Author: Tatjana Anderer

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor to Btomor­row Ventures: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

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

About Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consul­tant Total­mo­bile Manage­ment: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

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

Mish­con de Reya LLP (London)

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

About ARQIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Syng­roh Capital:

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

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

About Syng­roh Capital

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

About Kraft & Bauer fire protec­tion systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor AMI Labs: YPOG

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

www.ypog.com

About HV Capital

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

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

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

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

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

Joint deve­lo­p­ment of new “brain and nervous system” architectures

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

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

Tech­no­logy focus: Compound AI, mixed criti­cal­ity and stan­dar­di­zed use

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

Plat­form, ecosys­tem and deve­lo­per support

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

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

Complex decis­i­ons directly on the robot

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

A future in which cogni­tive robots work safely with humans

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

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

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

About NEURA

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

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

About Qual­comm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About VC Zinitus

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

Consul­tant REWE: YPOG

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

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

About REWE Group

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

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

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

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

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

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

ENPULSION via Pava Partners

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

About ENPULSION

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

About Nord­wind Growth

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stron­ger impro­ve­ments in cogni­tive and lingu­i­stic functions 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Hall­marq Vete­ri­nary Imaging

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

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

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

Advi­sor NORD Holding: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

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

— www.mwe.com/de/

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

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

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

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

Tran­sac­tion highlights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consul­tant from IQM

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

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

The Blue­shirt Group acts as inves­tor rela­ti­ons advi­sor to IQM.

About Real Asset Acqui­si­tion Corp.

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

About IQM Quan­tum Computers

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

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

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

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

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

Orbem uses AI to indus­tria­lize MRI 

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

A new era of growth: scaling and expansion

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

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

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

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

About Orbem — The Inside Out Company

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

About Inno­va­tion Industries

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

About Super­nova Invest

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: HEUKING

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor to AFINUM: 

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

About AFINUM

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

 

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

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

Streng­thening the regio­nal presence & expan­ding the service portfolio

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

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

Conti­nuity and further deve­lo­p­ment in partnership

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

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

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

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

About Liberta Partners

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

About NOBIX Group

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

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

Frank­furt a. M. /Munich — Morgan Lewis has advi­sed the Finnish company Kemira Oyj on the acqui­si­tion of SIDRA Wasser­che­mie GmbH. The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately 75 million euros (subject to custo­mary purchase price adjus­t­ments). Kemira is a listed, leading global provi­der of sustainable chemi­cal solu­ti­ons for water-inten­sive indus­tries. Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 2.9 billion in 2024 and employed around 4,700 people. 

SIDRA Wasser­che­mie is a family-run manu­fac­tu­rer of iron-III chemi­cals for water and waste­wa­ter treat­ment based in Ibben­büh­ren with a branch in Bitter­feld, supp­ly­ing custo­mers in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

About Kemira

Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemis­try for water-inten­sive indus­tries, head­quar­te­red in Helsinki, Finland. We operate globally and serve a wide range of custo­mers, inclu­ding muni­ci­pal and indus­trial water treat­ment compa­nies and the fiber indus­try. Our solu­ti­ons and services help to provide clean water to milli­ons of people every day and support our custo­mers in driving circu­lar economy and respon­si­ble use of resour­ces throug­hout their value chains. In 2025, Kemira achie­ved a total turno­ver of 2.8 billion euros and employed around 4,900 people. Kemi­ra’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. — https://www.kemira.com/

Advi­sors to Kemira: Morgan Lewis

Dr. Ulrich Korth (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Dr. Jann Jetter (Tax, Munich), Dr. Phil­ipp Schäuble, Judith Becker (Of Coun­sel; both Employ­ment, both Munich), Dr. Michael Masling (Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt), Asso­cia­tes: Sarah-Loreen Krüger, Mari­anne Milo­va­nov, Leon Gabriel Rady (all Corporate/M&A, all Frank­furt), Emma Drago­mi­rova (Tax Law, Munich), Constanze Pfal­ler (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Michelle Chris­tina Lippen­meyer (Finance, Frank­furt), Leon­hard Seifert (Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt).

Morgan Lewis last advi­sed Kemira in 2025 on the acqui­si­tion of Water Engi­nee­ring Inc.

About Morgan Lewis

Morgan Lewis stands for outstan­ding service, legal inno­va­tion and excep­tio­nal commit­ment to its clients. With more than 2,200 lawy­ers, the firm provi­des highly quali­fied legal advice to multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies and start-ups in the USA, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. For more infor­ma­tion, visit morganlewis.com and follow us on Linke­dIn, X, Face­book, Insta­gram and WeChat.

