Author: Tatjana Anderer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Walberg & Cie.

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Arse­pia GmbH: GSK Stockmann

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

About Warburg Pincus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Family Trust

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

Advi­sor Family Trust: Reed Smith

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

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

About Reed Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Oppen­hoff

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

Berlin — Speed­in­vest, a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal fund mana­ger, has laun­ched another conti­nua­tion vehicle with a volume of € 30 million. The anchor inves­tor of the new vehicle is Ion Paci­fic. A YPOG team led by Stephan Bank and Michael Fili­po­wicz advi­sed Speed­in­vest on the struc­tu­ring and launch of the new conti­nua­tion vehicle. 

The new vehicle directly follows Speed­in­ves­t’s first Conti­nua­tion Fund, which was successfully laun­ched in Septem­ber 2025 with the support of YPOG. It enables the acqui­si­tion of further selec­ted invest­ments from exis­ting Speed­in­vest funds and crea­tes liqui­dity for exis­ting inves­tors as well as addi­tio­nal growth poten­tial for the port­fo­lio companies. 

Speed­in­vest once again relied on the proven YPOG team led by part­ner Stephan Bank, which has been support­ing the venture capi­tal inves­tor in all aspects of fund struc­tu­ring for many years. “The launch of another conti­nua­tion vehicle under­lines Speed­in­ves­t’s inno­va­tive strength and the trust of its inves­tors,” says Stephan Bank. “The paral­lel imple­men­ta­tion of two complex conti­nua­tion vehic­les with diffe­rent inves­tors and port­fo­lios proves how profes­sio­nally and stra­te­gi­cally adept the Speed­in­vest team is,” adds Michael Filipowicz. 

Advi­sor Speed­In­vest: YPOG

Dr. Stephan Bank, photo © YPOG (Co-Lead, Funds/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Michael Fili­po­wicz (Co-Lead, Funds/Transactions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg
Benja­min von Mangoldt (Funds/Transactions), Associate
Falk Bothe (Funds/Transactions), Associate

About Speed­in­vest
Speed­in­vest is a leading Euro­pean venture capi­tal mana­ger with more than €1.2 billion in assets under manage­ment and inves­tors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris and Vienna.

Their dedi­ca­ted, indus­try-focu­sed teams are the first to fund Euro­pe’s most inno­va­tive tech start­ups, and in-house opera­ti­ons experts provide foun­ders with advice and support on growth, human resour­ces, market expan­sion and more. Bitpanda, GoStu­dent, Wayflyer, Coach­Hub, Moove and Tide are among their port­fo­lio of over 400 companies. 

About YPOG
YPOG stands for You + Part­ners of Game­ch­an­gers and forward-looking tax and legal advice. The firm advi­ses compa­nies focu­sed on future tech­no­lo­gies with the aim of using change as an oppor­tu­nity and jointly crea­ting opti­mal solu­ti­ons. The YPOG team offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of Funds, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate, Banking, Regu­la­tory + Finance, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion, Liti­ga­tion as well as Corpo­rate Crime + Compli­ance + Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses in Germany for venture capi­tal, private equity, fund struc­tu­ring and appli­ca­ti­ons of distri­bu­ted ledger tech­no­logy (DLT) in finan­cial services. The firm and its part­ners are regu­larly reco­gni­zed by renow­ned publi­ca­ti­ons such as JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Cham­bers and Part­ners, Leaders League and Legal 500. YPOG employs more than 180 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists as well as a notary in its offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich, Cambridge and London. 

Further infor­ma­tion: www.ypog.law

Zug / Alkmaar — Snel­Start, a family-owned company and market leader in finan­cial manage­ment soft­ware for accoun­tancy firms, small busi­nesses and the self-employed in the Nether­lands, announ­ces a new part­ner­ship with BU Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”), a leading entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company focu­sed on family and medium-sized businesses.

With a diver­si­fied client base of around 170,000 clients, inclu­ding over 5,000 accoun­ting firms, Snel­Start has built its strong market posi­tion through a distinctly client-centric market stra­tegy and conti­nuous inno­va­tion. Snel­Start is guided by the vision of helping entre­pre­neurs in an incre­asingly complex digi­tal world with tailor-made solutions. 

The stra­te­gic part­ner­ship is based on a shared vision: to further expand Snel­Star­t’s market leader­ship, acce­le­rate inno­va­tion and deli­ver value to custo­mers through tech­no­logy, service and opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Toge­ther, Snel­Start and BU aim to expand the company’s reach, further deve­lop the product plat­form and conti­nue to set the highest stan­dards in user-friend­li­ness and custo­mer satisfaction. 

Herman Wees­sies, co-owner and CEO of Snel­Startexplains: “For us as a family busi­ness, it is crucial to find the right part­ner for the next phase of Snel­Star­t’s growth. We were not just looking for an inves­tor, but a part­ner who would help us to further deve­lop the plat­form for our custo­mers. A part­ner who under­stands entre­pre­neurs, shares our values, belie­ves in our long-term inde­pen­dent deve­lo­p­ment and puts custo­mers at the center. With BU, we have found exactly this part­ner: an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company with deep soft­ware exper­tise, many years of expe­ri­ence and specia­liza­tion in working with family busi­nesses and a part­ner­ship mind­set focu­sed on sustainable growth. Toge­ther, we are ready to take Snel­Start to the next level.”

Norbert Heller, Part­ner at BU (photo © BU), adds: “Snel­Start is an excep­tio­nal company with an impres­sive growth trajec­tory and an entre­pre­neu­rial manage­ment team with a long-term vision and strong custo­mer focus. We are convin­ced of the company’s poten­tial and look forward to its contin­ued success. With our soft­ware exper­tise, colla­bo­ra­tive part­ner­ship and long-term perspec­tive, we aim to acce­le­rate Snel­Star­t’s deve­lo­p­ment and further streng­then its posi­tion as a market leader with a growing and satis­fied custo­mer base. The passion and commit­ment of Herman Wees­sies and his team is inspi­ring. We look forward to accom­pany­ing the Snel­Start team on this jour­ney in the future.”

b, adds: “BU has been active in the Nether­lands for over eight years and supports its part­ner compa­nies in their growth ambi­ti­ons in the region. With Snel­Start, we are taking the next step by brin­ging our exten­sive exper­tise in deve­lo­ping market leaders directly to the Nether­lands. The Nether­lands is home to many excel­lent hidden cham­pi­ons that are ready to take the next step in their growth through part­ner­ship — and BU is ideally posi­tio­ned to accom­pany them on this journey.”

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the comple­tion of the consul­ta­tion process of the Snel­Start works coun­cil and the neces­sary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and procedures.

About Snel­Start

Foun­ded in 1982 and with multi­ple loca­ti­ons in the Nether­lands, Snel­Start is a fast-growing soft­ware solu­ti­ons provi­der that deve­lops intui­tive finan­cial manage­ment and accoun­ting soft­ware for the self-employed, small busi­nesses and accoun­tancy firms. With over four deca­des of expe­ri­ence, Snel­Start now helps almost 170,000 entre­pre­neurs to simplify their finan­cial proces­ses, increase effi­ci­ency and gain better insight into their busi­ness perfor­mance. — www.snelstart.nl

About BU Bregal Unternehmerkapital

BU Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich, Milan and London. With over €7 billion in assets under manage­ment (AuM), BU is the largest mid-cap inves­tor head­quar­te­red in the DACH region. With the mission to be the prefer­red part­ner for entre­pre­neurs and family busi­nesses, BU focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth poten­tial. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted in more than 150 compa­nies with over 29,000 employees. Around 10,000 jobs have been crea­ted in the process. BU supports entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to further deve­lop, inter­na­tio­na­lize and digi­ta­lize their compa­nies, helping them to create sustainable value respon­si­bly and with a view to the next gene­ra­tion. — www.bu-partners.com

Düsseldorf/ Müns­ter — NRW.BANK is parti­ci­pa­ting in the capi­tal increase of paXos Solar GmbH from Langen­feld as part of its NRW.SeedCap program. The fresh capi­tal will flow into the expan­sion of sales and produc­tion as well as the further deve­lo­p­ment of the next gene­ra­tion of the inno­va­tive multi-energy roof, which gene­ra­tes elec­tri­city and heat directly from the buil­ding enve­lope. The capi­tal increase of paXos Solar GmbH was supported by 15 equity inves­tors, inclu­ding two insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors — one of which is NRW.BANK.

