ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — After a very successful growth course, AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG (“Afinum”), advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, has sold its stake in Perfect Drive Sports Group GmbH (“Perfect Drive Sports Group”) to the inves­tor Bregal Unternehmerkapital.

POELLATH advi­sed the German manage­ment of PDSG on the transaction.

Perfect Drive Sports Group, based in Hano­ver, Lower Saxony, is Euro­pe’s largest e‑commerce company for golfing supplies. The offer includes the entire range of golf equip­ment, clot­hing and access­ories with more than 20,000 items. The group combi­nes the brands All4Golf (“A4G”) based in Hano­ver, Germany and Club­house Golf (“CHG”) based in Manches­ter, UK. Both brands are market leaders in their respec­tive home markets with high custo­mer loyalty and, in addi­tion to their online presence, also operate retail stores in Hano­ver and Salford, UK, respec­tively. Across the Group, the company employs around 140 people.

POELLATH advi­sed the German manage­ment of Perfect Drive Sports Group on the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity), Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis has advi­sed Tele Colum­bus AG on a capi­tal increase of EUR 475 million. The capi­tal increase was ente­red in the Company’s commer­cial regis­ter on May 12, 2021. The new shares were admit­ted to trading on May 14, 2021.

In the course of the capi­tal increase with subscrip­tion rights resol­ved on April 17, 2021, a total of 146,109,887 new no-par value shares were issued. The majo­rity of the new shares were subscri­bed and purcha­sed by Kublai GmbH, the majo­rity share­hol­der of the Company. The gross proceeds from the issue will be used in parti­cu­lar to achieve a sustainable capi­tal struc­ture for the Company and to further imple­ment its fiber cham­pion strategy.

With the comple­tion of the capi­tal increase, Kublai GmbH now holds 94.6 % of the share capi­tal and voting rights in Tele Colum­bus AG.

Tele Colum­bus AG is one of the leading fiber-optic network opera­tors in Germany with a reach of more than three million house­holds. The company, which is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and has offices in Leip­zig, Unter­föh­ring, Hamburg, Ratin­gen and Chem­nitz, has been listed in the Prime Stan­dard of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange since Janu­ary 2015.

Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Tele Colum­bus with the follo­wing team:
Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich: Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Lead), Dr. Achim Herfs (both Capi­tal Markets), Tim Volk­hei­mer (US Capi­tal Markets); Asso­ciate: Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (Capi­tal Markets)

About Kirk­land & Ellis:
With appro­xi­m­ately 2,900 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

News

Zurich — Carole Acker­mann and Chris­toph Sutter and the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund are inves­t­ing 11 million Swiss francs in the impact inves­t­ing plat­form Yova. Inves­tors can use the plat­form to invest in sustainable compa­nies from as little as 1,000 Swiss francs. The young company says: “You don’t have to be a finan­cial expert to invest with Yova. You decide which topics are important to you. We take care of the rest”. Yova was foun­ded by Till­mann Lang and Erik Gloer­feld. The launch in Germany is curr­ently being prepared.

Zurich — Yova, an impact inves­t­ing plat­form foun­ded in Zurich in 2017, raises CHF 11 million in a recently closed funding round. Yova is finan­ced by well-known inves­tors, inclu­ding Carole Acker­mann (CEO at Diamonds­cull; VR at BKW, BVZ, BNP Pari­bas Switz­er­land, Alli­anz Suisse and others) or Chris­toph Sutter (Axpo, foun­der of South­pole as well as mycli­mate) as well as the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund.

“Yova strikes a chord with the times, and espe­ci­ally with the youn­ger gene­ra­tion,” explains Carole Acker­mann. “Young people want to help shape a sustainable world, but don’t want to miss out on a trans­pa­rent and tech­no­lo­gi­cally state-of-the-art one.” Till­mann Lang, CEO and co-foun­der of Yova adds, “These funds will allow us to move forward with our Euro­pean expan­sion in a timely manner and at full speed, in addi­tion to expan­ding our Swiss busi­ness. As a result, this funding round was almost three times the size of April 2020.” In the first four months of this year, the number of custo­mers has alre­ady almost doubled. Yova is growing prima­rily from its own custo­mer base: every second new custo­mer comes via recom­men­da­ti­ons from exis­ting custo­mers, i.e. from Yova’s own commu­nity. Yova is curr­ently expan­ding its team. In addi­tion to the exis­ting 30 employees, 20 further posi­ti­ons are curr­ently to be filled in the short term.

As a further step towards success, Yova reports funding from the Swiss Tech­no­logy Fund of 3 million Swiss francs. This fund, estab­lished by the Swiss Confe­de­ra­tion, guaran­tees loans to Swiss compa­nies whose inno­va­tive products enable a sustainable reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­si­ons. The promise of support from the Fede­ral Office for the Envi­ron­ment (FOEN) attests that Yova and its impact inves­tors are successfully doing just that. Yova’s strong growth has alre­ady resul­ted in a CO2 reduc­tion of more than 10‘000 tons in its port­fo­lios over the past year.

Sustainable invest­ments for everyone

Inves­tors can invest in sustainable compa­nies with Yova from as little as CHF 2,000. No finan­cial know­ledge is requi­red, as they are digi­tally guided through the port­fo­lio process. This gives consu­mers 100 percent trans­pa­rency into what they are inves­t­ing in and at what cost. At the begin­ning of the invest­ment process, they can choose from 16 themes such as “plant-based food”, “rene­wa­ble energy” or “access to educa­tion” and eight exclu­sion crite­ria such as “no nuclear energy” or “no animal testing”.

The custo­mer then crea­tes his indi­vi­dual risk profile and recei­ves sugges­ti­ons from a mix of 400 compa­nies in which Yova invests for him based on his previous infor­ma­tion and atti­tude. The user can addi­tio­nally indi­vi­dua­lize his company mix and add his favo­ri­tes from over 800 addi­tio­nal companies.

Yova invests only in publicly traded compa­nies, in large mid- and large-caps, from wind turbine manu­fac­tu­r­ers to Beyond Meat to Tesla. The final port­fo­lio consists of 30 to 40 stocks diver­si­fied across diffe­rent indus­tries, count­ries, curren­cies and company sizes. In addi­tion to equi­ties, each stra­tegy also conta­ins govern­ment bonds. The costs range from 0.6 to 1.2 percent, depen­ding on the invest­ment amount. The fee is an “all-in fee”, meaning that there are no other costs such as tran­sac­tion or balan­cing costs.

News

Munich — Amsilk has closed a Series C finan­cing of EUR 29 million. The finan­cing was led by Novo Growth, the growth equity arm of Novo Holdings, with parti­ci­pa­tion from new inves­tors Cargill and E.R. Capi­tal Holdings, as well as exis­ting inves­tors MIG and Athos. With the funding, AMSilk aims to scale its global projects as well as inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. The aim is to reach new indus­tries and customers.

Envi­ron­men­tally friendly and sustainable silk biopolymers

AMSilk is a leader in the produc­tion of high-perfor­mance orga­nic silk mate­ri­als with a vision to offer more sustainable products. The silk products are made from vege­ta­ble raw mate­ri­als and are produ­ced via bacte­rial fermen­ta­tion. Thanks to their versa­tile proper­ties, silk products are in demand in many indus­tries, for exam­ple in high-perfor­mance sports­wear and medi­cal implants. The products are 100 percent recy­clable and biode­gra­da­ble. With the funding, AMSilk will acce­le­rate indus­trial scale-up and reach new markets.

Kartik Dhar­mad­hi­kari, part­ner at Novo Growth, said, “The tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to revo­lu­tio­nize a number of indus­tries and be part of the decar­bo­niza­tion push needed to address the biggest envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges of our time.”

Michael Motsch­mann, Gene­ral Part­ner of MIG, added: “As an Amsilk Seed inves­tor, we are proud of the great progress the company has made since its incep­tion. Our contin­ued invest­ment in Amsilk reflects our vision to invest in early-stage biotech and deep tech compa­nies and drive inno­va­tion that can advance the world.”

Advi­sor AMSILK: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (lead) consis­ted of Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (both VC/M&A, Munich) and Dr. Marius Mann (Commer­cial, Stuttgart).

About LUTZ | ABEL
The commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses on all aspects of commer­cial law with around 85 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin.

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive AG on its Series A finan­cing round. This was led by Safran Corpo­rate Ventures and STAR Capi­tal, a Euro­pean private equity fund mana­ger with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping emer­ging infra­struc­ture compa­nies. This is the first invest­ment in Germany by Safran Corpo­rate Ventures, the venture capi­tal arm of Safran, one of the worl­d’s largest suppli­ers of aircraft systems.

SkyFive, based at the AIRBUS campus in Tauf­kir­chen near Munich, Germany, provi­des broad­band connec­ti­vity services and tech­no­logy to airlines and other aircraft opera­tors in key avia­tion markets world­wide, based on its paten­ted Air-To-Ground (A2G) solu­tion that uses stan­dard cellu­lar components.

“This successful first close of our Series A funding round — at the height of the COVID pande­mic — is a strong vali­da­tion of SkyFi­ve’s tech­no­logy leader­ship and its signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity in the market. Toge­ther, we expect the digi­tiza­tion of avia­tion to acce­le­rate post-pande­mic. In this context, in-flight broad­band connec­ti­vity will become a stra­te­gic corner­stone for the entire indus­try,” says Thors­ten Robrecht, CEO of SkyFive.

ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive at the very begin­ning when the company acqui­red the key assets of its Air-to-Ground (A2G) busi­ness from Nokia in an MBO in 2019. The Munich team led by Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem subse­quently advi­sed on the follo­wing two finan­cing rounds and the conver­sion of SkyFive into a stock corpo­ra­tion in summer 2020. Prepa­ra­ti­ons are curr­ently under­way for the 2nd closing of the Series A as well as the expan­sion of SkyFi­ve’s Chinese subsidiary.

Advi­sor SkyFive: ARQIS (Munich)
Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Venture Capital/Taxes), Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Venture Capi­tal), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/Commercial), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law; Düssel­dorf); Coun­sel: Tanja Kurt­zer (Pensi­ons); Asso­cia­tes: Louisa Graf, Benja­min Bandur, Anselm Graf (all Venture Capi­tal), Rolf Tichy, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (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 55 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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) on its invest­ment in tado GmbH (“tado°”). In addi­tion to new inves­tor noven­tic group, exis­ting inves­tors such as INVEN CAPITAL, Amazon, Target Part­ners, Eon and Total also parti­ci­pa­ted in the 38 million euro finan­cing round.

Munich-basedtado° is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment and was foun­ded in 2011. In the mean­time, tado° employs 180 people.

INVEN CAPITAL is the venture capi­tal arm of the ČEZ Group, whose invest­ment focus is on invest­ments in clean-tech and new-energy companies.

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, such as its recent invest­ment in the logi­stics start-up Forto GmbH, finan­cing rounds at Zolar GmbH, the sale of its stake in the home battery storage provi­der sonnen to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V. and its invest­ment in the start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH, as well as the latest finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. He was supported by Coun­sel Julian Schwa­ne­beck and Para­le­gal Nata­scha Späth (both Corporate).