Munich — Kienzle Betei­li­gungs GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of Liberta Part­ners, has successfully sold ght GmbH. The new owners come from the manage­ment circle and thus create a sustainable succes­sion solu­tion. The back­ground to the sale is the stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment of the Kienzle Group and the consis­tent focus on the growth areas of soft­ware for the tele­ma­tics market, tele­ma­tics services and after-sales solutions. 

Under the leader­ship of Alex­an­der Wilkens, ght has deve­lo­ped very successfully in recent years and recor­ded conti­nuous growth rates of over 10 percent. The sale to the new owners gene­ra­tes free funds for further acqui­si­ti­ons for the Kienzle Group and ensu­res conti­nuity for the employees and custo­mers of ght. 

The new owner­ship struc­ture gives ght the oppor­tu­nity to conti­nue its successful deve­lo­p­ment inde­pendently and to concen­trate fully on its own stra­te­gic development.

The Kienzle Group and Liberta Part­ners would like to expressly thank Alex­an­der Wilkens and all ght employees for their excep­tio­nal perfor­mance and great commit­ment over the past years.

About Liberta Partners

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

About Kienzle Betei­li­gungs GmbH

Kienzle Betei­li­gungs GmbH, based in Mülheim an der Ruhr, was foun­ded in 2020. As a holding company, it holds 100 percent of the shares in Kienzle Auto­mo­tive GmbH and TachoFresh GmbH. The Kienzle Group employs a total of over 200 people at 13 loca­ti­ons. — www.kienzle.de
www.ght.de

Frank­furt am Main — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP) is provi­ding the MySpa Group with mezza­nine capi­tal to streng­then its equity base. The finan­cing supports the company’s expan­sion course and serves in parti­cu­lar to build addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons in Germany. 

The MySpa Group is an estab­lished provi­der of private spa expe­ri­en­ces. With its exclu­sive “Well­zo­nes” — comple­tely sepa­rate spa rooms with pool, sauna and rela­xa­tion lounge — MySpa occu­p­ies a growing market niche in the premium well­ness segment. The custo­mer expe­ri­ence clearly stands out from clas­sic spas. The well­ness zones can be indi­vi­du­ally adjus­ted and control­led in terms of light and tempe­ra­ture. There is also an inte­gra­ted enter­tain­ment and orde­ring system, which can be used to order food and drinks cont­act­lessly. Check-in and check-out are auto­ma­ted. The busi­ness model is ther­e­fore consis­t­ently digi­ta­li­zed and scalable. 

MySpa curr­ently opera­tes six loca­ti­ons in Germany, five of which are opera­ted by the company itself and one fran­chise loca­tion. The exis­ting own loca­ti­ons prove the popu­la­rity and econo­mic viabi­lity of the concept. Follo­wing the successful market launch phase, MySpa is working on expan­ding its busi­ness. Seve­ral further own loca­ti­ons and an addi­tio­nal fran­chise loca­tion are curr­ently under cons­truc­tion or in plan­ning. The recent mezza­nine finan­cing effec­tively supports these plans by streng­thening MySpa’s equity base without chan­ging the owner­ship struc­ture. An expe­ri­en­ced and profes­sio­nal manage­ment team with rele­vant indus­try expe­ri­ence in setting up new loca­ti­ons is consis­t­ently driving this expan­sion forward. 

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, comm­ents:
“Thanks to its equity nature and flexi­ble struc­tu­ring opti­ons, mezza­nine capi­tal is ideally suited to finan­cing the invest­ment plans of high-growth compa­nies. We are plea­sed to support MySpa, a company with a strong custo­mer focus and a scalable plat­form concept.”

René Törner, Mana­ging Direc­tor of the MySpa Group, adds:
“With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have gained a finan­cing part­ner that under­stands our growth stra­tegy and provi­des struc­tu­red support. The finan­cing enables us to imple­ment new loca­ti­ons quickly and at the same time streng­then our capi­tal struc­ture in the long term. This will create the basis for estab­li­shing our private spa concept in other cities. Three further corpo­rate loca­ti­ons and an addi­tio­nal fran­chise loca­tion are alre­ady under cons­truc­tion or plan­ned for 2026, and further expan­si­ons are in prepa­ra­tion for 2027. With our offe­ring, we are cate­ring to the desire for me-time and consciously desi­gned well­be­ing expe­ri­en­ces — as a response to incre­asingly busy ever­y­day life.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the 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. — www.vrep.de.

