Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion and finan­cing of the take­over of German soft­ware company CONTECHNET by Main port­fo­lio company i‑doit. The acqui­si­tion marks i‑doit’s first add-on tran­sac­tion since Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ invest­ment in June 2022 and brings i‑doit closer to its goal of beco­ming a leading Euro­pean provi­der in the field of IT Opera­ti­ons Manage­ment (ITOM).

i‑doit, foun­ded in 1996, offers CMDB soft­ware to simplify IT and asset manage­ment. Head­quar­te­red in Düssel­dorf, the company serves around 1,700 custo­mers from various indus­tries, parti­cu­larly from the public sector. 

CONTECHNET, foun­ded in 2007 and head­quar­te­red in Patten­sen, Germany, is a specia­li­zed provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for ISMS, IT contin­gency plan­ning and data protec­tion. Through a network of over 40 part­ners, the company serves more than 400 custo­mers from indus­tries such as finance, health­care, educa­tion and utilities. 

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the DACH region, the Bene­lux count­ries, the Nordic count­ries and the United States. Main Capi­tal mana­ges assets of around EUR 6.5 billion and main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of more than 45 soft­ware groups. 

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses Main Capi­tal on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding financing.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery

Hanno M. Witt, LL.M. (Lead, Private Equity), Ludwig Zesch (Lead, Finance; both Munich), Krasen Kras­tev (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Thomas Gennert (Employ­ment Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Florian Schie­fer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, both Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Nicole Kaps, Dr. Manuel Weiß, Dr. Armin Teymouri, Julia Külzer (all Private Equity, Munich), Matthias Bosbach (Finance), Janek Joos­ten (Employ­ment Law; both Düssel­dorf), Paulina Simons (Intellec­tual Property, Munich)

Munich/ Bremen — The US indus­trial group Dover Corpo­ra­tion (“Dover”) has acqui­red SIKORA AG
(“SIKORA”), a leading provi­der of measu­ring and control tech­no­lo­gies. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, SIKORA will be inte­gra­ted into Dover’s MAAG Group opera­ting unit within the Pumps & Process Solu­ti­ons segment. The acqui­si­tion of SIKORA is in line with Dover’s stra­tegy to acquire syner­ge­tic, growth and margin-enhan­cing compa­nies within its core busi­nesses. POELLATH advi­sed SIKORA on the legal and tax aspects of the sale. 

Bremen-based SIKORA AG is a leading provi­der of precis­ion measu­ring, inspec­tion and control solu­ti­ons for produc­tion proces­ses in the wire and cable, hose, tube, sheet, fiber­glass and plas­tics indus­tries. The company’s solu­ti­ons enable its custo­mers to ensure the highest quality and longe­vity of their end products while incre­asing cost effi­ci­ency, process opti­miza­tion and compli­ance for quality assu­rance. With the global shift to elec­tri­cal tech­no­lo­gies, the company is beco­ming incre­asingly important — espe­ci­ally in fast-growing areas such as
data centers. SIKORA employs more than 25,000 people and has recor­ded orga­nic growth in the double-digit percen­tage range over the past three years. 

Dover is a globally active, diver­si­fied indus­trial group with around 24,000 employees. The company offers inno­va­tive machi­nes, compon­ents, consu­ma­bles, soft­ware solu­ti­ons and services in five busi­ness areas, inclu­ding Clean Energy & Fueling and Climate & Sustaina­bi­lity Technologies. 

Consul­tant SIKORA AG: POELLATH 

Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (NYU) (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte (Part­ner, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Timo Winkel­mann, LL.M. (Part­ner, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Gerald Herr­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. David Hötzel, LL.M. (San Diego) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Berlin)
Dr. Andreas Reuther (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Frank­furt aM)
Dr. Puya Rezai Hariri, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Daniel Zhu (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Klara Bothe, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Marina Hennings, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Ange­lina Seel­bach, LL.M. (Colum­bia) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Daniel Hoppen (Senior Asso­ciate, Anti­trust, Frank­furt aM)
Moritz Löff­ler, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Corne­lius L. Roth (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Floren­tine Wagner (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Rudolf Kanter (Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Link (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich) 

About PÖLLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading, inter­na­tio­nally active commer­cial and tax law firm with
more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Ber-
lin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset
manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and
highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients.
Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings
regu­larly reco­gnize our advi­sors as leading experts in their field.

Comprehensive

Colo­gne — As part of its stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment, INTEC Holding GmbH has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the three compa­nies OSW Tech­ni­sche Doku­men­ta­tion Verlag GmbH, TECO Tech­ni­cal Concept GmbH and SCOPE Engi­nee­ring GmbH from ARBOR Gruppe GmbH.

The team led by Colo­gne-based HEUKING part­ner Kris­tina Schnei­der advi­sed INTEC throug­hout the entire acqui­si­tion process — from legal due dili­gence and contract nego­tia­ti­ons to the final imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. The acqui­si­tion repres­ents a further step in INTEC’s entre­pre­neu­rial deve­lo­p­ment and is in line with the company’s stra­te­gic orientation. 

With the acqui­si­tion, INTEC is expan­ding its exis­ting port­fo­lio in a targe­ted manner. The three acqui­red compa­nies contri­bute addi­tio­nal exper­tise in areas such as the deve­lo­p­ment of safety-criti­cal systems, tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion, system inte­gra­tion and product and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment. The invest­ment streng­thens INTEC’s posi­tion, parti­cu­larly in the defense and auto­mo­tive sectors, and supports the goal of further expan­ding the range of services. 

As part of the tran­sac­tion, HEUKING was also entrus­ted with provi­ding legal advice on draf­ting the real estate leasing docu­men­ta­tion for the new Avia­tion Support Center at the Nord­holz airbase. This included the draf­ting of a gene­ral trans­fer agree­ment and the conside­ra­tion of publicly subsi­di­zed finan­cing conditions. 

Consul­tant INTEC Holding GmbH: HEUKING

Kris­tina Schnei­der (photo © K. Schnei­der), LL. M. (lead), (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Cologne,
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Hamburg,
Susanne Monsig (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Cologne,
Dr. Alex­an­der Bork (Employ­ment Law), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Ruben A. Hofmann (IP, Media & Tech­no­logy), Cologne,
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Munich,
Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Düsseldorf,
Stefan Cesar (Corpo­rate Law / M&A),
Meike Dani­els (Corpo­rate Law / M&A),
Lena Kurth, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch Univer­sity), (IP, Media & Technology),
Tim Remmel, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), all Cologne,
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Düsseldorf,
Sandra Pfis­ter, LL.M. (Banking & Finance), Hamburg 

Munich — The commer­cial law firm SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Grob Aircraft SE on the sale of the company to the Euro­pean defense and AI tech­no­logy company Helsing. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals. 

Grob Aircraft, based in Tussen­hau­sen-Matt­sies, is an estab­lished manu­fac­tu­rer of trai­ning aircraft for the mili­tary sector and is known world­wide for its G 120 aircraft series. The company has deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the avia­tion sector and plays a central role in the trai­ning of mili­tary pilots on seve­ral continents. 

Helsing, a company specia­li­zing in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and defence tech­no­logy, is acqui­ring all shares in Grob Aircraft SE as part of the tran­sac­tion. The aim of the acqui­si­tion is to streng­then Euro­pean tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­nty in the defense sector and to inte­grate AI-supported capa­bi­li­ties into modern avia­tion platforms. 

Advi­sor to share­hol­der Grob Aircraft: SKW Schwarz, Munich

Dr. Sebas­tian Graf von Wall­witz (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Raluca-Ramona Calin (Tran­sac­tion Management)

SKW Black

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent full-service law firm. With around 130 lawy­ers at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, the firm advi­ses in all rele­vant areas of commer­cial law. At the end of 2018, the firm foun­ded SKW Schwarz @ Tech GmbH, in which the lawy­ers bundle all acti­vi­ties in the field of legal tech across loca­ti­ons and specia­list areas.

Düssel­dorf — Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH is one of the plat­forms with the widest reach for leisure and
event recom­men­da­ti­ons in major German cities, with more than four million page views in the
month and more than 360,000 regis­tered users on the website and in the app. — DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH. It was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Deloitte Legal. 

Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH is one of the plat­forms with the widest reach for leisure and
event recom­men­da­ti­ons in major German cities, with more than four million page views per month and more than 360,000 regis­tered users on the website and in the app. Raus­ge­gan­gen offers an all-in-one solu­tion for cultu­ral event orga­ni­zers, clubs, venues and festi­vals — inclu­ding indi­vi­dual ticke­ting solu­ti­ons, online pre-sales, guest lists, a custo­mizable scan­ner app and exten­sive marke­ting features. 

The buyer, the DuMont Media Group, is one of the oldest and largest publi­shing houses in Germany, which is focu­sing on digi­tal growth with its three busi­ness areas of regio­nal media, busi­ness infor­ma­tion and marke­ting technology.

With this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion, DuMont is speci­fi­cally expan­ding its regio­nal media port­fo­lio with a fast-growing digi­tal plat­form model and streng­thening its range of inno­va­tive digi­tal products. At the same time, the affi­lia­tion with DuMont opens up new deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects for Raus­ge­gan­gen — for exam­ple through content and marke­ting coope­ra­ti­ons with brands such as Kölner Stadt-Anzei­ger, Kölni­sche Rund­schau, Radio Köln and EXPRESS. 

Deloitte Legal advi­sed DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG on all legal aspects of the transaction
. DuMont Medi­en­gruppe regu­larly relies on the advice of Deloitte Legal in its transactions
.

