Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich/Frankfurt am Main – Fort­ino Capi­tal, one of Europe’s leading buyout inves­tors in B2B soft­ware compa­nies, is inves­t­ing in Operations1, ther­eby driving the deve­lo­p­ment of one of Europe’s leading plat­forms for produc­tion workers in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try. The three founders—Daniel Grobe, Benja­min Brock­mann, and Anian Ziegler—will remain on board and actively shape the company’s future direction. 

Operations1 was foun­ded in 2017 and has since become a tech­no­logy leader in soft­ware solu­ti­ons for produc­tion workers in German-spea­king count­ries. The AI-powered B2B SaaS plat­form digi­ti­zes employee-led produc­tion proces­ses end-to-end: from task plan­ning to know­ledge sharing and intui­tive process guidance, all the way to docu­men­ta­tion, real-time analy­sis, and colla­bo­ra­tive inci­dent management. 

With one of the largest custo­mer bases in the industry—comprising a total of over 160 leading indus­trial compa­nies, inclu­ding global market leaders such as ABB, Daim­ler Truck, Trumpf, Lieb­herr, and Thys­sen­krupp, as well as fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies such as Quan­tum Systems—Operations1 is one of Europe’s leading soft­ware provi­ders for produc­tion workers.

A Billion-Dollar Market in Flux – Struc­tu­ral Drivers for Sustainable Growth

With its invest­ment in Operations1, Fort­ino Capi­tal is conti­nuing its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B SaaS compa­nies that offer solu­ti­ons for busi­ness-criti­cal proces­ses and possess excel­lent prere­qui­si­tes for lever­aging AI to deli­ver even grea­ter value to custo­mers in the future. With this move, Fort­ino Capi­tal posi­ti­ons Operations1 at the center of a highly dyna­mic, future-orien­ted market within the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try. The market for soft­ware desi­gned for produc­tion workers is under­go­ing profound struc­tu­ral chan­ges. A shortage of skil­led workers, rising compli­ance requi­re­ments, and the indus­try-wide shift away from paper-based proces­ses are driving demand for scalable, digi­tal solu­ti­ons for produc­tion workers. In this compe­ti­tive land­scape, the platform’s product depth stands out: Operations1 covers work instruc­tions, main­ten­ance, quality assu­rance, and process analy­tics in a single, end-to-end solu­tion, with an imple­men­ta­tion time of just a few weeks. 

Phil­ipp Remy, Mana­ging Part­ner at Fort­ino Capi­tal, commen­ted: “It’s impres­sive what Daniel, Benja­min, Anian, and the entire Operations1 team have built since the company was foun­ded. What star­ted as a bold idea has grown into a leading plat­form in the German-spea­king world for produc­tion workers in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try. We’ve been follo­wing this deve­lo­p­ment for a long time and are convin­ced that, with an end-to-end plat­form that maps the entire spec­trum of shop floor proces­ses, Operations1 is not just another tool, but the central plat­form for day-to-day work on the shop floor. We see a key market trend here: AI is incre­asingly taking on the work itself, rather than merely support­ing people, and Operations1 is actively shaping this very transformation—from a docu­men­ta­tion system, through a decis­ion-making system, to an action-orien­ted system. The Future Manu­fac­tu­ring Summit 2026, which Operations1 hosted with over 200 parti­ci­pa­ting compa­nies, recently demons­tra­ted just how much enthu­si­asm the indus­try alre­ady has for this tech­no­logy. A signi­fi­cant expan­sion of the event’s format is alre­ady plan­ned for 2027. In Germany alone, the addressa­ble market amounts to around 800 million euros; across Europe, the poten­tial is many times grea­ter. We are extre­mely exci­ted to write this next chap­ter toge­ther with the entire team and to actively help shape the future of connec­ted manufacturing.”

Stra­te­gic Part­ner­ship on the Path to Beco­ming a Euro­pean Champion

With the support of Fort­ino Capi­tal, Operations1 aims to consis­t­ently conti­nue its successful course and set the stage for Euro­pean market leader­ship. The focus is on three areas: further streng­thening its posi­tion in its core German-spea­king market, targe­ted expan­sion into other Euro­pean count­ries, and the conti­nuous deve­lo­p­ment of the platform’s AI capa­bi­li­ties. In its home market, the company aims to acquire new custo­mers and further expand exis­ting custo­mer rela­ti­onships, parti­cu­larly with medium-sized and large indus­trial compa­nies. At the same time, Operations1 is driving targe­ted expan­sion into attrac­tive Euro­pean growth markets and syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ding its AI-powered features. These capa­bi­li­ties build on the platform’s exten­sive opera­tio­nal data base and are desi­gned to support custo­mers even more effec­tively in opti­mi­zing their produc­tion proces­ses in the future—a key buil­ding block on the path to beco­ming the Euro­pean cham­pion in soft­ware for produc­tion workers. 

Daniel Grobe, CEO of Operations1, says: “With Fort­ino Capi­tal, we’re gaining a part­ner that perfectly aligns with our vision of shaping the future of indus­trial produc­tion as a Euro­pean soft­ware cham­pion. Since Operations1 was foun­ded, we’ve been driven by one goal: to make people’s work in manu­fac­tu­ring easier, safer, and more digi­tal, ther­eby incre­asing the produc­ti­vity and flexi­bi­lity of manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies. Today, over 160 indus­trial compa­nies alre­ady trust us—we want to build on that and, with Fort­ino Capital’s support, take our success story to the next level. In addi­tion to their tech­ni­cal and opera­tio­nal exper­tise, the “fit” on a perso­nal level was a key factor in our decis­ion to choose Fort­ino Capi­tal as our new part­ner. We are very much looking forward to this colla­bo­ra­tion and to conti­nuing Operations1’s incre­di­ble jour­ney. At the same time, we would like to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank our entire team, our custo­mers, and our exis­ting inves­tors and part­ners for their trust and for ever­y­thing we have achie­ved so far.” 

About Fort­ino Capital

Fort­ino Capi­tal, foun­ded in 2013, is one of Europe’s leading buyout inves­tors in B2B soft­ware compa­nies. Fort­ino invests in soft­ware compa­nies that provide solu­ti­ons for busi­ness-criti­cal proces­ses and supports their foun­ders and CEOs in acce­le­ra­ting the growth of their compa­nies. Fort­ino has offices in Antwerp, Amster­dam, and Munich. Its assets under manage­ment total more than 1.3 billion euros. Its private equity port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as SIMCON (DE), mpmX (DE), Ariadne (DE), Worklinq (DK), Addac­tis (BE), VanRoey (BE), Bizz­mine (BE), Efficy CRM (BE), Seenons (NL), InTouch (NL), SpeakUp (NL), Maxx­ton (NL), and Boni­ta­soft (FR). For more infor­ma­tion, visit fortinocapital.com.

About Operations1

Operations1 was foun­ded in Augs­burg in 2017 and has become the leading plat­form for produc­tion workers in the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try across German-spea­king count­ries. Using AI-powered B2B SaaS solu­ti­ons, Operations1 digi­ti­zes employee-driven produc­tion proces­ses end-to-end—from task plan­ning, know­ledge sharing, and process manage­ment to docu­men­ta­tion, real-time analy­sis, and colla­bo­ra­tive inci­dent manage­ment. More than 160 well-known indus­trial compa­nies, inclu­ding ABB, Daim­ler Truck, Trumpf, Lieb­herr, and Thys­sen­krupp, rely on the Operations1 plat­form. Toge­ther with Fort­ino Capi­tal, the company is pursuing its vision of beco­ming the leading Euro­pean cham­pion in soft­ware for produc­tion workers. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.operations1.com

Heidel­berg — The Euro­pean startup kausable has raised 12 million euros in its seed funding round to deve­lop causal AI that adapts effi­ci­ently and robustly to chan­ging contexts without the need for retrai­ning. The deep-tech startup has ties to Heidel­berg Univer­sity and Black Forest Labs (BFL), one of Europe’s most promi­nent AI compa­nies, among others. 

Inves­tors

German and Belgian inves­tors UVC Part­ners and Entou­rage are leading the round, with addi­tio­nal support from German inves­tors HTGF and Mätch VC. kausable is also backed by various private busi­ness angels from the AI indus­try and acade­mia, who work at compa­nies such as Black Forest Labs, OpenAI, Google Deep­Mind, Noxtua, and the Euro­pean Labo­ra­tory for Lear­ning and Intel­li­gent Systems (ELLIS). This funding round comes at a time when, due to geopo­li­ti­cal insta­bi­lity, stra­te­gic digi­tal sove­reig­nty and AI deve­lo­ped in and for Europe are beco­ming incre­asingly important. 

Fron­tier AI – Deve­lo­ped and Supported in Europe

“The world is evol­ving at a rapid pace, and AI should do the same. Yet even the most powerful AI systems are curr­ently still very static and require frequent, time-consum­ing, and costly retrai­ning. With kausable, we’re solving this problem by deve­lo­ping a new type of causal world model that adapts effi­ci­ently and robustly to the ever-chan­ging world. This offers enorm­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties in highly dyna­mic fields such as robo­tics, the energy sector, and finance. “We are exci­ted to work with our investors—UVC Part­ners, Entou­rage, HTGF, and Mätch VC—to advance Euro­pean AI at a pivo­tal moment,” explains Johan­nes Haux (CEO and co-foun­der of kausable). 

“The poten­tial we see here is enorm­ous: Virtually every indus­trial company relies on complex systems whose deve­lo­p­ment and opera­tion are diffi­cult to predict and control, and curr­ently, the use of AI in each of these systems is time-consum­ing and costly. kausable drasti­cally redu­ces this effort. This trans­forms AI from a series of costly indi­vi­dual projects into a solu­tion that can be scaled across the entire indus­trial land­scape; and that is precis­ely why we are leading this funding round,” empha­si­zes Andreas Unseld (part­ner at UVC Partners). 

“Most AI models are trai­ned to remem­ber the past. kausable is deve­lo­ping AI that can think about the future. Instead of rely­ing on ever-larger data­sets and constant retrai­ning, they’re taking a funda­men­tally diffe­rent approach: systems that adapt, infer causal rela­ti­onships, and solve problems they’ve never encoun­te­red before. This is an ambi­tious scien­ti­fic endea­vor and exactly the kind of ground­brea­king AI company we’re eager to support,” empha­si­zes Pieter­jan Bouten (co-foun­der of Entourage). 

From Heidel­berg Univer­sity to Pionee­ring AI Research

Johan­nes Haux (CEO), Dr. Benja­min Herde­anu (CTO), and Gregor Ramien (COO) foun­ded kausable in 2025, drawing on their rese­arch at Heidel­berg Univer­sity as well as their profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence in start­ups and highly regu­la­ted indus­tries such as cyber­se­cu­rity and banking. That same year, they closed their pre-seed funding round at 1.5 million euros and recently deve­lo­ped TipPFN, a zero-shot-capa­ble fore­cas­ting model for complex, dyna­mic systems that predicts “black swans” (rare but far-reaching events) in various fields of appli­ca­tion, such as medi­cine or the energy sector. kausable’s “reaso­ning-first” AI learns in a way simi­lar to humans: A robust, univer­sal set of intui­ti­ons (the “world model”) helps the AI adapt quickly to chan­ges in its envi­ron­ment with mini­mal new infor­ma­tion. Toge­ther with rese­ar­chers from Colum­bia Univer­sity, the team recently published a rese­arch paper vali­da­ting their approach. 

kausable plans to use the invest­ment to expand its nine-person team and further deve­lop its Fron­tier model.

About kausable
The Heidel­berg-based AI startup kausable deve­lops causal AI that adapts auto­no­mously to new contexts without trai­ning and using mini­mal amounts of data. kausable was foun­ded in 2025 by Johan­nes Haux (CEO), Dr. Benja­min Herde­anu (CTO), and Gregor Ramien (COO), three physi­cists with ties to Heidel­berg Univer­sity and Black Forest Labs. kausable has alre­ady published a paper in colla­bo­ra­tion with experts from Colum­bia Univer­sity and deve­lo­ped TipPFN, a zero-shot-capa­ble model for predic­ting rare, high-impact events in complex dyna­mic systems. 

In 2026, kausable recei­ved 12 million euros in seed funding from Euro­pean inves­tors UVC Part­ners, Entou­rage, HTGF, and Mätch VC. In addi­tion, kausable is supported by private busi­ness angels from the AI indus­try and the acade­mic commu­nity. — www.kausable.ai

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners supports Europe’s most ambi­tious B2B tech foun­ders in buil­ding new market leaders. From deep tech to AI, the firm has inves­ted in promi­sing start­ups, inclu­ding Isar Aero­space, Proxima Fusion, Q.ANT, Aleph Alpha, Tacto, Flix, and FINN. 

With more than 700 million euros in assets under manage­ment, UVC Part­ners initi­ally invests up to 15 million euros in compa­nies at various stages, from early-stage to growth-stage. Over the entire term of the invest­ment, up to 30 million euros can be provi­ded per company. 

