ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Hamburg/ Frank­furt a.M. — Good­win advi­sed the manage­ment of Garz & Fricke as co-seller and mino­rity share­hol­der on the sale of the Garz & Fricke Group to the Italian listed SECO S.p.A. and the re-invest­ment. Other sellers were AFINUM Siebte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG and the foun­ders, each of whom was advi­sed by other law firms. The total price of the tran­sac­tion amounts to 180 million euros.

Garz & Fricke Holding is a German manu­fac­tu­rer and deve­lo­per of hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the field of IoT based in Hamburg.

Advi­sor Garz & Fricke: Goodwin
The Good­win team was led by Dr. Markus Käpplin­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate) with support from Bastian Schmack (Asso­ciate, Corporate).

News

Remscheid/ Munich/ Paris — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed Euro­pean private equity firm EMZ Part­ners (EMZ) on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Hermann Pipers­berg (Pipers­berg). Peter Fischer, Mana­ging Direc­tor and share­hol­der of Pipers­berg, and the expan­ded manage­ment team are also inves­t­ing in the future of the company.

Foun­ded in Remscheid in 1843, Pipers­berg is the leading full-service part­ner for the utility indus­try in terms of manu­fac­tu­ring, cali­bra­tion, certi­fi­ca­tion and sales of gas and water meters. The company also provi­des compre­hen­sive services, such as new meter instal­la­tion, regu­lar meter chan­ges, regu­la­tory spot checks and repairs, and logistics.

About EMZ

EMZ is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment company based in Paris and Munich, which sees itself as a part­ner to medium-sized compa­nies. The focus of acti­vi­ties is on invest­ments along­side foun­ders, family share­hol­ders and mana­gers. EMZ is majo­rity control­led by its own employees and invests the money of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from Europe. From the current fund with a volume of more than one billion euros, EMZ makes invest­ments in the amount of 10 to 150 million euros. www.emzpartners.com

Advi­sor EMZ: Shear­man & Sterling

Part­ner Winfried M. Carli and Asso­ciate Daniel Wagner (both Munich-Finance). Winfried M. Carli’s team regu­larly advi­ses EMZ on finan­cing tran­sac­tions, most recently on the finan­cing of an invest­ment in Cele­brate (card making) and Ankerkraut.

About Shear­man & Sterling

Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.shearman.com.

News

Munich — Great news for the Munich start-up scene: Unter­neh­mer­TUM and the TUM Venture Labs will be supported by the entre­pre­neur brot­hers Andreas and Thomas Strüng­mann with 25 million euros over the next 10 years. This funding will give Euro­pe’s largest start-up and inno­va­tion center at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich and the new TUM Venture Labs a major inter­na­tio­nal boost.

“Unter­neh­mer­TUM and TUM have built an outstan­ding start-up ecosys­tem over the last twenty years. With our commit­ment, our family would like to make a contri­bu­tion to accom­pany even more students as well as scien­tists on a successful entre­pre­neu­rial path,” say Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann.
The two entre­pre­neurs are known as successful inves­tors, having inves­ted early on in the now globally renow­ned biotech­no­logy company BioNTech and in the gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer Hexal.

Direct rese­arch transfer

The TUM Venture Labs initia­ted by TUM and Unter­neh­mer­TUM offer an inter­na­tio­nally outstan­ding funding infra­struc­ture for one speci­fic tech­no­logy field each. They are speci­fi­cally focu­sed on signi­fi­cant tech­no­logy fields and create dyna­mic ecosys­tems of start-ups, acade­mia, inves­tors and expe­ri­en­ced companies.

The inte­gra­tive colla­bo­ra­tion of the indi­vi­dual TUM Venture Labs enables inno­va­tion to emerge at the inter­faces between tech­no­logy fields, distin­gu­is­hing them from simi­lar start-up initia­ti­ves at other top entre­pre­neu­rial univer­si­ties worldwide.
Around 100 high-poten­tial startup teams are alre­ady under the care of Venture Labs, bene­fiting from tail­o­red support services, incu­ba­tion space, trai­ning and ventu­ring programs, and access to global networks of compa­nies and inves­tors to prepare their startups.

A mile­stone for the inno­va­tion metro­po­lis of Munich

Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, Presi­dent of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich, sees the coope­ra­tion as “another mile­stone in Munich’s deve­lo­p­ment into the leading tech­no­logy inno­va­tion center in Europe. I am confi­dent that other part­ners from busi­ness, science and poli­tics will join our initia­tive to use the TUM Venture Labs to spawn entire fami­lies of start-ups from the foun­ding state of Bava­ria that are inter­na­tio­nally compe­ti­tive with rese­arch-based deep-tech applications.”

“The unique selling point of Munich’s inno­va­tion and startup scene is the pooling of forces between univer­si­ties, start­ups, the public sector, estab­lished compa­nies and entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies,” says Prof. Helmut Schö­nen­ber­ger, foun­der and CEO of Unter­neh­mer­TUM and Vice Presi­dent Entre­pre­neur­ship at TUM. “The Strüng­mann fami­ly’s commit­ment to Unter­neh­mer­TUM and TUM Venture Labs is a wonderful exam­ple of the spirit of coope­ra­tion at Munich’s inno­va­tion and start-up location.”

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Munich / Düssel­dorf — The market for top manage­ment consul­ting has been charac­te­ri­zed by incre­asing conso­li­da­tion trends in recent years. In this dyna­mic envi­ron­ment, Water­land Private Equity and top manage­ment consul­tancy Horn & Company have ente­red into a 50/50 part­ner­ship to create a new growth plat­form for mid-market consul­ting firms.

Horn & Company is one of the leading consul­ting firms in the DACH region in the areas of stra­tegy, digi­tiza­tion and earnings enhance­ment for finan­cial service provi­ders as well as indus­trial and retail compa­nies. The share­hol­ders of Horn & Company will remain with the company in their usual capa­city and will conti­nue to assume the entre­pre­neu­rial lead respon­si­bi­lity for the opera­tio­nal consul­ting busi­ness in their role as shareholders.

Foun­ded in 2009 by Dr. Chris­tian Horn and Dr. Alex­an­der Bethke-Jaeni­cke, among others, Horn & Company is a top manage­ment consul­tancy specia­li­zing in finan­cial service provi­ders and indus­trial compa­nies with head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf. Horn’s focus is on the design and effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of stra­tegy proces­ses and the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of finan­cial service provi­ders and indus­trial and retail compa­nies with a clear focus on measura­ble P&L impro­ve­ment, inclu­ding through data-driven analy­tics. Buil­ding on the high stan­dards of exper­tise and senio­rity of Horn & Company’s consul­ting teams, the consul­ting firm has repea­tedly been named Hidden Cham­pion of top manage­ment consul­ting for banks and insu­rance compa­nies by Manage­ment and Science. Since its foun­ding, Horn & Company has consis­t­ently achie­ved double-digit growth rates per year and today employs over 100 people at six loca­ti­ons in Germany and Austria. The entire Horn & Company leader­ship team remains active with the company.

Focus on streng­thening core compe­ten­cies and inor­ga­nic growth

Buil­ding on the company’s strong orga­nic growth, Horn & Company is expec­ted to become an even stron­ger brand in the DACH consul­ting market through indus­try conso­li­da­tion as a result of its part­ner­ship with Water­land. To this end, the part­ners plan to expand Horn & Company’s range of services in the areas of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, asset-based consul­ting, and data analy­tics, among others, as well as in other func­tional subject areas, in order to be able to offer custo­mers a holi­stic consul­ting ecosys­tem. By further dove­tail­ing and inte­gra­ting the current core compe­tence fields, the further expan­sion of the Indus­try and Trade busi­ness area in parti­cu­lar is to be acce­le­ra­ted. From the recently opened branch office in Vienna, the succes­sive inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion into neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean count­ries is also planned.

“In recent years, we have firmly estab­lished oursel­ves in the market and convin­ced a high-cali­ber client base of our unique value propo­si­tion. Now we have to conti­nue our growth path and deve­lop new oppor­tu­ni­ties through stra­te­gic steps, espe­ci­ally in the area of inor­ga­nic growth. We see poten­tial for this both verti­cally and hori­zon­tally as well as with regard to our inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy,” says Dr. Horn, Mana­ging Part­ner at Horn & Company. Dr. Bethke-Jaeni­cke, also Mana­ging Part­ner, adds: “Water­land has abso­lut­ely convin­ced us in our search for a strong growth part­ner. Water­land shares our vision of a high-growth conso­li­da­tion plat­form for medium-sized consul­ting firms and the idea of an ecosys­tem for digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion estab­lished by Horn & Company in recent years, has the neces­sary opera­tio­nal under­stan­ding in the field of profes­sio­nal services and the neces­sary indus­try exper­tise to open a new chap­ter in the Horn & Company success story toge­ther with us. We look forward to working together.”

“From the very begin­ning, we were convin­ced of Horn & Company’s clear stra­te­gic profile and unique posi­tio­ning. The consul­ting indus­try has proven to be extre­mely resi­li­ent during the chal­len­ging last months and is still highly frag­men­ted, espe­ci­ally in Germany. We see promi­sing growth poten­tial in the market, espe­ci­ally through inor­ga­nic value levers. We look forward to support­ing Horn & Company’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team on this deve­lo­p­ment path,” says Dr. Gregor Hengst (photo), Part­ner at Water­land Private Equity.

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the profes­sio­nal services sector through corre­spon­ding invest­ments in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries. Water­land curr­ently alre­ady has invest­ments in compa­nies such as First Consul­ting (process consul­ting), Moore (accoun­ting & audi­ting), 9altitudes (Micro­soft Dyna­mics service provi­der), Skay­link (mana­ged cloud services), and Intracto and Side­show (digi­tal agencies).

