Author: Tatjana Anderer

Berlin/ Stutt­gart — YPOG advi­sed Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand on the expan­sion of the Series A finan­cing round of Stutt­gart-based photo­nics startup Q.ANT. With the new capi­tal raise, the total volume of the Series A finan­cing increa­ses to over USD 80 million, making Q.ANT the largest finan­cing in the field of photo­nic compu­ting in Europe to date. 

Q.ANT GmbH, a high-tech company and pioneer in the field of photo­nic compu­ting, is taking its vision of a sustainable photo­nic AI infra­struc­ture to the next level with this successful finan­cing round. The current finan­cing round was supported by the exis­ting inves­tors and streng­the­ned by the newly joined Duquesne Family Office. The rene­wed commit­ment under­lines the confi­dence in Q.ANT’s tech­no­logy plat­form and growth stra­tegy. The finan­cing comes in a chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment and marks a signi­fi­cant mile­stone for the Euro­pean deep tech scene. 

Q.ANT deve­lops photo­nic chips for high-perfor­mance appli­ca­ti­ons and plans to use the capi­tal now provi­ded to signi­fi­cantly expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties at the Stutt­gart site and signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate the further deve­lo­p­ment of the photo­nic AI infra­struc­ture. At the same time, the deve­lo­p­ment of further inno­va­tive fields of appli­ca­tion and part­ner­ships is to be driven forward. 

Back in July 2025, YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to inves­tors Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand in Q.ANT’s EUR 62 million finan­cing round.

About Cherry Ventures

Cherry Ventures is a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal fund based in Berlin, London and Stock­holm. Since its foun­da­tion in 2013, Cherry Ventures has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive start-up teams from the early stage sector. The port­fo­lio compri­ses over 130 compa­nies, inclu­ding Flix­Bus, Auto1 and Moss. Cherry Ventures curr­ently mana­ges a USD 500 million fund and supports start-ups through all stages of growth. — https://cherry.vc

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm that invests in Euro­pean B2B tech start-ups and has offices in Munich and Berlin. With over EUR 600 million in assets under manage­ment, the VC typi­cally makes initial invest­ments of between EUR 1 and 10 million and invests a total of up to EUR 30 million per startup — parti­cu­larly in the areas of DeepT­ech, Clima­te­Tech, mobi­lity and software/AI. As an inde­pen­dent part­ner of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading startup hub, UVC Part­ners has unique access to exclu­sive deal flow, more than 1,000 compa­nies and SMEs as well as talent from the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich, one of the best tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties in Europe. UVC Part­ners’ invest­ment port­fo­lio includes Flix, Isar Aero­space, planqc, Proxima Fusion, Reverion, Tacto, TWAICE, Deep­Drive, STABL and many more. All port­fo­lio compa­nies and their foun­ders bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence, their ability to build sustainable cate­gory leaders and the Unter­neh­mer­TUM network that acce­le­ra­tes market entry. — https://www.uvcpartners.com

About imec.xpand

imec.xpand is a global venture capi­tal fund based in Leuven, Belgium, specia­li­zing in ground­brea­king inno­va­tions in semi­con­duc­tor and nano­tech­no­logy. imec.xpand invests in compa­nies with disrup­tive poten­tial world­wide and supports foun­ding teams in acces­sing state-of-the-art infra­struc­ture and inter­na­tio­nal networks. The current fund amounts to EUR 300 million and includes nume­rous pionee­ring compa­nies driving inno­va­tion in photo­nics and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. — https://imecxpand.com/

Advi­sors Cherry Ventures, UVC Part­ners and imec.xpand : YPOG

Benja­min Ullrich(Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Emma Peters (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Benja­min von Mangoldt (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
There­sia Hein­rich (Corpo­rate), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Silke Ricken (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin

https://www.ypog.law

Advi­sor ERNST & CIE Die Unter­neh­mer AG on the sale of Ernst Plas­tics Group to KB Compon­ents: BELGRAVIA & CO.

About BELGRAVIA & Co.

We are an inde­pen­dent, inter­na­tio­nally active M&A and corpo­rate finance consul­tancy specia­li­zing in SME manda­tes with a high level of stra­te­gic exper­tise. — https://www.belgravia-co.com/

Frank­furt am Main — Funds advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) toge­ther with Five Arrows, the alter­na­tive invest­ments divi­sion of Roth­schild & Co, are acqui­ring UK-based Total­mo­bile Limi­ted (Total­mo­bile) — a leading global provi­der of field services manage­ment soft­ware — from Bowmark Capi­tal. — Comple­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to take place in the first quar­ter of 2026. 

Total­mo­bile and the market

Total­mo­bile was foun­ded in 1985 in Belfast, UK, and is a leading global provi­der of field services manage­ment soft­ware. More than 500,000 users rely on the company’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons every day. With its 100 percent cloud-based Field First plat­form, Total­mo­bile enables its appro­xi­m­ately 900 custo­mers to opti­mize their proces­ses, increase effi­ci­ency and achieve a signi­fi­cant return on their investment. 

Total­mo­bile is parti­cu­larly strong in the public sector, where it serves custo­mers from the health­care and housing sectors as well as various emer­gency services. The company is pursuing an expan­sive growth stra­tegy in Austra­lia and New Zealand in order to further expand this group. The addres­sed core market is gene­ra­ting double-digit growth rates and is bene­fiting from a posi­tive regu­la­tory envi­ron­ment, the ongo­ing tran­si­tion to cloud-based solu­ti­ons and the demand for further profes­sio­na­liza­tion of field service proces­ses. Total­mo­bile is ideally posi­tio­ned for this growth and at the same time has a robust busi­ness model with a high propor­tion of recur­ring revenue. 

Jannick Hune­cke, member of the Manage­ment Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “We will further expand Total­mo­bile ‘s leading posi­tion for intel­li­gent, networked soft­ware solu­ti­ons in close coope­ra­tion with Total­mo­bi­le’s manage­ment and Five Arrows. Follo­wing the invest­ment in MAIT, a leading digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for SMEs, this tran­sac­tion is a further expan­sion of our invol­vement in the IT services and soft­ware sector. This follows an invest­ment logic based on scaling, product depth and resi­li­ent busi­ness models.” 

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), which has been listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The sector focus is on produ­cers of indus­trial goods, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­ta­liza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the IT services, soft­ware, health­care, envi­ron­ment, energy and infra­struc­ture sectors. DBAG has also been active in Italy since 2020 and has had its own office in Milan since 2021. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 billion euros. ELF Capi­tal comple­ments DBAG’s range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs with private debt capital.

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CEO and sole share­hol­der of Herbrig & Co. GmbH, Chris­toph Herbrig — a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality precis­ion turned parts — on the sale of a majo­rity stake to Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH. Borro­min Capi­tal Fund V SCSp, a fund advi­sed by Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment, has acqui­red a stake in the company. Chris­toph Herbrig and the exis­ting manage­ment team will conti­nue to run the company. 

Herbrig & Co. GmbH is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of high-quality precis­ion turned parts and has been a relia­ble system part­ner for nume­rous inter­na­tio­nal tech­no­logy compa­nies for many years, inclu­ding those in the sensor, elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring and e‑mobility sectors. The company, head­quar­te­red in Alten­berg, Saxony, employs around 200 people at three locations. 

Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH, based in Frankfurt/Main, is a private equity company that invests prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe and the Bene­lux count­ries. Borro­min has been inves­t­ing in profi­ta­ble compa­nies from a wide range of sectors since 2001. 

An ARQIS team led by Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the CEO and sole share­hol­der of Herbrig & Co. GmbH on this tran­sac­tion. MAYLAND AG, on whose recom­men­da­tion ARQIS was manda­ted as legal advi­sor, acted as M&A advi­sor and litigator. 

Advi­sor Herbrig & Co. GmbH: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Part­ner, Lead), Thomas Chwa­lek (Part­ner), Ivo Erte­kin (Asso­ciate, all Tran­sac­tions, core team), Part­ners: Johan­nes Landry (Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP, Munich), Coun­sel: Chris­tian Judis (Compli­ance, Munich), Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Tran­sac­tions), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Tran­sac­tions), Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe (Regu­la­tory), Rolf Tichy (IP, Munich), Asso­ciate: Dr. Julia Wild­gans (IP, Munich)

About ARQIS

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

Berlin — YPOG has advi­sed Munich-based private equity mana­ger Armira, which specia­li­zes in part­ner­ships with entre­pre­neu­rial and family-run “hidden cham­pi­ons”, on the struc­tu­ring and launch of its latest fund­rai­sing program. The fund was closed above the hard cap and reaches a total volume of EUR 1 billion inclu­ding co-invest­ments. With this deal, the Armira plat­form now mana­ges around 5 billion euros in capi­tal. The signi­fi­cant over­sub­scrip­tion under­lines the contin­ued high demand from insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors for Armi­ra’s entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment model. 

Armira provi­des flexi­ble capi­tal of between 10 million and 1 billion euros and invests in both mino­rity and majo­rity share­hol­dings in order to support compa­nies at decisive turning points — from growth acce­le­ra­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion to succes­sion and trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses. In Germany, the private equity mana­ger acqui­red the Munich-based data trans­fer specia­list FTAPI for 65 million euros toge­ther with the French finan­cial inves­tor Tike­hau. Toge­ther with the billionaire Viess­mann family, Armira acqui­red a stake in the Greek gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer Pharos. 

The project marks another mile­stone in the long-stan­ding coope­ra­tion between YPOG and Armira and included inte­gra­ted legal, regu­la­tory and tax advice across the entire invest­ment platform.

“Placing a billion-dollar fund in the current market situa­tion is a strong sign of Armi­ra’s entre­pre­neu­rial model — and of the effi­ci­ent, trust-based colla­bo­ra­tion between our teams,” commen­ted Dr. Stephan Bank, Part­ner at YPOG. “Armi­ra’s latest fund­rai­sing is an important step in the plat­for­m’s deve­lo­p­ment and we are proud to have helped shape a fund struc­ture that will support Armi­ra’s next phase of growth,” added Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker, Part­ner at YPOG. 

