ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Paris / Berlin — Gene­ra­tive AI is often still in its infancy. AI in radio­logy is anything but a vision of the future. The prac­ti­cal bene­fits of mediaire’s AI tech­no­logy can alre­ady be seen in over 350 hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe. The Berlin-based start-up’s AI port­fo­lio is funda­men­tally chan­ging the way radio­lo­gists work. With this success, medi­aire has now secu­red a Euro­pean finan­cing round of €12 million, led by LBO France as lead inves­tor with the parti­ci­pa­tion of IBB Ventures and the Swiss family office Wille Finance. The finan­cing under­lines the importance of viable and vali­da­ted AI solu­ti­ons for clini­cal prac­tice. Previous medi­aire inves­tors HTGF, LIFTT and Gate­way Ventures also parti­ci­pa­ted in the over­sub­scri­bed round. mediaire’s AI solu­ti­ons are seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into diagno­stic prac­tice, reli­e­ving radio­lo­gists of routine tasks and impro­ving diagno­stic outco­mes for pati­ents. Thanks to the latest finan­cing round, medi­aire will expand its AI port­fo­lio in magne­tic reso­nance imaging (MRI) beyond the current areas of appli­ca­tion in AI-supported radio­lo­gi­cal brain, prostate and knee diagno­stics. With this next inno­va­tion step, further AI solu­ti­ons can be deve­lo­ped to enable grea­ter diagno­stic precis­ion and effi­ci­ency world­wide in the future. The finan­cing ther­e­fore repres­ents an important mile­stone for the company’s growth. “Our AI solu­ti­ons are not a dream of the future. We have alre­ady crea­ted a reality that helps doctors make infor­med decis­i­ons and provide their pati­ents with faster answers,” empha­si­zes Dr. Andreas Lemke, CEO and co-foun­der of medi­aire. “We see the posi­tive impact every day with thou­sands of radio­lo­gists, in hundreds of hospi­tals and radio­logy prac­ti­ces across Europe where our AI soft­ware is alre­ady in use. With this invest­ment, we will bring these bene­fits to many more health­care provi­ders.” “We are convin­ced that tech­no­logy can improve lives,” adds Matthes Seeling, Invest­ment Direc­tor at LBO France. “mediaire’s focus reflects our strong belief in the trans­for­ma­tive power of health­care tech­no­logy for the bene­fit of profes­sio­nals and pati­ents. The dedi­ca­ted team addres­ses a pres­sing need in the health­care sector, parti­cu­larly in the context of incre­asing global demand for fast, accu­rate and afforda­ble diagno­stics. With this invest­ment, we will actively support mediaire’s growth to achieve its ambi­tious goals and conso­li­date its posi­tion as the leading provi­der of radio­logy AI in Europe.” Dr. Ange­lika Vlachou, Part­ner at HTGF, said: “We at HTGF are very plea­sed with the deve­lo­p­ment of medi­aire over the last years and believe that the team has proven the added value for its custo­mers, the radio­lo­gists. The field of AI-based tools is evol­ving rapidly. To be successful, compa­nies need to demons­trate real product inno­va­tion that is tail­o­red to the needs of custo­mers. We look forward to conti­nuing to support the deve­lo­p­ment of mediaire.”

News

Munich / Berlin — Global arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company Aigno­stics has closed its latest $34 million Series B funding round. The round was led by ATHOS (Munich), with invest­ments from Mayo Clinic and growth funding from HTGF. Aigno­stics also recei­ved support from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Welling­ton Part­ners, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, CARMA Fund and VC Fonds Tech­no­lo­gie, mana­ged by IBB Ventures. To date, Aigno­stics has raised over $55 million, demons­t­ra­ting inves­tor confi­dence in the company’s unique AI models and well-defi­ned commer­cial stra­tegy. Aigno­stics was foun­ded in 2018 and emer­ged in 2020 as a spin-off from Charité and the Berlin Insti­tute of Health. The AI company trans­forms complex multi­mo­dal patho­lo­gi­cal data into valuable insights. Follo­wing the closing of the latest funding round, Aigno­stics plans to deve­lop new product offe­rings for biophar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers, drive growth in the US and deve­lop advan­ced basic models for patho­logy in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Mayo Clinic. The new funding will streng­then Aigno­stics’ capa­bi­li­ties in target funding, trans­na­tio­nal rese­arch and compa­n­ion diagno­stics (CDx) and support various stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. “2024 was a pivo­tal year for us, which included an important stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Bayer and the launch of our first basic model, RudolfV,” says Viktor Matyas, CEO and co-foun­der of Aigno­stics. “With RudolfV, we have gained the ability to rapidly deve­lop cost-effec­tive algo­rithms that can be trans­fer­red to the real world. With this new round of funding, we are turning our most popu­lar algo­rithms into products that will help usher in an era of truly gene­ra­lizable AI for compu­ta­tio­nal pathology.” 