About Water­land

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

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The company ranks fifth globally in the current HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Ranking (Janu­ary 2021).

News

Munich, Germany — EQT Ventures laun­ches invest­ment in Berlin-based food biotech startup Formo in a USD 50 million Series A finan­cing round advi­sed. In addi­tion to EQT Ventures, other backers include Elevat3 Capi­tal, Lower­car­bon Capi­tal and Lionhe­art Ventures.

Formo deve­lops sustainable, healthy and fair dairy products, support­ing a sustainable and ethi­cal food system. Form­erly known as LegenD­airy Foods, Formo is a Euro­pean leader in cellu­lar agri­cul­ture and the deve­lo­p­ment of cultu­red dairy products based on real, animal-free milk prote­ins produ­ced by precis­ion fermen­ta­tion. The finan­cing round is inten­ded to increase rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment capa­city and acce­le­rate commer­cia­liza­tion in advance of Formo’s market launch.

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

Advi­sors to EQT: DLA Piper 
The DLA Piper team, led by Part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A), contin­ued to include Part­ner Dr. Burk­hard Führ­meyer (IPT), Coun­sel Kaja Herr­mann (Labor Law, all Frank­furt), Senior Asso­ciate Domi­nik Wege­ner (Corpo­rate, Hamburg) and Asso­cia­tes Phil­ipp Meyer (Private Equity/M&A), Denise Peter (Labor Law, both Frank­furt) and David Sanchio Schele (Data Protec­tion, Hamburg).

About EQT

EQT Part­ners AB is an invest­ment group prima­rily active in Nort­hern Europe and Asia with its head­quar­ters in Stock­holm. It was foun­ded in 1994 by the Swedish Inves­tor AB and is still 31% owned by the latter. The remai­ning 69% is held by the company’s part­ners via EQT Part­ners BV. EQT comple­ted an initial public offe­ring on Septem­ber 24, 2019. https://eqtgroup.com

About DLA Piper

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

News

Hamburg — The tech­no­logy company FlyNex recently closed another finan­cing round worth milli­ons of euros to deve­lop new busi­ness areas and expand its current busi­ness. STIH­L’s entry as an inves­tor crea­tes a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to use drones as tools for data coll­ec­tion and analy­sis in other areas such as forestry and horti­cul­ture in the coming years.

In addi­tion to the new commit­ment of STIHL Digi­tal GmbH, the finan­cing round is comple­ted by invest­ments from HTGF, TGFS (Tech­no­lo­gie-Grün­der­fonds Sach­sen), GPS Ventures and Snow­flake Ventures. The repea­ted parti­ci­pa­tion of exis­ting inves­tors in the current round demons­tra­tes the confi­dence in FlyNex to become a leading drone data platform.

As the only plat­form in Europe to date, FlyNex offers holi­stic digi­tal services for compa­nies in seven Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on the energy supply, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, and cons­truc­tion and real estate indus­tries. In addi­tion to the crea­tion of drone data, FlyNex also offers a compre­hen­sive, seam­less service from consul­ting with the custo­mer through imple­men­ta­tion to the evalua­tion and use of the acqui­red data.

The part­ner­ship with STIHL, known in around 160 count­ries as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of quality products for forestry, muni­ci­pa­li­ties, crafts, cons­truc­tion and gardening, gives FlyNex the oppor­tu­nity to expand its range to other indus­tries and target groups.

STIHL also sees many advan­ta­ges in the cooperation:
“We have spent a long time looking around the inter­na­tio­nal market for inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in this area and are convin­ced that we have found the right part­ner with our invest­ment in FlyNex,” says Benja­min Jung­hans, Direc­tor at STIHL Digi­tal GmbH

Both part­ners are convin­ced that they will be able to jointly deve­lop solu­ti­ons based on drone data that will be of inte­rest to many STIHL customers.

“With our end-to-end plat­form, we provide compa­nies with auto­ma­ted drones and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for data coll­ec­tion and real-time decis­ion-making. We enable compa­nies to create and process data in a way that only digi­tal aero­space compa­nies can,” explains Andreas Dunsch, CEO of FlyNex.

About FlyNex

Based in Leip­zig, Hamburg and San Fran­cisco, FlyNex is the most widely used soft­ware solu­tion for commer­cial drone projects in Europe. Through its proprie­tary cloud plat­form, FlyNex covers the entire commer­cial appli­ca­tion range for data coll­ec­tion by unman­ned aerial systems. Compa­nies can thus inte­grate drones into their own proces­ses with just a few clicks and, for exam­ple, reduce inspec­tion costs by up to 90%. Foun­ded in 2015, FlyNex is successfully used as a drone manage­ment solu­tion by well-known compa­nies and tech­no­logy leaders in the cons­truc­tion, real estate, energy and avia­tion indus­tries. FlyNex is also invol­ved in Europe-wide inno­va­tion projects for the successful inte­gra­tion of drones, such as for medi­cal trans­port, smart air traf­fic manage­ment or air cab navi­ga­tion. www.flynex.io

About STIHL

The STIHL Group deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and sells engine-powered equip­ment for forestry and agri­cul­ture as well as for land­scape main­ten­ance, the cons­truc­tion indus­try and private garden owners. The range is supple­men­ted by digi­tal solu­ti­ons and services. The products are basi­cally sold through service-provi­ding specia­list dealers and STIH­L’s own online stores, which will be expan­ded inter­na­tio­nally in the coming years — with 41 of its own sales and marke­ting compa­nies, around 120 importers and more than 54,000 specia­list dealers in over 160 count­ries. STIHL produ­ces in seven count­ries world­wide: Germany, USA, Brazil, Switz­er­land, Austria, China and the Phil­ip­pi­nes. — Since 1971, STIHL has been the worl­d’s best-selling chain­saw brand. The company was foun­ded in 1926 and has its head­quar­ters in Waib­lin­gen near Stutt­gart. STIHL gene­ra­ted sales of 4.58 billion euros in 2020 with 18,200 employees worldwide.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 650 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,800 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 140 companies.

Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and 32 companies.

News

Munich/ Frank­furt a. Main — Char­ge­Point has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of has-to-be, a leading e‑mobility soft­ware provi­der in Europe. The soft­ware plat­form redu­ces comple­xity and frag­men­ta­tion of today’s Euro­pean char­ging infra­struc­ture land­scape and is compa­ti­ble with all char­ging stati­ons and e‑mobility services used in Europe. The acqui­si­tion of has-to-be streng­thens Char­ge­Poin­t’s posi­tion in the Euro­pean e‑mobility market.

As recently as August 2021, the company acqui­red Viri­Citi, a leading provi­der of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons for e‑buses and commer­cial fleets with a custo­mer base in Europe and North America. Toge­ther with the acqui­si­tion of has-to-be, Char­ge­Point now has a compre­hen­sive solu­tion offe­ring for elec­tric fleets worldwide.

Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. was successfully advi­sed by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP (“Weil”) in the context of the appli­ca­tion for appr­oval under the Invest­ment Control Act to the Austrian Fede­ral Minis­try for Digi­ta­liza­tion and Econo­mic Loca­tion (“BMDW”) requi­red for the acqui­si­tion of has.to.be GmbH. By submit­ting a compre­hen­sive appli­ca­tion, it was possi­ble to go through the parti­ci­pa­tion in the EU scree­ning mecha­nism within the mini­mum dead­line. The BMDW did not exhaust the subse­quent appr­oval period and gran­ted the reques­ted appr­oval without any queries.

Char­ge­Point Holdings, Inc. head­quar­te­red in Camp­bell, Cali­for­nia, opera­tes the worl­d’s largest network of char­ging stati­ons for elec­tric vehic­les with a wide range of services in North America and Europe, and had announ­ced in July the acqui­si­tion of has.to.be GmbH, a leading soft­ware and service provi­der in the field of char­ging battery elec­tric vehic­les in Europe, head­quar­te­red in Austria.

The Weil team was led by Munich Corpo­rate Part­ner Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and supported by Part­ner Manuel-Peter Fringer (Corpo­rate, Munich), Coun­sel Florian Wessel (Corporate/Regulatory, Munich) and Asso­cia­tes Amelie Zabel (Corpo­rate, Munich) and Stef­fen Giolda (Corporate/Regulatory, Frankfurt).

About Char­ge­Point

Char­ge­Point is buil­ding a new char­ging network to move people and goods with elec­tri­city. Since 2007, Char­ge­Point has been commit­ted to helping busi­nesses and drivers make the tran­si­tion to elec­tric vehic­les with one of the largest EV char­ging networks and a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of char­ging solu­ti­ons. Char­ge­Poin­t’s cloud subscrip­tion plat­form and soft­ware-defi­ned char­ging hard­ware are desi­gned to provide opti­ons for every char­ging scena­rio — from resi­den­tial and multi­fa­mily to work­places, parking lots, hospi­ta­lity, retail and trans­por­ta­tion fleets of all types. Today, a Char­ge­Point account provi­des access to hundreds of thou­sands of char­ging stati­ons across North America and Europe. To date, more than 98 million char­ging events have been comple­ted, with drivers connec­ting to the Char­ge­Point network every two seconds or less.

News

Mann­heim — ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH, a company of the ADB Safe­gate Group based in Mann­heim, Germany, has acqui­red all shares in Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH, based in Ecken­tal-Brand near Nurem­berg. The company specia­li­zes in control tech­no­logy for airport light­ing systems, tech­no­lo­gies for feeding light­ing systems, and services for indus­trial auto­ma­tion. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the terms of the acqui­si­tion or the purchase price.

ADB Safe­gate is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons to increase effi­ci­ency, safety and sustaina­bi­lity for airports, airlines and airspace surveil­lance. The company deve­lops holi­stic solu­ti­ons to improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The port­fo­lio includes products, systems and services for airport light­ing, intel­li­gent docking guidance and IT solutions.