Advi­sor to DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG: Deloitte Legal Germany

Dr. Michael von Rüden, LL.M., Dirk Hänisch, LL.M., Thilo Hoff­mann, LL.M. (all lead, all part­ners, all corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Horst Heinzl, LL.M., Chris­toph Meves (both Coun­sel), Maxi­mi­lian Giep­mann, LL.M. (Asso­ciate), Victo­ria Zahn (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Nauar Kaumi (Asso­ciate, Banking and Finance, Düssel­dorf), Claus Wilker (Coun­sel), Daniela Wasseram (Senior Asso­ciate, both Employ­ment Law, both Hanover).

Munich — Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment announ­ces the final closing of Picus Venture Fund II with a cap of € 250 million. The fund saw signi­fi­cant inves­tor demand from new and exis­ting inves­tors and closed more than double the size of its prede­ces­sor, Picus Venture Fund I. The fund was over­sub­scri­bed follo­wing signi­fi­cant inves­tor demand. This latest vintage is c. 2.5x the size of Picus’ inau­gu­ral fund, Picus Venture Fund I, laun­ched in 2021. 

Backers of Picus Venture Fund II include global Tier 1 inves­tors such as Wilshire, a major Euro­pean insurer, in addi­tion to previously disc­lo­sed anchor inves­tors M & G Invest­ments, one of the UK’s largest asset mana­gers, inves­t­ing through Titan­bay. Other part­ners include the Global Fund of Funds, inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies, major Euro­pean family offices and promi­nent tech founders. 

Picus Venture Fund II will conti­nue to apply the firm’s unique stra­tegy of iden­ti­fy­ing emer­ging winners and lever­aging insight and access advan­ta­ges deri­ved from early stage, priva­tely funded port­fo­lio and selec­tive new deals that also utilize the firm’s early stage scree­ning capa­bi­li­ties. With a global presence spread across multi­ple offices world­wide, Picus Capi­tal conti­nues to support the most ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs at the earliest stages, while the venture fund stra­tegy streng­thens these capa­bi­li­ties by allo­wing the group to support these most promi­sing port­fo­lio compa­nies and their foun­ders throug­hout each stage of their growth journey. 

Raphael Muko­mi­lovPart­ner and Head of Growth, says: “We are deligh­ted to achieve this signi­fi­cant mile­stone for Picus. In a highly compe­ti­tive and vola­tile market, this reflects the strength of our focu­sed stra­tegy and our ability to deli­ver compel­ling risk-adjus­ted returns through our diffe­ren­tia­ted approach. We are also plea­sed to have alre­ady made the Fund’s first invest­ments in global, highly disrup­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that align with our vision of support­ing purpose-led inno­va­tion. In addi­tion, our stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners such as M & G Invest­ments unders­cores our commit­ment to support­ing the next gene­ra­tion of tech­no­logy compa­nies that build for both scale and impact. ”

Robin Goden­rath, Foun­ding Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor, adds: “With the launch of Picus Venture Fund II, we are deligh­ted to deepen our commit­ment to the visio­nary entre­pre­neurs we have worked with since our incep­tion. This new fund will allow us to conti­nue to provide even more compre­hen­sive support at key inflec­tion points in their growth journeys. 

Since Picus Capi­tal’s incep­tion in 2015, our goal has been to serve as a long-term spar­ring part­ner to excep­tio­nal foun­ders buil­ding trans­for­ma­tive compa­nies with the poten­tial for outsi­zed impact. The successful closing of Fund II is a testa­ment to this mission and rein­forces our commit­ment to this approach. Today, we are proud to support over 200 compa­nies, not only with capi­tal, but also with the stra­te­gic insights, opera­tio­nal exper­tise and global network needed to realize their full potential.” 

About Picus Capi­tal and Picus Capi­tal Management

Picus Capi­tal is commit­ted to support­ing global, leading tech­no­logy compa­nies at the earliest stages and was the first inves­tor in seve­ral unicorns such as Perso­nio ( most recently valued at USD 8.5bn ) and Enpal ( most recently valued at EUR 2.2bn ), gene­ra­ting an annual IRR of 45% since its incep­tion in 2015.

Picus Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm head­quar­te­red in Munich with offices in New York, Berlin, London, Banga­lore and Madrid. Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment is the Group’s fund manage­ment unit. Picus Capi­tal works with entre­pre­neurs from pre-seed to later growth stages through Picus Capi­tal Manage­men­t’s venture fund stra­tegy. The company focu­ses on tech­no­logy compa­nies in finan­cial services, human resour­ces, energy and climate, health­care, enter­prise soft­ware and infra­struc­ture, tech­bio, cyber­se­cu­rity and AI appli­ca­ti­ons. As an entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ner, Picus main­ta­ins a long-term invest­ment philo­so­phy and supports foun­ders from the idea phase to IPO and beyond. 

www.picuscap.com

Hamburg — The B2B tech company akeno has successfully closed a seed finan­cing round of EUR 4.5 million. The round was led by Cusp Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“Cusp Capi­tal”), further inves­tors were TS Ventures and Another.vc.

akeno, based in Hamburg, was foun­ded in 2021 by Alex­an­der Ebbrecht, Dmit­rij Direk­tor and Stef­fen Ramm. The startup has deve­lo­ped AI-based soft­ware that analy­zes real-time data from ongo­ing produc­tion proces­ses and auto­ma­ti­cally adjusts plans. This soft­ware promi­ses higher plant utiliza­tion, redu­ced invent­ories and better deli­very relia­bi­lity. The solu­tion is aimed speci­fi­cally at indus­tries with complex and sensi­tive produc­tion proces­ses — inclu­ding the chemi­cal and phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­tries, the food and beverage sector and the metal­wor­king indus­try. With this soft­ware, akeno aims to solve problems that cannot be opti­mally solved with other common tools such as Excel spreadsheets or APS systems. 

Custo­mers alre­ady include BASF Coatings, SunChe­mi­cal and the Beckers Group. The company is alre­ady active in China and plans to use the fresh capi­tal to expand into other inter­na­tio­nal markets, such as North America and other Asian countries. 

Cusp Capi­tal is a venture capi­tal firm with a focus on Euro­pean soft­ware and tech­no­logy. The fund invests in fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies “on the cusp” that have the poten­tial to rede­fine their respec­tive markets. The Cusp Capi­tal team consists of long-stan­ding members of the tech­no­logy ecosys­tem who have inves­ted more than EUR 600 million over the last 15 years in compa­nies such as Zalando, Deli­very Hero, Klarna, Scalable Capi­tal, data Artisans, Perso­nio and SoSafe. — www.cuspcapital.com

POELLATH advi­sed Cusp Capi­tal on the seed finan­cing round with the follo­wing team:

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Co-Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger (Part­ner, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Frankfurt)
Oliver Ferstl (Rese­arch Asso­ciate, Venture Capi­tal, Munich) 

www.pplaw.com

Munich — Munich-based private equity firm Para­gon Part­ners (“Para­gon”) has acqui­red DYMATRIX GmbH (“DYMATRIX”), a leading provi­der of Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) solu­ti­ons for data-driven and AI-supported custo­mer expe­ri­ence manage­ment. The seller is Perfor­mance Inter­ac­tive Alli­ance GmbH (“PIA”). The DYMATRIX manage­ment team will remain opera­tio­nally respon­si­ble after the acqui­si­tion and will actively drive the company’s next growth steps in close part­ner­ship with Paragon. 

With this acqui­si­tion, Para­gon is consis­t­ently imple­men­ting its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth compa­nies and support­ing them on their further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic expan­sion course. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to Para­gon Part­ners on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in the acquisition. 

Stutt­gart-based DYMATRIX is one of the leading provi­ders of data-driven and AI-supported solu­ti­ons for custo­mer expe­ri­ence manage­ment. With its SaaS plat­form, it has been helping compa­nies to perso­na­lize custo­mer expe­ri­en­ces in real time for over 20 years — based on real inter­ac­tions and supple­men­ted by AI-supported analy­ses and predic­tions. More than 200 renow­ned compa­nies from the retail, insu­rance, energy, media and services sectors rely on DYMATRIX. — www.dymatrix.de

“With the acqui­si­tion of DYMATRIX, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in the attrac­tive market for tech­no­logy and data-based marke­ting solu­ti­ons. The company has deve­lo­ped excel­lently since its foun­da­tion more than 20 years ago and enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in German-spea­king count­ries. Para­gon is looking forward to the trustful coope­ra­tion with the expe­ri­en­ced team around the two company foun­ders Thomas Dold and Stefan Oertel”, says Marco Atto­lini (photo: Para­gon), Senior Part­ner at Para­gon Part­ners.

About Para­gon Partners

Para­gon Part­ners is an owner-mana­ged, private equity firm focu­sing on estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with signi­fi­cant stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the German-spea­king region. The company works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to gene­rate sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. Para­gon is active in various indus­tries and curr­ently holds invest­ments in 13 compa­nies. — www.paragon.de

Advi­sor Para­gon: POELLATH 
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Co-Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Nata­lie Tafel­ski (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)

POELLATH is a market-leading, inter­na­tio­nally active commer­cial and tax law firm with more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings
regu­larly reco­gnize our advi­sors as leading experts in their fields.
We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Law | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets Law | Finan­cing | Tax Law | Succes­sion and Wealth | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP. — www.pplaw.com

Paris, France — Cathay Inno­va­tion has closed its latest venture capi­tal fund at USD 1 billion. This makes it the largest AI-dedi­ca­ted fund in the Euro­pean Union. To date, the company has deployed €235 million from Fund III across 14 invest­ments, 50 percent of which are based in Europe. The focus is on four key sectors: consu­mer, health­care, finan­cial services and energy/mobility.

With the support of 20+ leading inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies, Cathay Inno­va­tion has deve­lo­ped the worl­d’s largest VC plat­form, inves­t­ing in emer­ging start­ups and connec­ting them with indus­try leaders around the world looking to trans­form through cutting-edge innovation.