About Armira

Armira is a Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in part­ner­ships with entre­pre­neu­rial and family-owned “hidden cham­pi­ons”. It is supported by an exclu­sive network of entre­pre­neurs and long-term family inves­tors — now comple­men­ted by inter­na­tio­nal entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies and insti­tu­tio­nal long-term inves­tors — and provi­des capi­tal for all stages of a company, from mino­rity finan­cing for growth to majo­rity invest­ments. Armira pursues a consis­tent value crea­tion approach based on the para­me­ters of perfor­mance, people and acquisition.
The mana­ging direc­tors of the gene­ral part­ner Armira Betei­li­gun­gen Verwal­tungs GmbH are
Alex­an­der Sche­mann, Chris­tian Bailly (photo: Armira/ tonies) and Dr. Björn-Eric Förs­ter — www.armira.de/en/

Advi­sor Armira: YPOG

Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead, Corporate/Structuring), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead, Tax/Structuring) , Part­ner, Berlin
Lenn­art Lorenz (Co-Lead, Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg
Jens Kretz­schmann (Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Michael Fili­po­wicz (Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Dajo Sanning (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Wolf­ram Dickers­bach (Funds) Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Axel Zirn (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Falk Bothe (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Benja­min von Mangoldt (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Nico­las Fischer (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Robert Schramm (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Funds), Senior Project Lawyer, Berlin
Marthe Oestrei­cher (Legal Opera­ti­ons), Senior Project Lawyer, Berlin

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 its offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich, Cambridge and London. — www.ypog.law

Munich/London — IT service provi­der Allgeier SE is selling its Mana­ged Services busi­ness with a turno­ver of around EUR 50 million to inves­tor Synova. The company is thus focu­sing more on its core tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise — soft­ware, AI and digi­tal plat­forms. POELLATH advi­sed Allgeier SE on the legal and tax aspects of the sale. 

Munich-based Allgeier Public SE, a subsi­diary of Allgeier SE, has taken a further step in its stra­te­gic realignment. As announ­ced by the company, contracts were signed today with the private equity inves­tor Synova for the sale of Allgeier IT Services GmbH. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place in the coming weeks. 

The dive­s­ted busi­ness specia­li­zes in the provi­sion of mana­ged services for medium-sized custo­mers and gene­ra­tes a sales volume of around EUR 50 million. Accor­ding to Allgeier, the valua­tion of the company is in the upper double-digit million euro range. With the sale, Allgeier is parting with a profi­ta­ble divi­sion that is no longer part of the Group’s stra­te­gic core. 

For the Allgeier Group, the tran­sac­tion is a further mile­stone in the ongo­ing focu­sing process follo­wing the sale of the person­nel services busi­ness in 2024.

Allgeier concen­tra­tes on two segments

Follo­wing the sales, Allgeier is left with two Group segments: Enter­prise IT and mgm tech­no­logy part­ners. Over 3,100 employees work in these segments at 48 loca­ti­ons world­wide. In the 2024 finan­cial year, the conti­nuing opera­ti­ons gene­ra­ted reve­nue of EUR 403 million. This is a solid basis, but not outstan­ding growth. 

In future, the company will focus even more stron­gly on its core busi­ness — the design, deve­lo­p­ment and support of complex soft­ware solu­ti­ons and AI-based plat­form tech­no­lo­gies for the digi­ta­liza­tion of busi­ness and admi­nis­tra­tive processes.

Oliver Bevan, Part­ner at Synova, commen­ted: “AITS has made impres­sive achie­ve­ments in recent years and has an exci­ting vision to conso­li­date the highly frag­men­ted German IT services market. Synova is deligh­ted to be joining Marc and the AITS team in this exci­ting new chapter.”

This tran­sac­tion is Syno­va’s first plat­form deal in Germany and its second in the DACH region, follo­wing its invest­ment in Basel-based Avan­tra. This unders­cores Syno­va’s commit­ment to support­ing excep­tio­nal manage­ment teams in Euro­pe’s most attrac­tive growth markets and sectors. — https://www.synova.pe/

Advi­sor Allgeier SE: POELLATH

Dr.Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
‑Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
‑Gerald Herr­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
‑Chris­tine Funk (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Frank­furt aM)
‑Jannis Lührs (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
‑Marvin Ritt­meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich) 

About POELLATH

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

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Colo­gne-based corporate/M&A part­ner Dr. Chris­tof Bremer has advi­sed the French Scutum Group on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Alino­tec GmbH & Co KG. The Scutum Group, which opera­tes in Europe and the USA, is a leading provi­der of products and services in the fields of elec­tri­cal safety, secu­rity & defense and fire protection. 

With elec­tro­nic moni­to­ring centers, access control, burglar alarms and video surveil­lance can be ensu­red around the clock. Secu­rity solu­ti­ons and fire protec­tion concepts are advi­sed and imple­men­ted on site and the neces­sary main­ten­ance and repair work is carried out. 

Alino­tec has been on the market for 16 years and is known for its high-quality secu­rity solu­ti­ons for indus­try, cons­truc­tion, raw mate­ri­als, trade and the public sector. With its tech­no­lo­gi­cally leading plat­forms and constant growth, the company has estab­lished itself as a relia­ble part­ner throug­hout Germany. 

The acqui­si­tion of Alino­tec enables Scutum to offer its custo­mers in Germany even more: modu­lar, tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons that are opti­mally tail­o­red to the requi­re­ments of cons­truc­tion projects, as well as the exper­tise of a strong soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment team that comple­ments our R&D depart­ment with know-how in intel­li­gent retail systems and track­ing soft­ware. Deloitte Legal advi­sed Scutum compre­hen­si­vely on the acqui­si­tion, from the pre-contrac­tual nego­tia­ti­ons to the legal due dili­gence and nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion docu­men­ta­tion through to the successful closing. The Colo­gne-based Deloitte Legal part­ner Dr. Chris­tof Bremer had alre­ady advi­sed the Scutum Group before joining Deloitte Legal. 

Advi­sor Scutum Group: Deloitte Legal Germany

Dr. Chris­tof Bremer, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A, Colo­gne), Claus Wilker (Coun­sel, Employ­ment Law, Hano­ver), Jan Rudolph (Coun­sel, Digi­tal Law, Düssel­dorf), Daniela Wasseram (Senior Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Hano­ver), Roland Schil­ler (Senior Asso­ciate, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt), Katrin Kiebel (Senior Asso­ciate, Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Sven Wilmers, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Colo­gne), Alina B. Scheja (Asso­ciate, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt) — www.deloittelegal.de

Frank­furt a. M./ Munich — McDer­mott Will & Schulte has advi­sed the finan­cial inves­tor Ardian on the conclu­sion of an agree­ment with Solar­park Blau­tal GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of its 90 percent stake in cent­ro­therm inter­na­tio­nal AG, a leading provi­der for the design and produc­tion of systems for the manu­fac­ture of power semiconductors.

Ardian acqui­res a majo­rity stake in cent­ro­therm via Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor, an inno­va­tive private equity plat­form specia­li­zing in invest­ments in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. It was foun­ded in an exclu­sive stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Silian Part­ners, a team of reco­gni­zed experts from the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. For Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor, this latest invest­ment marks the third tran­sac­tion follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of IBS in Octo­ber 2024 and Syner­gie Cad in Janu­ary 2025, and the first tran­sac­tion in Germany. 

Solar­park Blau­tal reinvests part of its proceeds as part of the agree­ment, ther­eby remai­ning a signi­fi­cant share­hol­der of centrotherm.

Comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding regu­la­tory approvals.

cent­ro­therm specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and sale of high-tempe­ra­ture process systems and has a long history as a supplier to both the semi­con­duc­tor and photo­vol­taic industries.

ARDIAN is a leading global inde­pen­dent finan­cial inves­tor head­quar­te­red in Paris with more than 1,860 inves­tors world­wide and appro­xi­m­ately USD 192 billion in assets under manage­ment or advisement.

Advi­sor Ardian: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

Holger H. Ebers­ber­ger, LL.M. (lead), Dr. Thomas Diek­mann (Coun­sel), Alex­an­dra Prato (Coun­sel; all Private Equity), Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf/Frankfurt), Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (Finance), Dr. Felix Ganzer (Private Equity, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Dries­sen-Rolf (Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt), Adrian Helfen­stein (Coun­sel, Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Holger Mlynek (Coun­sel, Energy & Infra­struc­ture, Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Stefa­nie Solt­we­del (Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf), Ul. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Stefa­nie Solt­we­del (Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf), Ulrike Witt, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Restruc­tu­ring, Düssel­dorf), Stef­fen Woitz, LL.M. (IP/IT), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Parsin Walsi, LL.M., Dr. Manuel Weiß, Julia Külzer, Nicole Kaps, Marion Dalvai-König (all Private Equity), Carlota Huth (Düssel­dorf), Darius M. Mosleh, LL.M (Düsseldorf/Cologne), Anna­belle Juli­ette Rau (Colo­gne), Tjark Pogoda (Düssel­dorf; all Corporate/M&A), Atha­na­sia Eleft­he­ria­dou, LL.M. (Düssel­dorf), Sönke Wasser­mann (Frank­furt; both employ­ment law), Constanze Götz (Energy & Infra­struc­ture, Frank­furt), Tim Becker (Finance), Maren Rimbach (Dispute Reso­lu­tion, Cologne).

About McDer­mott Will & Schulte

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

Frank­furt a. M. — Gleiss Lutz has advi­sed Nort­hern Data AG, a data center opera­tor, on the sale of its “Peak Mining” divi­sion. Nort­hern Data has alre­ady recei­ved a payment of USD 50 million upon conclu­sion of the sale agreement. 