“Inno­va­tions for climate-friendly energy gene­ra­tion such as paXos Solar show how tech­no­lo­gi­cal progress and sophisti­ca­ted archi­tec­ture go hand in hand in our cities,” says Johanna Anto­nie Tjaden-Schulte, Member of the Mana­ging Board of NRW.BANK.“With our parti­ci­pa­tion through the NRW.SeedCap program, we are speci­fi­cally support­ing the deve­lo­p­ment of sustainable solu­ti­ons from North Rhine-West­pha­lia that contri­bute to the successful trans­for­ma­tion of our state.” 

“With NRW.BANK, we have gained a part­ner who belie­ves in the energy of the future — decen­tra­li­zed, aesthe­tic and sustainable. Toge­ther, we are taking the multi-energy roof from NRW to the next level,” explains Kars­ten Birk­holz, Mana­ging Direc­tor of paXos Solar GmbH.

Successful finan­cing round for more growth

The capi­tal increase of paXos Solar GmbH was supported by 15 equity inves­tors, inclu­ding two insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors — one of which is NRW.BANK. The aim of the capi­tal measure is to further acce­le­rate the growth of the company, which was foun­ded in 2020. The funds will be used to expand sales, increase effi­ci­ency in produc­tion and invest in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment for the next gene­ra­tion of products. With the fresh capi­tal, the company is setting the course for the scaling of its sustainable energy solutions. 

Inte­gra­ted energy system for the buil­dings of the future

paXos Solar GmbH deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes the so-called multi-energy roof, an inte­gra­ted roof system that combi­nes photo­vol­taics and solar ther­mal energy in an archi­tec­tu­rally appe­al­ing way. This gene­ra­tes both elec­tri­city and heat directly via the roof surface — a space-saving and aesthe­tic solu­tion that meets the growing demands for sustainable, subsi­dizable and high-quality energy concepts for new buil­dings and renovations. 

About NRW.BANK — Deve­lo­p­ment Bank for North Rhine-Westphalia

NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. In close part­ner­ship with its owner, the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia, it helps to streng­then SMEs and start-ups, create afforda­ble housing and improve public infra­struc­ture. NRW.BANK offers people, compa­nies and muni­ci­pa­li­ties in NRW tailor-made finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works with finan­cing part­ners, in parti­cu­lar all banks and savings banks, on a non-compe­ti­tive basis. In order to streng­then the trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses, it provi­des targe­ted promo­tio­nal impe­tus — towards a sustainable, climate-neutral and digi­tal NRW. —www.nrwbnk.de

Duder­stadt — The prosthe­sis manu­fac­tu­rer Otto­bock has successfully gone public for the third time! — The share price is successfully above the issue price (up to 66 euros). This makes the IPO the largest in Germany so far in 2025 in a diffi­cult environment. 

At 72 euros, the first price was still around 9% above the issue price. At the offer price, Otto­bock expec­ted a market capi­ta­liza­tion of around 4.2 billion euros; based on the first price, this was around 4.6 billion euros. The company is wholly owned by the Näder family. 

With 9,300 employees world­wide, Otto­bock gene­ra­ted sales of around 1.4 billion euros and an adjus­ted opera­ting result (EBITDA) of 321 million euros in 2024. In the first half of 2025, sales rose by 14% to EUR 760 million, while adjus­ted EBITDA impro­ved by around a third to EUR 175 million. 

Kühne Holding AG, owned by Hamburg billionaire and logi­stics entre­pre­neur Klaus-Michael Kühne, and the Small­cap World Fund of asset mana­ger Capi­tal Group subscri­bed shares worth 125 million euros and 115 million euros respec­tively as corner­stone inves­tors. Kühne Holding Ag thus holds approx. 3% of Ottobock. 

Otto­bock wants to pay off debt and invest in new technologies

The company plans to use the gross proceeds from the IPO to invest more heavily in future tech­no­lo­gies in parti­cu­lar, as well as to pay off debt and pursue oppor­tu­ni­ties in the areas of products & compon­ents and pati­ent care through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. Prior to the IPO, Otto­bock had alre­ady secu­red purchase commit­ments from billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne and from a fund of the US invest­ment company Capi­tal Group. They wanted to secure shares worth 125 and 115 million euros respectively. 

Advi­sors Otto­bock: Fresh­field and Milbank

Colo­gne — The Colo­gne-based AI trans­la­tion service DeepL, which was foun­ded in 2017, is prepa­ring for an IPO in the USA. With natu­ral trans­la­ti­ons and global expan­sion, the Colo­gne-based startup could soon be valued at 5 billion dollars. 

The Colo­gne-based AI company DeepL is serious about its global ambi­ti­ons. The trans­la­tion specia­list, which has been compe­ting with Google Trans­late for years, is plan­ning an IPO in the USA. “Accor­ding to Bloom­berg, initial talks are alre­ady under­way with poten­tial advi­sors for the listing. The IPO could take place as early as 2026 and value DeepL at up to five billion dollars. 

Deepl raised USD 300 million in a finan­cing round in May 2024 and doubled its valua­tion to USD 2 billion at the time. The company employs more than 1,000 people, has offices in Germany, Japan and the USA and counts venture capi­ta­lists such as Index Ventures from London and Iconiq Growth from San Fran­cisco among its investors. 

Precis­ion AI from Cologne

DeepL has made a name for itself in high-precis­ion machine trans­la­tion since it was foun­ded in 2017 by Jaros­law Kuty­low­ski. DeepL offers AI-supported translations. 

Unlike many of its compe­ti­tors, the company focu­ses on natu­ral and nuan­ced trans­la­tion results that come amazin­gly close to human texts. Accor­ding to “Heise”, DeepL now employs over 1,000 people at loca­ti­ons in Colo­gne, Japan and the USA. — www.deepl.com

Munich — GÖRG has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of HR service provi­der comvaHRo GmbH, Stefan Franke and Marco Peine, on the entry of inves­tors Alpha VCX and Invest AG. A team led by Munich part­ner Dr. Bernt Paudtke provi­ded legal advice on the transaction. 

With the invest­ment of Alpha VCX and Invest AG, comvaHRo GmbH is stra­te­gi­cally posi­tio­ning itself for the next phase of growth. The company aims to signi­fi­cantly expand its posi­tion as the leading HR service provi­der in the DACH region by 2030. The plan is to selec­tively acquire and inte­grate comple­men­tary provi­ders and streng­then its presence in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

In addi­tion to capi­tal, the new inves­tors also bring many years of expe­ri­ence in scaling HR service provi­ders and thus support the company’s expan­sion and buy-and-build strategy.

comvaHRo GmbH, based in Gras­brunn near Munich, has specia­li­zed in digi­tal HR trans­for­ma­tion since it was foun­ded in 2016. With a combi­ned soft­ware and service plat­form, the company offers solu­ti­ons for HR admi­nis­tra­tion, payroll accoun­ting, time recor­ding and appli­cant manage­ment as well as compre­hen­sive payroll services. Today, comvaHRo employs around 50 people at its sites in Gras­brunn near Munich and Hamm (North Rhine-West­pha­lia) and supports medium-sized and large compa­nies throug­hout the DACH region. 

GÖRG provi­ded compre­hen­sive corpo­rate law advice to the share­hol­ders in nego­tia­ting the inves­tors’ entry and the future joint cooperation.