Beyond capi­tal, the invest­ment team at UVC Part­ners is a “tech team for tech teams”—it supports foun­ders in buil­ding and scaling market-leading compa­nies. Through its unique access to UnternehmerTUM—Europe’s leading inno­va­tion center—the VC offers a high-performing ecosys­tem of entre­pre­neurs, key busi­ness decis­ion-makers, and top rese­ar­chers. UVC Part­ners’ value crea­tion team provi­des direct access to a network of over 1,000 companies—potential custo­mers and stra­te­gic part­ners. — www.uvcpartners.com

About Entou­rage

Entou­rage is an early-stage venture capi­tal firm foun­ded by Pieter­jan Bouten, co-foun­der of Show­pad. Built by prac­ti­tio­ners, Entou­rage supports the next gene­ra­tion of legen­dary foun­ders from the pre-seed to seed stages in the fields of AI, robo­tics, enter­prise soft­ware, and deep tech. Entou­rage brings more than just capi­tal to the table; the team has first­hand expe­ri­ence buil­ding and scaling global tech­no­logy compa­nies. Its port­fo­lio includes ground­brea­king compa­nies such as Aikido, Lexroom, and Conveo. 

About Mätch VC

Mätch VC is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal inves­tor based in Stutt­gart that focu­ses on deep tech in the pre-seed phase. As a part­ner from the very begin­ning, the fund is usually the first name on the foun­ders’ cap table. In addi­tion to capi­tal (€50 million in fund size), Mätch VC offers a unique network of 91 family-owned busi­nesses, indus­try execu­ti­ves, and founders—including names such as Trumpf, Ritter Sport, and Fest­ool. Follow-on finan­cing rounds for port­fo­lio compa­nies are regu­larly led by global Tier‑1 funds. The port­fo­lio includes, among others, Black Forest Labs (Fron­tier AI Lab), Block­brain (modu­lar AI plat­form), Atmos Space Cargo (space tech), and XOR (cyber­se­cu­rity).  — www.maetch.vc/

Berlin — PropTech company metr Buil­ding Manage­ment Systems has secu­red a new inves­tor in SBG — Säch­si­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH. In addi­tion, Kachel GmbH (a subsi­diary of WIKA Alex­an­der Wiegand SE & Co. KG), IBB Capi­tal GmbH, BRAWO Capi­tal GmbH, Next Big Thing AG, and exis­ting busi­ness angels once again parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. 

Ariane Neubauer, an equity part­ner at HEUKING’s Berlin office, and Dr. Henrik Lay, an equity part­ner at HEUKING’s Hamburg office, provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to metr Buil­ding Manage­ment Systems GmbH in connec­tion with its Series B finan­cing round tota­ling appro­xi­m­ately EUR 10.5 million.

In fiscal year 2025, metr increased its reve­nue by more than 80 percent compared to the previous year, achie­ved a net reten­tion rate of over 140 percent, and now serves more than 80 clients in the housing indus­try, asset manage­ment, and corpo­rate real estate sectors.

In addi­tion to the strong key metrics, the decisive factors for the invest­ment were, in parti­cu­lar, the proven product-market fit, the estab­lished tech­no­logy, and the growth poten­tial of the target market. metr is using the capi­tal to further deve­lop its tech­no­logy, expand its opera­tio­nal infra­struc­ture, and scale the plat­form further—including by estab­li­shing a hub in Saxony and prepa­ring for inter­na­tio­nal expansion. 

The Series B funding round thus marks an important mile­stone for metr

It provi­des the finan­cial foun­da­tion needed to further expand the company’s market posi­tion and initiate the next phase of growth. The company’s long-term goal is to become the leading Euro­pean plat­form for energy-effi­ci­ent exis­ting buildings. 

metr deve­lops AI-based soft­ware solu­ti­ons for opti­mi­zing energy consump­tion in exis­ting buil­dings. The plat­form combi­nes energy manage­ment and heating opti­miza­tion into a single inte­gra­ted solu­tion, enab­ling signi­fi­cant energy savings—without the need for costly retro­fits. Thanks to its univer­sal compa­ti­bi­lity with exis­ting heating systems, buil­ding owners and property mana­gers can improve the energy effi­ci­ency of their buil­dings, reduce opera­ting costs, and safe­guard property value over the long term. 

Consul­tant at metr Buil­ding Manage­ment Systems GmbH: HEUKING

Ariane Neubauer (Lead, Venture Capi­tal), Berlin,
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Hamburg

London/Munich — The global busi­ness law firm Norton Rose Fulbright advi­sed Zenobē on its acqui­si­tion of sdp ener­gie GmbH and sdp ener­gie Austria GmbH. With the acqui­si­tion of sdp ener­gie, Zenobē is comple­ting its first corpo­rate acqui­si­tion in Germany and marking an important mile­stone in its Euro­pean growth strategy. 

London-based Zenobē is one of Europe’s leading provi­ders of energy infra­struc­ture and battery storage solu­ti­ons. The company deve­lops, finan­ces, builds, and opera­tes large-scale battery storage projects as well as solu­ti­ons for the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of vehicle fleets. With appro­xi­m­ately 1,500 MW of storage capa­city alre­ady in opera­tion or under contract, Zenobē is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal play­ers in the battery storage sector. Since its foun­ding in 2017, the company has raised more than 3.2 billion British pounds in debt and equity finan­cing. Its share­hol­ders include KKR and Infra­ca­pi­tal, among others. 

sdp ener­gie, head­quar­te­red in Schäft­larn, Bava­ria, deve­lops battery storage projects across the entire value chain—from site selec­tion and secu­ring land to permit­ting and grid connec­tion proce­du­res, all the way through to the cons­truc­tion of the faci­li­ties. The company has projects in nume­rous German states and an exten­sive deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line in the field of battery storage. 

Lead Part­ner Dr. Klaus Bader (Corporate/M&A, Munich; Head of Energy Europe) comm­ents: “With the acqui­si­tion of sdp ener­gie, Zenobē is comple­ting its first corpo­rate acqui­si­tion in Germany, marking an important mile­stone in its Euro­pean growth stra­tegy. We are very plea­sed to have advi­sed Zenobē on this signi­fi­cant step in the German market. Thanks to our many years of expe­ri­ence with battery storage and energy infra­struc­ture tran­sac­tions in Germany, as well as the close inte­gra­tion of our corporate/M&A and energy regu­la­tory exper­tise, we were able to provide Zenobē with compre­hen­sive support in this stra­te­gi­cally important acquisition.” 

Advi­sor to Zenobē: Norton Rose Fulbright

Led by Dr. Klaus Bader ( Corporate/M&A, Munich), the team also included part­ners Dr. Vale­rian von Richt­ho­fen (Energy Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Labor Law, Munich), and Dr. Heiko Bertel­mann (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), senior asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Eisen­hut (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Dr. Tobias Teich­ner (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), and Michaela Bach­meier (Labor Law, Munich), as well as the asso­cia­tes Dr. Jan Vogel­sang (Energy Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Markus Beil (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Marcel Gieß­ler (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Oliver Schmidt (Corporate/M&A, Munich), and Hannah Diete­rich (Employ­ment Law, Munich), as well as Tran­sac­tion Specia­list Kübra Teber (Corporate/M&A, Frankfurt).

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 3,000 attor­neys across over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa, and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice across all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining, and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal and regu­la­tory matters, as well as in compli­ance and gover­nance. This enables us to offer our clients prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face. Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity, and Inte­grity.” We provide legal advice of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every inter­ac­tion. The Swiss Asso­cia­tion of Norton Rose Fulbright helps coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in over 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

Munich – Quan­tum­Dia­monds GmbH (QD), one of the fastest-growing semi­con­duc­tor equip­ment compa­nies in Europe, has closed a funding round tota­ling 91 million euros to expand produc­tion of its quan­tum-based semi­con­duc­tor test­ing tech­no­logy. The finan­cing consists of a €15 million equity round led by World Fund, as well as €76 million in non-dilu­tive funding appro­ved at the EU level under the Euro­pean Chips Act. 

“This is an important step toward estab­li­shing quan­tum sens­ing in semi­con­duc­tor fabs world­wide,” said Kevin Berg­hoff, CEO and co-foun­der of Quan­tum­Dia­monds. “The response from leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers is clear: they view our tech­no­logy as indis­pensable for solving yield chal­lenges that cannot be addres­sed with today’s systems. With deploy­ments alre­ady under­way in the U.S. and Taiwan, as well as the ramp-up of mass produc­tion in Munich, Europe is not only parti­ci­pa­ting in the next era of chip tech­no­logy but is also play­ing a key role in shaping it.” 

The non-dilu­tive finan­cing is being provi­ded jointly by the Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy and the Free State of Bava­ria. — In addi­tion to QD’s exis­ting inves­tors —IQ Capi­tal, Early­bird, First Momen­tum, Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Crea­tor Fund, Onsight Ventures , and angel investors—Bayern Kapi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted to a signi­fi­cant extent in the €15 million equity round led by World Fund.

The company plans to use the capi­tal to scale its technology

QD is well on its way to beco­ming the only startup to receive manu­fac­tu­ring grants under the Euro­pean Chips Act, which was crea­ted to streng­then the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor supply chain. This places the company among estab­lished indus­try play­ers such as Global­Found­ries and Carl Zeiss. 

The company was foun­ded in 2022 by Berg­hoff and Dr. Fleming Bruck­maier (CTO) as a spin-off from the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. The company will use the funding to supply labo­ra­tory systems to leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers and to further deve­lop its wafer-level capa­bi­li­ties for inspec­tion in high-through­put manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties. QD, which curr­ently employs 70 people, plans to more than double its engi­nee­ring team over the next 12 months. 

Conven­tio­nal semi­con­duc­tor testers slow down deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion because they have diffi­culty detec­ting buried defects in complex 3D chip archi­tec­tures, which redu­ces produc­tion yield and drives up costs for busi­nesses and consu­mers. The stakes are high: indus­try analy­ses show that a yield impro­ve­ment of just one percen­tage point for a mass-produ­ced product can be worth seve­ral million dollars per week. 

QD’s tech­no­logy addres­ses this key chall­enge in modern chip manu­fac­tu­ring by utili­zing defects in synthe­tic diamonds at the atomic scale to detect magne­tic fields with extreme precis­ion: Essen­ti­ally, it is a micro­scope that makes the current flowing through chips visi­ble. The company’s first commer­cial system, the QDm.1, enables non-destruc­tive 3D current mapping at the nanos­cale, ther­eby pinpoin­ting the exact loca­tion and depth of chip defects. — www.qd-st.com

Frank­furt am Main / Zurich — GÖRG advi­sed Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners on the sale of the ebutec Group’s heating, venti­la­tion, air condi­tio­ning, and refri­ge­ra­tion divi­sion to the Nordic Climate Group. The partial sale compri­ses four compa­nies with a strong regio­nal presence in nort­hern and western Germany. Ufenau conduc­ted the tran­sac­tion through Ufenau VI German Asset Light, a fund advi­sed exclu­si­vely by Ufenau. 

ebutec is a full-service provi­der of smart buil­ding energy effi­ci­ency solu­ti­ons, specia­li­zing in buil­ding enve­lo­pes, roof retro­fits, heating, cooling, venti­la­tion, and photo­vol­taics. Since Ufenau’s acqui­si­tion in 2022, the Dort­mund-based provi­der has evol­ved from a regio­nal group into an inte­gra­ted, inde­pen­dent plat­form. Today, ebutec opera­tes with over 300 employees across twelve loca­ti­ons in Germany and the Netherlands. 

The sale includes HRW Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH, Fried­rich Reitem­eier GmbH, Versor­gungs­tech­nik Stüve GmbH, and Karl Busch Instal­la­tio­nen GmbH, all of which are part of the port­fo­lio company. These compa­nies focus on commer­cial and indus­trial buildings. 

Through their inte­gra­tion into the Swedish Nordic Climate Group, the four compa­nies will become part of a larger corpo­rate group specia­li­zing in cooling and heating tech­no­logy as well as energy-effi­ci­ent buil­ding solu­ti­ons. The group employs appro­xi­m­ately 2,300 people in nine count­ries, inclu­ding Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and Finland. The tran­sac­tion also marks Nordic Climate’s entry into the German market. 

The Swiss invest­ment group Ufenau has regu­larly relied on the exper­tise of Dr. Tobias Fenck and his team for tran­sac­tions in the German market for many years. As early as 2022, GÖRG advi­sed Ufenau as part of its part­ner­ship with ebutec, and now, with a team led by Frank­furt-based attor­neys Dr. Tobias Fenck and Florian Mayer, it provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal support for the sale of the unit to the Nordic Climate Group. In addi­tion to corporate/M&A, the inter­di­sci­pli­nary advi­sory team also covered, in parti­cu­lar, the areas of tax, labor law, finan­cing, real estate law, anti­trust law, and IP/IT.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich that focu­ses on acqui­ring majo­rity stakes in service compa­nies in the DACH region, as well as in Spain, Portu­gal, Poland, Bene­lux, the UK, and the U.S., which operate in the sectors of busi­ness services, IT services, educa­tion & life­style, health­care services, and finan­cial services. Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in appro­xi­m­ately 500 service compa­nies world­wide. Ufenau has over 5 billion euros in assets under management. 