Nort­hern Data will also receive addi­tio­nal perfor­mance-rela­ted payments of up to USD 150 million (“earn-out”) over the next five years. These result from a profit share in the current cash earnings poten­tial of the exis­ting 100 mega­watts of mining capa­city and the poten­tial future expan­sion of mining acti­vi­ties at the Corpus Christi site. 

A possi­ble resale of the opera­ti­ons at the Corpus Christi site could result in sales proceeds that exceed the earn-out. Nort­hern Data is a leading provi­der of full-stack solu­ti­ons for
Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and High Perfor­mance Compu­ting (HPC).

Gleiss Lutz regu­larly advi­ses Nort­hern Data, most recently on a 20 percent increase in its share capital.

Advi­sor Nort­hern Data AG: Gleiss Lutz

Dr. Stephan Aubel, photo © Gleiss Lutz (lead, part­ner), Alex­an­der Gebhardt (coun­sel), Mela­nie Barwich (coun­sel), Chris­tian Schrö­der (all corpo­rate and capi­tal markets), Anne Görg (corpo­rate, all Frank­furt), Dr. Walter Andert (corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, Berlin).

Working in-house for Nort­hern Data were: Rudolf Haas (Chief Legal Offi­cer), Martin Rinscheid (Deputy Legal Coun­sel), Mareile Müller-Felsch (Head of Legal) and Konrad v. Buch­waldt (Senior Tran­sac­tion Counsel).

Nort­hern Data was advi­sed on US law by a team from Latham & Watkins in
New York led by Robert M. Katz.

Frank­furt a. M./ Kropf­mühl — The Frank­furt, Munich and Brussels offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP have advi­sed Alterna Capi­tal Part­ners (“Alterna”) on the sale of its indi­rect 40% share­hol­ding in Graphit Kropf­mühl GmbH to the co-share­hol­der AMG Mining GmbH, a subsi­diary of AMG Criti­cal Mate­ri­als N.V..

Graphit Kropf­mühl GmbH is active in the mining, extra­c­tion, refi­ning, refi­ning, marke­ting and distri­bu­tion of natu­ral graphite. The company opera­tes its own mine at its head­quar­ters in Kropf­mühl and holds majo­rity inte­rests in graphite mines in Sri Lanka. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted on March 12, 2025. 

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has been provi­ding legal advice to Alterna on various issues in connec­tion with the indi­rect invest­ment in Graphit Kropf­mühl GmbH since 2017.

Advi­sor Alterna Capi­tal: Weil

The Weil team was led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner (photo) and compri­sed part­ners Britta Grauke (Frank­furt), Tobias Geer­ling (Munich) and Niklas Maydell (Brussels), coun­sel Dr. Kars­ten Krumm, Gero Pogrzeba (both Frank­furt) and Stef­fen Giolda (Munich) as well as asso­cia­tes Dennis Simon, Alex­an­der Roth­stein, Dr. Vero­nika Koch, Corne­lia Kirch­bach-Lecht, Alex­an­der Reich (all Frank­furt) and Eva Bart­helm­ann (Munich).

About Weil

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers. Weil has offices in New York, Boston, Brussels, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Munich, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Washing­ton, D.C. and Sili­con Valley. In Germany, the firm has two offices and around 60 lawyers/tax advi­sors 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

Munich — Muta­res SE & Co. KGaA has ente­red into final nego­tia­ti­ons with the listed Korean company Hwase­ung Corpo­ra­tion to acquire 67% of the shares in Hwase­ung Special Rubber (Taicang) Co., Ltd. (“HSR”) and Hwase­ung Auto Parts (Taicang) Co., Ltd. (“HST”). This poten­tial acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in a leading auto­mo­tive supplier in China is an important mile­stone for Muta­res’ global expan­sion and targe­ted growth stra­tegy in Asia. Hwase­ung Corpo­ra­tion today announ­ced the poten­tial acqui­si­tion on the Korean stock exch­ange. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be signed in the fourth quar­ter of 2025.

Signi­fi­cant synergies

The target compa­nies are known for their essen­tial rubber seal­ing and hose products, which they supply to well-known car manu­fac­tu­r­ers such as GM, VW, Hyun­dai, Kia and Xiaomi. With two state-of-the-art produc­tion faci­li­ties and around 600 employees, the compa­nies gene­ra­ted sales of over EUR 100 million in 2024 — HSR and HST are an ideal fit for Amaneo’s China busi­ness and unlock signi­fi­cant syner­gies in the value chain. The inte­gra­tion inclu­ding SMA China and SFC China will result in addi­tio­nal cost bene­fits, opera­tio­nal effi­ci­en­cies and a streng­the­ned compe­ti­tive posi­tion in the worl­d’s most dyna­mic auto­mo­tive market. 

Muta­res’ expan­sion into the Chinese auto­mo­tive sector streng­thens its posi­tion as an opera­tio­nal leader in the Auto­mo­tive & Mobi­lity segment, extends the Group’s track record and opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for colla­bo­ra­tion with leading Asian and inter­na­tio­nal OEMs. The decis­ion of a promi­nent Korean-listed seller to enter into such a tran­sac­tion with Muta­res reflects the Group’s global posi­tion as a relia­ble and value-crea­ting owner with a proven track record of opera­tio­nal excel­lence, trans­for­ma­tion and sustainable growth. 

Johan­nes Laumann, CIO of Muta­res, comm­ents: “Our expan­sion into Asia is an important mile­stone for Muta­res in the Auto­mo­tive & Mobi­lity segment. We are hono­red by the trust of our Korean part­ners and look forward to brin­ging our opera­tio­nal exper­tise to the Chinese market. This acqui­si­tion demons­tra­tes our commit­ment to inter­na­tio­nal growth and diver­si­fi­ca­tion and will create value for all stakeholders.”

Menlo Park, Cali­for­nia — Sequoia, the US VC firm that backed Klarna and Stripe, has laun­ched two early-stage funds and expres­sed its confi­dence in Euro­pean foun­ders: “Euro­pe’s startup pool has never been stron­ger”. The two new funds are a USD 750 early-stage fund for Series A start-ups and a USD 200 seed fund. 

Sequoia has a long history of making early-stage invest­ments in high-profile tech­no­logy compa­nies, such as inves­t­ing in Apple and YouTube. In a post about the funds on its website, the US VC firm said it will target foun­ders from “all back­grounds from around the world”. 

The post conti­nues to look at emer­ging themes obser­ved by Sequoia’s early stage inves­tors. Luciana Lixan­dru, Part­ner, said: “I look forward to meeting foun­ders who use Europe as their product and engi­nee­ring center but want to conquer the world. Euro­pe’s foun­der pool has never been so large.”

“A new wave of repeat inves­tors and gradua­tes of brea­kout scaleups bring hard-won judgment, top-notch product taste and the muscle memory to go from zero to global.” Sequoia’s Euro­pean invest­ments include Swedish fintech Klarna, German fintech Trade Repu­blic and German drone startup Stark.

Sequoia part­ner Roelof Botha said: “I am drawn to dynamo foun­ders — poly­maths with an insa­tia­ble appe­tite for lear­ning who combine inter­di­sci­pli­nary insights.”

About Sequoia

Sequoia Capi­tal Opera­ti­ons, LLC (commonly known simply as Sequoia) is an Ameri­can venture capi­tal firm head­quar­te­red in Menlo Park, Cali­for­nia, specia­li­zing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage invest­ments in private compa­nies across tech­no­logy sectors. As of Janu­ary 2025, the firm had appro­xi­m­ately $56 billion USD in assets under manage­ment. — www.sequoia.com

Berlin / Hamburg — Quan­tum Systems is acqui­ring the AI specia­list Spleen­lab. With this acqui­si­tion, Quan­tum Systems streng­thens its tech­no­lo­gi­cal base in the field of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and posi­ti­ons itself stra­te­gi­cally for the further deve­lo­p­ment of auto­no­mous systems in defense technology.YPOG provi­ded Quan­tum Systems with compre­hen­sive legal advice on this transaction.

Spleen­lab, based in Thurin­gia, Germany, deve­lops AI-based soft­ware solu­ti­ons for safe navi­ga­tion and decis­ion-making for auto­no­mous aircraft. By inte­gra­ting Spleen­lab tech­no­logy, Quan­tum Systems is expan­ding its exper­tise in edge AI and real-time data proces­sing in parti­cu­lar in order to further increase the perfor­mance and opera­tio­nal safety of its drone systems under deman­ding conditions. 

“With the inte­gra­tion of Spleen­la­b’s proven VISIONAIRY® AI into Quan­tum Systems, we are acce­le­ra­ting the tran­si­tion from inno­va­tion to mission — for intel­li­gent, soft­ware-defi­ned unman­ned systems and true multi-domain supe­rio­rity,” comm­ents Martin Kark­our, CRO Quan­tum Systems GmbH.

YPOG has alre­ady advi­sed Quan­tum Systems on various acqui­si­ti­ons and finan­cing rounds in the past, not least on the EUR 160 million Series C finan­cing round in May 2025.

About Quan­tum Systems

Quan­tum Systems is a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of civil and mili­tary AI-supported drone systems. Foun­ded in 2015 and based in Munich, the company employs over 700 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. 

Consul­tant Quan­tum Systems: YPOG

Dr. Adrian Haase (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg
Benja­min Müller (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Miriam Peer (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tax), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich Martin Acker (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg Dr. Bene­dikt Flöer (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin Jacob Schrei­ber (Tax), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich
Martin Acker (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Lea Ossmann-Magiera (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin

Nurem­berg — GÖRG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to TECHNO-EINKAUF GmbH on the sale of its block of shares in NÜRNBERGER Betei­li­gungs-AG as part of the public take­over by Vienna Insu­rance Group (VIG).

The shares of NÜRNBERGER Betei­li­gungs-AG are curr­ently traded in the Scale segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange and on other German stock exch­an­ges. On August 8, 2025, NÜRNBERGER Betei­li­gungs-AG announ­ced in an ad hoc announce­ment that Vienna Insu­rance Group had ente­red into an exclu­sive due dili­gence process to review the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity share­hol­ding in NÜRNBERGER Beteiligungs-AG. 