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 and Washing­ton, D.C.

News

Munich — Auto­mo­tive supplier Magna has signed an agree­ment with listed invest­ment company Muta­res SE & Co. KGaA (Muta­res) to sell three German Exte­ri­ors plants. The acqui­si­tion compri­ses Magna’s three sites in Oberts­hau­sen, Sulz­bach and Idar-Ober­stein as well as the two satel­lite sites in Neckar­sulm and Klein-Krot­zen­burg with a total of 1,700 employees and sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million.

The plants produce plas­tic compon­ents such as bumper and exte­rior trim, radia­tor gril­les and other trim compon­ents for leading OEMs in the premium segment and gene­rate sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2021. The busi­ness’s main custo­mers include well-known German auto­ma­kers. The three plants have exten­sive design know-how and tech­ni­cally mature in-house deve­lo­p­ment capabilities.

Advi­sor Magna: Henge­ler Mueller

The part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (Munich), Dr. Peter Weyland (Frank­furt) (both lead, M&A), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Prof. Dr. Dirk Uwer (Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Tieves (Finan­cing, Frank­furt) and Dr. Matthias Schei­fele (Tax, Munich), the Coun­sel Patrick Wilke­ning (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Moritz Rade­ma­cher (Public Commer­cial Law) (both Düssel­dorf) and the Asso­cia­tes Dr. Achim Speng­ler, Dr. Florian Dendl, Dr. David Negen­born (all Munich), Dr. Nicho­las Kubesch (Frank­furt) (all M&A), Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Düssel­dorf), Simone Terbrack (Berlin) (both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Sarah Milde (Anti­trust), Dr. Daniel Engel (Dispute Reso­lu­tion) (both Munich), Dr. Henning Hilke (Finan­cing), Dr. Sebas­tian Hein­richs (Tax) and Dr. Andreas Kaletsch (Labor Law) (all Frankfurt).

News

Aachen — The Tech­Vi­sion Fund I (TVF) will be increased by another 15 million euros. This means that the fund, which belongs to the S‑UBG Group, now has a total of 55 million euros in venture capi­tal available for start-up finan­cing in the Aachen region and the Lower Rhine area. TVF’s exis­ting inves­tors [1] are joined by Spar­kasse Neuss, Stadt­mar­ken GmbH and Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH as finan­ci­ally strong private inves­tors from Aachen. “We are plea­sed to be able to support and further deve­lop inno­va­tive start-up teams from the western Rhine­land even more stron­gly through more capi­tal and new inves­tors,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of S‑UBG AG and mana­ging direc­tor of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund.

Geogra­phi­cal expan­sion of finan­cing activities

“With Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, in addi­tion to seed invest­ments, we also aim to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds, Series A and B, of exis­ting and new port­fo­lio compa­nies,” Kugel empha­si­zed. The venture capi­tal fund specia­li­zes in finan­cing start-ups with a distinct opportunity/risk profile. “As a new inves­tor, we want to be a relia­ble finan­cial part­ner for start-ups in the grea­ter Neuss area as well. For all our down-to-earth­ness, we are very open to new products and tech­no­lo­gies,” says Marcus Longe­rich, Deputy Board Member of Spar­kasse Neuss. “Toge­ther with the other capi­tal provi­ders, we have made it our goal to further promote start-up acti­vi­ties in our region. We also want to support the struc­tu­ral change that is neces­sary because of the plan­ned energy turnaround.”

Norbert Hermanns, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Aache­ner Stadt­mar­ken GmbH, adds: “Thanks to the diverse rese­arch land­scape in the western Rhine­land, the region is predesti­ned to produce forward-looking ideas. Howe­ver, in order to make these marke­ta­ble, inno­va­tive young entre­pre­neurs need appro­priate finan­cial resour­ces.” Manuel Nadenau, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH, also sees the poten­tial: “An exci­ting new task lies ahead of us and we are plea­sed to be able to bring a breath of fresh air to the start-up scene toge­ther with the other inves­tors by support­ing young and inno­va­tive foun­ders from the region.”

Success stories made in the Rhineland

To date, the Seed Fonds Aachen and the Tech­Vi­sion Fonds have supported over 20 start-ups with capi­tal, stra­te­gic know­ledge and S‑UBG’s exten­sive network — inclu­ding taxy.io GmbH, a start-up dedi­ca­ted to provi­ding the basis for auto­ma­ted B2B tax advice using arti­fi­ci­ally intel­li­gent soft­ware. In TVF’s port­fo­lio since 2019, the young company has alre­ady been able to grow rapidly through two rounds of finan­cing and further expand its offe­ring in terms of indus­try and geogra­phy. The Tech­Vi­sion Fund port­fo­lio also includes the Düssel­dorf-based soft­ware deve­lo­per talent::digital and the mobi­lity plat­form MOQO — these start-ups have also achie­ved entre­pre­neu­rial mile­sto­nes through indi­vi­dual finan­cing models. In the health and biosci­ence sector, the invest­ment enab­led the compa­nies PL BioSci­ence and Protem­bis to further deve­lop their products and bring them to market maturity.

News

Berlin — SMP provi­ded legal advice to 1717 Life Science Ventures on the sale of its stake in drug deve­lo­per PENTIXAPHARM to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, Eckert & Zieg­ler acqui­red a direct majo­rity stake in PENTIXAPHARM, a joint venture between Scin­to­mics GmbH and 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH.

With a solid history of buil­ding successful radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal start­ups, the 1717 team has perso­nal expe­ri­ence in all key func­tions of an early-stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment company. PENTIXAPHARM is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors. Toge­ther with an inter­nal trans­fer, Eckert & Zieg­ler says it will directly hold around 83% of the shares in the Würz­burg-based company after the closing. The manage­ment of PENTIXAPHARM, which holds the remai­ning 17% of PENTIXAPHARM shares, also recei­ved put opti­ons on the remai­ning shares as part of the share sale. More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

SMP had alre­ady advi­sed on the estab­lish­ment of the joint venture in 2019.

1717 LSV empowers scien­tists and inves­tors to trans­form early stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal projects into attrac­tive assets for licen­sing part­ners in industry.

About 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH
By intro­du­cing early stage inves­tors to promi­sing new projects, 1717 LSV seeks to enable novel radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal thera­pies to traverse the early stages of manu­fac­tu­ring and clini­cal development.
We laun­ched 1717 LSV in March 2018 to trans­late scien­ti­fic results into pati­ents bene­fits by filling the opera­tio­nal and finan­cial gaps between the inven­tion of radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal subs­tances and their first clini­cal trials. We are focu­sed, but not limi­ted, to onco­logy indi­ca­ti­ons to apply the full concept of Theranostics.

Advi­sor 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Partner

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, SMP has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, SMP employs more than 60 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. For more infor­ma­tion: www.smp.law and www.linkedin.com/company/smp.law.

News

London — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Inves­tec Bank plc (“Inves­tec”) on its stra­te­gic mino­rity invest­ment in three Capi­tal­mind Inter­na­tio­nal (“Capi­tal­mind”) compa­nies in France, Germany and the Nether­lands. The tran­sac­tion expands the rela­ti­onship between Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind and repres­ents an acce­le­ra­tion of both firms’ consul­ting strategies.

Inves­tec’s parent company, Inves­tec plc, is listed on the two stock exch­an­ges in London and Johan­nes­burg. Inves­tec’s banking busi­ness works with growth compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons and private equity funds, advi­sing clients on capi­tal and treasury risk management.

Focus on medium-sized transactions
Medium-sized tran­sac­tions (€20 — €250 million) in the form of group spin-offs, succes­sion solu­ti­ons, share­hol­der buy-outs, acqui­si­ti­ons and finan­cing are now taking place in an inter­na­tio­nal envi­ron­ment. While large corpo­ra­ti­ons have access to a wide range of profes­sio­nal consul­ting and finan­cing services via inter­na­tio­nal banks and brokers with their specia­li­zed depart­ments, the services for medium-sized tran­sac­tions are still quite regio­nally struc­tu­red, very frag­men­ted and confusing.

Capi­tal­mind is a leading Euro­pean finan­cial advi­sory firm working with family busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, private equity houses and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Inves­tec’s invest­ment in mino­rity stakes in each of the three compa­nies provi­des Capi­tal­mind with a link to the UK, Ireland, Asia and Africa, while Capi­tal­mind links Inves­tec’s consul­ting busi­ness to most of Western Europe, inclu­ding Germany, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Switzerland.

The follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys, toge­ther with Inves­tec’s in-house team in London, advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion in four jurisdictions:

The inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate team was led by part­ner Clive Hope­well, who was supported by senior asso­ciate Richard Bloom­field and asso­ciate Char­lotte Hart (all corpo­rate, London). The French invest­ment was led by part­ner Gildas Louvel, who was supported by asso­ciate Pierre Lagresle (both Corpo­rate, Paris). The German invest­ment was made by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (photo), who was supported by asso­ciate Johanna Schind­ler (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), and the invest­ment in the Nether­lands was led by part­ner Michiel Wurf­bain, who was supported by part­ner and notary René Rieter and asso­cia­tes Nikita Gomme­ren and Musa Dinc (all Corpo­rate, The Hague).

Charles Barlow, who heads Inves­tec’s cross-border corpo­rate finance busi­ness, said, “Bird & Bird under­stands what this tran­sac­tion means to us stra­te­gi­cally, and we are plea­sed to have them on board with their pan-Euro­pean office network to support the deve­lo­p­ment of our rela­ti­onship with Capitalmind.”

Clive Hope­well added: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to successfully assist Inves­tec in comple­ting this important stra­te­gic invest­ment in Euro­pean M&A advi­sory services. We wish the teams at Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind every success in deve­lo­ping this exci­ting new plat­form for M&A advi­sory services across much of Western Europe, parti­cu­larly at a time when demand is expec­ted to be signi­fi­cant post-pandemic.”

News

Frank­furt am Main — vitro­net GmbH (“vitro­net”) and Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH (“DING”), two invest­ments from the port­fo­lio of the private equity fund DBAG ECF mana­ged by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), are merging and will in future operate as the vitro­net Group in the fiber optic and energy infra­struc­ture market. The merger now agreed will create a group whose pro forma sales in 2020 amoun­ted to around 340 million euros and which now employs around 2,300 people at more than 30 loca­ti­ons in Germany.

In the fast-growing market for the expan­sion of fiber-optic and energy infra­struc­ture, a provi­der is emer­ging with broad regio­nal coverage and a range of services that covers all the main value-adding steps, from plan­ning and cons­truc­tion of the faci­li­ties to opera­tion and service. The vitro­net Group conti­nues to see good oppor­tu­ni­ties to actively drive forward the conso­li­da­tion of this frag­men­ted market.

