ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — Career Part­ner GmbH has sold its stake in PROAKTIV Manage­ment GmbH as part of a manage­ment buy-out. Career part­ner was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus.

PROAKTIV Manage­ment was foun­ded in 1995 and is today a reco­gni­zed premium provi­der of in-house and open trai­ning in the areas of manage­ment, sales and commu­ni­ca­tion. The inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base consists of market-leading compa­nies from indus­try, trade and services.

Career Part­ner is one of the leading full-service provi­ders of private higher educa­tion in Germany and the holding company of IUBH Inter­na­tio­nal Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces. Career Part­ner is a port­fo­lio company of Oakley Capital.

Legal advi­sors Career Part­ner GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, all 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

Grün­wald near Munich/London — SOLUTIO AG and PANTHEON have closed their second joint fund of funds SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Equity VII with subscrip­tion commit­ments of EUR 553 million (final closing). This is another ten percent more than the prede­ces­sor fund SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Equity VI, for which 500 million euros had been raised as of July 2017.

“The ten percent increase proves that the trend towards off-market corpo­rate invest­ments among insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as banks, insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds is conti­nuing,” said Robert Massing (photo), CEO of SOLUTIO AG. “The Corona crisis does not change this, on the contrary: the vast majo­rity of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors keep the share of alter­na­tive assets in their port­fo­lios stable or even increase it, even in times of crisis. Thus, they bene­fit from the curr­ently tending lower entry prices for corpo­rate invest­ments due to the Corona pandemic.”

For the profes­sio­nal struc­tu­ring of the port­fo­lio, SOLUTIO AG again coope­ra­tes with its London-based joint venture part­ner PANTHEON, which with its know-how of more than 35 years and a mana­ged volume of more than 50 billion US dollars occu­p­ies a top posi­tion in this industry.

“After the great success of the previous program, it was obvious that we would conti­nue our coope­ra­tion with SOLUTIO for the bene­fit of our insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors,” said Ralph Günther, who is respon­si­ble for PANTHE­ON’s busi­ness in German-spea­king countries.

The stra­te­gic invest­ment program SOLUTIO PREMIUM Private Equity VII focu­ses on small and medium-sized target funds for corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons (buy-outs) in the core markets of Europe and the USA. For a balan­ced risk-return profile, funds from the fund of funds are inves­ted in both primary programs and secon­dary tran­sac­tions. The term is 13 years from first closing (July 2031) plus a three-time exten­sion option of one year each.

The succes­sor fund with the same stra­tegy is expec­ted to be laun­ched in the first half of 2021.

SOLUTIO AG
SOLUTIO AG, foun­ded in Munich in 1998, deve­lops inno­va­tive invest­ment concepts espe­ci­ally for the needs of German and Austrian insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in the field of real assets. SOLUTIO initia­tes invest­ment concepts exclu­si­vely toge­ther with mana­gers who have a proven track record of above-average success. The company itself also parti­ci­pa­tes in all invest­ment concepts. Over the past 22 years, SOLUTIO AG and its joint venture part­ners have laun­ched 16 invest­ment programs in the asset clas­ses of private equity, infra­struc­ture and private debt with a total volume of 4.7 billion euros. www.solutio.ag

About PANTHEON
Pantheon is a leading global private markets fund inves­tor, inves­t­ing on behalf of over 600 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. These include public and private pension systems, insu­rance compa­nies and foun­da­ti­ons. The company was foun­ded in 1982 and has since become a renow­ned address for solu­ti­ons in primary and secon­dary invest­ments in non-listed assets across all phases and regi­ons. Our custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons include sepa­rate account, regio­nal primary fund, secon­dary, co-invest­ment, infra­struc­ture and real asset programs.

As of March 31, 2020, Pantheon over­sees $50.7 billion in assets*. The company curr­ently employs 340 people, inclu­ding 100 invest­ment profes­sio­nals, in offices in London, San Fran­cisco, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul**,Bogotá**, Tokyo and Dublin.

Pantheon, in addi­tion to senior members of the Pantheon team, is majo­rity owned by Affi­lia­ted Mana­gers Group Inc. (“AMG”). AMG is a New York Stock Exch­ange (NYSE) listed global asset manage­ment company with inte­rests in leading invest­ment manage­ment bouti­ques. The share­hol­der struc­ture, in which Panthe­on’s manage­ment holds a signi­fi­cant stake, provi­des the basis for a long-term part­ner­ship and thus enables the manage­ment team to further deve­lop the business.

News

Paris/ Munich — Casdin Capi­tal, a New York-based invest­ment firm focu­sed on the life scien­ces and health­care indus­try, was advi­sed by Baker McKen­zie in leading the over­sub­scri­bed $50 million Series B fund­rai­sing exten­sion round for DNA Script. — Other inves­tors in the expan­ded Series B finan­cing round include Dana­her Life Scien­ces, Agilent Tech­no­lo­gies, Merck KGaA, Darm­stadt, Germany, M. Ventures, LSP Life Science Part­ners, Bpifrance Large Venture Fund and Illu­mina Ventures.

Proceeds from the expan­ded Series B finan­cing round will enable DNA Script to acce­le­rate the deve­lo­p­ment of its enzy­ma­tic DNA synthe­sis (EDS) plat­form tech­no­logy — speci­fi­cally to support the launch of the company’s SYNTAX™ DNA bench­top printer.

“With a cross-border team of specia­li­zed lawy­ers in the field of biotech­no­logy life scien­ces, we were able to bring the tran­sac­tion to a swift close toge­ther with our client,” commen­ted Bert­hold Hummel, lead corpo­rate part­ner in Munich.

Foun­ded in 2011, Casdin Capi­tal, LLC brings deep under­stan­ding, exper­tise and a long-term perspec­tive to finan­cing the next gene­ra­tion of life scien­ces inno­va­tion. Casdin Capi­tal specia­li­zes in the firm’s diagno­stics and mole­cu­lar infor­ma­tion port­fo­lio and has inves­ted in many of the leading pioneers, inclu­ding but not limi­ted to Foun­da­tion Medi­cine, Invi­tae, Adap­tive Biotech­no­lo­gies, Flati­ron Health and 23andMe.

DNA Script was foun­ded in Paris in 2014 and is the world leader in the produc­tion of de novo synthe­tic nucleic acids using an enzy­ma­tic tech­no­logy. The company’s goal is to acce­le­rate inno­va­tion in life scien­ces and tech­no­logy through rapid, afforda­ble and high-quality DNA synthe­sis. DNA Scrip­t’s approach takes advan­tage of natu­re’s billi­ons of years of evolu­tion in DNA synthe­sis to enable genome-scale synthesis.

Baker McKen­zie’s Corpo­rate / M&A and Life Scien­ces team regu­larly advi­ses large phar­maceu­ti­cal, finan­cial inves­tor and biotech compa­nies on early stage dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal health­care tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed BioMed­Part­ners on its EUR 10.7 million Series A equity finan­cing in Tubu­lis, Cure­Vac on its stra­te­gic mRNA tech­no­logy colla­bo­ra­tion with GSK, LSP Life Science Part­ners on a USD 38.5 million Series B finan­cing in DNA Script, listed 4SC AG in a capi­tal increase and inter­na­tio­nal private place­ment, Gala­pa­gos in its 10-year global rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment colla­bo­ra­tion with Gilead, MODAG in a EUR 12 million Series A finan­cing, Hita­chi Chemi­cal Company, Tokyo, in its acqui­si­tion of German apceth Biopharma, Forbion as lead inves­tor in a EUR 17 mn. Series C equity finan­cing of Omei­cos Thera­peu­tics and in a USD 54 million Series A equity finan­cing of Gotham Thera­peu­tics Corpo­ra­tion, Mundi­pharma in the sale of its Limburg produc­tion, Cure­Vac AG in a colla­bo­ra­tion with Eli Lilly and Hill­house Capi­tal as co-inves­tor in the EUR 50 million Series C finan­cing of Hookipa Biotech.

Legal advi­sor Casdin Capi­tal: Baker McKenzie
Lead Corporate/M&A: Bert­hold Hummel, Foto (Part­ner, Munich), Gautier Valdi­guié (Asso­ciate, Paris)
Other lawy­ers invol­ved: Corporate/M&A: Matthieu Grol­lemund (Part­ner, Paris), Mada­lina-Geor­gi­ana Asan­dului (Asso­ciate, Paris)
Tax: Guil­laume Le Camus (Part­ner, Paris), Robin Gaulier (Senior Asso­ciate, Paris)
Employ­ment: Jere­mie Paubel (Part­ner, Paris), Roxane Raissi (Asso­ciate, Paris)

About Baker McKenzie
Baker McKen­zie advi­ses clients to successfully deal with the chal­lenges of globa­liza­tion. We solve complex legal problems across natio­nal borders and legal fields. Our unique culture — grown over 70 years — enables our 13,000 employees to under­stand local markets while opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. We use the trus­ting and friendly coope­ra­tion in our inter­na­tio­nal network for the bene­fit of our clients.

In Germany, around 200 lawy­ers with proven profes­sio­nal exper­tise and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence repre­sent the inte­rests of their clients at the offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. As one of the leading German law firms, Baker McKen­zie advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons in all areas of commer­cial law.

News

Essen/ Frank­furt a. Main - thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor, a leading global player in the market for eleva­tors and escala­tors (E&E), will operate as an inde­pen­dent company with new owner­ship struc­tures from today. All rele­vant regu­la­tory autho­ri­ties have uncon­di­tio­nally appro­ved the acqui­si­tion by Advent and Cinven. Working with the new owners as stra­te­gic and finan­cial part­ners will allow thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor to conti­nue its ambi­tious corpo­rate plans: to expand its strong market posi­tion and tech­no­lo­gi­cal market leadership.