About Aigno­stics

Aigno­stics is an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company that turns complex multi­mo­da­lity patho­logy data into trans­for­ma­tive insights. By combi­ning proprie­tary access to multi­mo­da­lity clini­cal data, indus­try-leading tech­no­lo­gies and rigo­rous science, Aigno­stics deve­lops world-class products and services for the next gene­ra­tion of precis­ion medi­cine. Through colla­bo­ra­tion with its biopharma part­ners, Aigno­stics supports drug disco­very, trans­la­tio­nal rese­arch, clini­cal trials and CDx deve­lo­p­ment. Foun­ded in 2018, Aigno­stics is a spin-off of Charité Berlin, one of the largest and most renow­ned univer­sity hospi­tals in the world. Aigno­stics is funded by leading inves­tors and has offices in Berlin and New York. Further infor­ma­tion at aignostics.com.

About ATHOS

ATHOS is a single-family office (Strüng­mann Group) that supports entre­pre­neurs to posi­tively impact health and well-being. The company is a long-term majo­rity inves­tor in BioNTech. 

Advi­sor Aigno­stics: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Anja Schind­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Bene­dikt Kreu­der (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. www.ypog.law

News

Israel — A HEUKING team led by part­ner Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann has advi­sed Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. (“Turpaz”) on the acqui­si­tion of a German food flavoring company. A wholly owned subsi­diary of Turpaz signed an agree­ment to acquire 100% of the shares in Schu­mann & Sohn GmbH (“Schu­mann”). The purchase price amounts to appro­xi­m­ately EUR 10.7 million. The tran­sac­tion was comple­ted at the time of signing and was finan­ced by a bank loan. Schu­mann, foun­ded in 1948, has expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the field of flavors and is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and marke­ting of flavors and quality solu­ti­ons for the food indus­try and food supple­ments. Schu­mann opera­tes a produc­tion, R&D, appli­ca­tion and distri­bu­tion site in Karls­ruhe, Germany. Schu­mann has a broad custo­mer base, mainly in the German market. Turpaz’s entry into the German flavor market is a further step in streng­thening Turpaz’s leader­ship posi­tion and estab­li­shing its presence in Europe. Schumann’s busi­ness is highly syner­gi­stic with Turpaz’s busi­ness and is expec­ted to enable Turpaz to streng­then its product offe­ring and capi­ta­lize on cross-selling oppor­tu­ni­ties, both by expan­ding its custo­mer base and broa­de­ning its product port­fo­lio. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is an Israel-based company opera­ting as a chemi­cal manu­fac­tu­rer. Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. opera­tes inde­pendently and through subsi­dia­ries in Israel, the USA, Asia and Europe in four fields of acti­vity (fragran­ces, flavors, phar­maceu­ti­cals and specialty ingre­di­ents). Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exch­ange. Advi­sors to Turpaz Indus­tries Ltd. HEUKING:
Dr. Marc Scheu­ne­mann, LL.M. (lead), Düsseldorf/Frankfurt,
Dr. Chris­tian Appel­baum (adver­ti­sing law),
Dr. Timo Piller (corpo­rate),
Chris­toph Hexel (employ­ment law),
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (real estate law), all Düsseldorf,
Moni­que Sandidge (employ­ment law),
Dr. Markus Collisy, Maxi­mi­lian Dehnert (both regu­la­tory), all Frankfurt

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Fürth / Forch­heim — The solec­trix Group, a port­fo­lio company of Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner, and the ASSDEV Group are joining forces to form a leading full-service part­ner for high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons. The merger combi­nes solectrix’s exper­tise in the design of inno­va­tive embedded systems with ASSDEV’s know-how in the produc­tion of complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems. The new group will have around 250 employees and an annual turno­ver of over 40 million euros. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted this year. Foun­ded in Fürth in 2005, solec­trix GmbH deve­lops high-end elec­tro­nic solu­ti­ons for appli­ca­ti­ons in medi­cal tech­no­logy, imaging, auto­mo­tive and indus­try. The service port­fo­lio includes concep­tual design, hard­ware, soft­ware and FPGA deve­lo­p­ment through to proto­ty­pes and small series produc­tion, which is carried out intern­ally by solec­trix systems GmbH at the Fürth site. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has held a mino­rity stake in solec­trix since 2021 and supports the three company foun­ders in their growth stra­tegy and in conso­li­da­ting their market posi­tion as inno­va­tion leaders. The focus here is prima­rily on the ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment of high-quality inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and solu­ti­ons such as FPGAs, AI, camera systems and high-end hard­ware, which are incor­po­ra­ted into custo­mers’ product inno­va­tions and thus give them a compe­ti­tive edge. ASSDEV GmbH, also foun­ded in 2005 and based in Forch­heim, is a full-service part­ner for the produc­tion of highly complex and safety-rele­vant elec­tro­nic systems, which are used in parti­cu­lar in energy tech­no­logy, rail­road tech­no­logy, IoT gate­ways, tele­ma­tics and indus­try. Over 100 employees at the Forch­heim site produce complex and sophisti­ca­ted elec­tro­nic assem­blies and elec­tro­nic systems using state-of-the-art manu­fac­tu­ring and test­ing tech­no­lo­gies. The subsi­diary AST‑X GmbH deve­lops pionee­ring hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the fields of energy, mobi­lity and IoT (wire­less tech­no­lo­gies). As part of the merger, the co-foun­ders, the Leicht family, are with­dra­wing from the ASSDEV share­hol­der group, although the co-foun­der and previous Mana­ging Direc­tor Hans Hofmann will conti­nue to play a leading role in the new group and signi­fi­cantly reinvest in the company. The solec­trix foun­ding part­ners and mana­ging direc­tors Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as VR Equi­typ­art­ner will retain a stake in the group. The compa­nies will conti­nue to operate on the market under the names solec­trix, solec­trix Systems, ASSDEV and AST‑X. The manage­ment of the new group will consist of Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and Jürgen Stei­nert as well as Hans Hofmann. 