In 2017, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) initi­ally struc­tu­red the manage­ment buy-out (MBO) of vitro­net GmbH along­side DBAG ECF. This was follo­wed in 2019 by the MBO of the STG Brauns­berg Group, which has since been opera­ting under the name Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH. In the year of acqui­si­tion, vitro­net gene­ra­ted sales of 42 million euros, DING 18 million euros. In recent years, both compa­nies have grown stron­gly; 15 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons to date have contri­bu­ted to this to a considera­ble extent. The Group’s pro forma sales have thus increased almost six-fold.

Since the start of the invest­ment, DBAG and DBAG ECF have inves­ted 49 million euros in the two compa­nies, of which DBAG accounts for 22 million euros. DBAG will hold a stake of around 39 percent in the newly formed vitro­net Group, while DBAG ECF will hold 46 percent; most of the remai­ning shares will be held by the Group’s manage­ment. The tran­sac­tion will have no further impact on the valua­tion of the invest­ments in DBAG’s balance sheet. Howe­ver, as of the most recent report­ing date of March 31, 2021, the value of the latest company acqui­si­ti­ons has been increased; these have also alre­ady been included in the fore­cast for fiscal 2020/2021, which was raised on March 26, 2021.

vitro­net, based in Essen, Germany, has so far focu­sed on acting as a gene­ral contrac­tor for fiber-optic projects. In recent years, various specia­list compa­nies along the value chain have been acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. vitro­net has thus deve­lo­ped into one of Germany’s leading end-to-end part­ners in what is known as FttH expan­sion (FttH: fiber to the home), meaning that it can offer all the essen­tial process steps for this expan­sion. DING, based in Bochum, has so far stood for effi­ci­ent infra­struc­ture expan­sion in the areas of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons (fiber optics, FttH, mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), energy (district heating, elec­tri­city, eMobi­lity) and utili­ties (gas, water, pipe­line) in Germany.

High market demand meets tight capacity

The Group is bene­fiting from the dyna­mic growth in demand for high-perfor­mance Inter­net connec­tions. This is trig­ge­ring strong demand for network expan­sion services, which is being met by a shortage of corre­spon­ding capa­city in the market. To date, around 70 percent of reve­nue has been gene­ra­ted by the fiber-optic infra­struc­ture busi­ness. The Group’s services range from project plan­ning for new networks and their cons­truc­tion to the opera­tion and servicing of fiber-optic networks. The service share in parti­cu­lar is to grow. Busi­ness in the energy and utili­ties market, which has so far accoun­ted for around 30 percent of sales, is set to bene­fit from the energy tran­si­tion, among other things: To enable eMobi­lity on a large scale, for exam­ple, the infra­struc­ture will have to be trans­for­med. The Group sees itself as one of the leading service provi­ders for infra­struc­ture expan­sion in Germany.

In 2013, DBAG began inves­t­ing in compa­nies that expand or operate fiber-optic networks. The first two invest­ments (inexio and DNS:Net) were sold in 2019 and March 2021. In addi­tion to vitro­net and DING, DBAG, toge­ther with DBAG ECF and DBAG Fund VIII, holds invest­ments in three other compa­nies in the sector (netz­kon­tor nord, BTV and Deut­sche Giga Access).

Larger projects of tele­phone compa­nies, utili­ties and public utilities

“We have inves­ted in a growing market in which, howe­ver, speed in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the compa­nies is decisive for invest­ment success,” expres­sed Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion with regard to the 15 company acqui­si­ti­ons. “We will also support the newly formed group to conti­nue to watch inor­ga­ni­cally.” This invol­ves, for exam­ple, closing exis­ting gaps in the regio­nal offering.

“Our custo­mers are incre­asingly looking for provi­ders who can inde­pendently handle ever-larger projects throug­hout Germany,” says Marc Lützen­kir­chen, Chair­man of vitro­ne­t’s Manage­ment Board. “We can now fulfill this claim even better with the syner­gies of the Group and the deca­des of expe­ri­ence of our subsi­dia­ries.” Last but not least, the new size of the Group will also improve its access to the capi­tal market and thus the finan­cing opti­ons for further corpo­rate acquisitions.

About DBAG

DBAG has made six plat­form invest­ments rela­ted to broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons expan­sion in Germany since 2013. — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery, as tran­sac­tion coun­sel, advi­ses the issuer APONTIS PHARMA AG, its main share­hol­der, the invest­ment company Para­gon Part­ners, as well as the joint book­run­ners Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg on the IPO at the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

The place­ment price for the IPO was set at 19.00 euros per share. The place­ment volume totals 101 million euros. A total of 5,290,000 shares were placed with inves­tors as part of the IPO, which also included a U.S. tran­che in accordance with Rule 144A of the U.S. Secu­ri­ties Act. The place­ment includes 2,000,000 new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as 1,600,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a base deal, 1,000,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a top-up option and 690,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with an over-allot­ment option from the holdings of the main share­hol­der Para­gon Part­ners. The first day of trading on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange is sche­du­led for May 11, 2021. The exis­ting share­hol­ders Para­gon Part­ners and the manage­ment of APONTIS PHARMA will remain share­hol­ders in the company after the place­ment with a stake of 31% and 7%, respectively.

APONTIS PHARMA AG is a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal company for single pills in the German market. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the issu­ance of the new shares prima­rily for selec­ted invest­ments in the deve­lo­p­ment of new single pills, acce­le­ra­ting the deve­lo­p­ment and licen­sing of the exis­ting near-term product pipe­line, and expan­ding marke­ting and sales acti­vi­ties to capture addi­tio­nal market share and product acquisitions.

McDer­mott provi­ded compre­hen­sive capi­tal markets legal advice to all parties invol­ved. The McDer­mott team was also respon­si­ble for the corpo­rate struc­tu­ring in the run-up to the IPO.

Advi­sors APONTIS, Para­gon Part­ners and banks Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg:
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M./Düsseldorf
Capi­tal Markets/IPO Work­stream: Simon Weiß (Project Coor­di­na­tion; Capi­tal Markets), Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets; joint lead), Gregory M. Weig­and (Miami), Edwin C. Lauren­son (Coun­sel, San Fran­cisco; both US Law), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Munich), Dr. Monika Rich­ter (both Coun­sel, both Life Scien­ces); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Chris­toph Schä­fer, Ardalan Zargari (Staff Attor­ney); Corpo­rate Work­stream: Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Lead), Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Corpo­rate, both Düssel­dorf); Asso­ciate: Tom Schäfer

News

Munich — Munich-based tech startup Metis­Mo­tion has closed its second round of finan­cing and recei­ved another €1.5 million in fresh capi­tal. As in the first finan­cing round in Decem­ber 2018, the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), BORN2GROW — a subsi­diary of the ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn — and the SIEMENS Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor (STA) inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to prepare the market launch of the patent-protec­ted naXture actua­tor platform.

“Metis­Mo­ti­on’s core tech­no­logy is highly dyna­mic and light­weight, powerful actua­tors for auto­ma­tion appli­ca­ti­ons. Metis­Mo­tion has deve­lo­ped an actua­tor plat­form (compa­ra­ble to servo­mo­tors) that offers unpre­ce­den­ted, tech­ni­cal possi­bi­li­ties. — Imagine being able to replace pneu­ma­tic or hydrau­lic solu­ti­ons with great power poten­tial in exis­ting instal­la­tion spaces with highly effi­ci­ent elec­tri­cally opera­ted drives! This is usually not feasi­ble with conven­tio­nal elec­tric motors,” says Patrick Fröse, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MetisMotion

Based on the outstan­ding power density and effi­ci­ency of Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors, a network of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal pilot custo­mers has grown since the company was foun­ded in 2018, using Metis­Mo­tion solu­ti­ons to drive the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drive tasks.

With the capi­tal raised in the current finan­cing round, the tech­no­logy will now be made available to a broad custo­mer group. The launch of the naXture plat­form is plan­ned for late summer.naXture enables users to quickly and easily confi­gure indi­vi­dual actua­tors for the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. Actua­tor geome­try, available forces, speeds and travels, as well as the safety beha­vior are always based on the speci­fic requi­re­ments of the application.

“Metis­Mo­tion was alre­ady very close to the market and active in many appli­ca­tion areas at the time of the spin-off. Parti­cu­larly in the Heil­bronn region, the region of world market leaders, Metis­Mo­tion has alre­ady been able to win promi­sing custo­mers in the pilot custo­mer phase. The open­ness for inno­va­tion is obvious here and we are ther­e­fore looking forward to the further roll out. We see great market oppor­tu­ni­ties — not only natio­nally,” explains Thomas Villin­ger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn.

“The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of today’s inef­fi­ci­ent pneu­ma­tic and hydrau­lic actua­tors, parti­cu­larly in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, is an exci­ting growth oppor­tu­nity. Metis­Mo­tion can define a new segment here with its tech­no­logy! Exci­ting for inves­tors who are looking for disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies and want to parti­ci­pate in their success,” comm­ents Jens Baum­gärt­ner, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

“Metis­Mo­tion has proven with its launch custo­mers that it can design and manu­fac­ture high-perfor­mance actua­tors for the most deman­ding envi­ron­ments. We are ther­e­fore convin­ced of the company’s poten­tial and look forward to conti­nuing to contri­bute to its success as an inves­tor and through our network within Siemens and beyond,” says Dr. Rudolf Frey­tag, CEO of Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH.

About Metis­Mo­tion
Actua­ting Inno­va­tions — Follo­wing the Genius of Nature. Accor­ding to this guiding prin­ci­ple, Metis­Mo­tion GmbH has been deve­lo­ping bio-inspi­red actua­tor systems since 2018. The company is a spin-off from the Siemens Group and sets new stan­dards for the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drives with maxi­mum energy effi­ci­ency. Based on highly inte­gra­ted micro-hydrau­lic circuits, Metis­Mo­tion is able for the first time to combine a parti­cu­larly high force density with ultra-dyna­mic move­ments in the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. At the same time, Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors gene­rally require only a quar­ter of the energy compared to pneu­ma­tic solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple. Custo­mers include natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers from the factory and process auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and mobi­lity sectors.
The Munich site is curr­ently home to in-house deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring, marke­ting and sales.

About the ZFHN — Heil­bronn Future Fund

Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn has been one of the major venture capi­ta­lists in Germany. It prima­rily supports young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that are loca­ted in the Heil­bronn area or are prepared to settle there in the short to medium term. The Future Fund is priva­tely finan­ced and has equity capi­tal in the hundreds of milli­ons. It supports compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and cont­acts in the Heil­bronn econo­mic region. The goal is to further deve­lop Heil­bronn into a very successful tech­no­logy loca­tion. This also includes the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of clus­ters (MedTech, BioTech, Clean­tech) locally.