The acqui­si­tion of Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH is inten­ded to expand ADB Safe­ga­te’s posi­tion on the Euro­pean market by streng­thening its core busi­ness — espe­ci­ally for solu­ti­ons in the field of control and supply of light­ing systems. The service busi­ness is also to be streng­the­ned by the acquisition.

ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the acqui­si­tion of the shares in Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH by a team of the commer­cial law firm RITTERSHAUS Rechts­an­wälte specia­li­zing in M&A tran­sac­tions under the leader­ship of the Mann­heim part­ner Dr. Moritz Weber. This was the first time RITTERSHAUS acted for a company of the ADB Safe­gate Group.

Advi­sors ADB Safe­gate Germany GmbH: RITTERSHAUS Attor­neys Mannheim
Dr. Moritz Weber, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A)
Dr. Anno Habe­rer, Part­ner (Anti­trust Law)
Johanna Bauer, Asso­ciate (Corporate/M&A)

Advi­sor to share­hol­der Protec Auto­ma­tion GmbH: SALLECK + PARTNER Lawy­ers Tax Advi­sors Erlangen
Dr. Bene­dikt Salleck, Part­ner (Corporate/M&A)

About RITTERSHAUS

With more than 80 lawy­ers at its offices in Frankfurt/Main, Mann­heim and Munich, RITTERSHAUS specia­li­zes in advi­sing inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting medium-sized compa­nies. Foun­ded in 1969, the firm focu­ses on corpo­rate law with a parti­cu­lar empha­sis on restruc­tu­ring, M&A, private equity and venture capi­tal tran­sac­tions, as well as corpo­rate finance and corpo­rate and asset succes­sion. Further areas of prac­tice are banking and capi­tal markets law, employ­ment law, intellec­tual property law, public law and IT law as well as real estate law. The prac­tice area of real estate law has been consider­a­bly streng­the­ned in 2021 by the trans­fer of a 15-person real estate team from Arne­cke Sibeth Dabel­stein. In addi­tion, RITTERSHAUS is inte­gra­ted into a global network with law firms on five conti­nents via Legal­ink and hand­les manda­tes world­wide on a cross-border basis. www.rittershaus.net

News

Berlin — “The German invest­ment market has shaken off the Corona shock. 6.6 billion inves­ted invest­ment compa­nies in this coun­try in the first half of 2021,” said Frank Hüther (photo), board spokes­man of the German Private Equity and Venture Capi­tal Asso­cia­tion (BVK) on the preli­mi­nary market figu­res. “After a record year in 2019 with invest­ments of €15.7 billion and an almost equally strong 2020 with €14.8 billion, we are well on track to reach this invest­ment level again in the current year. The market is curr­ently show­ing a great willing­ness to invest in all segments and has left the pande­mic behind.”

Capi­tal expen­dit­ures of EUR 6.56 billion repre­sent a slight increase compared with the prior-year half, when EUR 6.44 billion was inves­ted. A total of around 627 compa­nies were finan­ced with equity capi­tal in the first six months of the year, 376 of them with venture capital.

Venture Capi­tal with record half-year

Venture Capi­tal cele­bra­ted a record half-year. At €2.25 billion, invest­ment compa­nies have never inves­ted so much venture capi­tal in Germany in a single six-month period. This not only doubled the volume of the first half of the previous year (€1.06 billion), but alre­ady excee­ded the invest­ments for the full year 2020 (€1.94 billion). The main reason for this is the large number of triple-digit finan­cing rounds for mainly unicorn start-ups such as Celo­nis, Trade Repu­blic, Flix Mobi­lity, Wefox and Scalable Capi­tal. Here, invest­ment compa­nies have substan­ti­ally co-inves­ted along­side other inves­tors. “Venture capi­tal is curr­ently booming and the mood is excel­lent. Covid-19 is no longer a burden,” says Ulrike Hinrichs, mana­ging board member of BVK. “We need to use this momen­tum to create more beacons like the German Unicorns, but also to further advance venture capi­tal across the board.”

Buy-outs with signi­fi­cant decline

Buy-out invest­ments tota­led €2.39 billion in the first six months of the year. This was well below the prior-year figu­res (H1: EUR 5.08 billion, H2: EUR 6.55 billion). “Howe­ver, we expect some of the recently announ­ced tran­sac­tions to be comple­ted by the end of the year, and invest­ments to pick up noti­ce­ably in the second half of the year,” says Hinrichs, clas­si­fy­ing the figu­res. The largest tran­sac­tions announ­ced or alre­ady comple­ted so far this year include Birken­stock, Roden­stock, Tenta­mus Analy­tics, think-cell Soft­ware or Engel&Völkers. “Over­all, we are seeing a flurry of buyout acti­vity, which just picked up again in the middle of the year,” Hinrichs adds. As in the previous year, 65 buy-outs were coun­ted in the first six months.

The mostly SME-orien­ted mino­rity share­hol­dings (growth, repla­ce­ment and turn­around finan­cing) tota­led EUR 1.91 billion, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding the prior-year level (H1: EUR 0.29 billion, H2: EUR 0.97 billion). In this market segment, invest­ments regu­larly fluc­tuate due to indi­vi­dual large single invest­ments among estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies and more mature start-ups.

The complete, preli­mi­nary statis­tics for the first half of 2021 can be found on the website: www.bvkap.de

News

Munich — NETWORK Corpo­rate Finance acted as debt advi­sor to AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG (AFINUM) in struc­tu­ring and raising acqui­si­tion finan­cing for the purchase of TISSO Natur­pro­dukte GmbH (TISSO), a manu­fac­tu­rer of thera­peu­tic food supplements.

AFINUM acqui­res a majo­rity stake in TISSO and forms a new share­hol­der group with the exis­ting share­hol­ders and manage­ment. Toge­ther, the successful growth stra­tegy of the dietary supple­ment manu­fac­tu­rer is to be pursued and acce­le­ra­ted with further deve­lo­p­ments in the areas of sales and commu­ni­ca­tion. NETWORK, as Debt Advi­sor, struc­tu­red and raised acqui­si­tion finan­cing for AFINUM as well as an opera­ting line of credit for the company.

The company TISSO

TISSO produ­ces high-quality nutri­tio­nal supple­ments and deve­lops holi­stic therapy concepts with a focus on the treat­ment of chro­nic complaints. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment resour­ces, TISSO has deep value crea­tion in the food supple­ment sector. Further­more, a nati­on­wide distri­bu­tion network of thera­pists forms the corner­stone of the company’s sales stra­tegy. In a highly compe­ti­tive search process, the exis­ting share­hol­ders selec­ted AFINUM as a future growth part­ner to opti­mally align the company for the next phase of its development.b www.tisso.de

Markus Junge remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved in the company as CEO along­side foun­der Albert Hesse. In addi­tion, it was jointly deci­ded to give key perfor­mers a stake in the company as part of the transaction.

The invest­ment in TISSO is the twelfth tran­sac­tion of AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG. and stra­te­gi­cally rounds off the port­fo­lio. In July, the invest­ment in evitria, also in the health­care sector, was sold to the Swedish Atlas Group follo­wing successful growth.

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have been able to estab­lish oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002.

News

The Silbitz Group has taken over the Torge­low iron foundry as part of a trans­fer­ring reor­ga­niza­tion. King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) advi­sed Silbitz Group GmbH (Silbitz Group) on merger control aspects in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of the busi­ness of Eisen­gie­ße­rei Torge­low GmbH (EGT). GvW Graf von West­pha­len advi­sed the Group on the acqui­si­tion of the approx. 300 employees in terms of labor law.

Eisen­gie­ße­rei Torge­low is a tradi­tio­nal company from Meck­len­burg-Vorpom­mern, which has been active in the foundry indus­try for more than 260 years. With its access to the Baltic Sea, the company specia­li­zes in the produc­tion of highly complex castings for the offshore wind power industry.

With this acqui­si­tion, the Silbitz Group is expan­ding its product range in the field of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. The Silbitz Group is a group of compa­nies compri­sing various found­ries and a mecha­ni­cal proces­sor with head­quar­ters in Silbitz/Thuringia. The company, which is part of the port­fo­lio of listed Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), produ­ces castings for indus­tries such as the energy, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and trans­port sectors.

Advi­sors Silbitz Group GmbH:
King & Wood Malle­sons (KWM) — Tilman Siebert (photo) (anti­trust)

GvW Graf von West­pha­len — Part­ner Axel Klasen, Stuttgart

Other consul­tants Silbitz Group
Wellen­siek — Matthias Krämer (Corpo­rate and Insol­vency Law/M&A)

Admi­nis­tra­tor iron foundry Torgelow
PLUTA: Sebas­tian Laboga

News

Schwä­bisch Hall — Schwä­bisch Hall-based sauna manu­fac­tu­rer Klafs GmbH & Co. KG acqui­res a majo­rity stake in British swim­ming pool buil­der Guncast Swim­ming Pools Limi­ted. Klafs was advi­sed by Menold Bezler toge­ther with the British law firm Stevens & Bolton.

Guncast, a family-run busi­ness based in Petworth, West Sussex, is a provi­der of luxury swim­ming pools and employs around 40 people. Guncast had alre­ady been a supplier of Klafs products to the UK market since 2016.

Foun­ded in 1928, the family-owned company Klafs is the market leader for sauna, pool and spa equip­ment with more than 730 employees. The majo­rity take­over streng­thens Klafs’ inter­na­tio­nal positioning.

Menold Bezler advi­sed Klafs on the legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion under German law, having alre­ady acted for Klafs on the sale of a majo­rity stake to invest­ment company Egeria in Febru­ary this year. Stevens & Bolton, a long-stan­ding coope­ra­tion part­ner of Menold Bezler, assis­ted Klafs with the legal struc­tu­ring under British law.