Advi­sor to share­hol­der comvaHRo GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB
Dr. Bernt Paudtke (Lead, Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Munich)
Tobias Reichen­ber­ger (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Munich)
Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. Taxa­tion (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Cologne)
Jonas Bött­ger (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Munich)

About Invest AG

Invest AG invests in medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. We focus on profi­ta­ble compa­nies from a wide range of indus­tries. We usually invest between € 0.3 million (at least € 2.5 million in Germany) and € 40 million of our own funds (“equity tickets”) per tran­sac­tion. Toge­ther with our strong co-inves­tor network, we can also support much larger tran­sac­tions. — www.investag.at

Paris — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) and PRIM’X announce that Main has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in PRIM’X, a leading deve­lo­per of encryp­tion and data secu­rity soft­ware. The company prima­rily serves defense, govern­ment and secu­rity custo­mers in Europe. This tran­sac­tion repres­ents Main’s second plat­form invest­ment in France, follo­wing the opening of its Paris office in Febru­ary 2025. PRIM’X’s manage­ment team will remain opera­tio­nally active and retain a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake, ensu­ring conti­nuity and long-term commit­ment. The acqui­si­tion has been appro­ved by the rele­vant regu­la­tory authorities. 

PRIM’X was foun­ded in 2003 by CEO Serge Binet and has since specia­li­zed in encryp­tion and data secu­rity solu­ti­ons for compa­nies and (semi-)public insti­tu­ti­ons. From its loca­ti­ons in Lyon (head­quar­ters) and Paris, the company serves over 1,000 custo­mers world­wide. PRIM’X’s products are aimed at secu­rity-criti­cal sectors — custo­mers include govern­ment orga­niza­ti­ons and compa­nies from the defence, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, aero­space and finan­cial services sectors. 

PRIM’X enables its custo­mers to operate secu­rely, increase data secu­rity and meet the highest stan­dards of digi­tal sove­reig­nty. From a strong posi­tion in its home market of France, PRIM’X is now also active in Spain, the Nether­lands, Mexico and South Korea, where demand for confi­den­tial data manage­ment solu­ti­ons is growing signi­fi­cantly. PRIM’X is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of these growth opportunities. 

Further growth through new sectors, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and added value for customers.

In the next phase of growth, Main Capi­tal and PRIM’X will work toge­ther to further expand the company’s inter­na­tio­nal posi­tion, deepen exper­tise in exis­ting markets, enter new indus­tries and expand the product port­fo­lio with inno­va­tive and comple­men­tary solu­ti­ons. With Main’s local presence in the Bene­lux region, DACH region and Scan­di­na­via, among others, and its exper­tise in inter­na­tio­nal buy-and-build stra­te­gies, this part­ner­ship can acce­le­rate PRIM’X’s growth and inno­va­tion and further increase custo­mer value. 

Jonas Kruip, Co-Head Main France: “In a world where cyber thre­ats are beco­ming incre­asingly complex, high-quality data encryp­tion is not a luxury, but an abso­lute neces­sity. Protec­ting sensi­tive infor­ma­tion is crucial for trust in digi­tal systems. The acqui­si­tion of PRIM’X under­lines our commit­ment to secu­rity soft­ware and our willing­ness to colla­bo­rate with like-minded entre­pre­neurs. We look forward to support­ing PRIM’X’s manage­ment team in the next phase of growth — with a focus on orga­nic growth and targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. Our goal is to jointly deve­lop new markets and sectors, streng­then the product port­fo­lio and drive innovation.”

Streng­thening natio­nal and Euro­pean digi­tal sovereignty.

With the stra­te­gic support of Main, PRIM’X further streng­thens its posi­tion in Europe and conti­nues to promote product certi­fi­ca­tion by reco­gni­zed cyber­se­cu­rity autho­ri­ties such as ANSSI (France), CCN (Spain) and AIVD (Nether­lands). This contri­bu­tes to the confi­dence in PRIM’X products at natio­nal and Euro­pean level. The deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties based in France remain a central foun­da­tion for further growth and custo­mer support. 

Serge Binet, foun­der and CEO of PRIM’X: “Our new part­ner­ship with Main Capi­tal is a signi­fi­cant mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of PRIM’X. With a streng­the­ned inter­na­tio­nal perspec­tive, we conti­nue our commit­ment to grow globally and invest in data secu­rity inno­va­tion to streng­then the digi­tal sove­reig­nty of govern­ments and busi­nesses. While PRIM’X has successfully grown inde­pendently to date, we see Main Capi­tal as a stra­te­gic part­ner that can help us acce­le­rate our growth and expand our reach. The entire manage­ment team remains actively invol­ved and leading this new phase of growth as we focus on tech­no­logy inno­va­tion and market expansion.”

About PRIM’X

PRIM’X is a leading soft­ware deve­lo­per specia­li­zing in encryp­tion and data secu­rity solu­ti­ons for busi­nesses and (semi-)governmental orga­niza­ti­ons. The company offers a wide range of proprie­tary soft­ware solu­ti­ons — inclu­ding file and folder encryp­tion, hard disk and laptop encryp­tion, email encryp­tion, encryp­tion during data trans­fer and within Micro­soft 365 cloud envi­ron­ments. PRIM’X was foun­ded in 2003 by the current CEO and serves over 1,000 custo­mers in Switz­er­land and abroad with around 50 employees from offices in Lyon and Paris. — www.primx.eu

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading inves­tor in soft­ware compa­nies in the Bene­lux region, DACH, France, Scan­di­na­via and the USA with assets under manage­ment of around 6.5 billion euros. As a stra­te­gic part­ner, Main has been support­ing soft­ware compa­nies in profi­ta­ble growth and the deve­lo­p­ment of leading soft­ware groups for over twenty years. With offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp, Paris and a part­ner office in Boston, the team compri­ses 90 employees and mana­ges an active port­fo­lio of over 50 soft­ware compa­nies with a total of more than 12,000 employees. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main awards scho­lar­ships for IT and compu­ter science cour­ses. In April 2025, Main also announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Paris-based Trace One. —- www.main.nl

Frank­furt am Main/Vienna (Ös) — Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has sold its majo­rity stake in Evolit Consul­ting GmbH (“Evolit”), a Vienna-based IT service provi­der specia­li­zing in mobi­lity, infra­struc­ture and digi­ta­liza­tion. The buyer is Berlin-based FLEX Capi­tal, a private equity inves­tor specia­li­zing in medium-sized soft­ware compa­nies in the DACH region. 

Evolit Consul­ting GmbH, foun­ded in Vienna in 2011, is an IT service provi­der with a focus on mobi­lity, infra­struc­ture and digi­ta­liza­tion. The company offers custo­mi­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons in areas such as ticke­ting, asset manage­ment, fleet manage­ment and logi­stics control. Evolit covers the entire IT life­cy­cle, from consul­ting and deve­lo­p­ment to opera­ti­ons manage­ment and main­ten­ance. In recent years, the company has estab­lished itself as a specia­li­zed provi­der of complex soft­ware solu­ti­ons and works with a wide range of soft­ware tools, programming languages and systems. 

VREP became the majo­rity share­hol­der of Evolit, which now has more than 100 employees, in 2019 and supported the manage­ment in streng­thening its market posi­tion and tapping into addi­tio­nal growth poten­tial by expan­ding its service port­fo­lio. Over the past six years, new subsi­dia­ries have been successfully estab­lished in Slova­kia and Switz­er­land and the service port­fo­lio has been diver­si­fied with the foun­ding of Evol.X in the field of CRM imple­men­ta­tion and Evo.People for the place­ment of highly specia­li­zed IT free­lan­cers. At the same time, smart­TOS was deve­lo­ped in-house as stan­dard soft­ware for the logi­stics sector. The targe­ted promo­tion of syner­gies between the subsi­dia­ries provi­ded further important impe­tus for growth. 

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner: “When we joined Evolit, our aim was to work with the manage­ment to increase value crea­tion and expand the range of services for custo­mers. Today, we can proudly say that Evolit has achie­ved an excel­lent market posi­tion by focu­sing on growth segments such as mobi­lity and infra­struc­ture and successfully tapping into chal­len­ging future topics. We would like to thank the entire team for their strong perfor­mance and the time spent toge­ther and wish them every success and all the best for the future.”

Paul Klein­rath, foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Evolit, adds: “With VREP as an ideal part­ner, which has both strong roots in the SME sector and exten­sive know­ledge of the IT sector, we were able to successfully imple­ment our growth stra­tegy and drive forward important topics. Right from the start, the VREP team impres­sed us with its broad expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of growth-orien­ted compa­nies and its profound indus­try exper­tise. The colla­bo­ra­tion has always been trus­ting and profes­sio­nal, and we are deligh­ted with the succes­ses we have achie­ved together.”