Advi­sor to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners: GÖRG Part­ner­ship of Attor­neys mbB

Dr. Tobias Fenck (Lead Coun­sel, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main), Florian Mayer, M.A. (Lead Coun­sel, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main), Phil­ipp Albert (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main), Dr. Adal­bert Rödding, LL.M. (Part­ner, Tax, Colo­gne), Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. (Coun­sel, Tax, Colo­gne), Florian Knoll (Asso­ciate, Tax, Colo­gne), Florian Seidl (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt am Main), Thomas Lange (Part­ner, Finance, Colo­gne), Jannik Gese­kus (Asso­ciate, Finance, Colo­gne), Katha­rina Meeser (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Real Estate, Colo­gne), Mete­han Uzun­çak­mak, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Anti­trust, Colo­gne), Dr. Valen­tin Zipfel (Asso­ciate Part­ner, IP/IT, Frank­furt am Main)

London (UK) – Bain Capi­tal, a global private invest­ment firm, announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Supp­lyOn, a supply chain colla­bo­ra­tion plat­form for the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, and defense indus­tries, as well as other advan­ced manu­fac­tu­ring sectors across Europe, from its share­hol­ders AUMOVIO, Bosch, Schaeff­ler, and ZF. Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Bain Capi­tal Tech Oppor­tu­ni­ties on this transaction. 

Supp­lyOn opera­tes a tech­no­logy plat­form that connects more than 200 major manu­fac­tu­r­ers and Tier 1 suppli­ers with over 140,000 suppli­ers world­wide. The plat­form supports manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppli­ers in colla­bo­ra­ting across the entire supply chain and the entire procu­re­ment lifecycle—from sourcing and purcha­sing through quality manage­ment, logi­stics, and invoi­cing to ESG compliance—all on a single, inte­gra­ted plat­form. Supp­lyOn was foun­ded in 2000 and has since evol­ved into a market-leading plat­form serving the broa­der Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­ring ecosystem. 

Bain Capi­tal will work closely with SupplyOn’s manage­ment team to support the company’s next phase of growth. The invest­ment will bols­ter product deve­lo­p­ment, inclu­ding the intro­duc­tion of new AI capa­bi­li­ties to the plat­form to drive custo­mer outco­mes. In addi­tion, there will be an increased focus on sales and marke­ting to acce­le­rate custo­mer adop­tion among manu­fac­tu­r­ers and in the defense sectors, where Supp­lyOn curr­ently has a growing presence. 

Bain Capi­tal’s Tech Oppor­tu­ni­ties Investment

The firm’s busi­ness in Europe reflects its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in inves­t­ing in Euro­pean tech­no­logy and indus­trial compa­nies,combi­ned with its long-stan­ding exper­tise in the aero­space and defense sectors. The digi­tiza­tion of the Euro­pean supply chain remains signi­fi­cantly under­de­ve­lo­ped, parti­cu­larly in complex manu­fac­tu­ring, where supply chain coor­di­na­tion is criti­cal given the growing comple­xity of supply chains for produc­tion proces­ses. Bain Capi­tal is commit­ted to main­tai­ning SupplyOn’s Euro­pean opera­tio­nal presence, data resi­dency, and gover­nance struc­ture, ther­eby ensu­ring conti­nuity for custo­mers who rely on the platform’s sove­reig­nty and compli­ance stan­dards. SupplyOn’s product quality, estab­lished custo­mer base, and network reach posi­tion the company to capi­ta­lize on this opportunity. 

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual closing condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed. 

“Supp­lyOn offers a rare combi­na­tion of product quality, network strength, strong custo­mer repre­sen­ta­tion, and market leader­ship in supply chain coor­di­na­tion across Europe,” said James Stevens, a part­ner on Bain Capital’s Tech Oppor­tu­ni­ties team. “The company has built a deeply embedded plat­form that custo­mers rely on for their day-to-day opera­ti­ons. We see a real runway to expand into adja­cent sectors and invest in product capa­bi­li­ties that are criti­cal to both manu­fac­tu­r­ers and suppliers.” 

“Supp­lyOn builds on our long-stan­ding presence in Europe, and in Germany in parti­cu­lar. Through our indus­trial port­fo­lio, we are custo­mers of Supp­lyOn and under­stand the criti­cal role it plays. “We have long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with SupplyOn’s share­hol­ders and look forward to conti­nuing to support their busi­ness in the future,” said Dr. Michael Siefke, Part­ner and Chair­man of Europe Private Equity at Bain Capi­tal.

“We are plea­sed to part­ner with Bain Capi­tal, which shares our long-term vision for Supp­lyOn as a stra­te­gic capi­tal provi­der in the supply chain ecosys­tem across Europe,” said Markus Quicken, CEO of Supp­lyOn. “This part­ner­ship will enable us to acce­le­rate our product road­map and expand our market reach.” 

Advi­sors to Bain Capi­tal Tech Oppor­tu­ni­ties: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Maxi­mi­lian Liegl (Lead, Private Equity/M&A); Asso­cia­tes: Mirjam Meyer, Fabian Walter­höl­ter, Lisa Müller, Dr. Eric Scheu, Alice Treu­le­ben-von Gans (all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Florian Schütte (Tax)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Jacob Traff (Lead Coun­sel, Private Equity/M&A), Sam Sher­wood, Chris­to­pher Shield (both Debt Finance), Erika Krum (Inter­na­tio­nal Trade & Natio­nal Secu­rity), Rebecca Perl­man (Sustaina­bi­lity), Peter Abott, Cosmos Fung (both Tax), André Duminy, Jenni­fer Wilson (both Tech­no­logy & IP Tran­sac­tions); Asso­cia­tes: Ben Egan (Debt Finance), Mark Shak­kour (Invest­ment Funds), Tiho­mir Svil­a­no­vic (Sustaina­bi­lity), Shareen Dhil­lon (Tech­no­logy & IP Transactions)

About Kirk­land

With more than 4,000 attor­neys in 24 cities across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms provi­ding high-cali­ber legal services. The German team focu­ses on advi­sing clients in the areas of private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and secu­ri­ties law, finan­cing, and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit kirkland.com.

About Bain Capital

Foun­ded in 1984, Bain Capi­tal is one of the world’s leading private invest­ment firms. We are commit­ted to crea­ting sustainable impact for our inves­tors, port­fo­lio compa­nies, and the commu­ni­ties in which we live. As a private part­ner­ship, we operate with convic­tion and a culture of collaboration—advantages that enable us to inno­vate in our invest­ment approa­ches, unlock oppor­tu­ni­ties, and deli­ver excep­tio­nal results. Our global plat­form invests across five focus areas: private equity, growth and venture, capi­tal solu­ti­ons, credit and capi­tal markets, and real estate. We have 24 offices across four conti­nents, employ more than 2,000 people, and manage appro­xi­m­ately $225 billion in assets. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.baincapital.com.

About Supp­ly­On­Sup­ply

On is a leading cloud-based supply chain colla­bo­ra­tion plat­form that connects manu­fac­tu­r­ers with their global busi­ness part­ners. Supp­lyOn was foun­ded in 2000 and is head­quar­te­red in Hall­berg­moos, near Munich. SupplyOn’s network connects over 140,000 compa­nies world­wide across the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, rail, and other manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries. The plat­form enables struc­tu­red digi­tal colla­bo­ra­tion in the areas of purcha­sing, procu­re­ment, quality manage­ment, logi­stics, and finance—and helps manu­fac­tu­r­ers streng­then colla­bo­ra­tion, trans­pa­rency, and execu­tion in complex, multi-tiered supply chains. 

Frank­furt am Main — The global busi­ness law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has MDA Space Ltd, an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner for space missi­ons, in its acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Coll­ecte Loca­li­sa­tion Satel­li­tes (CLS) from Compa­gnie Natio­nale à Porte­feuille (CNP).

Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, MDA Space Ltd. will acquire appro­xi­m­ately 70 percent of the shares in CLS from CNP and other share­hol­ders of CLS’s parent company. The French space agency, the Centre natio­nal d’études spatia­les (CNES), will conti­nue to hold appro­xi­m­ately 30 percent of the shares in CLS. 

Subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals, the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in late 2026 or early 2027.

Advi­sors to MDA Space: An inter­na­tio­nal team from Norton Rose Fulbright based in Paris, Frank­furt, and Toronto 

The Frank­furt team consis­ted of part­ner Dr. Jens Steger and Senior Asso­ciate Sven Klüp­pel, who advi­sed on all anti­trust and merger control matters outside of France.

The Paris team was led by Corpo­rate Part­ner Jean-Claude Rivalland and also included Coun­sel Louis Frid­man and Asso­ciate Mathilde Juyol.

The expan­ded team included Part­ner Nadège Martin, Coun­sel Geoff­roy Coul­ouvrat, and Asso­ciate Laura Helloco in the Tech­no­logy Law prac­tice, Part­ner Laure Joncour and Coun­sel Marie-Thérèse Euge­nio in the Employ­ment Law prac­tice, EMEA Tax Head Antoine Colonna d’Is­tria, along with Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­dra Bloch Mani­kow and Jeanne Robart, on tax law matters; and Part­ner Isabelle Augais and Asso­ciate Marjo­rie Bodino on real estate law aspects. Advice on French anti­trust and foreign direct invest­ment (FDI) law was provi­ded by Part­ner Marta Giner Asins, along with Asso­cia­tes Cons­tance Chev­reste and Géral­dine Gaulard. 

The Toronto team was led by corpo­rate part­ner Bruce Sheiner.

About Norton Rose Fulbright: 
Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 3,000 attor­neys in over 50 offices world­wide across Europe, the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa, and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice across all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining, and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal and regu­la­tory matters, as well as in compli­ance and gover­nance. This enables us to offer our clients prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face. Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity, and Inte­grity.” We provide legal advice of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every inter­ac­tion. The Swiss Asso­cia­tion of Norton Rose Fulbright helps coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in over 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices

Munich — HEUKING advi­ses Arte­che Group on the acqui­si­tion of SEG Elec­tro­nics GmbH from AURELIUS. A team led by Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn, a part­ner in HEUKING’s Munich office, advi­sed the Arte­che Group on its acqui­si­tion of all shares in SEG Elec­tro­nics GmbH from AURELIUS Private Equity Lower Midmarket. 

Foun­ded in 1969 and head­quar­te­red in Kempen (North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Germany), SEG Elec­tro­nics is an inde­pen­dent manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality protec­tive relays for appli­ca­ti­ons in medium-voltage networks, with over 55 years of expe­ri­ence and an inter­na­tio­nal presence in more than 80 count­ries. The company serves a custo­mer base of over 350 clients, employs 80 people, and opera­tes a centra­li­zed produc­tion faci­lity in Germany, supple­men­ted by sales and procu­re­ment loca­ti­ons in the United States, Poland, and the Middle East. SEG was acqui­red by AURELIUS in 2020 from NASDAQ-listed Wood­ward Inc. and has since been deve­lo­ped into a high-performing global specia­list under AURELIUS’s ownership. 

Arte­che is a global leader in equip­ment, solu­ti­ons, and services for the elec­tric power indus­try, head­quar­te­red in Mungia, Spain. With the acqui­si­tion of SEG Elec­tro­nics, Arte­che is streng­thening its offe­ring in the field of trans­mis­sion and distri­bu­tion network auto­ma­tion and expan­ding its port­fo­lio of elec­tro­nics and auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons to include specia­li­zed medium-voltage protec­tion relays. 

The tran­sac­tion is fully in line with Arteche’s 2024–2026 stra­te­gic plan, “Ener­gi­zing Futures Toge­ther,” and, in parti­cu­lar, streng­thens the Group’s auto­ma­tion pillar. The inte­gra­tion is expec­ted to create tech­no­lo­gi­cal syner­gies and expand the Group’s commer­cial reach in growth segments, parti­cu­larly in the data center market, which requi­res a highly relia­ble and stable energy infra­struc­ture. Further­more, the tran­sac­tion streng­thens Arteche’s presence in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switz­er­land), a stra­te­gi­cally important market given its signi­fi­cance in indus­try and the energy sector. 

Arte­che Group’s Advi­sor: HEUKING
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (lead), Chris­tian Schild, LL.M. (Queen Mary Univer­sity of London), Dr. Ulrich Jork, Mari­lena Schöck (all M&A), all in Munich;
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax), Hamburg,
Dr. Ruth Jung­kind (Distri­bu­tion Law, Anti­trust Law), Munich,
Kers­tin Deiters, LL.M., EMBA (Employ­ment Law), Cologne,
Dr. Julia Mattes (IP), Munich,
Julian Rosenfeld,
Georg Thomas, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Glas­gow), (both IT/Data Protection),
Markus Vlasic, LL.M. (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), all Düsseldorf,
Michael Kreis­ler, LL.M. (Foreign Trade Law), Berlin,
Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M. (Compli­ance), Cologne 

About HEUKING

HEUKING has appro­xi­m­ately 450 specia­li­zed attor­neys, tax advi­sors, and nota­ries across a total of eight offices and provi­des advice in over 30 areas of law as a full-service law firm. Accor­ding to the Juve Reve­nue Ranking 10/2025, the firm ranks 17th among the highest-reve­nue law firms in Germany. Its natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal clients include medium-sized and large compa­nies in the indus­trial, commer­cial, and service sectors, as well as asso­cia­ti­ons, public enti­ties, and discer­ning private clients. 