Advi­sors to Klafs GmbH & Co. KG: Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart)
Vladi­mir Cutura (Part­ner), Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (Part­ner), Nicole Brandt (all Corporate/M&A)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a part­ner­ship-struc­tu­red commer­cial law firm based in Stutt­gart. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Munich, Germany — Micro­Port Scien­ti­fic Corpo­ra­tion, through its subsi­diary Micro­Port Surgi­cal B.V., has acqui­red 100% of the shares in Hemo­vent GmbH for a purchase price of up to EUR 123 million.

Foun­ded in 2013 in Aachen, Germany, Hemo­vent is a medi­cal device company specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of breakth­rough extra­cor­po­real life support (ECLS) systems. Hemo­ven­t’s flag­ship MOBYBOX® system is the first fully inte­gra­ted ECLS system that controls both perfu­sion and gas exch­ange in a single device, setting a new stan­dard for ECMO devices in terms of mobi­lity and ease of use.
Micro­Port® has estab­lished itself in the criti­cal care field through its subsi­diary Micro­Port® Surgery, which is commit­ted to provi­ding pati­ents with compre­hen­sive medi­cal solu­ti­ons for cardiac surgery, emer­gency medi­cine and criti­cal care. The acqui­si­tion of Hemo­vent will further advance MicroPort®‘s emer­gency and criti­cal care stra­tegy by combi­ning cardio­pul­mo­nary bypass (CPB) with rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring and marke­ting of ECMO products.

Legal advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Hemo­vent GmbH: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The advi­sory team around Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch (photo), Part­ner (lead, Munich) included Dr. Corne­lius Renner (IP, Berlin), Frank Hahn (M&A, Hamburg) and Jan-Phil­lip Kunz (VC/M&A, Munich).

Legal advi­sors Micro­Port Surgi­cal B.V.: Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Frank­furt a. Main / Hamburg)
M&A Advi­sor: William Blair, London

About LUTZ | ABEL

With around 85 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law.

News

Munich — Golding Capi­tal Part­ners is pushing ahead with the stra­te­gic expan­sion of its own impact divi­sion and is laun­ching its first insti­tu­tio­nal impact fund of funds. With “Golding Impact 2021”, the Munich-based asset mana­ger is pursuing a globally orien­ted private equity impact invest­ment stra­tegy with ambi­tious and concre­tely measura­ble envi­ron­men­tal and social sustaina­bi­lity goals that are closely linked.

The new fund focu­ses on compa­nies in Europe, North America and emer­ging markets with trans­for­ma­tive busi­ness models in rene­wa­ble energy and resource effi­ci­en­cies (35 percent), sustainable agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­logy (35 percent), and finan­cial services and other sustainable sectors (30 percent). Golding fore­casts a net IRR of 12 to 14 percent and plans a fund volume of 300 million euros. The Munich-based asset mana­ger initi­ally clas­si­fies the new impact fund conser­va­tively under Article 8+ (“light green plus”) in accordance with the Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (SFDR), but aims to clas­sify it as an Article 9 fund (“dark green”) in the long term.

“Impact inves­t­ing is not only the future, but alre­ady offers tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Our invest­ment decis­i­ons can create real, sustainable change in a global trans­for­ma­tion process while crea­ting tremen­dous value to gene­rate adequate returns. The biggest chall­enge here is access to the best target fund part­ners while main­tai­ning diver­si­fi­ca­tion. Based on our long-stan­ding impact track record, we believe we can make an important contri­bu­tion to achie­ving the United Nati­ons deve­lo­p­ment goals toge­ther with our inves­tors,” comm­ents Dr. Andreas Nils­son, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Impact at Golding.

“To do this, we create a hand­pi­cked fund port­fo­lio for our inves­tors consis­ting of invest­ments in compa­nies with envi­ron­men­tal or social charac­te­ristics as well as sustainable growth. These invest­ments must meet agreed-upon impact goals from day one. Since we place great empha­sis on ensu­ring that report­ing for port­fo­lio compa­nies in non-Euro­pean count­ries meets 100% SFDR stan­dards, we start conser­va­tively under Article 8+ and see oursel­ves as ‘light green plus’. With our target funds, we will actively work on uniform data coll­ec­tion and rota­tio­nal report­ing to achieve Article 9 status,” adds Mana­ging Direc­tor Huber­tus Theile-Ochel.

Jeremy Golding (pictu­red), foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Golding Capi­tal, comm­ents, “For us, the first impact fund is the logi­cal evolu­tion and prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion of our long-stan­ding sustaina­bi­lity philo­so­phy. Since 2013, we have been a signa­tory to the UN PRI and will soon also be a signa­tory to the Opera­ting Prin­ci­ples for Impact Manage­ment. This is just one step of many that we as a company still have ahead of us on the road to beco­ming a sustainable asset mana­ger. For exam­ple, as a company we are commit­ted to the goal of achie­ving CO2 neutra­lity by 2025. Accor­din­gly, this will certainly not remain our only impact product.”

Risk mini­miza­tion through broad diver­si­fi­ca­tion and rigo­rous due dili­gence process

Golding Impact 2021’s stra­tegy is to build a port­fo­lio that is broadly diver­si­fied across sectors, regi­ons and company stages. Invest­ments are plan­ned in appro­xi­m­ately 15 target funds and selec­ted co-invest­ments for admix­ture. In doing so, Golding follows a rigo­rous due dili­gence process when making invest­ment decis­i­ons and has deve­lo­ped a sophisti­ca­ted impact manage­ment system that expli­citly defi­nes the measura­ble impact objec­ti­ves of each invest­ment, making them verifiable.

The target compa­nies of “Golding Impact 2021” are mainly from the three sectors “Green Solu­ti­ons”, “Food and Ag-Tech Solu­ti­ons” and “Finan­cial Inclu­sion Solu­ti­ons”.

Green solu­ti­ons” include tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models that contri­bute to decar­bo­ni­zing econo­mic proces­ses or adap­ting to climate change. In mature target markets, this rela­tes prima­rily to energy effi­ci­ency, the moder­niza­tion of energy storage and grid infra­struc­ture, and more sustainable trans­por­ta­tion. In emer­ging count­ries, the main issue is decou­pling econo­mic growth and resource consump­tion. In this context, afforda­bility and broad social access to these tech­no­lo­gies play a crucial role in the selec­tion of invest­ments, for exam­ple through solar hybrid village power systems.

“Food and Ag-Tech Solu­ti­ons” are inno­va­tive methods aimed at more sustainable agri­cul­ture, forestry and food manage­ment. This includes, among other things, the long-term safe­guar­ding of soil and water quality or the intro­duc­tion of higher-yiel­ding and more resistant seeds. Digi­tal approa­ches in parti­cu­lar can also contri­bute to more effi­ci­ent orga­niza­tio­nal struc­tures for farmers, for exam­ple through the shared use of capi­tal-inten­sive machi­nery or modern supply chain management.

“Finan­cial Inclu­sion Solu­ti­ons” comprise modern solu­ti­ons to signi­fi­cantly simplify access to finan­cial services and make them available to more people in emer­ging markets. On the one hand, the lack of access to tradi­tio­nal banking services hampers the over­all econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment of many emer­ging markets, and on the other hand, it often makes it diffi­cult to provide basic finan­cial secu­rity for emer­gen­cies at the indi­vi­dual level. FinTech compa­nies offer digi­tal alter­na­ti­ves in areas such as insu­rance, cashl­ess tran­sac­tions and lending.

Golding Impact 2021” is struc­tu­red as a Luxem­bourg SCS SICAV-FIAR and is aimed at insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with a mini­mum subscrip­tion amount of five million euros.

About Golding Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH

Golding Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers in Europe for alter­na­tive invest­ments with a focus on the asset clas­ses infra­struc­ture, private debt, private equity and impact. With a team of more than 130 employees in Munich, London, Luxem­bourg, New York, Tokyo and Zurich, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners supports insti­tu­tio­nal and profes­sio­nal inves­tors in buil­ding their invest­ment stra­tegy and mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately €11 billion. The more than 200 inves­tors include pension funds, insu­rance compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, church insti­tu­ti­ons as well as banks, savings banks and coope­ra­tive banks. Golding has been a signa­tory to the United Nati­ons-initia­ted Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (UN PRI) since 2013 and a member of the Task Force on Climate-rela­ted Finance Disclo­sures (TCFD) since 2021.

News

Munich/ Berlin — Euro­pean food tech VC Five Seasons Ventures has again inves­ted in Munich-based fragrance startup air up. Five Seasons Ventures led the finan­cing round. Other exis­ting inves­tors such as PepsiCo, Ippen Digi­tal Media and Oyster Bay also parti­ci­pa­ted. The round has a volume of over € 40 million. The new invest­ment is inten­ded to drive inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, the market launch of new flavors and bott­les, and the expan­sion of produc­tion facilities.

Lead inves­tor Five Seasons Ventures is a Paris-based Euro­pean venture capi­ta­list that aims to become the leading food tech VC in Europe, with an invest­ment focus on inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies across the food value chain. In addi­tion to the capi­tal, the VC also offers exten­sive tech­no­logy and food exper­tise as well as a large network with a wide range of indus­try cont­acts. Five Seasons Ventures’ port­fo­lio compa­nies also include compa­nies such as YFood Labs, Just Spices, Her1 or Nu Company (both from Germany).

air up is the worl­d’s first drin­king system that can flavor water just by adding scent. The foun­ders want to reduce the exces­sive consump­tion of sugar in the form of soft drinks and juices, and at the same time save CO2 and plas­tic by redu­cing the use of disposable bott­les. air up GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 and is head­quar­te­red in the heart of Munich. The star­ter sets and fragrance pods are available at www.air-up.com, on Amazon and at selec­ted retail­ers such as Ross­mann. The foun­ders of Air Up (photo) are Jannis Koppitz, Tim Jäger, Fabian Schlang, Chris­tian Hauth, Simon Nueesch, Lena Jüngst, Jenna Wich­mann, Chris­tian Demers.