Hans Hofmann, Mana­ging Direc­tor of ASSDEV GmbH and AST‑X GmbH, says: “We are deligh­ted to be opening a new chap­ter in the history of both compa­nies. We have known and appre­cia­ted each other perso­nally and commer­ci­ally for many years — now what belongs toge­ther is coming toge­ther. A joint market presence and the combi­na­tion of our exper­tise is the best of both worlds and makes us a real house of compe­tence for our custo­mers.” Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, adds: “solec­trix and ASSDEV cover comple­men­tary market segments: solec­trix in the field of high-end elec­tro­nics deve­lo­p­ment and ASSDEV with high-quality EMS produc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of indus­trial solu­ti­ons for safety-rele­vant areas. We see great poten­tial in this combi­na­tion, which bene­fits from the strong trends towards one-stop shop­ping and the growing demand for inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons. We look forward to working toge­ther with Mr. Hofmann and the employees of ASSDEV and AST‑X.” Jürgen Stei­nert, Mana­ging Direc­tor of solec­trix GmbH, empha­si­zes: “As share­hol­ders and manage­ment, we have deve­lo­ped solec­trix toge­ther with our part­ner VR Equi­typ­art­ner into a strong and successful inno­va­tion leader. Future tech­no­logy, custo­mer and employee orien­ta­tion are at the fore­front for us as a full-bloo­ded deve­lo­per. The merger with ASSDEV and AST‑X is an important step for the future of the company and the right time to combine the comple­men­tary strengths of both groups. Lars Helbig, Stefan Schütz and I are deligh­ted that the success story of solec­trix will conti­nue hand in hand with ASSDEV.” VR Equi­typ­art­ner at a glance

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team :
Klaus Schnei­der, Zhao­hua Liao-Weißert, Ömer Kaya, Frank Wilden­berg, Dr. Clau­dia Willershausen 

Consul­ting firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VR Equitypartner:

Legal & Tax Due Dili­gence & Tax Struc­tu­ring, Finan­cing: McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter (Dr. Michael Cziesla, Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin, Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer, Ludwig Zesch) Finan­cial due dili­gence & company valua­tion: Baker Tilly WPG (Nils Klamar, Björn Prawetz, Max Bracht) Commer­cial due dili­gence: Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Sascha Voll­mer­hau­sen, Kilian Hornung) Anti­trust advice: Lupp + Part­ner (Tilman Siebert)

News

Paris / Frank­furt a. M. — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment compa­nies, has announ­ced an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in Vecos. Vecos is a leading global provi­der of tech­no­logy-enab­led smart locker solu­ti­ons with a focus on offices, educa­tion and health­care faci­li­ties. Ardian acqui­red the stake from Bencis, who have supported the growth of the company since their invest­ment in 2019. The manage­ment team around CEO Bram Kuipers will conti­nue to lead the company and will re-invest along­side Ardian as part of the tran­sac­tion. Vecos was foun­ded as an elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring company and, under the leader­ship of current CEO Bram Kuipers, has deve­lo­ped into a provi­der of end-to-end solu­ti­ons for smart locker systems. Vecos’ custo­mi­zed and easy-to-use locker system is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to help employees work more flexi­bly in dyna­mic and hybrid work envi­ron­ments. The solu­tion combi­nes hard­ware (physi­cal locks and termi­nals) with a proprie­tary Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) plat­form and supports various autho­riza­tion tech­no­lo­gies such as employee badges or a cloud-based app for employees. Faci­lity mana­gers bene­fit from a web-based user inter­face for remote manage­ment of the lockers and receive real-time data on their use via an online portal. The solu­ti­ons also offer cost opti­miza­tion poten­tial compared to conven­tio­nal mecha­ni­cal or elec­tro­nic locks. The Vecos solu­tion can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into the IT or work­place ecosys­tem of its custo­mers, enab­ling harmo­ni­zed manage­ment across all loca­ti­ons. Vecos has long-stan­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onships with blue-chip compa­nies world­wide and has a strong presence in Europe, Asia-Paci­fic and the USA. The sustained trend towards hybrid working models in compa­nies is leading to an incre­asing demand for flexi­ble office solu­tion concepts. Vecos is ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend. The dyna­mic market deve­lo­p­ment supports Ardian’s invest­ment thesis: against the back­drop of the growing importance of flexi­bi­lity and adap­ta­bi­lity in the work­place, the rele­vance of Vecos’ offe­ring is incre­asing. Compa­nies are speci­fi­cally looking for solu­ti­ons with which they can tailor their office space to the new usage beha­vior of their employees. In addi­tion, Vecos addres­ses compa­nies’ efforts to achieve envi­ron­men­tal targets, for exam­ple in rela­tion to their carbon foot­print. This concern is in line with Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy. Toge­ther with Vecos’ manage­ment team, Ardian looks forward to support­ing the company on its plan­ned growth path in the coming years. “This acqui­si­tion repres­ents a signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity for both Ardian and Vecos. Our part­ner­ship with the Vecos manage­ment team will focus, among other things, on further acce­le­ra­ting inter­na­tio­nal growth in Europe, parti­cu­larly in Germany and France, as well as in the US. 