Since its foun­ding in 2013, Heil­bronn-based BORN2GROW GmbH & Co. KG has been support­ing inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in the seed and start-up phase. The seed fund supports young compa­nies by accom­pany­ing them from the proof-of-concept stage to market launch. This early-stage finan­cing enables fast-growing tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-up compa­nies to deve­lop their ideas and concepts. BORN2GROW, a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, coope­ra­tes with other venture capi­tal funds and busi­ness angels and makes fast and trans­pa­rent finan­cing decisions.Contact:
Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn GmbH & Co. KG. www.zf-hn.de

About the Siemens Tech­no­logy Accelerator
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH is a subsi­diary of Siemens AG and has been successfully commer­cia­li­zing inno­va­tive Siemens tech­no­lo­gies in appli­ca­ti­ons outside the stra­te­gic focus of Siemens busi­ness units for more than 20 years. This is done either by foun­ding venture capi­tal funded start-ups or by selling or licen­sing to estab­lished companies.Contact:
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH. www.siemens.com/sta

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 892.5 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 500 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the hard­ware, soft­ware, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors. More than €1.9 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in around 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has now successfully sold shares in 100 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de

News

Munich — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance streng­thens its German private equity team with the high-cali­ber part­ner addi­ti­ons of Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner (photo) and Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner as well as with the senior asso­ciate Dr. Samuel From­melt. All new hires will work out of Clif­ford Chan­ce’s Munich office and will at the same time further streng­then the German and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion team with their exper­tise and market experience.

As an expe­ri­en­ced private equity specia­list, Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner advi­ses inves­tors, manage­ment teams and compa­nies in complex regio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal large cap and mid cap as well as M&A tran­sac­tions, in parti­cu­lar lever­a­ged buy-outs, carve-outs and joint ventures.

Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner has estab­lished hims­elf in the private equity scene thanks to his diverse expe­ri­ence from various high-profile acqui­si­ti­ons and is reco­gni­zed as one of the up-and-coming private equity part­ners of the new generation.

Dr. Samuel From­melt advi­ses private equity and finan­cial inves­tors on M&A tran­sac­tions. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence advi­sing clients across sectors, prima­rily on invest­ments in unlis­ted compa­nies, public take­overs, co-invest­ments and secon­dary transactions.

Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt join Clif­ford Chance from Kirk­land & Ellis in Munich. The exact date of the change has not yet been determined.

Dr. Peter Dieners, Mana­ging Part­ner of Clif­ford Chance in Germany: “For us, Munich and private equity advice belong toge­ther. Lawyer perso­na­li­ties such as Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt are ther­e­fore a perfect fit for us. With their excep­tio­nal market profile and at the same time great ambi­tion, they enrich us on our way to the top of the German market. With them, our important Munich presence will be ideally comple­men­ted and even more powerful, even for very large projects and tran­sac­tions. We also want to grow further in the private equity area.”

Dr. Anselm Raddatz, Head of the Private Equity Group at Clif­ford Chance in Germany, said: “We are very plea­sed with the new addi­ti­ons. The great new team in Munich shar­pens our private equity profile locally and will make a great contri­bu­tion to provi­ding our clients with even more know-how and clout for the successful and safe realiza­tion of their invest­ments for their tran­sac­tions in Germany and Europe.”

Clif­ford Chance is growing stra­te­gi­cally at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt and Munich. Parti­cu­larly in the strong Munich market, the firm is streng­thening its focus on broad-based and thus signi­fi­cantly more compre­hen­sive and effi­ci­ent tran­sac­tion and finan­cing advice for private equity houses and other finan­cial investors.

Clif­ford Chan­ce’s global private equity prac­tice provi­des large teams in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and the US with market-leading exper­tise to advise finan­cial inves­tors and funds across the full spec­trum of their acti­vi­ties. Recently, the firm’s German teams have assis­ted clients in these high-profile tran­sac­tions, among others:

Medi­cal diagno­stics and labo­ra­tory services provi­der Synlab and finan­cial inves­tors Cinven, OTPP and Novo Holdings on Synla­b’s IPO on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange; Perm­ira on the acqui­si­tion of leading Euro­pean CNS specialty pharma company Neur­ax­ph­arm from Apax; Triton on the acqui­si­tion of premium kitchen supplier SCHOCK from IK Invest­ment Partners.

About Clif­ford Chance

Clif­ford Chance, one of the worl­d’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Berlin — RSBG SE, a subsi­diary of the RAG Foun­da­tion, has taken over the PR and event agency insglück. Raue advi­sed share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Detlef Wint­zen on the sale of his shares in insglück Gesell­schaft für Marken­in­sze­nie­rung mbH to RSBG SE.

insglück is one of the leading PR and event agen­cies with offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. Since 2001, insglück has stood for targe­ted, excep­tio­nal concep­tion and crea­tion as well as profes­sio­nal imple­men­ta­tion of measu­res in live and corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons. In the course of the new part­ner­ship, the agency will expand its crea­tive and digi­tal exper­tise even more, push inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and actively deve­lop new busi­ness areas. insglück conti­nues to be mana­ged by Detlef Wint­zen (CEO), Chris­tian Poswa (COO), Chris­toph Kirst (CCO) and Frede­rik Nimmes­gern (Direc­tor Concept & Strategy).

RSBG SE is an invest­ment company of the RAG Foun­da­tion based in Essen. Foun­ded in 2014, the company sees itself as a long-term part­ner to medium-sized compa­nies and uses a buy-and-build stra­tegy to invest in successful SMEs.

Consul­tant Detlef Wint­zen: Raue, Berlin
Dr. Jörg Jaecks (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A)

About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com

News

Berlin — With its plan­ned IPO, hear.com, the online hearing aid provi­der known in Germany as audi­bene, has finally joined the top league of inter­na­tio­nal TOP online start­ups. On April 19, the regis­tra­tion was submit­ted to the SEC (U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exch­ange Commis­sion). Hear.com’s “HCG” paper is thus to be traded on Nasdaq.

Audi­bene is taking a small detour, which is not unusual for German compa­nies: The Dutch company and the simul­ta­neous brand hear.com N.V. submit­ted the docu­ments because of the more favorable condi­ti­ons under stock exch­ange law for an IPO in the USA.

From startup to listed company

Berlin, Mainz, Miami, Denver, Toronto, Utrecht, Seoul, Gura­gon (India) and Kuala Lumpur: it is impres­sive what has become of the former startup foun­ded in the capi­tal in 2012 that wanted to “shake up the hearing aid market”.

Now, almost 10 years later, the success story is to be crow­ned by an IPO. Among the first inves­tors are none other than Morgen Stan­ley, J.P. Morgan, Deut­sche Bank and Gold­man Sachs. The former two are acting as Lead Book-Running Mana­gers for the propo­sed offe­ring and as repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of all signa­to­ries to the propo­sed offering.

Hear.com facts and figures

World­wide, hear.com had nearly 5,200 part­ner compa­nies as of the report­ing date of Sept. 30, 2020, inclu­ding 1,000 in Germany. 106,000 hearing aids were sold world­wide and exclu­ding returns at an average price of €1,426 per hearing aid. — This results in sales of 151 million euros (+26% compared to 2019 120 mill. euros). Over­all, the company gene­ra­ted a loss of €23.1 million (2019: €17.34 million). More than 1,500 employees work for hear.com, inclu­ding almost 200 techs.

Deve­lo­p­ment
Online hearing aid retailer Audi­bene was sold to hearing aid manu­fac­tu­rer Sivan­tos in 2015. The two foun­ders Paul Crusius and Marco Vietor remained on board as mana­ging direc­tors. As part of the tran­sac­tion, both foun­ders, who previously held a majo­rity stake in Audi­bene, will receive shares in Sivan­tos Group.

Venture capi­ta­lists Acton Capi­tal Part­ners and Sunstone Capi­tal, as well as an unknown number of busi­ness angels such as entre­pre­neur Stephan Schu­bert, had all sold their stakes in Sivan­tos. Berlin scene heads such as Project-A-Ventures CEO Florian Heine­mann, Edar­ling foun­ders Lukas Bros­se­der and David Khalil, as well as Zalan­do’s former head of marke­ting, Oliver Roskopf, were also inves­ted in the startup.

Invest­ments for more growth and independence

The company aims to raise $100 million through the IPO. Among other things, this will be used to repay share­hol­der loans to WS Audio­logy that fall due between 2021 and 2023. In addi­tion, a plan­ned restruc­tu­ring is to be put on a stable footing, and the rema­in­der is to be used for gene­ral corpo­rate purpo­ses, inclu­ding finan­cing further growth and imple­men­ting the busi­ness stra­tegy. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are also being considered.

The speci­fic areas in which further invest­ments are to be made remain open. But this is of course where the months after the IPO will be parti­cu­larly exci­ting. For inves­tors, howe­ver, the success story of the model itself and the expec­ted global increase in demand and the resul­ting growth fore­casts in gene­ral should be reason enough for an invest­ment. Whether they then jump into the topics of multich­an­nel sales (online and tradi­tio­nal retail), tech­no­logy (online hearing tests, consu­mer jour­ney) or remote fitting will certainly be some­thing to read about.

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has advi­sed the Viess­mann Group on the acqui­si­tion of 34.3% of the shares in Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group (VAE), an Austra­lian design, instal­la­tion and service company for heating, venti­la­tion and air condi­tio­ning. The new part­ner­ship enables Viess­mann to enter the growth market of Austra­l­asia. VAE, mean­while, can rely on an inter­na­tio­nal, stra­te­gic part­ner that has exten­sive exper­tise and inno­va­tive strength in the field of heating, venti­la­tion and air-condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy. In 2020, the family-owned company employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros.

In the context of the share acqui­si­tion, the Viess­mann Group was advi­sed by Rödl & Part­ner on all econo­mic issues.

About Viess­mann

The Viess­mann Group is one of the worl­d’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of heating, indus­trial and cooling systems. In 2020, the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1917, employed 12,300 people and gene­ra­ted group sales of 2.8 billion euros. About VAE Value Added Engi­nee­ring Group was estab­lished in 1997 and today is one of Austra­lia’s most advan­ced buil­ding services inte­gra­tors. The priva­tely owned company specia­li­zes in complete solu­ti­ons for large projects such as airports, univer­si­ties and hospi­tals. In the past decade of busi­ness, VAE has increased its reve­nue from one million Austra­lian dollars to a projec­ted $150 million (just under 100 million euros) in 2021. The company curr­ently employs 330 people.

Advi­sor Viess­mann Group: Rödl & Partner
Jochen Reis, Part­ner (Head of Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born, Over­all Project Manage­ment — Finan­cial Inga Heßdör­fer, Senior Asso­ciate (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Finan­cial Alex­an­der Wübbels, Asso­ciate, (Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services), Esch­born — Financial

About Rödl & Partner
Rödl & Part­ner — The agile caret­a­ker for medium-sized global market leaders As lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, busi­ness and IT consul­tants and audi­tors, we are repre­sen­ted at 109 of our own loca­ti­ons in 49 count­ries. Our clients trust our 5,120 colle­agues world­wide. www.roedl.de

News

Hamburg — The two foun­ders Dr. Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare (photo) of Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy startup trace­l­ess mate­ri­als were able to convince three inves­tors in their first round of finan­cing: Planet A, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and b.value AG. Thus, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als secu­res a single-digit million invest­ment only seven months after its foundation.