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

The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Michael Vogt, Alex­an­der Bernin­ger, Luis Sche­rer, Jens Schöf­fel and Patrick Heinze

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

M&A: Drake Star Part­ners (Ralf Phil­ipp Hofmann, Julian Wolf, Maxi­mi­lian von Bodman)
Legal: Grama Schwaig­ho­fer Vond­rak Rechts­an­wälte (Dr. Bernd Grama, Daniel Mathe, Julia Strimit­zer) and HEUKING (Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, Bene­dikt Raisch)
Commer­cial: Singu­lar Group (Dennis Jung, Henri­ette Jemeljanow)
Finan­cial: Grant Thorn­ton (Klaus Schaldt, Marius Fett)

About FLEX Capital

FLEX Capi­tal is a private equity firm specia­li­zing in boot­strap­ped inter­net and soft­ware compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. It provi­des part­ner­ship, entre­pre­neu­rial and opera­tio­nal support for the typi­cal German Mittel­stand. — www.flex.capital

Ludwigs­ha­fen — Bäcker Görtz GmbH (“Bäcker Görtz”), a port­fo­lio company of the private equity fund FSN Capi­tal VI advi­sed by FSN Capi­tal, has acqui­red a stake in the long-estab­lished bakery company papperts GmbH (“papperts”). The merger of Bäcker Görtz and papperts will create one of the leading bakery groups in Germany. 

At the same time, this lays the foun­da­tion for a value crea­tion stra­tegy geared towards inor­ga­nic growth in the German bakery sector — with the aim of streng­thening estab­lished bakery compa­nies through colla­bo­ra­tion and ensu­ring their long-term deve­lo­p­ment. The foun­ders and previous owners of papperts will remain part of the newly formed group. POELLATH advi­sed Bäcker Görtz on the tax aspects of the acquisition. 

Based in Eichen­zell (near Fulda), papperts GmbH is one of the leading bakery compa­nies in Germany with over 160 specia­list stores in Hesse, Bava­ria and Thurin­gia. Papperts stands for genuine craft­sman­ship, high-quality baked goods made from regio­nal ingre­di­ents and a modern produc­tion infra­struc­ture. Around 1,900 employees provide fresh bread, rolls, pastries and savory snacks every day — always with the aim of ensu­ring quality and conti­nuity across generations. 

FSN Capi­tal was foun­ded in 1999 and is today one of the leading private equity firms in Nort­hern Europe. With assets under manage­ment of around EUR 4 billion, the private equity funds advi­sed by FSN Capi­tal invest prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in Nort­hern and Central Europe — parti­cu­larly in the DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. The invest­ment focus is on high-growth compa­nies in the busi­ness services, indus­try, IT & soft­ware and infra­struc­ture sectors. 

Consul­tant Bäcker Görtz GmbH: POELLATH 

Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax; photo © pplaw), Dr. Saskia Bardens (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax)

Ludgwigs­burg, Melle/Osnabrück (Germany), Bern (Switz­er­land) — bluu unit GmbH, a Triton Mittel­stands­fonds II company and rapidly growing alli­ance of regio­nally strong compa­nies in the field of sustainable refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy as well as data center solu­ti­ons, is streng­thening its Germany-wide network by acqui­ring the isomix Group, a specia­list and full-service provi­der in the fields of venti­la­tion tech­no­logy and inno­va­tive room air puri­fi­ca­tion systems. In addi­tion, the Swiss company IPS Gebäu­de­tech­nik beco­mes a member of the bluu unit alliance. 

This acqui­si­tion marks the first step towards inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. isomix Group, based in Melle near Osna­brück, has been a relia­ble part­ner for modern venti­la­tion and indoor air puri­fi­ca­tion systems for more than 25 years. A team of over 20 employees offers custo­mers from the health­care, logi­stics and indus­trial sectors the entire value chain, from specia­list plan­ning, project plan­ning and instal­la­tion to service and main­ten­ance. Special atten­tion is paid to opti­mi­zed, effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons that are tech­ni­cally convin­cing and econo­mic­ally sustainable. 

With this acqui­si­tion, bluu unit is streng­thening its nati­on­wide network of now over 20 members with addi­tio­nal capa­ci­ties and exper­tise in the field of venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. IPS Gebäu­de­tech­nik AG was foun­ded in 2012 and has deve­lo­ped into a leading specia­list for venti­la­tion tech­no­logy in the canton of Bern within a decade. Berger Klima Biel AG in Biel has been part of IPS since 2022, streng­thening its exper­tise in refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy. With the acqui­si­tion of IPS Gebäu­de­tech­nik AG, which is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of Octo­ber 2025, the bluu unit alli­ance is ente­ring the Swiss market and taking a signi­fi­cant, stra­te­gic step towards inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. The bluu unit sees enorm­ous growth poten­tial across Europe due to simi­lar condi­ti­ons in the various markets, inclu­ding stric­ter PFAS regu­la­tion, rising tempe­ra­tures in urban areas and the incre­asing expan­sion of data centers. 

About Bluu Toge­ther, the bluu unit deve­lops sustainable, future-proof solu­ti­ons that are both econo­mic­ally and ecolo­gi­cally convin­cing. In 2025 alone, five groups consis­ting of ten inde­pen­dent specia­list compa­nies with over 200 employees have alre­ady joined the alli­ance — a strong sign of its attractiveness. 

The aim of bluu unit is to offer high-quality and future-proof solu­ti­ons for refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy as well as data center solu­ti­ons that are better. Better for people and the envi­ron­ment. The range of services with a focus on inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and natu­ral refri­ger­ants extends from consul­ting, project plan­ning and design through to instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance. — www.bluu-unit.de

About Triton

Triton is a leading Euro­pean private equity firm foun­ded in 1997 and owned by its part­ners. Triton specia­li­zes in the mid-market and invests in compa­nies that provide busi­ness-criti­cal goods and services in three core sectors: indus­try, busi­ness services and healthcare. 

Triton employs more than 150 invest­ment profes­sio­nals and experts in various areas of exper­tise, in three coor­di­na­ted stra­te­gies: Mid-Market Private Equity, Smal­ler-Mid-Cap Private Equity and Oppor­tu­ni­stic Credit. — www.triton-partners.de

The big surprise: Elec­tro­nic Arts (EA), one of the largest publishers in the video games indus­try, is taken over by a consor­tium of inves­tors in a 55 billion dollar deal (not yet confirmed) and delis­ted from the stock exchange.

The lever­a­ged buyout is the second-largest gaming deal in history to date. It is only surpas­sed by Micro­sof­t’s Acti­vi­sion-Bliz­zard take­over. EA is being acqui­red by the Saudi Arabian sove­reign wealth fund Public Invest­ment Fund (PIF, 9.9 percent), the US capi­tal company Silver Lake (Cali­for­nia) and the invest­ment firm Affi­nity Part­ners (the invest­ment firm of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner). 

All exis­ting share­hol­ders will receive 210 US dollars per share, after which EA will be delis­ted and taken private.

Due to the nature of the take­over (a so-called “lever­a­ged buyout”), EA is ther­e­fore ente­ring into the new owner­ship struc­ture with new debt of around 20 billion dollars.

The tran­sac­tion is the largest all-cash private equity invest­ment in history. The consor­tium is working closely with EA to enable the company to move faster and deve­lop new oppor­tu­ni­ties on a global scale. Accor­ding to indus­try experts, this means layoffs, more intru­sive mone­tiza­tion and massive savings, which will proba­bly also be felt by users. 

What does the mega-deal mean for the gaming world?

EA was foun­ded in 1982 and has estab­lished itself as one of the key play­ers in the gaming sector with titles such as the life simu­la­tion “The Sims”, “EA Sports FC” (form­erly “FIFA”) and the mili­tary simu­la­tion “Batt­le­field”. The company has a broad port­fo­lio, strong brands and seve­ral leading deve­lo­per studios such as DICE and Respawn. 

Howe­ver, EA has recently come under pres­sure: rising deve­lo­p­ment costs, growing marke­ting expen­dit­ure and ever-incre­asing expec­ta­ti­ons of tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence have made it diffi­cult to remain profi­ta­ble. At the same time, free-to-play games and large plat­form opera­tors such as Sony and Micro­soft are pushing into the market. 