Cathay Inno­va­tion was recently named Fran­ce’s largest private VC inves­tor per capi­tal, inves­t­ing in local start­ups and making a rele­vant contri­bu­tion to Fran­ce’s rise as one of Euro­pe’s top AI and tech hubs.

Fund III is backed by a diverse base of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as well as multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies looking to access the latest AI startup tech­no­lo­gies that are criti­cal to indus­try-wide trans­for­ma­tion. These include French indus­try leaders such as Sanofi, Total­Ener­gies, Valeo, BNP Pari­bas Cardif, Groupe SEB and Groupe ADP since the first closing, along with seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal indus­try play­ers such as Latams Vale Ventures, Copec WIND Ventures and others. 

“Our fund is dedi­ca­ted to helping entre­pre­neurs scale and bring forth new pioneers who put inno­va­tion at the service of the common good. We believe we can acce­le­rate the trans­for­ma­tion of Euro­pean indus­try and create lasting econo­mic and social impact,” said Mingpo Cai, Foun­der and Chair­man of Cathay Capi­tal and Cathay Innovation. ”

Where AI meets indus­try: the largest plat­form for colla­bo­ra­tive transformation

Beyond invest­ment, Cathay Inno­va­ti­on’s global plat­form and ecosys­tem connects start­ups to a broad network of compa­nies to enable deeper indus­try colla­bo­ra­tion. This includes stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, co-invest­ments or other busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment opportunities. 

Cathay Inno­va­ti­on’s vision revol­ves around the belief that Euro­pean VCs cannot thrive in the long run by dupli­ca­ting the Ameri­can approach based on merging robust finan­cial markets with the Sili­con Valley ecosys­tem. Taking into account the Euro­pean context and needs, Cathay Inno­va­tion bridges the gap between start­ups and indus­try leaders, unlo­cking access to key inno­va­tion hubs. 

“At a time when Europe is approa­ching AI with the aim of prio­ri­tiz­ing respon­si­ble inno­va­tion, stra­te­gic auto­nomy and resi­li­ence, Fund III reflects a unique Euro­pean model with global scale: not only for growth, but also for indus­trial trans­for­ma­tion and socie­tal bene­fit,” said Denis Barrier, Co-Foun­der of Cathay Inno­va­tion. “AI is a gene­ral-purpose tech­no­logy — like elec­tri­city — with the poten­tial to reinvent entire indus­tries while shif­ting the role of start­ups from disrup­t­ors to trans­for­ma­tion part­ners. Over the past decade, we have built the worl­d’s largest venture capi­tal plat­form to connect start­ups and corpo­ra­tes under one roof — combi­ning capi­tal with indus­trial inno­va­tion to jointly drive this trans­for­ma­tion and create the jobs of tomorrow. ” 

Cathay Inno­va­tion Fund III: Equip­ped for the new indus­trial age

Fund III focu­ses prima­rily on start­ups using AI that are deeply tail­o­red to speci­fic sectors. Fund III targets foun­ders at each stage and can invest up to 100 million in a single startup. To date, the company has inves­ted in 14 start­ups in Europe, the US and Asia, including

Health­care: Nabla (AI co-pilot for doctors), AQEMIA (AI + disco­very of quan­tum physics drug), Biop­ti­mus (first univer­sal basic model for biology), Nelly (Euro­pean fintech simpli­fies health­care payments)
Finan­cial services: Reach (AI-driven asset manage­ment), Flow­desk (full-stack market-making for digi­tal assets), Ping ++ (open banking and payments infrastructure)
Consu­mers: Geist (B2B market­place for excess inven­tory), Reebelo (market­place for refur­bis­hed tech devices), Imagino (custo­mer data plat­form for modern brands), Mogic (genAI-driven short-form video crea­tion), Beat­bot (intel­li­gent robo­tic clea­ning systems)
Energy: David Energy (energy plat­form for next-gene­ra­tion retail), Ental­pisch (funda­men­tal model-based mate­rial disco­very for low-carbon innovations)

The company’s geogra­phic diver­sity is a stra­te­gic advan­tage in today’s frag­men­ted world, helping Euro­pean start­ups to learn from and operate in Sili­con Valley, Latam or other parts of the world, for exam­ple, and vice versa. Fund III is also clas­si­fied as an Article 8 fund under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (SF DR), reflec­ting its commit­ment to envi­ron­men­tal and social impact. It supports high-growth compa­nies where AI is being used to drive indus­tries forward in a locally groun­ded, globally scalable and soci­ally posi­tive way. 

About Cathay Innovation

Cathay Inno­va­tion is a multi-stage venture capi­tal firm affi­lia­ted with Cathay Capi­tal that invests in foun­ders buil­ding trans­for­ma­tive compa­nies in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The plat­form connects foun­ders with inves­tors and the ecosys­tem of leading Fortune 500 compa­nies to help start­ups scale and trans­form indus­tries with consu­mer-to-enter­prise and AI solu­ti­ons in retail, fintech, digi­tal health and mobility/energy. Cathay Inno­va­tion was foun­ded in Paris in 2015 and now mana­ges over €2.5 billion AUM with addi­tio­nal offices in San Fran­cisco, Berlin, Madrid, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. It has inves­ted in over 120 start­ups inclu­ding Chime, Pinduo­duo (NASDAQ: PDD), Glovo, Wall­box (NYSE: WBX), Owkin, Getaround, Ledger, ZenBusi­ness. — www.cathayinnovation.com.

Sina Lühr and Samuel Aebi from the law firm V14 have advi­sed the energy startup trawa on a EUR 24 million Series A finan­cing round. The round was led by Head­line and also included Norrs­ken VC, the impact fund of the Klarna co-foun­der, as well as exis­ting inves­tors Balder­ton Capi­tal, Speed­in­vest and AENU. 

Consul­tant:

Samuel Aebi

Sina Lühr

The law firm:

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

Munich — The issue price of Inno­scripta shares was 120 euros, which was at the lower end of the targe­ted price range of 110 to 140 euros. Accor­ding to Inno­scripta, a total of 1.82 million shares were sold. For the foun­ders, owners and board members Michael Hohe­nes­ter and Alex­an­der Meyer, this means proceeds of 218 million euros. Mean­while, the company itself will not receive any cash inflows from the IPO. 

The enter­prise value was set at EUR 1.2 billion as part of the IPO.

Compli­ance soft­ware in focus

Inno­scripta is a soft­ware company that specia­li­zes in cloud-based compli­ance soft­ware for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment. The newco­mer to the stock market claims to be the market leader in this field and as such is “active in advi­sing compa­nies from various sectors on tax-rela­ted rese­arch funding” for the successful manage­ment and docu­men­ta­tion of their rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment projects. 

“Our vision is to be the worl­d’s leading provi­der of R&D manage­ment solu­ti­ons and to trans­form the way compa­nies inno­vate and grow. We strive to create a world where breakth­rough ideas are seam­lessly brought to life through advan­ced tech­no­logy and opti­mi­zed proces­ses. By conti­nuously impro­ving our plat­form and expan­ding our reach, we aim to help compa­nies and indus­tries realize their full poten­tial, drive progress and make a lasting impact on the world,” the company said. 

Inno­scripta opera­tes profitably

Busi­ness has been going very well at Inno­scripta recently. In 2024, the company gene­ra­ted reve­nue of EUR 64.7 million, compared to reve­nue of EUR 39.4 million in the previous year. Inno­scripta is also profi­ta­ble: EBIT rose from 15.15 million euros in 2023 to 37.3 million euros in 2024. 

The stock market plans were supported by Beren­berg, Hauck Aufhäu­ser and M.M. Warburg.

www.innoscripta.com/de

Second IPO on the OTC market

Inno­scripta is the second company within a few weeks to go public on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange in the “Scale” OTC segment. Pfis­terer had previously cele­bra­ted its stock market debut and impres­sed inves­tors. The initial price was above the issue price, and the Pfis­terer share has contin­ued to trade at this level ever since.

Frank­furt a. Main — Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­ses Ston­e­peak and Energy Equa­tion Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in JET. The US oil company Phil­lips 66 is dive­s­t­ing its majo­rity stake in its Jet gas stati­ons in Germany and Austria. A consor­tium consis­ting of the invest­ment firms Energy Equa­tion Part­ners and Ston­e­peak is acqui­ring 65 percent of the busi­ness. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the petrol station network is valued at around 2.5 billion euros. 

Ston­e­peak, a leading invest­ment firm with a parti­cu­lar focus on the infra­struc­ture and real estate sectors, and Energy Equa­tion Part­ners (“EEP”), an invest­ment firm with parti­cu­lar exper­tise in the fuel retail sector, have announ­ced an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in JET Tank­stel­len Deutsch­land GmbH (“JET”) from a subsi­diary of Phil­lips 66 (NYSE: PSX). JET is a leading fuel retailer in Germany and Austria and is valued at appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.5 billion as part of the tran­sac­tion. Phil­lips 66 will retain a mino­rity stake of 35% in JET through a newly formed joint venture. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2025 and is subject to custo­mary closing conditions.

Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed Ston­e­peak and EEP toge­ther with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on the transaction.