With global opera­ti­ons and over 50,000 employees, thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor gene­ra­ted earnings of around eight billion euros in fiscal year 2018/2019. The most important busi­ness area is the main­ten­ance of around 1.4 million eleva­tors and escala­tors. This is ensu­red by 24,000 service tech­ni­ci­ans all over the globe.

The product port­fo­lio of thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor covers a wide range — from eleva­tor systems for resi­den­tial and commer­cial proper­ties to tech­no­lo­gi­cally sophisti­ca­ted, tailor-made solu­ti­ons for state-of-the-art high-rise buil­dings such as One World Trade Center in New York. In addi­tion to eleva­tor systems, the port­fo­lio also includes escala­tors and moving walks, passen­ger boar­ding bridges, stair and plat­form lifts, and indi­vi­dual service models for all products. All this adds up to a compre­hen­sive range of products and services for a broad spec­trum of urban mobility.

In the context of COVID-19 thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor once again demons­tra­tes a high level of crisis resi­li­ence. Thanks to a special focus on stable service busi­ness, a global presence, a dedi­ca­ted manage­ment team and a highly moti­va­ted work­force, work contin­ued even under diffi­cult condi­ti­ons. In system-rele­vant buil­dings, such as hospi­tals and public faci­li­ties, mobi­lity has thus been ensured.

The strong market posi­tion of thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor and its inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies convin­ced Advent and Cinven. Both are fami­liar with the company’s rele­vant growth markets and have alre­ady successfully inves­ted in 130 compa­nies in the indus­trial and busi­ness services sectors. The consor­tium shares a common invest­ment philo­so­phy: sustainable further growth of leading compa­nies. The focus is always on long-term value creation.

Ranjan Sen (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of Germany at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal, comm­ents: “We are deligh­ted to conti­nue support­ing thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor as an inde­pen­dent company. We see signi­fi­cant poten­tial to further expand our market posi­tion and intend to leverage our coll­ec­tive exper­tise and finan­cial resour­ces for further sustainable growth.”

Bruno Schick, Part­ner and Head of DACH and Emer­ging Europe at Cinven, adds: “In close part­ner­ship with manage­ment and employees we will further deve­lop thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor by inves­t­ing in orga­nic growth and targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. Our clear goal is to create resour­ces to further streng­then and expand thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor’s global presence — parti­cu­larly in Asia — through addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons, new and energy-effi­ci­ent products, and invest­ment in rese­arch & and development.”

Follo­wing the successful closing, thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor will relo­cate its head­quar­ters to the vici­nity of Düssel­dorf Airport. The move is sche­du­led to take place in the first quar­ter of 2021.

About thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor AG
With custo­mers in over 100 count­ries served by more than 50,000 employees, thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor achie­ved sales of around €8.0 billion in fiscal year 2018/2019. Over 1,000 loca­ti­ons around the globe form a dense sales and service network, ensu­ring opti­mum proxi­mity to custo­mers. thys­sen­krupp Eleva­tor has estab­lished itself as one of the worl­d’s leading eleva­tor compa­nies since ente­ring the market 40 years ago and became inde­pen­dent in August 2020. The company’s most important busi­ness area is the service provi­ded by more than 24,000 tech­ni­ci­ans for around 1.4 million trans­port solu­ti­ons world­wide. The product port­fo­lio ranges from passen­ger and freight eleva­tors to modern, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons for modern high-rise buil­dings — such as the One World Trade Center in New York. In addi­tion to escala­tors, the port­fo­lio also includes moving walks, passen­ger boar­ding bridges, stair and plat­form lifts, and tail­o­red service solu­ti­ons such as MAX, the indus­try’s first predic­tive main­ten­ance solu­tion — cove­ring a broad spec­trum of urban mobility.

News

Hamburg — A team led by Dr. Jörg Schewe, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek in Hamburg, provi­ded legal advice to Danish recy­cling company Scan­me­tals A/S and its inves­tor KIRK KAPITAL A/S on the acqui­si­tion of 85 percent of the shares in inde­pen­dent Scan­me­tals Deutsch­land GmbH. With the tran­sac­tion, Scan­me­tals A/S takes over a recy­cling plant in Germany and can increase its annual metal reco­very from 30,000 to 45,000 tons. KIRK KAPITAL A/S, mino­rity inves­tor in Scan­me­tals A/S, has supported the company and manage­ment in the transaction.

Scan­me­tals A/S is a recy­cling company foun­ded in 2002 based on sustainable tech­no­logy for opti­mal use of resour­ces. Through inno­va­tive and effec­tive solu­ti­ons, the recy­cling company reco­vers and refi­nes metal­lic waste from inci­ne­ra­tors. Scan­me­tals A/S has opera­ti­ons in Slagelse, Denmark and Birming­ham, UK.

The share­hol­ders of KIRK KAPITAL A/S are direct descen­dants of Ole Kirk Kris­ti­an­sen, the foun­der of LEGO, namely Gunhild Kirk Johan­sen (3rd gene­ra­tion), Casper Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion), Morten Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion) and Anders Kirk Johan­sen (4th gene­ra­tion). Since 2007, part of the Kirk Johan­sen fami­ly’s asset and invest­ment acti­vi­ties have been conso­li­da­ted in KIRK KAPITAL A/S.

Advi­sors to KIRK KAPITAL A/S / Scan­me­tals A/S: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Jörg Schewe (M&A/Corporate, Lead)
Chris­toph Proch­nau, LL.B. (M&A/Corporate, Due Diligence)
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax)
Dr. Kai Erhardt (Corpo­rate Finance, Acqui­si­tion Financing)
Jana Maria Siemens, LL.B. (Labor Law, Due Diligence)
Katha­rina Waszc­zyn­ski (Commer­cial Contracts, Due Dili­gence), all Hamburg

News

Munich — The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed Scalable Capi­tal GmbH on its largest finan­cing round to date. Fresh capi­tal of €50 million was raised as part of the Series D finan­cing round. This brings the total finan­cing volume since Scalable Capi­tal was foun­ded to 116 million euros.

Scalable Capi­tal is the largest digi­tal asset mana­ger in Europe with over two billion euros in assets under manage­ment. In June 2020, Scalable Capi­tal also laun­ched a neo-broker, a digi­tal plat­form where custo­mers can trade stocks, ETFs and funds. The funds now raised will be used to expand Scalable Capi­tal’s leading posi­tion as a digi­tal asset mana­ger and to further acce­le­rate growth in the brokerage and B2B business.

In addi­tion to a new inves­tor, exis­ting inves­tors Black­Rock, HV Holtz­brinck Ventures and Tengel­mann Venturesalso parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

Legal advi­sors to Scalable Capi­tal GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz, Photo (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Isabelle Vran­cken (Senior Asso­ciate), Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, both Corpo­rate M&A)

MOOG: Marc Sälzer (Tax Law)
Inhouse: Dr. Alexis Dará­nyi (Chief Legal Offi­cer), Florian von Kampen (Senior Legal Counsel)

News

Munich — Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Cure­Vac AG on a stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion agree­ment with Glax­oS­mit­h­Kline (GSK) to rese­arch, deve­lop, gene­rate and commer­cia­lize up to five mRNA-based vacci­nes and mono­clonal anti­bo­dies (mAbs) to combat infec­tious dise­ase patho­gens. The colla­bo­ra­tion comple­ments GSK’s exis­ting mRNA exper­tise with Cure­Va­c’s inte­gra­ted mRNA platform.

Further deve­lo­p­ment of mRNA-based vacci­nes and thera­pies could play a criti­cal role in miti­ga­ting future pande­mics. The two compa­nies are combi­ning their mRNA exper­tise to combat a wide range of infec­tious dise­ase patho­gens. These projects were speci­fi­cally selec­ted to take full advan­tage of this plat­form tech­no­logy, while also addres­sing unmet medi­cal needs and asso­cia­ted econo­mic burdens.

Cure­Vac is entit­led to payments for deve­lo­p­ment and regu­la­tory mile­sto­nes of up to EUR 320 million and for commer­cial mile­sto­nes of up to EUR 380 million. — In addi­tion, Cure­Vac recei­ves tiered royal­ties on product sales. In addi­tion, GSK will make a one-time payment of EUR 120 million and a refundable payment of EUR 30 million. The latter will be due as soon as Cure­Va­c’s indus­trial produc­tion faci­lity curr­ently under cons­truc­tion in Germany has recei­ved its GMP (Good Manu­fac­tu­ring Prac­tice) certi­fi­ca­tion from the rele­vant autho­ri­ties. Under the terms of the agree­ment, GSK will also make an equity invest­ment of EUR 150 million in Cure­Vac, repre­sen­ting just under 10% of Cure­Va­c’s share capital.

“We are very plea­sed to support Cure­Vac in this important colla­bo­ra­tion agree­ment with GSK, which brings toge­ther two world-class compa­nies to further deve­lop their mRNA-based vacci­nes and thera­pies to combat a wide range of infec­tious dise­ase agents,” commen­ted Dr. Constanze Ulmer-Eilfort (pictu­red), lead part­ner at Baker McKen­zie on the transaction.

Cure­Vac is a long-stan­ding client of Baker McKen­zie. Under the leader­ship of Dr. Constanze Ulmer-Eilfort, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Cure­Vac on, among other things, the colla­bo­ra­tion agree­ments with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foun­da­tion and CEPI, and most recently on the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Genmab A/S for the deve­lo­p­ment of mRNA-based anti­body thera­pies (Decem­ber 2019).