Hamburg-based startup trace­l­ess mate­ri­als has deve­lo­ped a holi­stic sustainable mate­rial as an alter­na­tive for plas­tics and biopla­s­tics. The inno­va­tive mate­rial is fully compost­a­ble — even when it unin­ten­tio­nally ends up in nature — and thus contri­bu­tes to solving global plas­tic pollu­tion. For the female foun­ding team, the funding is the corner­stone to bring their inno­va­tive new mate­rial to market to solve global plas­tic pollution.

85% of all plas­tics produ­ced world­wide are still in land­fills or floa­ting in our oceans. The result is signi­fi­cant envi­ron­men­tal and marine pollu­tion, with unima­gi­ned conse­quen­ces for humans, animals and our planet. One of the EU’s stated goals in its Plas­tics Stra­tegy is to ensure that all plas­tic pack­a­ging must be recy­clable or reusable by 2030. For products that can easily end up in the envi­ron­ment, howe­ver, some­thing more is needed: mate­ri­als that can be degra­ded in nature in the shor­test possi­ble time and, above all, comple­tely. This is exactly what trace­l­ess mate­ri­als deals with. The speci­ally deve­lo­ped, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy makes it possi­ble for the first time to produce storage-stable films, solid mate­ri­als and ultra-thin coatings from by-products of the agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try, which offer the advan­ta­ge­ous proper­ties of plas­tics and yet are fully compost­a­ble in nature.

While trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are made from bio-based raw mate­ri­als, they do not conflict with food produc­tion or contri­bute to land use change. Unlike conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics, they require no harmful addi­ti­ves, solvents or chemi­cals and have up to 87% lower CO2 emis­si­ons. Since they are neither chemi­cally modi­fied nor synthe­ti­cally poly­me­ri­zed, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are not expec­ted to fall under the EU Plas­tics Direc­tive. Quali­ta­tively, the mate­ri­als are alre­ady compe­ti­tive with conven­tio­nal plas­tics and biopla­s­tics. Produ­ced on an indus­trial produc­tion scale, they will also be able to compete with conven­tio­nal plas­tics in terms of price. This makes trace­l­ess a solu­tion for people all over the world, in all walks of life and income levels.

The foun­ders will use the invest­ment to build and expand the core team and to advance the cons­truc­tion of a pilot plant. This will scale up produc­tion from labo­ra­tory scale to produce suffi­ci­ent mate­rial and bring the first pilot products to market in early 2022. Compa­nies from the consu­mer goods indus­try as well as pack­a­ging and plas­tics proces­sing compa­nies are alre­ady show­ing great inte­rest in the novel mate­ri­als. Legis­la­tive pres­sure, incre­asing custo­mer demand and the urgency to stop the nega­tive impact of plas­tic on the envi­ron­ment create a unique situa­tion for trace­l­ess to change the plas­tics market in a sustainable way.

“Based on Planet A’s scien­ti­fic impact assess­ment, we are confi­dent that trace­l­ess’ unique solu­tion has the poten­tial to make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to solving global plas­tic pollu­tion and sustain­ably trans­form the plas­tics market,” said Tobias Seikel, co-foun­der and part­ner at Planet A.

Dr. Anne Lamp, inven­tor of the trace­l­ess tech­no­logy, and Johanna Baare (photo) co-foun­ded trace­l­ess in Septem­ber 2020: “We are parti­cu­larly proud to have the support of expe­ri­en­ced venture capi­tal inves­tors who under­stand our deep tech solu­tion, share our mission and want to work with us to maxi­mize our posi­tive impact. We are confi­dent that their diverse expe­ri­ence will help us on our jour­ney and toge­ther we can quickly and safely scale our tech­no­logy to indus­trial produc­tion levels. Toge­ther with our custo­mers, we plan to bring the first products made from trace­l­ess mate­ri­als to market in early 2022.” www.traceless.eu

“We evalua­ted diverse compa­nies deve­lo­ping sustainable plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves, but none of them excel­led as trace­l­ess did in combi­ning a strong manage­ment team, supe­rior tech­no­logy with distinct compe­ti­tive advan­ta­ges, supe­rior mate­rial proper­ties and holi­stic sustaina­bi­lity. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed to support the trace­l­ess team with our tech­ni­cal and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to drive the deve­lo­p­ment of the company and its products”, explains Corne­lia Bähr, Invest­ment Mana­ger at b.value

The close cont­acts between b.value and the German biotech indus­try open new doors for the team. For exam­ple, its network and port­fo­lio compa­nies include some of Germany’s most inno­va­tive deep-tech start­ups as well as expe­ri­en­ced bioe­co­nomy experts. In addi­tion, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) brings toge­ther seve­ral basic and specialty chemi­cals compa­nies invol­ved in poly­mers and ther­mo­pla­s­tic compo­si­tes that have inves­ted in its funds. In addi­tion to indus­try cont­acts and exper­tise, the consor­tium is in a posi­tion to make substan­tial follow-on invest­ments in later rounds.

“In the area of sustainable plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves, we are seeing a lot of inte­rest from the plas­tics proces­sing indus­try as well as from compa­nies in the consu­mer goods sector. In our view, trace­l­ess has the poten­tial to become a tech­no­logy and market leader in new mate­ri­als for pack­a­ging, for exam­ple,” explains Johan­nes Weber, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

About trace­l­ess materials

trace­l­ess mate­ri­als GmbH is a circu­lar bioe­co­nomy startup from Hamburg with a female foun­ding team that offers a holi­stic sustainable alter­na­tive to conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics with the mission to solve global plas­tic pollu­tion on land as well as in water.Their patent-pending tech­no­logy makes it possi­ble for the first time to use by-products of the agri­cul­tu­ral indus­try to produce shelf-stable films, solid mate­ri­als and ultra-thin coatings that offer the same bene­fi­cial proper­ties as plas­tics yet are fully degra­da­ble in nature. While trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are made from bioba­sed raw mate­ri­als, they do not conflict with food produc­tion and ther­e­fore do not contri­bute to land use change. Unlike conven­tio­nal (bio)plastics, trace­l­ess comple­tely elimi­na­tes the addi­tion of harmful plas­ti­ci­zers or solvents and has up to 87% lower CO2 emis­si­ons. Since they are neither chemi­cally modi­fied nor synthe­ti­cally poly­me­ri­zed, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are not expec­ted to fall under the EU Plas­tics Direc­tive. Manu­fac­tu­red on an indus­trial produc­tion scale, trace­l­ess mate­ri­als are also price compe­ti­tive with conven­tio­nal plas­tics, making them a solu­tion for people around the world, across all demo­gra­phics and income levels. Be part of the solu­tion, not pollution!

About Planet A

Foun­ded in 2020, Planet A is an impact inves­tor targe­ting for-profit start­ups that are making a measura­ble posi­tive impact on the planet while buil­ding scalable busi­nesses. Planet A part­ners with Euro­pean early-stage compa­nies that have the poten­tial to scale globally. The start-ups must contri­bute to a signi­fi­cant posi­tive change in at least one of the follo­wing four key areas: climate protec­tion, waste reduc­tion, resource conser­va­tion and/or biodi­ver­sity protec­tion. For its port­fo­lio compa­nies, Planet A offers impact calcu­la­tion support (scien­ti­fic impact measu­re­ment, fore­cas­ting and visua­liza­tion), the Planet A Network (a diverse, exclu­sive network of expe­ri­en­ced German and Euro­pean entre­pre­neurs) and the Below One Fund as a long-term finan­cing part­ner (early-stage invest­ments with inte­rest in follow-on rounds). Planet A’s mission is to make impact inves­t­ing the new normal. www.planet‑a.com

About b.value AG

With a focus on biotech­no­logy, life scien­ces and chemis­try, b.value AG invests in start-ups in the pre-seed and seed phase in the D‑A-CH region. In addi­tion to its invest­ment, b.value AG actively supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment with its unique “company-buil­ding” approach. To this end, b.value AG combi­nes a high degree of tech­no­lo­gi­cal exper­tise in its opera­tio­nal team as well as more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence in the estab­lish­ment, manage­ment and deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy compa­nies and the commer­cia­liza­tion of biotech­no­lo­gi­cal products in its manage­ment. It also bene­fits from the accu­mu­la­ted expe­ri­ence of its board of direc­tors in a wide variety of posi­ti­ons in busi­ness, acade­mia and indus­try, as well as an exten­sive network of scien­tists, execu­ti­ves, inves­tors, policy makers and indus­trial and acade­mic thought leaders. b.value AG sees its specia­liza­tion and deep under­stan­ding of the indus­try as the key to success. b.value AG is growing and further expan­ding its current port­fo­lio of seven attrac­tive investments.
www.bvalue-ag.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 600 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. Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de/

News

Frank­furt am Main — Sero GmbH (Sero), a company in the port­fo­lio of DBAG Fund VII, acqui­res Solid Semecs B.V. Like Sero, the Dutch company is a deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der for EMS (Elec­tro­nic Manu­fac­tu­ring Services, complete contract manu­fac­tu­ring of elec­tro­nic assem­blies, devices and systems) and opera­tes on the market as Semecs. DBAG Fund VII will invest around 16 million euros in the purchase, of which 3.6 million euros will be inves­ted by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG).

The aim of the tran­sac­tion, which was agreed at the end of last week, is to broa­den the custo­mer base, open up new custo­mer sectors and expand produc­tion capa­ci­ties with a site in Eastern Europe. The seller is the Dutch company Rade­ma­ker Beheer B.V. The family behind the company is prima­rily invol­ved in machi­nery for large bake­ries; Seme­c’s acti­vi­ties are accor­din­gly outside its core busi­ness. The purchase is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties; the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by mid-year.

DBAG Fund VII, which was advi­sed by DBAG, had inves­ted in Sero in Novem­ber 2018 as part of a manage­ment buyout. DBAG had co-inves­ted around eleven million euros along­side the fund. It holds 21 percent of the shares in Sero. The current tran­sac­tion is the seven­te­enth corpo­rate acqui­si­tion struc­tu­red by a company from the DBAG port­fo­lio within the past twelve months. The objec­tive is predo­mi­nantly to acce­le­rate the perfor­mance of the respec­tive port­fo­lio compa­nies, for exam­ple by broa­de­ning the product range and regio­nal coverage or by conso­li­da­ting the market.

Semecs (www.semecs.com) assem­bles prin­ted circuit boards for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and also specia­li­zes in common assem­bly, cali­bra­tion and test­ing services. The company, head­quar­te­red in Uden, Nether­lands, employs 480 people, 450 of whom work at the produc­tion site in Vráble, Slova­kia, which was built in 2012. For the current year, the company expects sales of around 72 million euros.

