Author: Tatjana Anderer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Auto­ma­ted compli­ance instead of a shortage of specialists

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

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

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

About Forma­lize

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

About Acton Capital

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

About Black­Fin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.
— www.vrep.de.

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

Advi­sors VREP: Grant Thornton

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Arbio Group GmbH: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About EQT Life Sciences

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

About ImCheck Therapeutics 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consul­tant Tubu­lis: YPOG

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

About Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Partners

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

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

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

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

About Chef­koch

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

Advi­sor FUNKE Media Group: Deloitte Legal Germany

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Rhein Invest: McDer­mott Will & Schulte, Munich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Walberg & Cie.

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

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

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

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

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

Advi­sor Arse­pia GmbH: GSK Stockmann

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

About Warburg Pincus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Family Trust

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

Advi­sor Family Trust: Reed Smith

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

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

About Reed Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Oppen­hoff

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

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.