In addi­tion, we see great poten­tial in the appli­ca­tion of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence-based digi­tal solu­ti­ons to support opera­tio­nal proces­ses,” explains Florian Haas, Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “The part­ner­ship with Vecos is Ardian Expansion’s second invest­ment in the Nether­lands and under­lines our ambi­ti­ons in the region. We are exci­ted about the oppor­tu­nity to support Vecos’ manage­ment team in the next phase of growth through our Ardian plat­form,” said Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Mana­ging Direc­tor Expan­sion at ARDIAN. “Ardian is the ideal part­ner for us due to our shared values and goals. Ardian’s exper­tise in scaling busi­nesses combi­ned with its commit­ment to sustainable growth will enable us to further expand our leading posi­tion in the smart locker segment and extend our reach in key growth markets. We look forward to seizing these oppor­tu­ni­ties toge­ther to play an active role in the realiza­tion of future work­place envi­ron­ments,” said Bram Kuipers, CEO, VECOS.

Parties invol­ved in the transaction

Ardian: Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Florian Haas, Max Dolata, Stef­fen Prochazka, Janine Paus­tian, Mathieu Lebrun Bencis: Katrien Bosquet, Bo Kroe­zen M&A: Jeffe­ries (Serge Fiel­mich, Lars van Leeu­wen­stijn, Ritika Langer) Legal: Clif­ford Chance (Jeroen Thijs­sen, Simon Reitz) Commer­cial: EY Parthe­non (Georg Hoch­leit­ner, Dr. Burak Yahsi) Finan­cial: Deloitte (Egon Sach­sal­ber, Nils Nobereit)

Tax / Struc­tu­ring: EY (Anne Mieke Holland)

Tech: Arte­fact (Arnold Struik, Jur Gaarlandt)

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The Norwe­gian agency plat­form Pari­tee, which also includes the multi-award-winning UK agency Brands2Life, is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the LHLK Group. The LHLK Group includes LHLK and PRpe­tuum, two large commu­ni­ca­ti­ons agen­cies from Germany with a turno­ver of 11 million euros and around 100 employees in Munich, Berlin and Frank­furt am Main, which will now become part of Paritee’s EMEA plat­form. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been completed.

By acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the LHLK Group, the agency plat­form Pari­tee, in which the Scan­di­na­vian private equity fund Explore Equity also holds a stake, is conti­nuing its Euro­pean growth trajec­tory and gaining a strong presence in the German market. The exis­ting manage­ment team of the LHLK Group will remain on board. The foun­der and CEO, Dirk Loesch, joins the inter­na­tio­nal board of the Pari­tee Group. 

As a result of the majo­rity take­over, the Pari­tee Group now gene­ra­tes net sales of EUR 60 million with more than 400 employees at ten loca­ti­ons. This tran­sac­tion was an important step for the further expan­sion stra­tegy in conti­nen­tal Europe. 

Advi­sor PARITEE: Mayer Brown 

The German Mayer Brown team from Frank­furt led by Dr. Fabio Borggreve (Part­ner, Private Equity and Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties) (for Corpo­rate) and Dr. Thomas Dieker (Coun­sel, Tax) (for Tax) advi­sed Pari­tee on all German aspects of the complex cross-border plat­form tran­sac­tion. The members of the team by prac­tice: Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties: Dr. Tobias Reiser, Marcel Pascal Hörauf (both Coun­sel), Inga Vale­rie Rupp, Luisa Sophie Schif­fe­rens (both Asso­ciate); Tax: Volker B. Junge (Part­ner); Banking & Finance: Odilo Wall­ner (Coun­sel), Max Birk (Senior Asso­ciate); Employ­ment & Bene­fits: Dr. Hagen Köcke­ritz (Part­ner), Björn Voll­muth (Coun­sel), Konstan­tin Kühn (Asso­ciate); Real Estate: Duc Hieu Le (Asso­ciate); IP: Konstan­tin von Werder (Coun­sel).