The elec­tro­nic compon­ents produ­ced by Semecs in predo­mi­nantly small quan­ti­ties are used, for exam­ple, to control air-condi­tio­ning systems or the motors of e‑bikes, are found in elec­tro­nic elec­tri­city meters and mobile insu­lin pumps, and are instal­led in the LED light­ing or engine control systems of cars. Around 70 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted with indus­trial custo­mers; the remai­ning share is accoun­ted for by appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy and products for the auto­mo­tive industry.

is where Semecs differs from Sero: Sero is an estab­lished produc­tion part­ner to the auto­mo­tive supply indus­try and gene­ra­tes around 85 percent of its sales there. With a high degree of auto­ma­tion, the company specia­li­zes in high-volume orders. Semecs, on the other hand, deals with orders above medium quan­ti­ties and a higher propor­tion of manual acti­vi­ties. Both compa­nies will bene­fit equally from the combi­na­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring opera­ti­ons invol­ving the Slova­kian site, ther­eby achie­ving a higher degree of flexi­bi­lity for diffe­rent order sizes and better posi­tio­ning in the acqui­si­tion of new busi­ness. The acqui­si­tion of Semecs thus broa­dens Sero’s custo­mer base and market access for the company, which employs around 220 people in Rohr­bach, Rhineland-Palatinate.

The newly formed group opera­tes in an attrac­tive market: for the core segments of indus­try, medi­cine and auto­mo­tive, growth rates above the alre­ady attrac­tive growth of the EMS market as a whole are expec­ted in the coming years.

“The compe­ten­cies of the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly,” said Jannick Hune­cke, member of the DBAG Manage­ment Board on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion. He added: “Toge­ther they can better serve the attrac­tive market and opti­mally combine their capa­bi­li­ties in produc­tion, so that with the company acqui­si­tion we are streng­thening and acce­le­ra­ting the further deve­lo­p­ment of our origi­nal investment.”

Sero CEO Dr. Bernd Welzel high­ligh­ted the stra­te­gic importance of the tran­sac­tion for Sero: “The company crea­ted from the two EMS specia­lists ensu­res a strong and compe­ti­tive presence in Europe with a broad range of manu­fac­tu­ring service offe­rings across diffe­rent market segments — this opens up a variety of oppor­tu­ni­ties for us and under­lines our expan­sion policy.” Semecs Mana­ging Direc­tor Jan-Fred­rik Kalee added, “We bring a well-trai­ned team to an attrac­tive loca­tion with a reco­gni­zed good quality assu­rance process and look forward to working with them.”

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Hanover/ Munich — Toge­ther with ARCUS Capi­tal from Munich, the HANNOVER Finanz Group acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the Löwen­stark Group. Toge­ther, the inves­tors will hold more than 75 percent of the shares in the leading online marke­ting service provi­der from Braun­schweig. In the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with company foun­der Marian Wurm — who remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved — and the manage­ment team around Löwen­stark CEO Hart­mut Deiwick, growth is to be further expan­ded and long-term succes­sion plan­ning is to be arran­ged. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

“Invest­ments in compa­nies with a focus on digi­tiza­tion are now a signi­fi­cant part of our port­fo­lio. With Löwen­stark, we have been able to convince another online company to join us. We see a lot of poten­tial in the Braun­schweig-based agency group, which is one of the leading online marke­ting service provi­ders in the D‑A-CH region. The part­ner­ship with ARCUS, an invest­ment company with expe­ri­ence in the online indus­try, is also an asset for our network,” says the HANNOVER Finanz Board Spokes­man Goetz HertzEi­chen­rode (photo) on the now comple­ted invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

With invest­ments in a wide variety of soft­ware, e‑commerce or digi­tiza­tion specia­lists, such as Corpo­rate Plan­ning AG, Media Concept GmbH or the Marken­film agency, equity part­ner HANNOVER Finanz has a wealth of expe­ri­ence in the marke­ting and digi­tal indus­tries. “Löwen­stark offers its custo­mers a truly holi­stic approach to consul­ting and solu­ti­ons that is unpar­al­le­led, espe­ci­ally in the SME segment. In addi­tion, we see strong growth poten­tial due to posi­tive market drivers and highly auto­ma­ted busi­ness proces­ses. We look forward to working with HANNOVER Finanz and the manage­ment to support the company on its successful course in the coming years and to set the course for further growth,” says Stefan Eishold, CEO of ARCUS, about the invest­ment in the Löwen­stark Group.

Marian Wurm, foun­der of Löwen­stark: “In ARCUS and HANNOVER Finanz, we have found the right part­ners for Löwen­star­k’s stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment. With their exten­sive indus­try and manage­ment expe­ri­ence and nume­rous cont­acts in the German SME sector, they will actively support us in our next growth steps.”

Advi­sor to the deal team of HANNOVER Finanz:

Ebner Stolz GmbH & Co. KG (Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence)
ecce­le­rate GmbH (Commer­cial Due Diligence)
KPMG Law Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH (Legal Due Diligence)
Gütt Olk Feld­haus Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB (finan­cing).

Advi­sor Löwen­stark Digi­tal GmbH: Norton Rose Fulbright

Lead Part­ner Dr. Phil­ipp Grzimek (M&A/Private Equity, Part­ner, Munich).
He was supported by part­ners Tino Duttiné (tax law), Dr. Chris­toph Ritzer (data protec­tion law and IT law) and Dr. Andrea Spel­ler­berg (banking law). Coun­sel Clau­dia Poslu­schny (employ­ment law) and Oliver Paasch (banking law), Senior Asso­cia­tes Jan-Peter Heise (M&A) and Julia Gallin­ger (tax law) as well as Asso­ciate Olivia Reinke (employ­ment law) were also involved.

MONTIS Corpo­rate Finance acted as M&A advi­sor to Löwenstark.

About Löwen­stark
www.loewenstark.com With over 5,000 custo­mer projects for 19 years, Löwen­stark Digi­tal Group GmbH is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and successful digi­tal service provi­ders for online marke­ting in the DACH region. More than 150 employees are active at ten loca­ti­ons in all disci­pli­nes of online marke­ting for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers along the maxim “thorough analy­sis, consis­tent opti­miza­tion and sustainable success”. The focus is on holi­stic solu­ti­ons in the areas of perfor­mance marke­ting (search engine opti­miza­tion, search engine marke­ting, market­place marke­ting), brand marke­ting (repu­ta­tion manage­ment, social media, affi­liate and e‑mail marke­ting), and web deve­lo­p­ment (CMS, store systems and usabi­lity opti­miza­tion). The custo­mer base includes more than 500 natio­nal and international

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 4,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies.

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major indus­tries. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion; and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance matters. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.

The Swiss asso­cia­tion Norton Rose Fulbright helps to coor­di­nate the acti­vi­ties of Norton Rose Fulbright members, but does not provide legal advice to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities world­wide, inclu­ding London, Hous­ton, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johan­nes­burg. For more infor­ma­tion, visit nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

News

Munich / Bonn / Vienna — Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for the textile indus­try: The robo­tics start-up sewts has closed a seed finan­cing round tota­ling seven figu­res. sewts is deve­lo­ping a soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) solu­tion that helps indus­trial compa­nies auto­mate proces­ses in which easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als are proces­sed, for exam­ple texti­les or films. Initi­ally, the tech­no­logy will be used in indus­trial laun­dry lines; in the long term, cross-sector appli­ca­ti­ons are plan­ned in the textile indus­try as well as in the high-tech sector. APEX Ventures, Bayern Kapi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. The exis­ting inves­tor Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and a consor­tium of expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels have also confirmed their commitments.

In the manu­fac­tu­ring and proces­sing indus­tries, there are many robo­tics and AI-based solu­ti­ons for hand­ling solid, dimen­sio­nally stable raw mate­ri­als such as metals. The auto­ma­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring or assem­bly proces­ses in which, on the other hand, easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als are proces­sed still poses enorm­ous problems for compu­ters and image proces­sing programs today, because the demands on the requi­red compu­ting power are too great. Curr­ently available robots and grip­ping systems can ther­e­fore only inade­qua­tely perform such simple opera­ti­ons for humans, such as grip­ping a towel or piece of clot­hing. Foun­ded in 2019, Munich-based sewts GmbH and its appro­xi­m­ately 20 employees have ther­e­fore deve­lo­ped inno­va­tive control and image proces­sing soft­ware that enables robots to predict the beha­vior of shape-unsta­ble mate­ri­als during grip­ping in real time based on intel­li­gent algo­rithms deve­lo­ped in-house. At the core of the tech­no­logy is a unique approach to gene­ra­ting arti­fi­cial trai­ning data for AI, which is based on high-precis­ion, so-called finite element method (FEM) simu­la­ti­ons. With the help of this novel approach, sewts can auto­mate a wide range of indus­trial proces­ses that were previously tech­ni­cally unfe­a­si­ble — such as the hand­ling of texti­les or carbon fiber and semi-finis­hed products.

Wide range of applications

Indus­trial laun­d­ries, for exam­ple, bene­fit from this tech­no­logy: indi­vi­dual steps, such as sort­ing dirty texti­les or placing laun­dry in folding machi­nes, still have to be carried out there by hand. Many laun­d­ries can hardly find employees for this stre­nuous work. With sewts, this step can be auto­ma­ted by robots. In the long term, this should increase the produc­ti­vity of a textile washing line by up to 100 percent, while allo­wing the laun­dry to use its person­nel capa­ci­ties more effectively.

The areas of appli­ca­tion for this inno­va­tive tech­no­logy are constantly expan­ding and are alre­ady opening up comple­tely new produc­tion possi­bi­li­ties in the textile indus­try, for exam­ple in the manu­fac­ture of clot­hing. In the long term, the ambi­ti­ons of the three foun­ders Alex­an­der Bley, Tim Doerks and Till Rickert also include opening up other manu­fac­tu­ring sectors, for exam­ple in the proces­sing of films and foams. They plan to invest the new finan­cial resour­ces in the further deve­lo­p­ment of their soft­ware into a series product, the expan­sion of the deve­lo­p­ment team and the acqui­si­tion of medium and long-term inte­gra­tion and sales partners.

“We are very plea­sed to have convin­ced capi­tal-strong and tech­no­lo­gi­cally savvy inves­tors of our disrup­tive tech­no­logy. Their cross-indus­try market exper­tise will be of great help to us on our way to series produc­tion,” says sewts co-foun­der and co-mana­ging direc­tor Alex­an­der Bley.

Dr. Wolf­gang Neubert, part­ner at APEX Ventures, says: “We were parti­cu­larly impres­sed in the team by the combi­na­tion of high profes­sio­nal exper­tise, tech­ni­cal crea­ti­vity and the ability to think quickly into indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons of the sewts tech­no­logy and derive their econo­mic impact.”

Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “sewts has the poten­tial to signi­fi­cantly simplify proces­ses in a wide range of indus­tries that could not previously be auto­ma­ted — a scalable tech­no­logy from which many compa­nies could bene­fit, parti­cu­larly in the indus­trial nation of Germany, but also beyond. An exci­ting inno­va­tion project in the field of robo­tics that we are happy to support in its upco­ming growth steps.”

Johan­nes Weber, invest­ment mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, says: “With deep lear­ning algo­rithms, sewts enables the sophisti­ca­ted hand­ling of texti­les with indus­trial robots for the first time. Through the scalable SaaS busi­ness model, we see high poten­tial to address broad user groups and look forward to support­ing the start-up on this path.”

