ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin — Deli­very Hero has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in GlovoApp23, S.L., based in Barce­lona, Spain. Deli­very Hero has alre­ady been a share­hol­der of Glovo since 2018 and curr­ently holds appro­xi­m­ately 43.8% of the outstan­ding shares (on an undi­luted basis). Under the share purchase agree­ment concluded between Deli­very Hero SE and the selling share­hol­ders, Deli­very Hero acqui­res a further approx. 39.4% of the outstan­ding shares in Glovo (on an undi­luted basis) and thus a majo­rity stake.

Deli­very Hero will acquire the shares in Glovo in exch­ange for the issu­ance of new Deli­very Hero shares. Under the tran­sac­tion, Glovo is valued at appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.3 billion on a fully diluted basis and after taking into account cash and finan­cial liabi­li­ties. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2022 and is subject to custo­mary condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals as well as merger control clearance in multi­ple jurisdictions.

Advi­sor Deli­very Hero: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Karen Freh­mel-Kück (Corporate/Transactions), Senior Associate

About Deli­very Hero SE

Deli­very Hero is a leading global local deli­very plat­form opera­ting in appro­xi­m­ately 50 count­ries within Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. Laun­ched in 2011 with a grocery deli­very service, the company is a pioneer in Quick Commerce — the next gene­ra­tion of e‑commerce — and aims to deli­ver groce­ries and house­hold goods to custo­mers in less than an hour, often in as little as 10 to 15 minu­tes. Deli­very Hero is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and was included in the German bench­mark index DAX (Deut­scher Akti­en­in­dex) in 2020.

About Glovo

Foun­ded in Barce­lona in 2015, the company opera­tes in 25 count­ries within Europe, Central Asia as well as Africa and offers a cross-cate­gory app that connects custo­mers with local restau­rants, grocery stores, super­mar­kets, phar­macies and major retail­ers. The goal is to create easy and digi­tal access for people to all services in cities and local regi­ons. This allows users to acquire what they need anytime, anywhere.

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IP/IT and nota­rial services. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. www.ypog.law

News

Munich — EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners, one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region, has gained Dr. Sven Oleow­nik as a further partner.

“With Dr. Sven Oleow­nik, we are streng­thening our team for the next phase of our deve­lo­p­ment as a part­ner for medium-sized growth compa­nies. We are firmly estab­lished in the market as a busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for compa­nies in the technology/software, value-added services and new consu­mer stap­les sectors. We have known Mr. Oleow­nik for many years and know that he brings the exper­tise and network to play a powerful role in expan­ding our posi­tion,” explains Dr. Chris­tian Näther, Mana­ging Part­ner of EMERAM Capi­tal Part­ners. “So we are plea­sed to now welcome Dr. Sven Oleow­nik to the circle of our partners.”

For the last seven years, Dr. Sven Oleow­nik was Part­ner and Head of Germany at the invest­ment company Gimv in Munich. There he built up the current team. Prior to that, he spent twelve years at Deloitte as Mana­ging Part­ner in the Corpo­rate Finance Advi­sory prac­tice, advi­sing invest­ment compa­nies and corporations.

About EMERAM Capi­tal Partners
EMERAM is one of the leading invest­ment mana­gers for medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries. Funds advi­sed by EMERAM curr­ently provide more than 400 million euros of capi­tal for the deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies from the Technology/Software, Value-added Services and New Consu­mer Stap­les sectors. www.emeram.com

EMERAM acts as a long-term busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment part­ner for its compa­nies and promo­tes the sustainable growth (orga­nic and inor­ga­nic) of the port­fo­lio compa­nies. Curr­ently, the port­fo­lio compri­ses six plat­form invest­ments that conti­nuously gene­rate double-digit orga­nic sales growth. In addi­tion, signi­fi­cant inor­ga­nic growth was achie­ved through more than 20 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, enab­ling inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

News

Zurich/Bern — The tradi­tion-rich Sihl Group, head­quar­te­red in Oster­mun­di­gen, Bern, in the port­fo­lio of the invest­ment company Equis­tone since 2016, has acqui­red Dietz­gen Corpo­ra­tion from Tampa in the US state of Florida. This will make the globally active specia­list for the coating and finis­hing of papers, films and fabrics a leading supplier of coated high-end print media in the USA, where it will gain major logi­sti­cal advantages.

Sihl can look back on well over a hundred years of company history and, with sites in Switz­er­land, Germany and the USA, specia­li­zes in the coating and finis­hing of papers, films and fabrics for an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base. The successful supplier of inno­va­tive premium coatings in the high-growth digi­tal prin­ting market employs more than 350 people and supplies part­ners in a wide range of indus­tries — from auto­mo­tive to logi­stics and tourism to pack­a­ging. In mid-2016, funds advi­sed by Equis­tone acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Group.

With the subsi­diary Sihl Inc. loca­ted in Fiske­ville in the US state of Rhode Island as a proces­sing and distri­bu­tion center, Sihl has an alre­ady strong posi­tion in the North and South Ameri­can markets. The product range extends from CAD media and synthe­tic print carri­ers to prin­ta­ble wall­pa­pers and flexi­ble pack­a­ging films. The invest­ment in Dietz­gen, a well-known provi­der of proces­sing and distri­bu­tion services for digi­tal print media such as papers, films and texti­les, will now signi­fi­cantly expand the company’s posi­tion in the US market. The priva­tely held company, foun­ded in 1989, has an exten­sive dealer network and is known for just-in-time deli­veries nati­on­wide thanks to exten­sive inven­tory in six parti­cu­larly conve­ni­ent loca­ti­ons. Its media brands Dietz­gen (CAD and Repro appli­ca­ti­ons), Magic (Signage), Museo (Photo and Fine­Art) and Vali­da­tion (Proof) are well established.

Combine strengths with excep­tio­nal offer

The acqui­si­tion of Dietz­gen marks an important mile­stone in the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the Sihl Group and is also the first acqui­si­tion since the parti­ci­pa­tion of Equis­tone. “This add-on invest­ment not only streng­thens Sihl Group’s market posi­tion in the US quite signi­fi­cantly, but also impro­ves the frame­work condi­ti­ons for logi­stics and distri­bu­tion at the same time — the bene­fits for both sides cannot be over­loo­ked,” said Stefan Maser, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner at Equis­tone. “Toge­ther with manage­ment, we intend to leverage the addi­tio­nal tail­wind and shared exper­tise to drive growth and create syner­gies not only in the Ameri­cas,” added Equis­tone Direc­tor David Zahnd.

“This tran­sac­tion rein­forces our vision of being the leading provi­der of high-end coated print media in the U.S.,” said Peter K. Wahs­ner, CEO of Sihl Group. “Combi­ning Dietz­gen’s conver­ting, logi­stics and distri­bu­tion capa­bi­li­ties with Sihl’s inno­va­tive products and level of service crea­tes an excep­tio­nal offe­ring for our custo­mers. The new plat­form not only allows us to drive growth in our estab­lished markets, but also to expand our flexi­ble pack­a­ging busi­ness in the U.S. thanks to Dietz­gen’s stra­te­gi­cally loca­ted sites.” Dietz­gen Corpo­ra­tion CEO Darren Letang also welco­mes the invest­ment: “This is a great move. Our combi­ned strengths create a unique oppor­tu­nity for both compa­nies and their custo­mers. My manage­ment team and I look forward to the future in the Sihl Group.”

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are Stefan Maser (photo), David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin.
Equis­tone was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Bär & Karrer (Legal CH, Struc­tu­ring, Tax), Munich Stra­tegy (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial) and Wuersch & Gering (Legal and Tax US). The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe
Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. Equis­tone prima­rily invests in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion, equity has been inves­ted in around 170 tran­sac­tions in the DACH region and the Nether­lands, mainly mid-market buy-outs. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistone.ch

About Sihl — SIMPLY THE BETTER SOLUTION
The Sihl Group is the leading quality supplier of prin­ta­ble media in the fast-growing global digi­tal prin­ting market. The exten­sive range includes inno­va­tive premium papers for photo and fine art prin­ting, large-format media for inkjet and laser prin­ting, as well as ther­mal paper and self-adhe­sive products. Sihl also produ­ces coated papers and films for indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. As a high-perfor­mance, inter­na­tio­nally active company, Sihl has crucial tech­no­lo­gi­cal know-how and broad, in-depth indus­try exper­tise. The Group streng­thens the market posi­tion of its custo­mers with future-proof product solu­ti­ons and makes a decisive contri­bu­tion to impro­ving value crea­tion with inno­va­tive, process-support­ing services. Sihl manu­fac­tures in compli­ance with all ecolo­gi­cal, legal, social and occu­pa­tio­nal safety standards.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.sihl.com

News

Munich — The foun­der and CEO of SCHWIND eye-tech-solu­ti­ons GmbH, Mr. Rolf Schwind, was advi­sed by the Munich and Frank­furt offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in connec­tion with the sale of the majo­rity stake in SCHWIND-eye-tech-solu­ti­ons GmbH previously held by the finan­cial inves­tor Ardian. Ardian sells its stake to the private equity invest­ment company Adagia Part­ners, which thus beco­mes the new majo­rity shareholder.

The manage­ment team around Mr. Rolf Schwind (CEO), Mr. Dome­nic von Planta (COO) and Mr. Dirk Rosen­lö­cher (CFO) will conti­nue to lead the busi­ness of the SCHWIND Group. Weil had alre­ady advi­sed Mr. Rolf Schwind on the entry of Ardian in 2016.

SCHWIND eye-tech-solu­ti­ons GmbH, loca­ted in Klein­ost­heim, Germany, is one of the leading specia­lists for refrac­tive and thera­peu­tic corneal surgery and eye laser systems. The Group deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of products for the treat­ment of ametro­pia and corneal diseases.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Munich Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger (photo ) and supported by Coun­sel Benja­min Rapp (Tax, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Madleen Düdder, Maxi­mi­lian Schmitt, Stef­fen Giolda (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Lukas Reisch­mann (Tax, Frank­furt) and Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frankfurt).

About WEIL
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.

 

News

Berlin — A YPOG team led by Daniel Resas and Niklas Ulrich advi­sed the Fede­ral State of Hesse on the liqui­da­tion of crypto assets with a market value of over € 100 million. YPOG prima­rily assis­ted the respon­si­ble Attor­ney Gene­ral’s Office in Frank­furt am Main in nego­tia­ting and conclu­ding a corre­spon­ding frame­work agree­ment with Bank­haus Scheich Wert­pa­pier­spe­zia­list AG. 