Legal advi­sor Cure­Vac AG: Baker McKenzie
Lead: IP: Dr. Constanze Ulmer-Eilfort, LL.M. (Part­ner, Munich)
IP: Julia Schie­ber (Senior Asso­ciate, Zurich), Andreas Jauch (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt),
Anti­trust: Dr. Chris­tian Burholt (Part­ner, Berlin)
Pharma: Dr. Thilo Räpple (Part­ner, Frankfurt)

News

Ambi­enta SGR renews its Board of Direc­tors and nomi­na­tes Carla Ferrari (photo) as Presi­dent. After twelve years as Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors, Anto­nio Segni hands over the mandate to Carla Ferrari. Alfredo Alta­villa has also been appoin­ted to the Board as a non-execu­tive direc­tor Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”), Euro­pe’s largest sustaina­bi­lity-focu­sed invest­ment company, appoints Carla Ferrari as Presi­dent of the Board of Directors.

Carla Ferrari holds senior posi­ti­ons in a number of Italian blue chip finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. Having previously served as a non-execu­tive direc­tor on Ambi­en­ta’s board from 2008 to 2012, Carla now takes over the role from Anto­nio Segni, who is leaving the board after twelve years of service. In addi­tion, Alfredo Alta­villa is appoin­ted to the Board as a non-execu­tive direc­tor. Alta­villa holds a number of key posi­ti­ons in leading Italian and inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial companies.

Nino Tron­chetti Provera, Mana­ging Part­ner and foun­der of Ambi­enta, stated: “I would like to thank the previous Board of Direc­tors for their excel­lent work. My special thanks go to Anto­nio Segni, who was Chair­man of the Board for twelve years and assu­med this role only a few months after Ambi­enta was foun­ded. At the same time, I welcome the return of Carla Ferrari and extend a warm welcome to Alfredo Alta­villa: I am sure that toge­ther we will achieve further important goals. I am very plea­sed to have a woman at the head of Ambi­en­ta’s Board of Direc­tors: this is the best start for the next three years, which will play a signi­fi­cant role for the company.”

About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a sustaina­bi­lity-focu­sed asset mana­ger with AUM of appro­xi­m­ately €1.5 billion and a leader in apply­ing envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity trends to invest­ments. Ambi­enta opera­tes from Milan, London and Dussel­dorf and focu­ses on invest­ments in private and public compa­nies driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends. In the private equity markets, Ambi­enta mana­ges the largest pool of capi­tal for this stra­tegy in the world and has made thirty-eight invest­ments across Europe in the resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal sectors.

News

Munich, Germany — Tubu­lis today announ­ced the closing of a €10.7 million Series A finan­cing round. This is inten­ded to drive the deve­lo­p­ment of a new class of highly stable and potent Anti­body Drug Conju­ga­tes (ADCs, “anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes”) and to support the further growth of the company. Tubu­lis closes €10.7M Series A finan­cing was led jointly by BioMed­Part­ners and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) with addi­tio­nal parti­ci­pa­tion from Seven­ture Part­ners, copa­rion, Bayern Kapi­tal and OCCIDENT as well as high net worth indi­vi­du­als and the founders.

Tubu­lis is a spin-off company that emer­ged in 2019 from the Leib­niz Rese­arch Insti­tute Berlin (FMP) and Ludwig Maxi­mi­lian Univer­sity (LMU) Munich to realize the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of ADCs for the treat­ment of cancer and other diseases.

“Tubu­lis’ goal is to use our dual plat­form to deve­lop ADCs that are perfectly matched to the dise­ase in ques­tion. Funding from such an expe­ri­en­ced consor­tium is further vali­da­tion of our tech­no­logy and reflects the current renais­sance that the field of ADCs is expe­ri­en­cing. The capi­tal gained will enable us to further advance the plat­forms and deve­lop our first two selec­ted ADC candi­da­tes towards the clinic,” said Domi­nik Schu­ma­cher, CEO and co-foun­der of Tubu­lis (photo: right, next to co-foun­der Dr. Jonas Helma-Smets).

“Tubu­lis is directly addres­sing the current limi­ta­ti­ons in ADCs and actively shaping the future of ADC thera­peu­tics for the treat­ment of a variety of diffe­rent dise­a­ses. We look forward to support­ing the Tubu­lis team as they build their busi­ness in this rapidly growing area that is in dire need of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons,” Michael Wacker, Part­ner at BioMedPartners

Tubu­lis’ unique and versa­tile ADC port­fo­lio consists of two proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies. These are based on scien­ti­fic results from the rese­arch groups of Prof. Chris­tian Hacken­ber­ger (FMP), Prof. Hein­rich Leon­hardt (LMU) and Dr. Jonas Helma-Smets, who are all co-foun­ders of the company. Further­more, Jonas Helma-Smets serves as CSO of the company.

Both plat­forms address the comple­xity of modern ADC design in terms of protein format, drug potency, and drug hydro­pho­bicity. P5 conju­ga­tion is a novel tech­no­logy for cysteine-selec­tive conju­ga­ti­ons. It allows the deve­lo­p­ment of parti­cu­larly stable ADCs with unpre­ce­den­ted linker stabi­lity and chemi­cal flexi­bi­lity. This enables rapid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of poten­tial deve­lo­p­ment candi­da­tes. The Tub-tag® plat­form is inspi­red by the biology of micro­tu­bu­les. The Tub-tag® modi­fi­ca­tion of the anti­body crea­tes a favorable microen­vi­ron­ment for the coupling of the most chal­len­ging drugs. In addi­tion, the Tub-tag® deri­ved from the human system redu­ces the risk of adverse immune reac­tions. The combi­na­tion of these plat­forms addres­ses the key chal­lenges in the field, ADC stabi­lity as well as drug-deri­ved toxicity.

Tubu­lis intends to prefe­ren­ti­ally use these tech­no­lo­gies for inter­nal drug iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and deve­lo­p­ment, with the goal of gene­ra­ting novel ADCs that deeply inter­fere with the biology of the respec­tive indication.During the spin-off phase, the company has alre­ady been awarded seve­ral start-up prizes. These include the Venture.Med 2019 “Outstan­ding Start-up Award,” the “Leib­niz Entre­pre­neur­ship Award,” and being named an offi­cial “EIT Health Success Story.” Further­more, Tubu­lis is a company supported by the EIT Health Inves­tor Network.

About Tubu­lis
Tubu­lis uses proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies to deve­lop novel drugs whose mecha­nisms of action go deep at the root cause of the dise­ase in ques­tion. Our goal is to expand the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of so-called Anti­body Drug Conju­ga­tes (ADCs). We want to usher in a new era in this product class and ther­eby achieve better results for pati­ents. With our proprie­tary deve­lo­p­ment approach to ADCs, Tubu­lis will advance a number of product candi­da­tes that can be used for multi­ple indi­ca­ti­ons. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.tubulis.com or follow us on Linke­dIn and Twit­ter. www.tubulis.com

About BioMed­Part­ners
BioMed­Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm based in Basel. It acts as a lead or co-lead inves­tor, provi­ding private capi­tal to early to mid-stage life science compa­nies. Since 2002, BioMed­Part­ners has inves­ted in seve­ral highly inno­va­tive compa­nies, 22 of which have alre­ady been successfully acqui­red by leading biopharma compa­nies or have comple­ted an IPO. BioMed­Part­ners has more than CHF 350 million in capi­tal available and has estab­lished itself as one of the leading early-stage health­care inves­tors in Europe with a strong team of expe­ri­en­ced indus­try experts and an exten­sive network in science and pharma.

In Febru­ary 2018, the company announ­ced the closing of BioMed­In­vest III, its third equity and corpo­rate capi­tal fund of over CHF 100 million. In this third fund, BioMed­Part­ners focu­ses on support­ing compa­nies with highly inno­va­tive early-stage tech­no­logy plat­forms. One of BioMed­In­vest III’s first invest­ments was the Swiss immuno-onco­logy company Amal SA (Geneva), which was acqui­red by Böhrin­ger Ingel­heim in June 2019. www.biomedvc.com.

About Seven­ture Partners
With €750m net commit­ments under manage­ment as of the end of 2018, Seven­ture Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm in Europe. Since 1997, Seven­ture Part­ners has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive busi­nesses with high growth poten­tial in two fields: Life scien­ces across Europe, Israel, Asia and North America and Digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies in France and Germany. In Life scien­ces, the main areas of focus include “clas­sic” approa­ches such as biotech­no­logy and phar­maceu­ti­cals, diagno­stic and medtech, indus­trial biotech­no­logy, as well as “beyond the pill” approa­ches such as MICRO­BIOME-linked inno­va­tions, nutri­tion, food­tech, digital/connected health and perso­na­li­zed medi­cine. www.seventure.fr/en

About copa­rion
copa­rion is a venture capi­tal inves­tor for young, German tech­no­logy compa­nies. With a fund volume of 275 million euros, copa­rion is making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to rapid and sustainable growth. copa­rion supports entre­pre­neu­rial vision with know-how without inter­fe­ring in the opera­tio­nal busi­ness. With many years of expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal and in buil­ding up compa­nies, the copa­rion team reco­gni­zes poten­tial and opens up new perspec­ti­ves. copa­rion finan­ces exclu­si­vely toge­ther with co-inves­tors. The focus is on the startup and young growth phase. The fund invests up to 10 million euros per company, usually in seve­ral finan­cing rounds of 1–5 million euros each. copa­rion has offices in Colo­gne and Berlin. www.coparion.vc

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges thir­teen invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 500 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 330 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 280 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. www.bayernkapital.de

About OCCIDENT
OCCIDENT is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal inves­tor with offices in Zug and Munich, is owner-mana­ged and invests its own assets. The claim is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through sustainable and meaningful investments.