The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Michael Vogt, Jens Schöf­fel, Alex­an­der Bernin­ger, Simone Weck, Dr. Clau­dia Willers­hau­sen (photo © vrep), Maxi­mi­lian Stärk

Advi­sory firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP: Grant Thorn­ton

Commer­cial: Dr. Stephane Müller, Thomas Nacken, Laura Schramm
Finan­cial: Klaus-Martin Hauss­mann, Karmen Glavan & Team
Tax: Dr. Achim Kest­ler, Simon Koch & Team
Legal: Dr. Mathias Reif, Jessica Marx & Team

Berlin — Ander­core, the AI-powered trading plat­form for indus­trial procu­re­ment, has raised USD 40 million in equity and debt capi­tal to further acce­le­rate its expan­sion in Europe. Long-stan­ding part­ners Atomico and Project A are parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round. Inven Capi­tal is joining for the first time, supple­men­ted by insti­tu­tio­nal finan­cing from Commerz­bank and KfW. Ander­core has thus raised a total of 75 million US dollars to date. 

Ander­core opera­tes an AI-powered trading plat­form for indus­trial needs that makes global supply chains in areas such as infra­struc­ture, energy and cons­truc­tion more effi­ci­ent, trans­pa­rent and resilient.

Ander­core is active in the worl­d’s largest commer­cial system — global whole­sale. This repres­ents annual trading volu­mes of tens of tril­li­ons of US dollars and forms the back­bone of indus­trial supply chains. Despite its enorm­ous importance, the sector is still heavily charac­te­ri­zed by manual proces­ses: Frag­men­ted proces­ses, high costs and limi­ted direct market access for inter­na­tio­nal suppli­ers define the status quo. Ander­core star­ted in key indus­try cate­go­ries such as energy, infra­struc­ture and buil­ding mate­ri­als, which toge­ther account for an annual demand of over 200 billion euros in Europe. These cate­go­ries form a focu­sed entry point for a plat­form that is desi­gned to gradu­ally cover the entire indus­trial procurement. 

Over the past five years, Ander­core has built an asset-light trading model for cross-border supply chains, driven by a proprie­tary AI plat­form. The company buys from inter­na­tio­nal suppli­ers and sells on its own account to local buyers. The AI orchestra­tes the entire trade cycle — from pricing and quoting to quality assu­rance, distri­bu­tion and inte­gra­ted finan­cing. Thou­sands of large-volume tran­sac­tions are alre­ady proces­sed via Ander­core in seven Euro­pean markets every month. 

“At its core, Ander­core is an AI that moves physi­cal products in contai­ners around the world,” says Phil­ipp Ander­nach, foun­der and CEO of Ander­core (photo: Ander­core). “Our system brings predic­ta­bi­lity, relia­bi­lity and speed to supply chains that still rely heavily on manual labor. Buyers get faster quotes, better prices and a smoot­her expe­ri­ence across complex indus­try cate­go­ries. Suppli­ers gain a part­ner that provi­des predic­ta­ble demand, expands their custo­mer base, pays on time and fully assu­mes opera­tio­nal comple­xity. This finan­cing enables us to bring these capa­bi­li­ties to signi­fi­cantly more markets.” 

About Atomico

Atomico invests in emer­ging tech start-ups in Series A and beyond — with a parti­cu­lar focus on Europe — using its exten­sive opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence to acce­le­rate their growth. Since its incep­tion in 2006, Atomico has worked with over 100 ambi­tious teams — inclu­ding the teams at Klarna, Super­cell, Graph­core, Compass, Messa­ge­Bird, Master­class, Atten­tive Mobile, Pipedrive and Hinge Health. Atomic­o’s team of foun­ders, inves­tors and opera­tio­nal leaders has been respon­si­ble for global expan­sion, hiring and marke­ting at compa­nies ranging from Skype and Google to Twit­ter and Uber. The company curr­ently has USD 4 billion in assets under manage­ment. —https://atomico.com

About Project A

Project A is a leading Euro­pean early-stage inves­tor with EUR 1.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. The company supports ambi­tious foun­ders from idea to scale — with capi­tal, opera­tio­nal exper­tise and a unique studio model. The focus is on forward-looking topics such as fintech, Euro­pean resi­li­ence, global supply chains and the future of auto­no­mous work. The port­fo­lio includes Trade Repu­blic, Senn­der, Zepz and Quan­tum Systems. — www.project‑a.vc

Consul­tant Ander­core: V14

Dr. Clemens Waitz
Falko Brüggemann

Advi­sors to Atomico and Project A: YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the venture capi­tal inves­tors in the USD 40 million Series B finan­cing round of the Berlin-based indus­trial tech company Andercore.

Team for Atomico
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz (Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin
Matthias Treude (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Farina Weber (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

Team for Project A
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Lead, Tran­sac­tions) Part­ner, Berlin
Sjard Seeger (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Sarah Sostak (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin

The law firm V14

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

Berlin — The law firm V14 has advi­sed Circle Health on a EUR 9 million seed finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by Atlan­tic. CRB Health Tech SGEIC, Calm/Storm and Kfund also parti­ci­pa­ted. Circle Health is Euro­pe’s first AI-powered full-stack plat­form focu­sed on preven­tive health­care. The fresh capi­tal will be used for expan­sion within Germany. 