Bank­haus Scheich Wert­pa­pier­spe­zia­list AG acts as a market maker in the context of market-driven sales. The frame­work agree­ment estab­lishes a long-term part­ner­ship and thus also serves as a basis for future explo­ita­ti­ons of seized crypto assets by the State of Hesse.

“In any case, this is the first time in Germany that such a high-volume liqui­da­tion of seized crypto assets has occur­red. This has posed major chal­lenges for those invol­ved, and not just in terms of selling off. Above all, we had to break prac­ti­cally new ground in deal­ing with the money laun­de­ring legal requi­re­ments of the trading parti­ci­pants. I am certain that we have crea­ted a new market stan­dard here for the explo­ita­tion of state-seized crypto assets,” said YPOG part­ner Daniel Resas (photo).

Advi­sor State of Hesse


Daniel Resas
 (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Partner, 
Dr. Niklas Ulrich
 (co-lead, regu­la­tory), Associate, 
Dr. Jörn Wöbke
 (Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IP/IT and nota­rial services. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Singen — Oppen­hoff advi­sed the foun­ders and share­hol­ders of the Suno­vis Group on the sale of the company to asset mana­ger Brook­field. The sale took place within the frame­work of a compe­ti­tive bidding process set up by Lazard. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Suno­vis, based in Singen, Germany, has successfully deve­lo­ped more than 30 solar projects in Germany and other Euro­pean count­ries and has a current deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line of appro­xi­m­ately 1.7 GWp of solar projects, of which appro­xi­m­ately 600 MWp are in advan­ced and mid-stage deve­lo­p­ment. Suno­vis’ current manage­ment team will conti­nue to lead the company.

Brook­field is a global asset mana­ger and one of the worl­d’s largest opera­tors of wind and solar assets with a global network and exper­tise in rene­wa­ble energy opera­ti­ons and development.

The Oppen­hoff team led by Till Liebau included Lisa Schmitt, Marcel Marko­vic, Moritz Schmitz, Malte Menken (all M&A / Private Equity), Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax), Anja Dombrow­sky (Labor Law), Dr. Simon Spang­ler (Anti­trust) and Stephan Müller (Foreign Trade Law).

About Oppen­hoff

The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 90 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

News

Berlin — Berlin-based crypto advi­sory F5 Crypto Capi­tal has laun­ched a new open-ended German crypto fund for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Through its subsi­diary F5 Crypto Manage­ment GmbH, quali­fied inves­tors are enab­led to make invest­ments in the crypto market. — A YPOG team led by part­ner Jens Kretz­schmann provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to F5 Crypto Capital.

The new F5 Crypto Fonds 1 InvAG m.v.K. for semi-profes­sio­nal and profes­sio­nal inves­tors is accep­ting subscrip­ti­ons with imme­diate effect and aims to achieve high diver­si­fi­ca­tion through a targe­ted selec­tion of crypto stocks. Funda­men­tal analy­ses of the analy­sis team, with many years of expe­ri­ence in the crypto market, provide the basis of the invest­ment stra­tegy of the new fund. A signi­fi­cant portion of the fund also pursues an index-based invest­ment stra­tegy. Thus, the over­all stra­tegy covers broad parts of the crypto market, such as tokens from the Decen­tra­li­zed Finance (DeFi) sector, meta­verse appli­ca­ti­ons and Web 3.0 projects. The open fund struc­ture repres­ents a parti­cu­lar advan­tage for inves­tors. F5 Crypto Fund 1 offers weekly subscrip­tion and redemp­tion, with share units viewa­ble in the bank cust­ody account by ISIN.

“We are very plea­sed to be invol­ved in the estab­lish­ment of this, for the German crypto market, signi­fi­cant fund and to be able to support again with our exper­tise in the field of fund struc­tu­ring in the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tive ideas. A German open-ended crypto fund product in the form of an InvAG m.v.K. has been miss­ing on the market so far,” said part­ner Jens Kretzschmann.

Advi­sor F5 Crypto Capi­tal: YPOG
Jens Kretz­schmann (lead/structuring, tax), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Partner
Dr. Julian Albrecht (Struc­tu­ring, Tax), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Saskia Bong (Struc­tu­ring, Taxes), Associate

About F5 Crypto Capital
F5 Crypto Capi­tal opera­tes a crypto fund, crypto index and crypto rese­arch divi­sion for semi-profes­sio­nal and profes­sio­nal inves­tors. F5 Crypto was foun­ded in Berlin in 2018, and its foun­ders are among the leading crypto asset mana­gers in Germany today.

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

News

Berlin — Equity and debt finan­cing achie­ved by ever­phone amounts to $200 million. Growth inves­tor Cadence Growth Capi­tal led the equity finan­cing as lead inves­tor. In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors Deut­sche Tele­kom, Alley­Corp and signals Venture Capi­tal again inves­ted in the Berlin-based startup. The addi­tio­nal debt capi­tal in the form of green loans under a warehouse finan­cing struc­ture comes from Deut­sche Bank and The Phonenix Insu­rance Company. YPOG again advi­sed smart­phone-as-a-service provi­der ever­phone in this finan­cing round.

While ever­phone relied on the advice of Hogan Lovells part­ner Diet­mar Helms’ team for the debt finan­cing struc­ture, as in the past, YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice on the equity finan­cing round as well as corpo­rate law aspects of the debt finan­cing. Follo­wing the successful comple­tion of the finan­cing round, Cadence Growth Capi­tal is now ever­pho­ne’s largest shareholder.

With the fresh capi­tal, the company plans to further advance the circu­lar economy in the field of mobile devices, which aims to fully or parti­ally reuse raw mate­ri­als to conserve finite resour­ces such as rare earths and other compon­ents. In order to further expand market share, the new finan­cial resour­ces will be used, among other things, for acti­vi­ties to acquire new busi­ness custo­mers. In addi­tion, the company says the money will also go toward further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, staff augmen­ta­tion, product deve­lo­p­ment and growth of its active device fleet, which alre­ady exceeds 100,000 devices.

ever­phone recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from a YPOG team co-led by part­ners Benja­min Ullrich (photo) and Matthias Kres­ser. The Berlin-based company had alre­ady relied on a team led by Benja­min Ullrich for the previous capi­tal increase in mid-2020.

“We are plea­sed to conti­nue to accom­pany the ever­phone team on its impres­sive jour­ney, espe­ci­ally because ever­pho­ne’s flexi­ble rental model (“device-as-a-service”) has a parti­cu­lar impact on our approach to finite resour­ces,” said YPOG part­ner Benja­min Ullrich. “We are alre­ady exci­ted about the next steps and hope that ever­phone will also serve as a role model for other start­ups in the important field of circu­lar economy,” adds YPOG part­ner Matthias Kresser.

About ever­phone

ever­phone is a one-stop solu­tion for corpo­rate smart­phones. Since 2016, the startup has been offe­ring an inno­va­tive concept for the procu­re­ment, manage­ment and inte­gra­tion of mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets in the corpo­rate context. The “Phone as a Service” model gives employees a free choice of company phones, allows flexi­ble upgrades and repla­ce­ment of devices, and includes both DSGVO-compli­ant mobile device manage­ment (MDM) and a rapid repla­ce­ment service in the event of defects. The port­fo­lio includes devices from Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Google and Fair­phone. Since Decem­ber 2020, ever­phone has been an offi­cial B2B part­ner of Samsung Elec­tro­nics’ DaaS stra­tegy in Germany. ever­phone was foun­ded by former CHECK24 execu­tive Jan Dzulko and employs over 170 people in Berlin. In addi­tion to nume­rous start­ups and SMEs, ever­phone custo­mers also include global play­ers such as Henkel, Ernst & Young and TIER Mobi­lity. Inves­tors include Dr. Henrich Blase (foun­der of CHECK24), Kevin Ryan (foun­der of MongoDB/ Busi­ness­In­si­der), Cadence Growth Capi­tal, Deut­sche Tele­kom and signals Venture Capital.

Consul­tant ever­phone: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead/­Tran­sac­tion­s­/­Cor­po­rate), Partner
Matthias Kres­ser (Co-Lead/­Tran­sac­tion­s­/­Ven­ture Debt), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Emma Peters (Transactions/Corporate), Senior Associate
Chris­tiane Schnitz­ler (Transactions/Corporate), Associate
Bilal Tirsi (Transactions/Venture Debt), Associate

About YPOG

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

News

Munich — EQT Ventures leads a Euro 12 million finan­cing round at Berlin-based online plat­form Time­l­ess, through which shares of luxury goods and coll­ec­ti­bles can be sold and traded. In addi­tion to EQT Ventures, other backers include Porsche Ventures, C3 EOS VC (FinLab EOS VC Fund) and La Roca Capi­tal. — CEO Jan Karnath foun­ded the company in 2018 toge­ther with Andreas Joeb­ges (CTO) and Malte Häus­ler (CFO). They laun­ched the plat­form Time­l­ess in Febru­ary 2021.

Time­l­ess, a brand of Berlin-based New Hori­zon GmbH, is a digi­tal plat­form for selling and trading shares in luxury goods and memo­ra­bi­lia through toke­niza­tion, provi­ding access to this asset class for a broad base of retail inves­tors. The company is thus making the market for rare coll­ec­ti­bles — inclu­ding watches, art, vehic­les, snea­k­ers and wine — acces­si­ble to ever­yone, using block­chain tech­no­logy to docu­ment digi­tal tran­sac­tions in a relia­ble, traceable and secure way. Users can buy and trade shares start­ing at 50 euros via the Time­l­ess app.

EQT Ventures is the venture capi­tal fund of EQT, a purpose-driven global invest­ment orga­niza­tion. EQT Ventures invests in fast-growing, inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in all sectors world­wide, with a focus on Europe and the US.

The DLA Piper team was led by part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A, Frank­furt). The core team included Senior Asso­ciate Domi­nik Wege­ner (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Asso­ciate Phil­ipp Meyer (Private Equity/M&A), and also included Part­ner Dennis Kunschke (Finance), Coun­sel Miray Kavruk (IPT), Senior Asso­cia­tes Elena Bach­mann (Finance), Juliane Poss (Capi­tal Markets, all Frank­furt), Florian Jeske (Employ­ment), Asso­cia­tes David Sanchio Schele (Data Protec­tion, both Hamburg) and Theresa Schenk (Capi­tal Markets, Frankfurt).