OCCIDENT invests in inno­va­tive deep tech start­ups with excel­lent tech­no­lo­gies from the life­sci­en­ces, digi­tal and high-tech sectors with broad appli­ca­ti­ons and the poten­tial for value-gene­ra­ting further deve­lo­p­ment. The geogra­phi­cal invest­ment focus is Germany and Switz­er­land. Initial finan­cing is prefer­a­bly from seed finan­cing round or later and from 0.5 million euros. OCCIDENT is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by its profound under­stan­ding of tech­no­logy and the versa­tile support of its port­fo­lio compa­nies by a compe­tent team of experts. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.occident.group.

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 almost 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 from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

News

Munich — The Zur Rose Group has acqui­red Tele­Cli­nic GmbH (“Tele­Cli­nic”), based in Munich, for a purchase price in the mid double-digit million euro range.

Tele­Cli­nic was foun­ded in 2015 by Katha­rina Jünger and has quickly estab­lished itself as the leading tele­me­di­cine provi­der in Germany. The company provi­des tele­me­di­cine services, inclu­ding digi­tal prescrip­ti­ons and dise­ase certi­fi­ca­tes that are compli­ant with German health insu­rance reim­bur­se­ment regu­la­ti­ons. After a diagno­sis by a specia­list, pati­ents who are self-paying receive an e‑prescription based on a Tele­Cli­nic solu­tion via app on their cell phone, which they can redeem at an on-site or mail-order phar­macy. Online sick notes can be sent directly to the employer via email. Doctors can join the plat­form easily and without obli­ga­tion and offer their exper­tise flexi­bly and regard­less of location.

The Swiss Zur Rose Group is Euro­pe’s largest e‑commerce phar­macy and one of the leading medi­cal whole­sa­lers in Switz­er­land. It also opera­tes the leading market­place in Southern Europe for phar­macy-bran­ded health and perso­nal care products. The company has an inter­na­tio­nal presence, inclu­ding Germany’s best-known phar­macy brand DocMor­ris. Zur Rose employs more than 1,800 people at its sites in Switz­er­land, Germany, the Nether­lands, Spain and France. In 2019, it gene­ra­ted sales of 1,569 million Swiss francs (inclu­ding medpex) at

Advi­sor Zur Rose Group: P+P Pöllath + Partners 
Dr. Michael Inhes­ter (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Munich)
Adal­bert Makos (Coun­sel, M&A, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Matthias Ober­bauer (Asso­ciate, M&A, Munich)

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Tech­no­logy inves­tor Brock­haus Capi­tal Manage­ment (BCM) has successfully gone public despite the coro­na­vi­rus pande­mic. 115 million flowed into the acqui­si­tion treasury as a result of the capi­tal increase. at an issue price of 32 euros per share, the tech­no­logy inves­tor is valued at 332 million euros. — The exclu­si­vely new secu­ri­ties are to go to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as part of a private place­ment. BCM plans to use the proceeds to acquire other compa­nies in sectors such as health­care, soft­ware and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. BCM speaks of “tech­no­logy cham­pi­ons in the German SME sector with B2B busi­ness models”.

Foun­der Marco Brock­haus (photo) and the manage­ment team, which curr­ently still jointly holds 33 percent of BCM and will remain the largest share­hol­der group even after the dilu­tion resul­ting from the IPO, have commit­ted to a lock-up period of two years. Marco Brock­haus’s team is not allo­wed to sell any shares for that long.

The IPO was accom­pa­nied by the US banks Citi­bank and Jeffe­ries. Commerz­bank was on board as joint bookrunner.

A total of 3,593,750 new shares were placed in the private place­ment. Assum­ing full exer­cise of the green­shoe option, the gross proceeds amount to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 115 million. Within the scope of the private place­ment, members of the Manage­ment Board, Super­vi­sory Board and employees of BCM as well as members of the manage­ment of BCM subsi­dia­ries parti­ci­pa­ted in the capi­tal increase in the total amount of EUR 1 million.

About Brock­haus Capi­tal Management
BCM AG, head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main, is a tech­no­logy group that acqui­res high-margin and high-growth tech­no­logy cham­pi­ons with B2B busi­ness models in the German midmar­ket. With a unique plat­form approach and a long-term hori­zon, BCM actively and stra­te­gi­cally supports its subsi­dia­ries to achieve long-term profi­ta­ble growth across indus­tries and count­ries. At the same time, BCM hereby offers access to these non-listed German tech­no­logy cham­pi­ons, which are other­wise inac­ces­si­ble to capi­tal market investors.

News

Stuttgart/ Berlin — SMP advi­sed the inter­na­tio­nal growth inves­tor Acton Capi­tal Part­ners (Acton Capi­tal) on its invest­ment in the digi­tal indus­trial market­place Laser­hub. In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors Project A and Point Nine Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the Series A finan­cing round, which was led by Acton Capi­tal as lead inves­tor. Laser­hub alre­ady successfully raised a seven-figure sum last summer; at the time, SMP had acted along­side Project A.

So far, Laser­hub is repre­sen­ted with its offer on the markets in Germany, Austria and France. The company now plans to use the fresh capi­tal to drive its expan­sion across Europe. 
Fritz Oidt­mann (photo)
, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­tal: “With its sustainable busi­ness model, Laser­hub will be one of the pioneers of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in the manu­fac­tu­ring industry.”

Acton Capi­tal recei­ved compre­hen­sive legal advice from a team led by SMP part­ner Benja­min Ullrich. SMP has alre­ady supported the growth inves­tor in the course of various invest­ments in the past — most recently with its invest­ments in Lemo­neOne, expert­lead and The Female Company.

About Laser­hub
Laser­hub is a B2B startup based in Stutt­gart, Germany, that has deve­lo­ped a verti­cally inte­gra­ted, multi-vendor procu­re­ment plat­form for custom metal parts. The smart algo­rithm links the indi­vi­dual wishes of the custo­mer with the resour­ces of the produ­cers from the Laser­hub network for the order. This redu­ces both process and parts costs for procu­rers, as well as orde­ring and proces­sing times. The advan­tage for produ­cers is the utiliza­tion of free manu­fac­tu­ring resour­ces, which leads to an increase in profi­ta­bi­lity. Laser­hub acts as the sole contrac­tual part­ner for all parties invol­ved and is respon­si­ble for the entire process: from auto­ma­tic quota­tion gene­ra­tion to order place­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, logi­stics and invoi­cing. The company was foun­ded in 2017 by Adrian Raidt, Chris­toph Rößner and Jonas Schweizer.

Acton Capi­tal
Acton Capi­tal Part­ners is an inter­na­tio­nal growth inves­tor based in Munich. Since 1999, the Acton team has inves­ted in consu­mer Inter­net compa­nies in Europe and North America. The main areas of invest­ment are SaaS, re/e‑commerce, Future of Work, mobi­lity, health­care and FinTech. Acton Capi­tal’s active port­fo­lio compa­nies include Home­ToGo, Cluno, Expert­Lead and Zenjob. To date, the team has inves­ted more than €600 million in appro­xi­m­ately 90 compa­nies over five fund generations.

Project A
Project A is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm. The early-stage inves­tor and opera­ting VC in the field of digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies is head­quar­te­red in Berlin. The company was foun­ded in 2012. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Cata­wiki, World­Re­mit, Home­day, Spry­ker, KRY, senn­der, Voi and Trade Republic.

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-owned mid-sized compa­nies 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. Today, SMP employs over 50 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.smp.law

Advi­sor Acton Capi­tal: SMP
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead/Corporate Law), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Corpo­rate Law), Senior Associate

News

Munich — User­lane — the deve­lo­pers of a leading digi­tal adop­tion solu­tion(photo from left Felix Eich­ler, Hart­mut Hahn and Kajetan A. Uhlig) — has successfully closed a Series B finan­cing round led by Five Elms Capi­tal. The backers inves­ted a total of around ten million euros, inclu­ding exis­ting inves­tors such as Capna­mic, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and main incu­ba­tor, an early-stage inves­tor of the Commerz­bank Group. The invest­ment will drive User­la­ne’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and acce­le­rate product deve­lo­p­ment. The goal of these steps is to help compa­nies around the world improve adop­tion of the growing number of soft­ware solu­ti­ons that are criti­cal to busi­ness success.

“We see our custo­mers adop­ting soft­ware solu­ti­ons — espe­ci­ally given current market condi­ti­ons — to manage a more home office and remote work orien­ted work­force. Each of these custo­mers relies on User­lane to help their employees use soft­ware faster and effec­tively manage the increased demand for soft­ware support. With this new invest­ment, we are able to expand our inter­na­tio­nal presence and acce­le­rate our product road­map while provi­ding opti­mal support to our custo­mers across diffe­rent markets and time zones,” explains Hart­mut Hahn, CEO of Userlane.

“The need for digi­tal soft­ware adop­tion solu­ti­ons is growing expo­nen­ti­ally as orga­niza­ti­ons deploy more appli­ca­ti­ons to manage an incre­asingly complex and geogra­phi­cally disper­sed work­force. Hart­mut and his team have brought toge­ther an extre­mely talen­ted team, foste­red an incre­di­ble culture and deve­lo­ped an impres­sive product, all with limi­ted resour­ces. We look forward to helping the company build on its foun­da­tion of success and signi­fi­cantly increase its presence in the U.S. market,” said Joe Onofrio, Part­ner at Five Elms Capital

User­lane has seen increased demand since March­De­spite this period of econo­mic uncer­tainty, the number of compa­nies rely­ing on User­la­ne’s tech­no­logy has grown rapidly. In addi­tion to fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies like Celo­nis, Perso­nio and Freight­hub, large inter­na­tio­nal orga­niza­ti­ons like Beiers­dorf, Linde and Alli­anz have star­ted working with User­lane to empower their users and employees.