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for Ston­e­peak and EEP

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Georg Frowein, photo © HM (Lead, Part­ner), Guglielmo Ziani (Senior Asso­ciate), Lukas Buch­waldt, Laura Esmaty, Lukas Sengül­sen, Dr. Philip Falk (all Asso­ciate, all Frankfurt),

Tax law: Dr. Sebas­tian Adam (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Miriam Fried­richs (Asso­ciate, Munich),

Employ­ment law: Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Part­ner), Musa Müjdeci (Senior Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),

Real Estate Law: Jean Fried­rich Härtelt, Dr. Talbot Zander (both Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),

Anti­trust law: Dr. Sebas­tian Dwor­schak (Part­ner), Jonas Sill­mann (Asso­ciate, both Düsseldorf),

FDI: Dr. Jan Bonhage (Part­ner, Berlin), Jan Schül­ting (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf),

Supply contracts: Andreas Breier (Coun­sel, Berlin),

Public Commer­cial Law/Regulation: Dr. Rebecca Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Matthias Schindl­beck, Anna­lena Nink (both Asso­cia­tes, both Berlin),

IP/IT: Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Part­ner), Nina Macken­stedt (Asso­ciate, both Düsseldorf),

Data protec­tion: Dr. Michael Schramm (Part­ner), Johan­nes Jäkle, Tanja Peschen (both Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf).

Essen/ Munich — Expan­sion of AI exper­tise: FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its invol­vement in the regio­nal job board market and acqui­ring the Munich-based recrui­ting start-up ever­bay. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

Foun­ded a good four years ago as a purely social recrui­ting company, ever­bay now supports recruit­ment with AI-based tools: Anna, the start-up’s AI assistant, can cont­act appli­cants in compli­ance with GDPR, conduct inter­views, record data, provide infor­ma­tion on job profiles or coor­di­nate appoint­ments between candi­da­tes and recruiters.

“Our aim is to take the pres­sure off HR mana­gers in their day-to-day work,” says CTO Peter Kirch­ner. “They should be able to concen­trate on what really matters: hiring the right people. We take care of the rest.” 

With the complete acqui­si­tion of the start-up, FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its exper­tise in the HR tech sector. The acqui­si­tion is part of the stra­tegy to offer an ecosys­tem of recrui­ting services that provi­des corpo­rate clients with effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons — from candi­date search and scree­ning to hiring. Pelka, CEO of the newly formed group and driving force behind the acqui­si­tion: “I am very plea­sed that we have been able to win over the foun­ders and team of ever­bay for our plans. ever­bay will help us get closer to our goal of a holi­stic, Germany-wide HR offe­ring for corpo­rate clients.” 

The FUNKE team was won over by ever­bay’s unique tech­ni­cal basis: the AI tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in-house analy­zes the effec­ti­ve­ness of ongo­ing social campaigns in real time and auto­ma­ti­cally makes opti­mal budget decis­i­ons for further play­out. The ideal chan­nel mix from natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal plat­forms — inclu­ding Meta, Google, part­ner networks and many more — is dyna­mi­cally selec­ted and conti­nuously adjus­ted. This ensu­res maxi­mum reach and effi­ci­ency when approa­ching candidates. 

“We were convin­ced by FUNKE’s vision,” says Matthias Oden, ever­bay COO. “Recrui­ting must not consist of isola­ted solu­ti­ons if you want to be successful as an employer in the battle for talent these days. The fact that we are now part of an over­ar­ching complete offe­ring is exactly what we wanted for everbay.” 

“We are deligh­ted that we can now offer our custo­mers an even higher-perfor­mance recruit­ment service thanks to the oppor­tu­ni­ties we have within the FUNKE Group,” says ever­bay CSO Martin Plöckl. “We will also be able to drive forward the further deve­lo­p­ment of our product range more quickly.” 

The acqui­si­tion will be comple­ted retroac­tively to the begin­ning of the year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

www.funkemedien.de

Munich/ Israel/ New York — The online brokerage provi­der eToro Group Ltd. successfully made its IPO on the US tech­no­logy exch­ange Nasdaq on May 14, 2025. As part of the IPO, nearly 12 million shares were placed at a price of USD 52 per share, raising appro­xi­m­ately USD 620 million for the company and exis­ting share­hol­ders. Commerz­Ven­tures has been a share­hol­der of the eToro Group since 2015. 

On the first day of trading, the shares traded around 30% above the issue price, which puts the company at a valua­tion of around USD 5.5 billion. The under­wri­ting syndi­cate is led by Gold­man Sachs, Jeffe­ries, UBS and Citigroup. The under­wri­ters were also gran­ted an over-allot­ment option for almost 1.8 million shares. 

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Israel, the company is active in over 140 count­ries. The eToro trading plat­form offers its more than 35 million users the oppor­tu­nity to trade shares, cryp­to­cur­ren­cies and other finan­cial products while copy­ing the stra­te­gies of top investors. 

Commerz­Ven­tures has been a share­hol­der of the eToro Group since 2015. The renow­ned fintech inves­tor invests in start-ups in the FinTech and Insur­Tech sectors in Europe, Israel and the USA. Commerz­bank AG is an inves­tor in CommerzVentures. 

POELLATH advi­sed Commerz­Ven­tures on the IPO of eToro Group with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Michael Inhes­ter (Part­ner, Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Dr. Leonid Guggen­ber­ger (Asso­ciate, Co-Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Adal­bert Makos (Coun­sel, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Frankfurt)
Dr. Gerhard Schran­ner (Asso­ciate, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)

Munich — MOSER Trach­ten GmbH, a leading specia­list for tradi­tio­nal costume clot­hing with 40 stores and 250 employees, has been acqui­red by a group of Euro­pean family inves­tors. The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Reed Smith has advi­sed a group of Euro­pean family inves­tors on their joint invest­ment in MOSER Trach­ten GmbH. 

MOSER Trach­ten GmbH (“MOSER Trach­ten”) is the leading retailer of Bava­rian tradi­tio­nal costu­mes with around 40 stores in southern Germany and a turno­ver of around 45 million euros. The company has a long tradi­tion in the design and sale of tradi­tio­nal costume fashion and deve­lops its own coll­ec­tions under estab­lished brands such as Ludwig & Therese, MOSER, LIEBLINGSGWAND and Alpen­glanz. It also sells selec­ted exter­nal brands such as KRÜGER Dirndl, Spieth & Wensky and Hammer­schmid. In addi­tion to over-the-coun­ter retail and key account busi­ness (e.g. restau­rants and clubs), MOSER Trach­ten also opera­tes three online stores: trachten.de (or dirndl.de), ludwig-therese.de and kerstins-landhausmode.de.

MOSER Trach­ten shows how a market-leading posi­tion in the niche can be achie­ved through a strong regio­nal presence and a large store network in the most important chan­nel for tradi­tio­nal costu­mes, the statio­nary retail trade. The gradual trend towards less frequent but higher-quality and more sustainable tradi­tio­nal costume purcha­ses enables addi­tio­nal orga­nic growth poten­tial due to the very stable demand and the high level of aware­ness of the MOSER brand. 

Investment approach

The foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor Mr. Wirkes had been looking for a long-term succes­sion solu­tion for his company. He will conti­nue to be available to the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor for a tran­si­tion period of two years to ensure a smooth hando­ver and to enable a suita­ble succes­sor to be effi­ci­ently trained. 

Paral­lel to the succes­sion plan, the focus is on the conti­nuous expan­sion of the MOSER Trach­ten loca­ti­ons. The aim is to expand the store network both orga­ni­cally and through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons as part of a possi­ble market conso­li­da­tion — parti­cu­larly with regard to the “MOSER Trach­ten­wel­ten” concept. In addi­tion, the expan­sion of own brands is to be inten­si­fied. There are plans to streng­then the design and product manage­ment team and to set up our own show­rooms for opti­mal brand presen­ta­tion. At the same time, the targe­ted use of social media offers a great oppor­tu­nity to bring the world of tradi­tio­nal costu­mes to life for exis­ting and new custo­mers. Authen­tic insights into the brand, the coll­ec­tions, the craft­sman­ship and the people behind MOSER Trach­ten can create an emotio­nal connec­tion. Social media serves as a “digi­tal shop window” that not only provi­des inspi­ra­tion, but also conveys the values, quality and diver­sity of the MOSER Trach­ten brand in a modern way. 

The Reed Smith team advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, from its struc­tu­ring to the co-invest­ment and the share purchase agree­ment to the financing.

Advi­sor to the family inves­tors: Reed Smith

Under the joint leader­ship of the two Munich corpo­rate part­ners Dr. Niko­laus von Jacobs and Dr. Germar Enders (both Corpo­rate, Part­ner), the team in Munich also compri­sed Robert Werz­lau (Corpo­rate, Asso­ciate), Michaela Westrup (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Part­ner), Nadja Rünzel (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion, Asso­ciate), Elisa Saier (Employ­ment Law, Asso­ciate), Tim Sauer­ham­mer (Enter­tain­ment & Media, Asso­ciate), Katrin Gerce­ker (Real Estate, Asso­ciate) and Alex­an­der Harding­haus (Enter­tain­ment & Media, Coun­sel). From the Reed Smith team in Frank­furt, Nina Siewert (Tax, Part­ner), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Finance, Part­ner), Dr. Niko­las Kout­sós (Finance, Coun­sel), Markus Cejka (Finance, Coun­sel), and Cihan­gir Agdemir (Real Estate, Coun­sel) advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion. — www.reedsmith.com

Hano­ver, Germany — The German Hornet­secu­rity Group (“Hornet­secu­rity”), a port­fo­lio company of TA Asso­cia­tes, PSG Equity and Verdane, has ente­red into a binding agree­ment to be acqui­red by Proof­point, Inc. (“Proof­point”), a leading cyber­se­cu­rity and compli­ance provi­der. The esti­ma­ted purchase price is well over one billion USD. — Hornet­secu­rity is a global provi­der of holi­stic AI-powered M365 secu­rity, data protec­tion, compli­ance and secu­rity aware­ness solu­ti­ons. The company opera­tes in more than 120 count­ries and serves over 125,000 custo­mers through its inter­na­tio­nal sales network of more than 12,000 sales part­ners and mana­ged service providers. 

Hornet­secu­rity, foun­ded in 2007 by Daniel Hofmann and Oliver Dehning as anti­s­pam­eu­rope, has been heavily backed by private equity firm TA Asso­cia­tes since 2022. Early inves­tors included High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and HCS Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft GmbH (HCS).