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the worl­d’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Munich, Germany — Blick­feld, a Munich-based provi­der of LiDAR sensor tech­no­logy and percep­tion soft­ware, announ­ced the expan­sion of its Series A finan­cing to $31 million. New Future Capi­tal (NFC), a private equity firm that provi­des growth capi­tal prima­rily in Asia, North America and Europe, was won as a new inves­tor. In addi­tion, all exis­ting inves­tors parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, inclu­ding Bayern Kapi­tal, Conti­nen­tal, Fluxu­nit — ams OSRAM Ventures, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Tengel­mann Ventures and UVC Partners.

New invest­ment supports the deve­lo­p­ment of new products for auto­no­mous driving and nume­rous indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons and the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the busi­ness. The finan­cing expan­sion comes at a time when Blick­feld is growing signi­fi­cantly and expan­ding into new markets. The company plans to conti­nue deve­lo­ping sensors and soft­ware that will further advance the relia­ble acqui­si­tion and use of 3D data.

Foun­ded by Dr. Mathias Müller, Dr. sc. Florian Petit and Rolf Wojtech in 2017, Blick­feld deve­lops and produ­ces LiDAR sensors and percep­tion soft­ware. The solu­ti­ons provide high-reso­lu­tion three-dimen­sio­nal envi­ron­men­tal infor­ma­tion and enable nume­rous appli­ca­ti­ons ranging from auto­no­mous trans­por­ta­tion and mobi­lity to smart cities, indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons and secu­rity applications.

Since the last funding, Blick­feld has made signi­fi­cant progress in brin­ging products to market, inclu­ding the volume launch of the versa­tile Cube 1 and Cube Range 1 3D LiDAR sensors for nume­rous indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. In addi­tion, the company has rolled out seve­ral large-scale deploy­ment projects, such as passen­ger flow capture and analy­sis at airports and bulk mate­rial volume measu­re­ment in product warehouses.

In addi­tion to the company’s current distri­bu­tion part­ners in 13 count­ries, inclu­ding Germany, Canada, China and Japan, the new round of funding will support the opening of offices in the U.S. and Asia, furthe­ring Blick­fel­d’s inter­na­tio­nal presence. The new offices will serve to expand an inte­gra­tor network to make products available faster and in grea­ter quan­ti­ties for appli­ca­ti­ons world­wide and to serve growing demand in the key markets of the U.S. and Asia. In addi­tion to growth in new markets, the number of employees will also increase signi­fi­cantly, with a focus on the sales team.

In early 2022, Blick­feld will expand its product port­fo­lio to include new percep­tion soft­ware with features such as object reco­gni­tion, clas­si­fi­ca­tion, track­ing and coun­ting. Appli­ca­tion areas include indus­trial, smart traf­fic, secu­rity, drones and crowd analy­tics. The latter repres­ents a major oppor­tu­nity for the global appli­ca­tion of field-of-view tech­no­logy, provi­ding important data on conges­tion, crow­ding, waiting times, and more — all while main­tai­ning privacy.

“The addi­tio­nal funding in this invest­ment round confirms inves­tors’ contin­ued confi­dence in our vision to capture and analyze the world with a compre­hen­sive solu­tion. We are proud that our products are now used by compa­nies and orga­niza­ti­ons all over the world! The strong network of our new inves­tor NFC in Asia and the US will be of great value for Blick­feld to gain a fast and sustainable foot­hold in the US and Asia,” Dr. Mathias Müller, co-foun­der and CEO of Blickfeld

“As a long-time part­ner, we have supported Blick­feld from the begin­ning. By combi­ning Blick­fel­d’s proprie­tary MEMS tech­no­logy with our indus­try-leading 905 nm edge emit­ting laser compon­ents, Blick­fel­d’s sensors demons­trate the capa­bi­li­ties of LiDAR tech­no­logy in real-world use cases and at indus­trial scale. We look forward to conti­nuing to support Blick­fel­d’s growth trajec­tory in the future.” Jörg Strauß, Senior Vice Presi­dent & Gene­ral Mana­ger Busi­ness Line Visua­liza­tion & Laser at ams OSRAM.

About field of view

Blick­feld, foun­ded in Munich in 2017, is a provi­der of 3D LiDAR products and percep­tion soft­ware for auto­no­mous vehic­les and IoT appli­ca­ti­ons. Blick­feld LiDAR products meet the highest perfor­mance requi­re­ments in terms of power, cost and size needed for the mass market. The company is finan­ci­ally supported by Bayern Kapi­tal, Conti­nen­tal, Fluxu­nit — ams OSRAM Ventures, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, New Future Capi­tal, Tengel­mann Ventures and UVC Part­ners. — www.blickfeld.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Lands­hut, was estab­lished in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 700 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted over 350 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 300 inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Bayern Kapi­tal has supported the compa­nies EOS Elec­tro Opti­cal Systems, conga­tec, Morpho­Sys, voxel­jet, parcel­Lab, SimS­cale and many others, some of which are listed on the stock exch­ange and are now market leaders in their sectors, from an early stage in the realiza­tion of their projects and also in large-volume finan­cing rounds. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. www.bayernkapital.de

About Conti­nen­tal
Conti­nen­tal deve­lops pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gies and services for the sustainable and connec­ted mobi­lity of people and their goods. Foun­ded in 1871, the tech­no­logy company provi­des safe, effi­ci­ent, intel­li­gent and afforda­ble solu­ti­ons for vehic­les, machi­nery, traf­fic and trans­por­ta­tion. Conti­nen­tal gene­ra­ted sales of €37.7 billion in 2020 and curr­ently employs more than 192,000 people in 58 count­ries and markets. The company cele­bra­ted its 150th anni­ver­sary on Octo­ber 8, 2021. www.continental.com/de/

About Fluxu­nit — ams OSRAM Ventures
Fluxu­nit — ams OSRAM Ventures is the inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal unit of OSRAM. Buil­ding on OSRAM’s market leader­ship, the Fluxu­nit invests in start-ups in future tech­no­lo­gies that go beyond OSRAM’s core busi­ness and bring with them the poten­tial to open up new appli­ca­ti­ons and signi­fi­cantly change busi­ness models. The goal of the Fluxu­nit is to provide start­ups with signi­fi­cant support, both in terms of capi­tal and access to OSRAM’s resour­ces and network, in order to acce­le­rate their growth.
www.fluxunit.de

About New Future Capi­tal (NFC)
New Future Capi­tal is one of the best known inves­tors in Grea­ter China and focu­ses on the auto­mo­tive sector with offices in Taipei and Shang­hai. Lever­aging its indus­try exper­tise and opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties, the company aims to part­ner with busi­nesses to trans­form and grow toge­ther amid rapid inno­va­tion. With a hands-on approach at stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal levels, NFC supports busi­ness values and stri­ves for long-term success. www.newfuturecapital.com

About Tengel­mann Ventures
Tengel­mann Ventures has been inves­t­ing in start-ups in the consu­mer inter­net, digi­tal services and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies sectors since 2009. With around 50 invest­ments, Tengel­mann Ventures is one of the most important venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany. Its best-known invest­ments include compa­nies such as Zalando (IPO), Deli­very Hero (IPO), Klarna, Scalable Capi­tal and data Artisans.
www.tengelmann-ventures.com

About UVC Partners
UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin based early-stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start­ups within the enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity sectors. The fund usually invests between €0.5 million and €5 million at the outset and up to €20 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s leading center for inno­va­tion and busi­ness crea­tion. With over 300 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion allows UVC Part­ners to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 650 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,800 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 140 companies.

News

Vienna/ Helsinki — Round2 Capi­tal, the leading Euro­pean reve­nue-based finance provi­der, is further expan­ding its commit­ment to the Nordic tech market by inves­t­ing a total of EUR 4 million in the Finnish SaaS company Vainu in seve­ral tran­ches. The invest­ment fund, based in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm, has alre­ady been working with Vainu since 2019 and has provi­ded both reve­nue-based finance and equity in the current round. With the fresh capi­tal, Vainu was able to trans­form its busi­ness, doubling its annual average custo­mer value (ACV) while syste­ma­ti­cally moving away from the small and stan­da­lone custo­mer segment.

Vainu is a leading soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) provi­der that offers its custo­mers an enter­prise infor­ma­tion plat­form that enables them to achieve compre­hen­sive sales and marke­ting perso­na­liza­tion through real-time enter­prise data.
The Helsinki-based company curr­ently employs 130 people and has alre­ady part­ne­red with Round2 Capi­tal in 2019. The fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment fund, which supports the growth of leading SaaS compa­nies through reve­nue-based finan­cing and selec­tively with equity solu­ti­ons, has since inves­ted a total of €4 million in Vainu.

“Over the last three years, we have inves­ted a lot of time and effort in buil­ding solu­ti­ons that are needed by mid-market and large custo­mers as well as large enter­pri­ses. At the end of the day, it comes down to the reach and quality of the data and our ability to deli­ver proprie­tary infor­ma­tion in a modern way. Some­ti­mes it’s our native CRM connec­tions, some­ti­mes it’s our online plat­form, and some­ti­mes it’s the APIs we need. A good exam­ple of our capa­bi­li­ties in the enter­prise space is our new Vainu deve­lo­per portal that we are laun­ching today,” explains Mikko Honka­nen, one of the co-foun­ders of Vainu.

“Vainu plays a criti­cal role in enab­ling sales and marke­ting teams across Nort­hern Europe to keep their custo­mer data up-to-date and ready to use. I am convin­ced that the finan­cing struc­ture offe­red by Round2 fits very well with the needs of the company and crea­tes a solid basis for the next phase of Vain­u’s deve­lo­p­ment,” said Jan Hille­red, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Round2 Capital.

Fore­cast: 40-fold growth in reve­nue-based financing

Sales-based finan­cing has been growing rapidly for years and is regarded as a fast and compa­ra­tively simple form of invest­ment that enables compa­nies to expand sustain­ably without having to dispose of company shares. Accor­ding to a recent study by Allied Market Rese­arch, the market for reve­nue-based finan­cing is expec­ted to grow 40-fold over the next five years, to more than $40 billion. An important factor for this is that a new market is deve­lo­ping in Europe for forms of finan­cing that repre­sent an alter­na­tive to tradi­tio­nal equity. Reve­nue Based Finan­cing is an inno­va­tive form of finan­cing that takes advan­tage of the unique charac­te­ristics of soft­ware compa­nies, recur­ring reve­nue and intan­gi­ble assets.