At the heart of User­lane tech­no­logy are inter­ac­tive step-by-step guides that can be laye­red over any brow­ser-based soft­ware. These guides can be crea­ted without prior tech­ni­cal know­ledge and lead users through complex proces­ses directly in the appli­ca­tion. Unlike video tuto­ri­als, User­lane commu­ni­ca­tes live with soft­ware users by using auto­ma­ti­cally coll­ec­ted data from the under­ly­ing appli­ca­tion to guide them through hundreds of actions. Users can learn how to complete any task within the soft­ware plat­form through their own actions, which in turn increa­ses soft­ware adoption.

The trend toward a remote work­force and the costs asso­cia­ted with imple­men­ting soft­ware to manage a more complex orga­niza­tion are putting tremen­dous pres­sure on compa­nies. User­lane is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to help compa­nies acce­le­rate their digi­tiza­tion efforts and promote effi­ci­ent and accu­rate soft­ware adop­tion. User­lane has enab­led custo­mers to reduce trai­ning and support costs by up to 75%, roll out new soft­ware and/or proces­ses three times faster, and onboard end users in half the time. User­la­ne’s plat­form has and will conti­nue to help compa­nies be more agile and respond more quickly to new challenges.

About User­lane
User­lane is an award-winning digi­tal adop­tion plat­form that helps compa­nies world­wide maxi­mize soft­ware adop­tion and usage. Users are intro­du­ced to new soft­ware with User­lane through inter­ac­tive in-app guidance and real-time contex­tual support. With over 200 inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers, the company is one of the top 50 tech start­ups in Europe and ranks 26th on the FAZ list of top German compa­nies. www.userlane.com.

About Five Elms Capital
Five Elms Capi­tal is a global inves­tor in fast-growing B2B soft­ware busi­nesses that users love. Five Elms provi­des capi­tal and resour­ces to help compa­nies acce­le­rate growth and further cement their role as indus­try leaders. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fiveelms.com.

About Capna­mic Ventures
Capna­mic Ventures is one of Euro­pe’s leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tors, based in Berlin and Colo­gne. The VC’s invest­ment focus is on tech­no­logy start­ups in German-spea­king count­ries. In addi­tion, Capna­mic invests with inter­na­tio­nal co-inves­tors. All port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by Capna­mic’s global indus­try network. The exten­sive know-how of the Capna­mic team is based on more than 80 invest­ments, nume­rous successful trade sales and IPOs as well as own entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence in the invest­ment team. Capna­mic is led by Chris­tian Siegele, Jörg Binnen­brü­cker and Olaf Jacobi and as Mana­ging Part­ner. www.capnamic.com

About main incubator
main incu­ba­tor is the early-stage inves­tor and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group. It inves­ti­ga­tes future tech­no­lo­gies that are rele­vant to the economy and society, and promo­tes and deve­lops sustainable solu­ti­ons. He deve­lops proto­ty­pes based on future tech­no­lo­gies such as addi­tive prin­ting, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cross reality, Inter­net of Things, networks, robo­tics and quan­tum compu­ting, often in colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners from indus­try and rese­arch. In this way, it actively helps to shape future-proof products, solu­ti­ons and infra­struc­tures. — Main Incu­ba­tor GmbH, or main incu­ba­tor for short, is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank AG based in Frank­furt am Main.

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 almost 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. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the 32 compa­nies. Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the 32 companies.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills has advi­sed heidel­pay Group on the acqui­si­tion of Paysafe Pay Later, a specia­list in pay-later payment methods, from Paysafe Group. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2020. Until then, the two compa­nies will conti­nue to operate as inde­pen­dent organizations.

Paysafe Pay Later (payo­lu­tion GmbH) deve­lops payment solu­ti­ons for online and offline commerce. As part of the inter­na­tio­nal Paysafe Group, a leading specia­li­zed payment plat­form with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in the online payment busi­ness, Paysafe Pay Later offers indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the DACH region.

heidel­pay is one of the fastest growing German tech compa­nies for inter­na­tio­nal payments. With over 17 years of expe­ri­ence in e‑commerce and as a BaFin-appro­ved payment insti­tu­tion, heidel­pay offers compa­nies of all sizes the ability to process payments world­wide. Since 2020, the inves­tor KKR has been the majo­rity share­hol­der of the heidel­pay Group.

heidel­pay’s latest invest­ment is part of the company’s stra­tegy to drive Euro­pean expan­sion and expand its product offe­ring for its own custo­mers in the area of Pay Later payment methods.

Herbert Smith Freeh­ills had alre­ady advi­sed the heidel­pay foun­ders and the inves­tor AnaCap Finan­cial Part­ners on the sale of a majo­rity stake to the invest­ment company KKR in 2019. In 2017, the firm had assis­ted the heidel­pay foun­ders in the sale of a majo­rity stake to AnaCap Finan­cial Partners.

Advi­sor heidel­pay Group: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills (Frank­furt)
Dr. Nico Abel, Photo (Part­ner, Lead), Rüdi­ger Hoff­mann (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Marcel Nuys (Part­ner), Dr. Florian Huer­kamp (Coun­sel; both Anti­trust; both Düssel­dorf), Kai Liebrich (Part­ner, Finance / Regu­la­tory), Moritz Kunz (Part­ner, Labor Law / Data Protec­tion), Dr. Stef­fen C. Hörner (Part­ner, Tax), Dr. Julius Brandt (Senior Asso­ciate), Tatiana Guens­ter, Quenie Hubert (both Asso­cia­tes; all Corporate/M&A), Mirko Gleits­mann (Asso­ciate, Anti­trust Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Hannes Jacobi (Senior Asso­ciate, Finance / Regu­la­tory), Dr. Simone Zieg­ler (Senior Asso­ciate, Labor Law / Data Protection)

News

Frank­furt a. M./ Munich — Apax Digi­tal, the growth capi­tal arm of London-based finan­cial inves­tor Apax Part­ners has inves­ted in Price f(x) AG (“Pricefx”). As part of the Series C finan­cing round, Pricefx recei­ved addi­tio­nal capi­tal of USD 65 million. The company has thus raised around USD 130 million in capi­tal to date. The finan­cing round was led by Apax Digi­tal with parti­ci­pa­tion from legacy inves­tors. The Frank­furt and Munich offices of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Apax Digi­tal on this transaction.

Foun­ded in 2011 in Pfaf­fen­ho­fen a.d. Glonn and opera­ting globally in five loca­ti­ons, Pricefx is a global leader in cloud-based pricing models as “Soft­ware as a Service” and offers a compre­hen­sive range of solu­ti­ons. Pricefx will use the funding to expand and soli­dify its leading global market posi­tion as a cloud soft­ware plat­form, as well as to acce­le­rate product inno­va­tion, expand its part­ner network and explore stra­te­gic acquisitions.

Advi­sor Apax Digi­tal: Weil Gotshal & Manges
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (photo) and was supported by asso­cia­tes Thomas Weise, Aurel Hille, Stef­fen Giolda (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Mareike Pfeif­fer (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Alisa Preis­sler (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Barbara Sand­fuchs (IP/IT, Munich) and para­le­gal Kris­tina Thiel (Labor Law, Frankfurt).

Advi­sor Price (fx): Shear­man & Sterling
Part­ner Dr. Alfred Koss­mann, Coun­sel Annette Petow and Asso­cia­tes Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, Sven Opper­mann and Denise Tayler (all Frank­furt M&A) and Part­ners Michael Dorf (San Francisco/Menlo Park M&A) and Larry Crouch (San Francisco/Menlo Park Tax).

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

News

Munich — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Gamma Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons plc (Gamma) on the acqui­si­tion of 80% of the shares in HFO Holding AG (HFO), one of the leading SIP trunk provi­ders in Germany, which also includes the distri­bu­tor Epsi­lon. There is an acqui­si­tion option for the remai­ning 20% for the next three years.

Gamma is a leading provi­der of Unified Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons as a Service (UCaaS) in the UK, Spain and the Nether­lands and has iden­ti­fied Germany as a key target market as part of its expan­sion stra­tegy. Accor­ding to the company, the over­all German market has around 36 million PBX exten­si­ons, but a cloud pene­tra­tion of only around 6%. Thus, the market for cloud tele­phony is expec­ted to grow steadily over the next few years.

Gamma’s goal is to deve­lop and sell a market-leading cloud PBX solu­tion through the chan­nel to acce­le­rate HFO’s growth in the emer­ging cloud PBX market in Germany. HFO also offers B2B mobile services through its subsi­diary Epsi­lon Tele­com — most recently selling over 100,000 connec­tions per year. This also provi­des an oppor­tu­nity for Gamma to sell a mobile cloud PBX product through this channel.

Advi­sor Gamma Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons plc: Bird & Bird LLP
Part­ner Stefan Münch (photo), Part­ner Stephan Kübler, LL.M., Coun­sel Michael Gass­ner, Asso­cia­tes Marcel Nurk and Mari­jana Simo­nova (all Corporate/M&A, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer, Asso­cia­tes Julia Gottin­ger and Laura Schild­berg (all Labor Law, Munich) Part­ner Dr. Henri­ette Picot, Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg, Asso­ciate Goek­han Kosak (all Tech & Comms, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Markus Körner, Asso­ciate Maxi­mi­lian Hillen­kamp (both Trade­mark Law, Munich), Senior Coun­sel Vale­rian Jenny (Foreign Trade Law, Frank­furt), Part­ner Neil Blun­dell, Part­ner Simon Allport, (both Corporate/M&A) Legal Dirc­tor Nick Heap (Corpo­rate Finance) all London, Asso­ciate Pauline Toet (Corpo­rate, Candi­tate Notary, The Hague).