Advi­sor Five Seasons Ventures: YPOG in Berlin
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Senior Associate
Jonas Huth (Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Associate
Alex­an­der Sekunde (Corporate/Venture Capi­tal), Associate

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

News

Berlin — Startup DANCE, from the foun­ders of Sound­cloud and Jimdo, wins Eura­zeo and other promi­nent angel inves­tors focu­sed on sustainable invest­ment: after a successful launch of its e‑bike subscrip­tion service in Berlin, Dance has raised an addi­tio­nal €16.5 million from new inves­tors. — Joining the event are Eura­zeo, one of the leading global invest­ment compa­nies, as well as other renow­ned angel inves­tors, inclu­ding Verena Paus­der, foun­der of the digi­tal child­ren’s studio Fox & Sheep and educa­tion expert, Roxanne Varza, direc­tor of STATION F, a leading startup incu­ba­tor in Paris, Nico­las Berg­gruen, phil­an­thro­pist, foun­der of the Berg­gruen Insti­tute and Noema Maga­zine, Dave Morin and James Higa, co-foun­ders of Offline Ventures.

After a year of pilo­ting and test­ing, Dance offi­ci­ally rolled out its subscrip­tion service in Berlin at the end of August, deli­ve­ring hundreds of EBikes to its members. The new funding will be used to conti­nue scaling the company, inclu­ding doubling the size of the team with employees with exper­tise in opera­ti­ons, engi­nee­ring and sustaina­bi­lity. Roll-out to other Euro­pean cities is plan­ned for the coming months. The star­tup’s goal is to create a global move­ment that makes cities more liva­ble — urban spaces for people, not cars.
“One of our prio­ri­ties at Eura­zeo is to make invest­ments that contri­bute to the decar­bo­niza­tion of the planet by 2040. Inves­t­ing in a solu­tion like Dance is abso­lut­ely in line with this mission,” says Matthieu Bonamy, Part­ner at Eura­zeo. “Dance is enab­ling cities around the world to change for the better: By scaling their user-friendly, holi­stic and sophisti­ca­ted approach, we can encou­rage more people to consis­t­ently choose to go green while driving posi­tive change in their commu­ni­ties,” Bonamy said.
Verena Paus­der, foun­der of the digi­tal child­ren’s studio Fox & Sheep and educa­tion expert, says: “Climate change pres­ents us all with unpre­ce­den­ted challenges.
chal­lenges that have never been faced before. Bold and user-friendly inno­va­tions are urgen­tly needed to help us contri­bute to closing the climate gap. The vision behind Dance convin­ced me imme­dia­tely. I look forward to helping the startup make cities more climate-friendly, healt­hier, and ulti­m­ately more livable.”
“We’ve seen Paris, Milan, Brussels and other metro­po­li­tan areas invest heavily in impro­ving their cycling infra­struc­ture. Eura­zeo has reco­gni­zed that, toge­ther with us, they can funda­men­tally change the way we get around in our society — in a low-thres­hold and user-friendly way. We are proud to welcome them and other new angel inves­tors as part of Dance’s move­ment to focus on crea­ting more sustainable cities,” said Eric Quide­nus-Wahl­forss, co-foun­der and CEO of Dance.
To stay up to date on when Dance laun­ches in your region, follow the hash­tag #move­wi­th­dance as well as our profiles on Insta­gram, Twit­ter and LinkedIn.
About Dance
Dance is a premium subscrip­tion service for EBikes based in Berlin. The company’s goal is to create a move­ment that makes cities more liva­ble — urban spaces for people, not cars. Dance combi­nes beau­tifully desi­gned EBikes with a fast all-round service and turns ever­y­day trans­por­ta­tion into a healthy, envi­ron­men­tally friendly expe­ri­ence that is also fun. The monthly subscrip­tion offers members maxi­mum flexi­bi­lity to disco­ver this new form of urban mobi­lity for them­sel­ves. Curr­ently, Dance’s subscrip­tion service is available to members in Berlin.Dance was foun­ded by Sound­Cloud foun­ders Eric Quide­nus-Wahl­forss and Alex­an­der Ljung, along with Jimdo foun­der Chris­tian Sprin­gub. Inves­tors include BlueY­ard, HV Capi­tal and Eura­zeo. www. dance.co.

About Eura­zeo
Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment firm with €25.6 billion in assets under manage­ment — inclu­ding €17.8 billion from third-party inves­tors — inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of appro­xi­m­ately 450 compa­nies. With exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture, Eura­zeo supports compa­nies of all sizes. A team of nearly 300 profes­sio­nals with deep sector exper­tise and access to global markets respon­si­bly supports port­fo­lio compa­nies in their deve­lo­p­ment and provi­des them with a stable plat­form for trans­for­ma­tive growth. The solid share­hol­der struc­ture, consis­ting of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and fami­lies, in combi­na­tion with a robust, struc­tu­rally debt-free balance sheet and a flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon enable Eura­zeo to accom­pany port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term. Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, Singa­pore, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners Fund II, advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“BCP”), has inves­ted in Wiethe Content GmbH & Co KG (“Wiethe”), based in Georgs­ma­ri­en­hütte and Bremen. Signing and closing was comple­ted in Septem­ber 2021.

Wiethe is one of the leading German digi­tal agen­cies and market leader in the fashion sector. With the largest e‑commerce photo studio in Europe, Wiethe specia­li­zes as a service provi­der in the area of content crea­tion & produc­tion and bene­fits from the acce­le­ra­ted change of statio­nary trade to e‑commerce. Over the past 15 years, under the custo­mer-centric leader­ship of its foun­der and name­sake Markus Wiethe, the company has deve­lo­ped into the rele­vant service provi­der for custo­mers in the fashion sector. With 150 employees at 2 loca­ti­ons and over 50 custo­mers, Wiethe is thus a funda­men­tal full-service provi­der in the e‑commerce scene and the one-stop-shop fulfill­ment provi­der for digi­tal content for its custo­mers, which include global brands such as adidas, Reebok, Hugo Boss, G Star, Style­bop, Deich­mann and many more.

“Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners has convin­ced us with its profes­sio­nal manner and under­stan­ding of a conti­nuously growing medium-sized company like us. Toge­ther with the BCP team, we want to use the coming years to conso­li­date our leading posi­tion in Germany and further roll out our service port­fo­lio for both exis­ting and new clients. For me, in addi­tion to Beyon­d’s profes­sio­nal exper­tise, it was above all the confi­den­tial and perso­nal exch­ange at eye level that confirmed a long-term part­ner­ship,” says Markus Wiethe, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of the company.

“Wiethe convin­ced us from the first moment with its clearly defi­ned focus on the needs of its custo­mers and the profes­sio­nal struc­ture of the company. Toge­ther with Markus Wiethe as foun­der and also future mana­ging part­ner as well as his team of moti­va­ted employees, we see a clearly focu­sed orga­nic growth story. In addi­tion, we will also take the oppor­tu­nity for selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons in the DACH region and Europe in order to signi­fi­cantly support the company in its core area as well as adja­cent services and to be able to deve­lop it to a new reve­nue and size level,” adds Chris­toph D. Kauter, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

Advi­sor Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners (BCP): Reed Smit­h’s inter­di­sci­pli­nary team advi­sed on corporate/PE, tax, employ­ment, IP and IT/data protec­tion matters.

Florian Hirsch­mann (Part­ner), Silvio McMi­ken (Coun­sel), (both Lead, Corporate/PE, Munich)
Dr. Martin Bünning (Part­ner), Carina Park (both Tax Law, Frankfurt)
Vincent Magotsch (Labor Law, Munich)
Dr. Andreas Splitt­ger­ber (Part­ner, IT/Data Protec­tion, Munich)
Chris­tian Leuth­ner (Senior Asso­ciate), Irmela Dölle (Asso­ciate, both IT/Data Protec­tion, Frankfurt)
Dr. Chris­toph Mikyska (Asso­ciate, IP, Munich)

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners

Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company and acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region through the funds it advi­ses, with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and entertainment.
www.beyondcapital-partners.com

About Wiethe

Wiethe Content GmbH & Co KG, based in Georgs­ma­ri­en­hütte and Bremen, is one of Germany’s leading digi­tal agen­cies and market leader in the e‑commerce fashion sector.
www.wiethe.com

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in 30 offices in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.reedsmith.com.

News

Munich — DLA Piper advi­sed FinLab EOS VC Fund on an invest­ment in a Euro 2 million finan­cing round for the Portu­guese block­chain-based open inno­va­tion plat­form TAIKAI. Exis­ting inves­tor Bright Pixel and new inves­tor Portu­gal Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round, which is expec­ted to drive TAIKAI’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion in Europe and Brazil, as well as the deve­lo­p­ment of recrui­ting solu­ti­ons for enter­pri­ses and startups.

TAIKAI was foun­ded in 2018 as an open inno­va­tion plat­form to create a talent market­place where compa­nies and new talents can connect, present their indi­vi­dual projects and problems, and find crowd­sour­cing-based solu­ti­ons. Hacka­thons are used as a tool to find, test, and vali­date new ideas, products, and talent around the world. In recent years, TAIKAI has grown rapidly to become a global open inno­va­tion plat­form with a commu­nity of more than 50,000 innovators.