The figu­res also shrank after the coro­na­vi­rus boom: In the first quar­ter of 2025, reve­nue slum­ped by 13.7%, net profit by as much as 30% and the important net bookings recently fell by 6%.

Luxem­bourg — The Global Resi­li­ence Inno­va­tion Fund (GRIF) has been offi­ci­ally laun­ched in Luxem­bourg and is plea­sed to announce that it is now offi­ci­ally opera­tio­nal. Sabine Hampel (most recently withEB-SIM and former company opera­ti­ons offi­cer in the German Armed Forces), Priscilla Schelp (foun­der of networkx) and Faik Yargucu (ACATIS) are laun­ching Global Resi­li­ence Inno­va­tion Fund (GRIF), an inves­tor in defense tech, secu­rity and disas­ter manage­ment. The target volume of the new fund is 200 to 250 million euros. 

The regio­nal focus is on “NATO count­ries and allies.

“We invest in mission-criti­cal tech­no­lo­gies that protect lives, stabi­lize demo­cra­cies and secure global infra­struc­ture — from AI-powered wild­fire detec­tion and anti-drone systems to resi­li­ent supply chains and next-gene­ra­tion cyber­se­cu­rity. We focus on defense, dual-use and civi­lian tech­no­lo­gies and support pre-seed to Series A stage start­ups at the inter­sec­tion of sove­reig­nty, resi­li­ence and inno­va­tion,” the foun­ders said. 

GRIF aims to support breakth­rough inno­va­tions in the field of resi­li­ence, with a focus on: Defense, Aero­space, Criti­cal Infra­struc­ture, (Cyber) Secu­rity and Disas­ter Manage­ment. With a struc­ture focu­sed on resi­li­ence and secu­rity, we have carefully assem­bled a world-class team of part­ners. — https://grif.vc/

Consul­tant GRIF: 

- ONE Fund Manage­ment S.A.
- Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG
- Fidu­cen­ter S.A.
- KLEYR_GRASS
- PwC

Munich — The share­hol­ders of synvert Holding GmbH (“synvert”), inclu­ding Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III GmbH & Co KG (“Maxburg”), advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH, have sold their shares in synvert to Hita­chi, Ltd (“Hita­chi”). Synvert will become part of Global­Lo­gic Inc, the US subsi­diary of Hita­chi and a global leader in digi­tal engi­nee­ring. Will­kie acted as legal coun­sel to the share­hol­ders of synvert.

Head­quar­te­red in Müns­ter, synvert has offices in Munich, Hamburg, Croa­tia, Spain, Portu­gal and Abu Dhabi. The company offers a compre­hen­sive range of cloud, data and AI consul­ting services. Foun­ded in 1991, the company employs around 550 experts. Synvert is a market leader that is widely reco­gni­zed and appre­cia­ted for its excel­lent tech­ni­cal exper­tise, exten­sive indus­try know­ledge and unique ability to make complex data struc­tures under­stan­da­ble and analyzable. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the finan­cial year ending March 31, 2026, subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Advi­sor to the synvert share­hol­ders: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

The Will­kie team was led by part­ner Dr. Axel Wahl (photo, Corporate/M&A, Munich) and compri­sed part­ner Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, Frank­furt), coun­sel Sebas­tian Bren­ner (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, Washing­ton) and asso­cia­tes Nils Bock (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Nils Hörnig and Fabiola C. Haas (both Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Dr. Laurin Havlik (Anti­trust, Munich)

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP provi­des leading legal solu­ti­ons to complex, busi­ness-criti­cal issues affec­ting diverse markets and indus­tries. Our appro­xi­m­ately 1,300 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide provide inno­va­tive, prag­ma­tic and sophisti­ca­ted legal services in more than 45 prac­tice areas. — www.willkie.com

Advi­sor to Global­Lo­gic (on the acqui­si­tion of synvert), a US subsi­diary of the Japa­nese Hita­chi Group: Gleiss Lutz 

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team led by Dr. Ralf
Mors­häu­ser and Dr. Rainer Loges (both part­ners, M&A, Munich) advised
Hita­chi Group and GlobalLogic:

Franz-Ferdi­nand Guggen­mos, Ansgar Johan­nes Grosch (both Munich), Dr. Phil­ipp Pord­zik (Frank­furt, all M&A), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs (Coun­sel, both Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Matthias Werner (Part­ner), Dr. Jose­fine Börner, Magda­lena Rauch (all IP/Tech, Munich), Dr. Moritz Holm-Hadulla (Part­ner), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel), Dr. Anto­nia Hage­dorn, Dr. Matthias Reiner (all Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Marcus Reischl (Part­ner), Tabea Leidin­ger (both Compli­ance & Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons, Frank­furt), Dr. Ocka Stumm (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Hendrik Marchal (Coun­sel, Hamburg), Julian Kette­mer (Frank­furt, all Tax Law), Dr. Johan­nes Niewerth (Part­ner, Hamburg/London), Lesley A. Milde (Hamburg, both Real Estate Law), Thomas Kulzer (Coun­sel), Dr. Jan-Alex­an­der Lange (Coun­sel), Dr. Niklas Kaiser (all Banking & Finance, Frank­furt), Dr. Tobias Johan­nes Abend (Coun­sel), Lea Kuhr (both Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Manuel Klar (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion, Munich).

— www.gleisslutz.com

Gleiss Lutz has worked as lead coun­sel with the follo­wing law firms: 

Pérez-Llorca (Spain and Portu­gal), Walder Wyss (Switz­er­land), Hadef & Part­ners (UAE), Honig­man (USA), Brodies (UK) and Schoen­herr (Croa­tia).

London — Supplier takes over buyer! Equis­tone Part­ners Europe has sold GALA Group to its long-stan­ding supplier TREND GLASS SP.z o.o. (Trend Group). Funds mana­ged by CVI, a leading provi­der of private debt finan­cing in Central Europe, and the Polish Deve­lo­p­ment Fund (PFR) finan­ced the tran­sac­tion. Trend Group recei­ved legal and tax advice from a cross-loca­tion HEUKING team. 

The Trend Group is a Polish manu­fac­tu­rer of house­hold, deco­ra­tive and gastro­nomy glass­ware based in Radom. The company was foun­ded in 1989 and has grown from a family busi­ness to an inter­na­tio­nally active supplier with a high produc­tion capa­city. Trend Glass combi­nes tradi­tio­nal glass proces­sing with modern tech­no­logy and offers a wide range of products, inclu­ding vases, candle holders and custo­mi­zed glass projects. Its custo­mers include global retail­ers, inclu­ding IKEA. 

The GALA Group, head­quar­te­red in Ansbach, is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of cand­les, home fragran­ces and home access­ories in Europe and employs around 4,000 people world­wide. The company was foun­ded in 1972 and has been majo­rity-owned by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe since 2016. GALA produ­ces at seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons and supplies retail­ers, drugs­to­res and online plat­forms with its own brands and bran­ded products. 

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is a Euro­pean private equity firm head­quar­te­red in London with offices in Germany, France, the Nether­lands and Switz­er­land. The company was formed in 2011 through a manage­ment buy-out from Barclays Private Equity and prefers to invest in medium-sized compa­nies with an enter­prise value of between 50 and 500 million euros. Equis­tone focu­ses on majo­rity share­hol­dings in the context of owner­ship chan­ges and supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their growth and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. Since 2002, over 10 billion euros have been inves­ted in more than 180 transactions. 