The Berlin-based longe­vity start-up combi­nes perso­na­li­zed diagno­stics with digi­tal tools and aims to prevent chro­nic dise­a­ses before they deve­lop. Over 6,000 pati­ents have been trea­ted since 2023, the NPS is 85 — but preven­tive health­care remains opera­tio­nally complex and regu­la­tory. How can a full-stack model be scaled in a market that is curr­ently spread across hundreds of thou­sands of frag­men­ted providers? 

Funding is provi­ded against the back­drop of a highly frag­men­ted preven­tive medi­cine land­scape in Europe, where care is provi­ded by a large number of small provi­ders and chro­nic dise­a­ses are often only reco­gni­zed when symptoms occur.

Foun­ded by Peter Malm­q­vist (CEO) and Jannik Tiede­mann (COO), Circle Health is deve­lo­ping an inte­gra­ted preven­tive medi­cine plat­form, Circle OS, which combi­nes perso­na­li­zed diagno­stics, AI-powered clini­cal support and digi­tal health tools for consumers.

The plat­form is desi­gned to aggre­gate data from multi­ple sources, inclu­ding weara­bles and lab tests, to support perso­na­li­zed and proac­tive health programs in areas such as meta­bo­lic health, hormone balance, fati­gue and gut health. — The funding will be used to support ongo­ing product deve­lo­p­ment and to expand Circle Heal­th’s hybrid clinic model across the coun­try. Over the next year, addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons will be opened in cities such as Munich, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. 

Consul­tant CIRCLE HEALTH: V14, Berlin

Dr. Clemens Waitz
Falko Brüggemann

The law firm V14 

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

About Circle Health

Circle Health is a Germany-based holi­stic health­care plat­form that combi­nes func­tional medi­cine, advan­ced diagno­stics and perso­na­li­zed treat­ment plans to help people proac­tively manage their health. Foun­ded in Berlin, the company is rapidly expan­ding with a vision to become the leading brand for proac­tive, inte­gra­ted health­care in Europe. —www.circle.health

Munich — PREMIUM Equity Part­ners has acqui­red color parts GmbH from cp Holding GmbH. color parts GmbH (“color parts”) was foun­ded in 2003 and is a provi­der of high-end coatings and surface finis­hes for desi­gner fittings in the bath­room and sani­tary sector, high-quality switch and socket systems, luxury writing instru­ments, medi­cal pens and vehic­les in the luxury segment. 

The company specia­li­zes in high-quality wet pain­ting for small to medium batch sizes and offers an almost unli­mi­ted range of colours and a variety of special effects. Thanks to its high level of inno­va­tion, color parts has estab­lished itself as a valued deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for nume­rous leading global brands. 

PREMIUM Equity Part­ners is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2011 with a focus on strong niche compa­nies in the DACH region with sales of between EUR 10 and 50 million. PREMIUM supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with growth finan­cing, succes­sion solu­ti­ons and spin-offs, combi­ning many years of tran­sac­tion and finan­cing exper­tise with the indus­try know-how of its opera­ting part­ners. The invest­ment in color parts is PREMI­UM’s twelfth acqui­si­tion. The invest­ment of PREMIUM Mittel­stand Fund II GmbH & Co. 

Advi­sor PREMIUM Equity Part­ners: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Tilmann Gütt, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, lead, banking/finance law), Hans-Joachim Englert (Senior Asso­ciate), Katha­rina Pröbstl, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate), Anja Schmidt (Asso­ciate) (all banking/finance law) 

About GOF
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. We also handle the liti­ga­tion in these specia­list areas. www.gof-partner.com

Berlin/London — Berlin-based energy and tech scale-up metiundo has secu­red a €40 million finan­cing round from funds raised by Octo­pus Energy Gene­ra­tion, the leading inves­tor in rene­wa­ble energy and green infra­struc­ture. With the fresh capi­tal, metiundo intends to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate the roll­out of smart meter­ing systems and further deve­lop its soft­ware plat­form in a targe­ted manner. 

This will enable new, data-driven solu­ti­ons to be imple­men­ted more quickly — and measur­a­bly advance the energy tran­si­tion in the buil­ding sector. metiundo offers “Smart Meter­ing as a Service” and covers almost the entire value chain of smart meter­ing systems in-house: from plan­ning and instal­la­tion, opera­tion and market commu­ni­ca­tion to the soft­ware inte­gra­tion and proces­sing of cross-sector meter­ing data. For the first time, this crea­tes an over­all picture of a proper­ty’s energy and water consump­tion and thus a key prere­qui­site for combi­ning consump­tion and gene­ra­tion in a meaningful way instead of looking at indi­vi­dual sectors in isolation. 