Bird & Bird has advi­sed Gamma for many years, e.g. in 2014 on the IPO in London or recently on the public offe­ring for VOZTELECOM OIGAA360, S.A. (“VozTe­le­com”). VozTe­le­com is one of the leading provi­ders of cloud PBX solu­ti­ons in Spain and, along with the major fixed and mobile opera­tors, has the largest cloud PBX busi­ness. Neil Blun­dell, Part­ner in London, says: “We are deligh­ted to support Gamma in their expan­sion in Europe. It’s a very exci­ting company and has perfor­med incre­di­bly well since going public. Bird & Bird has a super­bly inte­gra­ted inter­na­tio­nal M&A group, and the teams in the UK, Germany, Spain and the Nether­lands have worked first class to deli­ver these deals. We look forward to conti­nuing to support Gamma on their future jour­neys, both in the UK and internationally.”

News

Aachen — The Aachen-based GRÜN Soft­ware Group was able to win the Nurem­berg family offices Fontas and Mogk as finan­ci­ally strong part­ners for its growth plans to build up a group of medium-sized B2B soft­ware compa­nies. The inves­tors have taken a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake. Foun­der and CEO Dr. Oliver Grün remains majo­rity share­hol­der. Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed the Nurem­berg-based family offices Fontas and Mogk on their invest­ment in Aachen-based GRÜN Soft­ware Group. You take over a signi­fi­cant mino­rity shareholding

The aim of the part­ner­ship is to promote the growth of the GRÜN Soft­ware Group with today 150 employees by acqui­si­tion & further deve­lo­p­ment of soft­ware compa­nies with indus­try soft­ware within the frame­work of a “Buy & Build” stra­tegy: “Through our new, strong part­ners, we comple­ment our expe­ri­ence in buil­ding medium-sized soft­ware compa­nies with the neces­sary capi­tal for acqui­si­ti­ons. This crea­tes an owner-mana­ged plat­form for invest­ments in soft­ware compa­nies that is unique in this form,” says a plea­sed Dr. Oliver Grün.

The invest­ment team at GRÜN will be supported by Prof. Dr. Rainer Lauter­bach and Fabian Durst in the future. This will also streng­then the group’s finan­cial exper­tise: “Our joint approach of combi­ning soft­ware and finan­cial know-how is a new offe­ring in the market of medium-sized soft­ware compa­nies, which is curr­ently under­go­ing a strong conso­li­da­tion phase due to succes­si­ons and market chan­ges,” says Prof. Lauterbach.

To streng­then and expand the opera­tio­nal busi­ness of the GRÜN Soft­ware Group, which curr­ently offers solu­ti­ons for non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and educa­tion provi­ders, Dirk Hönscheid, the company’s long-time autho­ri­zed signa­tory and COO, was also appoin­ted to the manage­ment board.

As part of a change in legal form, the company will no longer trade under the name GRÜN Soft­ware AG, but under GRÜN Soft­ware Group GmbH. All exis­ting cont­acts, contracts and coope­ra­ti­ons remain unchanged.

Consul­tant GRÜN Soft­ware Group: WSS Redpoint Cologne

Advi­sors to the Fontas and Mogk family offices: Bird & Bird Frankfurt
Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann (photo) and Acco­ciate Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Good­win has advi­sed Storm Ventures on a €60 million Series C finan­cing round for sola­ris­Bank.

The finan­cing round was led by HV Holtz­brinck Ventures; in addi­tion to Storm Ventures, Vulcan Capi­tal and Samsung Cata­lyst Fund parti­ci­pa­ted. The strength of the round is also reflec­ted in the fact that about half of the funding was raised from exis­ting inves­tors; these were led by yabeo and supported by BBVA, SBI Group, ABN AMRO Ventures, Global Brain, Hegus and Lake­star.

Storm Ventures is a Sili­con Valley-based venture capi­tal firm focu­sed on early-stage invest­ments in leading B2B compa­nies, inclu­ding Aire­space (sold to Cisco), Blues­hift, Echo­Sign (sold to Adobe), Marketo (sold to Adobe), MobileI­ron, Sendoso, Splash­top and Work­ato. The company has also inves­ted in leading Euro­pean start­ups, inclu­ding Algo­lia, Digi­tal Shadows and Talkdesk.

Berlin-based sola­ris­Bank AG is the first banking-as-a-service plat­form with a full banking license that enables compa­nies to offer their own finan­cial products. APIs give part­ners access to the bank’s modu­lar services. Inclu­ding the current Series C finan­cing round, sola­ris­Bank has raised a total of more than 160 million euros in the past four years.

Advi­sors Storm Ventures: Good­win, Frank­furt a.M./Silicon Valley
Gregor Klenk, Photo (Private Equity, Frank­furt); Craig Schmitz (FinTech, Sili­con Valley/Los Ange­les; both Lead); Asso­ciate: Joana Pamu­kova (Private Equity, Frankfurt)

News

Munich — Strong signal in the COVID 19 crisis: Golding raises almost 200 million euros from private debt funds for medium-sized compa­nies. The COVID-19 pande­mic is caus­ing massive dislo­ca­tion in econo­mies and finan­cial markets world­wide. Many compa­nies, espe­ci­ally small and medium-sized ones, run into liqui­dity bott­len­ecks that they cannot absorb through tradi­tio­nal finan­cing chan­nels such as bank loans. In such times of crisis, private debt funds gain in importance. In this phase, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners successfully closed the first subscrip­tion period of the Golding Private Debt 2020 fund with a volume of almost 200 million euros.

At present, access to addi­tio­nal capi­tal needed in the short term is consider­a­bly rest­ric­ted for many compa­nies. The crisis-indu­ced decline in tradi­tio­nal forms of finan­cing, such as bank loans or the more liquid capi­tal markets, has resul­ted in liqui­dity problems, in some cases threa­tening the very exis­tence of SMEs in parti­cu­lar. Private debt funds gain addi­tio­nal importance in such times of crisis. They can close the finan­cing gap in the case of growth finan­cing, acqui­si­ti­ons, refi­nan­cing, but also tempo­rary liqui­dity bott­len­ecks and offer sustainable solu­ti­ons with alter­na­tive forms of financing.

Foun­der and CEO Jeremy Golding: “The Corona crisis has shown that compa­nies need quick and uncom­pli­ca­ted “cash injec­tions”. This is the only way they can main­tain opera­ti­ons and secure jobs. Banks are often not suita­ble finan­cing part­ners due to incre­asingly strin­gent regu­la­ti­ons and capi­tal requi­re­ments. Private debt funds, on the other hand, can directly provide alter­na­tive finan­cing solu­ti­ons and often support compa­nies with long-term capi­tal — at a much better risk and return profile.”

The invest­ment stra­tegy of the Golding Private Debt 2020 fund is to build a broadly diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of prima­rily bila­te­ral finan­cings nego­tia­ted directly with medium-sized compa­nies in Europe and North America (“corpo­rate direct lending”). The focus is on senior secu­red loans; subor­di­na­ted loans are also taken into account on a selec­tive basis. Depen­ding on the market envi­ron­ment, Golding also invests in selec­ted funds with a focus on special situa­tions invol­ving, for exam­ple, the oppor­tu­ni­stic acqui­si­tion of loans in the secon­dary market or speci­fic complex corpo­rate situa­tions. The plan is to set up 15 to 20 primary and secon­dary funds as well as co-invest­ments as an oppor­tu­ni­stic addi­tion. To date, one co-invest­ment has alre­ady been imple­men­ted and the first primary funds have been subscribed.

Proven crisis resistance
Alre­ady during and after the global econo­mic crisis of 2008/2009, the private debt asset class demons­tra­ted excel­lent crisis resis­tance compared to other asset clas­ses. Nega­tive valua­tion discounts in the private debt market, for exam­ple, were fully offset after around nine months. Such low vulnerabi­lity in crises contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to rising demand in this segment. Current market analy­ses confirm this clear growth trend: around one-third of the inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors surveyed are plan­ning to invest more heavily in private debt in view of the Corona crisis.

“For our inves­tors, it pays to invest in private debt funds. Not only because our offe­rings in this area are parti­cu­larly stable and resi­li­ent due to our diver­si­fied approach and broad diver­si­fi­ca­tion to around 600 — 800 tran­sac­tions world­wide. But also because it enables us to gene­rate attrac­tive risk-adjus­ted returns and, with an average net IRR of 7 to 8 percent, we have an excel­lent perfor­mance. In the ongo­ing low-inte­rest envi­ron­ment, this is an excel­lent invest­ment oppor­tu­nity for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors,” says Mana­ging Direc­tor and CIO Dr. Matthias Reicher­ter.

Golding was one of the pioneers in this asset class in 2003 and can ther­e­fore draw on many years of successful invest­ment exper­tise in the private debt market. Golding curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 3.5 billion in this asset class for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Capi­tal is curr­ently spread across 17 invest­ment programs (inclu­ding funds of funds, co-invest­ment funds and mana­ged accounts).

About Golding Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH
Golding Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers for private equity, private debt and infra­struc­ture in Europe. With a team of over 100 employees based in Munich, Luxem­bourg, London, New York and Tokyo, Golding Capi­tal Part­ners supports insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in buil­ding their invest­ment stra­tegy and mana­ges assets of over €9 billion. The appro­xi­m­ately 200 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors include insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices as well as banks, savings banks and coope­ra­tive banks.

