Willkie advises shareholders on the sale of Arioso Systems to Bosch

Frank­furt a. Main — The foun­ders and inves­tors (inclu­ding Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) have sold their shares in Arioso Systems GmbH (“Arioso”) to Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH, a subsi­diary of Robert Bosch GmbH (“Bosch”). Will­kie advi­sed all share­hol­ders inclu­ding the foun­ders and inves­tors (among others Bran­den­burg Kapi­tal GmbH, Fraun­ho­fer e.V. and High- Tech Grün­der­fonds) of Arioso Systems GmbH (the “Share­hol­ders”) on the sale of their shares in Bosch Sensor­tec GmbH.

The share­hol­ders have agreed to sell Arioso, a Fraun­ho­fer IPMS spin-off for the commer­cia­liza­tion of Nano­sco­pic Elec­tro­sta­tic Drive (NED) μSpea­ker- tech­no­logy, to Bosch. — Arioso’s product port­fo­lio includes gene­ral and custom microelec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal systems (MEMS) and appli­­­ca­­tion-speci­­fic inte­gra­ted circuits (ASIC).

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Q2 2022.

Foun­ded in 2019, Arioso aims to become a leading provi­der of μSpea­ker tech­no­logy for the ultra-mobile audio world. Unlike conven­tio­nal spea­k­ers and the few other MEMS spea­k­ers available, Arioso’s tiny MEMS spea­k­ers contain neither a diaphragm nor magnets, but are made enti­rely of sili­con. They can be mass-produ­­ced inex­pen­si­vely using stan­dard proces­ses for comple­men­tary metal oxide semi­con­duc­tors, making them easily scalable for the mass market.

Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP, IT and data protec­tion issues.

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Arioso Systems GmbH: Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP

Part­ner Miriam Steets, Foto (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Bettina Bokeloh (Tax, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Jens-Olrik Murach (Anti­trust, Brussels), Coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax, Frank­furt) and Asso­cia­tes Andrej Popp, Nils Bock (both Corporate/M&A), Martin Waskow­ski (Labor Law) and Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, all Frankfurt).

Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 1,000 lawy­ers with offices in Brussels, Chicago, Frank­furt, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Milan, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Rome, San Fran­cisco and Washing­ton. The firm is head­quar­te­red in New York at 787 Seventh Avenue, Tel: +1 212 728 8000.

The KNPZ team included part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and asso­ciate Chris­toph Jenal (both Hamburg).