­ting solu­ti­ons of the highest quality for a wide range of surgi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, parti­cu­larly in the fields of open and mini­mally inva­sive surgery, but also liga­ture and spinal implants. — In addi­tion to our strong brands, as an OEM manu­fac­tu­rer we are behind a large number of unique products and are proud of our global market leadership. 

True to our INNOVATING TRADITION vision, our goal has always been to offer our custo­mers and users indus­try-leading added value not only through conti­nuous inno­va­tion in our products and proces­ses, but also to never lose sight of our roots and to preserve the craft­sman­ship perfec­ted over gene­ra­ti­ons as an estab­lished family business.

This enables us to create a respon­si­ble home for our employees and improve clini­cal outco­mes every day in over 100 count­ries around the world. — www.acker­mann­sur­gi­cal.com

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS, an indus­try inves­tor, is a private equity firm foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe. The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes.

SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF amounts to up to € 50 million. Volu­mes in excess of this can be reali­zed with a network of co-inves­tors. When making invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on conside­ring ESG aspects and is ther­e­fore commit­ted to the UN PRI guide­lines. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of around € 270m. — www.shs-capital.eu

Munich — The uvex group (uvex), a leading global family-owned company in the field of protec­tion and safety products for work, sport and leisure, announ­ces that Warburg Pincus, a pioneer among growth-orien­ted private equity firms, will acquire a majo­rity stake in the company. The share­hol­der fami­lies Winter and Grau will retain a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake and will conti­nue to actively shape the company’s growth trajec­tory. — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Warburg Pincus on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Uvex Winter Holding GmbH & Co KG (“uvex”)

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926 by Phil­ipp M. Winter, who began manu­fac­tu­ring safety eyewear in his “Opti­sche-Indus­trie-Anstalt”, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The guiding prin­ci­ple “protec­ting people” is both a mission and a respon­si­bi­lity. uvex deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and in their leisure time. 

The uvex group posi­ti­ons itself as an inno­va­tion leader in the premium segment and its products meet the highest quality stan­dards, offe­ring the best wearing comfort through unique tech­no­lo­gies and inspi­ring design. With Warburg Pincus as a new part­ner, the uvex group will conti­nue to drive inter­na­tio­nal growth, selec­tively expand its premium range and deve­lop new busi­ness areas. The group will also conti­nue to acce­le­rate growth through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and thus build on its previous successes
.

Michael Winter, Mana­ging Part­ner and CEO of the uvex group, comm­ents: “100 years of the brand promise ‘protec­ting people’ is a commit­ment. As a respon­si­ble family busi­ness in its fourth gene­ra­tion, we want to shape the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment with a strong growth part­ner in order to further increase the resi­li­ence of our group in the future and remain the first choice for our custo­mers. We are convin­ced that we have found such a growth part­ner in Warburg Pincus
.”

Tobias Weid­ner (photo © Warburg Pincus), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Warburg Pincus, says: “We congra­tu­late the Winter and Grau fami­lies, who have built uvex into a successful company with an excel­lent brand over the past 100 years. We look forward to working with them and conti­nuing on this path toge­ther. Our goal is to deve­lop uvex into the global market leader for protec­tive equip­ment and to make uvex premium products acces­si­ble to more people worldwide.” 

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The company deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and leisure acti­vi­ties. uvex is repre­sen­ted by 49 bran­ches in 23 count­ries, has over 3,000 employees and produ­ces in its own factories. 

Advi­sor Warburg Pincus: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. Philip Goj, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (all lead, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Dr. Sophia Probst, Fried­rich Focke, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Licht, Dr. Sabrina Seitz, Carl Grupe, Dr. Pablo Tretow (all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Barbara Dunkel (Debt Finance)

Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Ian Barratt, Thomas Raftery (both Debt Finance), Rhys Davies (Sustaina­bi­lity); Asso­cia­tes: Lara Stein­bach (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion), Brent Tan, Phil Rigley (both Debt Finance)

About Kirk­land

With around 4,000 lawy­ers in 22 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law, finan­cing and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

Munich — INTARIA AG, a leading provi­der of audit and tax advi­sory services for medium-sized clients in Germany, has ente­red into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV from the Nether­lands and Moore King­s­ton Smith from the UK. In this context, Moore Belgium has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in INTARIA, wher­eby the INTARIA part­ner­ship will conti­nue to manage the German busi­ness as entrepreneurs. 

In the coming years, the service port­fo­lio is to be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and mergers and the geogra­phi­cal coverage within Germany is to be streng­the­ned. INTA­RIA’s clear objec­tive in taking this step is to build a group that will provide custo­mers from the SME sector with a full range of services as a trus­ted part­ner. The merger will also enable them to bene­fit from inte­gra­ted support across borders for their Euro­pean issues. 

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, Moore King­s­ton Smith and INTARIA have alre­ady been coope­ra­ting for some time in the Moore Global network and now want to signi­fi­cantly inten­sify this coope­ra­tion as a Euro­pean group of natio­nal cham­pi­ons in order to offer clients from the Euro­pean upper midmar­ket a seam­less inter­na­tio­nal offe­ring and to tackle the dyna­mic chal­lenges in the audi­ting and tax consul­ting indus­try with combi­ned forces. In addi­tion, a declared goal of Moore Belgi­um’s invest­ment in INTARIA is to acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s growth as one of the German market leaders in the SME sector. Among other things, the Belgian company’s expe­ri­ence in inor­ga­nic and orga­nic growth will serve as a driving force. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the opera­tio­nal manage­ment and respon­si­bi­lity for the busi­ness in Germany will remain in the hands of the INTARIA part­ners, who will also retain a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding. INTARIA has appoin­ted addi­tio­nal part­ners who, toge­ther with the exis­ting team, will drive forward the imple­men­ta­tion of the ambi­tious growth strategy. 