News

Hamburg — CORVEL advi­sed heidel­pay Group GmbH (“heidel­pay”) on its invest­ment in Till­hub GmbH. Till­hub offers retail­ers digi­tal payment methods via an all-in-one iPad POS system. Well-known custo­mers of Till­hub are Klier Hair Group GmbH and Fleu­rop AG. Heidel­pay is thus expan­ding its exper­tise in the PoS (Point of Sale) area and conti­nuing to drive its growth and omnich­an­nel approach. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the size of the investment.

Heidel­pay is one of the fastest growing German tech compa­nies for inter­na­tio­nal payments and offers its own solu­ti­ons such as invoice and install­ment purchase, direct debit, online bank trans­fer or prepay­ment as well as on well-known provi­ders of credit cards or wallet solu­ti­ons. Since 2020, the inves­tor KKR has been the majo­rity share­hol­der of heidelpay.

Advi­sor heidel­pay: CORVEL LLP (Hamburg)
Dr. Felix Brammer (photo), Asso­ciate: Thomas Sievers

News

Frank­furt a. Main/ Munich — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Latham & Watkins LLP has advi­sed funds advi­sed by Triton on the finan­cing in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of the RENK Group. In addi­tion to a high-yield bond (senior secu­red notes, 144A/Reg S) placed with insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with a volume of EUR 320 million, a matu­rity in July 2025 and a coupon of 5.75 percent p.a. Senior secu­red credit faci­li­ties (Super Senior Revol­ving Credit Faci­li­ties) with a volume of EUR 40 million (cash line) and EUR 167.5 million (guaran­tee line). The Senior Secu­red Notes are listed on The Inter­na­tio­nal Stock Exch­ange (Offi­cial List).

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by a banking syndi­cate consis­ting of Gold­man Sachs Inter­na­tio­nal, Commerz­bank, Credit Suisse, Deut­sche Bank and UniCre­dit Bank.

Latham & Watkins advi­sed Triton with the follo­wing team:
Dr. Rüdi­ger Malaun (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Lentz (Part­ner, joint lead), Gregory Walker (Coun­sel), Jan Penselin, Jana Sichel­schmidt, Peter Neuböck (Asso­cia­tes, all Capi­tal Markets), Alex­an­dra Hage­lü­ken (Part­ner), Cora Gran­ne­mann (Coun­sel, both Banking, all Frank­furt), Stefan Süß (Part­ner, Tax, Munich), Verena Seevers (Asso­ciate, Tax, Hamburg)

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed German mid-market finan­cier Bright Capi­tal on a credit faci­lity for SOPRONEM Greven GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of Quan­tum Capi­tal Part­ners.

With the help of highly auto­ma­ted and flexi­ble machi­nes, SOPRONEM Greven GmbH produ­ces a range of liquid deter­gents, care products and clea­ning agents specia­li­zing in private labels at its site in Greven and curr­ently employs more than 160 people. Throug­hout Europe, the company is one of the largest manu­fac­tu­r­ers of deter­gents and clea­ning agents.

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses Bright Capi­tal on finan­cings, most recently on a credit faci­lity to finance Beyond Capi­tal’s acqui­si­tion of 19 opti­cal stores in Germany.

Advi­sors to Bright Capi­tal: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (photo), LL.M. (Lead), Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Coun­sel; both Financing)

News

Mannheim/ Munich / Frank­furt a. Main/ London — First State intends to acquire MVV Ener­gie from EnBW and Rhein­ener­gie. Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed banks on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a 45.1% stake in Mann­heim-based energy supplier MVV Ener­gie AG by inter­na­tio­nal asset mana­ger First State from EnBW and Rhein­ener­gie and in connec­tion with a public take­over offer.

Weil also advi­sed BNP Pari­bas S.A. Germany Branch as the issuing bank of the finan­cing confir­ma­tion for the tender offer.

Advi­sors to First State: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The German-English team was led by Banking Part­ners Dr. Wolf­ram Distler, photo (Frank­furt) and Paul Hibbert (London). Other team members were Part­ner Ludger Kempf (Tax Frank­furt), Coun­sel Dr. Heiner Drüke (Corpo­rate Frank­furt), Ben Thomp­son (Banking London) and Asso­cia­tes Sebas­tian Bren­ner (Corpo­rate), Markus Cejka (Banking) and Alisa Preis­sler (Tax, all Frank­furt) as well as Camille Jetzer (Banking London).

News

Hamburg — Sola­ris­bank has secu­red the highest finan­cing round in its history, amoun­ting to 60 million euros. The post-money valua­tion increa­ses to 320 million euros as a result of the capi­tal increase. “Since we were not under any time pres­sure, the Corona crisis did not really affect our funding process,” CEO Roland Folz told us. “Due to high demand from inves­tors, we actually raised more capi­tal than origi­nally planned.”

With the funding behind it, Sola­ris­bank — which has grown exclu­si­vely orga­ni­cally since its foun­ding in 2016 — can even consider larger tran­sac­tions. Sola­ris could thus take over Wire­card Bank AG, at least in parts.

Asked about this scena­rio, Sola­ris­bank CEO Folz told us yester­day, “It’s never good news when a compe­ti­tor gets into trou­ble. Because what ulti­m­ately makes compa­nies better is compe­ti­tion.” Howe­ver, it is true that “Wire­card Bank’s services are simi­lar to ours. Depen­ding on how things deve­lop, we could ther­e­fore certainly be some­thing like the natu­ral alter­na­tive for many of the compe­ti­tor’s customers.”

The lead inves­tor is venture capi­ta­list Holtz­brinck Ventures, which has not yet been one of the share­hol­ders. That a German VC specia­list is the lead inves­tor in such a large round (and even more so, after not having been invol­ved at all before) is, to our recoll­ec­tion, rare in the German fintech sector. But it shows that local venture capi­tal play­ers no longer auto­ma­ti­cally shy away from larger rounds. Early­bird also contin­ued to play a lively role in N26’s most recent mega-fundings.

In addi­tion to Holtz­brinck, Vulcan Capi­tal (the invest­ment arm of the foun­da­tion of the late Micro­soft co-foun­der Paul Allen), another Ameri­can VC called Storm Ventures, and the Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, which belongs to the Korean tech­no­logy group of the same name, are also new on board. Of the legacy inves­tors, Yabeo, BBVA, SBI Group, ABN Amro, Global Brain, Hegus and Lake­star went along. Sola­ris­bank head of stra­tegy Layla Qassim: “We had a slight over­hang of stra­te­gic share­hol­ders so far. That’s why we focu­sed a bit more on finan­cial inves­tors this time around.”

Inte­res­t­ing: The press release menti­ons that Deut­sche Bank supported the round as “private place­ment agent”. “In our first two finan­cing rounds, we got by without an accom­pany­ing bank. This time we deli­bera­tely chose a diffe­rent path — because: A company at our stage can use good friends. And with Deut­sche Bank we have now found such a friend,” says CEO Folz. The obvious ques­tion as to whether this also means that a decis­ion has alre­ady been made as to which finan­cial insti­tu­tion could one day accom­pany Sola­ris­bank to the stock exch­ange, was not answe­red by Folz with the equally obvious sentence: “Of course, it will be Deut­sche Bank”. Instead, he empha­si­zed that an IPO was not on the agenda for the next two years in any case, and that it was only “one conceiva­ble option among seve­ral” for the time after that.

What is to happen now with the 60 million euros? ‑Capture the losses expec­ted at least for this year and next Drive Euro­pean expan­sion. Howe­ver, Sola­ris­bank (employees curr­ently: 310) intends to conti­nue to do this prima­rily from Berlin; foreign offices are to be opened only in isola­ted cases.

 

News

Geneva — Uniges­tion, the inde­pen­dent specia­li­zed asset mana­ger, comple­ted the third closing of its private equity direct fund Uniges­tion Direct II in May, brin­ging the total size of the fund to 375 million euros.

The final target figure is 600 million euros. In June, the fund also comple­ted its second invest­ment. In addi­tion, the first closing of the secon­dary fund Uniges­tion Secon­dary V, with a total volume of EUR 228 million (EUR 700 million final target volume), took place on June 10.

The success of these deals reflects inves­tors’ appe­tite for expo­sure to direct and secon­dary market tran­sac­tions in small and mid-sized compa­nies in the private equity market in the current econo­mic environment.

As the impact of the COVID-19 pande­mic is felt in finan­cial markets, Uniges­tion anti­ci­pa­tes a growing number of attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties going forward, as a result of lower valua­tions, limi­ted avai­la­bi­lity of debt capi­tal and an increase in poten­tial sellers.

Both funds conti­nue to attract well-known inves­tors from North America, Austra­lia and Europe, inclu­ding pres­ti­gious corpo­ra­ti­ons, pension funds and high net worth investors.

Uniges­tion Direct II
Uniges­tion Direct II’s stra­tegy is to build a port­fo­lio of direct invest­ments in small and medium-sized compa­nies in sectors whose growth is driven by long-term trends. The fund invests in compa­nies that are resi­li­ent on their own merits thanks to their strong market posi­tio­ning, manage­ment and finan­cial strength. This gives inves­tors expo­sure to a port­fo­lio of robust compa­nies that are able to execute their growth plans regard­less of market conditions.

With more than 20 years of direct invest­ment expe­ri­ence, Uniges­tion parti­ci­pa­tes in tran­sac­tions as both a co-signer and co-initia­tor/initia­tor, toge­ther with fund mana­gers specia­li­zing in small and mid-sized compa­nies and other invest­ment part­ners in Europe, North America and Asia. Uniges­tion takes an active role during due dili­gence and is able to create favorable tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons in most cases.