About sewts
Foun­ded in 2019, Munich-based sewts GmbH is a provi­der of inno­va­tive control and image proces­sing soft­ware that pushes the boun­da­ries of robo­tics in the proces­sing of easily defor­ma­ble mate­ri­als. sewts has deve­lo­ped a unique tech­no­logy that uses high-precis­ion finite element method (FEM) simu­la­ti­ons to effi­ci­ently train machine lear­ning algo­rithms. The intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­tion enables count­less appli­ca­ti­ons in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, such as the proces­sing of texti­les in indus­trial laun­d­ries or the produc­tion of clot­hing. The company is backed by APEX Ventures, Bayern Kapi­tal, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and a number of highly expe­ri­en­ced busi­ness angels. www.sewts.de

About APEX Ventures
APEX Ventures is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal inves­tor focu­sing on deep-tech start-ups with unique IP and extra­or­di­nary market poten­tial. APEX Ventures has comple­ted nume­rous invest­ments with its funds in Europe as well as in the U.S., inclu­ding in the areas of AI for medi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, quan­tum and laser tech­no­logy, auto­no­mous mobi­lity, compu­ter-based vision, and digi­tal foren­sics. APEX Ventures is in close colla­bo­ra­tion with the foun­ding teams to work toge­ther on go-to-market stra­te­gies and acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth. For an effec­tive selec­tion of talen­ted teams and their best possi­ble support, APEX Ventures is in close exch­ange with acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons, entre­pre­neur­ship programs and other inter­na­tio­nal VC part­ners. www.apex.ventures

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 600 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. Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 compa­nies. www.htgf.de

News

Toronto, Frank­furt, Löbau — Cana­dian intel­li­gent trans­por­ta­tion systems provi­der Quar­terhill Inc. through its wholly owned subsi­diary Inter­na­tio­nal Road Dyna­mics Inc. (“IRD”) acqui­red all shares in VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH, a German-based provi­der of high-precis­ion traf­fic moni­to­ring equipment.

VDS, based in Löbau, Germany, deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and distri­bu­tes statio­nary and mobile traf­fic moni­to­ring devices that measure vehicle speed and record red light viola­ti­ons. VDS’s devices are curr­ently the only radar-based products certi­fied under the new regu­la­ti­ons in Germany, allo­wing direct track­ing of traf­fic viola­ti­ons. VDS has a produc­tion faci­lity and two service centers in Germany and will be inte­gra­ted into Sensor Line GmbH, which was acqui­red by Quarterhill/IRD in Janu­ary 2021. Sensor Line is one of the largest suppli­ers of VDS for opto­elec­tro­nic sensors (www.vds-verkehrstechnik.de).

Quar­terhill is a growth-orien­ted company in “Intel­li­gent Trans­por­ta­tion Systems” and a leader in intellec­tual property licen­sing (for more infor­ma­tion: www.quarterhill.com). IRD is a dyna­mic ITS tech­no­logy company enga­ged in the deve­lo­p­ment of key compon­ents and advan­ced systems for the next gene­ra­tion of trans­por­ta­tion networks (for more infor­ma­tion: www.irdinc.com).

In the tran­sac­tion, the share­hol­der and the mana­ging direc­tor of VDS were compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed by an M&A team of the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner (FGvW) in Frei­burg and Frank­furt under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Hendrik Thies. The share­hol­der was exten­si­vely advi­sed in the area of commer­cial, stra­te­gic and orga­niza­tio­nal M&A tran­sac­tion advice by MNI Part­ners LLC under the leader­ship of part­ner Domi­nik Lutz. FGvW regu­larly carries out complex, often inter­na­tio­nal M&A projects toge­ther with MNI Partners.

Advi­sor Quar­terhill: Norton Rose Fulbright
Paul Amirault (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Ottawa), Nils Rahlf (Part­ner), Dr. Ariane Theis­sen (Asso­ciate) and Andre Hart­mann (Asso­ciate) (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt); Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Coun­sel), Micha­els Zenkert (Asso­ciate); Olivia Reinke (Asso­ciate) (Employ­ment, Munich); Michael Mehler (Coun­sel), Daniela Kowalsky (Senior Asso­ciate) (Real Estate, Frank­furt); Tino Duttiné (Part­ner), Sarah Heufel­der (Asso­ciate) (Tax, Frank­furt); Tiffany Zilliox (Senior Asso­ciate, Intellec­tual Property, Munich).

Advi­sor to share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor VDS Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Frei­burg and Frankfurt
Dr. Hendrik Thies (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law, M&A)
Dr. Till Bött­cher (Real Estate Law)
Annette Rölz (Labor Law)

MNI Part­ners LLC
Domi­nik Lutz, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, M&A Tran­sac­tion Advisory)

About MNI Part­ners: MNIP is a specia­li­zed boutique M&A stra­tegy and tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm in the U.S., Germany and India with a focus on smal­ler and mid-sized tran­sac­tions that are hand-picked, often cross-cultu­ral and below the radar of typi­cal market parti­ci­pants and invest­ment banks. MNIP’s clients, prima­rily on the sell side, are profi­ta­ble compa­nies owned by fami­lies and foun­ders or smal­ler corpo­rate spin-offs with $3 — $30 million in annual revenues.

About Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Partner
Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner is one of the leading inde­pen­dent German commer­cial law firms. The firm’s appro­xi­m­ately 100 lawy­ers, 35 of whom are part­ners, advise compa­nies world­wide from offices in Colo­gne, Frei­burg, Berlin, Frank­furt am Main, Alicante and Brussels. In total, the firm has around 250 employees. www.fgvw.de.

News

Munich — Scin­to­mics GmbH has sold its stake in Pentix­a­Ph­arm GmbH to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. It was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Gütt Olk Feld­haus (GOF). Part of the conside­ra­tion consis­ted of shares in Eckert & Zieg­ler. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Pentix­a­Ph­arm is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors that can be used for both the diagno­sis and treat­ment of cancer. In Febru­ary 2021, Pentix­a­Ph­arm had recei­ved confir­ma­tion from the Euro­pean Medi­ci­nes Agency (EMA) that its drug candi­date Pentix­a­For can advance directly into Phase III clini­cal trials.

Scin­to­mics is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, licen­sing and commer­cia­liza­tion of radio-phar­maceu­ti­cal know-how and radio­phar­maceu­ti­cals and was a foun­ding share­hol­der in PentixaPharm.

Eckert & Zieg­ler is a listed company head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, which holds inte­rests in compa­nies in the fields of medi­cal and isotope tech­no­logy as well as radio-phar­macy and nuclear medi­cine, among others.

Legal advi­sors to Scin­to­mics GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, both Corporate/M&A)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus 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 specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Wupper­tal — The globally active Chinese group WuXi Biolo­gics has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of a plant for biolo­gi­cal subs­tances from Bayer AG in Wupper­tal. The closing took place in Colo­gne on April 30, 2021. A team led by Dirk W. Kolven­bach, Part­ner at the Düssel­dorf office, and Michael Pauli from the Colo­gne office of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to the Chinese group on the purchase. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is around €150 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2021 and is subject to regu­la­tory review.

The new faci­lity in Wupper­tal is one of the largest vaccine produc­tion sites in Germany and will be used to manu­fac­ture highly sought-after subs­tances for COVID-19 vacci­nes and other biolo­gics. WuXi Biolo­gics plans addi­tio­nal invest­ments in process equip­ment at the Wupper­tal site. “We are very proud to have provi­ded legal support for the purchase of this major vaccine produc­tion faci­lity,” said attor­ney Dirk W. Kolven­bach. “Through this tran­sac­tion, we can also make an important contri­bu­tion on an advo­cacy level for vaccine manu­fac­tu­ring, inclu­ding COVID-19 vacci­nes, in Germany.”

With the conclu­sion of the agree­ment, Bayer and WuXi Biolo­gics have at the same time ente­red into a long-term sublease and a service agree­ment. Bayer will provide various services to WuXi Biolo­gics during the start-up of the plant, contri­bu­ting its own resour­ces. The signing alre­ady took place on Decem­ber 21, 2020. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is over 150 million euros.

WuXi Biolo­gics is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exch­ange and is a leading global open access biolo­gics tech­no­logy plat­form. The company provi­des end-to-end solu­ti­ons to help compa­nies disco­ver, deve­lop and manu­fac­ture biolo­gics from concept to commer­cial produc­tion. For Kolven­bach’s team, this is not the first tran­sac­tion for WuXi. Heuking had alre­ady advi­sed WuXi Biolo­gics on the acqui­si­tion of a drug formu­la­tion plant from Bayer in 2020.

Advi­sor to WuXi Biolo­gics: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dirk W. Kolven­bach (Corpo­rate Law/ Project Coor­di­na­tion), Düsseldorf
Michael Pauli, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law/Project Coor­di­na­tion), Cologne
Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate), Düsseldorf
Michael Below, (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Bodo Dehne (invest­ment control), Düsseldorf
Wolf­ram Meven (Tax Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Rainer Velte (Anti­trust Law), Düsseldorf
Fabian Gerst­ner, LL.M., Munich, Bettina Nehe­i­der (both Cons­truc­tion Law), Munich
Dr. Tobias Plath, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Tors­ten Groß, LL.M. (Labor Law), Sarah Radon, LL.M. (Commer­cial), all Düsseldorf

News

Aachen — The “Seed Fonds II für die Region Aachen GmbH & Co. KG” (Seed Fonds Aachen), toge­ther with KfW Banken­gruppe, Qiagen co-foun­der Dr. Jürgen Schu­ma­cher and Dr. Robert Huber, Profes­sor of Biopro­cess Engi­nee­ring, have sold their shares in the Aachen-based start-up aquila biolabs GmbH to Scien­ti­fic Biopro­ces­sing, Inc. (SBI), subsi­diary of Scien­ti­fic Indus­tries, Inc. and deve­lo­per of opti­cal sensors for non-inva­sive real-time moni­to­ring of cell culture systems, was divested.

This ends a six-year invest­ment part­ner­ship that began in 2015 with the entry of Seed Fund II, the prede­ces­sor of Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, with a seven-figure invest­ment in the biotech­no­logy company. “It is grati­fy­ing that we can accom­pany such a great foun­ding team to a successful exit with our early-stage funds. I look forward to seeing the success story of aquila biolabs conti­nue along this path,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, CEO of the S‑UBG Group.

Expan­ding the plat­for­m’s reach worldwide

Foun­ded in Aachen at the end of 2014, aquila biolabs GmbH deve­lops a plat­form of intel­li­gent sensors and soft­ware for the non-inva­sive moni­to­ring and analy­sis of biopro­ces­ses in the labo­ra­tory. With the help of the paten­ted measu­re­ment methods, rese­ar­chers can auto­ma­ti­cally moni­tor process para­me­ters and observe the cells as they grow, without having to take samples. This signi­fi­cantly redu­ces deve­lo­p­ment times and costs and sustain­ably impro­ves biopro­ces­ses in acade­mic and indus­trial rese­arch. The products of aquila biolabs GmbH are now used by custo­mers in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­lo­gi­cal and chemi­cal indus­tries in over 25 countries.