About Vainu

Vainu is buil­ding an enter­prise data plat­form that helps B2B compa­nies perso­na­lize sales and marke­ting at scale. The company coll­ects and analy­zes a vast amount of struc­tu­red and unstruc­tu­red online infor­ma­tion and makes this real-time busi­ness insight easily actionable directly within its custo­mers’ exis­ting systems.
Head­quar­te­red in Helsinki, Finland, the company laun­ched in 2014 and now helps more than 10,000 sales, marke­ting and data profes­sio­nals better under­stand their custo­mers and pros­pects and create targe­ted busi­ness profiles and segments.

About Round2 Capital

Round2 Capi­tal is a fast growing Euro­pean invest­ment company with offices in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm. It is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean compa­nies with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Head­quar­te­red in Vienna since 2017, Round2 Capi­tal is the pioneer of reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe. The company is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries and has a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria and Scan­di­na­via. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 23 compa­nies. With the invest­ment in Vainu, Round2 Capi­tal further expands its market posi­tion in Finland. www.round2cap.com

News

Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner is selling its shares in the Remscheid-based measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy specia­list GHM Group. The shares of VR Equi­typ­art­ner and Bayern LB Private Equity GmbH i.L., which was previously also invol­ved, will be taken over by the Hamburg-based invest­ment company GENUI. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust and foreign trade clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

As a specia­list in the field of measu­re­ment and control tech­no­logy, the GHM Group opera­tes in the busi­ness areas of indus­trial sensors and elec­tro­nics, envi­ron­men­tal measu­re­ment tech­no­logy, and mobile measu­re­ment equip­ment. The company has loca­ti­ons in Germany and Italy and is also present world­wide with sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ves. Custo­mers are mainly from the mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, trans­port tech­no­logy, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy, meteo­ro­logy, water treat­ment and labo­ra­tory equip­ment sectors.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner inves­ted in the GHM Group in 2013. Since then, a successful buy-and-build stra­tegy has been imple­men­ted with two add-on tran­sac­tions (Delta Ohm and Val.Co) in Italy and the company has been further deve­lo­ped with a focus on profi­ta­ble growth.

“We have achie­ved a lot at GHM over the past years. I am plea­sed that we have thus been able to lay a stable foun­da­tion for profi­ta­ble growth at GHM under the new share­hol­der struc­ture,” explains Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adding, “I am convin­ced that we have found the ideal new part­ner for the company in GENUI, because the company under­stands SMEs and brings a broad range of exper­tise to the table.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH at a glance

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

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Jan Markus Drees, Maxi­mi­lian Fink­bei­ner, Marga­rita Decker, Jens Schöf­fel, Simone Weck

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

M&A: Stephens Europe Ltd (Stephens), Gerhard Gleich and Robin Brandenbusch

Finan­cial / Tax: Warth & Klein Grant Thorn­ton AG, Harald Weiß (Finan­cial) and Dr. Stefan Hahn (Tax)

Legal: Noerr Part­ner­schafts­ge­sell­schaft mbB (NOERR), Dr. Martin Neuhaus and Gerrit Henze

News

Stutt­gart — Alex­an­der Stein acqui­res 51 percent of the shares in the French Société des Produits d’Ar­ma­gnac (SPA) from Pernod Ricard. The shares were acqui­red via the Stutt­gart-based invest­ment company Clouds­weeper GmbH. Bene­dikt Raisch, Sala­ried Part­ner at Heukin­g’s Stutt­gart office, provi­ded legal advice to entre­pre­neur Alex­an­der Stein on the acquisition.

SPA, head­quar­te­red in Eauze, the so-called capi­tal of Arma­gnac in southwes­tern France, was foun­ded in the 1930s. The company owns the Marquis de Montes­quiou (photo) and Comte de Lauvia Arma­gnac brands. SPA is well estab­lished in the main Arma­gnac markets such as France, the United King­dom, Russia and the United States and has an excep­tio­nal stock of aged eaux-de-vie.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, the Marquis de Montes­quiou and Comte de Lauvia brands will be streng­the­ned in France and abroad. Alex­an­der Stein will be supported by Pernod Ricard in the new deve­lo­p­ment stra­tegy for the two brands.

Alex­an­der Stein, a well-known inno­va­tor in the spirits indus­try, has been working successfully with Pernod Ricard for years. Its premium gin brand Monkey 47 was fully acqui­red by Pernod Ricard in 2020. The two part­ners recently colla­bo­ra­ted to launch a bour­bon whis­key with haba­nero distil­late called Horse with No Name. Alex­an­der Stein also recei­ved legal support for this project from the Heuking team led by Bene­dikt Raisch.

Advi­sor Alex­an­der Stein: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Bene­dikt Raisch (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate M&A), Stuttgart

News

Düsseldorf/ Munich/ Osna­brück — ARQIS advi­sed zwei.7, the family office behind Osna­brück-based entre­pre­neur Kars­ten Wulf, as lead inves­tor in the Series A finan­cing round of Berlin-based health tech company Lindera GmbH.

In its finan­cing round, Lindera was able to secure one of the largest invest­ments in the care sector in the DACH region to date. Through the four new inves­tors advi­sed by ARQIS and with the parti­ci­pa­tion of the exis­ting group of share­hol­ders from the Rhein­gau Foun­ders envi­ron­ment, the company is thus solidly finan­ced for the coming years.

With its AI-based 3D motion track­ing tech­no­logy, Lindera enables flexi­ble motion analy­sis for all areas of the health­care sector — from geria­tric care to ortho­pe­dics and geria­trics to neuro­logy, rehab and therapy. By combi­ning medi­cal know­ledge and intel­li­gent AI tech­no­logy, precise gait para­me­ters can be gene­ra­ted and scien­ti­fi­cally vali­da­ted via the camera of a smart­phone or tablet. Lindera part­ners with leading compa­nies and univer­si­ties around the world to help people safely reach the limits of their mobi­lity with precise assess­ments as they age, play sports, and undergo therapy.

Zwei.7 is a single family office foun­ded by entre­pre­neur Kars­ten Wulf and specia­li­zes in inves­t­ing in compa­nies in the context of growth capi­tal and succes­sion plan­ning and incre­asingly in the tech­no­logy sector but also in real estate on a sustainable basis. zwei.7 brings exten­sive entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence in the further deve­lo­p­ment of invest­ments and has its own team to realize real added value for its port­fo­lio compa­nies in important areas such as stra­tegy, human resour­ces, sales, and digitalization.

The ARQIS team around Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem acted as consul­tants for zwei.7 for the first time and in this case accom­pa­nied three other entre­pre­neurs from Osna­brück in their co-invest­ments with zwei.7.

Advi­sor two.7: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/ Munich)

Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Lead), Dr. Mauritz von Einem (both Corporate/ Venture Capi­tal), Tobias Neufeld (Data Privacy), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Lisa-Marie Niklas (Labor), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP & Commer­cial); Coun­sel: Sina Janke (Compli­ance), Jens Knip­ping (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur (Lead Due Dili­gence), Anselm Graf, Louisa Graf (all Corporate/ Venture Capi­tal), Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Eva Kraszkie­wicz, Daniel Schle­mann (both Data Protec­tion), Virgi­nia Mäurer (Labor Law), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (both IP & Commercial).

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 60 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients.

News

Munich/ Karls­ruhe — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH, Bad Homburg, on an add-on acqui­si­tion for its port­fo­lio company proci­lon Group GmbH inclu­ding acqui­si­tion finan­cing by UniCre­dit Bank AG. Proci­lon acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Karls­ruhe-based soft­ware house intar­sys GmbH.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1996, intar­sys has become one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of solu­ti­ons for elec­tro­nic trust services such as signa­tures, seals, time stamps, veri­fi­ca­tion and preser­va­tion services and PDF/A implementations.

The proci­lon Group, head­quar­te­red in Taucha near Leip­zig and with offices in Berlin and Dort­mund, was foun­ded in 2001 and advi­ses custo­mers on all aspects of infor­ma­tion secu­rity and data protection.

GOF regu­larly advi­ses Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen on tran­sac­tions, parti­cu­larly in the tech­no­logy sector.

Legal advi­sors to Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz, Photo (Part­ner), Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Finance), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate; all Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Müller (Asso­ciate, Finance)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus (GOF) is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these areas of exper­tise, Gütt Olk Feld­haus also provi­des liti­ga­tion services.

News

Munich/ Frank­furt — Vision Health­care, a consu­mer health­care company with an exten­sive port­fo­lio of self-care brands and over-the-coun­ter products in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, has acqui­red Vitamaze GmbH (Vitamaze). Vision Health­care is head­quar­te­red in Belgium.

Vitamaze, based in Heidel­berg, Germany, was foun­ded in 2015 and is a leading Euro­pean supplier of vitamins, mine­rals and dietary supple­ments (VMS). The company opera­tes predo­mi­nantly through Amazon and e‑pharma channels.

Vision Health­ca­re’s exten­sive VMS and digi­tal marke­ting exper­tise provi­des Vitamaze with opti­mal condi­ti­ons for further growth, based on the company’s own expe­ri­ence in sales via Amazon and e‑pharma chan­nels. At the same time, Vision Health­care Group bene­fits from Vitama­ze’s exper­tise. The acqui­si­tion is in line with Vision Health­ca­re’s corpo­rate stra­tegy to further expand its leading direct-to-consu­mer health­care tech­no­logy plat­form for VMS and beauty and perso­nal care products in Europe.

Allen & Overy has exten­sive exper­tise in the life scien­ces sector. This enab­led the team to deve­lop a deep under­stan­ding of the busi­ness chal­lenges as well as the regu­la­tory envi­ron­ment on the mandate. The Life Scien­ces prac­tice at Allen & Overy compri­ses around 20 specia­list lawy­ers in Germany and covers the full range of legal issues, inclu­ding cross-border clients. Globally, the divi­sion has more than 90 specia­lists with a deep yet tech­ni­cal under­stan­ding of the entire life scien­ces sector.

Advi­sors Vision Health­care: Allen & Overy
Lead part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Veith and asso­ciate Linda Mayer (both Corporate/ M&A/ Life Scien­ces, Munich) as well as coun­sel Dr. Roman Kasten (Corporate/Private Equity, Frank­furt) and Eda Zhuleku (Life Sciences/Medical Law, Munich). The exten­ded team also included part­ners Dr. Heike Weber (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Jens Matthes (IP, Düssel­dorf) as well as coun­sel Dr. Sebas­tian Schulz (Labor Law) and Peter Wehner (Pensi­ons). The team also included senior asso­cia­tes Stefa­nie Günther (life sciences/public law, all Frank­furt), Catha­rina Glugla (data protec­tion), Anna Kräling (IP, both Düssel­dorf) and asso­cia­tes Sven Bisch­off (tax law) and Barbara Angene (employ­ment law, both Frankfurt).