A Selmer team advi­sed on the Norwe­gian aspects of the tran­sac­tion for Paritee:
Camilla Magnus (lead), Rammiya Arumu­gam and Mia Nguyen.

main­fort Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft Steu­er­be­ra­tungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH advi­sed the sellers: Dr. Andreas Strie­gel (lead), Heiner Neuhaus, Elahe Shekeba.

Aios GmbH acted as finan­cial advi­sor to the sellers: Merten Kroe­han (lead), Matthias Giese, Sabrina Schattenberg.

News

Stutt­gart / Frank­furt am Main / Hamburg — Süd Betei­li­gun­gen GmbH (SüdBG), Stutt­gart, toge­ther with VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH (VREP), Frank­furt, and the DEKOM manage­ment, is acqui­ring the DEKOM Group (DEKOM), Hamburg, as part of a succes­sion solu­tion. With over 25 years of expe­ri­ence, more than 200 employees and over 6,000 custo­mers, DEKOM is a leading inter­na­tio­nal AV inte­gra­tor with loca­ti­ons in Europe and the USA. — The joint vision is to further expand DEKOM’s leading role in the Euro­pean market for audio and video tech­no­logy, taking into account mega­trends such as ESG and AI, and to open up new growth markets. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

DEKOM is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by custo­mer-speci­fic solu­ti­ons, a high level of tech­ni­cal exper­tise and a unique sales approach. DEKOM acts as a one-stop store and takes on the plan­ning and design, instal­la­tion of hard­ware and soft­ware for its custo­mers and also offers licen­ses, cloud services and main­ten­ance services. The current Group CEO, Simon Härke, will conti­nue to manage the company after the tran­sac­tion and, toge­ther with seve­ral mana­gers of the foreign subsi­dia­ries, will acquire a signi­fi­cant stake in the company as part of the transaction. 

Chris­tian Gehr­lein, Mana­ging Direc­tor of SüdBG: “With DEKOM, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in an inno­va­tive and fast-growing player in the AV sector. We are parti­cu­larly impres­sed by DEKOM’s outstan­ding team in all areas, which provi­des excel­lent services for first-class custo­mers throug­hout Europe and the USA.” Stefan Hennig, Invest­ment Direc­tor SüdBG, adds: “We believe DEKOM is ideally posi­tio­ned to make colla­bo­ra­tion even better and more effi­ci­ent in the future based on ESG and tech­no­logy trends. We look forward to support­ing its further growth with our exper­tise and network.”

Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner, explains: “At a time when inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons are crucial for the success of compa­nies, we are parti­cu­larly plea­sed about our invest­ment in DEKOM. The management’s outstan­ding know-how and strong commit­ment to quality and perfor­mance as well as its ability to adapt to the dyna­mic demands of the market are impres­sive. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed to be invol­ved in a company with forward-looking solu­ti­ons and look forward to shaping the next phase of growth toge­ther with a strong manage­ment team.” Simon Härke, CEO of DEKOM AG, adds: “With VREP and SüdBG, we have the ideal support to further expand our market posi­tion and take it to the next level. I am convin­ced that with the new inves­tors we have the right part­ners at our side who share our vision and will conti­nue to deve­lop DEKOM toge­ther with us in a future-orien­ted manner.”

About SüdBG

SüdBG is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and has been support­ing medium-sized compa­nies for more than 50 years with custo­mi­zed equity and equity-rela­ted solu­ti­ons in the context of succes­sion plan­ning, growth finan­cing and share­hol­der changes.

About VR Equitypartner 

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Thiemo Bisch­off, Sarah Oster­mann, Vincent Mrohs, Jens Schöf­fel, Oliver Landau, Wiebke Langhans 

Consul­tancy firms invol­ved in the tran­sac­tion by VREP and SüdBG:

Legal: Orrick (Dr. Chris­toph Bren­ner, Stefan Riedl and Dr. Timo Holz­born) Timo Holz­born) Commer­cial & ESG: Inven­sity (Matthias Welge and Daniel Meyn) Finan­cial: RSM Ebner Stolz (Matthias Kran­kow­sky, Tobias Fritz, Sophie Lehnert, Louis Perrino and Felice Micheln) Tax: RSM Ebner Stolz (Wolf­gang Klöve­korn and Arnd Mönch) Anti­trust: Lupp+Partner (Tilman Siebert and Diana Proschniew­ski) Debt Advi­sor: Network Corpo­rate Finance (Diet­rich Stol­ten­burg and Domi­nik Waitschekauski)

 

