ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin — Hygraph has successfully closed a $30 million Series B invest­ment round led by One Peak to acce­le­rate the next gene­ra­tion of content manage­ment for the Composable Archi­tec­tures era.

Exis­ting inves­tors Open Ocean, One Peak, SquareOne and new busi­ness angel Boris Loks­hin (co-foun­der and CEO of Spry­ker Systems) also parti­ci­pa­ted in this new round, brin­ging our total funding to $43.7 million.

Foun­ded in 2017, Berlin-based startup Hygraph is an enter­prise content manage­ment plat­form that makes it possi­ble to deve­lop tomorrow’s connec­ted digi­tal events quickly and at scale. Demand for networked digi­tal services is growing, but deve­lo­ping ever­y­thing indi­vi­du­ally is costly. Today, orga­niza­ti­ons not only need to distri­bute content across multi­ple devices, but also access and deli­ver content from a variety of discon­nec­ted sources.

Hygraph’s fede­ra­ted content plat­form repres­ents the next gene­ra­tion of content manage­ment, enab­ling a many-to-many rela­ti­onship between diffe­rent content sources and devices. Hygraph is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and employs 66 people from all over the world, spread over 5 conti­nents, 18 count­ries and 26 natio­na­li­ties. With the fresh capi­tal, Hygraph plans to conti­nue its inno­va­tion and expand its market presence, with a focus on North America.

“Just as Head­less CMS has trans­for­med content distri­bu­tion, Hygraph is trans­forming the inte­gra­tion of content and data to enable the crea­tion of new digi­tal services and busi­ness models in the content economy. Our new finan­cing round enables us to further scale our busi­ness. We want to do for content manage­ment what Mule­Soft has done for inte­gra­tion,” said Michael Luka­szc­zyk, CEO and co-foun­der of Hygraph.

Consul­tant Hygraph: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Simon Pfef­ferle (photo), Dr. Lorenz Frey, Dr. Jan Heerma and Maxi­mi­lian Göbel from the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed Hygraph on a series B finan­cing round with a total volume of USD 30 million. The finan­cing round was led by One Peak. Open Ocean, Peak, SquareOne and Boris Lokschin also participated.

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

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

News

Munich, Germany — MOVE, an Israel-based vaca­tion booking plat­form, today announ­ced that it has successfully raised €7 million in the first closing of its funding round. The invest­ment by inves­tors from Israel and promi­nent Munich-based family offices is expec­ted to acce­le­rate MOVE’s expan­sion into the Euro­pean market, follo­wing the company’s remar­kable success in the Israeli market. The invest­ment was broke­red by ennea capi­tal partners.

Laun­ched in Febru­ary 2022, MOVE’s ground­brea­king plat­form offers perso­na­li­zed, machine-cura­ted vaca­tion packa­ges that allow users to effort­lessly and quickly book custo­mizable leisure travel. In its first year of opera­tion, the company achie­ved €4 million in annual recur­ring reve­nue and €42 million in sales, proving the effec­ti­ve­ness of its tech­no­logy and busi­ness model.

Erez Bousso, CEO of MOVE, said, “We are thril­led with the confi­dence our inves­tors have placed in our vision and tech­no­logy. Their support will enable us to revo­lu­tio­nize the Euro­pean vaca­tion travel market and conti­nue to deli­ver outstan­ding value to our customers.”

With 300,000 monthly active users in Decem­ber 2022 and a 9/10 user refer­ral rate, MOVE plans to capture a signi­fi­cant share of the €350 billion addressa­ble market in Europe. The company’s manage­ment team consists of expe­ri­en­ced execu­ti­ves with proven track records at leading compa­nies such as lastminute.com, CWT and Expedia.

Günter Ehwei­ner, repre­sen­ta­tive of Roland Berger, one of the inves­tors, commen­ted, “MOVE’s plat­form is a game-chan­ger in the vaca­tion travel indus­try, offe­ring unmat­ched speed, conve­ni­ence and perso­na­liza­tion for custo­mers. We are exci­ted to invest in a company that is alre­ady show­ing impres­sive growth and has the poten­tial to change the way people book their vacations.”

MOVE’s plat­form connects depar­ture airports with city breaks and sun & beach vaca­tion desti­na­ti­ons, offe­ring custo­mers a 7 percent price advan­tage. The company’s omni-chan­nel marke­ting stra­tegy has resul­ted in market-leading Unit Econo­mics, with conver­sion rates two times higher and bookings five times faster than tradi­tio­nal platforms.

With an ambi­tious goal of achie­ving sales of more than €55 million by 2025, the company plans to use the funds raised to expand its presence in Europe, streng­then part­ner­ships with leading media houses and further deve­lop its state-of-the-art technology.

About MOVE
MOVE is a state-of-the-art vaca­tion booking plat­form that offers perso­na­li­zed, machine-cura­ted vaca­tion packa­ges. With a mission to revo­lu­tio­nize the travel indus­try, MOVE combi­nes tech­no­logy and conve­ni­ence to provide a seam­less expe­ri­ence for custo­mers seeking unique, custo­mizable leisure travel. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.wearemove.io.

About ennea capi­tal partners
ennea is a leading M&A, invest­ment and advi­sory firm focu­sed on the Euro­pean travel indus­try. We are the part­ner of choice for foun­ders and inves­tors to acce­le­rate their ambi­ti­ons in buil­ding, scaling and selling market-leading companies.
www.ennea.vc

News

Berlin — Miss Sophie sells to Wilde­Group. Miss Sophie has writ­ten an impres­sive success story in 8 years, estab­li­shing itself as a direct-to-consu­mer pioneer in the beauty market. Sophie Kühn (photo, © Miss Sophie) foun­ded the company in Berlin in 2014, without inves­tors (“boot­strap­ped”) she scaled the company to an eight-figure turno­ver and counts almost one million custo­mers. Miss Sophie ranks first among the fastest growing online compa­nies in the beauty sector in Germany (Digi­tal 100 by similarweb).

During her semes­ter abroad in France, the busi­ness student came up with the idea for the nail foils. Since nail polish quickly peeled off her nails on the beach, she looked for an alter­na­tive — and found it. Sophie star­ted her busi­ness in her 1‑room apart­ment and packed the first orders there. In the early days of e‑commerce, the brand made a name for itself in the beauty world through nume­rous TV features. Influen­cer marke­ting paired with perfor­mance marke­ting allo­wed the company to grow sustainably.

The Miss Sophie product range consists of over 400 items: a variety of nail foils, access­ories for appli­ca­tion and removal, and care products. The beauty products are sold via the company’s own online store and via major beauty plat­forms such as Douglas, Flaconi, QVC, West­wing and Amazon. The nail foils are vegan and animal-free. The long shelf life of 14 days and easy appli­ca­tion make the nail foils so popu­lar with consumers.

Wilde­Group has been active in the cosme­tics indus­try for over 30 years, specia­li­zing in high-quality beauty products, services and trai­ning. Thanks to WildeGroup’s long expe­ri­ence in the nail sector through its LCN as well as ales­san­dro brands and its opera­tio­nal resour­ces, Miss Sophie will be able to expand in its current markets, enter new markets, further deve­lop its B2B busi­ness and work on expan­ding its product range.

By part­ne­ring with Wilde­Group, foun­der Sophie Kühn is taking on a pionee­ring role. Because while the number of female foun­ders in Germany will rise to 20.3% in 2022 (source: Statista), only 4% of all exits in Europe are “women-led”, i.e. have at least one female foun­ding member (source: Deal­room; refers to exits with company valua­tion >$20m).

News

Gelsenkirchen/ Frank­furt and Munich — Smal­ler Mid-Cap Fund I (TSM I), advi­sed by Triton, has signed an agree­ment to sell Norres Bagger­man Group (“Norres Bagger­man”), a market-leading manu­fac­tu­rer of plas­tic hoses for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons in Europe, to Nalka DACH Invest­ments SA SICAF-RAIF (“Nalka”). Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed Triton on this tran­sac­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion or the purchase price.

Norres Bagger­man is one of the Euro­pean leaders in the manu­fac­ture and tech­ni­cal instal­la­tion of indus­trial hose systems. The company employs around 400 people and has six produc­tion sites and 15 sales offices in Europe, the USA and Asia.

Triton acqui­red Norres Bagger­man in 2018 with the goal of deve­lo­ping the company into a Euro­pean market leader. To this end, growth was to be acce­le­ra­ted, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion step­ped up and the company deve­lo­ped into a systems provi­der. As part of the Triton port­fo­lio, NORRES has successfully comple­ted three acqui­si­ti­ons, increased its orga­nic growth to appro­xi­m­ately 10%, and increased sales by more than 170% to well over €100 million. The company has also intro­du­ced a clearly defi­ned frame­work to further deve­lop its ESG standards.

Andi Klein, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of TSM I: “We thank Ralf Dahmer, his manage­ment team and all employees of Norres Bagger­man for the great coope­ra­tion and their important contri­bu­tion to the deve­lo­p­ment of the company into a pan-Euro­pean market leader in its sector despite often uncer­tain times. We are convin­ced that NORRES is well posi­tio­ned for the future and that Nalka is the right part­ner to conti­nue the company’s success story.”

Since its foun­ding in 1997, Triton has laun­ched ten funds and focu­ses on invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies head­quar­te­red in Europe in the indus­trial, services, consu­mer goods and health­care sectors. The current compa­nies in the Triton port­fo­lio gene­rate total sales of around 18 billion euros and employ over 105,000 people.

Advi­sor Triton: Gibson Dunn 

Led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt and Munich asso­ciate Dr. Dennis Seif­arth, the team included coun­sel Dr. Aliresa Fatemi and Anne­kat­rin Pels­ter and asso­cia­tes Dr. Mattias Prange and Lena Pirner (all Frank­furt) and Maxi­mi­lian Schnie­wind (Munich). The team also included part­ners Dr. Hans Martin Schmid (Tax, Munich) and Dr. Mark Zimmer (Labor Law, Munich), coun­sel Alex­an­der Klein (Finance, Frank­furt), and asso­cia­tes Jan Voll­kam­mer (Anti­trust, Frank­furt) and Yannick Ober­acker (Data Privacy/IP, Munich).

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,800 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Berlin — metr raised over six million euros, the company offers data-driven solu­ti­ons for a sustainable and digi­tal real estate indus­try. With the WIKA Group, the BraWo Group and Muji­nzo Labs GmbH, metr was able to gain three new inves­tors. In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors, such as Next Big Thing AG and early busi­ness angels, have increased their holdings.

A team led by Ariane Neubauer, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek’s Berlin office, advi­sed metr Buil­ding Manage­ment Systems GmbH on its Series A finan­cing round.

“On the one hand, we will use the money from the Series A finan­cing round for further product deve­lo­p­ment and invest­ments in our plat­form. In this way, we will further digi­tize the real estate indus­try and thus come closer to our goal of signi­fi­cantly redu­cing CO2 emis­si­ons from buil­dings,” explains Dr. Franka Birke, CEO & Foun­der of metr. “The buil­ding sector is curr­ently under great pres­sure to act. The aim is to achieve climate targets, save energy and signi­fi­cantly increase energy effi­ci­ency, espe­ci­ally in exis­ting buil­dings. That’s why we will also use the cash injec­tion to expand our team to meet the increased demand.”

metr can look back on a very successful fiscal year 2022. The young company was able to triple its custo­mer base and expand its digi­tal plat­form for tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment with addi­tio­nal part­ner solutions.