“We are exci­ted to join SBI and expand the reach of our unique plat­form to biopro­cess scien­tists around the world,” says Daniel Grünes, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, who will assume the role of Vice Presi­dent of R&D and Opera­ti­ons at SBI. Jens Bayer, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, adds: “We would like to thank our inves­tor consor­tium once again for the very good and harmo­nious coope­ra­tion over the past years. Espe­ci­ally the enorm­ous wealth of expe­ri­ence of inves­tors like Mr. Schu­ma­cher and the Seed Fonds Aachen, who have frequently accom­pa­nied tech­no­logy compa­nies from the start-up phase to the exit, was very helpful for us.” aquila biolabs will conti­nue to offer its products and services around the globe from its head­quar­ters in Baes­wei­ler, where the company curr­ently employs 16 people.

SBI expands presence in Europe

“When SBI was explo­ring the available tech­no­lo­gies that could drive digi­tally simpli­fied biopro­ces­sing, aqui­la’s approach stood out as the most impres­sive,” said Rein­hard Vogt, chair­man of SBI and former vice presi­dent and member of the Sarto­rius AG Execu­tive Board. “In addi­tion to offe­ring a broad range of advan­ced sensors and data analy­tics tools, this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion also adds new talent to our strong team and streng­thens our presence in Europe.”

About the S‑UBG Group

The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company.

2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Düssel­dorf M&A part­ners Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both lead part­ners) advi­sed SIX Swiss Exch­ange-listed Imple­nia Group, one of Switz­er­lan­d’s leading cons­truc­tion and real estate services compa­nies, on the plan­ned sale of German-based Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH to Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, which was signed on April 16, 2021 and is expec­ted to be comple­ted on May 31, 2021 (closing), all sites and ongo­ing projects with a total of 199 employees of the Main­ten­ance divi­sion will be trans­fer­red to Karrié Bau.

Imple­nia is dispo­sing of the main­ten­ance busi­ness in order to focus further on the defi­ned core port­fo­lio in line with its stra­tegy. Karrié Bau plans to assume respon­si­bi­lity for ongo­ing projects after the acqui­si­tion is comple­ted. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the condi­ti­ons were crea­ted for a seam­less carve-out of the main­ten­ance busi­ness and its successful conti­nua­tion by Karrié Bau.

In the imple­men­ta­tion of the project, the Deloitte Legal team was able to contri­bute to the success through a combi­na­tion of first-class legal advice, tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence and goal-orien­ted commu­ni­ca­tion. The close coope­ra­tion with colle­agues from Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Deloitte Tran­sac­tion Services Switz­er­land and Deloitte Tax Germany enab­led compre­hen­sive inter­di­sci­pli­nary advice on all commer­cial, legal and tax aspects mate­rial to the tran­sac­tion. www.deloittelegal.de

Advi­sor Imple­nia: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both Lead, Corporate/M&A), Thilo Hoff­mann (Coun­sel), André Giesen (Senior Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Tran­sac­tion Services, Switz­er­land: Stephan Brücher, Benja­min Lechuga, Maxi­mi­lian Hornung, Nico­las Bornitz Deloitte Tax: Fabian Borkowski

Advi­sor Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG: EY Law
Dr. Thors­ten Erhard, Dr. Robert Schil­ler, Dr. Timo Rinne EY: Chris­toph Serf, Hagen Reiser, Jan-Hendrik Pirwitz, Thors­ten Schnei­der, Tobias Kampmann

About Imple­nia
As a leading Swiss cons­truc­tion and real estate service provi­der, Imple­nia deve­lops and reali­zes living spaces, working envi­ron­ments and infra­struc­ture for future gene­ra­ti­ons in Switz­er­land and Germany. Imple­nia also plans and builds complex infra­struc­ture projects in Austria, France, Sweden and Norway. Imple­nia can look back on around 150 years of cons­truc­tion tradi­tion. The company brings toge­ther the exper­tise of highly quali­fied consul­ting, plan­ning and execu­tion units under one roof to form an inte­gra­ted, multi­na­tio­nal leading cons­truc­tion and real estate service provider.

With its broad range of services and the in-depth expe­ri­ence of its specia­lists, the Group is able to realize complex large-scale projects and support struc­tures throug­hout their entire life cycle and in close proxi­mity to custo­mers. The focus is on the needs of custo­mers and a sustainable balance between econo­mic success and social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bi­lity. Imple­nia, head­quar­te­red in Opfi­kon near Zurich, employs more than 8,500 people across Europe and gene­ra­ted sales of almost CHF 4 billion in 2020. For more infor­ma­tion, visit implenia.com. About Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH Imple­nia Instand­set­zung is a leading full-service part­ner in Germany for struc­tu­ral resto­ra­tion of buil­dings, infra­struc­ture struc­tures or parts thereof.

News

Vienna — Round2 Capi­tal, the Vienna-based growth finance invest­ment fund and Euro­pean pioneer in reve­nue-based finan­cing, closes the first quar­ter with seven invest­ments. The exis­ting port­fo­lio of 13 compa­nies will thus be expan­ded by tech scale-ups from Germany, the UK, Austria, France and Sweden. Chris­tian Czer­nich, Round2 Capi­tal foun­der and CEO, explains why the alter­na­tive finan­cing form of reve­nue-based finan­cing is so in demand right now.

The first quar­ter ended parti­cu­larly successfully for the Round2 Capi­tal team: 7 new compa­nies now expand the port­fo­lio of the Vienna-based invest­ment fund, which is prima­rily dedi­ca­ted to reve­nue-based finan­cing. Invest­ments are made far beyond natio­nal borders and scale-ups from Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France and, of course, Austria are welco­med into the family of port­fo­lio compa­nies. The new invest­ments are:

Logsta (AT), next-gene­ra­tion soft­ware-enab­led logi­stics company with warehouse loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, the UK, France and the US.

Projekt­eins (DE), B2B soft­ware plat­form for the inte­gra­tion of various e‑commerce applications.

Dracoon (DE), cyber­se­cu­rity busi­ness cloud with the highest encryp­tion standards.

Hamil­ton Apps (FR), a leading work­place tech­no­logy provi­der offe­ring a wide range of solu­ti­ons within a single inte­gra­ted platform.

Sales Impact Academy (UK), an e‑learning plat­form for B2B salespeople.

Subscrip­tion-based sports commu­nity (UK)

Inter­net Yield (SE), acqui­res, owns and opera­tes reve­nue-gene­ra­ting websites curr­ently selling 40 million ad impres­si­ons per month.

Round2 Capi­tal focu­ses on young digi­tal SaaS compa­nies that are in the growth phase and alre­ady employ 20 — 150 people. As a rule, these compa­nies have alre­ady reached the opera­ting brea­k­e­ven point. The majo­rity of the port­fo­lio compa­nies were able to reach this level without exter­nal finan­cing and are now pursuing a growth stra­tegy that enables growth even without high burn rates. The Round2 port­fo­lio includes e.g. the German cyber secu­rity company Myra Secu­rity, the Swiss EduTech scale-up Aval­lain or the Finnish, multi­ple award-winning scale-up Vainu, all of which have mana­ged to grow to a sales volume of between 5- 15 million euros without exter­nal equity financing.

Reve­nue-based finan­cing is a rela­tively new finan­cing instru­ment in Europe, which has been successfully estab­lished not least through the work of Round2 Capi­tal. The high­light of this form of growth finan­cing is that the company does not have to give up any company shares, as instead the fund parti­ci­pa­tes in the company’s sales until a prede­fi­ned repay­ment amount is reached. The monthly repay­ments auto­ma­ti­cally adjust to the company’s turno­ver and thus do not cause any cash flow problems. Since leng­thy nego­tia­ti­ons on company valua­tions are no longer neces­sary, the tran­sac­tion process is also signi­fi­cantly faster. All these advan­ta­ges make reve­nue-based finance a simple, flexi­ble and fully trans­pa­rent finan­cing tool.

The capi­tal provi­ded by Round2 is mostly used by the young compa­nies to expand sales, marke­ting and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In other words, for measu­res that quickly lead to sales growth.

Today, Round2 Capi­tal mana­ges over 30 million euros from mainly entre­pre­neurs and family offices from Sweden, Germany, and Austria. Wher­eby plans are alre­ady under­way to open the fund to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and signi­fi­cantly increase the capi­tal under management.

How Reve­nue-based Finan­cing Works

Reve­nue-based finan­cing consists of a subor­di­na­ted loan whose repay­ment is linked to the reve­nue of the company in which the invest­ment is made. This share is between 2–6%, depen­ding on the amount finan­ced and sales, and consists of both a repay­ment and a royalty compo­nent. The reve­nue share is paid until a certain multi­ple of the finan­cing amount, which is between 1.35x — 2.15x, has been paid. When this is reached after 4–6 years, the finan­cing auto­ma­ti­cally expi­res. The finan­cing volume is initi­ally between EUR 500,000 and EUR 2 million and can be gradu­ally increased to over EUR 10 million by supple­men­ting it with equity. Since in some cases it can be well combi­ned with an equity invest­ment and even replace it, Round2 Capi­tal selec­tively also offers a combi­na­tion of these two invest­ment models.

The advan­tage of reve­nue-based finan­cing over other venture debt finan­cing is that repay­ments are linked to sales and thus to the company’s cash flow. In this way, this cannot become unba­lan­ced due to the repay­ment obligations.

About Round2 Capi­tal Partners
Round2 Capi­tal is a fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment firm with over €30 million in capi­tal under manage­ment. Based in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm, the company is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean scale-ups with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Since its incep­tion in 2017, Round2 Capi­tal has been pionee­ring reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe and is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria, UK and the Nordic count­ries. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 20 diffe­rent compa­nies. www.round2cap.com

News

Frank­furt a. M./ POELLATH advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity, the AUVESY manage­ment team and other share­hol­ders on the sale of their stake in the AUVESY Group, a tech­no­lo­gi­cal global market leader for data manage­ment systems, to Hg Capi­tal. The exis­ting AUVESY manage­ment team will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company, while the former majo­rity owner Brock­haus Private Equity will exit completely.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Landau in der Pfalz, AUVESY GmbH is a leading global provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for version control and change manage­ment in auto­ma­ted indus­trial envi­ron­ments. The soft­ware enables auto­ma­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties and other intel­li­gent machi­nes, as well as their machine data and infor­ma­tion, to be auto­ma­ti­cally backed up and centrally mana­ged. The company employs around 90 people and mana­ges over 5 million indus­trial “Inter­net-of-Things” devices in 45 countries.

POELLATH alre­ady advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity on the acqui­si­tion of AUVESY in 2017 from the then foun­ders and now also accom­pa­nied the sale to Hg Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still pending.

Advi­sor Brock­haus Private Equity: POELLATH with the follo­wing cross-loca­tion team:
Tobias Jäger (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Matthias Meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de

Send email