News

Amsterdam/ Munich — BUKO Traf­fic & Safety (“BUKO”), a leading provi­der of outsour­ced traf­fic and safety manage­ment solu­ti­ons in the Nether­lands and the UK, acqui­res BVT Bremer Verkehrs­tech­nik GmbH (“BVT”). Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of UK-based Road Traf­fic Solu­ti­ons Ltd (“RTS”) at the begin­ning of 2024, BUKO is conti­nuing its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion by ente­ring the German market. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. TEXT BUKO Traf­fic & Safety, head­quar­te­red in Baren­d­recht, the Nether­lands, has around 450 employees and successfully carries out seve­ral thousand projects every year. With its two divi­si­ons, BUKO Infra­sup­port and BUKO Waakt, the company is a leading provi­der of outsour­ced traf­fic and safety manage­ment solu­ti­ons in its home market, the Nether­lands. BUKO Infra­sup­port, foun­ded in 1991, specia­li­zes in tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment solu­ti­ons. With its compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services — from the design, plan­ning, permit­ting, supply, coll­ec­tion and manage­ment of neces­sary road signage and safety equip­ment for on-site road­works, to inno­va­tive digi­tal traf­fic manage­ment solu­ti­ons — BUKO Infra­sup­port prima­rily serves contrac­tors and autho­ri­ties invol­ved in utility-rela­ted, urban and rural road­works. BUKO Waakt specia­li­zes in tempo­rary secu­rity solu­ti­ons with a focus on camera surveil­lance, intru­sion detec­tion systems and access control systems, which are mainly used on cons­truc­tion sites. In Febru­ary 2023, the Equis­tone funds acqui­red a majo­rity stake in BUKO. Since then, the company has been pursuing an ambi­tious growth stra­tegy, focu­sing prima­rily on expan­ding its geogra­phi­cal presence in the Dutch dome­stic market and targe­ted expan­sion into promi­sing, high-growth neigh­bor­ing count­ries. In March 2024, BUKO laid an important foun­da­tion for its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion with the acqui­si­tion of UK-based RTS, a specia­list in traf­fic and event manage­ment solu­ti­ons with seven loca­ti­ons and 175 employees. With the recent acqui­si­tion of BVT and the estab­lish­ment of a geogra­phi­cal presence in Germany, BUKO is reali­zing another stra­te­gi­cally important mile­stone in its inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy. BVT is a provi­der of high-quality services in the field of tempo­rary traf­fic manage­ment. By focu­sing on “low-speed traf­fic situa­tions” toge­ther with a high level of custo­mer orien­ta­tion, BVT has deve­lo­ped into a leading part­ner for its custo­mers, which include gene­ral contrac­tors, local autho­ri­ties and event orga­ni­zers. BVT opera­tes from a total of three loca­ti­ons and curr­ently employs around 75 people. “We are deligh­ted to have ente­red into a part­ner­ship with BVT and to be ente­ring the German market as a result. There is a high level of agree­ment between the compa­nies in terms of stra­te­gic direc­tion, corpo­rate culture and a shared vision for the future. Toge­ther, we want to further expand and deve­lop BUKO’s presence in Germany over the coming years,” explains Robert Emme­rich, CEO of BUKO. 

Tanja Berg, Direc­tor in Equistone’s Munich office (photo© Equis­tone), comm­ents: “Follo­wing its successful entry into the UK market earlier this year, BUKO has now found the ideal part­ner to enter the German market with BVT. The Equis­tone funds are deligh­ted to support BUKO in its inter­na­tio­nal growth ambi­ti­ons through a targe­ted buy & build stra­tegy, conti­nuing the company’s excep­tio­nal track record in the Dutch home market inter­na­tio­nally.” The Equis­tone funds team includes Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Tanja Berg and Josh Aalbers. Advi­sors to BUKO: PwC (Finan­cial & Tax), De Ange­lis (Legal), Roland Berger (Commer­cial) and Rauten­berg (M&A). About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in the Nether­lands, Germany, Switz­er­land, France and the UK.

The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since its foun­da­tion in 2002, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio of Equis­tone funds curr­ently compri­ses around 40 compa­nies across Europe. www.equistonepe.com.

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­ses TA Asso­cia­tes, one of the leading global private equity firms, on the closing of an inves­tor agree­ment with Nexus AG (“Nexus”) and the volun­t­ary public tender offer for all outstan­ding shares of Nexus.
The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory and foreign trade clearan­ces and other custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. The offer implies an equity valua­tion of Nexus of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 1.21 billion. 