More instal­la­ti­ons, more soft­ware, more speed

In view of the high pres­sure to imple­ment the nati­on­wide smart meter roll­out, smart meter­ing systems must be rolled out quickly. Compe­ti­tive meter­ing point opera­tors are a key lever for spee­ding up the rollout. 

“The market is so dyna­mic precis­ely because compe­ti­tive meter­ing point opera­tors are driving imple­men­ta­tion forward. From the very begin­ning, we have consis­t­ently inves­ted in our own soft­ware and thus achie­ved a level of quality and flexi­bi­lity that sets us apart from the compe­ti­tion. With the new finan­cing, we are now deter­mi­ned to conti­nue scaling: more instal­la­ti­ons, higher quality and even more speed in expan­ding our plat­form,” says Dennis Nasrun, Co-Foun­der and CEO of metiundo.

An all-in-one plat­form for inte­gra­ted meter­ing across energy and water “The buil­ding and heating sector is one of the biggest CO₂ emit­ters in Germany and is respon­si­ble for around 30% of energy-rela­ted emis­si­ons. At the same time, the meter­ing indus­try is deve­lo­ping rapidly and rethin­king how we measure, control and connect energy systems. When solu­ti­ons like metiundo’s are scaled, house­holds and busi­nesses in Germany can become gree­ner and reduce costs by opti­mi­zing the use of tech­no­lo­gies such as photo­vol­taics and on-site battery storage. We are proud to support metiundo in driving this much-needed trans­for­ma­tion,” Alex Brier­ley, Co-Head of Octo­pus Energy Gene­ra­ti­on’s fund manage­ment business.

The funding will go towards the further deve­lo­p­ment of the soft­ware plat­form and the expan­sion of the instal­la­tion and assem­bly team. metiundo plans to hire addi­tio­nal specia­lists in a targe­ted manner — parti­cu­larly in the areas of soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment, instal­la­tion and opera­tion. The aim is to set up inte­gra­ted smart meter networks across seve­ral proper­ties in order to enable addi­tio­nal data-based solu­ti­ons for customers. 

About metiundo

metiundo is an energy scale-up with exper­tise in regu­la­tion, IT and measu­re­ment tech­no­logy. The company has offices in Berlin and Heidel­berg and was foun­ded in 2021 by Dennis Nasrun and Felix Mücke. With 70 employees, metiundo offers a compre­hen­sive solu­tion for the digi­ta­liza­tion of energy and water data — even in complex buil­dings. This crea­tes the basis for the decen­tra­li­zed energy tran­si­tion in the buil­ding sector. — www.metiundo.io

About Octo­pus Energy Generation

Octo­pus Energy Gene­ra­tion is driving the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble energy and buil­ding green energy for the future. The company is resha­ping the market by driving the tran­si­tion to a clea­ner, gree­ner future through rene­wa­ble projects that are more closely connec­ted to custo­mers and busi­nesses. As one of Euro­pe’s largest specia­li­zed inves­tors in rene­wa­ble energy and the energy tran­si­tion, Octo­pus Energy Gene­ra­tion mana­ges 4.9 GW of green energy projects in 21 count­ries — inclu­ding wind and solar farms as well as other tech­no­lo­gies such as grid infra­struc­ture and e‑mobility char­ging points. The port­fo­lio is worth £7 billion (US$9 billion / €8.5 billion). The plants gene­rate enough green elec­tri­city for 3.2 million house­holds every year — the equi­va­lent of taking over 1.3 million petrol cars off the road. — www.octopusenergygeneration.com

metiundo

+++ UK green tech inves­tor Octo­pus Energy Gene­ra­tion invests 40 million euros in metiundo. The Berlin-based start-up, foun­ded in 2021 by Dennis Nasrun and Felix Mücke, offers “property owners a compre­hen­sive solu­tion for the trans­pa­rency and opti­miza­tion of their energy and water consump­tion”. In parti­cu­lar, the aim is to “reduce CO2 emis­si­ons in the real estate sector”. Berli­ner Volks­bank recently provi­ded the company with 5 million euros as part of project finan­cing. Prior to this, the EnBW subsi­diary Enpulse Ventures (33.5%) in parti­cu­lar inves­ted in metiundo. — www.metiundo.io

Berlin / Munich — YPOG has advi­sed Munich-based drone specia­list Quan­tum Systems on the acqui­si­tion of 100 percent of the shares in Hacker Motor GmbH. With this tran­sac­tion, Quan­tum Systems streng­thens its verti­cal inte­gra­tion in the field of elec­tric propul­sion systems and expands its tech­no­lo­gi­cal base for unman­ned aerial systems (UAS). All employees and exis­ting loca­ti­ons of Hacker Motor will be retai­ned as part of the takeover. 