In view of the energy and climate crisis, the company has laun­ched another solu­tion to comple­ment the remote moni­to­ring of heating and drin­king water systems: AI-supported heating opti­miza­tion. Because, accor­ding to Dr. Franka Birke, it is beco­ming incre­asingly important for buil­ding owners and faci­lity mana­gers to reduce energy costs, save resour­ces and imple­ment effi­ci­ent, safe and sustainable buil­ding manage­ment. This also convin­ced the investors.

Advi­sors to metr Buil­ding Manage­ment Systems GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Ariane Neubauer (lead; venture capi­tal), Astrid Reich (employ­ment law), Shimon Merkel (venture capi­tal), all Berlin

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team has advi­sed Main Capi­tal port­fo­lio company Pro4all on its merger with PMG, a Munich-based German soft­ware provider.

Pro4all is a leading provi­der of docu­ment manage­ment, quality assu­rance and proac­tive risk manage­ment solu­ti­ons for the cons­truc­tion indus­try, based in the Nether­lands. The stra­te­gic merger with PMG is the first step in Pro4all’s inter­na­tio­nal buy-and-build stra­tegy since manage­ment teamed up with stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor Main Capi­tal Partners.

Munich — PMG was foun­ded in 2009 with head­quar­ters in Munich and is a leading soft­ware provi­der for the cons­truc­tion and real estate indus­try. The main product PAVE is a colla­bo­ra­tion plat­form for the entire life cycle of a cons­truc­tion project. The core of PAVE is a powerful and compre­hen­sive CDE (Common Data Envi­ron­ment), which is supple­men­ted with modu­les such as work­flows, project control, BIM, ESG, cost control­ling or cons­truc­tion docu­men­ta­tion. PMG serves more than 250 cons­truc­tion and real estate compa­nies, mainly in the DACH region, which curr­ently handle more than 1000 projects with PAVE.

Through the merger of Pro4all and PMG, the group will have a diver­si­fied custo­mer base of more than 1,000 play­ers in the cons­truc­tion and real estate indus­try. With a strong market presence in the Bene­lux and DACH regi­ons, the Group has a solid custo­mer base with an inter­na­tio­nal perspec­tive that can be lever­a­ged for expan­sion into other Euro­pean count­ries. In addi­tion, the compa­nies see oppor­tu­ni­ties for a strong and unique combi­ned product offe­ring that is well posi­tio­ned to support the cons­truc­tion indus­try in the digi­tiza­tion process. The combi­ned group curr­ently employs a total of 100 people.

The team led by Düssel­dorf-based Deloitte Legal attor­neys Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen has advi­sed Main Capi­tal on a number of plat­form and add-on tran­sac­tions and exits since 2015. As part of the stra­te­gic merger of Pro4all and PMG, the team was able to build in parti­cu­lar on its expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in deal­ing with German-Dutch constel­la­ti­ons as well as the inter­cul­tu­ral and lingu­i­stic skills of its Dutch-spea­king members.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal: Deloitte Legal

Max Lüer­ßen, Foto (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Co-Lead); Frauke Heudt­lass (Part­ner, Labor Law, Düssel­dorf); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Nicole Deneke, Nicole Rurik (Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Leonie Onkel­bach (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Düsseldorf).

News

Düssel­dorf — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills has advi­sed Luft­hansa Group on the sale of its global cate­ring divi­sion LSG Group to private equity firm Aure­lius Group. Herbert Smith Freeh­ills alre­ady advi­sed Luft­hansa Group in 2019 on the sale of LSG Group’s Euro­pean busi­ness to Swiss-based Gategroup.

The carve-out tran­sac­tion includes all tradi­tio­nal cate­ring acti­vi­ties as well as the onboard retail and food commerce busi­nesses. The LSG Group has around 19,000 employees and consists of over 100 compa­nies opera­ting more than 130 service centers in the Ameri­cas (USA and Latin America), EMMA (emer­ging markets) and Asia-Paci­fic. LSG Group also includes onboard retail specia­list Retail InMo­tion and SCIS Air Secu­rity Services.

The tran­sac­tion invol­ves the trans­fer of shares and assets in more than 30 juris­dic­tions world­wide. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to take place in the third quar­ter of 2023.

LSG Group is head­quar­te­red in Neu-Isen­burg near Frank­furt am Main. In the pande­mic year 2021, it gene­ra­ted conso­li­da­ted sales of EUR 1.96 billion worldwide.

The Aure­lius Group is a private equity inves­tor based in Grün­wald, Germany. The invest­ment company curr­ently opera­tes in eight diffe­rent loca­ti­ons in Europe, inclu­ding Munich, London, Amster­dam, Stock­holm, Milan, Madrid, Luxem­bourg and Düsseldorf.

Advi­sor Deut­sche Luft­hansa: Herbert Smith Freehills

Düsseldorf/Frankfurt: Dr. Sönke Becker, Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marcel Nuys (Compe­ti­tion), Dr. Marius Boewe (Regu­la­tory), Dr. Stef­fen Hoer­ner (Tax), Kai Liebrich (Finance); Coun­sel: Dr. Chris­tian Johnen, Lena von Richt­ho­fen (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Florian Huer­kamp (Compe­ti­tion), Dr. Hannes Jacobi (Finance); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Niko­laus Moench, Marjel Dema, Janis Rentrop, Tobias Beuker, Dr. Marius Dicke (all Corpo­rate), Mirko Gleits­mann, Anne Ecken­roth, Caro­line Wendt (all Compe­ti­tion), David Rasche, Kris­tin Kattwin­kel (both Regu­la­tory), Wladi­mir Leon­hard, Tatiana Güns­ter (both Tax), Sophia Peter (Finance), Dr. Simone Zieg­ler (Data Protec­tion), Dr. Tim Abend­schein, Justus ter Veen (both Finance).

Hong Kong: Hilary Lau (Corpo­rate)
Johan­nes­burg: Rudolph du Ples­sis (Corpo­rate)
London: Mark Bardell (Corpo­rate), Kris­ten Roberts, Gabri­elle Wong (both Finance), Rachel Pinto (Pensi­ons)
New York: James Robin­son (Corpo­rate), Joseph Falcone, Jona­than Cross (both Regulatory)
Milan: Pietro Pouche (Dispu­tes)
Beijing: Nanda Lau (Corpo­rate)

 

News

New York & London — KKR, a leading global inves­tor, has announ­ced the final closing of Euro­pean Fund VI (the “Fund”). At $8.0 billion, inclu­ding the commit­ment from KKR itself, it is KKR’s largest Euro­pean private equity fund to date, follo­wed by the $6.6 billion fund laun­ched in 2019. The new fund will focus on private equity invest­ments, mainly in econo­mic­ally strong regi­ons of Western Europe.

Phil­ipp Freise Photo (© KKR), Co-Head of Euro­pean Private Equity at KKR, said, “KKR has been inves­t­ing in Europe for nearly 25 years and we believe the oppor­tu­ni­ties are grea­ter today than ever before. We believe the Euro­pean economy offers tremen­dous poten­tial for trans­for­ma­tive invest­ments in the context of struc­tu­ral trends, such as digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and sustainability.”
Mattia Caprioli, Co-Head of Euro­pean Private Equity at KKR, added: “We look forward to support­ing foun­ders, family busi­nesses and corpo­ra­tes as a stra­te­gic part­ner helping them take their busi­ness to the next level.”

Chris­tian Ollig, Part­ner and Head of DACH at KKR, said: “Since 1999, we have inves­ted more than €15 billion in over 30 long-term orien­ted corpo­rate invest­ments in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The DACH region is a key anchor for KKR in Europe, and our latest fund is a strong demons­tra­tion of our consis­tent commit­ment to the region. We look forward to the oppor­tu­ni­ties presen­ted by working with poten­tial part­ners and the resour­ces of the new fund.”

KKR’s success in Europe is based on a combi­na­tion of a strong local presence and exper­tise and access to a global network and resour­ces. More than 100 employees, inclu­ding 57 Euro­pean private equity execu­ti­ves, 25 members of KKR Capst­one Europe and other experts from KKR Capi­tal Markets, Public Affairs and the EMEA Macro team support the port­fo­lio compa­nies with their in-depth local market exper­tise. The team is repre­sen­ted in over eight diffe­rent Euro­pean offices and brings toge­ther a total of more than 15 Euro­pean natio­na­li­ties. This exper­tise is comple­men­ted by KKR’s global network. This draws on the know­ledge and skills of the KKR Global Insti­tute and KKR’s senior advi­sors, among others.

Alisa Amarosa Wood, Part­ner and Head of Global Private Markets and Real Assets Stra­te­gies Group at KKR, said, “We are plea­sed that our inves­tors share our Euro­pean team’s belief that there are excel­lent invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe. Many inves­tors have chosen not only to reinvest, but also to increase their expo­sure to our Euro­pean busi­ness. The place­ment of this fund in the current market envi­ron­ment demons­tra­tes the strong confi­dence inves­tors have in our Euro­pean team and plat­form, as well as our long track record of deli­ve­ring value and outstan­ding results.”

Through the fund, KKR will conti­nue to invest along­side family owners, foun­ders, entre­pre­neurs and compa­nies, provi­ding flexi­ble capi­tal for stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, plat­form expan­sion and carve-outs. In addi­tion to inves­tors, KKR itself will make a signi­fi­cant invest­ment in the fund, inves­t­ing a total of more than $1 billion in balance sheet funds and employee stock options.

KKR’s Euro­pean private equity plat­form curr­ently mana­ges total assets of $28.3 billion1 and is part of its $165 billion global private equity busi­ness. The current port­fo­lio includes invest­ments in over 45 compa­nies in Western Europe.

Debe­voise & Plimp­ton LLP acted as primary legal coun­sel to KKR in the fund­rai­sing process.

About KKR 

KKR is a leading global inves­tor provi­ding alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, capi­tal markets and insu­rance solu­ti­ons. The focus is on gene­ra­ting attrac­tive invest­ment returns through a long-term and disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach, employ­ing highly skil­led profes­sio­nals and support­ing growth at its invest­ment proper­ties and in the commu­ni­ties where KKR has a presence. KKR finan­ces funds that invest in private equity, credit products, real assets, and — through stra­te­gic part­ners — hedge funds.

News

Munich — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed PLENTICON GROUP GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of the micro­PLAN Group. Plen­ti­con is a port­fo­lio company of Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH.

The addi­tion of the Emsdet­ten-based IT systems house expands the group’s range of exper­tise, parti­cu­larly in the DATEV and data center areas as well as in DATEV consul­ting, while also incre­asing its geogra­phi­cal reach.

PLENTICON GROUP GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, is one of the leading nati­on­wide full-service provi­ders for IT services. The majo­rity share­hol­der is Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH (HQIB).