The acqui­si­tion signi­fi­cantly expands Proof­poin­t’s exper­tise in human-cente­red secu­rity solu­ti­ons for small and medium-sized busi­nesses. Hornet­secu­rity brings a powerful busi­ness with annual recur­ring reve­nues of over 160 million US dollars, annual growth of more than 20 percent and a perfor­mance above the Rule of 60 to the Proof­point portfolio. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2025 and is subject to custo­mary closing conditions.

Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed the manage­ment of Hornet­secu­rity in an inte­gra­ted team with Davis Polk on the transaction.

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for Hornetsecurity

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Ingo Berner (Berlin), Dr. Daniel Möritz (Munich, both lead, both part­ner), Sjard Seeger, Emre Aksoy (both Berlin), Dr. Alex­an­der Bömer, Rebecca Schlott­mann (both Munich, all associate),

IP/IT: Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Patrick M. Schmidt (Senior Asso­ciate, Frankfurt),

Anti­trust law: Dr. Sarah Milde (Part­ner), Annika Linne­rud (Asso­ciate, both Munich).

www.hengeler.com/de

Mühl­dorf - Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG, a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer and marketer of pet food, animal feed and animal health products, has reached a signi­fi­cant mile­stone — a part­ner­ship with private equity firm KKA Part­ners as part of a manage­ment buyout (MBO). The support of KKA Part­ners crea­tes a solid foun­da­tion for the company’s next phase of growth and further expan­sion. Carls­quare advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG on this MBO. 

Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG will remain under the manage­ment of its foun­der and CEO Klaus Mitter­meier and COO Andreas Alter­mann, ensu­ring conti­nuity and a strong focus on further development.

Part­ner­ship with KKA to imple­ment the stra­te­gic vision

The coope­ra­tion with KKA is based on a shared vision: to provide our beloved pets with the best possi­ble nutri­tion and health­care — for their health and gene­ral well-being. Toge­ther with KKA, Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG will pursue a buy-and-build stra­tegy to build an inte­gra­ted pet food company. In addi­tion, the company will leverage KKA’s exper­tise in the areas of tech­no­lo­giza­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion to achieve further growth and acce­le­rate the Group’s expansion. 

“We are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in KKA for the next phase of the busi­ness and look forward to the jour­ney ahead of us. KKA’s expe­ri­ence, network and growth capi­tal will enable us to realize our vision of buil­ding an inte­gra­ted pet food company and promote sustainable growth — for the bene­fit of the company, our employees and all other stake­hol­ders,” says Klaus Mitter­meier, foun­der and CEO.

Patrick Feller, foun­ding part­ner of KKA, adds: “Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG is charac­te­ri­zed by its inno­va­tive strength — a clear compe­ti­tive advan­tage. KKA is looking forward to working with the company and its employees to further expand its market-leading posi­tion through targe­ted acquisitions.”

Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG was foun­ded in 2003 by Klaus Mitter­meier in Mühl­dorf. The company is a specia­li­zed manu­fac­tu­rer and marketer of pet food, animal feed and animal health products — for both private labels and own brands. In a highly frag­men­ted produc­tion and conso­li­da­ted trading envi­ron­ment, the company connects retail custo­mers with produ­cers and offers compre­hen­sive brand and supply chain manage­ment services 

About KKA

Foun­ded in 2018, KKA Part­ners is a Berlin-based private equity firm that invests in leading small and medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. It invests in estab­lished, profi­ta­ble and growing niche cham­pi­ons through its strong access to the DACH Mittel­stand. KKA supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in reali­zing their full poten­tial by combi­ning tradi­tio­nal and tech­no­logy-based value crea­tion stra­te­gies. — www.kkapartners.com

Carls­quare acted as exclu­sive advi­sor to Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG and its shareholders:

As part of the tran­sac­tion, KKA had the plea­sure of working with Singu­lar (CDD), RSM Ebner & Stolz (FDD & TDD) and CMS (LDD & Legal).

Consul­tant Mühl­dor­fer Nutri­tion AG and Klaus Mittermeier:
Carls­quare (M&A) and Lupp + Part­ner (Legal)

Munich — Orora­Tech, the global leader in fire detec­tion and risk assess­ment, has expan­ded its Series B funding round to €37 million. The round was led by BNP Pari­bas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Rabo Ventures and long-term inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal, Edaphon and the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (ECBF).

With ten satel­li­tes alre­ady in orbit, Orora­Tech provi­des the worl­d’s most consis­tent and compre­hen­sive ther­mal data stream, enab­ling the crea­tion of a digi­tal twin of the Earth. This dyna­mic model allows users to under­stand every wild­fire event around the world, around the clock, and simu­late future fire beha­vior with unpre­ce­den­ted accu­racy. By buil­ding both the infra­struc­ture in space and the intel­li­gent data pipe­lines on Earth, Orora­Tech trans­forms raw ther­mal data into actionable information. 

Martin Langer, CEO and CTO of Orora­Tech (photo © Orora­Tech), said: “We are capi­ta­li­zing on a rare oppor­tu­nity where our scalable space infra­struc­ture meets ground-brea­king AI. The back­ing of two of Euro­pe’s leading banks is testa­ment to Orora­Tech’s posi­tion at the fore­front of the market and will further drive our growth as a foun­da­tio­nal provi­der of ther­mal intel­li­gence to many indus­tries and govern­ments worldwide.” 

Lucas Guil­let, Invest­ment Direc­tor at BNP Pari­bas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, said: “We are deligh­ted to support Orora­Tech, which has built a strong repu­ta­tion in the space indus­try and the wild­fire ecosys­tem. Their ability to deve­lop and operate nano­sa­tel­li­tes and inter­pret complex data has contri­bu­ted to the commer­cial success of their Wild­fire Intel­li­gence solu­tion. Our network toge­ther with Rabo­bank offers a promi­sing oppor­tu­nity to support solu­ti­ons that can improve the protec­tion of forests worldwide.” 

Shis­hir Sinha, Execu­tive Direc­tor Rabo Ventures, commen­ted: “The incre­asing inten­sity and frequency of wild­fi­res poses a signi­fi­cant threat to our planet as they emit billi­ons of tons of CO2 annu­ally, drive biodi­ver­sity loss and impact the over­all resi­li­ence of our ecosys­tems. We at Rabo Ventures are deligh­ted to support Martin and the team at Orora­Tech, who have deve­lo­ped a globally scalable wild­fire detec­tion plat­form that is alre­ady deli­ve­ring value to stake­hol­ders in Austra­lia, Europe and the Americas. 

Last year, Orora­Tech closed almost 100 million euros in contracts and venture capi­tal. This momen­tum unders­cores the company’s posi­tion as a trus­ted provi­der of real-time infor­ma­tion from space. Its inno­va­tive wild­fire manage­ment plat­form, Wild­fire Solu­tion, can assess the risk, detect the outbreak and predict the growth of any wild­fire on Earth. 

About Orora­Tech

Orora­Tech is a global intel­li­gence-as-a-service company lever­aging ther­mal data for a sustainable planet. Its wild­fire solu­tion plat­form is based on high-reso­lu­tion ther­mal data from its proprie­tary and public satel­lite system that provi­des real-time situa­tio­nal aware­ness and trig­gers risk alerts to revo­lu­tio­nize wild­fire intel­li­gence world­wide. The state-of-the-art system detects fires of any size, day or night, and ensu­res timely action. Orora­Tech was foun­ded in 2018 and is head­quar­te­red in Munich with offices in the United States, Austra­lia, Brazil, Canada and Greece. A dedi­ca­ted team of more than 140 experts is commit­ted to deli­ve­ring inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for a sustainable future. — www.ororatech.com

About the Solar Impulse Venture Fund
The BNP Pari­bas Solar Impulse Venture Fund invests in start-ups and scale-ups with high growth poten­tial that are commit­ted to the green tran­si­tion in order to acce­le­rate their deve­lo­p­ment and scale-up. Target sectors include energy tran­si­tion, sustainable agri­cul­ture and food, circu­lar economy, water and ocean manage­ment, smart cities, sustainable mobi­lity and indus­trial inno­va­tion. The BNP Pari­bas Solar Impulse Venture Fund is mana­ged by the private wealth divi­sion of BNP Pari­bas Asset Manage­ment, the asset manage­ment arm of BNP Paribas. 

About BNP Pari­bas Asset Management
BNP Pari­bas Asset Manage­ment (“BNPP AM”) is the invest­ment arm of BNP Pari­bas, a leading banking group in Europe with an inter­na­tio­nal reach. BNPP AM stri­ves to gene­rate long-term sustainable returns for its clients based on a sustaina­bi­lity-driven approach. BNPP AM focu­ses its exper­tise on five core capa­bi­li­ties — Private Assets, High Convic­tion Active Stra­te­gies, Emer­ging Markets, Syste­ma­tic, Quan­ti­ta­tive & Index and Liqui­dity Solu­ti­ons — with invest­ment proces­ses that include quan­ti­ta­tive, ESG and funda­men­tal rese­arch. These capa­bi­li­ties can be combi­ned to create multi-asset solu­ti­ons tail­o­red to our clients’ objec­ti­ves. Sustaina­bi­lity is central to BNPP AM’s stra­tegy and invest­ment philo­so­phy. As one of the leading thema­tic invest­ment compa­nies in Europe1 , BNPP AM aims to contri­bute to a successful energy tran­si­tion, healthy ecosys­tems and grea­ter equa­lity in our socie­ties (our “3Es”).

