Bonn \u2014 Exits are crucial across indus\u00adtries. But despite some attrac\u00adtive invest\u00adment sales, experts believe that the bott\u00adlen\u00adeck has shifted to the end of the value chain.<\/p>\n
An exam\u00adple: You take your car and go on vaca\u00adtion to the Medi\u00adter\u00adra\u00adnean Sea. You have ever\u00ady\u00adthing well prepared. You don\u2019t worry about the fact that your car will need more fill-ups so that you can reach your vaca\u00adtion desti\u00adna\u00adtion. Because you are sure that you will find enough gas stati\u00adons along the way.<\/p>\n
Start-ups are a comple\u00adtely diffe\u00adrent<\/strong> story. At the time of your startup, you realize that you will need addi\u00adtio\u00adnal funding if you want to grow. But you don\u2019t know the inves\u00adtors in the next round, nor do you know if there are any takers for your idea at all. A good seed inves\u00adtor will certainly not do the initial finan\u00adcing unless they believe they can find other inves\u00adtors for the next phases of the company. No one wants to get stuck in the so-called valley of death. About ten years ago, seed invest\u00adments were the bottle-neck. A few years later, much more seed capi\u00adtal was available, but signi\u00adfi\u00adcant growth invest\u00adments were hard to come by without global inves\u00adtors. And these inves\u00adtors were not easy to convince. Today, the situa\u00adtion has impro\u00adved signi\u00adfi\u00adcantly. Start\u00adups that deal with tech\u00adni\u00adcally driven inno\u00adva\u00adtions have a good chance of getting money for their deve\u00adlo\u00adp\u00adment at all stages. Larger rounds with volu\u00admes of over ten million euros are possi\u00adble. But still, from the perspec\u00adtive of indi\u00advi\u00addual start\u00adups, it seems to be very chal\u00adlen\u00adging to get access to the right investors.<\/p>\n Choo\u00adsing the right investor<\/strong> The current finan\u00adcing situa\u00adtion seems to be in order. We are seeing large seed rounds of over \u20ac10 million in drug deve\u00adlo\u00adp\u00adment and excep\u00adtio\u00adnally large invest\u00adments in deep tech and soft\u00adware unicorns. It\u2019s not just Vision Fund that has crea\u00adted new beacons in the Euro\u00adpean startup ecosys\u00adtem with its invest\u00adments in AUTO1 and Get Your Guide. Many signi\u00adfi\u00adcant rounds of finan\u00adcing are taking place. In 2018 alone, HTGF port\u00adfo\u00adlio compa\u00adnies were able to close more than 120 follow-on finan\u00adcing rounds with a volume of around EUR 400 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n Howe\u00adver, the situa\u00adtion varies from sector to sector. If you want to go to the Medi\u00adter\u00adra\u00adnean with your elec\u00adtric car, you will think carefully about char\u00adging stati\u00adons in advance. You may even change your desti\u00adna\u00adtion as there are no char\u00adging faci\u00adli\u00adties there. If you are start\u00ading a busi\u00adness in the chemi\u00adcal indus\u00adtry, you will likely face signi\u00adfi\u00adcant finan\u00adcing chal\u00adlenges to expand your produc\u00adtion faci\u00adli\u00adties from pilot to demons\u00adtra\u00adtion or to indus\u00adtry stan\u00addard. These scale-up invest\u00adments are conside\u00adred unsexy. Ther\u00ade\u00adfore, highly speci\u00adfic invest\u00adment funds are needed here. These funds must be quali\u00adfied inves\u00adtors, who on the one hand contri\u00adbute money, and on the other hand also have exper\u00adtise and a network to other investors.<\/p>\n Across indus\u00adtries, attrac\u00adtive exits are key, as inves\u00adtors seek high returns and are inspi\u00adred by good success stories. Despite some attrac\u00adtive invest\u00adment sales, experts believe that the bottle-neck has moved to the end of the value chain. Most medium and large compa\u00adnies are incre\u00adasingly inte\u00adres\u00adted in high-tech start-ups, but they show little moti\u00adva\u00adtion to buy them even for an attrac\u00adtive valua\u00adtion. Although the major compa\u00adnies in Germany conduct their mergers and acqui\u00adsi\u00adti\u00adons profes\u00adsio\u00adnally, they focus mainly on profi\u00adta\u00adble, high-earning compa\u00adnies. Start\u00adups are often underva\u00adlued by local buyers or in many cases bought by Ameri\u00adcans or Asians who pay a premium for good German tech\u00adno\u00adlogy compa\u00adnies. To improve this situa\u00adtion, we need more success stories to provide bench\u00admarks and peers. The best way to create these beacons is through the stock market.<\/p>\n IPO<\/strong> At the time a German biotech startup worth about \u20ac40 million is nearly star\u00adving on a Euro\u00adpean stock exch\u00adange, Munich-based biotech Immu\u00adnic has comple\u00adted a reverse take\u00adover<\/strong> to list on NASDAQ in April 2019. Immu\u00adnic will be presen\u00adting more clini\u00adcal data shortly, so they have a very good chance of raising addi\u00adtio\u00adnal funds for the next stages of deve\u00adlo\u00adp\u00adment of their drugs \u2014 each with a market volume of over one billion dollars. This was an extre\u00admely smart and entre\u00adpre\u00adneu\u00adrial tran\u00adsac\u00adtion that teaches us: as long as we don\u2019t have a strong market\u00adplace for tech\u00adno\u00adlogy start\u00adups in Europe, we need to connect more inten\u00adsi\u00advely with other ecosys\u00adtems to remove the remai\u00adning bott\u00adlen\u00adeck in the value chain, the exits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bonn \u2014 Exits are crucial across indus\u00adtries. But despite some attrac\u00adtive invest\u00adment sales, experts believe that the bott\u00adlen\u00adeck has shifted to the end of the value chain. An exam\u00adple: You take your car and go on vaca\u00adtion to the Medi\u00adter\u00adra\u00adnean Sea. You have ever\u00ady\u00adthing well prepared. You don\u2019t worry about the fact that your car will [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[886,1364,1366,1388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-en","category-featured-en","category-news-en","category-shortcuts-en"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThat is why it is so important to select the right inves\u00adtor, espe\u00adci\u00adally at the begin\u00adning of the company\u2019s deve\u00adlo\u00adp\u00adment. This person should be able to open the doors to other inves\u00adtors. The start-up finan\u00adcing market is very intrans\u00adpa\u00adrent. Without cont\u00adacts you will hardly get access to wealthy indi\u00advi\u00addu\u00adals, corpo\u00adra\u00adti\u00adons or inter\u00adna\u00adtio\u00adnal venture capi\u00adtal funds. You also need to be highly quali\u00adfied, because a pitch to inves\u00adtors is very diffe\u00adrent from a sales pitch. Above all, it\u2019s about trust in the team. In terms of addi\u00adtio\u00adnal funding rounds, you also need to ensure that inves\u00adtors have the ability to conti\u00adnue inves\u00adt\u00ading in follow-on rounds.<\/p>\n
\nHowe\u00adver, initial public offe\u00adrings (IPOs) of high-tech start\u00adups are not possi\u00adble or not attrac\u00adtive enough, as Euro\u00adpean stock exch\u00adan\u00adges offer too little liqui\u00addity for tech IPOs. One reason for this is that in Europe we have around 30 exch\u00adan\u00adges compe\u00adting with each other for liqui\u00addity, whereas in China and the U.S. there are only two and three exch\u00adan\u00adges, respec\u00adtively, which ther\u00ade\u00adfore have a lot of liquidity.<\/p>\n