With around 120 employees at seven loca­ti­ons and its own data center, micro­PLAN is one of the largest IT inno­va­tion mana­gers in Germany. The port­fo­lio of the IT system house includes cloud services, ASP/IT outsour­cing, IT and DATEV solutions.

The GOF team led by part­ners Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (photo © GOF) and Dr. Tilmann Gütt advi­sed PLENTICON and Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH on all tran­sac­tion-rela­ted legal issues as well as on the finan­cing. The law firm had previously advi­sed the group on the acqui­si­tion of System­haus Cramer GmbH, PK Office GmbH and Horn & Cosi­fan Compu­ter­sys­teme GmbH.

Legal advi­sors to Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH and PLENTICON GROUP GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, both Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Isabelle Vran­cken, Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (both Senior Asso­cia­tes, Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Krappitz (Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance)

Alten­burg Fach­an­wälte für Arbeits­recht, Munich
Andreas Ege, Dr. Char­lotte Beck, Henning Timm, Gero Thole (all labor law)

News

Munich — Global inves­tor River­side signs binding agree­ment to acquire leading clean­room consu­ma­bles compa­nies Dastex in Germany and Vita Verita in Sweden.

The River­side Company, the global inves­tor specia­li­zing in mid-market growth compa­nies, has signed an agree­ment to acquire Dastex Rein­raum­zu­be­hör GmbH & Co KG (Dastex), a leading specia­li­zed inde­pen­dent distri­bu­tor of clean­room appa­rel and consu­ma­bles in Europe. — In paral­lel, River­side signed an agree­ment to acquire Vita Verita, a leading company in the Swedish market, as the first exten­sion of the plat­form. The closing of the acqui­si­ti­ons is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Foun­ded in Germany in 1979, Dastex has become a market-leading supplier of clean­room garm­ents and consu­ma­bles in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, with a strong foot­hold in the Bene­lux and a growing presence across Europe. The company has grown rapidly in recent years to meet strong demand from the phar­maceu­ti­cal and semi­con­duc­tor indus­tries, thanks to its unique tech­ni­cal know-how and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment exper­tise, compre­hen­sive product range and excel­lent custo­mer service.

Foun­ded in Sweden in 1983, Vita Verita is a specia­list in clean­room consu­ma­bles and labo­ra­tory equip­ment, air quality test­ing, service and main­ten­ance for phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, hospi­tals and other control­led envi­ron­ments. The company offers both proprie­tary and third-party products, inclu­ding disposable garm­ents, gloves and wipes, as well as veri­fi­ca­tion and vali­da­tion services. Vita Verita can look back on nearly two deca­des of conti­nuous growth, supported by long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships and a consis­tent focus on quality.

Damien Gaudin, Part­ner at River­side Europewho led the tran­sac­tions, commen­ted: “Through the acqui­si­tion of Dastex and Vita Verita, we combine two clean­room consu­ma­bles specia­lists in Europe that offer indis­pensable products and services and form the core of our pan-Euro­pean buy-and-build stra­tegy. This crea­tes a unique plat­form perfectly posi­tio­ned to grow further orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. We look forward to working with the strong manage­ment teams of Dastex and Vita Verita to build the Euro­pean leader in clean­room conta­mi­na­tion control, offe­ring both best-in-class products and tech­ni­cal and regu­la­tory services, supported by an ambi­tious ESG strategy.”

Kars­ten Langer, Mana­ging Part­ner of River­side Europe, added, “The invest­ments unders­core River­side Europe’s exper­tise at the inter­sec­tion of two of our focus sectors: Health­care and Specialty Distri­bu­tion. They are also a clear exam­ple of our pan-Euro­pean presence and our ability to build leading busi­nesses. Dastex and Vita Verita serve the conti­nuously growing clean­room indus­try, helping custo­mers in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, life scien­ces and other high-tech indus­tries to meet incre­asingly strin­gent quality and regu­la­tory stan­dards. The acqui­si­tion of Dastex and Vita Verita crea­tes a leader in clean­room conta­mi­na­tion control for the bene­fit of its customers.”

Cars­ten Mosch­ner, CEO of Dastex, commen­ted, “The manage­ment team and I are deligh­ted to join forces with Vita Verita and River­side to open the next chap­ter in the company’s history. I stron­gly believe that River­side is the ideal part­ner to support our ambi­tious growth plans and that the addi­tion of Vita Verita and their compre­hen­sive service offe­ring in Sweden is a criti­cal step in our jour­ney to become one of the pree­mi­nent provi­ders of conta­mi­na­tion control products and services in Europe. We look forward to further expan­ding our busi­ness across the conti­nent and provi­ding our custo­mers with an even broa­der full-service offe­ring. I would like to thank all employees, colle­agues, suppli­ers and custo­mers for their great support and trust.”

Anders Kumbrant, CEO, and Magnus Kumbrant, COO of Vita Verita, added: “We are deligh­ted to be working with Dastex and River­side to further realize our ambi­ti­ons and vision for the company. We are parti­cu­larly exci­ted at the pros­pect of working with Dastex, one of Europe’s leading clean­room appa­rel and consu­ma­bles compa­nies, known for its outstan­ding exper­tise and profes­sio­na­lism. We would like to thank Anna-Lena Weiss, who will take a leading role at Vita Verita in the future, as well as the entire Vita Verita team, our custo­mers, suppli­ers and the River­side team for their trust and support.”

Working with Gaudin on the tran­sac­tion for River­side were Vice Presi­dent Maxime Meule­mees­ter, Senior Asso­ciate Nicola Tomaschko, Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tiaan Pauwels and Nils Mjörn­emark, and Origi­na­tion Asso­ciate Bence Putnoky. Damien Gaudin acqui­red the Dastex deal for River­side, while Ali Al Alaf and Nils Mjorn­emark acqui­red the Vita Verita deal.

Advi­sors to the share­hol­ders of the Dastex Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Michael Cziesla, Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf, Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Düssel­dorf; both Labor), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (Coun­sel, Anti­trust), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/ Regu­la­tory, Frankfurt/Munich), Dr. Johan­nes Honzen (Real Estate); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Corporate/M&A), Lukas Deutz­mann (Cologne/Düsseldorf), Ilva Woeste (Munich; both Labor Law), Dr. Lea Hach­meis­ter, Alex­an­dra Heberle (both Healthcare/Regulatory)

dhmp Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft, Karls­ruhe, Germany
Nota­ries Dr. Frank and Dr. Schnee­weiß, Munich: Dr. Susanne Frank

About The River­side Company

The River­side Company is a global invest­ment firm focu­sed on invest­ments in middle-market growth compa­nies. Since its foun­ding in 1988, River­side has made more than 960 invest­ments. The firm’s inter­na­tio­nal private equity and struc­tu­red capi­tal port­fo­lios include more than 150 compa­nies. Riverside’s Euro­pean opera­ti­ons are an inte­gral part of the company’s exten­sive global network which has been active in Europe since 1989. River­side belie­ves that an inter­na­tio­nal presence combi­ned with deep under­stan­ding of local condi­ti­ons, culture and busi­ness prac­ti­ces makes team members better inves­tors and busi­ness partners.
www.riversidecompany.com

News

Landshut/Munich — Munich-based elec­tric motor start-up Deep­Drive has successfully comple­ted a Series A finan­cing round of 15 million euros. In addi­tion to the exis­ting inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal with its Bava­rian Growth Fund and UVC Part­ners, which came on board a year ago, BMW i Ventures and the Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit of Conti­nen­tal AG are also invol­ved. The company is also supported by the renow­ned auto­mo­tive mana­ger and former Audi board member for deve­lo­p­ment Dr. Peter Mertens. The addi­tio­nal funds are inten­ded to inten­sify the path taken to start large-scale produc­tion of the highly effi­ci­ent e‑motor and to be able to respond in terms of person­nel to the further increase in demand.

Foun­ded in 2021, Deep­Drive has deve­lo­ped a radial flux dual rotor motor inclu­ding power elec­tro­nics that can be instal­led in produc­tion vehic­les as a central drive as well as a wheel hub drive, setting enti­rely new stan­dards in e‑mobility. The paten­ted archi­tec­ture has a higher torque and power density compared to other drive tech­no­lo­gies and solves funda­men­tal problems of other e‑vehicle concepts. For exam­ple, a vehicle with Deep­Drive tech­no­logy can travel 20 percent further on a fully char­ged charge, or requi­res 20 percent smal­ler batte­ries than the compe­ti­tion for the same range, enab­ling the next gene­ra­tion of low-cost elec­tric vehic­les. Less rare earths are also used in produc­tion — a clear sustaina­bi­lity advan­tage. Deep­Drive is curr­ently alre­ady working with eight of the top ten auto­ma­kers on various deve­lo­p­ment projects and plans to bring the dual-rotor engine to market in large-scale produc­tion by 2026.

The Deep­Drive team is alre­ady working with eight of the top ten OEMs and is on track to bring its tech­no­logy into mass produc­tion by 2026. Deep­Drive co-foun­der and CEO Felix Pörn­ba­cher says: “The effi­ci­ency of e‑vehicles is one of the biggest chal­lenges facing almost all car manu­fac­tu­r­ers. With our double rotor drive, we have been able to deve­lop a key tech­no­logy that addres­ses precis­ely this problem and is thus attrac­ting extre­mely high inte­rest from indus­try. With our focus on disrup­tive inno­va­tion coupled with profes­sio­nal high-volume expe­ri­ence, we see oursel­ves as a pioneer of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion for mobi­lity. We look forward to working with our strong new part­ners and exis­ting support­ers to bring this tech­no­logy to the road and win initial volume projects.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger: “Deep Drive’s busi­ness model is an excel­lent fit for Bava­ria as an auto­mo­tive loca­tion. There is great econo­mic poten­tial in the plat­form for the deve­lo­p­ment of elec­tric vehic­les. That is why we are support­ing the start-up with the Bava­ria 2 Growth Fund.”

“The use of Deep­Drive motors can save considera­ble costs — another step towards making e‑mobility more attrac­tive and cost-effec­tive and driving forward the all-important market pene­tra­tion,” says Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “We are plea­sed that the goal of scaling up to large-scale produc­tion in the near future has become a good deal more tangi­ble as a result of this new round of financing.”