Senior Asso­ciate Alvaro Sanchez-Bordona (Madrid) advi­sed on Spanish law.

About Allen & Overy

Allen & Overy is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with appro­xi­m­ately 5,500 employees, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 550 part­ners, in more than 40 loca­ti­ons world­wide. An up-to-date over­view of Allen & Over­y’s offices can be found here: allenovery.com/locations.

Allen & Overy is repre­sen­ted in Germany at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg and Munich with appro­xi­m­ately 220 lawy­ers, inclu­ding 49 part­ners. The lawy­ers advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies prima­rily in the areas of banking, finance and capi­tal markets law, corpo­rate law and M&A, tax law as well as other areas of busi­ness law. www.allenovery.de

News

Berlin — The US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global has acqui­red a stake in Hive Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH. Hive Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH’s Series A finan­cing round was led by Tiger Global as lead inves­tor; other inves­tors included Acti­vant and the
exis­ting inves­tors Early­bird and Picus. A total of around 34 million US dollars was inves­ted as part of the finan­cing round. — Tiger Global was advi­sed by Gleiss Lutz on this transaction.

Hive hand­les the entire fulfill­ment process for online retail­ers, from goods receipt at its own warehouse in Berlin to ship­ping to end custo­mers. With the Hive app, sellers receive precis­ely tail­o­red logi­stics analy­ses, fore­casts and sugges­ti­ons, for exam­ple, for the procu­re­ment of items with low stock levels.

About Tiger Global
Tiger Global is a private equity and venture capi­tal inves­tor with invest­ment focus in the Inter­net and tech­no­logy sectors with over $60 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since 2001, the company has inves­ted in tech­no­logy compa­nies in over 30 countries.

Gleiss Lutz has regu­larly advi­sed Tiger Global on its acti­vi­ties in Germany for many years, most recently on invest­ments in fintech unicorn Mambu, legal tech start-up BRYTER and the
soft­ware company Talon.One and on the sale of the stake in Flaschenpost.

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz 
Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Daniel Heck (Coun­sel, Hamburg; both Lead), Dr. Patrick Moss­ler (Part­ner), Dr. Michael Knier­bein (both Hamburg), Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel, Munich, all Corporate/M&A), Konrad H.J. Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frank­furt), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Schilde (both IP/IT, Berlin), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler, Dr. Eva Hols­ter­mann-Heup (all Labor Law, Munich), Simon Clemens Wegmann (Data Protec­tion, Berlin), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs, Matthias Hahn (all Public Commer­cial Law, Düsseldorf).

News

Munich — Germany’s most successful foun­ders, inclu­ding Bastian Nomi­nacher from Deca­corn Celo­nis and Jochen Engert, Daniel Krauss and André Schwämm­lein from the mobi­lity plat­form Flix­bus, are inves­t­ing in the new fund from UVC Part­ners. The venture capi­tal firm raised a total of EUR 255 million for its third fund, inclu­ding an oppor­tu­nity fund. In addi­tion to the top foun­ders, the inves­tors also include estab­lished family offices, such as those of the Strüng­mann, Klat­ten and Schörg­hu­ber fami­lies. With its unique ecosys­tem, UVC Part­ners aims to pave the way for the next gene­ra­tion of Euro­pean Unicorns.

In addi­tion to Bastian Nomi­nacher from Germany’s first Deca­corn Celo­nis and Jochen Engert, Daniel Krauss and André Schwämm­lein from the mobi­lity plat­form Flix­bus, the foun­ders of CANCOM and fos4X are among those who have inves­ted in the new fund from UVC Part­ners. UVC Part­ners has been working with many of these top foun­ders for years on a basis of trust. “Our own success story is closely intert­wi­ned with UVC Part­ners,” says Jochen Engert, foun­der of Flix­bus. “Having bene­fi­ted from the UVC ecosys­tem oursel­ves on a wide variety of levels in recent years, we know from our own expe­ri­ence how precis­ely UVC Part­ners can iden­tify the game­ch­an­gers of tomor­row and lead them to success. That’s why we’re inves­t­ing in the fund oursel­ves today and believe in the start­ups that will soon bene­fit from it.”

Bastian Nomi­nacher, co-CEO and co-foun­der of Germany’s first Deca­corn Celo­nis, has also been follo­wing UVC Part­ners’ success story for a long time. “It is admi­ra­ble what UVC Part­ners has built toge­ther with Unter­neh­mer­TUM over the past years. Nume­rous start­ups have been able to bene­fit from UVC Part­ners’ expe­ri­ence in buil­ding their busi­ness and ente­ring the market over the past years and I am proud to be part of this unique ecosys­tem in the TU Munich startup environment.”

Inves­t­ing in the game­ch­an­gers of tomorrow

UVC Part­ners’ third fund builds on the success of its two prede­ces­sors, incre­asing the invest­ment volume of the first tenfold. “The fact that foun­ders we have known for a long time and some of whom we have inves­ted in oursel­ves are now inves­t­ing in our fund is a great confir­ma­tion of our work,” says Johan­nes von Borries, Mana­ging Part­ner of UVC Part­ners. “With the new fund, we want to pick up right where we left off and once again invest in the game­ch­an­gers of tomorrow.”

In addi­tion to successful foun­ders, estab­lished family offices, such as those of the Strüng­mann, Klat­ten and Schörg­hu­ber fami­lies, as well as expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors such as Ann-Kris­tin Achleit­ner, also rely on UVC Part­ners’ fund. “I have been obser­ving and follo­wing the deve­lo­p­ment of UVC Part­ners for many years and am convin­ced that they will play an essen­tial role in a new Euro­pean wave of start-ups that successfully bring funda­men­tal inno­va­tions to market,” says Ann-Kris­tin Achleitner.

Unique ecosys­tem

One of the key reasons for UVC Part­ners’ success story: the unique ecosys­tem that the venture capi­tal firm provi­des to its start­ups. With its direct connec­tion to Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Euro­pe’s largest center for start-ups and inno­va­tion, UVC Part­ners sits in the middle of an estab­lished network of rese­arch, start-ups, medium-sized compa­nies, DAX corpo­ra­ti­ons and family offices. At the same time, UVC Part­ners can draw on the resour­ces of Unter­neh­mer­TUM: 5,000 course-parti­ci­pa­ting talents from TU Munich each year, 100 corpo­rate part­ners and 300 employees, inclu­ding, for exam­ple, 30 highly specia­li­zed arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence experts at the Initia­tive for Applied AI. This enables UVC Part­ners to opti­mally support start-ups throug­hout Europe with market entry, recrui­ting, networ­king or tech­no­lo­gi­cal issues.

Florian Biller, foun­der of Capmo, was also convin­ced by this special mixture of exper­tise, network and part­ner­ship. “Whether it’s recrui­ting, finding the best follow-on inves­tors, or networ­king within the B2B SaaS commu­nity, we certainly would­n’t be where we are today without UVC Part­ners,” says Biller. “That’s exactly why we value UVC Part­ners’ advice as an expe­ri­en­ced and foun­der-focu­sed voice on our board.”

After the successful fund­rai­sing, the work for UVC Part­ners is just begin­ning. “Toge­ther with the game­ch­an­gers of tomor­row, we want to make the world more sustainable, more effi­ci­ent and better,” says Dr. Ingo Pott­hof, Mana­ging Part­ner of UVC Part­ners. “We have shown in the past that we can contri­bute inten­si­vely to this with our entire ecosys­tem, inclu­ding invest­ments in Flix­bus, KONUX, Isar Aero­space, Capmo, TWAICE and many others. Now we want to conti­nue our successful course with the next gene­ra­tion of top founders.”

News

Paris / Zurich — The infra­struc­ture divi­sion of Ardian, one of the worl­d’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, and FiveT Hydro­gen, an invest­ment plat­form specia­li­zing in clean hydro­gen, have jointly laun­ched Hy24, www.hy24partners.com. As the worl­d’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture invest­ment plat­form, Hy24, a joint venture company owned 50/50 by the two part­ners, will invest in projects criti­cal to global decarbonization.

Hy24 is targe­ting €1.5 billion for its first fund, making the plat­form the mana­ger of the indus­try’s largest clean hydro­gen infra­struc­ture fund. The fund alre­ady has commit­ments of €800 million from a number of leading indus­trial and finan­cial inves­tors, all of whom are alre­ady invol­ved in clean hydro­gen. The initia­tive for the fund can be traced back to two inves­tor groups:

Air Liquide, Total­Ener­gies and VINCI Conces­si­ons are commit­ted to the deve­lo­p­ment of low-carbon and rene­wa­ble hydro­gen and have each pled­ged €100 million in funding as anchor investors.
Plug Power, Chart Indus­tries and Baker Hughes, Five­T’s foun­ding inves­tors, will also support the new fund as anchor investors.
In addi­tion, the major South Korean group Lotte Chemi­cal and AXA, one of the worl­d’s leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, will invest in the new fund as anchor inves­tors. Other major inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial groups with exten­sive commit­ments to carbon neutra­lity also plan to parti­ci­pate in the initia­tive. So far, these include Groupe ADP, Ball­ard, EDF and Schaeff­ler — with other part­ners expec­ted to join shortly.

The inter­na­tio­nal selec­tion process under which Hy24 was chosen as the invest­ment vehicle and the enga­ge­ment of indus­trial inves­tors was led by Société Générale.

Hy24 plans to bring toge­ther more inter­na­tio­nal insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and indus­try play­ers to fund hydro­gen projects around the world on a large scale.

Hy24 combi­nes Ardian’s proven infra­struc­ture invest­ment exper­tise and asset manage­ment capa­bi­li­ties with FiveT Hydro­gen’s exten­sive access and expe­ri­ence in the hydro­gen value chain. This combi­na­tion crea­tes the largest and most convin­cing part­ner for energy compa­nies and inves­tors who want to contri­bute to the expan­sion of the hydro­gen infra­struc­ture. It also responds to the enorm­ous demand from govern­ments, compa­nies and inves­tors who want to support global climate targets with their invest­ments in hydro­gen. Recent analyses[2] show that by 2050, up to 100 tril­lion people will have to live on the streets. US dollars of invest­ment in hydro­gen will be requi­red to achieve green­house gas neutrality.