— www.heuking.de

Berlin/Munich – Helsing, Europe’s leading AI company in the defense sector, has announ­ced a Series E funding round of $1.8 billion. The company is now valued at $18 billion. New and exis­ting inves­tors are parti­ci­pa­ting in the funding round, inclu­ding Drago­neer Invest­ment Group, Lightspeed Venture Part­ners, Disrup­tive, Iconiq, Growth Equity at Gold­man Sachs Alter­na­ti­ves, JPMor­gan Chase, Canada Pension Plan Invest­ment Board (CPP Invest­ments), Gene­ral Cata­lyst, Plural, and Stepstone. 

Inves­tor demand signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the available funding in this round. This unders­cores the high and growing confi­dence in AI-powered and soft­ware-based defense tech­no­logy. Helsing remains majo­rity-owned by Euro­pean inves­tors. The company’s board of direc­tors also remains unch­an­ged. Daniel Ek and Tom Enders serve as co-chairs. The other members are Jean­nette zu Fürs­ten­berg and Denis Mercier, as well as the foun­ders of Helsing. 

With its Series E funding round, Helsing is acce­le­ra­ting its mission to deve­lop enti­rely new AI plat­forms and inte­grate them into the defense capa­bi­li­ties of a growing number of part­ner count­ries. Helsin­g’s exis­ting inves­tors include Prima Mate­ria, Accel, and Greenoaks. 

YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal coun­sel to Helsing in connec­tion with its Series E finan­cing round tota­ling 1.8 billion USD. This finan­cing follows seve­ral previous funding rounds, in which YPOG also advi­sed the company. 

Helsing deve­lops AI-based capa­bi­li­ties for the defense sector and builds tech­no­lo­gies to protect demo­cra­tic socie­ties. The company combi­nes soft­ware, auto­no­mous systems, and AI appli­ca­ti­ons to streng­then Euro­pean tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­nty and defense capabilities. 

Helsing plans to use the fresh capi­tal to further expand its tech­no­lo­gi­cal capa­bi­li­ties across all domains and scale up its deve­lo­p­ment. The funding is inten­ded to help the company further deve­lop its plat­form, products, and indus­trial capa­bi­li­ties and conso­li­date its role as a Euro­pean defense tech­no­logy company. 

“YPOG has been advi­sing Helsing since its first funding round in Novem­ber 2021 and has been support­ing the company conti­nuously with its capi­tal initia­ti­ves ever since. “It’s impres­sive to see how consis­t­ently Helsing is expan­ding its stra­te­gic posi­tion and driving its tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment forward,” says Dr. Benja­min Ullrich, a part­ner at YPOG.

“We are plea­sed to have once again supported Helsing in the largest funding round in the country’s history, which serves as a beacon not only for the German ecosys­tem. The Series E round unders­cores the parti­cu­lar rele­vance of tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tions for the Euro­pean secu­rity and defense land­scape,” adds Dr. Johan­nes Janning, part­ner at YPOG.

Consul­tant Helsing: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Cologne
Paul Haren­berg (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Benja­min von Mangoldt (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg (Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Oliver Junk (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Emma Peters (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Silke Ricken (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Ferdi­nand Bordes (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Danêl Buch­holz (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Richard Appfel (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Marthe Oester­rei­cher (Legal Opera­ti­ons), Senior Project Lawyer, Berlin

Munich/Halberstadt/London (UK) – Infle­xion, a leading Euro­pean private equity firm focu­sed on mid-market compa­nies, has agreed to acquire the Primed Group (“Primed”). Primed is a German specialty provi­der of high-quality medi­cal consu­ma­bles and steri­liza­tion services. The seller is Para­gon Part­ners, a private equity firm focu­sed on the DACH region. The invest­ment is being made through the Infle­xion Buyout Fund VI and marks Inflexion’s sixth invest­ment in the DACH region. 

Primed was foun­ded in 1946 and is head­quar­te­red in Halber­stadt. The company deve­lops, manu­fac­tures, and distri­bu­tes certi­fied single-use medi­cal supplies. Primed employs more than 450 people and opera­tes a verti­cally inte­gra­ted plat­form that covers the entire value chain—from the proces­sing of raw mate­ri­als to the sterile end product. The products, certi­fied in accordance with the Euro­pean Medi­cal Device Regu­la­tion (MDR), are used in hospi­tals and health­care faci­li­ties in over 70 count­ries. Primed also opera­tes HA2, one of Europe’s largest plat­forms for medi­cal sterilization. 

The global market for medi­cal consu­ma­bles is large and conti­nues to grow. For Primed, this provi­des a strong foun­da­tion for further expan­sion in Germany and inter­na­tio­nally. With Infle­xion as its new owner, Primed will conti­nue to invest in its core product line, acce­le­rate product deve­lo­p­ment, and expand its steri­liza­tion busi­ness. Infle­xion will also support manage­ment in its inter­na­tio­nal expansion—through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and invest­ments in commer­cial capa­bi­li­ties to streng­then Primed’s direct access to custo­mers in key markets. The invest­ment unders­cores Inflexion’s commit­ment to part­ne­ring with leading health­care compa­nies in their local markets and support­ing their long-term success. 

For this tran­sac­tion, Infle­xion is colla­bo­ra­ting with health­care experts Wolf­gang Süßle and Justin Barnes; both will serve on Primed’s Board of Direc­tors. Wolf­gang Süßle has more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the health­care indus­try, inclu­ding 15 years as CEO and Presi­dent of Lohmann & Rauscher. Justin Barnes brings more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the medi­cal tech­no­logy sector. He has co-foun­ded seve­ral compa­nies and held execu­tive posi­ti­ons, inclu­ding as CEO of 30 Tech­no­logy and as a non-execu­tive direc­tor of Rayner. Toge­ther, they bring comple­men­tary exper­tise and a proven track record of growing health­care compa­nies to imple­ment Primed’s growth strategy. 

For Infle­xion, Primed is its third invest­ment in the health­care sector in the DACH region, follo­wing its mino­rity stake in Prote­ros and its invest­ment in Tier­arzt Plus Part­ner. Over­all, it is Inflexion’s sixth invest­ment in the DACH region. The acqui­si­tion further streng­thens Inflexion’s presence in the DACH region and follows the foun­ding of Mittel­stands-Asse­ku­ranz-Part­ner (“MAP”), the carve-out of Finanzen.net, and the invest­ment in dss+. 

Flor Kassai, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of Buyouts at Infle­xion, said: “Primed enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion thanks to its high-quality product port­fo­lio, its inte­gra­ted busi­ness model, and its long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships. We look forward to support­ing the team as the company enters its next phase of growth.”

Martin Preuss, Part­ner and Head of DACH, said: “Primed is an excel­lent exam­ple of the inno­va­tive, inter­na­tio­nally compe­ti­tive compa­nies we seek to part­ner with in Germany. We look forward to support­ing the manage­ment team as they build on the company’s strong foun­da­tion in Germany and conti­nue to expand internationally.”

Daniel Schiel, CEO of the Primed Group, said: “We are very plea­sed to have Infle­xion as our new part­ner. Infle­xion shares our long-term vision for Primed and brings signi­fi­cant expe­ri­ence in support­ing ambi­tious compa­nies through their next phase of growth. Toge­ther, we aim to build on Primed’s strong German roots, conti­nue to expand inter­na­tio­nally, invest in inno­va­tion, and relia­bly supply hospi­tals and health­care faci­li­ties world­wide with high-quality products.”

Edin Hadzic, Senior Part­ner at Para­gon, said: “As Primed’s first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, we supported the company’s evolu­tion from an owner-led to a manage­ment-led orga­niza­tion and estab­lished it as a true growth plat­form. We are proud of what the team has built and wish Primed contin­ued success in its next phase with Inflexion.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

About Infle­xion

Infle­xion is a leading Euro­pean private equity firm focu­sed on mid-market compa­nies, with €20 billion in assets under manage­ment. It invests in fast-growing, entre­pre­neu­rial compa­nies led by ambi­tious manage­ment teams and works in part­ner­ship with them to acce­le­rate their growth. Inflexion’s flexi­ble approach allows for both majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments in compa­nies with an enter­prise value typi­cally ranging from €50 million to over €1 billion. 

With specia­li­zed teams and dedi­ca­ted capi­tal, Inflexion’s funds invest in six core sectors from offices in London, Manches­ter, Amster­dam, Frank­furt, Stock­holm, and New York. Every port­fo­lio company, regard­less of size or equity stake, recei­ves full access to Inflexion’s growth acce­le­ra­tion services in the areas of inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, acqui­si­ti­ons, digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, talent manage­ment, sales, and sustaina­bi­lity. In addi­tion, port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from inter­na­tio­nal experts in South America, the Asia-Paci­fic (APAC) region, and India who are dedi­ca­ted to port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment and provide them with privi­le­ged access to these high-growth markets. 

Learn more at www.inflexion.com

Karlsruhe/Frankfurt am Main — LEA Part­ners (“LEA”), a leading inves­tor in soft­ware and service compa­nies in the DACH region, announ­ces the sale of refyne to Visual­Lo­gix, a port­fo­lio company of Insight Partners.

Head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, refyne combi­nes leading soft­ware and AI-powered solu­ti­ons for wood and metal cons­truc­tion into a unified plat­form that covers the entire process chain of manu­fac­tu­ring companies—from sales and quoting through design and engi­nee­ring to produc­tion and billing.

Since its incep­tion in June 2023, LEA has built refyne into the leading end-to-end soft­ware plat­form for wood and metal cons­truc­tion through a focu­sed buy-and-build strategy—in line with its stra­tegy to to invest in market-leading soft­ware compa­nies with a high propor­tion of recur­ring reve­nue. In a previously highly frag­men­ted soft­ware land­scape, five estab­lished specia­lists joined forces to form the refyne Group as part of a focu­sed buy-and-build stra­tegy and contin­ued their growth trajec­tory under the leader­ship of CEO Dr. Stefan Gutber­let. Key initia­ti­ves included the estab­lish­ment of a cross-group manage­ment struc­ture, the intro­duc­tion of the unified refyne brand, the acce­le­ra­tion of cloud migra­tion, and the expan­sion of inter­na­tio­nal sales. During the holding period, refyne more than doubled its reve­nue and evol­ved from a coll­ec­tion of indi­vi­dual specia­lists into one of the industry’s leading soft­ware groups—with more than 150 employees and over 25,000 users worldwide. 

Dr. Stefan Gutber­let, CEO of refyne: “Over the past few years, our team has trans­for­med a group of inde­pen­dent specia­lists into a unified plat­form and built refyne into a brand that our indus­try trusts. LEA has shared this vision from the very begin­ning and supported us as a true entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner. With Visual­Lo­gix and Insight Part­ners, we have now found the right part­ners to scale our end-to-end approach internationally—with the same commit­ment to our customers.”

Jan Huber, Prin­ci­pal at LEA Part­ners: “refyne is a prime exam­ple of our invest­ment focus: verti­cal soft­ware provi­ders with deep indus­try exper­tise and clear market leader­ship. The result is a plat­form that funda­men­tally simpli­fies the work­flows of an entire indus­try. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Stefan and the entire refyne team—we wish them every success as they take their next step in inter­na­tio­nal growth along­side Visual­Lo­gix and Insight Partners.”

The tran­sac­tion marks the first exit from the Mittel­stands­part­ner II/II‑A Fund.

About refyne

refyne is a leading soft­ware plat­form for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of wood and metal cons­truc­tion. Under the refyne brand, specia­lists CAD-PLAN, flixo, Triviso, N.CAD, and Trun­CAD bundle their solu­ti­ons and inte­grate CAD, CAM, and ERP into a seam­less process—from sales and design through produc­tion to billing. Head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, the group employs more than 150 people and serves over 25,000 users world­wide. www.refyne-group.com

About LEA Partners

With more than 2 billion EUR in commit­ted capi­tal, LEA—as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity partner—supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at various stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and in achie­ving a leading market posi­tion. Since 2002, the 40-member team based in Karls­ruhe has successfully supported more than 140 tech­no­logy companies.
Learn more at www.leapartners.de

About Insight Partners

Insight Part­ners is a global inves­tor that invests in high-growth tech­no­logy, soft­ware, and inter­net compa­nies driving change in their industries—from start­ups to scale-ups. As of Decem­ber 31, 2025, the firm had regu­la­tory assets under manage­ment of over $90 billion. Insight Part­ners has inves­ted in more than 900 compa­nies world­wide; over 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies have since gone public. Insight is head­quar­te­red in New York City and has a global presence with leader­ship teams in London, Tel Aviv, and the Bay Area. Insight’s mission is to iden­tify, fund, and successfully part­ner with visio­nary leaders—providing tail­o­red, hands-on soft­ware exper­tise throug­hout their entire growth jour­ney, from initial invest­ment to IPO. For more infor­ma­tion about Insight and its invest­ments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow @insightpartners on X. 

Tübingen/Geleen (NL) — SHS Capi­tal has signed a binding agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Basic Pharma Holding B.V., a Nether­lands-based phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­per and full-service CDMO (contract deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring orga­niza­tion). The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close shortly. 