Toge­ther with three other compa­nies, TECHNO-EINKAUF GmbH holds a share package of around 19%. The due dili­gence phase was follo­wed by nego­tia­ti­ons on the obli­ga­ti­ons to offer the directly and indi­rectly held share packa­ges of the larger share­hol­ders to the Vienna Insu­rance Group. 

Follo­wing the conclu­sion of nego­tia­ti­ons, TECHNO-EINKAUF GmbH also issued a binding letter of commit­ment. It is expec­ted that Vienna Insu­rance Group will publish the offer docu­ment for the public take­over offer announ­ced on Octo­ber 17, 2025 in the course of this week. 

Advi­sor TECHNO-EINKAUF GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Dr. Matthias Terlau (lead, part­ner, banking and banking regu­la­tory law, Cologne)
Dr. Lutz Pospiech (part­ner, stock corpo­ra­tion and capi­tal markets law, Munich)
Lena Feldle (senior asso­ciate, M&A, Munich)
Niklas Lamberz (asso­ciate, banking and banking regu­la­tory law, Cologne)

About GÖRG

GÖRG is one of the leading inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firms in Germany.
With over 370 profes­sio­nals in the fields of legal advice, tax advice and audi­ting at our five offices in Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich, we advise well-known dome­stic and foreign compa­nies, medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as finan­cial inves­tors and listed groups from all sectors of the economy and the public sector. — www.goerg.de

Munich/Vienna — MP Corpo­rate Finance, a leading inter­na­tio­nal M&A advi­sory firm specia­li­zing in the Euro­pean indus­trial sector, has exclu­si­vely advi­sed Fide­lium Part­ners on the sale of its port­fo­lio company ALUni­ted. The buyer of the majo­rity stake in ALUni­ted — consis­ting of ALUni­ted A/S (Denmark) and ALUni­ted SAS (France) — is the Chinese listed company APALT (SZSE:002540). With this acqui­si­tion, APALT, a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of light­weight alumi­num compon­ents, makes its first tran­sac­tion outside the Chinese home market and achie­ves an important mile­stone in its global expan­sion strategy. 

With around 225 employees at its two plants in France and Denmark, ALUni­ted produ­ces struc­tu­ral alumi­num parts. A parti­cu­lar focus is on the extru­sion and further proces­sing of profiles for premium OEMs. Since Novem­ber 2021, ALUni­ted has been part of the port­fo­lio of Fide­lium Part­ners, an inter­na­tio­nal private equity firm head­quar­te­red in Munich, as part of a carve-out. ALUni­ted most recently gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 70 million. 

Market entry into the Euro­pean premium auto­mo­tive segment

With its tech­no­lo­gi­cal specia­liza­tion and estab­lished market posi­tion in Denmark and France, ALUni­ted repres­ents an attrac­tive plat­form for APAL­T’s market entry in Europe. APALT is regarded as one of the leading verti­cally inte­gra­ted manu­fac­tu­r­ers of alumi­num compon­ents for the global auto­mo­tive, rail­road, buil­ding tech­no­logy and indus­trial sectors. With state-of-the-art produc­tion capa­ci­ties at a total of three loca­ti­ons in China, APALT is pursuing a clear growth stra­tegy: the acqui­si­tion of ALUni­ted marks a stra­te­gi­cally important step towards ancho­ring itself in the Euro­pean value chain, parti­cu­larly with regard to premium vehicle manu­fac­tu­r­ers. APALT employs around 3,600 people and most recently gene­ra­ted annual sales of around EUR 920 million. 

Cross-border tran­sac­tion in the wake of global indus­trial shifts

The take­over of ALUni­ted by APALT is an exam­ple of the incre­asing inter­de­pen­dence between Euro­pean indus­trial compa­nies and Asian market play­ers, as Robert Aigner-Lütter­felds, Mana­ging Part­ner at MP, knows. “New OEMs from China are ente­ring the Euro­pean market at high speed, putting estab­lished value crea­tion struc­tures under pres­sure. At the same time, many Euro­pean suppli­ers are facing key trans­for­ma­tion tasks. In this envi­ron­ment, inter­na­tio­nal stra­te­gic part­ner­ships are beco­ming incre­asingly important,” explains the expert for the metal­wor­king (auto­mo­tive) indus­try in Europe. 

Accor­ding to Aigner-Lütter­felds, Chinese play­ers are speci­fi­cally looking for Euro­pean plat­forms in order to build up produc­tion capa­ci­ties closer to the OEMs based here: “The merger of APALT and ALUni­ted fits seam­lessly into this deve­lo­p­ment and under­lines how cross-border M&A between Europe and Asia is incre­asingly influen­cing conso­li­da­tion in the auto­mo­tive supply industry.

The acqui­si­tion marks the seventh successful tran­sac­tion for MP Corpo­rate Finan­ce’s auto­mo­tive deal team in the past twelve months. The experts are made up of specia­li­zed sub-sector teams for the auto­mo­tive indus­try in the areas of metal, plas­tics and elec­tro­nics. “In addi­tion to the current market uncer­tain­ties in the Euro­pean auto­mo­tive indus­try, the special features of this deal were above all the cultu­ral diffe­ren­ces between the Chinese buyer and the Euro­pean target. Here it was important to create the basis for a trus­ting deal through trans­pa­rency, a focus on detail and many years of expe­ri­ence in the indus­try,” comm­ents Robert Aigner-Lütterfelds. 

Domi­nik Beck, foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Fide­lium Part­ners, adds: “We are grateful for MP’s conti­nuous support throug­hout the entire tran­sac­tion process. The profes­sio­na­lism and commit­ment, but also the expe­ri­ence of the entire team in support­ing complex, inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the successful conclusion.”

About MP Corpo­rate Finance

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

Paris — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) and Ship­pingbo are part­ne­ring to support the specia­li­zed logi­stics manage­ment solu­ti­ons provi­der in the company’s next phase of growth. The tran­sac­tion repres­ents Main’s third plat­form invest­ment in France in 2025, follo­wing the opening of its Paris office in Febru­ary this year. 

Ship­ping­bo’s manage­ment team will conti­nue to provide opera­tio­nal leader­ship and retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company, under­li­ning their strong commit­ment to the shared vision of buil­ding a leading inter­na­tio­nal unified logi­stics platform.

Ship­pingbo was foun­ded in 2016 and is head­quar­te­red in Toulouse, France. The company offers a compre­hen­sive, cloud-based logi­stics manage­ment plat­form that combi­nes order manage­ment (OMS), warehouse manage­ment (WMS) and trans­por­ta­tion manage­ment (TMS) in one inte­gra­ted solu­tion. The soft­ware enables e‑commerce brands, logi­stics service provi­ders and retail­ers to auto­mate fulfill­ment proces­ses, opti­mize warehouse proces­ses and effi­ci­ently control trans­port flows via a central interface. 

Ship­ping­bo’s plat­form is charac­te­ri­zed by scala­bi­lity, flexi­bi­lity and seam­less inte­gra­tion within the entire supply chain ecosys­tem. The company’s solu­ti­ons enable supply chain play­ers to connect and auto­mate all process steps, support­ing robust omnich­an­nel stra­te­gies through unified logi­stics capa­bi­li­ties. Ship­pingbo employs around 80 people at its head­quar­ters in Toulouse and serves around 1,000 direct custo­mers from various indus­tries — inclu­ding consu­mer goods, 3PL logi­stics, sports & leisure and food & beverage. Key custo­mers include brands such as Venom, Teddy Smith, and Weber Indus­tries as well as logi­stics service provi­ders (3PL) such as DHL, Deret and Stef. 

Although the majo­rity of sales are curr­ently gene­ra­ted in France, Ship­pingbo has clear inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons with a growing custo­mer base and market presence in Spain, Belgium and Switzerland.

Acce­le­ra­ted growth through product inno­va­tion, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and a targe­ted buy-and-build strategy 

Through the colla­bo­ra­tion with Main, Ship­pingbo aims to acce­le­rate growth through conti­nuous product inno­va­tion, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and a targe­ted buy-and-build stra­tegy to further streng­then its posi­tion as a specia­li­zed soft­ware provi­der in the logi­stics chain. The common goal is to expand Ship­ping­bo’s func­tional coverage (OMS, WMS, TMS), deve­lop comple­men­tary modu­les and part­ner­ships and streng­then the go-to-market stra­tegy to better serve the growing Euro­pean custo­mer base. The manage­ment team — consis­ting of the foun­ding part­ners with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in logi­stics soft­ware — will retain a signi­fi­cant stake and toge­ther with Main will lead the next phase of growth. 

Jonas Kruip, Co-Head France & Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at Main Capi­tal Part­nerssaid: “We are deligh­ted to part­ner with Marc, Romain and the entire Ship­pingbo team to support them in their next phase of growth. As supply chains become incre­asingly digi­tal, data-driven and custo­mer-centric, inte­gra­ted OMS, WMS and TMS solu­ti­ons are criti­cal for compa­nies seeking effi­ci­ency, visi­bi­lity and scala­bi­lity across the supply chain. Ship­ping­bo’s scalable and modern plat­form is ideally posi­tio­ned to meet these requi­re­ments. We look forward to working closely with the manage­ment team to drive inno­va­tion and grow the company’s inter­na­tio­nal foot­print both orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally. Ship­pingbo is our third plat­form invest­ment in France since the opening of our Paris office earlier this year and under­lines our strong commit­ment to support­ing and deve­lo­ping the French soft­ware ecosystem.”

Marc Heiri­cher, foun­der and CEO of Ship­pingbo, added: “We are very proud of this stra­te­gic agree­ment with Main Capi­tal to support us in this new chap­ter. Main’s expe­ri­ence in the soft­ware sector and in accom­pany­ing scale-ups on their growth path will allow us to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate Ship­ping­bo’s deve­lo­p­ment. This new part­ner­ship confirms our vision and provi­des us with addi­tio­nal resour­ces to further inno­vate intern­ally, streng­then our part­ner network and imple­ment a buy-and-build stra­tegy to further deve­lop our posi­tion as an estab­lished, unified logi­stics plat­form for omnich­an­nel commerce in France and internationally.”