Hy24’s first fund is laun­ched under Article 9 of the Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (“SFDR”) as an impact fund with the aim of redu­cing global carbon emis­si­ons. It will scale proven tech­no­lo­gies into mature infra­struc­ture assets that gene­rate predic­ta­ble cash flows and offer inves­tors exclu­sive access to a new asset class with the poten­tial to grow at a pace compa­ra­ble to rene­wa­ble energy. The port­fo­lio will be diver­si­fied across diffe­rent regi­ons (Europe, Ameri­cas and Asia) and across the value chain: from upstream projects such as green hydro­gen produc­tion to down­stream projects such as vehicle fleet and refue­ling stati­ons. The value crea­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties are signi­fi­cant and include both job crea­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion — espe­ci­ally in sectors where progress has been slow.

Mathias Burg­hardt, Head of Ardian Infra­struc­ture and Member of Ardian’s Execu­tive Commit­tee, said: “We are proud to have been selec­ted by some of the worl­d’s leading indus­trial compa­nies and inves­tors to lead this initia­tive. The Euro­pean Union has only recently announ­ced the streng­thening of its efforts to achieve climate goals. Just before the start of the UN Climate Change Confe­rence in 2021, it is a great respon­si­bi­lity to lead such a plat­form. In the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies, we are one of the inves­tors from the very begin­ning. Today, our plat­form has a capa­city of 7.5 GW for heat and rene­wa­bles. We expect a simi­larly promi­sing deve­lo­p­ment in the hydro­gen sector. Moreo­ver, the joint venture is exactly in line with Ardian Infra­struc­tu­re’s way of working. We are confi­dent that Hy24 will play a leading role in acce­le­ra­ting hydro­gen deploy­ment, as buil­ding hydro­gen capa­city is criti­cal to decar­bo­ni­zing our economies.”

Pierre-Etienne Franc, co-foun­der and CEO of FiveT Hydro­gen, said, “This is a major step forward for FiveT Hydro­gen. Through this unique part­ner­ship, we expect to mobi­lize €15 billion in invest­ments that will serve as a cata­lyst for the rapid expan­sion of the indus­try. The world urgen­tly needs to acce­le­rate the energy tran­si­tion and reduce carbon emis­si­ons, inclu­ding in energy-inten­sive, hard-to-contain sectors like trans­por­ta­tion and indus­trial production.”

Hy24’s Board of Direc­tors consists of Laurent Fayol­las (Presi­dent), Pierre-Etienne Franc (CEO), Amir Sharifi (Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer), Nico­las Brahy (Gene­ral Coun­sel, Public Affairs and ESG Direc­tor) and Sébas­tien Pail­lat (Mana­ging Direc­tor, Invest­ments). A recruit­ment process is curr­ently under­way to build a dedi­ca­ted global team that will operate in France, Switz­er­land, the US and Singapore.

About Hy24

The Hy24 joint venture was estab­lished jointly by Ardian and FiveT Hydro­gen as the first major global invest­ment plat­form focu­sed exclu­si­vely on hydro­gen infra­struc­ture. It grew out of an initia­tive laun­ched by leading indus­trial compa­nies: Air Liquide, Total­Ener­gies, VINCI Conces­si­ons, Plug Power, Baker Hughes, Chart Indus­tries and AXA, a leading insti­tu­tio­nal investor.

The new invest­ment plat­form combi­nes exten­sive indus­trial exper­tise with the ability to acce­le­rate the scaling of hydro­gen solu­ti­ons along the entire value chain. These include produc­tion, conver­sion, storage, supply and use. HY24 will support large early-stage projects as well as stra­te­gic projects to become major energy infra­struc­tures. hy24partners.com

About Ardian

Ardian is one of the worl­d’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$114 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its inves­tors. With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 750 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,200 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate. www.ardian.com

News

Berlin — The new WORLD FUND VC aims to invest €350 million to support foun­ders who are using tech solu­ti­ons to fight the climate crisis and help decar­bo­nize the planet. — A team led by YPOG part­ners Fabian Euhus and Helder Schnitt­ker provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the World Fund (WF World Fund Manage­ment GmbH).

With more than 60 inves­tors, inclu­ding current and former Euro­pean tech foun­ders, the World Fund was initia­ted by global search engine Ecosia and focu­ses on tech­no­lo­gies that can reduce carbon emis­si­ons in areas such as energy, trans­por­ta­tion, food and agri­cul­ture, manu­fac­tu­ring and buil­dings. The World Fund invests in early- and growth-stage compa­nies with the highest climate perfor­mance poten­tial (CPP), focu­sing on emis­si­ons reduc­tion poten­tial of at least 100 mega­tons of CO2 emis­si­ons per year in indus­tries such as energy, trans­por­ta­tion, cons­truc­tion, food and agri­cul­ture. To assess and measure CPP, the World Fund has deve­lo­ped its own metho­do­logy in exch­ange with Project Draw­down, with Crane and with TU Berlin.

The manage­ment team consists of part­ners Tim Schu­ma­cher, inves­tor and entre­pre­neur, VC inves­tor Daria Saha­rova, sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor Craig Douglas, and climate tech thought leader Dani­jel Visevic . The World Fund has set a goal of cutting two giga­tons of emis­si­ons by 2040 — equi­va­lent to four percent of all global emis­si­ons. With this commit­ment, the World Fund puts the health of the planet at the center of every decis­ion it makes, because climate return is an early indi­ca­tor of finan­cial return. From compa­nies deve­lo­ping alter­na­tive prote­ins to energy storage solu­ti­ons and smart char­ging infra­struc­ture as a service, the World Fund targets breakth­rough compa­nies that have the poten­tial to become market leaders. The need for venture capi­tal in climate tech­no­logy is over­whel­ming: a recent study by the German Energy Agency found that Germany alone needs €22.7 billion to achieve a posi­tive climate impact by 2030.

About World Fund

The first closing of the World Fund is plan­ned for the first half of 2022; the fund has alre­ady star­ted with initial invest­ments. His motto: We back entre­pre­neurs buil­ding climate tech for a rege­ne­ra­tive world. www.worldfund.vc

Consul­tant World Fund: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Co-Lead/­Cor­po­rate, Struc­tu­ring), Partner
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead/­Ta­xes), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Partner
Joel El-Qalqili (Struc­tu­ring, Impact & ESG), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Stefa­nie Nagel (Corpo­rate, Regu­la­tory), Associate
Anto­nia von Treu­en­feld (Impact & ESG), Associate
Dr. Fried­rich Wöhlecke (Taxes), Associate

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

News

Magdeburg/ Munich — One of Germany’s largest energy service provi­ders is being sold. The Swedish invest­ment fund EQT sells its 75 percent stake in Magde­burg-based Getec. The buyer is Infra­struc­ture Invest­ments Fund (“IIF”), an invest­ment firm advi­sed by J.P. Morgan Invest­ment Manage­ment. — GEH, the family holding company of company foun­der Karl Gerhold, is also selling its shares. EQT holds 75 percent of the shares, Gerhold the remai­ning 25 percent. The autho­ri­ties still have to approve the tran­sac­tion. Closing is expec­ted at the end of the first quar­ter of 2022.

As various media repor­ted a few weeks ago, Getec could be valued at twenty times its Ebitda of around 200 million euros in the event of a sale — that would be around 4 billion euros inclu­ding debt. The high valua­tion is supported by the fact that Ebitda margins in this sector are often in the double-digit range, espe­ci­ally for busi­nesses with good capa­city utiliza­tion. Compa­nies in this segment are ther­e­fore very profitable.

G+E GETEC, head­quar­te­red in Magde­burg, Germany, offers indus­trial and real estate compa­nies custo­mi­zed, effi­ci­ent and sustainable energy solu­ti­ons desi­gned and imple­men­ted by highly quali­fied engi­nee­ring teams. The company was foun­ded in 1993 by Dr. Karl Gerhold and today opera­tes more than 11,500 power gene­ra­tion plants in nine Euro­pean count­ries with more than 5.2 GWth total instal­led capa­city and over 2,200 employees. G+E GETEC is highly inte­gra­ted into its custo­mers’ opera­ti­ons and provi­des essen­tial services under long-term contracts.

Since the acqui­si­tion of EQT Infra­struc­ture as the new majo­rity share­hol­der in 2017, GEH and EQT Infra­struc­ture have jointly taken a number of initia­ti­ves to future-proof GETEC. The company was driven by a new manage­ment team of expe­ri­en­ced execu­ti­ves led by CEO Thomas Wagner and supported by a high-cali­ber indus­try advi­sory board. Key achie­ve­ments include the deve­lo­p­ment of a world-class sales func­tion, the opti­miza­tion of G+E GETEC’s opera­ti­ons, the digi­ta­liza­tion of the equip­ment port­fo­lio and the expan­sion of the range of envi­ron­men­tally friendly solutions.

In addi­tion to strong orga­nic growth, G+E GETEC, with the support of EQT Infra­struc­ture and GEH, has deve­lo­ped from a German to a Euro­pean market leader through six large-scale mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons and has estab­lished a strong foot­hold in Switz­er­land, Italy and the Netherlands.

GETEC Ener­gie Holding, EQT Infra­struc­ture and the manage­ment of G+E GETEC are confi­dent that IIF is the right part­ner to conti­nue this excep­tio­nal progress and further G+E GETEC’s mission to support indus­trial and real estate custo­mers across Europe on their decar­bo­niza­tion journey.

Matthew LeBlanc, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at IIF, says: “We are exci­ted to invest in G+E GETEC, a leading sustainable energy services company and a stra­te­gic plat­form uniquely posi­tio­ned to cata­lyze the energy tran­si­tion across Europe. We look forward to buil­ding on the unpar­al­le­led track record of growth and inno­va­tion that EQT Infra­struc­ture, Dr. Karl Gerhold and the manage­ment team have demons­tra­ted. We look forward to the signi­fi­cant addi­tio­nal invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to support the coll­ec­tive growth ambi­ti­ons of G+E GETEC’s custo­mers and employees.”

News

Bochum/ Hanburg — Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners sells Tenado to Reva­lize Inc, a US port­fo­lio company of private equity fund TA Asso­cia­tes. DLA Piper advi­sed Reva­lize, Inc. on the acqui­si­tion of German CAD soft­ware provi­der Tenado. The acqui­si­tion of Tenado is a stra­te­gic addi­tion to Reva­li­ze’s exis­ting suite of soft­ware solu­ti­ons, which includes CPQ, design, mode­ling, simu­la­tion and data analytics.