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.
www.bayernkapital.de

About UVC

A tech team for tech teams. — We are rocket scien­tists, CS geeks, elec­tri­cal engi­neers, AI rese­ar­chers, mecha­ni­cal engi­neers, mate­ri­als scien­tists, and econo­mists. We value the entre­pre­neu­rial spirit, the pursuit of inno­va­tion and the pursuit of quality. Since 2011, we have built one of Europe’s leading B2B venture capi­tal funds inves­t­ing across Europe from our offices in Berlin and Munich. As a team, we have made over one hundred B2B invest­ments with over thirty exits, inclu­ding some of our own compa­nies. https://www.uvcpartners.com

About BMW i VENTURES

Venture capi­tal for sustainable future tech­no­lo­gies and game chan­gers in mobi­lity. — Venture capi­ta­list BMW i Ventures invests in inno­va­tive, rapidly scaling start-ups from the auto­mo­tive envi­ron­ment that are helping to shape the indi­vi­dual mobi­lity of tomor­row. The focus is on tech­no­lo­gi­cal solu­ti­ons for the trans­por­ta­tion, manu­fac­tu­ring and supply indus­tries, as well as on inter­di­sci­pli­nary, sustainable solu­ti­ons. Thanks to its inde­pen­dence, BMW i Ventures makes invest­ment decis­i­ons quickly and in a manner appro­priate to the indus­try. This auto­nomy makes it possi­ble to match the speed and quality of the best venture capi­ta­lists and attract top invest­ment part­ners. The proxi­mity to the BMW Group in turn streng­thens the tech exper­tise of BMW i Ventures. https://www.bmwgroup.com/de/innovation/unternehmen/venturing_into_new_tech.html

News

Landshut/Ottobrunn — Isar Aero­space, deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of launch vehic­les for the trans­port of small and medium-sized satel­li­tes, has secu­red addi­tio­nal capi­tal of 155 million euros in a Series C finan­cing round. The inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor base of this largest Space­Tech finan­cing round world­wide in 2023 includes Bayern Kapi­tal with ScaleUp Fonds Bayern as well as 7‑Industries Holding, Porsche SE, Early­bird Venture Capi­tal, HV Capi­tal, Lake­star, Lombard Odier, UVC and Vsquared Ventures. With total funding now in excess of €310 million, Isar Aero­space is the most stron­gly capi­ta­li­zed inde­pen­dent new-space company in Europe and a key player in streng­thening Euro­pean capa­bi­li­ties for consis­tent, flexi­ble and cost-effec­tive access to space for global commer­cial and insti­tu­tio­nal customers.

Isar Aero­space, based in Otto­brunn near Munich, deve­lops and builds launch vehic­les for trans­port­ing small and medium-sized satel­li­tes and satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons into Earth orbit. The company was foun­ded in 2018 as a spin-off from the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich and has since estab­lished itself as a fully verti­cally inte­gra­ted tech­no­logy leader. Curr­ently, the more than 300 employees are working towards the first flight of the “Spec­trum” launch vehicle, which is plan­ned for the second half of 2023 from Andøya in Norway. In addi­tion, the “Aquila” engine, which was deve­lo­ped and manu­fac­tu­red enti­rely within the company, is curr­ently under­go­ing engine tests. In addi­tion to these projects, the addi­tio­nal funds from the finan­cing round will be used to inten­sify deve­lo­p­ment and to expand auto­ma­ted and thus cost-effi­ci­ent produc­tion capacities.

Isar Aero­space alre­ady has a strong custo­mer base and has signed firm contracts with custo­mers around the world, inclu­ding large commer­cial compa­nies, new-space firms and govern­ment insti­tu­ti­ons. Appli­ca­ti­ons for the satel­li­tes the company trans­ports into Earth orbit include envi­ron­men­tal moni­to­ring and protec­tion, Earth obser­va­tion, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, agri­cul­ture, disas­ter manage­ment, trans­por­ta­tion, scien­ti­fic rese­arch and security.

Daniel Metz­ler, co-foun­der and CEO of Isar Aero­space, explains: “The strong inte­rest of our inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors under­lines their confi­dence in our vision and tech­no­lo­gi­cal capa­bi­li­ties. Access to space is the key to inno­va­tion, tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and secu­rity — alre­ady today and even more so in the future. Isar Aero­space opens up access to space, which is urgen­tly needed by commer­cial, insti­tu­tio­nal and govern­ment custo­mers. This funding round is an important mile­stone on our path to orbit.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger: “Start-ups like Isar Aero­space are taking Bavaria’s space tech­no­logy loca­tion to a new level. The company is an outstan­ding exam­ple: it offers important appli­ca­ti­ons such as climate obser­va­tion relia­ble and afforda­ble access to space. With our ScaleUp Fonds Bayern, we support such tech­no­logy leaders on their way to beco­ming inter­na­tio­nally active companies.”

Bayern Kapi­tal is one of the first venture capi­tal compa­nies to invest in the aero­space sector and is curr­ently invol­ved in Isar Aero­space custo­mer and vege­ta­tion obser­va­tion satel­lite deve­lo­per Orora­Tech, and drone start-up Quan­tum Systems, among others. Bayern Kapi­tal supports the various deve­lo­p­ment stages of young tech­no­logy compa­nies with seve­ral funds — the ScaleUp Fonds Bayern, laun­ched in 2021 with a total volume of 200 million euros, is a powerful finan­cing offer for parti­cu­larly rapidly expan­ding tech companies.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in at an early stage include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion, tado and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

News

Frank­furt a. Main — AnaCap and foun­ders sell mino­rity stake in MRH Trowe to TA Asso­cia­tes at 4.3 times multi­ple. Oppen­hoff advi­sed indus­trial insu­rance broker MRH Trowe on the mino­rity invest­ment by private equity inves­tor TA Asso­cia­tes. The tran­sac­tion is subject to clearance by the EU Commis­sion under merger control law. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The new part­ner­ship with TA Asso­cia­tes will acce­le­rate MRHT’s impres­sive growth story and further cement the company’s posi­tion as one of the leading insu­rance brokers in the DACH region. With the entry of a further finan­cial inves­tor as a mino­rity share­hol­der, MRH Trowe is setting the course for the further growth of the group of compa­nies. Toge­ther with AnaCap Finan­cial Part­ners, which took a mino­rity stake in late 2020 as part of an initial growth plan, TA Asso­cia­tes will support the foun­ding and manage­ment team to further acce­le­rate the group’s growth trajec­tory. Even with the new US inves­tor, the manage­ment team remains the largest shareholder.

MRH Trowe is one of the ten largest German indus­trial brokers. Under the umbrella of Mester­heide Rockel Hirz Trowe AG Holding, MRH Trowe Insu­rance Brokers GmbH is joined by seve­ral specia­list service provi­ders for diffe­rent segments. MRH Trowe offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise in virtually all lines of insu­rance for indus­trial and commer­cial clients, insti­tu­ti­ons and upscale private clients. The owner-mana­ged company is pursuing a consis­tent growth course with a holi­stic range of consul­ting services, specia­li­zed teams of experts and a high degree of digi­tiza­tion at the inter­faces between clients, brokers and insu­r­ers. Around 1,100 employees manage a premium volume of more than 650 million euros.

TA Asso­cia­tes (TA) is a leading global private equity firm focu­sed on growing profi­ta­ble busi­nesses. Since 1968, TA has inves­ted in more than 560 compa­nies in five target indus­tries: tech­no­logy, health­care, finan­cial services, consu­mer products and busi­ness services. Through exten­sive indus­try know­ledge and stra­te­gic resour­ces, TA works with manage­ment teams around the world to help high-value compa­nies create lasting value. The company has raised $48.6 billion in capi­tal to date and has more than 150 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in offices in Boston, Menlo Park, Austin, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

AnaCap isa leading specia­list inves­tor in Euro­pean finan­cial, tech­no­logy and rela­ted busi­ness services, support­ing both foun­ders and entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment teams. The focus is on acqui­si­ti­ons, manage­ment buy-ins or buy-outs of compa­nies that require capi­tal, know-how and expe­ri­ence to imple­ment orga­nic and inor­ga­nic stra­te­gies. Since 2005, the company has raised €2.7 billion in gross capi­tal and comple­ted 80 invest­ments in 16 Euro­pean count­ries. AnaCap insti­tu­tio­na­li­zes compa­nies and regu­larly execu­tes sophisti­ca­ted growth stra­te­gies such as buy-and-build programs that leverage a deep under­stan­ding of the sector.

Advi­sors to MRH Trowe: Oppenhoff

A team led by Dr. Markus Rasner (photo © Oppen­hpff) provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice. The other team included Till Liebau, Moritz Schmitz, Marcel Marko­vic (all Private Equity), Dr. Wolf­gang Kotzur (Finan­cing), Dr. Günter Seulen, Sebas­tian Gutmann, Moritz Bock (all Corpo­rate), Dr. Peter Etzbach, Thomas Wismann (both Insu­rance Regu­la­tory), Anja Dombrow­sky, Jenni­fer Bold (both Labor Law), Dr. Jürgen Hartung (IT and Data Protec­tion), Georg Leche­ler (IP), Dr. Hanna Schmidt (Commer­cial), Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax), Dr. Simon Spang­ler and Renée Cherelle Eckruth (both Merger Control). Advice on the tran­sac­tion and finan­cing was provi­ded jointly with the London office of Pros­kauer Rose.

Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship company regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Cologne. 

News

Kassel — The Kassel-based EAM Group has acqui­red Land­graf Ener­gie­tech­nik GmbH. As a future subsi­diary of the EAM Group, Land­graf Ener­gie­tech­nik, which has been family-owned until now, will contri­bute its compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of sani­tary, heating and air condi­tio­ning (SHK). The tran­sac­tion is marked by the chal­lenges to be met in the course of the energy tran­si­tion. Oppen­hoff advi­sed the EAM Group on this transaction.

The medium-sized company Land­graf Ener­gie­tech­nik is a specia­li­zed service provi­der for sani­tary, heating and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy. The company, based in Schlitz (Hesse), offers a compre­hen­sive service for custo­mers in the private and public commer­cial, resi­den­tial and indus­trial cons­truc­tion sectors. Land­graf Ener­gie­tech­nik has distinc­tive exper­tise in the instal­la­tion of rege­ne­ra­tive heating systems such as wood boilers or heat pumps.

The muni­ci­pal energy supplier EAM, which has been in exis­tence since 1929, supplies energy to around 1.4 million people in the regi­ons of Hesse, Lower Saxony and parts of North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate and Thurin­gia. The company acts as a part­ner for the energy tran­si­tion in the region and consis­t­ently pursues a sustainable course. In 2021, EAM gene­ra­ted sales of around one billion euros.

Advi­sor to the EAM Group: Oppenhoff
Lead part­ners Dr. Markus Rasner (M&A) ; Marcel Marko­vic (M&A), Anja Dombrow­sky, Corne­lia-Cris­tina Scupra (both Employ­ment), Marvin Roch­ner (Real Estate) and Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses compa­nies in the energy sector, most recently for exam­ple EnBW and Rhein­Ener­gie on the sale of their MVV shares to First State Invest­ments.

About Oppen­hoff

Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB (“Oppen­hoff”) is a part­ner­ship company regis­tered in the part­ner­ship regis­ter of the Essen Local Court with the regis­tra­tion number PR 1850 and its regis­tered office in Colo­gne. A list of the part­ners autho­ri­zed to repre­sent the company is available at http://www.oppenhoff.eu/de/allgemeine-seiten/impressum.html. This message from Oppen­hoff is confi­den­tial and subject to attor­ney-client privi­lege. If you have recei­ved this message by mistake, please notify us imme­dia­tely and delete the message comple­tely from your system. Do not copy the message and do not make it available to anyone. All messa­ges sent or recei­ved by Oppen­hoff may be moni­to­red to ensure compli­ance with inter­nal poli­cies and rele­vant legis­la­tion. Emails are not secure and may contain errors as they may be inter­cepted, alte­red or destroyed, lost or contain viru­ses. Ever­yone who commu­ni­ca­tes with us through email accepts this risk.