About Nexus AG

Nexus AG deve­lops and distri­bu­tes soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the inter­na­tio­nal health­care market. With the clini­cal infor­ma­tion system (Nexus / HIS) and the inte­gra­ted diagno­stic modu­les, we now have a uniquely broad and inter­ope­ra­ble product range that can cover almost all func­tional requi­re­ments of hospi­tals, psych­ia­tric clinics, reha­bi­li­ta­tion and diagno­stic centers within our own product fami­lies. Nexus AG employs around 2,030 people, has its own sites in nine Euro­pean count­ries and serves custo­mers in a further 71 count­ries, in some cases via certi­fied dealers. Thanks to conti­nuously growing demand for Nexus products, we have been able to build up a large custo­mer base in recent years and regu­larly report rising sales and results. www.nexus-ag.de

Advi­sor TA Associates

Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich: Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Foto (lead); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Juliane Hubert, Frede­rick Eggert, Melissa Afraz (all Private Equity/M&A)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Sam Sher­wood; Asso­cia­tes: Adrian Kiler­cio­glu, Ben Egan (all Debt Finance) About Kirk­land
Kirk­land & Ellis, with more than 3.500 lawy­ers in 21 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax law.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

News

Berlin — Raue has advi­sed the Berlin-based food start-up Hafer­ka­ter on the buy-out of its previous inves­tors and the conver­sion to respon­si­ble owner­ship. The new inves­tors do not hold any voting rights in Hafer­ka­ter; 99% of the voting rights are now held by the manage­ment and foun­ders of Hafer­ka­ter. Accor­ding to the artic­les of asso­cia­tion, at least 51% of the voting rights must conti­nue to be held by employees of Hafer­ka­ter GmbH. After payment of a limi­ted return to the new inves­tors, 100% of the profit rights remain with Hafer­ka­ter. The conver­sion to steward-owner­ship and the new invest­ments will ensure that Hafer­ka­ter can conti­nue to operate inde­pendently in the future and can no longer be sold. These struc­tures place control over company decis­i­ons in the hands of those who also manage the company and keep the focus on the core busi­ness: Porridge to go at busy trans­por­ta­tion hubs. Former inves­tors were Katjes Green­food and Zentis Ventures, who supported Hafer­ka­ter with their many years of trust and ulti­m­ately made the trans­for­ma­tion possi­ble. The new inves­tors are Purpose Ventures, Cantella, Karma Capi­tal and private inves­tors. Purpose Ventures is part of the PURPOSE network and accom­pa­nies and invests in compa­nies in respon­si­ble owner­ship and those that want to become one. Hafer­ka­ter has imple­men­ted respon­si­ble owner­ship with the help of the Purpose Foundation’s veto share model. This foun­da­tion holds one percent of the voting rights in Hafer­ka­ter and is obli­ged to use its veto power to block any chan­ges to the artic­les of asso­cia­tion that run coun­ter to the prin­ci­ples of steward-ownership. 

Advi­sor Hafer­ka­ter GmbH: Raue, Berlin
Dr. Jörg Jaecks, photo (Part­ner, Venture Capi­tal, M&A, Corpo­rate Law) About Raue

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Berlin. The firm advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public corpo­ra­ti­ons compre­hen­si­vely on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and disputes.

Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.raue.com.

News

Frank­furt a.M. / Paris (Fr) — Ardian announ­ced the closing of the first invest­ment of its Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor-focu­sed plat­form Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor. The fund acqui­res Ion Beam Services (IBS), an inno­va­tive Euro­pean provi­der of equip­ment and services to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. IBS was foun­ded in 1987 and is head­quar­te­red in France. The company specia­li­zes in equip­ment and services in the field of ion implan­ta­tion, a funda­men­tal process in semi­con­duc­tor front-end manu­fac­tu­ring. The company’s tech­no­logy and products address high-growth specialty appli­ca­tion areas in energy, connec­ti­vity, imaging and sens­ing. Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor is a unique plat­form for invest­ments in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try that was laun­ched last year. It combi­nes the private equity exper­tise of Ardian with the sector exper­tise of Silian Part­ners in an exclu­sive part­ner­ship. The invest­ment provi­des addi­tio­nal capi­tal for the imple­men­ta­tion of IBS’s ambi­tious growth stra­tegy and provi­des for the succes­sion of the company’s foun­der and current CEO Laurent Roux, who is reti­ring. The semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is one of the key sectors in the digi­tal and sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the global economy. Due to the fore­seeable contin­ued importance of the mega­trends of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, hyper­con­nec­ti­vity, elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, mobi­lity and indus­trial auto­ma­tion, as well as the constantly growing number of intel­li­gent and networked devices, fore­casts predict that the sector will double in size to a volume of one tril­lion US dollars by 2030. IBS’s exper­tise is helping to support the deve­lo­p­ment of these future areas. With Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor, a unique plat­form for invest­ments in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try was laun­ched last year, which combi­nes the private equity exper­tise of Ardian with the sector exper­tise of Silian Part­ners as part of an exclu­sive part­ner­ship. Silian Part­ners’ seaso­ned profes­sio­nals have more than 140 years of combi­ned invest­ment expe­ri­ence and contri­bute to the plat­form with their sector network, stra­te­gic exper­tise and opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence. Toge­ther, Ardian and Silian Part­ners offer inno­va­tive and flexi­ble capi­tal solu­ti­ons as well as stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to accom­pany strong tech­no­logy compa­nies on their way to beco­ming global market leaders in their respec­tive segments. This gives Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor a unique posi­tio­ning in Europe, a global leader in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try for mobi­lity and indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons. This is supported by a rich ecosys­tem of rese­arch centers and compa­nies in deve­lo­p­ment, equip­ment and mate­ri­als, as well as govern­ment funding initia­ti­ves such as the €43 billion Euro­pean Chips Act. On this basis, Europe is well posi­tio­ned to help shape the next wave of inno­va­tion in semi­con­duc­tor development. 