The FinLab EOS VC fund, mana­ged by C3 Manage­ment GmbH, is a part­ner­ship between Block.one and FinLab, a global inves­tor in finan­cial services tech­no­lo­gies and block­chain. Based in Frank­furt, C3 Manage­ment GmbH is an asset manage­ment company focu­sed on mana­ging venture funds that invest in block­chain tech­no­logy compa­nies world­wide. The EOS VC fund focu­ses on early and growth-stage tech­no­logy compa­nies and usually takes a mino­rity stake.

Advi­sor FinLab EOS VC Fund: DLA Piper 
Lead Part­ner Simon Vogel (Corporate/Private Equity, Munich). Also invol­ved from DLA Piper’s Lisbon office were part­ner João Costa Quinta (IPT) and senior asso­cia­tes Ana Isabel Vieira (corpo­rate) and Daniela Rosa (employ­ment).

News

Hamburg — Skopos Impact Fund acqui­res a stake in JES GROUP GmbH, a company specia­li­zing in solar energy. With the help of this invest­ment, JES GROUP intends to acce­le­rate the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies in private house­holds and at the same time realize new inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for the fight against climate change.

The aim is to become the market leader in photo­vol­taic instal­la­ti­ons and the most inno­va­tive energy service provi­der in Germany. In order to bundle the exper­tise, the JES GROUP will in future unite the indi­vi­dual compa­nies JES AG, HK Solar­tec GmbH, Solar Express GmbH, HL GmbH and Holtz & Part­ner GmbH as an umbrella company. With curr­ently more than one million square meters of occu­p­ied roof area in the B2B sector and 1300 reali­zed photo­vol­taic systems in the B2C sector alone in the last 18 months, the JES GROUP can alre­ady draw on a great deal of know-how in the photo­vol­taic sector.

About Skopos Impact Fund

The Skopos Impact Fund is a €200+ million invest­ment fund that supports high-growth tech­no­logy and service compa­nies in Europe with capi­tal, exper­tise and network. The find belongs to the group of C&A owners family Brenn­inkmei­jer. Invest­ments focus on estab­lished compa­nies that support circu­lar economy and resource effi­ci­ency trends. As a proac­tive long-term part­ner with entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence and track record in support­ing manage­ment teams and foun­ders, the Fund invests as both mino­rity and majo­rity share­hol­der within Europe. Andreas Ernst (photo) is Head of Skopos & Mana­ging Director.

Skopos recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice from a YPOG team led by part­ners Jörn Wöbke and Malte Berg­mann on its invest­ment as a mino­rity share­hol­der in JES GROUP.

Consul­tant Skopos: YPOG
Dr. Jörn Wöbke (Lead Part­ner, M&A/Corporate), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Taxes), Partner
Dr. Moritz Diek­gräf (M&A/Corporate), Associate
Johan­nes Schmidt (M&A/Corporate), Associate

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IT/IP and nota­rial services. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Partners.

News

Frank­furt — With a new part­ner, the Euro­pean tran­sac­tion and trans­for­ma­tion advi­sory firm Eight Advi­sory on further growth and the expan­sion of stra­te­gi­cally important busi­ness areas in the German-spea­king region: As of Septem­ber 2021, Johan­nes Stei­nel has joined Eight Advi­sory in the restruc­tu­ring prac­tice — the proven expert for turn­around situa­tions and restruc­tu­rings is to streng­then the area with his know-how and further inten­sify the busi­ness from the Frank­furt and Zurich offices.

Johan­nes Stei­nel had most recently worked as a part­ner at EY and previously PwC. Based on his 25-year career, he also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the areas of finan­cial and opera­tio­nal restruc­tu­ring, liqui­dity manage­ment and private equity in various roles, inclu­ding at the consul­ting firms Alix­Part­ners and KPMG, the private equity firm Capvis and Deut­sche Bank. The 50-year-old focu­ses on holi­stic and sustainable value crea­tion and turn­around solu­ti­ons in special situa­tions for his manda­tes, which are mostly in the corpo­rate and PE envi­ron­ment. He also regu­larly takes on inte­rim mana­ger or CRO roles. Johan­nes Stei­nel gradua­ted with honors in econo­mics from LMU Munich and is a guest lectu­rer at INSEAD.

“We are plea­sed to welcome Johan­nes Stei­nel, an expe­ri­en­ced expert in turn­arounds and restruc­tu­rings. Our goal is to estab­lish and expand a strong presence in these fields in the German-spea­king markets, follo­wing our market-leading restruc­tu­ring prac­tice in France,” explains Michael Wahl, Mana­ging Part­ner of Eight Advi­sory in Germany. This unders­cores the expan­sion ambi­ti­ons of the consul­ting firm, which is one of the fastest growing inde­pen­dent provi­ders on the Euro­pean market: Foun­ded in France in 2009 by former “Big Five” employees, Eight Advi­sory now employs a total of more than 500 people at eleven loca­ti­ons in six count­ries. In the current ranking of the indus­try service Merger­mar­ket, Eight Advi­sory is ranked sixth in Europe in the Tran­sac­tion Services 2020 segment.

In the DACH region, Eight Advi­sory has been repre­sen­ted since 2018 with the opening of an office in Frank­furt am Main — Munich (2019), Zurich (2020) and Hamburg (2021) have since been added as addi­tio­nal loca­ti­ons. The client base and the team there are growing conti­nuously, so that the region is now the company’s second largest market after France.

After the nucleus, the compre­hen­sive support of entre­pre­neurs, mana­ging direc­tors, inves­tors and bankers in tran­sac­tion prepa­ra­tion and support, corre­spon­ding prac­tice groups were also estab­lished for M&A Tax, Trans­for­ma­tion, Infra­struc­ture and Project Finance and, most recently, Restruc­tu­ring and Perfor­mance Impro­ve­ment. “We see strong demand for inde­pen­dent, flexi­ble consul­ting in these areas and conti­nue to streng­then our team with expe­ri­en­ced talent at all levels of the hier­ar­chy,” Wahl said. The region now employs 38 consul­tants, inclu­ding six part­ners, who advise nume­rous well-known clients on complex issues — in the current year alone, this has invol­ved 50 tran­sac­tions and projects.

About Eight Advisory

Eight Advi­sory advi­ses entre­pre­neurs, CEOs, inves­tors and banks on tran­sac­tions, trans­for­ma­ti­ons, infra­struc­ture projects and project finan­cing as well as restruc­tu­ring and perfor­mance impro­ve­ment. Eight Advi­sory is a Euro­pean group with over 500 employees, inclu­ding 66 part­ners, and with offices in Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, Switz­er­land and the Nether­lands. As a foun­ding member of Eight Inter­na­tio­nal, the company can draw on a global network of more than 2,500 specia­lists in over 20 count­ries in Europe, America, Asia and Ocea­nia. www.8advisory.com

News

Munich / Orlando (USA) — Dechert advi­sed &ever GmbH, a global leader in indoor farming, on its sale to Kalera AS, a Norwe­gian-listed, tech­no­logy-driven verti­cal farming provi­der based in Orlando, Florida, for a total conside­ra­tion of €130 million, in cash and paper based on &ever’s enter­prise value.

&ever is head­quar­te­red in Germany with offices in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to make Kalera a global leader in verti­cal farming, acce­le­rate inter­na­tio­nal growth and expand its product line. &ever GmbH is rena­med Kalera GmbH.

Consul­tant &ever: Dechert

Giovanni Russo, Part­ner (Head), supported by Natio­nal Part­ners Carina Klaes-Staudt and Dr. Karl von Rumohr as well as Asso­cia­tes Florian Leits­bach, Chris­tian Böhme and Sonja Feser.

About Dechert

Dechert is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 22 offices world­wide. In Germany, we have offices in Munich and Frank­furt. Focu­sing on parti­cu­larly complex areas of busi­ness life with high regu­la­tory requi­re­ments, we combine advice of the highest legal quality with prac­ti­cal and econo­mic­ally sensi­ble solutions.

News

Munich — U.S. inves­tor Accel and legacy inves­tors Insight Part­ners and REWE Group invest $140 million in e‑commerce solu­tion commerce­tools. In the finan­cing round, the Munich-based online store infra­struc­ture deve­lo­per was valued at around $1.9 billion as an unlis­ted — e‑commerce company . This means that commerce­tools is now a Unicorn!

Insight Part­ners most recently inves­ted $145 million in the “cloud-based head­less e‑commerce system.” “This latest round repres­ents a huge hike on its valua­tion since then, when Commerce­tools was valued at around $300 million,” Tech­Crunch writes of the valua­tion. The new capi­tal brings commerce­tools another step closer to its long-term vision: to enable inspi­ring shop­ping expe­ri­en­ces across borders and to create scalable and outstan­ding custo­mer relationships.

Commerce­tools was foun­ded in 2006 by Denis Werner, René Welches and Dirk Hörig. In 2014, the retail and tourism group Rewe acqui­red commerce­tools, the purchase price at the time was just 6.5 million.

Commerce­tools’ custo­mers include corpo­ra­ti­ons such as Audi, Yamaha and Cimpress (Vist­a­print and Trade­print). The company offers mobile apps, voice assistants, chat­bots, AR/VR and IoT applications.

Accor­ding to its own infor­ma­tion, Commerce­tools has a total of over 200 employees at its loca­ti­ons in Munich, Berlin, Jena, Amster­dam, London, in Durham in the US state of North Caro­lina and in Singapore.