Basic Pharma is a specia­li­zed deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of nasal sprays and semiso­lid phar­maceu­ti­cals. The inte­gra­ted “License & Supply” model—which combi­nes in-house product deve­lo­p­ment, proprie­tary dossiers, regu­la­tory affairs, phar­ma­co­vi­gi­lance, and GMP manufacturing—sets the company apart in the Euro­pean market; in terms of produc­tion capa­city, Basic Pharma ranks among the leading Euro­pean nasal spray CDMOs. 

The company has grown signi­fi­cantly in recent years, driven by strong demand for its nasal sprays, creams, and newly laun­ched prescrip­tion products, and bene­fits from a very loyal custo­mer base consis­ting of white-label and private-label distri­bu­tors as well as gene­ric drug companies.

Succes­sion Plan for the Founders

The invest­ment by SHS Capi­tal provi­des a struc­tu­red succes­sion plan for foun­der and CEO Bob Kool, who is reinves­t­ing along­side SHS Capi­tal, and aims to acce­le­rate Basic Pharma’s next phase of growth through inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, conti­nuous product deve­lo­p­ment, and selec­tive buy-and-build transactions.

Foun­ded in 2003 by phar­macist Bob Kool, Basic Pharma has evol­ved from a local contract manu­fac­tu­rer into an inte­gra­ted phar­maceu­ti­cal plat­form that combi­nes in-house product deve­lo­p­ment, regu­la­tory affairs, phar­ma­co­vi­gi­lance, and GMP manu­fac­tu­ring at its site in Geleen, the Nether­lands, and serves an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base across prescrip­tion (Rx) and over-the-coun­ter (OTC) drugs as well as inves­ti­ga­tio­nal products. A key diffe­ren­tia­tor is the company’s ability to deve­lop, regis­ter, and out-license product dossiers: Under the “License & Supply” model, intern­ally deve­lo­ped products are licen­sed to distri­bu­tors and phar­maceu­ti­cal part­ners, while Basic Pharma reta­ins exclu­sive manu­fac­tu­ring and dossier rights. This fosters long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships and strong recur­ring reve­nue. Basic Pharma holds a leading posi­tion in the Dutch nasal spray market and, thanks to a lean and highly effi­ci­ent produc­tion struc­ture, offers its products at compe­ti­tive prices, inclu­ding internationally. 

SHS Capi­tal intends to support Basic Pharma as a growth part­ner in the coming years. The joint value-crea­tion plan focu­ses on streng­thening the highly successful core busi­ness, enhan­cing opera­tio­nal excel­lence, profes­sio­na­li­zing the orga­niza­tion, and acce­le­ra­ting inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, parti­cu­larly in Euro­pean markets with attrac­tive pricing dyna­mics. Further­more, Basic Pharma is well-posi­tio­ned as a plat­form for selec­tive buy-and-build tran­sac­tions in the frag­men­ted Euro­pean CDMO land­scape. Foun­der Bob Kool will conti­nue to support the company and remain asso­cia­ted with it as a share­hol­der and member of the advi­sory board. 

“Over more than two deca­des, we have built Basic Pharma into an inte­gra­ted phar­maceu­ti­cal plat­form with a strong team and loyal, long-stan­ding custo­mers,” says Bob Kool, foun­der and CEO of Basic Pharma. “It was very important to me to place the future of my life’s work in the right hands. In SHS, we have found an extre­mely expe­ri­en­ced and specia­li­zed health­care private equity fund that truly under­stands our busi­ness, values our employees, and shares our ambi­ti­ons. I am very plea­sed that the next chap­ter of Basic Pharma will be writ­ten toge­ther with such a compe­tent part­ner, and I look forward to conti­nuing to support the company during this exci­ting phase.” 

“Basic Pharma is exactly the kind of company we’re looking for: a specia­li­zed Euro­pean health­care cham­pion with a diffe­ren­tia­ted busi­ness model, its own drug candi­da­tes, and signi­fi­cant, untap­ped inter­na­tio­nal poten­tial,” says Dr. Corne­lius Maas, a part­ner at SHS Capi­tal. “We look forward to support­ing the team in the next phase of growth—both orga­ni­cally and through selec­tive acquisitions.” 

About Basic Pharma

Basic Pharma Holding B.V. is a Nether­lands-based phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­per and full-service CDMO compri­sing Basic Pharma Manu­fac­tu­ring, Basic Pharma Tech­no­lo­gies, and Inter­dos Pharma. The company deve­lops, regis­ters, and manu­fac­tures prescrip­tion and over-the-coun­ter (OTC) medications—including nasal sprays, creams, oint­ments, liquid dosage forms, and pre-filled syringes—as well as inves­ti­ga­tio­nal drugs for clini­cal trials. Through Inter­dos Pharma, the group also provi­des services in the areas of regu­la­tory affairs, phar­ma­co­vi­gi­lance, QA/QC, and Quali­fied Person for both inter­nal and exter­nal clients. All products are manu­fac­tu­red at the company’s GMP-certi­fied faci­lity in Geleen (Nether­lands). Basic Pharma employs more than 250 people and serves an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base of distri­bu­tors and phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies throug­hout Europe. — https://basicpharma.nl/

About SHS Capital

SHS Capi­tal is a private equity firm foun­ded in 1993 that invests in health­care compa­nies in Europe. Its invest­ments focus on expan­sion finan­cing, chan­ges in owner­ship, and succes­sion plan­ning. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy that guides SHS in finan­cing and deve­lo­ping its port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor takes both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. The natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in the SHS funds include pension funds, fund-of-funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs, and the SHS manage­ment team. The AIF’s equity or equity-like invest­ment amounts to up to €50 million. Volu­mes excee­ding this amount can be reali­zed through a network of co-inves­tors. In its invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places great empha­sis on ESG conside­ra­ti­ons and is ther­e­fore commit­ted to the UN PRI guide­lines. — http://www.shs-capital.eu

Berlin — The DeepT­ech startup NextGO Epi was advi­sed by the law firm V14 during its pre-seed funding round of over EUR 2 million. NextGO Epi is curr­ently the only company in Europe that manu­fac­tures indus­trial-grade gallium oxide epitaxial wafers (a semi­con­duc­tor mate­rial). Led by Vireo Ventures, Ultra­tech Capi­tal Part­ners, IBB Ventures, and busi­ness angel Boris Habets parti­ci­pa­ted in the funding round. 

With the new capi­tal, NextGO Epi aims to expand its sales opera­ti­ons inter­na­tio­nally, grow its team, and acce­le­rate product development.

NextGO Epi Advi­sor: V14

Florian Kozok, Sinje Clausen

The V14 Law Firm:

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

Munich/Frankfurt am Main — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP (“Will­kie”) advi­sed SMAG Mobile Antenna Masts AG (the “Company”) and the selling share­hol­der SMAG Group GmbH, a wholly owned subsi­diary of the Munich-based finan­cial inves­tor AEQUITA SE & Co. KGaA (the “selling share­hol­der”), in connec­tion with the Company’s initial public offe­ring with a total offe­ring size of appro­xi­m­ately 129.6 million euros, assum­ing full exer­cise of the green­shoe option.

The company, head­quar­te­red in Salz­git­ter, Germany, has a long tradi­tion in engi­nee­ring dating back to 1974 and is a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of mission-criti­cal mobile antenna mast systems for defense appli­ca­ti­ons, provi­ding connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons for modern and next-gene­ra­tion batt­le­fields. The company gene­ra­tes virtually all of its net reve­nue from mili­tary appli­ca­ti­ons and has more than 2,000 mission-criti­cal mast systems in service in over 20 countries. 

Cantor Fitz­ge­rald served as the sole global coor­di­na­tor and sole bookrunner.

Follo­wing the successful initial public offe­ring of Gabler Group AG in March 2026, the company’s IPO is alre­ady the second listing in the defense sector this year in which Will­kie served as legal coun­sel. Toge­ther, these tran­sac­tions unders­core the signi­fi­cant momen­tum buil­ding across the Euro­pean defense sector—driven by rising NATO spen­ding commit­ments and growing inte­rest from capi­tal markets in compa­nies opera­ting in mission-criti­cal defense segments. 

The offe­ring compri­sed 650,000 new shares from a capi­tal increase and 1,800,000 exis­ting shares from the selling shareholder’s port­fo­lio, with an addi­tio­nal 367,500 shares available under a green­shoe option. The selling share­hol­der remains the company’s majo­rity share­hol­der even after the initial public offe­ring. The company’s shares were admit­ted to trading in the Scale segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exchange. 

Will­kie advi­sed the company and the selling share­hol­der on all capi­tal markets and corpo­rate law aspects of the transaction.

Tran­sac­tion Advi­sors at WILLKIE

The core team was led by part­ners Simon Weiß and Joseph Marx and included asso­cia­tes Martin E. Kalb­henn and Marius Reif (all Capi­tal Markets; Frankfurt/Munich). The team also included part­ners Jacob Ahme (Corpo­rate Law; Hamburg), Anne Kleff­mann (Employ­ment Law; Munich), and Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax Law; Frank­furt); coun­sel Martin Waskow­ski (Employ­ment Law; Frank­furt) and Cathe­rine A. Harring­ton (Tax Law; New York), as well as asso­cia­tes Dr. Patrick Kemper and Nohman Raufi (both Corpo­rate Law; Frank­furt), Sascha Wink­ler (Labor Law; Frank­furt), and Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schlutz (Global Trade/Defense; Munich). 

Pfäf­fi­kon (CH) — The fund “Ufenau VIII Asset Light, SLP,” advi­sed by Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Eco Kart GmbH. GÖRG Rechts­an­wälte provi­ded legal coun­sel to Ufenau Capi­tal on this transaction. 

Since its foun­ding in 2019, Eco Kart GmbH has been active in the indoor leisure and family enter­tain­ment sector. In the Rhine-Main region, the company offers private and corpo­rate custo­mers a wide range of recrea­tio­nal acti­vi­ties, inclu­ding e‑karting, bowling, billi­ards, darts, and arcade games. With estab­lished loca­ti­ons and stan­dar­di­zed opera­tio­nal struc­tures, Eco Kart is well-posi­tio­ned for further growth. 

Ufenau will work with Eco Kart’s exis­ting manage­ment team to support the company’s further deve­lo­p­ment and expan­sion of its market posi­tion. Plans include opening new loca­ti­ons, expan­ding the range of offe­rings, and making targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. In the long term, the goal is to build a Euro­pean leisure and enter­tain­ment plat­form on this foundation. 

The GÖRG team, led by Frank­furt part­ners Dr. Tobias Fenck and Markus Beyer, provi­ded multi­di­sci­pli­nary advice on all key legal issues rele­vant to the transaction.

For many years now, the Swiss invest­ment group Ufenau has regu­larly relied on the exper­tise of Dr. Tobias Fenck and his team for tran­sac­tions in the German market.

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich that focu­ses on majo­rity stakes in service compa­nies in the DACH region, as well as in Spain, Portu­gal, Poland, Bene­lux, the UK, and the U.S., which operate in the sectors of busi­ness services, IT services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Health­care Services, and Finan­cial Services. Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in appro­xi­m­ately 500 service compa­nies world­wide. — www.ucp.ch

Advi­sors to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners AG: GÖRG Part­ner­ship of Attor­neys mbB

Dr. Tobias Fenck (Lead Coun­sel, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Markus Beyer, LL.M. (Lead Attor­ney, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main) 
Phil­ipp Albert (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Larissa Jährig (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Dr. Adal­bert Rödding, LL.M. (Part­ner, Tax, Cologne)
Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. (Coun­sel, Tax, Cologne)
Florian Knoll (Asso­ciate, Tax, Cologne)
Dr. Simon Lentz (Asso­ciate, Tax, Cologne)
Florian Seidl (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt am Main)
Eva Geue­nich (Senior Asso­ciate, Finan­cing, Cologne)
Dr. Valen­tin Zipfel (Asso­ciate Part­ner, IP/IT, Frank­furt am Main)
Katha­rina Meeser (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Real Estate Law, Cologne)
Mete­han Uzun­çak­mak, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Cologne)

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) is inves­t­ing in the TNL Group (TNL), a leading specia­list in envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning and permit­ting consul­ting in the energy and trans­por­ta­tion infra­struc­ture sectors. DBAG ECF IV, a fund advi­sed by DBAG, is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in TNL as part of a manage­ment buyout. The tran­sac­tion was initia­ted bila­te­rally through DBAG’s network and once again unders­cores the quality and relia­bi­lity of its access to attrac­tive mid-market tran­sac­tions. — RSM Ebner Stolz provi­ded finan­cial due dili­gence support to DBAG ECF IV, a fund advi­sed by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), in connec­tion with its acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the TNL Group (TNL).

TNL foun­der and co-CEO Frank Berns­hau­sen, along with other members of manage­ment, will sell back a signi­fi­cant portion of their shares. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. 

DBAG, listed on the SDAX, is a private equity firm head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main that focu­ses on invest­ments in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies. — www.dbag.de

TNL is a specia­li­zed provi­der of envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning, permit­ting, and cons­truc­tion services for complex infra­struc­ture projects. Foun­ded in 1994, the company supports chal­len­ging cons­truc­tion projects such as wind and solar farms, high- and extra-high-voltage power lines, and trans­por­ta­tion infra­struc­ture projects. TNL supports its clients throug­hout the entire project life­cy­cle: from preli­mi­nary envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments through regu­la­tory permit­ting proces­ses to subse­quent cons­truc­tion super­vi­sion and imple­men­ta­tion. The group employs appro­xi­m­ately 250 people across four loca­ti­ons and gene­ra­ted total reve­nue of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 30 million in 2025.