About Ship­pingbo

Ship­pingbo, head­quar­te­red in Toulouse, France, deve­lops a SaaS plat­form specia­li­zing in e‑commerce logi­stics, combi­ning Order Manage­ment (OMS), Warehouse Manage­ment (WMS) and Trans­port Manage­ment (TMS). The solu­tion is offe­red as an inte­gra­ted suite or as stand-alone modu­les to adapt to exis­ting orga­niza­ti­ons and systems. It covers the entire order to deli­very process: stan­dar­diza­tion of orders and stock levels across all chan­nels, control of warehouse proces­sing, ship­ping via inte­gra­ted carri­ers, label crea­tion, ship­ment track­ing and fault manage­ment as well as returns proces­sing. The system is desi­gned for scala­bi­lity and inter­ope­ra­bi­lity and inte­gra­tes with ERP, CMS, market­place and exis­ting WMS/OMS/TMS systems and part­ner networks via stan­dard connec­tors and an open API. Ship­pingbo is desi­gned for multi-warehouse opera­ti­ons and supports e‑commerce merchants, DNVBs, retail­ers, manu­fac­tu­r­ers, suppli­ers and logi­stics service provi­ders by provi­ding centra­li­zed opera­tio­nal visi­bi­lity and unified proces­ses across loca­ti­ons, chan­nels and part­ners. — https://www.shippingbo.com

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH, France, the Nordics and the US with appro­xi­m­ately €6.5 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to drive profi­ta­ble growth and build leading soft­ware groups. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor with private equity funds active in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs around 90 people in offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp, Paris and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main mana­ges an active port­fo­lio of over 50 soft­ware compa­nies with a total of around 15,000 employees. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with scho­lar­ships for IT and compu­ter science programs at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. — www.main.nl

Munich — The posi­tive trend in funding commit­ments conti­nues: In the first nine months of the current year, LfA Förder­bank Bayern has supported the Bava­rian economy with loans tota­ling around EUR 1.6 billion. Almost EUR 1.45 billion of this flowed into LfA’s core busi­ness with program-linked deve­lo­p­ment loans. Compared to the same period last year, this is an increase of almost 50 percent. Around 100,000 jobs were secu­red with the help of the funding. 

Demand for the deve­lo­p­ment loan programs increased noti­ce­ably in all of the LfA’s deve­lo­p­ment areas. The start-up and growth loan (GuW) had the highest total funding volume. In the LfA’s stan­dard program for finan­cing start-ups, company succes­si­ons and the entire finan­cing requi­re­ments of SMEs and free­lan­cers, loans total­ling over EUR 670 million were approved. 

Compared to the previous year, demand for inno­va­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion funding more than doubled to a total of around 365 million euros. Both the former Inno­va­tion Loan 4.0 and its succes­sor products, the Inno­va­tion Loan and Digi­tiza­tion Loan, which were intro­du­ced in July, were very well recei­ved. With three funding levels each, the LfA now offers even better finan­cing condi­ti­ons for compa­nies and free­lan­cers in Bava­ria. The follo­wing prin­ci­ple applies: the more deman­ding the project, the more favorable the inte­rest rates. 

There was also a strong over­all increase in demand for promo­tio­nal offers for energy and climate protec­tion. For the Rege­ne­ra­tive Energy Loan alone — LfA’s special offer for invest­ments in the gene­ra­tion of elec­tri­city and hydro­gen based on rene­wa­ble ener­gies as well as corre­spon­ding storage systems — the funding volume in the first three quar­ters of the year was over EUR 85 million. The reasons for this multi­pli­ca­tion in demand are, on the one hand, the product impro­ve­ments made in spring and, on the other, the lower EU refe­rence inte­rest rate since July. As of Octo­ber 30, there will be a further impro­ve­ment in the energy loan family: the heating energy loan — for the pipe­line-based expan­sion of the heating and cooling supply — will be expan­ded to include a vari­ant in which loans of up to 50 million euros can be applied for in future. 

Bava­ria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs and Chair­man of the LfA Board of Direc­tors Hubert Aiwan­ger: “The contin­ued strong upward trend in loan commit­ments from LfA Förder­bank Bayern is a good sign. Bava­ria’s compa­nies are taking a bold approach to their future and inves­t­ing in future-orien­ted topics such as inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and rene­wa­ble ener­gies despite all the uncer­tain­ties. The expan­ded funding oppor­tu­ni­ties are neces­sary and helpful. They come at the right time and provide new impe­tus, espe­ci­ally in diffi­cult econo­mic times.”

Dr Bern­hard Schwab, CEO of LfA, explains: “The increase in our lending for inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and rene­wa­ble ener­gies under­pins the strong commit­ment of compa­nies to invest in inno­va­tion and a sustainable future. The high demand for finan­cing in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies, which signi­fi­cantly support the path to energy- and cost-effi­ci­ent busi­ness, is parti­cu­larly plea­sing. LfA Förder­bank Bayern is once again proving its rele­vance for the Bava­rian economy.”

LfA has been the state-owned specia­list bank for the promo­tion of SMEs in Bava­ria since 1951. As a rule, the deve­lo­p­ment loans are applied for at the compa­nies’ prin­ci­pal banks and are gran­ted through them. In order to streng­then Bava­ria as a busi­ness loca­tion, the LfA also supports infra­struc­ture projects. LfA funding advice: 089 / 21 24 — 10 00 — www.lfa.de

Munich — Danish RegTech has closed a €30 million Series B finan­cing. The round is co-led by Acton Capi­tal and Black­Fin Tech, with parti­ci­pa­tion from West Hill Capi­tal and CIBC Inno­va­tion Banking. The aim is to massi­vely expand its presence in Germany, in parti­cu­lar the Munich office, which is expec­ted to grow to 30 employees by the end of 2026. Forma­lize offers a plat­form that covers DORA and NIS2 in one inte­gra­ted system. 

DORA is running, NIS2 is coming — Germany is under pressure

The regu­la­tory requi­re­ments for cyber­se­cu­rity are incre­asing rapidly: since Janu­ary 2025, around 3,600 finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons have had to imple­ment the EU’s DORA regu­la­tion. At the same time, the upco­ming NIS2 direc­tive will affect around 29,000 compa­nies, mainly from the SME sector. 

“When regu­la­tory requi­re­ments meet a massive shortage of skil­led workers, auto­ma­tion goes from being an option to a neces­sity. That’s why the German market is now an abso­lute prio­rity for us,” says Jakob Lilholm, CEO of Forma­lize.

Germany has missed the EU imple­men­ta­tion dead­line and infrin­ge­ment procee­dings are alre­ady under­way. Accor­ding to esti­ma­tes, the imple­men­ta­tion costs in the first year amount to 4.5 billion euros, plus possi­ble fines of up to 10 million euros. 

There is also a massive shortage of skil­led workers. Accor­ding to studies, there is a shortage of around 120,000 cyber­se­cu­rity experts in Germany. A gap that will be very diffi­cult to close in the short term. 

Auto­ma­ted compli­ance instead of a shortage of specialists

Forma­lize offers a plat­form that covers DORA and NIS2 in one inte­gra­ted system. This is an advan­tage for compa­nies that need to imple­ment both sets of regu­la­ti­ons at the same time. 

Since its foun­da­tion in 2021, Forma­lize has acqui­red over 8,000 custo­mers world­wide, inclu­ding McDo­nal­d’s, Star­bucks and, in the DACH region, Deve­ley, Emma and Der Grüne Punkt. The DACH region alre­ady accounts for 25% of annual recur­ring reve­nue. German custo­mers include MDR, Rhein­Land Versi­che­run­gen, Honda Finan­cial Services and the Munich District Office. 

“It is beco­ming incre­asingly diffi­cult for small and medium-sized compa­nies in the EU to meet all the requi­re­ments impo­sed on them by regu­la­ti­ons. Forma­lize impres­sed us with a supe­rior solu­tion that allows compa­nies to have the requi­red proces­ses and data under control. No other solu­tion came close to Forma­li­ze’s ability to capture the speci­fics of all count­ries and indus­tries while making the solu­tion easy to use,” says Fritz Oidt­mann, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­tal.

About Forma­lize

Foun­ded in 2021, Forma­lize is a compli­ance soft­ware company that helps compa­nies manage complex regu­la­tory and risk-rela­ted requi­re­ments. Its plat­form auto­ma­tes compli­ance proces­ses for NIS2, DORA, ISO27001, GDPR and more. Forma­lize serves over 8,000 custo­mers and has offices in Copen­ha­gen, Aarhus, Madrid and Milan. The company has raised a total of €50 million to date and employs more than 160 people. 

About Acton Capital

Acton Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Vancou­ver. Since 1999, the team has been inves­t­ing in tech­no­logy-based busi­ness models from Europe and North America. With over two deca­des of expe­ri­ence and a deep under­stan­ding of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, Acton Capi­tal has helped over 100 start-ups build successful busi­nesses. — www.actoncapital.com

About Black­Fin

Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent private equity and venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean finan­cial services and tech­no­logy compa­nies with over €4.3 billion in assets under manage­ment as of Decem­ber 2024. Its venture team has backed more than 20 of Euro­pe’s fastest growing fintech, insur­tech and regtech compa­nies from Series A to Series C. Black­Fin was foun­ded in 2009 and has offices in Paris, London, Frank­furt, Amster­dam and Brussels. — www.blackfin.com

Frank­furt am Main / Greven — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP) is provi­ding the Grei­wing Group with mezza­nine finan­cing. The specia­list for bulk goods and silo logi­stics is using the funds to streng­then its capi­tal base and to finance further growth steps. 