In addi­tion to exis­ting inves­tors Insight Part­ners and Rewe Group, tech inves­tor Accel, which has alre­ady funded Drop­box, Spotify and Slack, is also invol­ved in the new round.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Volks­wa­gen Finan­cial Services AG (“VWFS”) has ente­red into a joint venture with J.P. Morgan Inter­na­tio­nal Finance Limi­ted (“JPM”) in Volks­wa­gen Payments S.A.. Volks­wa­gen Payments S.A. is an e‑money insti­tu­tion that concen­tra­tes payment solu­ti­ons for the Volks­wa­gen Group brands and offers e‑wallet accounts and payment proces­sing for Volks­wa­gen AG custo­mers. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed Volks­wa­gen Finan­cial Services AG (“VWFS”) on its joint venture with J.P. Morgan Inter­na­tio­nal Finance Limi­ted (“JPM”) in Volks­wa­gen Payments S.A..

By acqui­ring a 74.9 percent stake in Volks­wa­gen’s payments busi­ness, JPM is taking a majo­rity voting inte­rest in Volks­wa­gen Payments S.A. with the goal of stra­te­gi­cally opening the company to the broa­der auto­mo­tive indus­try, expan­ding Volks­wa­gen Payments S.A.‘s digi­tal payments capa­bi­li­ties and further deve­lo­ping the plat­form for new markets and indus­tries outside the auto­mo­tive sector. VWFS will remain a share­hol­der in the part­ner­ship and will help shape the joint venture accor­din­gly. The plat­form will conti­nue to enable payments across the Volks­wa­gen network for all Group brands worldwide.

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2022 and is subject to appr­ovals by the merger control autho­ri­ties, confir­ma­tion by the Luxem­bourg super­vi­sory autho­rity and the U.S. Board of Gover­nors of the Fede­ral Reserve System, and appr­oval by the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Technology.

Advi­sing Volks­wa­gen Finan­cial Services AG: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Prof. Dr. Clemens Just, Photo (Lead, Corpo­rate), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax), Joseph Marx, Rick Mitchell (Coun­sel, London; both Capi­tal Markets), Stef­fen Woitz, Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel; both Data Protection/IT, Munich), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Coun­sel, Commercial/Regulatory, Munich), Ted Lauren­son (Coun­sel, San Fran­cisco; Regu­la­tory); Asso­cia­tes: Isabelle Müller, Lisa Schick­ling (both Corpo­rate), Pauline Walde (Inter­na­tio­nal Dispute Reso­lu­tion), Tina Zeller (Real Estate), Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Sönke Wasser­mann (Trai­nee, Labor Law).
Inhouse Volks­wa­gen Finan­cial Services AG: Mustafa Shahs­war (Legal Coun­sel), Sebas­tian Stef­fen (Mergers & Acquisitions)

News

Berlin/ Basel (Switz­er­land) — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed the global phar­maceu­ti­cal and diagno­stics group Roche on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in the Berlin-based TIB Molbiol Group, an expert in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted to occur in the fourth quar­ter of 2021. The acqui­si­tion expands Roche’s broad port­fo­lio in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics solu­ti­ons with a wide range of assays for infec­tious dise­a­ses, such as SARS-CoV2 variants.

Roche is a global company in the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment of medi­ci­nes and diagno­stics. In addi­tion, Roche is the worl­d’s largest biotech company with drugs for onco­logy, immu­no­logy, infec­tious dise­a­ses, ophthal­mo­logy and dise­a­ses of the
Central nervous system.

Foun­ded in 1896 and head­quar­te­red in Basel, Switz­er­land, the Roche Group opera­tes in more than 100 count­ries and employed more than 100,000 people world­wide in 2020. In 2020, Roche inves­ted CHF 12.2 billion in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and gene­ra­ted sales of CHF 58.3 billion.

The biotech­no­logy company TIB Molbiol was foun­ded in 1990 and has been supp­ly­ing the inter­na­tio­nal market with diagno­stic and rese­arch reagents ever since. As a manu­fac­tu­rer of custom oligo­nu­cleo­ti­des, the company is a part­ner in the deve­lo­p­ment of mole­cu­lar diagno­stics and has a broad port­fo­lio of diagno­stic assays. The Berlin-based company has sites in the USA, Colom­bia, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Dr. Ruben Perren and Dr. Felix Kobel from Roche’s legal depart­ment were respon­si­ble for the transaction.

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team acted for Roche in the transaction:
Dr. Alex­an­der Schwarz (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Martin Viciano Gofferje (Part­ner, Berlin, both Lead), Dr. Fabian Mumme (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­toph Meiss­ner (Berlin), Fried­rich Baum­gär­tel, Kai Zimutta (both Düssel­dorf, all M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Jan Hinrichs, Dr. Felix Müller (all IP/IT), Dr. Enno Burk (Coun­sel, Health­care, all Berlin), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner, Tax, Hamburg), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs, Matthias Hahn, Lenn­art Förs­ter (all Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ingo Brin­ker (Part­ner), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, both Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Stefan Linge­mann (Part­ner), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (both Berlin), Dr. Simona Kreis (Hamburg, all Labor Law), Konrad Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frankfurt).

Gleiss Lutz has advi­sed Roche on seve­ral tran­sac­tions in the past, inclu­ding the sale of Roche Diagno­stics IT Solu­ti­ons GmbH to Nexus AG.

News

Munich/Beijing — ARQIS advi­sed Agile Robots AG, a highly inno­va­tive robo­tics company, on its Series C finan­cing round with a total invest­ment volume of US$220 million. Agile Robots is thus the first German Unicorn in the robo­tics indus­try, beco­ming the highest rated robo­tics company world­wide. The proceeds from this finan­cing will be used prima­rily for product deve­lo­p­ment, series produc­tion and the company’s global sales expan­sion. and is valued at more than one billion US dollars worldwide.

The finan­cing round was led by Soft­Bank Vision Fund 2, follo­wed by finan­cial inves­tors inclu­ding Abu Dhabi Royal Group, Hill­house Ventures, Sequoia Capi­tal China , and Linear Capi­tal (in alpha­be­ti­cal order), as well as stra­te­gic inves­tors Xiaomi Group, Foxconn Indus­trial Inter­net (“FII”), and Midas, foun­ded by former Foxconn executives.

The proceeds from this finan­cing will be used prima­rily for product deve­lo­p­ment in Munich and China, the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of series produc­tion in Germany and China, and the expan­sion of the company’s global sales activities.

Agile Robots had alre­ady succee­ded in raising funding of over $130 million in two rounds in 2020, and is now the company with the highest amount of funding for an Intel­li­gent Robo­tics company. Agile Robots is curr­ently the worl­d’s only Unicorn in robo­tics with a valua­tion of more than $1 billion. With the closing of this finan­cing round, Agile Robots is the first robo­tics company in which Soft­Bank Vision Fund 2 has inves­ted in Europe and China.

“As part of our ongo­ing commit­ment to the very dyna­mic Chinese market and to support entre­pre­neurs driving a wave of inno­va­tion, we are plea­sed to part­ner with Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, Peter Meusel and the team at Agile Robots,” said Dr. Eric Chen, Mana­ging Part­ner at Soft­Bank Invest­ment Advi­sers. “Agile Robots combi­nes arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence with advan­ced robo­tics tech­no­logy to solve some of the indus­try’s most chal­len­ging problems, and is the latest exam­ple of our contin­ued support for the growing Euro­pean and Chinese tech­no­logy sectors.”

Agile Robots was foun­ded in 2018 and is head­quar­te­red in both Munich, Germany and Beijing, China. Agile Robots is a robo­tics soft­ware plat­form company with leading hard­ware exper­tise in robo­tics. With the German Aero­space Center (“DLR”) as its tech­ni­cal back­bone and the core concept of “AI Empower­ment”, the company is commit­ted to foste­ring the deep combi­na­tion and inno­va­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robo­tics, and driving the appli­ca­tion of robo­tics into even more indus­trial fields. DLR is not only the first rese­arch insti­tu­tion to send intel­li­gent robots into space and perform complex tasks such as human-robot colla­bo­ra­tion, but also the first in the world to successfully deve­lop force-control­led robots that have also been adopted by indus­try for their production.

“With its unique tech­no­logy that combi­nes a robo­tics opera­ting system and world-leading sensi­tive robots, Agile Robots is stri­ving to achieve a funda­men­tal breakth­rough in the field of robo­tics,” said Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, foun­der and CEO of Agile Robots AG. “Agile Robots reali­sti­cally brings the next gene­ra­tion of robots into indus­trial intel­li­gent precis­ion assem­bly areas and medi­cal treat­ment scena­rios that previously could only be perfor­med by humans. With the excel­lent support from our renow­ned inves­tors and custo­mers, we are confi­dent to lead robo­tics into a new era,” Zhaopeng Chen continued.

Agile Robots has inde­pendently deve­lo­ped and laun­ched soft­ware and hard­ware products, such as the “Agil­e­Core” opera­ting system for coor­di­na­ting robots and access­ories such as grip­pers and other end effec­tors from various manu­fac­tu­r­ers, the “DIANA” intel­li­gent force-control­led robot, medi­cal robots, huma­noid five-finger sensi­tive hands, and the flexi­ble intel­li­gent produc­tion plat­form (FIP).

With its unique hard­ware and soft­ware R&D capa­bi­li­ties, Agile Robots has laun­ched a highly disrup­tive “Robo­tic Worker” that serves as an intel­li­gent assistant for all kinds of workers and profes­sio­nals from various fields to perform mundane or hazar­dous tasks. Agile Robots is thus opening up new “blue ocean markets” for intel­li­gent robot appli­ca­ti­ons. Curr­ently, the company has used its robots for produc­tion in nume­rous indus­trial scena­rios. Agile Robots’ products have alre­ady been successfully deployed into mass produc­tion in the consu­mer elec­tro­nics indus­try and are widely used in medi­cal, indus­trial (consu­mer elec­tro­nics, auto­mo­tive, jewelry and other precis­ion assem­bly and manu­fac­tu­ring scena­rios), agri­cul­tu­ral, educa­tio­nal and service sectors. — Agile Robots is expan­ding its market presence world­wide with its 440 employees (140 in Germany and 300 in China).