Quan­tum Systems is a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of AI-supported drone systems for civil and mili­tary appli­ca­ti­ons and is pursuing a targe­ted growth and acqui­si­tion stra­tegy. The inte­gra­tion of Hacker Motor, an estab­lished provi­der of high-quality elec­tric motors and drive solu­ti­ons for the model and UAV sector, will enable Quan­tum Systems to deve­lop and produce key compon­ents from a single source in the future. 

“Tran­sac­tions at the inter­face of defense tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous systems and soft­ware place parti­cu­larly high demands on legal struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ta­tion. It is precis­ely in this envi­ron­ment that YPOG has been advi­sing tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies on complex growth and M&A projects for years. With the acqui­si­tion of Hacker Motor, Quan­tum Systems is support­ing its stra­te­gic posi­tio­ning by acqui­ring another key tech­no­logy — we are plea­sed to have supported this project with our inter­di­sci­pli­nary team,” says Dr. Adrian Haase, Part­ner at YPOG.

The take­over is a further buil­ding block in Quan­tum Systems’ expan­sion stra­tegy, which includes stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons as well as orga­nic growth. The aim is to further increase the perfor­mance of its own drone systems, secure supply chains and trans­form inno­va­tions in the field of elec­tric drive tech­no­logy into market-ready products more quickly. 

YPOG has alre­ady advi­sed Quan­tum Systems on seve­ral take­overs and finan­cing rounds, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of the mobi­lity start-up Fernride.

About Quan­tum Systems

Quan­tum Systems is the leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of civil and mili­tary AI-supported drone systems. Foun­ded in 2015, the Munich-based company employs over 850 people and is repre­sen­ted inter­na­tio­nally at seve­ral loca­ti­ons, inclu­ding Austra­lia, Ukraine, Roma­nia, the United King­dom and the USA. Its custo­mers include govern­ments, minis­tries of defense, civi­lian autho­ri­ties and compa­nies world­wide. — https://quantum-systems.com

Consul­tant Quan­tum Systems : YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase(Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg
Benja­min Müller (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Miriam Peer (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tax), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich
Martin Acker (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Lutz Schrei­ber (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Florian Witt­ner (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG stands for You + Part­ners of Game­ch­an­gers and forward-looking tax and legal advice. The firm advi­ses compa­nies focu­sed on future tech­no­lo­gies with the aim of using change as an oppor­tu­nity and jointly crea­ting opti­mal solu­ti­ons. The YPOG team offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of Funds, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate, Banking, Regu­la­tory + Finance, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion, Liti­ga­tion as well as Corpo­rate Crime + Compli­ance + Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses in Germany for venture capi­tal, private equity, fund struc­tu­ring and appli­ca­ti­ons of distri­bu­ted ledger tech­no­logy (DLT) in finan­cial services. YPOG employs more than 180 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists as well as a notary in offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich, Cambridge and London. — www.ypog.com

Frankfurt/ Munich — WEIL is conti­nuing the expan­sion of its Euro­pean private equity prac­tice: With the arri­val and return of Dr. Kamyar Abrar, who will lead WEIL’s private equity prac­tice in Germany toge­ther with Dr. Sebas­tian Pauls, the firm is consis­t­ently pursuing its ambi­tious growth course.

Kamyar Abrar is the 17th part­ner to return to WEIL since the begin­ning of 2023. The firm is expe­ri­en­cing an excep­tio­nal influx of top lawy­ers world­wide. Kamyar Abrar joins from Will­kie Farr, where he was most recently Co-Mana­ging Part­ner for Germany. “Kamyar is one of Germany’s leading private equity lawy­ers and an excep­tio­nally accom­plished advi­sor. We are deligh­ted to welcome him back to WEIL,” said WEIL Execu­tive Part­ner Barry Wolf. 

Sebas­tian Pauls, co-mana­ging part­ner of WEIL’s German offices and co-head of the German private equity prac­tice, says: “This was a clear and logi­cal decis­ion for both of us. Kamyar is one of the most outstan­ding lawy­ers in the market and will imme­dia­tely expand our strength in large, complex and stra­te­gi­cally important private equity tran­sac­tions and thus decisi­vely drive the next growth phase of our practice.”

WEIL’s global co-head of the private equity prac­tice, Marco Compa­gnoni, says: “Kamyar is one of the most renow­ned and sought-after private equity and M&A lawy­ers in Germany. He advi­ses on complex, large-volume Euro­pean and US cross-border tran­sac­tions. We are deligh­ted to welcome him to our top Euro­pean team. Our ambi­tion remains unch­an­ged: to build the leading global private equity plat­form with the brigh­test minds.”