Market charac­te­ri­zed by struc­tu­ral growth

The invest­ment follows DBAG’s stra­tegy of making targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies that operate in struc­tu­rally attrac­tive markets. The expan­sion of trans­port infra­struc­ture, the energy tran­si­tion and the expan­sion of the German trans­mis­sion grids as part of the Network Deve­lo­p­ment Plan (NDP) are driving a sustained high demand for quali­fied envi­ron­men­tal plan­ning services. This dyna­mic is also reflec­ted in TNL’s deve­lo­p­ment: the company’s core market has grown at an annua­li­zed double-digit percen­tage rate since 2020. 

Tom Alzin, Spokesper­son for the Execu­tive Board of Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, says: “TNL is a true hidden cham­pion in a non-cycli­cal growth market. The company provi­des indis­pensable plan­ning services for projects that are abso­lut­ely essen­tial to the success of the energy transition.”

Munich — HTGF port­fo­lio company Proxima Fusion has closed a funding round of 411 million euros, valuing the company at 2.4 billion euros and marking a mile­stone for our multi-stage VC plat­form. Led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures, with RWE and Google as stra­te­gic inves­tors, the round makes Proxima the best-funded fusion company in Europe. 

The round is led by XTX Ventures and East X Ventures —with RWE and Google joining as stra­te­gic inves­tors. Google’s parti­ci­pa­tion as an inves­tor shows just how seriously Big Tech is taking this issue—the AI data centers of the future will need exactly this kind of elec­tri­city, around the clock and, ideally, CO₂-free.
Planck Power: Invest­ment in fusion has nearly quadru­pled in four years ($2.6 billion in 2025 alone), and Proxima is buil­ding on the Max Planck Institute’s Wendel­stein 7‑X (think: deca­des of cutting-edge German rese­arch as a head start)

The capi­tal is being inves­ted in Alpha, Proxima’s net-energy demons­tra­tor near Munich, which is being deve­lo­ped in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Free State of Bava­ria, the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics, and RWE on the site of a former nuclear power plant in Gund­rem­min­gen. Alpha is inten­ded to vali­date key tech­no­lo­gies and pave the way for Stel­la­ris, the world’s first commer­cial stel­la­ra­tor fusion power plant. 

HTGF has been support­ing Proxima since its pre-seed phase in 2023; DTCF joined during the seed phase and played a key role in the Series A finan­cing round in 2025.

From Rese­arch to Indus­trial Implementation

Proxima Fusion is deve­lo­ping commer­cial fusion power plants based on its QI-HTS stel­la­ra­tor concept, buil­ding on the scien­ti­fic breakth­roughs of the Wendel­stein-7‑X program. The funding will go toward Alpha, Proxima’s net-energy demons­tra­tor near Munich, deve­lo­ped in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Free State of Bava­ria, the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics, and RWE. Alpha is inten­ded to vali­date key tech­no­lo­gies and pave the way for Stel­la­ris, the world’s first commer­cial stel­la­ra­tor fusion power plant. 

“This funding demons­tra­tes that Germany and Europe are capa­ble of mobi­li­zing inter­na­tio­nal capi­tal for stra­te­gic future tech­no­lo­gies,” says Dr. Fran­cesco Sciort­ino, co-foun­der and CEO of Proxima Fusion. “The inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor commu­nity has sent a strong signal: it has confi­dence not only in Europe’s scien­ti­fic excel­lence, but also in our ability to build globally compe­ti­tive indus­trial compa­nies based on that excellence.” 

Romy Schnelle (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of the DTCF and HTGF: “When we funded Proxima in the pre-seed phase, fusion was still just a scien­ti­fic ambi­tion for most people. Just three years later, with 411 million euros in funding and inves­tors like RWE and Google, it has become an indus­trial reality. Reco­gni­zing this shift early on and having the courage to fund it—that is exactly what our multi-stage VC plat­form stands for.” 

Johan­nes Weber, Part­ner at HTGF: “We’ve supported Proxima since the very first round—not in spite of, but because of its ambi­tion. Ground­brea­king deep tech that can spark a new econo­mic mira­cle in Germany and Europe is exactly what gets us out of bed in the morning. Proxima has a real chance to create an enti­rely new indus­try and supply chain with far-reaching econo­mic impli­ca­ti­ons. We couldn’t be prou­der to be part of this journey.” 

https://www.htgf.de/

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Constel­la­tion Capi­tal AG on the struc­tu­ring of the new faci­lity manage­ment plat­form, Altera Faci­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH, as well as on its first acqui­si­tion, the purchase of DAV Gebäu­de­ser­vice GmbH. With this merger, Constel­la­tion Capital—through its Constel­la­tion VII fund—is laying the foun­da­tion for buil­ding a faci­lity manage­ment group in the DACH region. DAV will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently in the market and, as a foun­ding company of Altera, will play a central role within the group. DAV’s current mana­ging direc­tor and share­hol­der will remain invol­ved in opera­ti­ons and will acquire a stake in Altera as part of the transaction. 

CONSTELLATION CAPITAL AG is a Swiss invest­ment group foun­ded in 1992 and head­quar­te­red in Frei­en­bach on Lake Zurich. CONSTELLATION pursues a buy-and-build stra­tegy focu­sed on acqui­ring majo­rity stakes in mid-sized compa­nies in the busi­ness services, educa­tion & life­style, and health­care sectors within the DACH region. 

Altera Faci­lity Solu­ti­ons GmbH is set to become a leading faci­lity manage­ment services group in the German-spea­king world. The future compa­nies will bene­fit from shared struc­tures, proven opera­tio­nal stan­dards, and the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of proces­ses and systems. 

DAV Gebäu­de­ser­vice GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Biele­feld, is a leading regio­nal provi­der of infra­struc­ture-rela­ted faci­lity manage­ment services. Foun­ded in 1930, the company specia­li­zes in routine and specia­li­zed clea­ning, floor resto­ra­tion, and faci­lity services for indus­trial, commer­cial, and admi­nis­tra­tive properties. 

Dr. Laeger’s team regu­larly advi­ses Constel­la­tion on tran­sac­tions, most recently inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of Abresch Indus­trie­ver­pa­ckung GmbH.

Advi­sor to Constel­la­tion Capi­tal AG: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Core Deal Team: Dr. Lars Laeger (Lead Part­ner), David Hudde (Mana­ging Asso­ciate, both Tran­sac­tions); Part­ners: Johan­nes Landry (Finan­cing), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate); Coun­sel: Chris­tian Judis (Compli­ance, Munich), Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial, Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Anselm Graf (Tran­sac­tions, Munich), Johanna Klin­gen (Tech.Law), Diana Pucho­wezki (Real Estate), Rolf Tichy (IP, Munich), Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Lina Alami (Munich), Dr. Phil­ipp Treß (Berlin), Dr. Tim Weill (all HR.Law), Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial, Munich), Lia Papis­me­dova (Real Estate), 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, 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 http://www.arqis.com.

Berlin — Farming smar­ter. Stenon announ­ced an €18 million Series B funding round to drive the expan­sion of its proprie­tary “Soil Intel­li­gence” tech­no­logy. The round was led by Pymwy­mic, the Euro­pean impact inves­tor, toge­ther with the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF). Atlantic.vc has been support­ing the team since 2018 and is also parti­ci­pa­ting in this round. 

Follo­wing the funding round, Stenon aims to expand commer­ci­ally in Brazil and throug­hout the South Ameri­can market, in Central Asia, and in select Euro­pean count­ries. The company plans to launch a fully machine-inte­gra­ted, real-time nutri­ent analy­sis system later in 2026. 

“Real-time soil data is the infra­struc­ture of modern agri­cul­ture. Stenon has laid the ground­work for deli­ve­ring it on a large scale. Today, farmers make ferti­li­zer decis­i­ons worth milli­ons of euros based on soil data that is alre­ady weeks old. Stenon closes this gap right in the field—backed by a sensor system that’s truly diffi­cult to repli­cate and a scalable hard­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) model. “This is exactly the kind of deep-tech company DTCF invests in, and we look forward to support­ing the team as it grows,” said Dr. Achim Plum, Mana­ging Direc­tor at DTCF.

“What convin­ced me is that the Stenon team didn’t just deve­lop a better measu­re­ment tool. Using AI-powered real-time analy­sis and a smart SaaS model, it has crea­ted a true plat­form business—one with the poten­tial to bring about a lasting change in agri­cul­tu­ral ferti­liza­tion prac­ti­ces. This combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal depth and commer­cial clarity is rare,” explains Günther Bogen­rie­der, Invest­ment Mana­ger at DTCF.

Nitro­gen Ferti­li­zer: The Inven­tion of the Century

In 1909, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch deve­lo­ped the Haber-Bosch process for produ­cing nitro­gen ferti­li­zer in a labo­ra­tory in Karls­ruhe. It is conside­red one of the most important disco­veries of the 20th century, as it drasti­cally increased crop yields and enab­led the planet to cope with a popu­la­tion explo­sion from 1.6 billion people at that time to over 8 billion today. Modern agriculture—the global food system—relies on nitro­gen ferti­li­zer; half of the entire food produc­tion system depends on it today. 

Nitro­gen ferti­li­zer has enab­led humanity’s unpre­ce­den­ted growth, but in doing so has caused syste­ma­tic envi­ron­men­tal damage. Today, the process consu­mes 2% of the world’s total energy and accounts for 1.3% of global energy-rela­ted CO₂ emis­si­ons. The produc­tion of nitro­gen ferti­li­zer is heavily depen­dent on natu­ral gas, which means that the global food supply is directly linked to one of the world’s most contro­ver­sial, vola­tile, and geopo­li­ti­cally sensi­tive commo­di­ties. Since 40% of global nitro­gen exports are control­led by just four count­ries (Russia, China, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia), the most vital part of our societies—food production—is expo­sed to extreme shocks. Just consider the Strait of Hormuz, the only mari­time corri­dor through which appro­xi­m­ately 30% of the global ferti­li­zer trade passes—a corri­dor that can alter the econo­mic viabi­lity of food produc­tion overnight. 

Syste­mic Depen­dence on Nitro­gen Fertilizer

And yet there is no way out. If synthe­tic nitro­gen were phased out without a repla­ce­ment, the global food system would collapse. Nitro­gen ferti­li­zer is one of the world’s most important raw mate­ri­als, as crop yields and food prices depend directly on it. 

The finan­cial pres­sure is alre­ady acute: Accor­ding to the Euro­pean Commis­sion, in April 2026, prices for nitro­gen ferti­li­zer across the Euro­pean Union were 71% above their 2024 average. In the first quar­ter of 2025, more U.S. farmers filed for bank­ruptcy than in any full year since 2021. A survey by the Ameri­can Farm Bureau Fede­ra­tion reve­a­led that 70% of U.S. farmers could not afford the ferti­li­zer they needed for the season. 

More than half of the nitro­gen applied is still lost due to subop­ti­mal utiliza­tion. The goal is not neces­s­a­rily to elimi­nate the need for nitro­gen ferti­li­zer enti­rely, but to mini­mize it. This can be achie­ved through the incre­asing profes­sio­na­liza­tion of agri­cul­ture. For deca­des, to deter­mine how much nitro­gen a field actually contai­ned, farmers had to take soil samples and wait weeks for the lab results. By the time the results were available, mois­ture and tempe­ra­ture had alre­ady alte­red the nitro­gen profile, and the data was outda­ted. Farmers had no choice but to apply ferti­li­zer based on gene­ral histo­ri­cal averages—the most expen­sive guess in modern agri­cul­ture, one that puts the entire econo­mic viabi­lity of their opera­ti­ons at risk. 

Incre­asing Yields and Redu­cing Risks in Agriculture

A century after Haber and Bosch brought their disco­very from the labo­ra­tory to the market in Germany, Stenon did the same, focu­sing on the problem of the effec­tive use of nitro­gen ferti­li­zer. Stenon began deve­lo­ping advan­ced sensor tech­no­lo­gies and data-driven solu­ti­ons for agri­cul­ture in 2018. Over the past ten years, the company has brought this tech­no­logy to market. Farms that use Stenon reduce their nitro­gen use by 20–40% while incre­asing their yields by 2–8%.

“While farmers have no control over the global supply of nitro­gen or its prices, they can control how precis­ely each kilo­gram is applied. By combi­ning real-time measu­re­ments of plant-available nitro­gen with insights into soil orga­nic carbon (SOC), we help our custo­mers make better short-term ferti­liza­tion decis­i­ons and deve­lop a longer-term perspec­tive on soil produc­ti­vity,” Niels Grab­bert, foun­der and CEO of Stenon.