News

Berlin — TX Ventures parti­ci­pa­tes in series A finan­cing round of Cash­link in the mid-seven-figure range. BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed TX Ventures on this transaction.

FinTech company Cash­link provi­des the leading infra­struc­ture for asset toke­niza­tion, enab­ling fully digi­tal issu­ance of secu­ri­ties through the use of block­chain tech­no­logy. Cash­link was one of the first compa­nies to receive a provi­sio­nal permis­sion to regis­ter crypto-secu­ri­ties from the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin), allo­wing it to cover all neces­sary regu­la­tory requirements.

In addi­tion to lead inves­tor TX Ventures, Futury Capi­tal, Betei­li­gungs- Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen, seve­ral busi­ness angels and exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding C3 Venture Capi­tal, seed + speed, Panta Rhei and DEWB parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. With the fresh capi­tal, Cash­link aims to streng­then its growth trajec­tory and expand its product offe­ring in terms of crypto-secu­ri­ties regis­try services.

About TX Ventures
TX Ventures is an inde­pen­dent FinTech VC inves­t­ing in the next gene­ra­tion of the
Finance inves­ted with the goal of beco­ming one of the leading early-stage inves­tors in
Europe in the topics FinTech, Insur­Tech & Crypto.

TX Ventures has made it its mission to invest in FinTechs that provide access to
Demo­cra­tize finan­cial products, empowe­ring people to make financial
secu­rity as well as improve effi­ci­ency and sustaina­bi­lity in the finan­cial area.
TX Ventures provi­des hands-on support to its compa­nies in the areas of marke­ting, tech
and cyber­se­cu­rity. TX Ventures is backed by TX Group, the largest private media group in Switz­er­land and a leading network of digi­tal platforms.
www.tx.ventures

About Futury Capital
Futury Capi­tal is an early-stage and growth inves­tor focu­sed on tech start­ups in
Germany and world­wide. The invest­ment universe covers seve­ral indus­tries such as
Tech­no­logy, soft­ware, consu­mer inter­net, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, fintech and more from and
helps compa­nies acce­le­rate their growth on their way to becoming
global market leaders. Through the LP struc­ture from the state of Hesse, family offices,
German SMEs and multi­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons, Futury Capi­tal supports its
port­fo­lio compa­nies, both stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally, in the deve­lo­p­ment of
excep­tio­nal company.
https://www.futurycapital.vc

About BMH
BMH Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH, with its regis­tered office in Wies­ba­den, was
Foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landesbank
Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). About the Econo­mic and Infra­struc­ture Bank
Hesse (WIBank), BMH is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment of the state of Hesse.
inte­gra­ted. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, we combine
the BMH to manage the public parti­ci­pa­tion inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for
Early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. The BMH manages
Curr­ently seven invest­ment funds with an inves­ted invest­ment volume of
a total of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­ding, BMH has been invol­ved in a total of more than
500 compa­nies inves­ted. The main areas of invest­ment include the sectors
Soft­ware & IT, Life Scien­ces, Engi­nee­ring, Indus­trial Goods, Professional
Services and e‑commerce. More infor­ma­tion about BMH and its funds:
www.bmh-hessen.de

About C3 Venture Capital
C3 Venture Capi­tal is a venture capi­tal firm that invests in exceptional
Block­chain tech­no­logy compa­nies inves­ted globally. The mission of C3 is to work under
among other things, the growth, deve­lo­p­ment and, above all, accep­tance of
Block­chain-based busi­ness models to acce­le­rate. The C3 Tech VC Fund
Focu­ses on early- and growth-stage tech­no­logy compa­nies and
usually takes a mino­rity share­hol­ding. C3 opera­tes world­wide and has its
Based in Frank­furt, Germany.
www.c3venturecapital.com

About DEWB
Deut­sche Effec­ten- und Wech­sel-Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft AG (DEWB AG, WKN: 804100 /
ISIN: DE0008041005) is a listed invest­ment company, which has its
invest­ment focus on asset manage­ment and busi­ness models, which are crucially
contri­bute to the digi­tiza­tion of this sector of the economy. In the last 20 years DEWB has
inves­ted more than 390 million euros in 65 compa­nies over the years, and with 50 exits, including
nine IPOs, reali­zed more than 500 million euros. With its over 200 years
corpo­rate history, DEWB stands for conti­nuity in the capi­tal market. Buil­ding on
This expe­ri­ence and a flair for future-orien­ted deve­lo­p­ments support the
DEWB provi­des its invest­ments with capi­tal, exper­tise in corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and
their wide-ranging network of experts.

About seed+speed Ventures
seed+speed Ventures is a pre-seed and seed inves­tor focu­sing on B2B soft­ware start­ups in the DACH region. The company invests in visio­nary foun­ders with promi­sing ideas for the future. In recent years, the port­fo­lio has grown to over 50 compa­nies, inclu­ding FinTech, Supply Chain, Cyber­se­cu­rity, EdTech nd Mobi­lity. — The foun­der is Cars­ten Maschmeyer. The entre­pre­neur, inves­tor, best-selling author, spea­ker and TV judge invests in start­ups in Europe and North America through his invest­ment compa­nies seed+speed Ventures, ALSTIN and Maschmeyer Group Ventures.

News

Landshut/Munich — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the high-tech finan­cing land­scape, is inves­t­ing in mbio­mics GmbH. The Munich-based company is a pioneer in the field of micro­biome biotech­no­logy and is deve­lo­ping the first gene­ra­tion of effec­tive micro­biome-based live thera­peu­tics (LBT). In addi­tion to Bayern Kapi­tal, MIG Capi­tal as lead inves­tor as well as High-Tech Grün­der­fonds and other private inves­tors parti­ci­pa­ted in the first closing of the Series A round with a total volume of EUR 13 million. The closing of the funding round puts mbio­mics at the fore­front of the emer­ging field of synthe­tic micro­bial consor­tia, which have the poten­tial to revo­lu­tio­nize the treat­ment of a wide range of dise­a­ses, from cancer to inflamm­a­tory bowel disease.

Foun­ded in Munich in 2020, mbio­mics GmbH focu­ses on the deve­lo­p­ment of the first gene­ra­tion of effec­tive bacte­rial living thera­peu­tics (LBT). The company is using its proprie­tary, custom profil­ing plat­form and compu­ta­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies to gene­rate high-reso­lu­tion precis­ion data to modu­late the micro­biota, over­co­ming current bott­len­ecks in LBT deve­lo­p­ment. The tech­no­logy enables a better under­stan­ding of the inter­ac­tions between the gut micro­biome and the host, allo­wing mbio­mics to deve­lop more effec­tive micro­bial consor­tia that can be deli­vered to pati­ents as precis­ion thera­pies. In addi­tion, mbio­mics’ core tech­no­logy impro­ves pati­ent selec­tion and moni­to­ring for clini­cal trials, crea­ting a compe­ti­tive advantage.

“The micro­biome offers a rich source of new thera­peu­tic oppor­tu­ni­ties that have not yet been fully explo­red. Our goal is to harness the power of the micro­biome to treat dise­a­ses that are diffi­cult to treat with conven­tio­nal approa­ches,” explains Dr. Markus Rinecker, co-foun­der and CMO of mbio­mics. “Our outstan­ding R&D team has deli­vered a tech­no­lo­gi­cal proof-of-concept for our analy­sis plat­form in record time. With this tech­no­logy, mbio­mics is uniquely posi­tio­ned to under­stand the modu­la­tion of the micro­biome and deve­lop effec­tive thera­pies,” added Johan­nes B. Woehr­stein, Ph.D., co-foun­der and CTO.

“We are very plea­sed to have the support of such a pres­ti­gious group of inves­tors who share our vision of harnes­sing the power of the gut micro­biome to deve­lop targe­ted thera­pies,” said Laura Figulla, Ph.D., co-foun­der and CEO of mbio­mics. “This funding will allow us to build our plat­form, acce­le­rate the selec­tion of our first lead product candi­da­tes, and inten­sify rese­arch acti­vi­ties with an eye toward clini­cal validation.”

“The influence of the micro­biome on dise­a­ses is curr­ently being rese­ar­ched in many ways,” said Monika Steger (photo © Bayern Kapi­tal), mana­ging direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “mbio­mics shows great poten­tial in the deve­lo­p­ment of micro­biome-based thera­peu­tics for support­ive inter­ven­tion in various dise­a­ses and can thus take rese­arch a decisive step forward. We look forward to pursuing this path toge­ther with the company and an expe­ri­en­ced and finan­ci­ally strong inves­tor consortium.”

Dr. Matthias Kromayer, Mana­ging Part­ner of MIG Capi­talcommen­ted: “We are plea­sed to announce our invest­ment in mbio­mics and to support the company on its jour­ney to deve­lop a powerful, inno­va­tive thera­peu­tics plat­form. The company’s approach of combi­ning new tech­no­lo­gies with cutting-edge micro­biome rese­arch is ground­brea­king and has the poten­tial to signi­fi­cantly improve treat­ment outco­mes for pati­ents. We look forward to support­ing mbio­mics’ ongo­ing rese­arch towards clini­cal development.”

“In the deve­lo­p­ment of “Live Bacte­rial Products”, micro­biome profil­ing remains one of the major chal­lenges. Mbio­mics has deve­lo­ped a novel high-perfor­mance profil­ing plat­form that addres­ses key bott­len­ecks in the deve­lo­p­ment of micro­biome-based thera­peu­tic approa­ches using novel bacte­rial consor­tia. We are plea­sed to invest in an excel­lent team and an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy toge­ther with strong co-inves­tors,” adds Dr. Jan Engels, Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in at an early stage include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion, tado and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

About mbio­mics
Foun­ded in 2020 and head­quar­te­red in Munich, Germany, mbio­mics GmbH is a priva­tely held biotech company focu­sed on the deve­lo­p­ment of first gene­ra­tion effec­tive live bacte­rial thera­peu­tics (LBT). The company is lever­aging its custom micro­biome diagno­stics plat­form to over­come current bott­len­ecks in LBT deve­lo­p­ment — gene­ra­ting accu­rate profil­ing data, selec­ting better consor­tia, and impro­ving pati­ent stra­ti­fi­ca­tion and moni­to­ring in clini­cal trials.
www.mbiomics.com

News

Hamburg — Planet A Ventures was able to raise an invest­ment volume of € 160 million for its impact fund. Inves­tors include Alli­anz Invest­ment Manage­ment, BMW, KfW Capi­tal, REWE and the Danish state invest­ment fund Vaekst­fon­den. In addi­tion, the fund is supported by well-known serial entre­pre­neurs such as Rolf Schröm­gens (Triv­ago Co-Foun­der) Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Global CMO HelloFresh) and Rubin Ritter (Ex-Zalando Co-CEO).

The fund scores high on its scien­ti­fic approach to impact inves­t­ing. For exam­ple, Planet A Ventures has its own scien­ti­fic team that performs so-called “life cycle analy­ses” as part of the due dili­gence process. In addi­tion to CO2 emis­si­ons, this form of analy­sis also takes into account, among other things, biodi­ver­sity protec­tion, resource conser­va­tion and waste reduction.