Consul­tant Trend Group: HEUKING
Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (Univer­sity of San Diego; photo © Heuking),
Bene­dikt Raisch (both lead, both corpo­rate law / M&A),
Dr. Frank Baßler (real estate & cons­truc­tion), all Stuttgart,
Fabian G. Gaffron (tax law), Hamburg,
Dr. Stefan Jöster, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law / Reinsu­rance Law), Colo­gne,David Loszyn­ski, (Restruc­tu­ring & Insol­vency Law),Sandra Pfis­ter, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Sydney), (Banking & Finance), both Hamburg,Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Employ­ment Law), Colo­gne,Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law),Simon Pommer, LL.M. (Tax Law), both Hamburg,Char­lotte Schmitt, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),Ramona Bauer-Schöll­kopf, LL.M. (Queen Mary Univer­sity of London), (Corpo­rate Law/M&A), both Stuttgart,
Beli­ar­dis Ehlert-Gasde (Banking & Finance),
Oliver Kamme­rer (Tax Law), both Hamburg,
Dr. Ramona Segler, LL.M. (Labor Law), Cologne

Polish consul­tants Trend Group

(lead) Wolf Theiss, Bartosz Kuras, Domi­nika Getka

London (UK) — Hamil­ton Lane laun­ches global ever­green fund for venture capi­tal and growth. The fund provi­des access to inno­va­tive private venture and growth invest­ments. Private markets invest­ment mana­ger Hamil­ton Lane (Nasdaq: HLNE) has laun­ched the Hamil­ton Lane Global Venture Capi­tal and Growth Fund (“HLGVG” or “the Fund”) — an ever­green invest­ment vehicle focu­sed on growth and venture oppor­tu­ni­ties in private markets. 

The Fund is open to certain retail inves­tors and their advi­sers and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in parts of Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East as well as Austra­lia, New Zealand and Canada that are not available in public markets.

HLGVG provi­des inves­tors with access to Hamil­ton Lane’s global venture capi­tal invest­ment plat­form, which aims to deli­ver strong perfor­mance by inves­t­ing in disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies and inno­va­tive compa­nies. The fund lever­a­ges Hamil­ton Lane’s exten­sive exper­tise in private markets co-invest­ments and secon­dary market tran­sac­tions to unlock attrac­tive deal flows. As an ever­green vehicle, the port­fo­lio is diver­si­fied across vinta­ges, tran­sac­tion types, mana­gers, stra­te­gies and geographies. 

With a focus on inno­va­tion, diver­si­fi­ca­tion and assets other­wise only available to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, the fund aims to over­come common barriers to entry in this dyna­mic segment. It follows the launch of the Hamil­ton Lane Venture-Ever­green fund in the US earlier this year. The fund lever­a­ges Hamil­ton Lane’s proprie­tary data, tech­no­logy and AI to support decis­ion-making and opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Hamil­ton Lane’s track record in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the indus­try — now bund­led into the HL Inno­va­tions initia­tive — includes stra­te­gic capi­tal invest­ments in trans­for­ma­tive invest­ment tech­no­lo­gies and the deve­lo­p­ment of the proprie­tary Cobalt platform. 

Matthew Pellini, Co-Head of Venture Capi­tal and Growth Equity at Hamil­ton Lane, comm­ents: “As compa­nies are incre­asingly stay­ing in private hands for longer, many of the most attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties today are found exclu­si­vely in the private markets — a signi­fi­cant part of which is the venture and growth sector. HLGV­G’s port­fo­lio lever­a­ges disrup­tive inno­va­tion in estab­lished and emer­ging market segments to better posi­tion and respond more quickly to new tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments, such as Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, which is curr­ently driving a wave of growth in tech­no­logy companies.”

Ralph Aerni, Member of the Manage­ment Board of Hamil­ton Lane Germany and Head of Client Solu­ti­ons EMEA, adds: “Since the launch of our first ever­green fund in 2019, we have conti­nuously expan­ded the global invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for our inves­tors. We are convin­ced that these struc­tures play an incre­asingly important role in the port­fo­lios of many discer­ning inves­tors. With the launch of HLGVG, one of the few venture-orien­ted ever­green products world­wide, we are enab­ling our clients to parti­ci­pate in the most diffi­cult-to-access part of the private markets.”

Hamil­ton Lane has been active in venture capi­tal and growth equity for almost three deca­des. In this segment, the firm has $117.8 billion in assets under manage­ment and super­vi­si­on², has 260 estab­lished part­ner­ships and has made more than 370 invest­ments. HLGVG lever­a­ges Hamil­ton Lane’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence to provide access to attrac­tive venture capi­tal and growth equity market opportunities. 

HLGVG is the latest addi­tion to Hamil­ton Lane’s USD 13 billion-plus Ever­green Plat­form (as of 31.07.2025)

About Hamil­ton Lane

Hamil­ton Lane (NASDAQ: HLNE) is one of the worl­d’s largest private markets invest­ment mana­gers, provi­ding inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons to insti­tu­tio­nal and private wealth inves­tors around the world. The firm, which has specia­li­zed exclu­si­vely in private market invest­ments for more than 30 years, curr­ently employs appro­xi­m­ately 750 profes­sio­nals in offices across North America, Europe, Asia Paci­fic and the Middle East. Hamil­ton Lane has $986 billion in assets under manage­ment and super­vi­sion, compri­sed of nearly $141 billion in discre­tio­nary assets and more than $845 billion in non-discre­tio­nary assets as of June 30, 2025. Hamil­ton Lane specia­li­zes in deve­lo­ping flexi­ble and custo­mi­zed invest­ment programs that offer profes­sio­nal clients around the world diffe­ren­tia­ted access to the full spec­trum of private market stra­te­gies, sectors and geographies.

Oppen­hoff advi­sed VHV Holding SE on the sale of its majo­rity stake in the Eucon Group to Info­pro Digi­tal Holding GmbH, in parti­cu­lar on the upstream carve-out of the insu­rance-rela­ted digi­tal service provi­der Eucon Digi­tal GmbH. The carve-out served to prepare the sale of the Eucon Group’s auto­mo­tive busi­ness as part of an inter­na­tio­nal bidding process. 

As part of the sales process, Oppen­hoff also advi­sed VHV on the conclu­sion of various contracts between the insu­rance and real estate divi­sion remai­ning in the VHV Group and the sold auto­mo­tive divi­sion of the Eucon Group.

Advi­sor VHV Holding SE: Oppenhoff

The Oppen­hoff team led by Anna von Girse­wald (photo: Oppen­hoff) compri­sed Thomas Wismann (both M&A/corporate and insu­rance super­vi­sory law), Dr. Maike Mestmä­cker, Dr. Matthias Klefisch and Jan Kamin­ski (all M&A/corporate), Marc Krischer and Martin Bran­den­bur­ger-Nonnast (both tax), Dr. Marc Hilber, Marco Deggin­ger, Chris­tian Saßen­bach and Valen­tino Halim (all IT/Commercial), Anja Dombrow­sky and Lisa Strieg­ler (both Employ­ment), Dr. Fee Mäder (IP), Marvin Roch­ner and Julia Höyng (both Real Estate).

Other parties invol­ved were:
— VHV’s legal depart­ment (in-house) — Dr. Siddha­rta Schwen­zer (Head of Group Law and Compli­ance), and Jessica Posenauer
— Latham Watkins — advi­sor to VHV on the sale process

About Oppen­hoff
The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for corpo­rate groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

Berlin — paxi­pal raises USD 6.7 million in Series A funding. HV Capi­tal, Nebu­lar, Anam­cara, HPI Ventures and Angel Invest parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. praxi­pal deve­lops Luna, an AI-supported recep­tio­nist that revo­lu­tio­ni­zes the way medi­cal prac­ti­ces work. 

By taking over pati­ent commu­ni­ca­tion by phone, SMS, Whats­App and email, Luna reli­e­ves the burden on staff and signi­fi­cantly impro­ves the pati­ent expe­ri­ence in an area that urgen­tly needs solutions.

The fresh capi­tal will be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of AI as well as for the expan­sion of the team and the expan­sion in Germany and Austria.

Advi­sor paxi­pal: Law firm V14

Samuel Aebi, Part­ner at V14
Sinje Clausen

The law firm:

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

Frank­furt a. M. — The Stutt­gart-based invest­ment company Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG) has sold its shares in KKL Holding GmbH (KKL), Düssel­dorf, to bluu unit GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of Triton Part­ners. The tran­sac­tion also includes the shares of the foun­der Andreas Kohmann and the manage­ment invol­ved. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust appr­oval. McDer­mott Will & Schulte advi­sed SüdBG on this transaction. 