Tenado, head­quar­te­red in Bochum, Germany, specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of CAD soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the metal and wood trades, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, fire protec­tion and traf­fic management.
Head­quar­te­red in the U.S., Reva­lize is a leading global provi­der of indus­try-speci­fic reve­nue opera­ti­ons soft­ware for manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, their distri­bu­tors and their plan­ners across a wide range of indus­tries. The company’s soft­ware solu­ti­ons include tools for impro­ved shop­ping expe­ri­en­ces, sales cycles and manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses through a SaaS plat­form for CPQ, PIM, design appli­ca­ti­ons, engi­nee­ring simu­la­ti­ons, visua­liza­tion tools, AR/VR and more.

About Maxburg Capi­tal Partners

Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment manage­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region. Foun­ded by three part­ners with many years of expe­ri­ence as entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors in public and private equity, Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the aim of achie­ving lasting and sustainable value growth.

Based on seve­ral funds and a total fund volume of € 600 million, Maxburg has an excep­tio­nally flexi­ble invest­ment mandate: we actively invest across the entire range of capi­tal struc­tures — from equity to near-equity finan­cing opti­ons such as mezza­nine and mezza­nine-like forms of invest­ment. We hold both majo­rity and mino­rity inte­rests in compa­nies. In addi­tion, Maxburg has the option of taking an active share­hol­der role in listed compa­nies. Our finan­cings range from €10 million to €100 million per tran­sac­tion. www.maxburg.com

The DLA Piper team in Germany was jointly led by Part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran and Coun­sel Dr. Phil­ipp Clemens (both Corpo­rate, Hamburg) and also included Part­ner Semin O (Anti­trust, Frank­furt) and Senior Asso­ciate Frie­de­rike Rickers (Corpo­rate, Hamburg). In the U.S., Reva­lize was advi­sed by corpo­rate part­ner Brad­ley Gersich and supported by of coun­sel Michael Cubell.

About DLA Piper
DLA Piper is one of the worl­d’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Frank­furt am Main/ Fürth — VR Equi­typ­art­ner acqui­res a mino­rity stake in the Solec­trix Group based in Fürth. The part­ner­ship is inten­ded in parti­cu­lar to leverage further growth poten­tial. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Solec­trix specia­li­zes in complex “high-end elec­tro­nics” solu­ti­ons for the medi­cal tech­no­logy, auto­mo­tive, film and manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tries. As an inno­va­tor and inde­pen­dent full-service provi­der, Solec­trix deve­lops and manu­fac­tures sophisti­ca­ted embedded elec­tro­nics on behalf of custo­mers and also offers speci­ally deve­lo­ped elec­tro­nic compon­ents and systems “off-the-shelf”. One focus is on FPGA tech­no­logy for image proces­sing solu­ti­ons. Here, Solec­trix supports its custo­mers throug­hout the entire deve­lo­p­ment chain, from the concept study to system design (hard­ware confi­gu­ra­tion and soft­ware programming) and proto­type deve­lo­p­ment to product certi­fi­ca­tion. The focus is on complex medium-sized and large projects that require exten­sive know-how. The sale of our own products forms the core of our future growth stra­tegy. With its more than 100 highly specia­li­zed employees, the company is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in a market that is growing over the long term.

The sellers are the three foun­ding part­ners and mana­ging direc­tors Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert. All of them will conti­nue to be available to the company in the long term, both as majo­rity share­hol­ders and as mana­ging direc­tors. In addi­tion, the port­fo­lio for embedded systems in the medi­cal tech­no­logy, imaging, auto­mo­tive, indus­trial / plant engi­nee­ring sectors is to be further deve­lo­ped toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and the supra­re­gio­nal distri­bu­tion of the company’s own products is to be expan­ded. If there is an appro­priate stra­te­gic fit, acqui­si­ti­ons are also to be realized.

“With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have found a long-term orien­ted, capi­tal-strong and expe­ri­en­ced equity inves­tor. Due to the Corona pande­mic, the process was delayed, but the mutual trust in VR Equi­typ­art­ner’s mino­rity concept was built all the stron­ger,” Jürgen Stei­nert, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Solec­trix Group, looks back and adds: “Solec­trix has grown steadily in recent years — so we are plea­sed that the new inves­tor will support us in lever­aging further growth potential.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor at VR Equi­typ­art­ner, rein­forces the joint venture: “Solec­trix is a highly attrac­tive company with excel­lent manage­ment and a moti­va­ted and tech­ni­cally specia­li­zed team in a growing market. Our goal of the coope­ra­tion is to conti­nue the success story — for the custo­mers and the employees in the region. ”

About VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH 

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

The tran­sac­tion team at VR Equitypartner:
Michael Vogt, Klaus Schnei­der, Ömer Kaya, Alex­an­der Koch, Frank Wildenberg

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Finan­cial: SGP Schnei­der Geiwitz GmbH Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft (Michael Hinter­hol­zer and team)

Commer­cial: Blue­mont Consul­ting GmbH (Markus Frän­kel and team)

Legal / Tax: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP (Dr. Michael Cziesla, Norman Wasse, Dr. Heiko Kermer and Dr. Marion von Grönheim)

News

Munich, Germany — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Block­dae­mon, the worl­d’s largest block­chain infra­struc­ture company for node manage­ment (NFT) and staking, on its acqui­si­tion of German company Anyblock Analy­tics to expand its NFT offe­ring and grow its Euro­pean presence.

Anyblock is an infra­struc­ture plat­form that provi­des API, on-chain analy­tics tools, moni­to­ring and node hosting services for various block­chain networks. As part of the acqui­si­tion, the Anyblock team joins Block­dae­mon, and the estab­lish­ment of a local presence in Germany conti­nues Block­dae­mon’s expan­sion in Europe.

The acqui­si­tion signi­fi­cantly streng­thens Block­dae­mon’s port­fo­lio of offe­rings, parti­cu­larly through the expan­sion of its multi-chain API suite, Ubiquity. As Block­dae­mon also deepens its infra­struc­ture support for the NFT space, Anyblock’s team and tools will help support tran­sac­tions behind the NFT ecosystem.

Consul­tant Block­dae­mon: Bird & Bird
Part­ner Stefan Münch, Corporate/M&A, Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner and Asso­ciate Marcel Nurk, all Corporate/M&A, Munich, Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann and Asso­ciate Timo Förs­ter, both Finan­cing & Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt, Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg and Asso­ciate Goek­han Kosak, both Tech & Comms/Commercial, Part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer, Coun­sel Sandy Gerlach and Asso­cia­tes Gizem Erdo­gan and Sven Fischer, all Labor Law, Asso­ciate Domi­nic Igel, IP, all Munich, Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Asso­ciate Tamy Tietze, both Anti­trust, Düsseldorf.

Back­ground:
A parti­cu­lar chall­enge in the tran­sac­tion was the regu­la­tory analy­sis of the busi­ness, which includes both services and tran­sac­tions rela­ted to tokens. Most tokens have been trea­ted as finan­cial instru­ments by the German regu­la­tor BaFin since 2013 and conse­quently most services rela­ted to them are also regu­la­ted finan­cial services. With over eight years of expe­ri­ence in the field of crypto-assets and crypto-regu­la­tion, the Bird & Bird team was able to bring this tran­sac­tion to a close without delay.

Block­dae­mon has grown stron­gly in the past year, incre­asing its valua­tion by 70 times. The company has also deployed more than 25,000 nodes, aver­a­ged more than $10 billion in deployed assets per month, and greatly expan­ded its global foot­print in cloud regi­ons and diver­si­fied data centers. The addi­tion of two new stra­te­gic inves­tors — Tiger Global Manage­ment and JPMor­gan — to Block­dae­mon demons­tra­tes the respec­ted firms’ confi­dence in the company’s deve­lo­p­ment and growth, and their incre­asing inte­rest in cryp­to­cur­ren­cies and block­chain as they become more mainstream.

News

Friedberg/ Frank­furt a.M. — Mainova AG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the energy service provi­der mobi­heat GmbH. Mainova was advi­sed by McDer­mott Will & Emery on this transaction.

The tran­sac­tion will also include mobi­hea­t’s foreign compa­nies in Austria and Switz­er­land. The sellers of the shares are Ener­gie­ver­sor­gung Offen­bach AG (EVO) and the mobi­heat foun­ders. “There is a lot going on in the energy sector, it’s all about new oppor­tu­ni­ties, future viabi­lity and stra­te­gic part­ner­ships — and this is also the case at Mainova AG,” explains Norman Wasse, Part­ner at McDermott.

mobi­heat GmbH, based in Fried­berg, Bava­ria, specia­li­zes in mobile heating, cooling and steam control centers in German-spea­king count­ries. The acqui­si­tion of mobi­heat will enable Mainova to further expand its own energy services business.

Advi­sors to Mainova AG: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Kian Tauser, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Labor, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt, LL.M., Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel; both Finance), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch (IT/IP, Munich), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Lisa Schick­ling, Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (both Corporate/M&A), Carina Kant (Anti­trust Law, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Lukas Deutz­mann (Labor Law, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Isabella Kätzl­meier (IT/IP, Munich), Fran­ziska Leub­ner (Labor Law, Munich), Elif Sultan Üzüm­ovali (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Tina Zeller (Real Estate)

News

Hamburg — Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. has closed its second venture capi­tal fund with a Euro­pean focus and conti­nues the fund series with Lennertz & Co. Venture Europe III. Its prede­ces­sor fund invests at least 70 percent in selec­ted target funds such as Cherry Ventures, DN Capi­tal, North­zone, Project A or Target Global. The successful concept of leading VC funds and direct invest­ments is thus continued.

“Due to stron­gly increased valua­tions of the inves­ted compa­nies, we have closed the second Venture Europe fund. Key contri­bu­tors to this decis­ion were invest­ments in the neobro­ker Trade Repu­blic, the event plat­form Hopin, the 10-minute deli­very service Flink or the foreign payment service provi­der Remitly, which attrac­ted a lot of atten­tion from users and inves­tors in recent months,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo), mana­ging part­ner of Lennertz & Co.

Like­wise, direct invest­ments had a signi­fi­cant impact on the perfor­mance of the second venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on Europe. For exam­ple, Lennertz & Co. inves­ted in the digi­tal insu­rance specia­list Wefox with the fund. Another invest­ment was made in the Munich-based start-up Konux, which is conside­red a leader in AI-supported moni­to­ring of track systems. Also in the port­fo­lio is a direct invest­ment in Sorare. The company opera­tes a fantasy soccer game that allows play­ers to buy/sell and manage a virtual team using digi­tal player cards. The game uses a tech­no­logy based on the block­chain system Ethereum.