About Planet A Ventures

Planet A Ventures is a venture capi­ta­list inves­t­ing in Euro­pean green tech start­ups that have a signi­fi­cant posi­tive impact on our planet. As a venture capi­ta­list, Planet A aims to contri­bute to an economy within plane­tary boun­da­ries. Planet A supports inno­va­tions in four key areas: Climate protec­tion, waste preven­tion, resource conser­va­tion and biodi­ver­sity protec­tion. As the first Euro­pean VC, Planet A bases its invest­ment decis­i­ons on scien­ti­fic life­cy­cle analy­sis and helps foun­ders scale their impact. Invest­ments include trace­l­ess mate­ri­als (plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves), Inera­tec (e‑fuels), C1 (green metha­nol), GA Dril­ling (geother­mal), 44.01 (carbon storage), and Maker­site (decar­bo­ni­zing supply chains).
www.planet‑a.com

Advi­sor Planet A Ventures: YPOG
Dr. Julian Albrecht (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner There­sia M. R. Hein­rich (Struc­tu­ring), Asso­ciate Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Stefa­nie Nagel (Regu­la­tory), Senior Associate

News

Bruchsal/ Munich — SITA, the world’s leading specia­list for commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy in avia­tion, has joined Volo­c­op­ter as a new inves­tor in the Series E finan­cing round and will become its digi­tal and IT systems part­ner for vertiports.

SITA was selec­ted by Volo­c­op­ter as the prefer­red digi­tal and IT systems part­ner for Verti­ports. Under this agree­ment, SITA is the latest inves­tor to parti­ci­pate in Volocopter’s Series E funding round, under­pin­ning the stra­te­gic vision of this part­ner­ship. A team led by Düssel­dorf-based Heuking part­ner Dr. Martin Imhof provi­ded legal advice to SITA on the successful invest­ment and conclu­sion of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Volocopter.

Volo­c­op­ter is a pioneer in the field of urban air mobi­lity (UAM). The company is deve­lo­ping elec­tric verti­cal take-off passen­ger cabs (eVTOL) and cargo drones that will fly auto­no­mously. Volo­c­op­ter brings air mobi­lity to the world’s mega­ci­ties, provi­ding sustainable and scalable UAM ecosys­tems with infra­struc­ture and opera­ti­ons part­ners to enable a new kind of trans­por­ta­tion. Volo­c­op­ter GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Bruch­sal, Germany, was foun­ded in 2011 and today employs more than 500 people in Germany and Singa­pore. The company has seve­ral inves­tors, inclu­ding Geely, NEOM, Merce­des-Benz Group, Intel Capi­tal, Honey­well and BlackRock.

In 2022, Volo­c­op­ter laun­ched a new Series E funding round to advance the global certi­fi­ca­tion process with EASA, FAA and other avia­tion autho­ri­ties, as well as the launch of commer­cial air taxi services in cities such as Singa­pore, Osaka, Rome and Paris.

SITA is the IT provi­der for the air trans­port indus­try, deli­ve­ring solu­ti­ons for airlines, airports, aircraft, govern­ments and inter­na­tio­nal orga­niza­ti­ons. The Group designs, deve­lops and supports tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons with the aim of faci­li­ta­ting all steps of an air jour­ney. SITA Group covers 95% of all inter­na­tio­nal desti­na­ti­ons and works with over 2,800 avia­tion and public sector custo­mers in all parts of the world. SITA employs more than 4,500 people and opera­tes in 126 count­ries worldwide.

Advi­sor to SITA: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Martin Imhof (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A),
Slaven Kova­ce­vic (co-lead, VC/PE),
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (Commer­cial and Corpo­rate Law),
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Krumme (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Astrid Lued­tke (IT/IP),
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (Anti­trust Law/Unfair Compe­ti­tion), all in Düsseldorf

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Vision Capi­tal and Rubicon Part­ners sell ABL-TECHNIC Group (ABL Group) to STAR Capi­tal Part­ner­ship LLP, STAR IV Fund. The manage­ment of the ABL Group reta­ins a stake in the company. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Vision Capi­tal and Rubicon Part­ners on this transaction.

Foun­ded in 1987, the ABL-TECHNIC Group is the world’s largest paint strip­per with around 600 employees at 20 loca­ti­ons in ten count­ries. The company supplies over 7,000 custo­mers around the world and has a market share of appro­xi­m­ately 30% in Europe.

The McDer­mott team led by Dr. Michael Cziesla previously advi­sed Vision Capi­tal and Rubicon Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of ABL Group.

Advi­sors Vision Capi­tal and Rubicon Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Michael Cziesla (lead), Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin (Coun­sel), Ettore Scan­dale (Milan), Elea­nor West (London; all Corporate/M&A), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Labor Law), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory, Frankfurt/Munich), Dr. Oliver Lieth (Finance, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (Coun­sel, Anti­trust), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Lisa Schick­ling, Carlo Lemmi (Milan; all Corporate/M&A), Ilva Woeste (Labor Law, Munich), Matthias M. Bosbach (Finance, Düsseldorf).

News

Wetz­lar / Halver — The tradi­tio­nal company Schrau­ben­fa­brik Schmidt GmbH, which specia­li­zes in indi­vi­du­ally manu­fac­tu­red screws, is being trans­fer­red 100 percent to a private inves­tor as part of a succes­sion plan. The previous mana­ging owner Arne Schmidt was exclu­si­vely advi­sed in the sale process by the Wetz­lar M&A boutique Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance one of the leading M&A consul­tancies in the German SME sector.

Foun­ded in 1946 and now in its third gene­ra­tion, Schrau­ben­fa­brik Schmidt from Halver in West­pha­lia is a renow­ned specia­list in the produc­tion and procu­re­ment of indus­trial fastening tech­no­logy. The focus of our own produc­tion is on cold-formed metric screws as well as chip­board, wood and sheet metal screws. In addi­tion to clas­sic DIN/ISO screws (M3x8 to M10x150), the product range also includes custom-made special and drawing parts with unusual speci­fi­ca­ti­ons. As a service provi­der, the tradi­tio­nal company also orga­ni­zes the sourcing, quality control and logi­stics of fasten­ers in line with the motto “Precis­ion made in Germany”. The company curr­ently employs 20 people.

Since 2013, the tradi­tio­nal company has been mana­ged by Arne Schmidt as sole share­hol­der and is now being trans­fer­red in full to a private inves­tor as part of a succes­sion plan, who will main­tain and further expand the brand, which is firmly estab­lished in the market. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

“Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor has proven that a successful tran­sac­tion can be reali­zed even in econo­mic­ally chal­len­ging times,” empha­si­zes Arne Schmidt, former sole share­hol­der of Schrau­ben­fa­brik Schmidt. “Thanks to the profes­sio­nal, inte­grity and precis­ion of the Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor team’s advice, I felt not only in good human hands, but also in the best of hands in terms of tech­ni­cal expertise.”

“Due to the pande­mic and the resul­ting supply bott­len­ecks, there were signi­fi­cant shifts in procu­re­ment — away from Asian suppli­ers and towards German produ­cers,” says Michael Ganter, head of the project team at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, explai­ning the chan­ging market envi­ron­ment. “Our client was ulti­m­ately able to choose from seve­ral very good offers and thus find the ideal succes­sor for his family’s life’s work.”

About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance

Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, in asso­cia­tion with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acquisitions.
www.nachfolgekontor.de www.sonntagcf.com

 

News

Berlin/ Munich — To further expand its posi­tion as the market leader in Germany in the field of fresh, auto­no­mous food and beverage deli­very, Foodji has raised money from inves­tors: The Munich-based food tech company raises USD 23 million in its Series A finan­cing round. Dutch inves­tor Movendo Capi­tal and DLF Venture from Luxem­bourg have joined as new partners.

The fresh capi­tal will be used to streng­then the team and expand the foodji tech­no­logy. Dutch inves­tor Movendo Capi­tal and DLF Venture from Luxem­bourg have joined as new part­ners. U.S. inves­tor Triple Point Capi­tal and Kraut Capi­tal from Germany also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round, as did exis­ting inves­tor FoodLabs from Berlin.

Foun­ded in 2016, Foodji opera­tes smart food vending machi­nes that offer fresh and healthy food at any time and exactly where people spend their daily lives. In the office, on the shop floor, at the univer­sity, in the hospi­tal or while trave­ling in a hotel or at the airport. More than 90 percent of German compa­nies do not have their own canteen. The past year has shown that the demand for high-quality and flexi­ble round-the-clock cate­ring — espe­ci­ally in the German SME sector — is high.

About DLF Venture
Foun­ded in Luxem­bourg in 2016, DLF Venture is a family-owned, consu­mer-focu­sed private equity firm with offices in Brussels and London, inves­t­ing prima­rily in Europe and focu­sing on four key sectors: Food & Beverage, Health & Care, Edtech and Inno­va­tive Retail.

About Movendo Capi­tal B.V.
Movendo Capi­tal B.V. is an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in invest­ments in inno­va­tive food and inno­va­tive retail. Behind Movendo is a fourth gene­ra­tion entre­pre­neu­rial family with a long tradi­tion in retail and food produc­tion. Movendo is a long-term inves­tor and active shareholder.

About Foodji

Foodji, the young food tech market leader from Munich, was foun­ded in 2016 by Felix Munte, Daniel von Canal, Moritz Munte, Dr. Oliver Fried­mann and Nico­las Luig. Foodji enables small and medium-sized compa­nies without a canteen to provide their employees with a fresh and healthy food offer. At the heart of the company is its proprie­tary tech­no­logy plat­form and smart food vending machine, “Foodji,” which provi­des fresh, healthy, high-quality food around the clock. These are charac­te­ri­zed by parti­cu­larly high quality and can be reser­ved via app as well as purcha­sed via touch­screen without regis­tra­tion. The food offe­red is tail­o­red to the wishes of the employees using speci­ally deve­lo­ped arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. In addi­tion to a perso­na­li­zed offe­ring, this results in signi­fi­cantly less food waste than is common in the food indus­try. Thanks to 24/7 avai­la­bi­lity, the food­jis can also be used more flexi­bly than conven­tio­nal canteens and also cater to workers in shifts and at night. Further infor­ma­tion: www.foodji.com

Advi­sors Movendo Capital/DLF Venture: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead) (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner Matthias Kres­ser (Regu­la­tory & Finance, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Nina Ahlert (Co-Lead) (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate Laura Franke (Corpo­rate, Tran­sac­tions), Project Lawyer

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
www.ypog.law

News

Berlin — With the merger with AMANA as the leading soft­ware provi­der for finan­cial report­ing and tax solu­ti­ons in Europe, Luca­Net under­lines the importance of the segment “Disclo­sure Manage­ment” and sustain­ably streng­thens its global market posi­tion for Corpo­rate Perfor­mance Manage­ment (CPM), espe­ci­ally also in the areas of tax compli­ance and tax report­ing. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the foun­ders of AMANA Consul­ting GmbH on the exit to Luca­Net AG.