BNPP AM curr­ently mana­ges EUR 602 billion in assets (EUR 712 billion in assets under manage­ment and advice) and bene­fits from the exper­tise of more than 500 invest­ment profes­sio­nals and around 400 client rela­ti­onship specia­lists serving private, corpo­rate and insti­tu­tio­nal clients in 67 count­ries. (Source: BNPP AM, as of March 31, 2025). — www.bnpparibas-am.com

About Rabo Ventures
Rabo Ventures, part of Rabo­bank, part­ners with compa­nies in the early stages of the value chain to support their growth ambi­ti­ons and enable the neces­sary chan­ges in the global food and agri­cul­ture indus­try. We invest in outstan­ding manage­ment teams that deve­lop solu­ti­ons to real-world problems, with a focus on inno­va­tion and sustaina­bi­lity. With a local presence in more than 30 count­ries, Rabo­bank is a global leader in Food & Agri­cul­ture Banking. As part of Rabo­ban­k’s captive invest­ment fran­chise, Rabo Invest­ments, we leverage the bank’s plat­form, know­ledge and network to support and grow your busi­ness while acce­le­ra­ting important change. — www.raboinvestments.com/team/ventures.

Frank­furt am Main/ Munich - The manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­tancy Bearing­Point is streng­thening its Capi­tal busi­ness unit by expan­ding its team with the expe­ri­en­ced M&A and corpo­rate finance expert Andre Waßmann.

Andre Waßmann has more than 23 years of expe­ri­ence in corpo­rate stra­tegy and invest­ment banking with a focus on M&A and corpo­rate finance tran­sac­tions with broad indus­try access. He supports his clients in the trans­for­ma­tion along mega­trends through acqui­si­ti­ons, sales and finan­cing. Key topics include tech­no­lo­gies such as AI and block­chain and their appli­ca­tion in indus­try, digi­tal busi­ness models as well as energy trans­for­ma­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and ESG in the sense of green finan­cing. Thanks to his expe­ri­ence from various posi­ti­ons at Accen­ture, Commerz­bank, the invest­ment house KGAL, Clair­field Inter­na­tio­nal and most recently as a member of the Execu­tive Board and Head of M&A / Corpo­rate Finance at Helb­ling Busi­ness Advi­sors, he has excel­lent banking know-how and an under­stan­ding of the capi­tal markets. 

Andre Waßmann: “I am very exci­ted about my new role as Part­ner in Corpo­rate Finance and M&A at Bearing­Point Capi­tal. We combine the best of two worlds — deal advi­sory and tran­sac­tion services — in various indus­tries in Germany, Switz­er­land and Austria.”

Iris Grewe, Regio­nal Head Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria at Bearing­Point: “I am very plea­sed that we were able to win Andre Waßmann for our Bearing­Point Capi­tal busi­ness unit. With his outstan­ding exper­tise, which ranges from tran­sac­tion initia­tion to after­care, he combi­nes a sound under­stan­ding of the capi­tal markets and finan­cial know­ledge with trans­for­ma­tion expe­ri­ence in the best possi­ble way.” 

Andre Waßmann supports his custo­mers in the follo­wing areas:

-Conduc­ting tran­sac­tions on the buyer and seller side
‑Company valuation
‑Due dili­gence reviews
‑Post-merger integration
‑Stra­te­gic port­fo­lio plan­ning and maintenance
‑Value enhance­ment and perfor­mance optimization
‑Capi­tal measu­res and finan­cing rounds

About Bearing­Point

Bearing­Point is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­tancy with Euro­pean roots and global reach. The company opera­tes in three busi­ness units: Consul­ting, Products and Capi­tal. Consul­ting compri­ses the tradi­tio­nal consul­ting busi­ness with the service port­fo­lio People & Stra­tegy, Custo­mer & Growth, Finance & Risk, Opera­ti­ons and Tech­no­logy. In the Products divi­sion, Bearing­Point offers clients IP-based mana­ged services for busi­ness-criti­cal proces­ses. Capi­tal covers Bearing­Poin­t’s M&A, Ventures and Invest­ments activities. 

Bearing­Poin­t’s clients include many of the worl­d’s leading compa­nies and orga­niza­ti­ons. Bearing­Poin­t’s global network of more than 10,000 employees supports clients in over 70 count­ries and is commit­ted to working with them to achieve measura­ble and long-term busi­ness success.
Bearing­Point is a certi­fied B Corpo­ra­tion that meets high social and envi­ron­men­tal standards. 

www.bearingpoint.com

Munich/Gilching — HENSOLDT is part of the group of inves­tors provi­ding Quan­tum Systems with a Series C finan­cing of 160 million euros. Quan­tum Systems, a leading provi­der of AI-powered aerial recon­nais­sance systems for defense, public safety and indus­try, is head­quar­te­red in Gilching near Munich. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The Series C round was led by Balder­ton Capi­tal. Other new inves­tors include Hensoldt, Airbus Defense and Space, Bull­hound Capi­tal and LP&E AG. Exis­ting inves­tors HV Capi­tal, Project A, Peter Thiel, DTCP, Omnes Capi­tal, Notion and Porsche SE also parti­ci­pa­ted again. 

Quan­tum Systems has appar­ently reached a valua­tion of more than one billion USD with this round. “This brings our total funding volume to 310 million euros and offi­ci­ally makes us a unicorn,” the company writes in a post on Linke­din.

The Munich-based company intends to use the finan­cing in parti­cu­lar to acce­le­rate its global expan­sion, scale its produc­tion capa­ci­ties and further deve­lop its auto­no­mous drone systems, soft­ware and AI technologies.

Gibson Dunn advi­sed HENSOLDT on its acqui­si­tion of Quan­tum Systems, a leading provi­der of advan­ced unman­ned aerial recon­nais­sance systems.

At HENSOLDT, Dr. Caro­lin Weirauch (Head of Corpo­rate Legal) and Matthias Palin­kasch (Senior Legal Coun­sel) were in charge of the transaction.

Advi­sor HENSOLDT: Gibson Dunn
was led by Munich part­ner Sonja Rutt­mann and included Munich asso­cia­tes David Lübke­meier, Johan­nes Reul and Georg Bilek. Part­ner Kai Gesing and asso­ciate Chris­toph Jacob (both Munich) advi­sed on technology/IP and data protec­tion. Part­ner Dr. Lars Peter­sen and asso­cia­tes Dr. Vanessa Ludwig and Simon Ruhland (all Frank­furt) advi­sed on regu­la­tory issues and compli­ance. Part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Munich) advi­sed on tax and coun­sel Dr. Peter Gumnior (Frank­furt) on employ­ment law aspects. 

About Quan­tum Systems

Quan­tum Systems was foun­ded in 2015 and specia­li­zes in AI-supported aerial recon­nais­sance systems. The company has repor­ted annual sales growth of over 100 percent for seve­ral years. The company curr­ently employs around 550 people at loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austra­lia, Ukraine and Romania. 

The star­tup’s modu­lar drone systems combine eVTOL tech­no­logy (elec­tric verti­cal take-off and landing), edge compu­ting, AI and auto­no­mous navi­ga­tion. The products are used in both mili­tary and civi­lian appli­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding public safety, open-cast mining, agri­cul­ture and infra­struc­ture projects. — www.quantum-sytems.com

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the worl­d’s top law firms in indus­try surveys and by major publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 2,000 lawy­ers in 21 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn’s offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, Riyadh, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit our website.

Munich — INTEC Holding GmbH, which also owns INTEC Indus­trie-Tech­nik GmbH, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the three inde­pen­dent compa­nies OSW Tech­ni­sche Doku­men­ta­tion Verlag GmbH, TECO Tech­ni­cal Concept GmbH and SCOPE Engi­nee­ring GmbH from the ARBOR Group with effect from May 1. — During the tran­sac­tion process, H & Z advi­sed on the commer­cial due diligence. 

Within INTEC Holding, these three compa­nies comple­ment the core busi­ness of INTEC Indus­trie-Tech­nik GmbH and include services in the areas of safety-criti­cal system deve­lo­p­ment, IPS (Inte­gra­ted Product Support) and ILS (Inte­gra­ted Logi­stics Support), tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion and system inte­gra­tion as well as product and soft­ware development.

“The acqui­si­tion of the three new compa­nies of the ARBOR Group by INTEC ideally streng­thens both medium-sized groups in their core busi­ness and bund­les joint strengths. Further­more, this forward-looking addi­tion acti­va­tes our holding company for the further deve­lo­p­ment of a broa­der service and product port­fo­lio that is geared towards the current and future requi­re­ments of our custo­mers.” says Chris­toph Otten, CEO of INTEC Holding GmbH and INTEC Indus­trie-Tech­nik GmbH.

Consul­tant INTEC Holding GmbH: 

H & Z supported INTEC with a team from the M & A Advi­sory Divi­sion. The advi­sory service included commer­cial due diligence. 

https://hz.group/

www.inteckg.de/

Rostock — Oehm und Rehbein GmbH (Rostock), a hidden cham­pion in the field of imaging soft­ware and systems, has been added to the port­fo­lio of the funds advi­sed by NORD Holding. Based on the stra­te­gic foun­da­tion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion can be driven forward, the product, soft­ware and service port­fo­lio can be further expan­ded and deve­lo­ped through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in order to scale the company globally. The exis­ting manage­ment will remain invol­ved in the company and actively support the next phase of growth. 

Oehm und Rehbein (OR) is a leading provi­der and deve­lo­per of imaging soft­ware solu­ti­ons and inno­va­tive X‑ray solu­ti­ons for human and vete­ri­nary medi­cine and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. With a broad port­fo­lio of porta­ble, mobile and statio­nary X‑ray devices and imaging soft­ware solu­ti­ons, OR enables precise diagno­ses and effi­ci­ent work­flows in clinics, medi­cal prac­ti­ces and mobile appli­ca­ti­ons. The company has expe­ri­en­ced strong growth in recent years, driven by tech­no­lo­gi­cal advan­ces and the incre­asing demand for mobile and flexi­ble X‑ray solu­ti­ons. In parti­cu­lar, digi­ta­liza­tion in the health­care sector and the growing demand for fast, relia­ble diagno­stics are expec­ted to be key growth drivers. 