Consul­tant Agile Robots: ARQIS (Munich):
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, Dr. Mauritz von Einem (both lead; both venture capi­tal), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/IT), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Düssel­dorf; corpo­rate law); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur, Louisa Theresa Graf, Anselm Graf (all venture capi­tal), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP/IT)

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. www.arqis.com.

Espe­ci­ally for China market, Agile Robots has comple­ted the stra­te­gic layout in Northe­ast China, North China, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regi­ons. And in Germany, series produc­tion is curr­ently being set up in Kauf­beu­ren in the Allgäu region. In addi­tion, Agile has exten­sive stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with China’s listed ortho­pe­dic surgery robot company TINAVI, the leading neuro­sur­gery robot company Reme­bot, seve­ral top-tier Chinese gene­ral and specialty hospi­tals, New Hope Group, and seve­ral other world-leading compa­nies (such as an inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer elec­tro­nics manu­fac­tu­ring giant, an inter­na­tio­nal tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons service provi­der, and one of the worl­d’s top 500 elec­tro­nic device manu­fac­tu­r­ers, etc.).

Based on a perso­nal cont­act, the expe­ri­en­ced VC expert Chris­toph von Einem has been advi­sing the company since its foun­da­tion in March 2018. From the Series A finan­cing round onwards, he shared the lead manage­ment with his son Mauritz. The young lawyer and tax advi­sor has been part of the Arqis part­ner team since the begin­ning of 2020 and also hand­led the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tions. His father, who used to head the China desk at White & Case and is ther­e­fore fami­liar with the customs and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments of the Chinese inves­tor commu­nity, also serves as chair­man of the start-up’s super­vi­sory board.

Arqis, toge­ther with its Tokyo office, also coor­di­na­tes the global IP stra­tegy for Agile Robots and deve­lo­ped incen­tive programs for the Chinese and German employees with the mana­gers. Wolf­gang Keil­itz from the Bava­rian boutique Patworx is regu­larly invol­ved for special patent law issues.

About Agile Robots
Agile Robots AG is a high-tech startup based in Munich. Agile Robots is a spin-off of the German Aero­space Center (DLR) and aims to revo­lu­tio­nize the market with its intel­li­gent robot solu­ti­ons. — Our mission is to bridge the gap between arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robo­tics by deve­lo­ping systems that combine state-of-the-art force-torque sens­ing and world-leading image proces­sing tech­no­logy. This unique combi­na­tion of tech­no­lo­gies enables us to provide smart, user-friendly and afforda­ble robo­tic solu­ti­ons that enable safe human-robot inter­ac­tion. www.agile-robots.com

News

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Berlin-based AI Venture Studio Meran­tix (MX AG) on the struc­tu­ring of its venture funds and the rela­ted invest­ment by the worl­d’s largest tech­no­logy inves­tor Soft­Bank, which is parti­ci­pa­ting through its Vision Fund 2. Seed invest­ments are to be finan­ced from Meran­tix’s estab­lished in-house venture fund.
At the same time, Meran­tix and with Soft­Bank Invest­ment Advi­sers (SIBA) announ­ced a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to promote AI tech­no­logy in Germany.

Both compa­nies are convin­ced that arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will be the most signi­fi­cant tech­no­logy of our time. Soft­Bank has also inves­ted globally in the past and has taken a leading role in this field. Meran­tix was foun­ded in 2016 by Adrian Locher and Rasmus Rothe and sees itself as the worl­d’s first AI venture studio. The company addres­ses the worl­d’s most pres­sing problems by turning cutting-edge AI rese­arch into products. This is done through a sophisti­ca­ted venture-buil­ding process.

For exam­ple, Meran­tix has alre­ady foun­ded seven AI compa­nies to date, inclu­ding Cambrium, Kausa, SiaSe­arch and Vara. Accor­ding to the company, up to ten more compa­nies are to follow in the next few years. In April 2021, Meran­tix opened a 5,200-square-meter AI campus at Berlin’s Nord­bahn­hof, where start­ups with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-rela­ted busi­ness models can rent space. In addi­tion, Meran­tix’s own spin-offs are also loca­ted there.

YPOG’s compre­hen­sive advice covered all tax, regu­la­tory and corpo­rate law issues rela­ting to the Fund. In previous years, the Berlin office of the law firm has alre­ady regu­larly advi­sed Meran­tix, inclu­ding in the context of the over­all restruc­tu­ring, in various invest­ments and also in the struc­tu­ring of a € 25 million fund in 2020.

Advi­sor Meran­tix: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Lead Part­ner), Part­ner, Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker, Part­ner, Joel El-Qalqili, Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz, Asso­cia­ted Partner

About YPOG

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

News

Cologne/ Berlin — The invest­ment company Odewald KMU II has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in ctrl QS GmbH Roll­out Manage­ment for Digi­tal Projects. Odewald was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Toge­ther with the foun­der, Mirja Silver­man, who will conti­nue to lead the company as mana­ging part­ner, the successful growth course of the company is to be contin­ued. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the econo­mic details of the invest­ment. Odewald KMU was thus able to realize the ninth invest­ment for the current second Odewald KMU Fund.

ctrl QS is a specia­li­zed service provi­der that advi­ses and opera­tio­nally supports multi­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and brands in process, tool and change manage­ment in the context of digi­tal projects. In its core market, ctrl QS alre­ady occu­p­ies a leading market posi­tion and, thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise, has a wide range of oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand its product range and conti­nue to grow successfully both natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally. A key compe­ti­tive advan­tage of ctrl QS is its in-depth under­stan­ding of custo­mers’ proces­ses and chal­lenges, as well as its many years of expe­ri­ence in successfully hand­ling cross-system, digi­tal projects. In addi­tion, further growth is to be reali­zed through targe­ted add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. The Berlin-based company was foun­ded in 2009 and today employs over 100 people.

Heiko Arnold (photo), Part­ner of Odewald KMU: “We are plea­sed to support Mirja Silver­man and her team as they execute the future growth of ctrl QS. With this acqui­si­tion, we are also demons­t­ra­ting our increased focus on tech­no­logy compa­nies: Here, there are nume­rous owner-mana­ged compa­nies with exci­ting busi­ness models and excel­lent growth prospects.”

About Odewald
The Odewald KMU II Fund has a volume of 200 million euros and invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies. The focus is on compa­nies in the fields of “German engi­nee­ring”, intel­li­gent services, health and software/IT.

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Pär Johans­son (Lead), Dr. Phil­ipp Jansen, Anna Schä­fer (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), Dr. Lutz Keppe­ler (Data Protec­tion), Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP), all Cologne

News

Ratin­gen — ADCO Umwelt­dienste Holding GmbH (ADCO) from Ratin­gen sells all shares of its subsi­diary QITS GmbH (QITS) to Borro­min Capi­tal Fonds IV (Borro­min). Mayland AG exclu­si­vely advi­sed ADCO on this transaction.

As a specia­li­zed IT service provi­der, QITS is the tech­no­logy and market leader in the field of custo­mer commu­ni­ca­tion (“output manage­ment”) with a parti­cu­lar focus on the proces­sing of highly sensi­tive, busi­ness-criti­cal custo­mer data and its distri­bu­tion via a wide variety of physi­cal and digi­tal commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels (“omni-chan­nel”). QITS’ long-stan­ding custo­mers include a wide range of diffe­rent compa­nies with high output requi­re­ments for tran­sac­tion docu­ments and the asso­cia­ted highest secu­rity requi­re­ments from indus­tries such as energy supply, finan­cial services, insu­rance and housing. QITS supports its custo­mers in parti­cu­lar in the further digi­tiza­tion of their custo­mer communications.

The ADCO group of compa­nies with over 4,000 employees is the world market leader in the field of mobile connec­tion-free sani­tary units (“TOI TOI & DIXI”) and is repre­sen­ted by 49 opera­ting compa­nies in 29 count­ries. The ADCO Group was run as a successful family busi­ness for over 30 years. Since 2019, Apax Part­ners is the new majo­rity share­hol­der of the group. ADCO sold QITS in order to focus on its own core busi­ness, but also to allow QITS to conti­nue and further acce­le­rate its successful deve­lo­p­ment with a new inves­tor fully focu­sed on QITS.

Borro­min (form­erly Stead­fast Capi­tal) is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment company focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe and the Bene­lux count­ries. Borro­min’s funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies and provide equity capi­tal for entre­pre­neu­rial succes­si­ons, manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing. Borro­min was foun­ded in 2001 and has since pursued a successful, value-orien­ted stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in profi­ta­ble compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

MAYLAND AG was exclu­si­vely manda­ted with the sales process and provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to ADCO and QITS. Within the frame­work of an inter­na­tio­nal auction, the tran­sac­tion was successfully comple­ted within 4 months.

About MAYLAND

MAYLAND is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged M&A consul­tancy based in Düssel­dorf. Since its foun­da­tion in 1998, MAYLAND has been deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the purchase and sale of compa­nies or parts of compa­nies with owners and manage­ment of both medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­rate groups, and has been imple­men­ting these tran­sac­tions toge­ther with the decis­ion-makers. MAYLAND also arran­ges any neces­sary or requi­red finan­cing or asso­cia­ted restructuring.

MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. With analy­ti­cal excel­lence, many years of expe­ri­ence and a commit­ment to part­ner­ship, MAYLAND struc­tures tran­sac­tions in all phases of a company. MAYLAND atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to custo­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons, trans­pa­rent consul­ting services and long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships based on trust. For more infor­ma­tion in German, English, Chinese and Russian, please visit www.mayland.de.

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