AMANA, as part of the Luca­Net Group, will reach new custo­mers and better meet the needs of its exis­ting custo­mer base thanks to its broad port­fo­lio of solu­ti­ons, inter­na­tio­nal focus and the matu­rity of its global orga­niza­tion. Both compa­nies have been working successfully in close part­ner­ship since 2015 and offer their custo­mers joint solu­ti­ons, such as the tools “Smart­No­tes” and “XBRL- Tagger”, which opti­mally comple­ment the Luca­Net solu­ti­ons with far-reaching func­tions for busi­ness and finan­cial report gene­ra­tion as well as digi­tal transmission.

About AMANA

With more than 150 deve­lo­pers and subject matter experts, AMANA deve­lops specia­li­zed, user-friendly and intel­li­gent systems on the topics of taxes, disclo­sure manage­ment, XBRL as well as leasing. The soft­ware solu­ti­ons are desi­gned to auto­mate proces­ses sustain­ably as well as to adapt to the constantly incre­asing requi­re­ments of digitalization.

Advi­sor AMANA: YPOG
Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead) (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Stefan Witte (Co-Lead) (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax Law), Part­ner, Hamburg, Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg, Johan­nes Schmidt (Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Hamburg, Lukas Schmitt (Tax Law), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Michael Fili­po­wicz (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Commeo:
Isabel Oest (antitrust/foreign trade law), Part­ner, Frankfurt
Fran­ziska Lange-Schlü­ter (Antitrust/Foreign Trade Law), Asso­ciate, Frankfurt
Chris­toph Bren­del (Antitrust/Foreign Trade Law), Asso­ciate, Frankfurt

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, specia­li­zing in the core areas of
Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
www.ypog.law as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Antwerp — Mediar Thera­peu­tics (Cambridge, MA, USA), a company deve­lo­ping a port­fo­lio of first-in-class thera­pies for the treat­ment of fibro­sis, announ­ces $105 million in finan­cing, inclu­ding an $85 million Series A led by Novar­tis Venture Fund and Sofin­nova Part­ners. Also parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round are Gimv, as well as Pfizer Ventures, Mission BioCa­pi­tal, Pureos, Bris­tol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Ono Venture Invest­ment and Mass Gene­ral Brig­ham Ventures.

Fibro­sis caused by inflamm­a­tion or injury results in abnor­mal forma­tion of scar tissue that can lead to organ fail­ure. Fort­u­na­tely, not all fibro­sis leads to organ fail­ure. To date, there is no cure for fibro­sis, and current thera­pies are subop­ti­mal. Mediar Thera­peu­tics was foun­ded on ground­brea­king fibro­sis rese­arch from Harvard Medi­cal School and Mass Gene­ral Brig­ham & Women’s Hospi­tal. Mediar is working on a pipe­line of unique factors that affect myofi­bro­blasts, the major cell type that drives fibro­sis progression.
The Series A finan­cing will enable Mediar Thera­peu­tics to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of a port­fo­lio of first-in-class anti­body treat­ments that have unique poten­tial to treat fibro­sis at various stages of dise­ase. Two of the programs will enter human trials by 2024.

Dr. Andreas Jurgeit, Part­ner Life Scien­ces at Gimv, who has also joined the Board of Direc­tors of Mediar Thera­peu­tics, commen­ted, “Mediar is a unique combi­na­tion of science, talent and the ability to address a signi­fi­cant unmet medi­cal need. Fibro­sis is respon­si­ble for a signi­fi­cant percen­tage of deaths in the indus­tria­li­zed world, and to date there is no cure or appro­priate treat­ment. We are very plea­sed that Gimv is joining a strong consor­tium of leading global life science inves­tors to support Mediar Thera­peu­tics. We look forward to working closely with manage­ment, our indus­try part­ners and co-inves­tors to achieve Mediar Thera­peu­tics’ mission.”

Chris­toph Kocher, Asso­ciate at Gimv, added, “Mediar’s vision of lever­aging myofi­bro­blast biology to address the large unmet need in pati­ents with fibro­tic dise­a­ses is fully aligned with the mission of Gimv’s life science plat­form: to build leading compa­nies that have a lasting impact on pati­ents and society.”

News

Munich — oculai raises equity capi­tal of 2.5 million euros in a seed finan­cing round. With the fresh capi­tal, the cons­truc­tion-tech startup wants to invest in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the tech­no­logy and push its disse­mi­na­tion on cons­truc­tion sites.

The finan­cing round is led by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, which has with oculai its 700. Invest­ment in the history of the seed inves­tor successfully comple­ted. In addi­tion, Bayern-Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced high-tech inves­tors in the coun­try, is parti­ci­pa­ting with funds from the REACT part of the Bayern Kapi­tal EFRE inno­va­tion fund, and the French-based VC fund Axeleo Capi­tal via its Contech-Proptech fund, which focu­ses on start­ups in Europe. The round is supple­men­ted by the Leonard acce­le­ra­tor program and other well-known private inves­tors. These inves­tors include Arno Zinke, ex-foun­der and mana­ger of Auto­desk and Hexa­gon, Chris­toph Jentzsch, ex-foun­der and CEO of Slock.it and corpus.ventures, and Tobias Ortmaier, ex-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Yuanda Robo­tics, voraus robo­tik and avatera.

oculai is an emer­ging digi­tiza­tion and AI solu­tion for cons­truc­tion compa­nies. For exam­ple, came­ras at high posi­ti­ons and previously unique deep-lear­ning models are used to auto­ma­ti­cally record cons­truc­tion proces­ses. This gives users access to func­tions such as an auto­ma­ted target/actual sche­dule, self-writing daily cons­truc­tion reports or process key figu­res. With oculai, cons­truc­tion projects become more trans­pa­rent, produc­tive and plan­nable, while cons­truc­tion manage­ment work proces­ses are auto­ma­ted. Curr­ently, the solu­tion is mainly used in shell cons­truc­tion and on initial infra­struc­ture projects.

oculai camera

“Espe­ci­ally in the current times, the trans­for­ma­tion of the cons­truc­tion indus­try towards intel­li­gent produc­tion systems is beco­ming more and more important. We also notice this in the response to our product. With the fresh tail­wind, we can leverage this momen­tum and take big steps now,” said Constan­tin Kauff­mann, co-foun­der and CEO of oculai

“oculai’s AI has the poten­tial to be a game-chan­ger for process plan­ning in the cons­truc­tion indus­try. At HTGF, we are proud that oculai is our 700th company. Seed invest­ment is. An anni­ver­sary that shows how active and diverse the start-up and inno­va­tion land­scape in Germany is. With our new fund gene­ra­tion HTGF IV, around 500 million euros are available for invest­ments in promi­sing start-ups and tech­no­lo­gies. The larger group of fund inves­tors enables us to offer more added value for the port­fo­lio compa­nies and invest signi­fi­cantly more per company. We are plea­sed to be able to make a rele­vant contri­bu­tion to solving many chal­lenges by funding highly inno­va­tive start­ups,” Dr. Alex von Fran­ken­berg, Mana­ging Direc­tor of HTGF

“No matter how large or complex a cons­truc­tion project may be — oculai offers the perfect over­view. The foun­ding team has deve­lo­ped a unique AI for shell cons­truc­tion that can enorm­ously increase the higher level of auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion urgen­tly needed in the indus­try,” explains Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapital

“The cons­truc­tion indus­try is one of the least digi­ti­zed indus­tries due to a harsh work envi­ron­ment and compli­ca­ted work­flows, which makes change manage­ment parti­cu­larly diffi­cult. Oculai achie­ves a return on invest­ment from day one with a holi­stic, turn­key solu­tion that enables cons­truc­tion mana­gers to stream­line their work­flow and produce useful data. This impro­ves the lear­ning curve from one project to the next,” explains Mathias Flattin, Part­ner & Mana­ging Direc­tor Axeleo Capital.

About oculai
oculai is a ConTech startup that uses came­ras and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to auto­ma­ti­cally record cons­truc­tion proces­ses and progress. The foun­ders Constan­tin Kauff­mann (CEO), Tim Sippl (CTO) and Yannik Mack (CFO/ COO) know each other from their studies at the Fried­rich Alex­an­der Univer­sity Erlan­gen-Nurem­berg. The idea for the startup sprang from rese­arch into camera-based recor­ding of manual indus­trial proces­ses. The startup formed in seve­ral foun­der programs, such as the Digi­tal Tech Academy, Unter­neh­mer­TUM, and Zoll­hof Incu­ba­tor, and was subse­quently supported by the EXIST-Grün­der­sti­pen­dium until oculai was offi­ci­ally foun­ded in July 2021. The company is now based in Munich and employs around 20 people. oculai’s product is an AI-powered soft­ware that reco­gni­zes and auto­ma­ti­cally docu­ments outdoor cons­truc­tion proces­ses from camera data. Users have access to an auto­ma­ted target/actual sche­dule, self-writing daily cons­truc­tion reports, produc­ti­vity metrics or walking routes, among other things, via a WebApp. Based on the auto­ma­ted docu­men­ta­tion and the coll­ec­ted data, there is a savings poten­tial of 7% of the shell cons­truc­tion costs and a time saving of 15% for site teams. https://www.oculai.de/

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures). Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 compa­nies. Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in at an early stage include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more. www.bayernkapital.de

About Axeleo Capital
Axeleo Capi­tal (AXC) is a venture capi­tal firm that supports EU start­ups from the (pre-)seed stage through specia­li­zed funds in proptech and B2Btech.
Axeleo Proptech I (AXP1) is a €40 million fund focu­sed on proptech and contech start­ups across Europe. Our proptech invest­ments include Bean­stock, BRXS, Bright Spaces, Check&Visit, Garantme, Myr.ai, Prello. Our B2BTech invest­ments include cyber secu­rity, fintech and enter­prise soft­ware compa­nies such as Alsid, Aplo, Cumul.io, Jenji, Joko, Trust­pair. https://www.axc.vc/

About Leonard
Leonard is the VINCI Group’s inno­va­tion and fore­sight plat­form. Leonard was crea­ted to envi­sion the future of the Group’s busi­nesses and is tasked with moni­to­ring emer­ging trends in VINCI’s areas of exper­tise and markets, iden­ti­fy­ing new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and setting up incu­ba­tion and acce­le­ra­tor programs for employees as well as start-ups. To host these programs and foster exch­an­ges with all the people brea­king new ground in VINCI’s busi­ness lines, Leonard opened Leonard:Paris, a 4,500-square-meter labo­ra­tory in Paris. In 2020, Leonard formed a team to expand opera­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
https://leonard.vinci.com/de .

News

Berlin — VC La Fami­glia closed its Growth Fund in Decem­ber and its Seed Fund III at the end of Febru­ary with a volume of over € 250 million. The legal advice was provi­ded by YPOG.
La Fami­glia announ­ced it has raised more than €250 million for its third seed fund and its first growth fund. The funds are backed by renow­ned entre­pre­neurs and leading indus­tria­lists to invest in the next gene­ra­tion of forward-looking compa­nies. Inves­tors in the two funds also include renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, parti­cu­larly from the USA. The VC has thus raised a total of more than €350 million since 2017.