Focus on acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth levers

In view of the dyna­mi­cally deve­lo­ping market envi­ron­ment, the future closer part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith offers INTARIA the oppor­tu­nity to diffe­ren­tiate itself stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally from the local compe­ti­tion as part of a Euro­pean group of leading provi­ders for SMEs and to find answers to the rapidly chan­ging client requi­re­ments. Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are the three largest Moore Global network members in Europe and are on a dyna­mic growth path, which has been supported for seve­ral years by the Euro­pean invest­ment company Water­land with capi­tal and compre­hen­sive know-how. INTARIA expects a wide range of addi­tio­nal growth poten­tial within this network for the bene­fit of custo­mers and employees. For exam­ple, INTARIA will be able to offer its more than 1,100 clients addi­tio­nal services, such as advice on digi­tal analy­tics or subsi­dies, as a result of the closer coope­ra­tion and thus further streng­then its posi­tion as a flexi­ble solu­tion part­ner. At the same time, as part of the growth stra­tegy, indus­try exper­tise is to be built up and expan­ded in order to be able to support clients with addi­tio­nal exper­tise in future challenges. 

In addi­tion, INTARIA will gain access to the latest tech­no­lo­gi­cal tools and AI-based solu­ti­ons that Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, and in the future INTARIA, are jointly deve­lo­ping to be at the fore­front of digi­tal deve­lo­p­ments in the profes­sion. In this way, INTARIA will be able to bene­fit from the use of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies for grea­ter process digi­tiza­tion and streng­then its compe­ti­ti­ve­ness. At the same time, the focus will remain on the quality and inde­pen­dence of its advi­sory services and its close proxi­mity to clients in day-to-day business. 

“INTARIA has deve­lo­ped stron­gly in recent years and has grown steadily. Our clients appre­ciate the quality and our DNA ‘From SMEs for SMEs’. By part­ne­ring with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, with whom we share values and goals, we will advise the Euro­pean upper mid-market even more compre­hen­si­vely and across natio­nal borders, while paving the way to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s natio­nal growth,” explains Thomas Zieg­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner of INTARIA (photo © INTARIA).

Fabian Galler, also Mana­ging Part­ner, adds: “Our almost 200 employees are the foun­da­tion of our successful deve­lo­p­ment. By conti­nuously expan­ding the team over the years, we have been able to create a culture charac­te­ri­zed by cohe­sion, quality aware­ness and expert know-how. Based on these values, we want to acce­le­rate our growth course and are convin­ced that the constel­la­tion as a new strong player will give us all addi­tio­nal clout in the market.”

Peter Verschel­den, Execu­tive Chair­man of Moore Belgium, comm­ents: “I am deligh­ted with this new part­ner­ship with INTARIA. As a company we share the same values, appre­cia­tion for our employees and the same vision for how we want to advise our custo­mers. This part­ner­ship enables us both to serve our clients with the same high quality stan­dards across natio­nal borders. Germany is an important econo­mic market for many clients within our Group and vice versa. I look forward to conti­nuing to grow together.” 

About INTARIA

INTARIA is a leading tax consul­tancy and audi­ting firm with offices in Munich, Rosen­heim and Traun­stein. Active in southern Bava­ria, a region with a strong SME sector, the company curr­ently employs more than 190 people. Foun­ded in 1993, the company has been trading as INTARIA since its renaming in 2019 and has steadily expan­ded its range of services and increased its work­force. INTARIA offers compre­hen­sive services such as tax consul­ting, audi­ting, legal advice, corpo­rate finance, IT and ESG consul­ting. The company is mana­ged by eight part­ners, inclu­ding mana­ging part­ners Thomas Zieg­ler and Fabian Galler. 

About Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, and Moore King­s­ton Smith

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are leading inde­pen­dent member firms of the global Moore network. Toge­ther, they stand for excel­lent consul­ting quality and compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of audi­ting, tax consul­ting, accoun­ting, manage­ment consul­ting and digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — with a parti­cu­lar focus on medium-sized and family-run companies.
Moore Belgium, based in Antwerp, is the largest inde­pen­dent audi­ting and consul­ting firm in Belgium. With around 1,900 employees at 11 loca­ti­ons, the company offers tailor-made solu­ti­ons in the areas of audit, tax, corpo­rate finance, accoun­ting and data & IT advisory.
Moore DRV, based in Rotter­dam, supports entre­pre­neurs and SMEs in the southern Nether­lands with over 1,500 employees at more than 25 loca­ti­ons. The focus is on perso­nal advice in the areas of tax, audit, consul­ting and IT services. 

Moore King­s­ton Smith, head­quar­te­red in London, is one of the leading mid-market consul­tancies in the UK and Ireland. Over 1,500 employees at 10 loca­ti­ons in the UK and 7 support compa­nies, non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and inter­na­tio­nal clients with compre­hen­sive services — from audit and tax advice to outsour­cing and ESG consul­ting. The three compa­nies combine a regio­nal presence with an inter­na­tio­nal perspec­tive and support their clients in achie­ving sustainable growth and successfully maste­ring complex challenges.