Kamyar Abrar (Photo: WEIL): “I am looking forward to working with Sebas­tian and the part­ners in Germany with great anti­ci­pa­tion. Retur­ning to WEIL was a logi­cal step for me, as we share a clear commit­ment to colla­bo­ra­tion and first-class advice for the leading global sponsors.”

Kamyar Abrar’s return follows just three months after Sebas­tian Pauls’ highly acclai­med move from Latham to WEIL with a renow­ned team — inclu­ding part­ner Susanne Decker, part­ner Dr. Andreas Holzgreve and coun­sel Dr. Julia Schö­fer. The move was seen throug­hout the indus­try as a “game chan­ger” for the German legal market and as a signi­fi­cant gene­ra­tio­nal change in private equity advice. — WEIL has recently signi­fi­cantly increased the strength of its Euro­pean private equity prac­tice. In addi­tion to new late­rals in Germany, the firm has also streng­the­ned its London team with the arri­val of secon­da­ries part­ner Simon Saito­witz, who was invol­ved in the five largest GP-led tran­sac­tions in Europe in 2025. The firm has also appoin­ted five new private equity part­ners in London and Paris. 

About WEIL’s Private Equity practice

WEIL’s Private Equity prac­tice is a global market leader. We have outstan­ding experts in all areas of the private equity spec­trum inclu­ding buyouts, growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and credit. Our clients include the largest and best-known private equity funds, sove­reign wealth and pension funds, as well as family offices and other finan­cial inves­tors. WEIL advi­ses more than 300 private equity clients world­wide, inclu­ding over 70% of the 20 largest global private equity funds (PEI 300 2025). 

About WEIL

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

Berlin — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm BCLP has advi­sed The Gund Company, Inc. on the acqui­si­tion of the Compo­si­tes Divi­sion of the Von Roll Group. The tran­sac­tion includes produc­tion sites in Augs­burg (Germany) and Brad­ford (UK).

TGC is a US manu­fac­tu­rer of high-perfor­mance compo­site mate­ri­als for elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. The acqui­red compa­nies specia­lize in the produc­tion and proces­sing of indus­trial compo­si­tes. The divi­sion will be inte­gra­ted into TGC’s global acti­vi­ties under the VRI Compo­si­tes — A Divi­sion of The Gund Company brand. 

Tonio Sadoni, Part­ner at BCLP (photo © BCLP), says: “This tran­sac­tion high­lights the regu­la­tory requi­re­ments for cross-border acqui­si­ti­ons. We are deligh­ted to have advi­sed The Gund Company on its first acqui­si­tion in Germany and the UK.”

BCLP advi­sed TGC on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding due dili­gence, struc­tu­ring, contract nego­tia­tion and the filing and execu­tion of the invest­ment review in Germany.

The BCLP team was led by Tonio Sadoni (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Aslan Sönmez (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and was supported by colle­agues from Employ­ment, IP/IT/Data, Tax and Finance in Germany as well as Corpo­rate, Real Estate, Employ­ment, Data, Tech & Commer­cial and Tax in London.

About BCLP

BCLP is a fully inte­gra­ted, global busi­ness law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 lawy­ers in 32 offices across North America, Europe and the Middle East, provi­ding clients with compre­hen­sive legal services where­ver and when­ever they need them. The firm is known for its service- and team-orien­ted culture and indus­try-speci­fic inno­va­tion, offe­ring clients one of the most active real estate, finan­cial services, liti­ga­tion, corpo­rate risk and M&A prac­ti­ces in the world. — bclplaw.com

Dres­den — Morpheus Space has raised over USD 15 million in a new finan­cing round from inves­tors Alpine Space Ventures, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund, Lavrock, Morpheus Ventures, Pallas, Vsquared and others. This will be used to drive the company’s next phase of growth and innovation. 

As more and more satel­li­tes popu­late Earth orbit, opera­tors need propul­sion systems that allow them to fly around debris and other satel­li­tes without incur­ring addi­tio­nal costs. Morpheus Space solves this problem with elec­tric thrus­ters like the GO‑2, desi­gned for large satel­lite constellations. 

Morpheus recently recei­ved $15 million in stra­te­gic funding from inves­tors inclu­ding Alpine Space Ventures, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund, Lavrock, Morpheus Ventures, Pallas, Vsquared and others.

This fresh capi­tal is inten­ded to boost produc­tion at the head­quar­ters in Dres­den and bring more talent on board so that the company can deli­ver even faster.

The reloa­ded faci­lity in Dres­den will allow us to scale produc­tion to 100 units per year, with the ability to expand to 500 units as custo­mer demand and constel­la­tion programs grow. We have a strong team in place today and conti­nue to hire addi­tio­nal tech­ni­cal staff to support this produc­tion expan­sion,” shares CEO Kevin Laus­ten

Keeping satel­li­tes agile and safe as space gets more crowded

Morpheus was foun­ded in 2021 at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Dres­den by Daniel Bock, István Lőrincz, Chris­tian Schunk, Chris­tian Boy and Phil­ipp Laufer, all experts in German drive technology.