La Fami­glia closed its first seed fund of €35 million in 2017, follo­wed by a second seed fund of €60 million in 2019. Now La Fami­glia is incre­asing its third seed fund to €165 million, with the goal of doubling invest­ments in emer­ging B2B giants in Europe and the US. In paral­lel, the VC laun­ches a growth fund with € 90 million.
As part of its third seed fund, La Fami­glia aims to make initial invest­ments of up to €5 million in start­ups deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and scalable busi­ness models for various indus­tries. The Growth Fund focu­ses on co-invest­ments in Series B and above companies.

In parti­cu­lar, YPOG advi­sed La Fami­glia on the struc­tu­ring of the third seed fund and the growth fund to obtain the regis­tra­tion as EuVECA mana­ger and to imple­ment the increased flexi­bi­lity for two paral­lel blind pool funds. For advice on U.S. regu­la­tory issues, La Fami­glia and YPOG are again rely­ing on the assis­tance of Kimber­ley J. Kaplan-Gross and Shaun C. Barnes of Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP.

About La Famigila

La Fami­glia is a venture capi­ta­list that provi­des early and growth stage support to strong tech­no­logy start­ups that reinvent estab­lished indus­tries. The team invests in areas such as logi­stics and supply chain, infra­struc­ture and data, retail and commerce, fintech and insur­tech, or Indus­try 4.0. In doing so, it pursues a hori­zon­tal focus on the future of work as well as sustaina­bi­lity. Examp­les of promi­nent seed invest­ments include Deca­corn Deel, unicorns Perso­nio and Forto, and more recently tech­no­logy plat­forms such as Y42, Sweep and Buynomics.

Consul­tant La Fami­glia: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Fund), Part­ner Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Fund), Associate

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IP/IT and nota­rial services. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Hamburg / Berlin / Oister­wijk — Lions­Home, toge­ther with its majo­rity share­hol­der Water­land Private Equity, is working at full speed on the further deve­lo­p­ment of a Euro­pean digi­tal publi­shing group: Follo­wing the successful inte­gra­tion of the product compa­ri­son plat­form Fashiola, Lions­Home has now acqui­red the Dutch opera­tor of deal & coupon portals Franke Media B.V..

Lions­Home GmbH from Berlin, which has been in exis­tence since 2014, has deve­lo­ped into a leading product compa­ri­son plat­form for Home & Living and is now one of the largest Euro­pean furnis­hing portals with over three million users in ten count­ries every month. In 2022, the majo­rity invest­ment by growth inves­tor Water­land marked the start of the deve­lo­p­ment of a leading Euro­pean commerce content group that will aggre­gate a wide range of digi­tal publi­shing models, e‑commerce & e‑service verti­cals, and geogra­phic markets under one roof. A first mile­stone in this stra­tegy was reached within a very short time in mid-2022 with the acqui­si­tion of Fashiola, which makes the online offe­rings of a large number of leading fashion brands compa­ra­ble for its users in more than 25 countries.

Franke Media, a leading opera­tor of deal & coupon portals, has now joined the group as its newest member, having built the most visi­ted discount websites in the Nether­lands and Belgium since its incep­tion in 2012. On Acties.nl and Deals.be, every month more than 1.5 million unique visi­tors find coupons and promo­ti­ons that come from part­ner­ships with major natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal brands such as bol.com, Amazon, ASOS, H&M, Nike and HEMA. The seller of the shares is foun­der Vince Franke, who will remain on board as CEO of Franke Media and will take a reverse stake in the Group as part of the transaction.

“At Water­land, we have always focu­sed on long-term and successful buy & build stra­te­gies, estab­li­shing tomorrow’s market leaders in exci­ting growth markets — Lions­Home is no excep­tion. The Group is ideally posi­tio­ned to become one of the leading part­ners for commerce content adver­ti­sing with broad coverage of verti­cal and geogra­phic e‑commerce markets as well as digi­tal publi­shing models. We look forward to working with Vince Franke and his team — they are very ambi­tious and excel­lently posi­tio­ned in terms of SEO exper­tise,” said Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land (Photo © Waterland).

“The acqui­si­tion of Franke Media marks another important step towards our vision of support­ing users across all chan­nels in their purcha­sing decis­i­ons,” added Michael Röcker, CEO of Lions­Home and the Group. “By expan­ding our Deals & Coupons capa­bi­li­ties, we will be able to offer our part­ners even more attrac­tive adver­ti­sing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future.”

“We are very exci­ted to be working with Lions­Home and Fashiola to build a leading Euro­pean digi­tal publi­shing group. Our goals align perfectly with those of Lions­Home and Water­land,” explains Vince Franke, foun­der and CEO of Franke Media. “Thanks to this part­ner­ship, we can acce­le­rate our inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and help even more online shop­pers in Europe save on their online purchases.”

About Lions­Home

With around 100 million users a year, product compa­ri­son website opera­tor Lions­Home is one of Europe’s leading digi­tal publi­shing houses. Lions­Home offers an inno­va­tive online service to browse furni­ture and home access­ories as well as fashion from a variety of stores at a glance and compare offers. The company was foun­ded in 2014 by Chris­toph Köni­ger and Michael Röcker in Berlin and has since become one of the fastest growing digi­tal brands in the home & living sector. Lions­Home was named a Digital100 winner by Simi­lar­Web in 2022, making it one of the top ten fastest-growing digi­tal brands in the Home & Living segment. The add-on Fashiola was acqui­red in July 2022 and expan­ded the product port­fo­lio into the fashion segment.

About Franke Media B.V.

Franke Media, based in Oister­wijk, is one of the leading compa­nies in the Dutch affi­liate marke­ting world and opera­tes Acties.nl and Deals.be, the most visi­ted discount websites in the Nether­lands and Belgium. Across all plat­forms, more than 1.5 million users a month become aware of the wide range of discount and special offers on the web pages. The team ensu­res that visi­tors always find the most inte­res­t­ing and favorable discounts and special offers, ensu­ring satis­fied custo­mers and maxi­mum results for part­ners. Part­ner­ships exist with nume­rous major natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal brands, inclu­ding bol.com, Amazon, ASOS, H&M, Nike and HEMA, among others.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Norway (Oslo), Spain (Barce­lona) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, appro­xi­m­ately 14 billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fourth globally in the HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings (Janu­ary 2023) and seventh among global private equity firms in the Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report 2022.
www.waterland.de

 

News

Frankfurt/Miami — Cygna Labs, a leading compli­ance and cloud secu­rity soft­ware company, has ente­red into a binding agree­ment to acquire Vital­QIP, a global DDI soft­ware provi­der from Nokia Solu­ti­ons & Network Oy (“Nokia”). Cygna Labs is supported by the Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (VREP), which holds a mino­rity stake in the company. The acqui­si­tion includes the Vital­QIP soft­ware solu­tion, custo­mer base and Vital QIP’s inter­na­tio­nal team of experts.

Cygna Labs is a leading soft­ware company in the areas of networ­king, cloud as well as secu­rity and the third largest global DDI provi­der. Many Fortune 100 custo­mers use Cygna Labs’ DDI products and services and secu­rity and compli­ance solu­ti­ons to iden­tify and proac­tively miti­gate thre­ats to their data secu­rity in a timely manner, pass compli­ance audits, and increase the produc­ti­vity of their IT departments.

Going forward, Cygna Labs’ mana­ged service offe­rings will be expan­ded to include solu­ti­ons from Vital­QIP, which is one of the top five provi­ders of DDI soft­ware and has nume­rous deploy­ments with large enter­pri­ses. Vital­QIP will remain as an inde­pen­dent product line within Cygna Labs Group after the tran­sac­tion. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, Vital­QIP custo­mers will bene­fit from Cygna Labs’ exper­tise and inno­va­tions, and will conti­nue to be served by compre­hen­sive main­ten­ance and support services, as well as 24x7 world­wide service.

Alex­an­der Häcker, CEO of Cygna Labs Group, said, “Cygna Labs conti­nues to support large enter­pri­ses that rely on our DDI products and services. With this acqui­si­tion, we expand our offe­ring to include VitalQIP’s indus­try-proven open and scalable DDI solu­ti­ons, which we will offer along­side our exis­ting DDI solutions.”

“The acqui­si­tion of Nokia’s leading DDI soft­ware streng­thens our Intellec­tual Property offe­ring and makes Cygna Labs the global number two in the DDI market,” added Chris­tian Ehren­thal, CEO of Cygna Labs. “From a busi­ness perspec­tive, the acqui­si­tion expands our product port­fo­lio, adds more Fortune 100 compa­nies to our custo­mer base, and increa­ses oppor­tu­ni­ties for Cygna Labs to expand our global market presence.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, comm­ents, “Follo­wing the acqui­si­ti­ons of the Diamond IP soft­ware solu­tion from British Tele­com and the DDI busi­ness unit of NCC Group last year, the Vital­QIP add-on marks the third important growth step for Cygna Labs within a very short time. We are very plea­sed to be able to accom­pany the company in this process.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. www.vrep.de.

News

Ebner Stolz Mönning Bachem leaves Nexia and beco­mes a member of the inter­na­tio­nal network RSM in Octo­ber. What will happen to the previous German RSM company has not yet been commu­ni­ca­ted. Ebner Stolz’s sales figu­res for the past fiscal year are impres­sive: It was able to gene­rate 15.2 percent more than in the previous year. The tax consul­ting busi­ness also grew significantly.

RSM increa­ses global reve­nue by 15% to more than $8 billion in 2022

RSM is one of the leading provi­ders of audi­ting, tax and consul­ting services for medium-sized compa­nies. released its global reve­nue figu­res for 2022 and announ­ced the launch of its 2030 global stra­tegy. RSM Inter­na­tio­nal repor­ted in Febru­ary 2023 that global sales in 2022 were more than $8 billion (€7.34 billion), up 15% from the previous year. — Global sales up more than 41% in three years; double-digit growth in all RSM regi­ons for the second year in a row. 10% increase in head­count to 57,000 RSM employees. RSM network targets 100% reve­nue growth by 2030,

Largest growth in consul­ting services

In 2022, global fees for RSM’s consul­ting services increased by 37%, inclu­ding IT consul­ting, which increased by 26%. Global sales from Risk Advi­sory also grew by 26%. RSM also saw strong global growth in Accoun­ting Services (11%), Tax (8%) and Audit (6%). — The number of employees world­wide also grew again. This has increased by 18% in the last two years alone to now 57,000 employees.

Global Stra­tegy 2030 marks a new era for RSM

With its Global Stra­tegy 2030, RSM aims to achieve 100% reve­nue growth by 2030. As part of the stra­tegy, RSM will also incre­asingly use auto­ma­tion, Big Data, machine lear­ning and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to meet the chan­ges in the new world of work and support compa­nies in the best possi­ble way.

About RSM in Germany

RSM GmbH is one of the ten largest medium-sized audi­ting and tax consul­ting firms in Germany, inde­pen­dent and part­ner-mana­ged. The more than 900 employees, inclu­ding around 250 audi­tors, tax advi­sors and attor­neys, provide audi­ting, tax, tran­sac­tion, corpo­rate and legal advice prima­rily to medium-sized compa­nies from 18 loca­ti­ons. RSM GmbH also advi­ses its custo­mers world­wide in the RSM network with more than 57,000 employees in around 120 countries.

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