With a global team of 40 private equity profes­sio­nals, Uniges­tion sources direct invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties from its network of more than 500 invest­ment part­ners, inclu­ding specia­li­zed fund mana­gers, spon­sors and other indus­try experts, as well as directly from busi­ness owners.

Uniges­tion Secon­dary V
Uniges­tion Secon­dary V invests in small, non-auction secon­dary market tran­sac­tions with a volume of less than EUR 50 million, focu­sing on port­fo­lios of high-quality compa­nies with attrac­tive valua­tions. With more than two deca­des of expe­ri­ence, Uniges­tion is one of the pioneers in the global secon­dary market. The exper­tise includes, in parti­cu­lar, custo­mi­zed and often more complex liqui­dity solutions.

Uniges­tion acqui­res secon­dary market tran­sac­tions from its broad network of Gene­ral Part­ners (GPs), Limi­ted Part­ners, Small Inter­me­dia­ries and selec­ted specia­li­zed Secon­dary Direct Mana­gers. Uniges­ti­on’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the global small and mid-cap market gives it access to tran­sac­tions outside the hunting grounds of other secon­dary inves­tors. As such, Uniges­tion is able to offer a port­fo­lio of secon­dary market tran­sac­tions that are typi­cally uncor­re­la­ted to the broa­der secon­dary market.

Uniges­tion follows a thorough due dili­gence process, which is why the focus is on port­fo­lios of compa­nies with solid busi­ness models and clear exit oppor­tu­ni­ties. Conse­quently, returns are deter­mi­ned by future company perfor­mance and are not depen­dent on leverage or discounts.

“These fund closures are a testa­ment to our long track record of inves­t­ing in small and mid-sized compa­nies. We focus on small and medium-sized compa­nies opera­ting in attrac­tive sectors where growth is not depen­dent on macroe­co­no­mic condi­ti­ons. Ther­e­fore, we are convin­ced that we will bene­fit from the oppor­tu­ni­ties arising from the excep­tio­nal condi­ti­ons we are curr­ently expe­ri­en­cing,” says Chris­to­phe De Dardel, Head of Private Equity at Uniges­tion.

News

Munich — Para­gon Part­ners, one of the leading private equity firms in Europe, acqui­res all shares in WEKA Firmen­gruppe, a leading provi­der of specia­list infor­ma­tion, soft­ware, trai­ning & services for the DACH region and France.

Dr. Edin Hadzic (photo), co-foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of Para­gon Part­ners, says: “WEKA is an impres­sive success story, which we as a new share­hol­der want to conti­nue with the manage­ment team and employees. We want to conti­nue to streng­then the diver­si­fied struc­ture and the entre­pre­neu­rial culture of the group of compa­nies. The further deve­lo­p­ment of markets, products and the digi­tiza­tion of corpo­rate proces­ses will conti­nue to be a prio­rity in the future. Targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons to comple­ment the port­fo­lio will remain part of the corpo­rate stra­tegy. We welcome WEKA to the Para­gon family and look forward to working with them.”

Wolf­gang Mate­rna, Mana­ging Direc­tor of WEKA Holding: “I am deligh­ted to have found in Para­gon Part­ners a share­hol­der with excel­lent refe­ren­ces, deter­mi­na­tion and relia­bi­lity who, thanks to his expe­ri­ence in the media indus­try, brings with him all the prere­qui­si­tes for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the WEKA Group and with whom we see the future of WEKA, our employees and our busi­ness part­ners in good hands. We are deligh­ted to be part of the Para­gon family. The manage­ment and employees of the WEKA Group will also give their all for the successful conti­nua­tion of the busi­ness in the new share­hol­der structure.”

About WEKA
WEKA was foun­ded in 1973 by Werner and Karin Mützel as a specia­list publi­shing house for admi­nis­tra­tion and indus­try. Over the past deca­des, WEKA has deve­lo­ped into a diver­si­fied media group and has taken a leading market posi­tion by offe­ring a broad range of specia­list infor­ma­tion and formats. The WEKA group of compa­nies is head­quar­te­red in Kissing (Germany) and compri­ses 23 compa­nies in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and France. WEKA gene­ra­tes annual sales of around EUR 250 million and employs a total of 1,500 people.

In the “Busi­ness Infor­ma­tion & Educa­tion” segment, WEKA offers expert know­ledge via print, digi­tal (e.g. online content/databases, soft­ware, e‑learning) and face-to-face formats (e.g. semi­nars, conti­nuing educa­tion and trai­ning). The focus is on regu­la­tory and/ or tech­ni­cal know­ledge and the inno­va­tions based on it in speci­fic niches, such as occu­pa­tio­nal safety, hazar­dous mate­ri­als, law and taxes, or denti­stry. Content is prepared in such a way that it can be directly applied in prac­tice and thus seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the custo­mer’s workflow.

The “Busi­ness Commu­ni­ca­tion” segment provi­des specia­list infor­ma­tion via print (prima­rily maga­zi­nes) and digi­tal, event and service formats for various indus­tries. These include, for exam­ple, indus­tries such as elec­tro­nics, ITC and buil­ding tech­no­logy. The focus is on jour­na­li­stic brands as well as speci­fic data and services that inform parti­ci­pants and inte­res­ted parties in the respec­tive target markets. www.weka-holding.de

About Para­gon Partners
Foun­ded in 2004, Para­gon is today one of the leading private equity compa­nies in the German-spea­king region with more than EUR 1.2 billion in equity under manage­ment. Para­gon works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to ensure sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. The invest­ment port­fo­lio spans various indus­tries (e.g., Industrial/ Profes­sio­nal Services, IP Manage­ment, Media Analy­tics) and curr­ently compri­ses 14 compa­nies. The company is based in Munich, Germany. www.paragon.de

News

Frank­furt a. Main — DLA Piper advi­sed FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG on an invest­ment in Singa­pore-based opti­ons trading plat­form Spar­row. The invest­ment was part of a Series A finan­cing round of $3.5 million. It will be used for further deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form. HDR Group, Signum Capi­tal and Du Capi­talalso parti­ci­pa­ted in Spar­row as part of the finan­cing round.

Spar­row is the leading opti­ons trading plat­form and provi­des an easy way to control risk and mone­tize digi­tal assets. The company offers BTC and ETH opti­ons sett­led through smart contracts. Spar­ro­w’s proprie­tary plat­form is acces­si­ble through a simpli­fied inter­face, an enhan­ced order book, and trading APIs.

FinLab EOS VC Europe I GmbH & Co KG is a venture capi­tal fund mana­ged by FinLab AG that invests exclu­si­vely in projects based on the open source block­chain soft­ware EOSIO. The fund focu­ses on seed and early-stage start­ups seeking equity invest­ment. The USD 100 million fund was laun­ched by FinLab AG, one of the first and largest company buil­ders and inves­tors focu­sed on the finan­cial services tech­no­lo­gies sector in Europe, toge­ther with Block.one.

The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel contin­ued to include senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal, Munich). In Singa­pore, Part­ner David Kuo, Of Coun­sel Kathe­rine Chew and Asso­ciate Ying Chern Tan (all Corpo­rate) advised.

News

Schwelm/ Düsseldorf/ Shang­hai — The owner of Klaus Korte GmbH & Co KG (“Korte”), a Schwelm-based produ­cer and supplier of high-quality labels and brand iden­ti­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons (photo) has sold to the Chinese Maxim Label and Pack­a­ging Group (“Maxim”) of Shang­hai. Klaus Korte GmbH & Co KG was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Mayland AG.

Since 1962, Korte has been produ­cing the highest quality origi­nal woven and prin­ted labels at compe­ti­tive prices. In doing so, Korte works in a parti­cu­larly indi­vi­dua­li­zed manner and can custo­mize the mate­rial, shape, colors as well as brand iden­ti­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons to meet custo­mer requi­re­ments. The merger with Maxim now enables Korte to expand its previous focus on the German market inter­na­tio­nally, espe­ci­ally to the Asian region, and to comple­ment its range of brand iden­ti­fi­ca­tion solu­ti­ons with RFID solu­ti­ons, among other things.

Maxim Label and Pack­a­ging Group sees itself as a one-stop shop provi­ding brand iden­tity protec­tion and infor­ma­tion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons to retail­ers and major brands. The product port­fo­lio includes RFID solu­ti­ons, price tags, ther­mal trans­fer labels, hang tags, care labels, adhe­si­ves and pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons. With the acqui­si­tion of Korte, Maxim intends to expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties around the globe while conti­nuing to secure Korte’s posi­tion as one of the indus­try leaders in this segment. The main goal of Maxim is to quickly and easily adapt to chan­ging global requi­re­ments while syste­ma­tiz­ing them.

About MAYLAND AG
MAYLAND remains your relia­ble and profes­sio­nal M&A advi­sor even in these diffi­cult Corona times. We help you not to passi­vely endure the serious chan­ges, but to actively shape them. M&A can secure and streng­then the future of compa­nies in such times of crisis. In addi­tion to secu­ring the exis­tence of the company and jobs, (family) assets of the share­hol­ders can also be secu­red. In addi­tion, unique invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties often arise in times of crisis, and MAYLAN­D’s long expe­ri­ence through various econo­mic and capi­tal market cycles means it is ideally posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of them.

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. MAYLAND also arran­ges the finan­cing or restruc­tu­ring that may be neces­sary or requi­red for these tran­sac­tions. MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.mayland.de.

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