The GREIWING logi­stics Group (Grei­wing), head­quar­te­red in Greven, is one of the leading specia­list logi­stics compa­nies in Germany. The family-owned company offers compre­hen­sive services for the trans­por­ta­tion, storage and hand­ling of free-flowing and bulk goods at over 20 loca­ti­ons nati­on­wide. With around 1,200 employees, Grei­wing has a well-estab­lished struc­ture and a strong market posi­tion in silo logi­stics. Its custo­mers include renow­ned German and inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial companies. 

Grei­wing has successfully estab­lished itself as a quality provi­der in recent years through conti­nuous invest­ment in modern invest­ment tech­no­logy, digi­tal control systems and sustainable logi­stics solu­ti­ons. The aim of the new finan­cing part­ner­ship is to conti­nue on this growth path and to broa­den the exis­ting capi­tal base in a targe­ted manner. 

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, comm­ents on the transaction:
“We are deligh­ted to be able to support the Grei­wing Group in its corpo­rate growth as a mezza­nine part­ner in the coming years. Grei­wing has successfully posi­tio­ned itself as a Germany-wide reco­gni­zed specia­list for free-flowing and poura­ble goods. Thanks to its flexi­ble struc­ture, mezza­nine capi­tal is curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing a renais­sance in the finan­cing mix — and has also proved to be an ideal solu­tion for Grei­wing to provide opti­mal support for further growth.”

Jürgen Grei­wing, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Grei­wing Group, adds: “We have been working toge­ther with the insti­tu­ti­ons of the coope­ra­tive finan­cial group for many years on a basis of trust, which is why we were deligh­ted to have found a mezza­nine lender with expe­ri­ence in the SME sector within the coope­ra­tive network in VR Equi­typ­art­ner. Mezza­nine finan­cing comple­ments our tradi­tio­nal bank finan­cing and streng­thens our equity side, allo­wing us to imple­ment invest­ment projects flexi­bly. We greatly appre­ciate the part­ner­ship-based approach of VR Equitypartner.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

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.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team: Tim Feld, Jens Schöf­fel, Chris­toph Simmes, Jens Osthoff, Dr. Clau­dia Willershausen

Advi­sors VREP: Grant Thornton

Legal: Dr. Mathias Reif, Boris Kröpsky, Jessica Marx
Tax: Dr. Stefan Hahn, Dr. Nico­las Brüg­gen, Julian Tolksdorf
Commer­cial: Stephane Müller, Thomas Nacken
Finan­cial: Tim Gonner­mann, Simone Rees, Dijana Dulovic

Berlin — The Berlin-based PropTech company Arbio Group GmbH (Arbio) has raised 36 million US dollars in a Series A finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by Eura­zeo, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Open Ocean and exis­ting inves­tors Atlan­tic Labs as well as renow­ned angel inves­tors such as Phil­ipp Freise and Justin Reizes (KKR), Johan­nes Reck and TaoTao (GetY­our­Guide) and Din Bise­vac (Buena). Arbio recei­ved legal advice on this tran­sac­tion from GÖRG. 

Arbio is a Berlin-based company deve­lo­ping an AI-native opera­ting system for the Euro­pean short-term rental market. With a combi­na­tion of tech­no­logy, auto­ma­tion and opera­tio­nal services, Arbio helps owners manage their proper­ties more effi­ci­ently and improve guest expe­ri­en­ces. With the new funding, Arbio aims to acce­le­rate its acqui­si­tion stra­tegy, enhance its AI capa­bi­li­ties and drive expan­sion into new Euro­pean markets. The company curr­ently mana­ges over 1,000 units in Germany, Austria and the UK and relies on auto­ma­ted proces­ses in sales, opera­ti­ons and guest communication. 

A GÖRG team led by Munich-based part­ner and venture capi­tal expert Sebas­tian Frech provi­ded Arbio with compre­hen­sive legal advice on the finan­cing round.

Advi­sor Arbio Group GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Sebas­tian Frech (Photo © Goerg; Lead, Part­ner, M&A / VC, Munich)
Dr. Chris­tian Bürger (Part­ner, Anti­trust, Cologne)
Dr. Matthias Terlau (Part­ner, Regu­la­tory, Cologne)
Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. Taxa­tion (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax, Cologne)
Dr. Julian Stas­sek (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Mete­han Uzun­çak­mak, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Anti­trust, Cologne)
Nico­laos Urschel (Senior Asso­ciate, Regu­la­tory Law, Cologne)
Max Zeis­ler (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A / Venture Capi­tal, Munich) 

GÖRG is one of the leading inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firms in Germany. With around 370 profes­sio­nals at our five offices in Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich, we advise well-known dome­stic and foreign compa­nies from all sectors of indus­try, commerce, real estate, media and services in all core areas of commer­cial law in natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal projects. — www.goerg.de

Paris/ Marseile/ Munich — Inves­tors announce that Ipsen (Euron­ext: IPN; ADR: IPSEY) has ente­red into a defi­ni­tive agree­ment to acquire its port­fo­lio company ImCheck Thera­peu­tics for EUR 350 million at closing in a tran­sac­tion valued at up to USD 1 billion.

EQT Life Scien­ces inves­ted in the company in 2017 as part of a consor­tium of inves­tors and has since provi­ded exten­sive support, inclu­ding at board level. GIMV is also part of the inves­tor consortium.

Vincent Brichard (photo © eqt), Venture Part­ner at EQT Life Scien­ces and board member at ImCheck Thera­peu­tics, said: “We are very proud to have supported ImCheck on its path to this signi­fi­cant acqui­si­tion by Ipsen. The tran­sac­tion unders­cores the strength of ImCheck’s plat­form and the company’s excep­tio­nal leader­ship and team. It is also a testa­ment to our ability to unco­ver hidden gems and support trans­for­ma­tive biotech companies.”

ImCheck Thera­peu­tics, based in Marseille, France, is pionee­ring the field of immuno-onco­logy thera­pies by targe­ting buty­ro­phi­lins, a novel group of immu­no­re­gu­la­tory prote­ins. Its lead drug, ICT01, is curr­ently being tested in pati­ents with acute myeloid leuk­emia (AML) who are not suita­ble for stan­dard treat­ment. The initial results of the Phase I/II trial show promi­sing respon­ses. ICT01 is a first-in-class mono­clonal anti­body direc­ted against BTN3A, an important immu­no­re­gu­la­tory mole­cule that is widely expres­sed in many types of cancer. 

Pierre d’Epen­oux, CEO of ImCheck Thera­peu­tics, said: “This tran­sac­tion is an excep­tio­nal mile­stone for ImCheck and shines a spot­light on the pionee­ring science of French univer­si­ties. EQT Life Scien­ces’ support went far beyond finan­cing — their stra­te­gic advice and confi­dence in my leader­ship skills were criti­cal to our success.”

Toge­ther with the sale of Amolyt Pharma to Astra­Ze­neca in 2024, EQT Life Scien­ces has thus achie­ved two successful exits from its port­fo­lio as part of the “France 2030” invest­ment program — a govern­ment initia­tive to promote the most promi­sing French biotech inno­va­tions. This under­lines EQT Life Scien­ces’ exper­tise in iden­ti­fy­ing leading Euro­pean biotech compa­nies and deve­lo­ping them into global success stories. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the first quar­ter of 2026, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding regu­la­tory appr­ovals in accordance with French and US regulations.

About EQT Life Sciences

EQT Life Scien­ces was foun­ded in 2022 follo­wing the inte­gra­tion of LSP, a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm in life scien­ces and health­care, into the EQT plat­form. As LSP, the firm has raised more than EUR 3.0 billion (USD 3.5 billion) and supported the growth of over 150 compa­nies since it began inves­t­ing over 30 years ago. With a dedi­ca­ted team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment profes­sio­nals with back­grounds in medi­cine, science, busi­ness and finance, EQT Life Scien­ces is commit­ted to back­ing the brigh­test inven­tors whose ideas can make a real diffe­rence to pati­ents’ lives. — www.eqt.com

About ImCheck Therapeutics 

ImCheck Thera­peu­tics is deve­lo­ping a new gene­ra­tion of immu­no­the­ra­peu­tic anti­bo­dies targe­ting buty­ro­phi­lins, a novel super­fa­mily of immune modu­la­tors. By unlo­cking the poten­tial of γ9δ2 T cells, ImCheck’s inno­va­tive approach has the poten­tial to revo­lu­tio­nize treat­ments in the fields of onco­logy, auto­im­mune dise­a­ses and infec­tious diseases. 

The lead clini­cal-stage program, ICT01, has advan­ced into late-stage clini­cal trials and demons­tra­tes a unique mecha­nism of action that modu­la­tes both innate and adap­tive immu­nity. These “first-in-class” acti­vat­ing anti­bo­dies may provide supe­rior clini­cal outco­mes compared to first-gene­ra­tion immu­no­the­rapy approa­ches, parti­cu­larly in meaningful combi­na­ti­ons with immune check­point inhi­bi­tors and immu­no­mo­du­la­tory cancer drugs. In addi­tion, ImCheck’s pipe­line compounds are progres­sing towards clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment for auto­im­mune and infec­tious diseases. 

The company bene­fits from the pionee­ring rese­arch of Prof. Daniel Olive (Insti­tut Paoli Calmet­tes, INSERM, CNRS, Univer­sity of Aix-Marseille), a world-leading expert in γ9δ2‑T cells and buty­ro­phi­lins, as well as the exper­tise of an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and the commit­ment of leading French, Euro­pean and US inves­tors, inclu­ding Kurma Part­ners, Eura­zeo, Bpifrance through its Inno­bio 2 and Large Venture funds, Andera Part­ners, Pfizer Ventures, Gimv, EQT Life Scien­ces, Early­bird, Welling­ton Part­ners, Pureos Bioven­tures, Invus, Agent Capi­tal, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, Alex­an­dria Venture Invest­ments and Blood Cancer United (previously LLS)®. — www.imchecktherapeutics.com

Berlin / Hamburg — YPOG advi­sed lead inves­tor Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners on the successful Series C finan­cing round of the Martins­ried-based biotech company Tubu­lis. The round amounts to EUR 308 million (USD 361 million) and is one of the largest private finan­cing rounds for a Euro­pean biotech company this year. 

