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Project A invests in Carl — a fintech for M&A transactions

Cate­gory: Venture Capi­tal
14. June 2019

Berlin — Berlin-based start-up Carl has closed a new finan­cing round of just under EUR 3 million. The round is led by Berlin-based VC Project A. The group of inves­tors also includes family office Bastian Unger (form­erly ATU), Karl-Heinz Flöther, Saarbruecker21 and foun­ders of the start­ups Dubs­mash, Conto­rion and Minodes. Carl has built a plat­form for M&A tran­sac­tions that matches owners of middle-market compa­nies with buyers.

“About 230,000 SMEs want to find a succes­sor in the next two years. 95 percent of child­ren do not want to take over their parents’ busi­ness. Succes­sors are ther­e­fore urgen­tly sought. At Carl, we solve this problem with the help of the digi­tal approach and our broad network. The fresh capi­tal will enable us to meet the ever-incre­a­sing demand,” said Kurosch D. Habibi, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor at Carl.

Profes­sio­nal advice and access to a broad network of buyers have so far been available prima­rily to large compa­nies. Carl now offers this range of services to small and medium-sized compa­nies with annual sales of between one and 50 million euros. With a digi­tal plat­form on which over 1,600 active buyers are regis­tered and which offers access to a further 120,000 buyers, as well as a network of 220 M&A advi­sors in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land, Carl aims to bring trans­pa­rency and profes­sio­na­lism to the highly frag­men­ted market.

For Project A, this is another enga­ge­ment in a series of B2B invest­ments. “Busi­ness succes­sion is a huge chall­enge and there is little appro­priate infra­struc­ture, espe­ci­ally in the SME sector, to support entre­pre­neurs facing reti­re­ment. Carl Finance addres­ses the under­ser­ved market for M&A advi­sory in the SME segment with smart tech­no­lo­gies, deep exper­tise and a passio­nate team,” said Anton Waitz, Gene­ral Part­ner at Project A.

About Carl
Carl (www.carlfinance.de) is a service provi­der for medium-sized company sales and succes­si­ons. Carl actively supports entre­pre­neurs throug­hout the sales process, ensu­ring a profes­sio­nal sales process. This includes a market-orien­­ted company valua­tion, the prepa­ra­tion of dedi­ca­ted sales docu­ments, access to an exten­sive network of thou­sands of pros­pec­tive buyers and support during nego­tia­ti­ons and the company audit. Support­ing tech­no­lo­gies are used along the proces­ses to increase effi­ci­ency. The company also opera­tes www.Nachfolge.de, Germany’s largest specia­list portal for corpo­rate succes­sion. Carl is prima­rily aimed at compa­nies with annual sales of between one and 50 million euros. The company was foun­ded in 2016 by Kurosch Habibi and Pascal Stich­ler and is based in Berlin.

About Project A
Project A is the Opera­tio­nal VC that offers not only capi­tal but also a large network and exclu­sive access to a wide range of services. The Berlin-based inves­tor mana­ges 260 million euros with which it finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups. The core of Project A is the team of 100 expe­ri­en­ced experts who provide opera­tio­nal support to the port­fo­lio compa­nies in areas such as soft­ware engi­nee­ring, marke­ting, design, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, busi­ness intel­li­gence, sales and recrui­ting. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Cata­wiki, World­Re­mit, uber­all, Home­day, Spry­ker, KRY and Wonder­bly. More infor­ma­tion: www.project‑a.com.

Carl Finance raised nearly EUR 3 million in the finan­cing round led by new inves­tor Project A. Inves­tors also include family office Bastian Unger (form­erly ATU) and some exis­ting share­hol­ders. The fresh capi­tal is to be used to service the steadily incre­asing demand. Olga Balan­­dina-Luke of the law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed the start-up Carl Finance, a service provi­der for medium-sized company sales and succes­si­ons, on a finan­cing round.

Advi­sors to Carl: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Lead: Olga Balandina-Luke

Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media that has been in opera­tion since May 2014 and can draw on a total of over 50 years of expe­ri­ence of its now five part­ners in connec­tion with growth capi­tal financings.

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