“We are exci­ted about the company’s leading market posi­tion and look forward to support­ing the manage­ment around CEO Tim Thurn in their inno­va­tive growth path,” says André Seidel, Part­ner at NORD Holding. Domi­nik Bronster­ing, Invest­ment Mana­ger at NORD Holding, adds: “With its proprie­tary soft­ware solu­tion, OR clearly diffe­ren­tia­tes itself through perfor­mance, user-friend­li­ness and inter­ope­ra­bi­lity. We look forward to support­ing the team in its inter­na­tio­nal ambi­ti­ons and provi­ding advice based on our experience.” 

“We are deligh­ted to have found the right part­ner in NORD Holding for the upco­ming tasks in the company’s deve­lo­p­ment. The combi­na­tion of regio­nal exper­tise, finan­cial strength and a long-term perspec­tive will enable us to further expand our posi­tion in the market and streng­then our inno­va­tive power,” says Tim Thurn, CEO of the Oehm und Rehbein Group: “Our vision remains unch­an­ged: We want to further expand our site in Rostock and estab­lish oursel­ves as a global cham­pion in the field of Instant Diagno­stic Imaging. NORD Holding shares this ambi­tious approach and will provide valuable impe­tus to acce­le­rate our growth in the long term.”

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by André Seidel (photo © Nord­hol­ding), Domi­nik Bronster­ing, Tim Haase and Kim Martin Stein­bart. The fund is mana­ged by Nord­Vest GmbH, Hano­ver, as KVG. 

About Oehm und Rehbein

Since 1991, Oehm und Rehbein GmbH has estab­lished itself as a leading deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of digi­tal X‑ray systems and image manage­ment solu­ti­ons (PACS). With the acqui­si­tion of Celtic SMR Ltd in 2022, the company expan­ded its presence in the UK market and streng­the­ned its posi­tion in the inter­na­tio­nal vete­ri­nary and human medi­cal sector.
OR offers a versa­tile product port­fo­lio in the field of digi­tal X‑ray tech­no­logy, inclu­ding statio­nary as well as mobile and porta­ble solu­ti­ons. The range is comple­men­ted by inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­ti­ons for image manage­ment, archi­ving and analy­sis, enab­ling seam­less inte­gra­tion and effi­ci­ent diagnostics.
The group employs around 70 people at its head­quar­ters in Rostock and other loca­ti­ons, inclu­ding its subsi­diary in the UK. — www.oehm-rehbein.de

About NORD Holding

With over 50 years of history and assets under manage­ment of € 4.0 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund investments. 

The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group parts/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved in over 13 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king countries.

The Fund Invest­ments divi­sion targets the micro and small cap segment of SME-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. — www.nordholding.de

Hamburg — The foun­ders of Fincite GmbH Ralf Heim, Fried­helm Schmitt and Stefan Post have sold their company to the French Harvest Group. With the merger, the two wealth­tech compa­nies are pursuing the goal of expan­ding their product port­fo­lios and geogra­phi­cal presence in order to opti­mally serve their target groups. There are also plans to coope­rate on stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. — A HEUKING team led by Dr. Lothar Ende advi­sed the foun­ders of Fincite GmbH Ralf Heim, Fried­helm Schmitt and Stefan Post on the sale of the company to the French Harvest Group. 

Fincite, foun­ded in 2015, offers digi­tal soft­ware solu­ti­ons for banks and asset mana­gers. The modu­lar CIOS plat­form digi­ta­li­zes the entire invest­ment process — from onboar­ding to report­ing — and helps insti­tu­ti­ons to work more effi­ci­ently and provide clients with more indi­vi­dual support. Its clients include banks, family offices and finan­cial advisors.

Foun­ded in 2018, the Harvest Group brings toge­ther leading provi­ders of wealth manage­ment soft­ware, inclu­ding Harvest France, Quan­ta­lys, Many­more and Feefty. Supported by the private equity firms TA Asso­cia­tes and Montagu, it is pursuing a Europe-wide growth and conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy. The aim is to build a leading plat­form for wealth and asset manage­ment, cove­ring all core func­tions from client service to port­fo­lio management. 

The Harvest Group plans to work closely with Fincite, with their CIOS plat­form used in count­ries such as Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria and the Bene­lux count­ries as a central buil­ding block. The aim is to drive commer­cial expan­sion — parti­cu­larly in Germany — and to expand the offe­ring by inte­gra­ting other Harvest products such as the Wealth Plat­form and Feefty. 

Consul­tant Fincite: HEUKING 

HEUKING has been advi­sing the Fincite foun­ders for seve­ral years. Part­ners Dr. Lothar Ende and Chris­toph Proch­nau have advi­sed the foun­ders and the company on finan­cing rounds, among other things. 

About Fincite

Fincite is a Wealth­Tech soft­ware provi­der that has recei­ved multi­ple awards for growth and inno­va­tion (Fintech Germany Award 2024, WealthTech100 2024, ESGFintech100 2024). Fincite solves the chal­lenges of finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons in wealth manage­ment through intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­ti­ons — from client onboar­ding to (hybrid) advice, order execu­tion and subse­quent report­ing. Clients include leading inter­na­tio­nal banks, medium-sized finan­cial advi­sors, estab­lished private banks and digi­tal chal­len­gers. The team consists of over 60 employees from more than 15 nations. 

About HARVEST

HARVEST is a leading FinTech in France for soft­ware specia­li­zed in the wealth and finance profes­si­ons. The group has been support­ing profes­sio­nals for 35 years with solu­ti­ons cove­ring the entire wealth and finance value chain. The Group deve­lops digi­tal solu­ti­ons and provi­des infor­ma­tion that is essen­tial for making infor­med decis­i­ons in the wealth and finance sector. As a data specia­list, it enables the auto­ma­ted crea­tion of effi­ci­ent, custo­mi­zed port­fo­lios. With more than 4,600 corpo­rate clients, the Group offers a range of soft­ware and services that are highly sought after by profes­sio­nals looking to deve­lop high-quality advice. 

Advi­sor to the foun­ders of Fincite GmbH: HEUKING

Dr. Lothar Ende (lead, corpo­rate law/M&A),
Beli­ar­dis Ehlert-Gasde (corpo­rate law/M&A),
Dr. Thomas Schulz (employ­ment law), all Hamburg

www.heuking.de/

Jean­tet (WSG):
Vincent Netter
Gasper-Etienne Bats

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries on the trans­fer of the pension liabi­li­ties of Sinter­werke Herne to Funding Solu­ti­ons Deutsch­land by way of a share deal. Funding Solu­ti­ons Deutsch­land FSD GmbH takes over all shares in Sinter­werke Herne GmbH and conti­nues the company as a so-called pensio­ner company under the name Funding Solu­ti­ons Sinter­werke Herne Pensi­ons GmbH. The pensio­ner company will manage and fulfill the pension liabi­li­ties of Sinter­werke Herne. The pension obli­ga­ti­ons are secu­red by a Contrac­tual Trust Arran­ge­ment (CTA) mana­ged by Helaba Pension Trust e.V..

Sinter­werke Herne GmbH produ­ced sinte­red compon­ents for the auto­mo­tive and power tool indus­tries. The company was acqui­red by the Japa­nese Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries Ltd. in 2019. 

Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries Ltd., head­quar­te­red in Osaka, Japan, was foun­ded in 1897. The company is a global leader in the manu­fac­ture of elec­tri­cal cables and fiber optic cables. SEI supplies custo­mers in the auto­mo­tive, infor­ma­tion, elec­tro­nics and energy sectors, among others. Listed on the Prime Market (5802) of the Tokyo Stock Exch­ange and part of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX, the company gene­ra­ted total sales of USD 29 billion in 2023 with over 290,000 employees worldwide.

Funding Solu­ti­ons Deutsch­land has been active as a provi­der for pensio­ner company tran­sac­tions since 2018. FSD curr­ently mana­ges ten pensio­ner compa­nies with a total volume of over 330 million euros. Compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, such as indus­try, the service sector, the regu­la­ted banking sector and the phar­maceu­ti­cal sector, rely on FSD’s concept and services. 

An ARQIS team led by the two part­ners Eber­hard Hafer­malz and Tobias Neufeld provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries in the context of this complex tran­sac­tion. ARQIS is one of the leading firms in the market for pension buy-outs. In tran­sac­tions of this type, pension liabi­li­ties are either spun off to speci­ally estab­lished pensio­ner compa­nies or the former opera­ting company is trans­fer­red to the provi­der as a pensio­ner company by way of a share deal after prior liqui­da­tion of all assets and liabi­li­ties — with the excep­tion of the pension obli­ga­ti­ons. This struc­ture enables the de-risking of pension liabi­li­ties — a proce­dure that is alre­ady estab­lished in the Anglo-Saxon world, while the pension buy-out market in Germany is still compa­ra­tively young, but incre­asingly developing. 

Advi­sor Sumitomo Elec­tric Indus­tries Ltd.
ARQIS (Düssel­dorf): Part­ner: Eber­hard Hafer­malz (Lead, Japan Desk), Tobias Neufeld (Lead, Pensi­ons), Johan­nes Landry (Insol­vency Law), Lisa-Marie Niklas (HR Law), Coun­sel: Dr. Yohei Nagata-Vogel­sang (Japan Desk), Dennis Reisich (Tax, Munich), Asso­ciate: Kiyomi Zimmer (Japan Desk), Legal Specia­lists: Miho Kuram­ochi (Japan Desk), Tim Kott­mann (Pensi­ons), Roxana Spieß (HR Law)

About ARQIS

ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent commer­cial law firm that opera­tes inter­na­tio­nally. Around 80 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German, Euro­pean and Japa­nese commer­cial law. With its focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR Law, Japan, Data Law, Risk and Regu­la­tory, the firm is geared towards provi­ding its clients with compre­hen­sive advice. The law firm was foun­ded in 2006 and has offices in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo as well as a talent hub in Berlin. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.arqis.com.

Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — GÖRG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners (“Ufenau”) on the sale of all shares held by the Ufenau IV German Asset Light fund in Fair Damage Control Holding GmbH (“FDC”). The sale was part of a take­over of FDC by the Euro­pean claims manage­ment service provi­der CED Group (“CED”). The take­over is subject to merger control clearance by the compe­tent autho­ri­ties in Germany; comple­tion is expec­ted in the second quar­ter of 2025. 

FDC is a leading provi­der for the assess­ment, sett­le­ment and compre­hen­sive proces­sing of buil­ding and elec­tro­nic damage on the German market. Under the brands fair­check Scha­den­ser­vice, Repair­Con­cepts and E.Via Scha­den­ma­nage­ment, the company offers compre­hen­sive claims manage­ment services — supported by modern digi­tal solutions. 

Since Ufenau joined the company in 2015, FDC has signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its market posi­tion through both strong orga­nic growth and a total of four stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. Today, FDC employs over 750 people at eight loca­ti­ons in Germany and its port­fo­lio includes nume­rous well-known clients from various indus­tries. Among other things, the company relies on AI-supported valua­tion tools and a nati­on­wide network of experts. 

With the plan­ned acqui­si­tion of FDC, CED, a pan-Euro­pean provi­der of insu­rance services, aims to expand its presence in Europe and its core markets to include Germany — in addi­tion to alre­ady estab­lished markets in the Nether­lands, France, Belgium and Spain. CED offers a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of claims manage­ment services, ranging from risk assess­ment and emer­gency assis­tance to claims adjus­t­ment and subrogation. 

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Swiss invest­ment group based on Lake Zurich. Ufenau focu­ses on majo­rity invest­ments in service compa­nies in the DACH region as well as Iberia, Poland, Bene­lux and the UK, which are active in the areas of busi­ness services, health­care, IT services, educa­tion & life­style and finan­cial services. Since 2011, Ufenau has inves­ted in over 420 service compa­nies in Europe. Ufenau mana­ges EUR 3.0 billion in assets under management. 

The GÖRG team advi­sed Ufenau on all legal and tax aspects of this tran­sac­tion under the lead manage­ment of Dr. Tobias Fenck, part­ner in the private equity and M&A department.

The Swiss inves­tor group Ufenau has regu­larly relied on the exper­tise of Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Tobias Fenck and his team for tran­sac­tions in the German market for many years.

Advi­sor to Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners: GÖRG Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Dr. Tobias Fenck (Lead, Part­ner, Private Equity/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Markus Beyer, LL.M (Lead, Part­ner, Private Equity/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)
Dr. Adal­bert Rödding, LL.M. (Part­ner, Tax, Cologne)
Dr. Michael Heise, LL.M. (Part­ner, IT, Berlin)
Dr. Chris­tian Bürger (Part­ner, Anti­trust, Cologne)
Dr. Thomas Lange (Part­ner, Finan­cing, Cologne)
Dr. Holger Dann, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Tax, Cologne)
Dr. Karl-Georg Küsters, LL.B., LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Tax, Cologne)
Mete­han Uzun­çak­mak, LL.M. (Asso­ciate Part­ner, Anti­trust, Cologne)
Dr. Valen­tin Zipfel (Asso­ciate Part­ner, IT, Frank­furt am Main)
Nele Motzek (Senior Asso­ciate, Finan­cing, Cologne)
Larissa Jährig (Asso­ciate, Private Equity/M&A, Frank­furt am Main)

Munich/ Sprock­hö­vel — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Caver­ion Deutsch­land GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Sprock­hö­vel-based Schulz Luft­tech­nik GmbH.

As an inter­na­tio­nal leader in tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment, Caver­ion is further expan­ding its posi­tion with this acqui­si­tion, parti­cu­larly in the area of clean­room tech­no­logy. There are also nume­rous other syner­gies in the areas of instal­la­tion, main­ten­ance and service. 

Schulz Luft­tech­nik has exten­sive exper­tise in the fields of venti­la­tion, air condi­tio­ning, refri­ge­ra­tion, filter and clean room tech­no­logy. Its custo­mers include univer­si­ties, hospi­tals and compa­nies in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and chemi­cal indus­tries. The family-run company with an annual turno­ver of more than 5.5 million euros will be mana­ged as an inde­pen­dent company within Caver­ion Deutsch­land GmbH. The previous co-owner Dr. Arndt Schulz will remain opera­tio­nally invol­ved in the company as Mana­ging Director. 

Advi­sor Caver­ion Deutsch­land GmbH: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Stefan Münch (photo: Bird&Bird) and Coun­sel Michael Gaßner (both lead, Corporate/M&A, Munich), Part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer, Asso­cia­tes Maxi­mi­lian Koch and Chris­toph Lutz (all Employ­ment Law, Munich).

About Bird & Bird

As a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm, Bird & Bird is the part­ner for ever­yone who wants to defend and streng­then their super­powers. Thanks to our orig­ins in IP law, we under­stand the core of every company, the requi­re­ments of the market and compe­ti­tion and how to achieve sustainable success. We call it sector focus. And with this DNA, we are now your law firm for all legal issues rela­ting to tech­no­logy, digi­ta­liza­tion and regu­la­tion. With over 1,600 lawy­ers in 32 offices in 22 count­ries, we are repre­sen­ted in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia-Paci­fic and Africa and main­tain close rela­ti­onships with law firms in other parts of the world. In Germany, we are repre­sen­ted by more than 280 lawy­ers in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg and Munich. — www.twobirds.com.

Berlin — NEON has advi­sed Berlin-based Xayn AG on its €80.7 million Series B finan­cing round. The round was led by legal publisher C.H. Beck as lead inves­tor and future stra­te­gic part­ner of Noxtua. The compu­ting specia­list Nort­hern Data and the law firms CMS — a long-stan­ding part­ner of Xayn — and Dentons also parti­ci­pa­ted. With this bund­ling of AI, legal and compu­ting exper­tise, this is also a stra­te­gic invest­ment in sove­reign Euro­pean AI. 

Noxtua is Euro­pe’s leading sove­reign legal AI to support specia­li­zed legal work. The appli­ca­tion, which is based on its own self-trai­ned legal language models, offers legal profes­sio­nals a data protec­tion-compli­ant solu­tion for rese­ar­ching, analy­zing, crea­ting and revi­sing legal docu­ments — always in accordance with the highest profes­sio­nal and crimi­nal law requi­re­ments (§ 203 StGB, § 43e BRAO). 

Noxtua is based on special, proprie­tary AI models that have been trai­ned with high-quality legal data. Through the part­ner­ship with C.H.Beck, the AI company uses the publisher’s exclu­sive legal data for the trai­ning and further opti­miza­tion of Noxtua Legal AI. With more than 9,000 available works, 80 specia­list jour­nals and up to 1,000 new publi­ca­ti­ons and new editi­ons per year, the specia­list publisher has by far the largest legal data­base in the German-spea­king world with beck-online — with well over 55 million docu­ments on all rele­vant areas of law. beck-online conta­ins, among other things, the most compre­hen­sive coll­ec­tion of rele­vant commen­tary lite­ra­ture, which is indis­pensable for lawy­ers in their daily work. 

At the same time as the comple­ted Series B, the AI start-up, which emer­ged from rese­arch at Oxford Univer­sity and Impe­rial College London, is offi­ci­ally chan­ging its name from Xayn AG to Noxtua SE. With the new legal form and addi­tio­nal company head­quar­ters in other Euro­pean count­ries, the AI company is expan­ding into new Euro­pean markets. Noxtua is thus estab­li­shing itself as a truly Euro­pean AI company with the aim of promo­ting Euro­pean sovereignty. 

The previous inves­tors Global Brain Corpo­ra­tion, KDDI Open Inno­va­tion Fund, CMS and Domi­nik Schie­ner will remain inves­ted in the start-up. The latter, toge­ther with C.H.Beck, is taking over the shares of the previous inves­tor Early­bird VC, which is in line with the new stra­te­gic direc­tion of the AI startup. 

Toge­ther with C.H. Beck, Noxtua will be further deve­lo­ped as part of the new Beck-Noxtua product — a Lega­lAI workspace that combi­nes the legal content of market leader C.H. Beck with the tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties of Noxtua. — As part of a stra­te­gic repo­si­tio­ning, the company will in future operate under the name of its AI appli­ca­tion Noxtua. 

https://www.noxtua.com/

Consul­tants involved:

+ Nort­hern Data (Jens-Phil­ipp Briemle | Mareile Müller-Felsch | Dr. Stephan Aubel)
+ Domi­nik Schiener
+ CMS (Dr. Markus Kaulartz)
+ Beck (Dr. Roland L. Klaes | Dr. Dr. Oliver Hofmann)
+ Dentons (Julien Henri Lasala | Dr. Jean­nette Meyer)
+ Diss­man Orth (Dr. Tobias Beuchert | Dr. Chris­tian Brehm)
+ SZA (Dr. Simon Apel | Dr. Jona­than Drescher)

Team NEON:
+ Bastian Rein­schmidt (Photo © NEON)
+ Dr. Iur. László Molnár
+ Rouven Kolodziej
+ Dr. Justus Gaden
+ Lisa-Marie Schuchardt
+ Dr. Sebas­tian Krieg 

https://neon.law/