In addi­tion to Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners, other well-known new inves­tors such as Welling­ton Manage­ment and Ascenta Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted. Exis­ting inves­tors such as Nextech Invest, EQT Life Scien­ces, Frazier Life Scien­ces, Andera Part­ners, Deep Track Capi­tal, Bayern Kapi­tal, Fund+, HTGF, OCCIDENT and Seven­ture Part­ners also supported the round. 

Tubu­lis is deve­lo­ping a pipe­line of novel, indi­ca­tion-speci­fic anti­body drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs) that are highly targe­ted and tole­ra­ble thanks to a combi­na­tion of proprie­tary plat­form tech­no­lo­gies and biolo­gi­cal exper­tise. The new funding will prima­rily be used to acce­le­rate the clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment of the lead ADC candi­date TUB-040 (for ovarian and lung cancer). TUB-040 is curr­ently in a Phase I/IIa trial and was gran­ted fast-track status by the US FDA in June 2024. In addi­tion, the funding will be used to expand Tubu­lis’ pipe­line, inclu­ding the clini­cal ADC candi­date TUB-030 (for advan­ced solid tumors) and seve­ral precli­ni­cal programs. The company also plans to expand its tech­no­logy plat­forms and estab­lish a US subsidiary. 

“Tubu­lis’ finan­cing round is a strong signal for the inno­va­tive power of the Euro­pean biotech ecosys­tem,” says Dr. Benja­min Ullrich, Co-Mana­ging Part­ner at YPOG. “With the support of leading inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors such as Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners, a company is streng­the­ned that has the poten­tial to signi­fi­cantly change cancer therapy with its novel ADC tech­no­lo­gies. For YPOG, this is another exam­ple of our growing role at the inter­sec­tion of life scien­ces, deep tech and venture capital.” 

Legal advice was provi­ded in close coope­ra­tion with the US law firm Cooley under the leader­ship of James Schnei­der, part­ner in the Boston office.

Consul­tant Tubu­lis: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Stefan Rich­ter (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Caro­lin Raspé (Corpo­rate Crime + Compli­ance + Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons), Part­ner, Munich
Dr. Emma Peters (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Tobias Lovett (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Anna Eick­meier (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
There­sia M.R. Hein­rich (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Konstan­tina Natha­nail (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Silke Ricken (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Chris­tian Busmann (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Partners

Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners (VHCP) is a health­care-focu­sed venture capi­tal fund group concen­t­ra­ting on late-stage invest­ments. It invests prima­rily in publicly traded small cap and priva­tely held late stage compa­nies — parti­cu­larly in the health­care and life scien­ces sectors, with a special focus on biotech­no­logy. VHCP focu­ses on compa­nies that deve­lop and commer­cia­lize inno­va­tive products and tech­no­lo­gies. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at venrock.com.

Düssel­dorf — Deloitte Legal has advi­sed FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe on the acqui­si­tion of the food plat­form Chef­koch from Gruner + Jahr, a company under the umbrella of RTL Deutsch­land. FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe thus streng­thens its posi­tion in the food segment of the German market. 

With the 100 percent take­over of Chef­koch GmbH, both the brand and the team of around 100 people are moving to FUNKE. The kochbar.de portal will also become part of FUNKE. Chef­koch GmbH will remain the opera­tor of the digi­tal offe­ring essen-und-trinken.de. The Chef­koch head­quar­ters in Bonn will thus become another loca­tion on the FUNKE map of Germany. Chris­tine Nieland will remain on board as Mana­ging Direc­tor and will conti­nue to manage the brand and the company toge­ther with her current manage­ment team. 

“Chef­koch is the top dog on the market and firmly estab­lished in peop­le’s minds as the best-known cont­act point for people inte­res­ted in cooking and baking. With the inte­gra­tion, we are taking our alre­ady strong food exper­tise to a whole new level — this will be a key growth area for FUNKE and fits in well with our strong target groups,” says Jesper Doub, Mana­ging Direc­tor of FUNKE Medien Natio­nal Brands in the press release. “We are consis­t­ently pursuing the path we have taken with the GALA, BRIGITTE and ELTERN brands and are inte­gra­ting further strong natio­nal brands, espe­ci­ally in the digi­tal sector, into
.”

About Chef­koch

Chef­koch reaches around 20 million unique users per month, making it the number 1 in the digi­tal food segment in Germany. Thanks to the large variety of recipes with over 360,000 recipes, nume­rous smart func­tions and the active commu­nity, Chef­koch is an indis­pensable compa­n­ion in the ever­y­day cooking lives of many users. This is also reflec­ted in the strong reach with more than 223 million monthly page impres­si­ons and inten­sive user loyalty with over 8 million regis­tered users. The bran­d’s social media
presence is also growing steadily: 1.4 million people follow the brand on Pinte­rest, Insta­gram has 751,000 follo­wers and Chef­koch has 335,000 follo­wers on TikTok. 

Advi­sor FUNKE Media Group: Deloitte Legal Germany

Dr. Michael von Rüden (Co-Lead, Part­ner), Dirk Hänisch
(Co-Lead, Part­ner), Horst Heinzl (Coun­sel), Chris­toph Meves (Coun­sel), Maxi­mi­lian Giep­mann (Asso­ciate) and Victo­ria Zahn (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Nikola Werry (Part­ner, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt), Jan Rudolph (Coun­sel, Digi­tal Law, Düssel­dorf), Alina Birgit Scheja (Asso­ciate, Digi­tal Law, Frank­furt), Claus Wilker (Employ­ment Law, Coun­sel, Hanover)

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Schulte has advi­sed the German-Dutch invest­ment company Rhein Invest on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the fitness studio opera­tor MC Shape. The foun­der will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. 

MC Shape, based in Nagold, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, was foun­ded in 2013 and now opera­tes 16 of its own and 21 fran­chise studios with more than 80,000 members. The focus is curr­ently on southern Germany; there are plans to expand its presence throug­hout Germany. 

Foun­ded in 2017 and based in Amster­dam, Rhein Invest invests in small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with a strong DNA.

McDer­mott advi­sed Rhein Invest under the lead manage­ment of part­ners Hanno Witt and Ludwig Zesch on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted issues inclu­ding financing.

Advi­sor Rhein Invest: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

Hanno M. Witt, LL.M. (Lead, Private Equity), Ludwig Zesch (Lead, Finance), Alex­an­dra Prato (Coun­sel, Private Equity), Fran­ziska Sauer (Coun­sel, Finance), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, IP/IT and Data Protec­tion Law); Asso­cia­tes: Nicole Kaps, Julia Külzer, Dr. Armin Teymouri, Parsin Walsi, LL.M., Dr. Manuel Weiß (all Private Equity), Lorenz Schwo­jer (Finance), Andreas H. Janßen (Commer­cial, Colo­gne), Janek Joos­ten, Lenn­art Neumann (both Employ­ment Law, Düsseldorf)

Munich/Nuremberg — YAXI GmbH (“YAXI”), a start-up in the field of open banking, has gained Ernst REINER GmbH & Co KG (“REINER”) as an expe­ri­en­ced inves­tor and stra­te­gic part­ner for digi­tal secu­rity and high-quality home banking secu­rity solu­ti­ons. REINER’s invest­ment streng­thens YAXI’s growth and inno­va­tive power and marks an important step towards further posi­tio­ning the company as a leading infra­struc­ture provi­der for modern banking services. 

YAXI was foun­ded in 2022 by Dr. Vincent Haupert (CEO), Chris­to­pher Schramm (COO) and Andreas Stührk
(CTO). YAXI offers a secure and flexi­ble open banking infra­struc­ture that enablescompa­nies to offer their users payment and account infor­ma­tion tran­sac­tionswith the highest level of confi­den­tia­lity. The tech­no­logy deli­bera­tely dispen­ses with tradi­tio­nalserver infra­struc­tures and focu­ses on easy access, data protec­tion and user auto­nomy,without custo­mers incur­ring regu­la­tory licen­sing costs. A special
unique selling point of YAXI is that the tech­no­logy makes the tran­sac­tions cryp­to­gra­phi­cally secure
and traceable, so that neither the company nor the custo­mers ever have access to the
access data. As a result, unlike other provi­ders, YAXI does not require a PSD2 license.
The white label product is alre­ady being used successfully: Fliz­pay, for exam­ple, works with YAXI
and enables custo­mers of the neobro­ker Trade Repu­blic to top up their account
.

REINER, based in Furt­wan­gen in the Black Forest, is a family-run tech­no­logy company
with over 110 years of history. The REINER Group combi­nes precis­ion, inno­va­tion and
manu­fac­tu­ring exper­tise in the busi­ness areas of marking and precis­ion tech­no­logy. The REINER-Group includes the subsi­dia­ries REINER SCT and HORRAY. Toge­ther, thecompany stands for a strong network of mecha­nics, tech­no­logy and digi­ta­liza­tion.The company is repre­sen­ted world­wide with part­ners and has stood for quality, inno­va­tion andrelia­bi­lity from the Black Forest since 1913. As a pionee­ring provi­der of digi­tal. REINER comple­ments the YAXI ecosys­tem with its many years of exper­tise in the areas of authen­ti­ca­tion and secure data transmission. 

As part of the tran­sac­tion, REINER acqui­red shares from the foun­ders and inves­ted addi­tio­nal seven-digit capi­tal in YAXI as part of
a capi­tal increase. After comple­tion of the
tran­sac­tion, REINER will hold 55 percent of the shares in YAXI, while the remai­ning 45 percent will remain with the
three founders. 