Seeing a need for mass-produ­ced engi­nes to keep up with the incre­asingly frequent laun­ches, the team expan­ded its opera­ti­ons and opened a faci­lity in Cali­for­nia. The GO‑2 and simi­lar systems deli­ver powerful thrust with low fuel consump­tion, making them ideal for maneu­vers in high-traf­fic orbits. 

Kevin Laus­ten: “GO‑2 is charac­te­ri­zed by its relia­bi­lity and effi­ci­ency, which is based on a design with 40 fully inde­pen­dent drive units. This redun­dancy prevents the single-point fail­ures asso­cia­ted with other elec­tric drive systems. Each thrus­ter is indi­vi­du­ally control­led and driven, deli­ve­ring consis­tent, highly effi­ci­ent power over a long period of time. GO-2’s proprie­tary low melting point metal­lic propel­lant redu­ces ther­mal stress and energy requi­re­ments, and its faster heat-up time of 30 to 45 minu­tes compared to up to 2 hours for other systems gives opera­tors far more flexibility. 

He adds: “The system is also easy to use, requi­ring only three steps to start the drive, and it uses carbon nano­tube cold catho­des, which elimi­nate the power consump­tion and short life of conven­tio­nal ther­mal cathodes.”

While chemi­cal rockets use up their fuel quickly, Morpheus relies on elec­tric propul­sion for longer-lasting, more sustainable perfor­mance. The company has alre­ady over­ta­ken compe­ti­tors such as ThrustMe, Exotrail and Aria­ne­Group in produc­tion for satel­lite constellations. 

Laus­ten concludes: “In a future charac­te­ri­zed by auto­no­mous, maneu­vera­ble satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons, Morpheus Space sees itself as the back­bone of sustaina­bi­lity in orbit. GO-2’s highly effi­ci­ent FEEP propul­sion deli­vers high total impulse in a compact package, while its 40 indi­vi­du­ally controll­able thrus­ters enable precise, long-dura­tion maneu­vers that keep constel­la­ti­ons agile, respon­sive and safe.”

www.morpheus.space/company

Alpine Space Ventures

Munich — Menold Bezler has advi­sed the invest­ment company Egeria on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in SEALABLE Solu­ti­ons by Egeria’s port­fo­lio company Elas­to­firm. The seller is the Hamburg-based private equity inves­tor BPE. 

With the buy-and-build tran­sac­tion supported by Egeria, Elas­to­firm increa­ses its commit­ment to the infra­struc­ture market and streng­thens its presence in Germany. SEALABLE remains entre­pre­neu­ri­ally inde­pen­dent, but bene­fits from a more inte­gra­ted value chain within the Elas­to­firm Group. 

Elas­to­firm, based in the Nether­lands, is a leading Euro­pean supplier of rubber and sili­cone solu­ti­ons for various indus­tries. The company has been backed by Egeria Private Equity since 2021. 

SEALABLE Solu­ti­ons, based in Walters­hau­sen, Thurin­gia, manu­fac­tures rubber-based seal­ing and insu­la­tion solu­ti­ons for indus­try, track and tunnel cons­truc­tion. BPE has been inves­ted in SEALABLE since 2020. 

Since 1997, the inde­pen­dent pan-Euro­pean invest­ment company Egeria has focu­sed on invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value of up to 500 million euros. Egeria’s private equity port­fo­lio compri­ses invest­ments in more than 20 compa­nies with a total turno­ver of around 2.5 billion euros and over 14,000 employees. Menold Bezler has alre­ady advi­sed Egeria on seve­ral transactions. 

Advi­sor Egeria: Menold Bezler, Stuttgart

Jost Ruders­dorf (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Jan Nehring-Köppl (Lead/Photo: Menold Bezler), Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner), Dr. Björn Stau­din­ger, Lisa Maria Jäger, Simon Schwa­ger, Michelle Gutjahr, Ann-Chris­tin Heine­mann (all Corporate/M&A), Marc Ehrmann, LL.M. (Part­ner, Real Estate), Stef­fen Foll­ner (Part­ner), Dr. Alex­an­dra Kier­ner (coun­sel; both banking and finance law), Alex­an­der Häcker (part­ner), Dr. Janina Helde (both envi­ron­men­tal and plan­ning law), Isabelle Hörner (commer­cial), Kath­rin Hoyer (coun­sel, employ­ment law), Dr. Markus Kleinn (IP), Armin Kojic (anti­trust law), Clemens Mauch (part­ner), Laura Bommer, Michael Leins (all tax)