Foun­ded in 1987, KKL is conside­red one of the most promi­nent specia­lists in the field of refri­ge­ra­tion, air condi­tio­ning and venti­la­tion tech­no­logy and data center solu­ti­ons in Germany. SüdBG inves­ted in the company in 2018 as part of a manage­ment buy-out and has since supported the manage­ment in imple­men­ting the growth stra­tegy toge­ther with the foun­der and advi­sory board. KKL curr­ently employs around 300 people and gene­ra­tes sales of over 80 million euros. 

bluu unit, head­quar­te­red in Ludwigs­burg, is an alli­ance of regio­nally strong, inde­pen­dent compa­nies with a focus on sustainable refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning technology.

SüdBG, a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW), is one of the leading invest­ment compa­nies in the German-spea­king region and a long-term inves­tor. Over the past ten years, SüdBG has supported the sustainable deve­lo­p­ment of more than 70 compa­nies with around EUR 600 million and a broad network. 

McDer­mott advi­sed SüdBG under the lead manage­ment of part­ners Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin and Dr. Bene­dikt von Schor­le­mer. The team included part­ners Rolf Hüner­mann and Dr. Heiko Kermer, coun­sel Holger Mlynek, Dr. Simon Grone­berg, Marcus Fischer and Dr. Laura Stamm­witz as well as asso­cia­tes Jenni­fer Rogal­ski, Jan Ischreyt, Constanze Götz, Carina Schüt­ze­berg and Sönke Wassermann.

Lausanne / London (IT BOLTWISE) — Swiss AI startup Giotto.ai is plan­ning a signi­fi­cant funding round to advance its rese­arch in the field of Arti­fi­cial Gene­ral Intel­li­gence (AGI). With a target valua­tion of over USD 1 billion and a plan­ned invest­ment of more than USD 200 million, the company is posi­tio­ning itself as a serious player in the Euro­pean AI landscape. 

Invest­ment bank Lazard has been appoin­ted to lead the capi­tal raise to acce­le­rate Giot­to’s AI rese­arch, deve­lop commer­cial proto­ty­pes for corpo­rate and govern­ment clients and contri­bute to the AI commu­nity through open source releases.

Giotto.ai was foun­ded in 2017 by CEO Aldo Podesta, who previously worked in sales stra­tegy at Philip Morris. The company has raised around 19 million US dollars to date. Giotto origi­nally deve­lo­ped a compli­ance tool for medi­cal devices, which was sold to the medi­cal tech­no­logy company RQM+ in 2022, before focu­sing enti­rely on basic rese­arch in reaso­ning models. 

The company stands out with measura­ble progress on AI reaso­ning model chal­lenges and curr­ently leads the Kaggle ARC-AGI‑2 cons­trai­ned ranking with a score of 25%. This bench­mark tests a model’s ability to infer rules from limi­ted examp­les and shows early signs of gene­ral reaso­ning capa­bi­li­ties. Giot­to’s approach empha­si­zes effi­ci­ency and intel­li­gent resource allo­ca­tion and performs well under strict compu­ta­tio­nal cons­traints such as no inter­net access, limi­ted runtime and a fixed hard­ware budget. 

In contrast to large US AI labs such as OpenAI and xAI, which are known for trai­ning massive models on vast compu­ta­tio­nal resour­ces, Giotto focu­ses on deve­lo­ping AI systems that operate under fixed resource cons­traints, with the goal of cost-effec­tive and gene­ra­lizable AI research.

The upco­ming funding is inten­ded to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of Giot­to’s commer­cial appli­ca­ti­ons while support­ing the company’s contri­bu­ti­ons to the broa­der AI rese­arch commu­nity through open source publi­ca­ti­ons. By combi­ning deep rese­arch exper­tise, effi­ci­ent tech­no­logy and stra­te­gic commer­cia­liza­tion plans, Giotto.ai is posi­tio­ning itself as a serious conten­der in the ambi­tious Euro­pean AI landscape. 

—https://www.giotto.ai/

In a market where the intro­duc­tion of AI is progres­sing rapidly, the Israeli startup Irre­gu­lar has now closed a finan­cing round of 80 million US dollars. The inves­tors include Sequoia Capi­tal, Redpoint Ventures, Swish Ventures, Assaf Rappa­port and Ofir Ehrlich. The company, foun­ded by Dan Lahav and Omer Nevo, specia­li­zes in stress test­ing advan­ced AI models under real-world condi­ti­ons, working with leading AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic. 

Irre­gu­lar was foun­ded in 2023 by Dan Lahav and Omer Nevo. Lahav, who previously worked at LabPi­xies, a startup acqui­red by Google, and later worked as an AI rese­ar­cher at IBM, brings exten­sive expe­ri­ence in AI rese­arch. Nevo is a serial entre­pre­neur with a back­ground in cyber­se­cu­rity. Toge­ther, they have built a company that focu­ses on evalua­ting and secu­ring advan­ced AI models. The new funding will be used to expand rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, expand the team, inten­sify colla­bo­ra­tion with leading AI labs 

Busi­ness model

Irre­gu­lar’s busi­ness model is based on conduc­ting stress tests for AI systems under real threat scena­rios. This includes tests that focus on how AI models react to attempts to circum­vent anti­vi­rus soft­ware or carry out auto­no­mous offen­sive operations. 

The aim is to iden­tify poten­tial vulnerabi­li­ties and deve­lop solu­ti­ons to ensure the secure imple­men­ta­tion of these systems on a large scale.

The foun­ders explain: “It’s about prac­ti­cal tools that stop thre­ats where­ver AI is deve­lo­ped or used.”

The start-up’s tech­no­logy has alre­ady attrac­ted the atten­tion of leading AI labs: OpenAI uses Irre­gu­lar’s ratings in system maps for GPT‑3, GPT‑4 mini and GPT‑5. Irre­gu­lar has also co-autho­red a white paper with Anthro­pic on confi­den­tial infe­rence systems, while rese­ar­chers at Google Deep­Mind have cited the company’s plat­form in studies on AI cyber­at­tack capabilities.

The funding reflects a broa­der realiza­tion across the tech­no­logy land­scape that the success of AI depends not only on buil­ding ever more powerful models, but also on protec­ting them from misuse, acci­dents and new threat vectors. As compa­nies and govern­ments acce­le­rate adop­tion, the demand for proac­tive AI secu­rity has increased. With its strong inves­tor support and early trac­tion, Irre­gu­lar is posi­tio­ning itself as a funda­men­tal player in this emer­ging layer of AI infrastructure. 

Aachen/Dormagen — The battery recy­cling company cylib has secu­red 26.1 million euros in funding from the Euro­pean Union’s ERDF/JTF NRW program to build one of the largest lithium-ion battery recy­cling plants in Europe at CHEMPARK Dormagen.

“We are deeply grateful to the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia and the Euro­pean Union for funding this project and support­ing our mission to produce high-quality mate­ri­als for sustainable batte­ries and resi­li­ent Euro­pean value chains,” says Dr. Lilian Schwich, co-foun­der and co-CEO. “This under­lines both our tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise and the successful work of our team.”

The funding, which is part of the “Produktives.NRW” program, follows an initial commit­ment in Novem­ber 2024 and will speci­fi­cally finance the first expan­sion stage of the indus­trial plant. The plant will process black mass (an inter­me­diate product from shred­ded battery mate­ri­als) to extract criti­cal raw mate­ri­als such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese from lithium-ion batte­ries, ther­eby streng­thening Euro­pe’s geopo­li­ti­cal inde­pen­dence in these stra­te­gic materials. 

Tech­no­logy deli­vers supe­rior recy­cling rates

The OLiC (Opti­mi­zed Lithium & Graphite Reco­very) process reco­vers more than 90 percent of criti­cal mate­ri­als from used batte­ries and produ­ces 80 percent less CO₂ emis­si­ons than primary raw mate­rial extra­c­tion. cylib is now setting up its water-based tech­no­logy, which has proven itself in pilot opera­tion, as an indus­trial plant. In the final expan­sion stage, the plant, which is sche­du­led to go into opera­tion in 2027, will process up to 140,000 elec­tric vehicle batte­ries per year (equi­va­lent to 60,000 tons of used batte­ries or 20,000 tons of black mass). 