YAXI will use the addi­tio­nal capi­tal speci­fi­cally for expan­sion in Europe and the further deve­lo­p­ment of
inno­va­tive secu­rity and payment solu­ti­ons. “With Reiner, we have a strong part­ner at
who enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion as a relia­ble part­ner, espe­ci­ally in the banking and
secu­rity envi­ron­ment,” comm­ents Dr. Vincent Haupert on the tran­sac­tion. The foun­ders and the entire
team at YAXI welcome the new part­ner­ship as a stra­te­gic milestone. 

The Walberg & Cie. team led by Dr. Simon Sabel, Dr. Sebas­tian Binder and Marc Wies­ner, LL.M.
(Yale) provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the foun­ders of YAXI on the tran­sac­tion. The
advi­sory focus was on the legal and tax struc­tu­ring of the invest­ment as well as the
draf­ting and nego­tia­tion of the complete invest­ment docu­men­ta­tion, in parti­cu­lar the Investment
Agree­ment, the Share Purchase Agree­ment (SPA) and the Share­hol­ders’ Agree­ment (SHA). The
tran­sac­tion under­lines Walberg & Cie.‘s exper­tise in advi­sing on strategic
part­ner­ships between tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups and estab­lished family busi­nesses, where
the diffe­rent inte­rests and cultures of both types of compa­nies can be successfully combi­ned in
sustainable structures. 

Advi­sor YAXI GmbH: Walberg Law Tax Stra­tegy GmbH & Cie. KG

Dr. Simon Sabel, Mana­ging Part­ner, Attor­ney (Corpo­rate, M&A), Co-Lead
Dr. Sebas­tian Binder, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax Advi­sor (Tax), Co-Lead
Marc Wies­ner, LL.M. (Yale), Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)

About Walberg & Cie.

Walberg & Cie. is a specia­li­zed legal and tax boutique based in Munich. The focus is on M&A, restruc­tu­ring and stra­te­gic invest­ments for inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and compa­nies. The inter­di­sci­pli­nary team advi­ses on complex natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal transactions.

Berlin — GSK Stock­mann has advi­sed the Arsipa Group on the acqui­si­tion of digi­tal specia­list Bloom. The acqui­si­tion of the Berlin-based health tech start-up is an important compo­nent of Arsi­pa’s digi­tal stra­tegy. The group is thus expan­ding its market leader­ship in occu­pa­tio­nal health and safety and crea­ting the first digi­tal-native plat­form for occu­pa­tio­nal health and safety obli­ga­ti­ons in Germany and Austria. 

The Arsipa Group has been supported by Warburg Pincus as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship since 2025. Arsi­pia focu­ses on occu­pa­tio­nal medi­cine, occu­pa­tio­nal safety, occu­pa­tio­nal psycho­logy and envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion. It has around 850 employees at more than 60 loca­ti­ons in Germany and Austria and supports over 22,000 companies. 

The combi­na­tion of perso­nal on-site support throug­hout Germany and a powerful soft­ware plat­form has now crea­ted a provi­der that offers end-to-end digi­tal, hybrid and analog occu­pa­tio­nal safety from a single source to meet the needs of all custo­mer groups.

Bloom Health­tech GmbH has been deve­lo­ping an AI-supported plat­form for the auto­ma­tion of occu­pa­tio­nal health and safety since 2021. This enables complex legal requi­re­ments to be imple­men­ted actively, effi­ci­ently and trans­par­ently. Bloom inte­gra­tes proces­ses into exis­ting systems, thus redu­cing the manual workload for HR depart­ments and offe­ring digi­tal, auto­ma­ted compli­ance manage­ment in occu­pa­tio­nal health and safety. 

Advi­sor Arse­pia GmbH: GSK Stockmann

Robert Korn­dör­fer (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate), Dr. Jörg Kahler (Part­ner, IP/IT), Stephan Wachs­muth (Local Part­ner, Tax Law), Nicole Depa­rade (Local Part­ner, Employ­ment Law), Clara López Hernando (Senior Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate), Katrin Zukovs­kaja (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schnebbe (Asso­ciate, Data Protec­tion Law).

About Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus is a US private equity firm and is conside­red the pioneer in global growth invest­ments in the private equity sector. The inves­tor curr­ently mana­ges more than 86 billion US dollars and holds an active port­fo­lio of over 230 compa­nies, which is diver­si­fied across diffe­rent phases, sectors and regions.

Munich — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Reed Smith has advi­sed the invest­ment company Family Trust on the sale of novia Group to the Swedish listed company Bufab AB. The sale of novia Group, an expert in global sourcing solu­ti­ons, to Bufab AB fina­li­zes Family Trus­t’s stra­tegy, initia­ted in July 2021, to consis­t­ently deve­lop novia Group into a compre­hen­sive one-stop store for global sourcing solu­ti­ons as part of group building. 

On the Reed Smith side, the tran­sac­tion was mana­ged by the Global Corpo­rate Group under the leader­ship of Dr. Niko­laus von Jakobs and Matthias Weingut.

Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs comm­ents on the tran­sac­tion: “We are very plea­sed that we were able to support Family Trust in the imple­men­ta­tion of its group-buil­ding stra­tegy. We would also like to thank you for the relia­ble and produc­tive coope­ra­tion on all sides, having alre­ady advi­sed Family Trust on previous deals.”

“The tran­sac­tion with Bufab is confir­ma­tion of the stra­te­gic work we have inves­ted in buil­ding and trans­forming the novia Group. We have streng­the­ned the company’s opera­tio­nal struc­ture and achie­ved a market-leading posi­tion with attrac­tive sales growth through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Family Trust part­ner Andreas Augus­tin about the tran­sac­tion, which aims to create an inte­gra­ted global sourcing cham­pion in a short space of time.

“The part­ner­ship with Family Trust has enab­led us to grow stra­te­gi­cally and has also supported us in the inte­gra­tion of our opera­ting units. The successful hando­ver to Bufab is now the logi­cal and promi­sing next step,” says Markus Bauer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of novia Group.

“With its attrac­tive posi­tion in the value chain and strong offe­ring to a diverse Euro­pean custo­mer base, the novia Group brings important new capa­bi­li­ties to the Bufab Group,” explains Erik Lundén, Presi­dent and CEO of the Bufab Group.

About Family Trust

Family Trust is an invest­ment company mana­ged by entre­pre­neurs. In addi­tion to signi­fi­cant own funds of the foun­ders, Family Trust invests the assets of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, family offices, wealthy entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies and private indi­vi­du­als in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. —https://familytrust.de

Advi­sor Family Trust: Reed Smith

Head Dr. Niko­laus von Jakobs and Matthias Wein­gut (both Part­ner, Munich);
Robert Werz­lau (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich), Nina Siewert (Part­ner, Tax, Frank­furt), Carina Kles­sing (Asso­ciate, Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Michaela Westrup (Part­ner, Anti­trust, Munich), Celia Xu (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Shang­hai), Eric Lin (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Shang­hai), Kathe­rine Yang (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Shanghai).

The Vischer law firm supported the Reed Smith team with regard to ques­ti­ons of Swiss law.

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms. The firm has been in exis­tence for more than 140 years and compri­ses >30 offices with 3,000 employees, inclu­ding 1,700 lawy­ers in Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Asia. — www.reedsmith.com

Meppen — Oppen­hoff has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Re.Lion.Bat. Circu­lar GmbH on its sale to PreZero. The legal and commer­cial trans­fer to PreZero took place in October. 

The Re.Lion.Bat. Circu­lar GmbH joint venture between the DEPPE Group and Fahr­zeug-Werke LUEG AG has crea­ted an inte­gra­ted recy­cling process for lithium batte­ries and built Euro­pe’s largest battery recy­cling plant in Meppen, Emsland. LUEG has also estab­lished a decen­tra­li­zed logi­stics network for unloa­ding and dismant­ling via LUEG loca­ti­ons in Germany and abroad. 

Re.Lion.Bat.Circular GmbH curr­ently opera­tes Euro­pe’s largest recy­cling plant for lithium-ion batte­ries at its Meppen site. The state-of-the-art faci­lity can curr­ently process up to 30,000 tons of used batte­ries per year — with an appro­ved capa­city of 60,000 tons. 

The recy­cling process in Meppen is based on a ther­mo­me­cha­ni­cal process that first crus­hes used batte­ries and then sepa­ra­tes the mate­ri­als they contain. Plas­tics, ferrous and non-ferrous metals as well as the so-called black mass — a valuable mix of lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite — are effi­ci­ently reco­vered. The high reco­very rate and low-emis­sion tech­no­logy make the process parti­cu­larly envi­ron­men­tally friendly. 

The Oppen­hoff team led by Dr. Phil­ipp Hein­richs and Prof. Dr. Nefail Berja­se­vic, photo © Oppen­hoff (both Corporate/M&A) compri­sed Dr. Günter Seulen, Anto­nia Timpa­ni­dis, Julian Spruy­ten­burg (all Corporate/M&A), Marvin Roch­ner (Real Estate), Alex­an­dra Groth (Employ­ment Law), Dr. Patric Mau (IP), Marc Krischer, Daniel Gell­rich (both Tax), Holger Hofmann, Dr. Cars­ten Bormann and Maxi­mi­lian Broich (both Tax). Daniel Dohrn (anti­trust law), Dr. Patric Mau (IP), Marc Krischer, Daniel Gell­rich (both tax), Holger Hofmann, Dr. Cars­ten Bormann and Maxi­mi­lian Broich (all public law/environmental law).

About Oppen­hoff

The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for corpo­rate groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law. Oppen­hof­f’s M&A team, which has recei­ved nume­rous awards in indus­try hand­books, has been advi­sing natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies on tran­sac­tions and corpo­rate law matters for deca­des. Oppen­hoff has alre­ady advi­sed the DEPPE Group on the battery recy­cling joint venture with Fahr­zeug-Werke LUEG AG and the resul­ting Re.Lion.Bat. Circu­lar on the cons­truc­tion of the battery recy­cling plant. — Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. — www.oppenhoff.eu