The special fund concept of Lennertz & Co has proven itself. 70 percent of the capi­tal is inves­ted in very good target funds. Their port­fo­lios include compa­nies such as Trade Repu­blic, Hopin and Flink, which have alre­ady made a name for them­sel­ves. 30 percent is inves­ted in direct invest­ments such as the digi­tal insu­rance specia­list Wefox, which now also enjoys a high valuation.

“More than ever, we are convin­ced of our concept of a mix of invest­ments in the best venture capi­tal teams in Europe and direct invest­ments,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz. “We see that the local venture capi­tal scene is well on the way to coming of age. Young Euro­pean compa­nies with first-class digi­tal busi­ness models curr­ently offer a high poten­tial for success, in which we want to parti­ci­pate with our clients. That is why we are conti­nuing the fund series with Lennertz & Co. Venture Europe III and have alre­ady star­ted investing.”

About Lennertz & Co.

Lennertz & Co. is an owner-mana­ged family office with a clear focus on the further deve­lo­p­ment and value enhance­ment of its clients’ assets. For this purpose, their indi­vi­dual family, busi­ness and asset situa­tions are exami­ned in detail and on an ongo­ing basis, taking into account the legally and fiscally rele­vant frame­work conditions.
The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the perso­nal prefe­ren­ces of the clients. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co., for exam­ple in the assess­ment of global invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, their selec­tion and their discreet implementation.

As an entre­pre­neu­rial multi family office, Lennertz & Co. shares its clients’ demand for fast, profound and secure decis­i­ons. In order to thoroughly examine the oppor­tu­ni­ties that arise in the private equity segment for its clients, Lennertz & Co. has a compe­tent team at its dispo­sal that can look back on deca­des of private equity expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, the advi­sory board consists of renow­ned indus­try and private equity experts such as Prof. Dr. Hein­rich von Pierer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wuche­rer, Stefan Theis, Daniel Milleg and Florian Heinemann.

News

Frank­furt am Main — ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to Veganz Group AG (the “Company” or “Veganz”) the Berlin-based purely plant-base­d/­ve­gan food company awarded Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in 20211), on its successful initial public offe­ring (“IPO”) on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Frank­fur­ter Wertpapierbörse).

In the course of the road­show process, all 547,120 offe­red ordi­nary bearer shares with no par value of the Company (“Shares”) were placed with inves­tors in the IPO at EUR 87.00 per Share. The place­ment compri­sed 388,733 new shares from a capi­tal increase, 87,024 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the selling share­hol­ders as well as an over-allot­ment consis­ting of 71,363 exis­ting shares from the holdings of the lending share­hol­ders. Ther­e­fore, the total volume of the IPO amounts to around EUR 47.6 million.

Gross proceeds from the sale of the new shares in the IPO amount to around EUR 33.8 million. Veganz intends to use the net proceeds prima­rily for the estab­lish­ment of the new produc­tion site near Berlin as well as invest­ments in the further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth, e.g. for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, expan­sion of field force, marke­ting and further expan­sion in selec­ted Euro­pean countries.

“Since our foun­da­tion more than 10 years ago we at Veganz are pioneers, setting stan­dards in our markets. Having accom­plished the first ‘vegan IPO’ in Germany is another mile­stone in our history. We welcome all new inves­tors at Veganz and cordi­ally invite ever­yone to parti­ci­pate with us in the poten­tial of the vegan food market. Now, it is about imple­men­ting our growth stra­tegy and fully seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties for Veganz”, reflects Jan Bredack, foun­der and CEO of Veganz.

The shares of Veganz carry the inter­na­tio­nal secu­ri­ties iden­ti­fi­ca­tion number (ISIN) DE000A3E5ED2, the German Secu­ri­ties Code (Wert­pa­pier-Kenn-Nummer (WKN)) A3E5ED and the ticker symbol VEZ.

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners acted as IPO advi­sor to the Company.

About Veganz

Veganz — Good for you, better for ever­yone — is the brand for plant-based food. Foun­ded in Berlin in 2011, Veganz became known as the Euro­pean vegan super­mar­ket chain. With a colorful and life-affir­ming company philo­so­phy, Veganz mana­ged to break open the vegan niche and estab­lish the plant-based nutri­tion trend on the market. The current product port­fo­lio includes around 120 products (101 active products as of Septem­ber 30, 2021) across 17 cate­go­ries and is available in more than half of all Euro­pean count­ries and in 22,264 points of sale (POS) globally as of June 30, 2021, exclu­ding Veganz’ own three stores in Berlin, Germany. In addi­tion, the Veganz product port­fo­lio is conti­nuously being expan­ded to include high-quality, inno­va­tive items and the sustainable value chain is constantly being impro­ved. For this commit­ment, Veganz was the only German company to be voted one of the top inno­va­tive brands and Germany’s most inno­va­tive food brand in an exclu­sive Handels­blatt ranking in 2021.

About ACXIT

ACXIT Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate finance and finan­cial advi­sory firm for mid-market clients, and entre­pre­neurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, we offer our clients compre­hen­sive corpo­rate finance advi­sory services inclu­ding M&A and capi­tal markets advi­sory as well as debt and stra­te­gic advi­sory. As an inde­pen­dent, priva­tely owned firm we main­tain offices and repre­sen­ta­ti­ons in Frank­furt, Munich, Zurich and New York as well as strong alli­ances in the UK and France. Our clients are corpo­ra­ti­ons, family-owned busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, finan­cial spon­sors and family offices.

Tran­sac­tion Team ACXIT Capi­tal Partners:
Jens Tschau­der, Mana­ging Partner
Chris­tian Ende­richs, Director
Simon Vorwerk, Analyst
Julius Ohlen­busch, Analyst

Good­win advi­sed Berlin-based Veganz Group AG on all corpo­rate law issues in connec­tion with the imple­men­ta­tion and struc­tu­ring of its IPO.
The Good­win team was led by Dr. Markus Käpplin­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate) with support from Heiko Penn­dorf (Part­ner, Tax), Felix Krüger (Coun­sel, Tax) and asso­cia­tes Jochim Robert, Bastian Schmack (both Corpo­rate) and commer­cial lawyer Nadine Gommel (Corpo­rate).

In close coope­ra­tion with the Good­win team, the law firm NOERR (led by Dr. Laurenz Wieneke) advi­sed on all capi­tal market law issues.

News

Munich — LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, a global provi­der of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries, has deci­ded to sell its majo­rity stake in Adap­tri­city, a cloud-based Swiss network analy­sis plat­form and premium provi­der of smart grid solu­ti­ons, as part of its stra­te­gic focus on the wiring systems busi­ness. Proven­tis Part­ners advi­sed LEONI on this transaction.

The buyer is the inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting Secure Meters Ltd. head­quar­te­red in Udai­pur, Raja­sthan, India. The acqui­rer is from Proven­tis Part­ners’ Mergers Alli­ance network and was advi­sed by Singhi Advi­sors (India). For Secure Meters, Adap­tri­ci­ty’s modu­lar and cloud-based solu­tion plat­form for distri­bu­tion grid opera­tors repres­ents an ideal stra­te­gic addi­tion to its own product port­fo­lio. Secure Meters plans to invest in further expan­sion of the tech­no­logy and inte­grate Adap­tri­ci­ty’s products into its inter­na­tio­nal sales acti­vi­ties. Adap­tri­city will operate as a wholly owned subsi­diary of Secure Meters Group.

Gerd Schus­ter, Head of Stra­tegy and M&A at LEONI AG: “Proven­tis supported us throug­hout the M&A process with its profound indus­try know­ledge in the energy sector and its Mergers Alli­ance network.”

The role of Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners acted as exclu­sive M&A advi­sor to LEONI in the prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of a struc­tu­red sales process, the consul­ting services included the prepa­ra­tion of marke­ting and tran­sac­tion docu­ments, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and approach of poten­tial inves­tors inclu­ding manage­ment presen­ta­ti­ons as well as support in the due dili­gence and nego­tia­tion of the tran­sac­tion. Proven­tis Part­ners worked with Singhi Advi­sors, its Mergers Alli­ance part­ner in India, who advi­sed the buyer on this tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion team of Proven­tis Part­ners: Pierre Schnei­der (Part­ner, Munich), Flo- rian Liepert (Direc­tor, Munich) and Petr Maxmi­lian Hajkr (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich).

About LEONI AG
LEONI AG, Nurem­berg, is a global supplier of products and solu­ti­ons for energy and data manage­ment in the auto­mo­tive and other indus­tries. LEONI’s largest custo­mer base is the global auto­mo­tive, commer­cial vehicle and supplier indus­try, for which the company deve­lops and produ­ces both stan­dard and special cables as well as custo­mer-speci­fic wiring systems and rela­ted compon­ents. www.leoni.com

About Secure Meters Ltd.
Secure Meters Ltd. is a priva­tely held Indian multi­na­tio­nal company with opera­ti­ons in India, the United King­dom, Austra­lia, Sweden, Italy and the Middle East. Secure Meters is a solu­tion provi­der in the field of reve­nue manage­ment, power quality and energy effi­ci­ency and is active with its product solu­ti­ons in more than 50 count­ries. Secure Meters deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products for measu­ring and moni­to­ring energy consump­tion and has instal­led over 50 million meters world­wide and is one of the leading suppli­ers of smart and prepaid meters for elec­tri­city and gas. www.securemeters.com

About Adap­tri­city AG
Since its foun­ding in 2014 as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich, Adap­tri­city AG, based in Zurich, has estab­lished itself as a Smart­Grid inno­va­tion driver in the German-spea­king region. Adap­tri­ci­ty’s soft­ware tools enable the merging of tradi­tio­nal network plan­ning with data-based algo­rithms. The object of the company is, among other things, the deve­lo­p­ment, distri­bu­tion and licen­sing of soft­ware products for the simu­la­tion, opti­miza­tion, plan­ning and moni­to­ring of power distri­bu­tion networks, as well as the provi­sion of consul­ting services in the field of distri­bu­tion network opera­tors. Their inno­va­tive grid analy­tics tools combine tradi­tio­nal grid plan­ning prac­ti­ces with data-driven algo­rithms to ensure that all meter­ing data available on the power grid (e.g., smart meter data) is used opti­mally. www.adaptri- city.com

About Proven­tis Partners
Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With more than 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and more than 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A consul­tants with offices in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als & Chemi­cals, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy & Sustaina­bi­lity. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. The members of the Mergers Alli­ance, with its more than 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners and thus its clients with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa. www.proventis.com

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