About Stenon

Stenon was foun­ded in 2018 and is head­quar­te­red in Pots­dam. The company deve­lops real-time soil data infra­struc­tures for the agri­cul­tu­ral sector. Its Farm­Lab plat­form combi­nes proprie­tary opti­cal and elec­tri­cal sensor tech­no­logy, AI, and cloud soft­ware to measure key soil para­me­ters directly in the field and trans­late them into agro­no­mic decis­i­ons. The tech­no­logy is alre­ady being used in South America, Central Asia, and Europe, helping farmers increase their crop yields and reduce their use of nitro­gen fertilizer. 

About DeepT­ech & Climate Fund

The DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF) invests up to €50 million in high-growth deep-tech and climate-tech compa­nies in Germany and Europe. As an anchor inves­tor and part­ner of long-term orien­ted Euro­pean inves­tors, the DTCF supports compa­nies with long deve­lo­p­ment cycles and high finan­cing needs in imple­men­ting sustainable growth stra­te­gies and actively contri­bu­tes to the expan­sion of the tech­no­logy ecosys­tem. The fund acts as a bridge between inves­tors, medium-sized compa­nies, and inno­va­tive high-tech start­ups in the fields of climate, compu­ting, indus­try, and life scien­ces. Finan­ced by the German Future Fund and the ERP Special Fund, the DTCF plans to invest €1 billion in the coming years to streng­then the Euro­pean tech­no­logy ecosys­tem. — https://dtcf.de/

About Atlantic.vc

Atlantic.vc is a Berlin-based venture capi­tal firm that invests in outstan­ding teams and tech­no­lo­gies across Europe. Since its foun­ding in 2016, Atlantic.vc has supported over 150 teams as the lead inves­tor in their first funding rounds. — https://atlantic.vc/

Berlin – Project A is parti­ci­pa­ting in a EUR 500 million finan­cing round for the defense startup Stark. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Project A on struc­tu­ring the invest­ment vehic­les and the Series C invest­ment in the Berlin-based defense startup Stark. The advi­sory services covered regu­la­tory, tax, and corpo­rate law issues, as well as tran­sac­tion support for the EUR 500 million finan­cing round. The round was led by Sequoia Capi­tal and Foun­ders Fund, among others. 

Stark is a defense tech­no­logy company foun­ded in 2024 and head­quar­te­red in Berlin. The company deve­lops soft­ware-driven, AI-powered unman­ned systems for Euro­pean and NATO armed forces—including loite­ring muni­ti­ons and swarm technology—that are opera­tio­nal even in highly conge­sted elec­tro­nic envi­ron­ments. Stark is one of the fastest-growing defense start­ups in Europe and colla­bo­ra­tes with the German Armed Forces (Bundes­wehr) and other NATO part­ner nati­ons, among others, which are alre­ady using systems such as the Virtus plat­form in procu­re­ment and test­ing programs. 

More than 80% of the newly raised capi­tal is to be inves­ted directly in rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment, and the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­city in Europe—including addi­tio­nal rese­arch faci­li­ties in the field of elec­tro­nic warfare and scaling up produc­tion to seve­ral thousand systems per month. Most recently, Stark expan­ded into the United King­dom and Sweden, acqui­red the Berlin-based soft­ware company Pleno, and secu­red a contract from the German Armed Forces worth 268 million EUR. 

“This mandate demons­tra­tes how tran­sac­tion advi­sory and fund struc­tu­ring go hand in hand at YPOG—from struc­tu­ring invest­ment vehic­les and desig­ning tax struc­tures, to navi­ga­ting regu­la­tory frame­works, to nego­tia­ting with inves­tors,” says Dr. Stephan Bank, part­ner at YPOG (photo).

“We are plea­sed to support Project A in this signi­fi­cant finan­cing round for Stark. The tran­sac­tion marks another mile­stone in our long-stan­ding colla­bo­ra­tion, during which we have had the oppor­tu­nity to provide legal support to Project A on nume­rous tech­no­logy-driven invest­ments,” adds Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner, a part­ner at YPOG.

YPOG and Project A have a long-stan­ding part­ner­ship. The law firm has been advi­sing Project A for seve­ral years on nume­rous finan­cing rounds and tran­sac­tions and has also supported the venture capi­tal inves­tor from the very begin­ning in struc­tu­ring and setting up all of its invest­ment vehicles. 

Team YPOG:

Struc­tu­ring:
Dr. Stephan Bank (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Lead, Tax Struc­tu­ring), Part­ner, Berlin
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Saskia Bong (Co-Lead, Funds), Asso­ciate Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Dajo Sanning (Tax Struc­tu­ring), Asso­ciate Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Wolf­ram Dickers­bach (Tax Struc­tu­ring), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Fran­ziska Wüst (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin

Tran­sac­tion:
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sarah Sostak (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

www.ypog.com

Frank­furt am Main / Munich – The Frank­furt-based invest­ment firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP) is support­ing the growth stra­tegy of the Kaske Group, a Munich-based provi­der specia­li­zing in data, soft­ware, and AI solu­ti­ons for compa­nies in the health­care and life scien­ces indus­tries. The goal of the part­ner­ship is to further streng­then the group’s posi­tion as a leading tech­no­logy and growth part­ner for compa­nies in the indus­try and to estab­lish a leading data- and AI-driven plat­form for the Euro­pean market. 

Toge­ther with VREP, the Kaske Group’s manage­ment is laying the ground­work for the group’s next phase of growth. The plan calls for targe­ted invest­ments in sales, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, and product deve­lo­p­ment to further expand the group’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise and tap into addi­tio­nal growth potential. 

The focus is parti­cu­larly on data-driven marke­ting, AI-powered soft­ware solu­ti­ons, and scalable direct-to-consu­mer (DTC) models for the health­care indus­try. By combi­ning tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion, data-driven value crea­tion, and stra­te­gic expan­sion, the company aims to tap into new markets and acce­le­rate the inter­na­tio­nal scaling of its busi­ness model. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth, the part­ner­ship opens up attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties for targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and the further expan­sion of the platform. 

This part­ner­ship lays the foun­da­tion for the Kaske Group to move to the next stage of its deve­lo­p­ment and, in parti­cu­lar, to tap into the poten­tial offe­red by the combi­na­tion of unique data, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and digi­tal sales chan­nels for the health­care industry.

Opera­ti­ons will remain unch­an­ged: Foun­der and CEO Fabian Kaske will conti­nue to lead the company and retain a signi­fi­cant stake. VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is acqui­ring a stake in the company. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. 

Fabian Kaske, CEO of the Kaske Group, says: “Our USP is a unique data­base, a skil­led team, and the AI and soft­ware exper­tise to create real added value for our custo­mers. With VR Equi­typ­art­ner as a finan­ci­ally strong, long-term-orien­ted part­ner, we can build on this very advan­tage and grow faster than we could on our own. In addi­tion, VREP brings expe­ri­ence in scaling compa­nies and imple­men­ting targe­ted buy-and-build strategies.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adds: “The Kaske Group has posi­tio­ned itself as a leading provi­der in the Phar­ma­Tech indus­try and boasts strong diffe­ren­tia­tion and deep moats in a struc­tu­rally growing market. We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the manage­ment team, which is driving the Group’s deve­lo­p­ment with entre­pre­neu­rial fore­sight and strong execu­tion capa­bi­li­ties. We look forward to support­ing this manage­ment team as a long-term part­ner in reali­zing further growth opportunities.”

The Kaske Group 

Head­quar­te­red in Munich, the Kaske Group combi­nes one of the largest digi­tal health data­ba­ses in the DACH region with data-driven soft­ware, AI, and service solu­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1997 by Dr. Roland Kaske as an agency, the company has evol­ved under Fabian Kaske into a soft­ware- and data-driven plat­form provi­der. The group includes, among others, Smile AI GmbH, Dr. Kaske GmbH & Co. KG, and Dr. Vital Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons GmbH. With over 100 clients and projects in 22 Euro­pean count­ries, the Kaske Group supports its clients end-to-end—from stra­te­gic data analy­sis through implementation. 

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria, and Switz­er­land. Drawing on deca­des of expe­ri­ence, the company provi­des targe­ted support to medium-sized family-owned busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, busi­ness succes­sion, and chan­ges in owner­ship. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity equity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the umbrella orga­niza­tion for coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently prio­ri­ti­zes the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment over short-term exit stra­te­gies. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses appro­xi­m­ately 40 invest­ments with a total invest­ment volume of 400 million EUR. — www.vrep.de.

The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team: Michael Vogt, Daniel Schmidt, Luis Sche­rer, Jakob Notarp, Jens Schöf­fel, Chris­tof Schmitt, Frank Wildenberg

Advi­sors, Kaske Group:

M&A: 4GC
Legal: LARK
Finan­cial: AC CHRISTES & PARTNER

VREP Advi­sors:

Commercial/Tech: CODEX Part­ners (Clemens Beick­ler, Iryna Kurylyshyn)
Finan­cial: Radial (Wolf-Hein­rich Werling, Domi­nik Maier)
Legal/Tax: McDer­mott (Chris­tian Marz­lin, Heiko Kermer)

Berlin — Gaius Capi­tal (“Gaius”), a private equity inves­tor specia­li­zing in succes­sion plan­ning solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses, has announ­ced the first closing of its debut fund, Gaius Nach­fol­ge­ka­pi­tal I. With commit­ments tota­ling EUR 40 million, appro­xi­m­ately 80% of the target hard cap has alre­ady been reached. At the same time, the co-invest­ment vehicle Gaius Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal I has been closed. Inves­tors include insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family offices from Germany, the United King­dom, and the United States, inclu­ding a French anchor inves­tor focu­sed on emer­ging managers. 

Gaius is an inde­pen­dent private equity inves­tor that invests in the micro- and small-cap segment in the DACH region and pursues a buy-and-build stra­tegy in part­ner­ship with mid-sized entre­pre­neurs. The goal is to estab­lish three succes­sion plat­forms by the end of 2026 in high-growth service sectors. The first plat­form, in the insu­rance brokerage sector, was laun­ched in Decem­ber 2025. The foun­ding partners—Jan Mickel, Joscha Radeck, and Dr. Lukas Klip­per —have more than ten years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding compa­nies and deve­lo­ping succes­sion solu­ti­ons in part­ner­ship with busi­ness owners. —

With this first closing, Gaius is expan­ding its team in Berlin to closely support invest­ments and the deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio compa­nies. The approach is based on active colla­bo­ra­tion with owners and manage­ment, as well as targe­ted value crea­tion that goes beyond simply provi­ding capital. 

Advi­sor to Gaius: POELLATH
POELLATH provi­ded Gaius with compre­hen­sive advice on contrac­tual, tax, and regu­la­tory issues rela­ted to the fund’s struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion, as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons, working with the follo­wing Berlin-based team:

Amos Veith, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead, Invest­ment Funds, Legal and Tax)
Dr. Robert Eberius, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Co-Lead, Invest­ment Funds, Legal and Tax)
Pascal Erler, LL.M. (Bond) (Senior Asso­ciate, Invest­ment Funds, Legal and Tax) 

About Gaius Capital

Gaius Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent private equity firm foun­ded in Berlin in 2025 by its foun­ding part­ners Jan Mickel, Joscha Radeck, and Dr. Lukas Klip­per with the goal of helping mid-sized busi­ness owners find part­ner­ship-based solu­ti­ons for their succes­sion plan­ning. We combine inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons with prag­ma­tic implementation. 

When it comes to busi­ness succes­sion, we want to be part of a solu­tion based on part­ner­ship. We tailor our approach to the indi­vi­dual needs of busi­ness owners and offer a compre­hen­sive range of solutions—from a quick sale at fair market value to a flexi­ble, profit-maxi­mi­zing approach through the Gaius Seller Commu­nity. Our work is groun­ded in a deep appre­cia­tion for our part­ners’ entre­pre­neu­rial achie­ve­ments, as well as a strong sense of respon­si­bi­lity for the careful manage­ment of the capi­tal entrus­ted to us. — www.gaiuscapital.com

Munich — Invest­corp and NetRom are acqui­ring the Trivium Group. Through its tech­no­logy invest­ment arm, Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners, Invest­corp has estab­lished a new growth plat­form in the soft­ware sector, consis­ting of NetRom Soft­ware (“NetRom”) and Trivium eSolu­ti­ons (“Trivium”). The goal is to bring comple­men­tary soft­ware engi­nee­ring compa­nies toge­ther under one roof and acce­le­rate their growth. — POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Invest­corp and NetRom on this transaction. 

NetRom, based in Utrecht (Nether­lands), is a leading near­shore soft­ware development
company with appro­xi­m­ately 460 employees and two deli­very centers in Roma­nia. Trivium is a German soft­ware consul­ting firm specia­li­zing in indus­trial AI
with appro­xi­m­ately 180 employees
and offices in Germany, the Nether­lands, and India. 