With the rapid growth of e‑mobility — every fourth new vehicle sold world­wide is alre­ady elec­tric — Euro­pe’s demand for battery mate­ri­als is also growing rapidly. The plant shows how modern recy­cling tech­no­logy is making Europe inde­pen­dent of raw mate­rial imports and at the same time streng­thening secu­rity of supply. 

About cylib
cylib is a holi­stic and sustainable battery recy­cling scale-up foun­ded in Aachen in 2022 by Dr. Lilian Schwich, Paul Sabarny and Dr. Gideon Schwich. With over 120 employees, the company grew out of rese­arch at RWTH Aachen Univer­sity and produ­ces high-quality mate­ri­als for sustainable batte­ries and resi­li­ent Euro­pean value chains. 

The water-based OLiC process effi­ci­ently reco­vers raw mate­ri­als from battery modu­les, black mass or produc­tion scrap and achie­ves a recy­cling effi­ci­ency of more than 90 percent for lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and manganese with an 80 percent redu­ced carbon foot­print compared to primary raw mate­rial extra­c­tion — thus enab­ling a circu­lar economy. Backed by indus­try-rele­vant inves­tors such as Porsche Ventures and Bosch Ventures, cylib raised 55 million euros in its Series A round — the largest finan­cing round in Euro­pean battery recy­cling to date — and secu­red more than 27 million euros in addi­tio­nal funding. — https://www.cylib.de/

Munich — The energy supplier BKW AG (“BKW”) has acqui­red Südvolt GmbH (“Südvolt”), one of the last inde­pen­dent balan­cing energy service provi­ders in Germany. With this tran­sac­tion, BKW enters the German market for balan­cing energy and ancil­lary services and streng­thens its presence in one of the largest and most important flexi­bi­lity markets in Europe. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details. POELLATH advi­sed the sellers on the legal and tax aspects of the transaction.

Munich-based Südvolt GmbH opera­tes a certi­fied virtual power plant (VPP) and offers all three control energy products (FCR, aFRR, mFRR). As a flexi­bi­lity provi­der, it provi­des primary control energy as well as secon­dary and tertiary control power for all four German trans­mis­sion system opera­tors. The exis­ting custo­mer port­fo­lio of over 1 GW of capa­city includes major and indus­trial custo­mers from energy-inten­sive sectors as well as muni­ci­pal utili­ties. Südvolt has 20 employees and serves over 70 custo­mers with more than 200 gene­ra­tion units. 

BKW, based in Berne, is an inter­na­tio­nal energy and infra­struc­ture company. BKW employs over 12,000 people and is active in ten countries. 

POELLATH advi­sed the sellers on the legal and tax aspects of the tran­sac­tion with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, Co-Lead, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Frank­furt aM)
Dr. Saskia Bardens (Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Lukas Wörlein (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)

Wetzlar/Munich/Amsterdam — design­funk­tion, the specia­list for the plan­ning and realiza­tion of modern working envi­ron­ments, is ente­ring into a long-term stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Royal Ahrend, the Euro­pean market leader for sustainable office furnis­hings. As part of the part­ner­ship, Ahrend will become a mino­rity share­hol­der in design­funk­tion. Syntra Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed design­funk­tion on the transaction. 

The part­ner­ship combi­nes design­funk­ti­on’s strengths in the design of modern living and working envi­ron­ments with Royal Ahren­d’s exper­tise in the deve­lo­p­ment of circu­lar products. The aim of the colla­bo­ra­tion is to create future-proof and inspi­ring working envi­ron­ments, to inte­grate sustaina­bi­lity more stron­gly into new office concepts and to actively shape the German market. In addi­tion to compa­nies, both compa­nies also offer their services to educa­tio­nal estab­lish­ments and public institutions. 

“With Ahrend, we have gained a part­ner who shares our values and supports us in consis­t­ently inte­gra­ting sustaina­bi­lity into the design of office and working envi­ron­ments,” explains Samir Ayoub, Mana­ging Part­ner of designfunktion.

“The colla­bo­ra­tion with design­funk­tion is an important step for us in reali­zing our vision of future-proof working envi­ron­ments in the German market,” adds Rolf Verspuij, CEO of Royal Ahrend.

“We are deligh­ted to have supported design­funk­tion in this important part­ner­ship. Ahren­d’s mino­rity stake in design­funk­tion under­lines the long-term and stra­te­gic nature of this coope­ra­tion,” says Patrick Seip (photo: Syntra), Mana­ging Part­ner at Syntra Corpo­rate Finance. The project team consis­ted of Patrick Seip (Mana­ging Part­ner) and Janick Wagner (Senior Associate). 

About Syntra Corpo­rate Finance

Syntra Corpo­rate Finance is one of the leading inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies for the mid-market. The focus is on support­ing complex succes­sion plan­ning as well as company acqui­si­ti­ons and sales in the (lower) mid-market sector, with volu­mes between 20 million and 150 million euros. Syntra also advi­ses medium-sized compa­nies on stra­te­gic capi­tal and finan­cing measu­res and has estab­lished itself as a relia­ble part­ner for private equity inves­tors and family offices in German-spea­king count­ries, inclu­ding the sale of share­hol­dings and the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of long-term acqui­si­tion strategies.
Syntra Corpo­rate Finance is part of the part­ner-mana­ged Syntra Group, which also includes the M&A boutique Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, which specia­li­zes in succes­sion plan­ning for smal­ler, predo­mi­nantly owner-mana­ged compa­nies. — https://syntracf.com/

About design­funk­tion

design­funk­tion, head­quar­te­red in Munich, is a German leader in the plan­ning and realiza­tion of modern working envi­ron­ments. The company combi­nes exper­tise in inte­rior design with a clear focus on sustaina­bi­lity and inspi­ring concepts. With over 350 employees at more than 18 loca­ti­ons, design­funk­tion offers its clients compre­hen­sive consul­ting services for the furnis­hing and finan­cing of offices, home offices, apart­ments and public facilities. 

About Royal Ahrend

Foun­ded in Amster­dam in 1896, Royal Ahrend is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in the office furni­ture indus­try. The priva­tely owned company crea­tes vita­li­zing working envi­ron­ments and high-perfor­mance system furni­ture that is deli­vered directly to custo­mers worldwide. 

The company’s system furni­ture and room solu­ti­ons are desi­gned to opti­mize the working expe­ri­ence of employees — with a focus on promo­ting health, well-being and produc­ti­vity in the work­place. The products are reco­gni­zed world­wide for their outstan­ding sustaina­bi­lity and time­l­ess Dutch Design signa­ture. The company has sales offices in more than 19 count­ries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Colo­gne — GIATA, a port­fo­lio company of ODEWALD KMU, acqui­res the AI company Smart­seer GmbH. GIATA was advi­sed by HEUKING on this transaction. 

GIATA is a leading travel tech­no­logy company specia­li­zing in the manage­ment and distri­bu­tion of travel offers and hotel content. With a modu­larly desi­gned product range, GIATA offers custo­mi­zed complete solu­ti­ons that ensure the highest precis­ion in the allo­ca­tion of hotel infor­ma­tion. This is achie­ved through the use of state-of-the-art AI tech­no­lo­gies, digi­tal finger­prin­ting and careful manual post-proces­sing. Its custo­mers include almost all inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned online travel agen­cies, tour opera­tors, hotel chains and global search engi­nes from over 70 count­ries. With its inno­va­tive tech­no­logy and exten­sive exper­tise, GIATA makes a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to opti­mi­zing sales proces­ses in the travel industry. 

Smart­seer offers an AI-supported solu­tion for the auto­ma­ted crea­tion of booking offers speci­fi­cally for the travel indus­try. The inno­va­tive AI tool analy­ses user beha­viour, in parti­cu­lar click beha­viour, in real time and anony­mously, enab­ling the perso­na­li­zed gene­ra­tion of offers for bookers. SMART­SEER’s custo­mers include well-known provi­ders in the travel agency sector. 

Consul­tant GIATA: HEUKING

Dr. Pär Johans­son (lead, Corporate/M&A),
Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Washing­ton), (IP, Media & Technology),
Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Employ­ment Law),
Svea Kunz (IP, Media & Technology),
Julien Krause,
Chiara Diek­mann (both Corporate/M&A),
Lena Kurth, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch Univer­sity), (IP, Media & Tech­no­logy), all Cologne