Advi­sors to Invest­corp and NetRom: Poellath 

Dr. Tim Jung­in­ger, LL.M. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Gerald Herr­mann (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Frank­furt am Main)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Frank­furt am Main)
Lukas Fell­höl­ter (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Nicole Kalten­berg (Senior Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Alex­an­der Bokari (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Marvin Ritt­meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Lennard Salve­ter (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich) 

About POELLATH

POELLATH is a leading, inter­na­tio­nally networked busi­ness and tax law firm with over
180 legal and tax profes­sio­nals in Berlin, Frank­furt, and Munich. We
provide excel­lent advice on tran­sac­tions and asset management—covering both legal and tax
matters—all under one roof. 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 firm in our selected
prac­tice areas.
www.pplaw.com

Gärt­rin­gen / Bjer­ring­bro (Denmark) — The Danish company Grund­fos has acqui­red the German water treat­ment specia­list EUWA. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The global busi­ness law firm Norton Rose Fulbright advi­sed Grund­fos on the acqui­si­tion of EUWA. The share­hol­der of the water treat­ment specia­list EUWA recei­ved advice from OPPENLÄNDER Rechts­an­wälte on corpo­rate law matters and in connec­tion with the M&A tran­sac­tion when selling his shares to the Danish pump and water tech­no­logy group Grundfos. 

Grund­fos is one of the worl­d’s leading provi­ders of pumps and water tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons. EUWA is a Germany-based specia­list in water treat­ment solu­ti­ons with parti­cu­lar exper­tise in the beverage industry. 

With the acqui­si­tion of the German water treat­ment specia­list EUWA, Grund­fos is streng­thening its own water treat­ment divi­sion. EUWA deve­lops and imple­ments water treat­ment solu­ti­ons for the brewing and beverage indus­tries and has instal­la­ti­ons in more than 110 count­ries world­wide. In light of growing chal­lenges in the areas of water supply and water treat­ment, relia­ble, sustainable, and effi­ci­ent water treat­ment for the beverage indus­try is beco­ming incre­asingly important from a stra­te­gic perspec­tive. — EUWA poss­es­ses exten­sive tech­no­lo­gi­cal and engi­nee­ring exper­tise and offers solu­ti­ons across the entire puri­fied water cycle. 

The acqui­si­tion fits seam­lessly into Grund­fos’ stra­te­gic focus on consis­t­ently expan­ding its water treat­ment busi­ness and further streng­thening its exper­tise in this area.

Lead part­ner Kars­ten Kühnle, Head of Corpo­rate, M&A, and Secu­ri­ties Germany at Norton Rose Fulbright, commen­ted: “We are very plea­sed to have advi­sed Grund­fos on this stra­te­gi­cally important acqui­si­tion. The tran­sac­tion unders­cores the contin­ued importance of inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive water and envi­ron­men­tal technologies.” 

About Grund­fos Holding A/S

Grund­fos Holding A/S, head­quar­te­red in Bjer­ring­bro, Denmark, is the parent company of the Grund­fos Group. The Grund­fos Group is repre­sen­ted by more than 100 compa­nies in more than 60 count­ries. In addi­tion, our products are sold in nume­rous count­ries through local distri­bu­tors. Grund­fos Holding A/S holds shares in all other compa­nies in the Grund­fos Group, either directly or indi­rectly. — www.grundfos.com

Grund­fos’s legal coun­sel: Norton Rose Fulbright 

Kars­ten Kühnle (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) also included Senior Asso­ciate Dr. Ariane Theis­sen (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Asso­ciate Felix Reiner (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt). The exten­ded team included part­ners Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Chris­tian Wolf (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Clemens Rübel (IP, Munich), Holger Wolf (Real Estate/Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Simon Wepp­ner (Tax Law, Düssel­dorf), Coun­sel Dr. Riccardo Mari­nello (Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Torben Schlä­fer (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­ciate Tiffany Zilliox (IP, Munich), Michaela Bach­meier (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Nata­lia Filkina (Data Protec­tion Law, Frank­furt), Chris­tian Klein (Tax Law, Düssel­dorf), Maxi­mi­lian Schmitz (IP/Disputes, Munich), Sven Klüp­pel (Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt), Anne–Sophie Wilhelmy (Real Estate/Finance, Frank­furt), and Asso­ciate Hannah Diete­rich (Employ­ment Law, Munich). The team was supported on a global level by Norton Rose Fulbright colle­agues from China and Singapore.—

EUWA Consul­tant: OPPENLÄNDER

On the seller’s side, Dr. Felix Born and asso­ciate part­ner Julia Sauter, LL.M., led the legal team for the tran­sac­tion. — www.oppenländer.de

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 3,000 attor­neys across over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa, and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies. We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice across all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining, and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal and regu­la­tory matters, as well as in compli­ance and gover­nance. This enables us to offer our clients prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face. Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity, and Inte­grity.” We provide legal advice of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every inter­ac­tion. The Swiss Asso­cia­tion of Norton Rose Fulbright helps coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in over 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

Kippenheim/Stuttgart/Cologne – Blue Cap AG has signed a purchase agree­ment to acquire all shares in Janoschka AG. In connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion, GÖRG advi­sed Blue Cap on the syndi­ca­ted finan­cing. The sellers are members of the Janoschka family and Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH of Stutt­gart. Janoschka is an inter­na­tio­nally active provi­der of inte­gra­ted prepress solu­ti­ons for the pack­a­ging industry. 

Janoschka AG, head­quar­te­red in Kippen­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,500 people and opera­tes produc­tion faci­li­ties in twelve count­ries. The group compri­ses two units: Janoschka is respon­si­ble for graphic repro­duc­tion and the manu­fac­ture of prin­ting and embos­sing tools, while Linked2Brands opera­tes as a preme­dia produc­tion agency and provi­des support for pack­a­ging design and prepa­ra­tion. Toge­ther, the two units cover key steps in the prepress value chain for the pack­a­ging indus­try. Its custo­mers include, in parti­cu­lar, pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­r­ers and brand owners in the FMCG sector. In fiscal year 2025, the company gene­ra­ted reve­nue of appro­xi­m­ately 90 million euros. 

From Blue Cap’s perspec­tive, Janoschka has an inter­na­tio­nal foot­print, a robust busi­ness model, and further poten­tial for growth. Key areas for this include auto­ma­tion, effi­ci­ency gains across the global produc­tion network, and grea­ter value capture. 

Foun­ded in 1976 by Manfred Janoschka, Janoschka is now conside­red the market leader in the inter­na­tio­nal prepress indus­try. SüdBG joined the company in 2017 as part of a capi­tal increase to finance the Janoschka Group’s inter­na­tio­nal growth and a simul­ta­neous manage­ment buyout, and, toge­ther with the foun­ding family and the super­vi­sory board, supported manage­ment in imple­men­ting its targe­ted growth stra­tegy. This included auto­ma­ting produc­tion and incre­asing the level of digi­tiza­tion throug­hout the value chain. In addi­tion, the inter­na­tio­nal produc­tion sites in Asia—particularly in Malay­sia, Viet­nam, and the Philippines—as well as in Turkey, Poland, and Mexico, were expan­ded to offer custo­mers world­wide compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal exper­tise, inno­va­tions, solu­ti­ons, and services for gravure and flexo­gra­phic printing. 

During its part­ner­ship with SüdBG, Janoschka has expan­ded and broa­dened its service port­fo­lio. Janoschka now employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,500 people and gene­ra­tes reve­nue of over 90 million euros. 

The part­ners have agreed not to disc­lose the details.

Under the leader­ship of Part­ner Dr. Thomas Lange, GÖRG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Blue Cap AG on the restruc­tu­ring of Janoschka AG’s syndi­ca­ted financing.

Advi­sors to Blue Cap AG: GÖRG Part­ner­ship of Attor­neys mbB

Dr. Thomas Lange (Lead Coun­sel, Part­ner, Finance, Colo­gne), Eva Geue­nich (Senior Asso­ciate, Finance, Colo­gne), Jannik Gese­kus (Asso­ciate, Finance, Cologne).

Advi­sor SüdBG:

M&A: IMAP M&A Consul­tants AG (Henning Graw, Chris­toph Gluschke, Phil­ipp Crocoll, Alex­an­der Köhler, Levin Kieselhorst)

Legal: Orrick, Herring­ton & Sutcliffe LLP (Dr. Chris­toph Bren­ner, Stefan Riedl, Maria Teodorescu)

About Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG)

SüdBG is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and has been support­ing small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses for more than 50 years with custo­mi­zed equity and quasi-equity solu­ti­ons in the context of succes­sion plan­ning, growth finan­cing, and chan­ges in ownership.
As one of the leading private equity firms in the German-spea­king world and a long-term inves­tor, SüdBG has supported over 70 compa­nies over the past 10 years with appro­xi­m­ately 600 million euros and a broad network to foster sustainable corpo­rate development.
For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.suedbg.de.

Ratingen/Frankfurt –– Surface­Prep, a port­fo­lio company of Nautic Part­ners, has acqui­red the German company Kuhmi­chel Abra­siv GmbH. McDer­mott Will & Schulte provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Nautic Part­ners on this transaction. 

Kuhmi­chel Abra­siv, head­quar­te­red in Ratin­gen, is a leading company in the field of blas­ting and abra­sive mate­ri­als. With 120 employees at eleven loca­ti­ons across Europe, the company offers recy­cling solu­ti­ons for indus­trial waste. 

Nautic Part­ners is a U.S.-based mid-market private equity firm that focu­ses on three sectors: health­care, indus­tri­als, and services.

Surface­Prep is a leading global distri­bu­tor of abra­si­ves, specialty cera­mics, and surface finis­hing equip­ment, head­quar­te­red in Grand Rapids, Michi­gan, with 60 bran­ches in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

Advi­sors to Nautic Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Frankfurt

Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin (lead), Dr. Bene­dikt von Schor­le­mer, Isabelle Suzanne Gvero (Coun­sel; all Private Equity), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Dr. Florian Schie­fer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; all Tax Law), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (Anti­trust Law), Dr. Johan­nes Honzen (Real Estate Law), Alex­an­der Klein (Finance), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian Dries­sen-Rolf (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Jenni­fer Rogal­ski (Private Equity), Dr. Merlyn von Hugo, LL.M., OEC. (Tax Law), Tatjana Kuhlen, LL.M. (Real Estate Law), Bastiaan Wolters (Finance), Dr. Anja Bert­rand, Max Kütt­ner, Caro­lin Schu­ma­cher (all Anti­trust Law, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Dr. Thomas Hint­zen (Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Jan Ischreyt (Energy & Infra­struc­ture), Dr. Nils Stock, LL.M. (Tran­sac­tion Lawyer)
McDer­mott Will & Schulte, USA: Frede­ric L. Leven­son, Brad­ley Robert Burcoff (Private Equity, both lead coun­sel, Miami), Michael J. Bruno (Tax, Miami), Alex Cheng-Yi Lee (Tax, Washing­ton, D.C.), Gregory E. Helt­zer (Anti­trust, Washing­ton, D.C.), Nick Paul (Employ­ment Law, Chicago); Asso­cia­tes: Fadi Moha­med (Private Equity, Miami), Larissa Mussi (Tax, Dallas)
McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Brussels: Stéphane Dion­net (anti­trust); Asso­cia­tes: Emilia Bonine, Ángela Fernán­dez de la Puebla (both antitrust)
McDer­mott Will & Schulte, London: Elea­nor West (Private Equity), Rob Marshall (Tax Law), Devina Rana (Tran­sac­tions); Asso­cia­tes: Bella North, Nikita Panchal (both Transactions)
McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Paris: Sabine Naugès (Public Law); Asso­cia­tes: Andréa Londoño López (Sustaina­bi­lity, Impact & ESG)

Munich –– Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Bain Capi­tal on the exclu­sive agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Ever­l­lence from the Volks­wa­gen Group (“Volks­wa­gen”).

Bain Capi­tal is acqui­ring a 51% stake in Ever­l­lence. Volks­wa­gen plans to remain a major share­hol­der with a 49% stake. The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual closing condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding regu­la­tory approvals. 

Ever­l­lence (form­erly MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons) is a leading global provi­der of propul­sion, decar­bo­niza­tion, and effi­ci­ency solu­ti­ons for the mari­time, energy, and indus­trial sectors. Ever­l­lence gene­ra­tes reve­nue of appro­xi­m­ately 5 billion euros and employs about 16,000 people at more than 140 loca­ti­ons in Europe, Asia, and the Ameri­cas. The company holds a leading posi­tion in each of its core busi­ness areas and serves custo­mers in the global ship­ping, naval defense, power gene­ra­tion, and indus­trial proces­sing sectors. With more than 140 loca­ti­ons world­wide, it opera­tes one of the industry’s most exten­sive after­mar­ket service networks. 

Advi­sors to Bain Capi­tal: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Prof. Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. Philip Goj, Dr. Sebas­tian Heim (all lead coun­sel, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Dr. Marcus Comman­deur, Frede­rick Eggert, Dr. Jasper Wentz (Frank­furt), Dr. Pablo Tretow, Alex­an­der Stahl, Lionel Reich (all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Barbara Dunkel, Dr. Laura Frömel, Alex­an­dros Peschos (all Debt Finance), Emanuel Götz (Tax).
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Jacque­line Clover (Tech­no­logy & IP Tran­sac­tions); Asso­cia­tes: Erika Krum (Inter­na­tio­nal Trade & Natio­nal Secu­rity), Prasanth Kapi­lan (Tech­no­logy & IP Transactions)

About Kirk­land

With more than 4,000 attor­neys in 24 cities across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms provi­ding high-cali­ber legal services. The German team focu­ses on advi­sing clients in the areas of private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and secu­ri­ties law, finan­cing, and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit kirkland.com.