“We are deligh­ted to announce the first invest­ment of the Ardian Semi­con­duc­tor plat­form with the acqui­si­tion of IBS. Our goal is to build leading compa­nies in the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor indus­try through an inno­va­tive and highly opera­tio­nally driven approach. We will leverage our private equity exper­tise and unique stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Silian Part­ners to achieve this.” Lise Faucon­nier, Senior Mana­ging Direc­tor, Ardian, said. “We look forward to support­ing IBS in its deve­lo­p­ment. We will build on the wealth of tech­no­lo­gi­cal know­ledge and expe­ri­ence that Laurent Roux and his highly talen­ted team have accu­mu­la­ted over the past nearly 40 years and bring our stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal exper­tise to shar­pen product diffe­ren­tia­tion, streng­then custo­mer focus and take the company to the next level of growth,” said Dr. Bernard Aspar, Part­ner, Silian Part­ners.

About Ardian

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses assets tota­ling around US$ 169 billion for more than 1,680 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth individuals.

Ardian’s employees are also the company’s largest share­hol­der group. Ardian atta­ches great importance to their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of coope­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 19 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble invest­ment. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term. ardian.com

About IBS

IBS specia­li­zes in inno­va­tive ion implan­ta­tion solu­ti­ons and enables its custo­mers to bene­fit flexi­bly from IBS’ exper­tise through a unique 360° offe­ring of equip­ment, equip­ment services and foundry services. IBS opera­tes prima­rily from its offices in France, the UK and Singa­pore. The company was foun­ded in 1987 and is based in Peynier, France. ion-beam-services.com

News

Hamburg/ Munich — Bain Capi­tal, one of the world’s leading private multi-asset invest­ment firms, and Aquila Group, a private invest­ment firm and pioneer in sustainable inves­t­ing, announce a signi­fi­cant part­ner­ship in the data center sector. As part of the colla­bo­ra­tion, Bain Capi­tal is acqui­ring an 80% stake in AQ Compute, the data center subsi­diary of Aquila Group. This stra­te­gic alli­ance, with a target invest­ment volume of seve­ral billion euros, is expec­ted to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate AQ Compute’s plans to deve­lop and operate sustainable data centers for hypers­cale and AI custo­mers across Europe. Foun­ded in 2020 by Aquila Group, AQ Comp ute offers modu­lar and AI-enab­led data center and colo­ca­tion services powered prima­rily by green energy. With signi­fi­cant invest­ment, the company laun­ched its first sustainable data center near Oslo in 2024 — with further projects plan­ned in Barce­lona, Milan and beyond. Bain Capi­tal is support­ing this growth with capi­tal invest­ment and global exper­tise in the data center indus­try, inclu­ding the successful deve­lo­p­ment of Bridge Data Centres in Asia. Toge­ther, the part­ners aim to build a leading Euro­pean data center plat­form with the goal of using green energy where­ver possible. 

Ali Haroon, a part­ner at Bain Capi­tal, said: “The Euro­pean data center market has an attrac­tive supply-demand imba­lance driven by strong cloud demand, the need for high perfor­mance compu­ting and AI deploy­ments, and data sove­reig­nty in the region. Through this part­ner­ship with Aquila Group, we bring a diffe­ren­tia­ted perspec­tive on rene­wa­ble energy to address the ever-growing power supply chal­lenges in this important part of Europe’s infra­struc­ture.” Rafael Coste Campos, a Mana­ging Direc­tor at Bain Capi­tal, said: “We are exci­ted to bring our deep exper­tise in the Euro­pean real estate sector and our diverse expe­ri­ence in buil­ding busi­nesses with complex infra­struc­ture services, tenant rela­ti­onships and talent acqui­si­tion to this plat­form. By lever­aging our global data center exper­tise, we are well posi­tio­ned to meet the needs of this ever-growing and criti­cally important sector and build a market-leading data center opera­tion in Europe.” Roman Ross­len­broich (photo: Aquila), co-foun­der and CEO of Aquila Group, commen­ted: “Through our part­ner­ship with Bain Capi­tal, we are well posi­tio­ned to expand AQ Compute’s capa­bi­li­ties and cement its role as a key player in Europe’s digi­tal infra­struc­ture. The rapid growth in data demand is both a chall­enge and an oppor­tu­nity — more data centers are essen­tial, but they must be sustainable. Aquila will invest seve­ral hundred million euros along­side Bain Capital’s larger commit­ment, with Aquila Capi­tal provi­ding co-invest­ment. Through an actively mana­ged 20% stake, we are helping AQ Compute grow in line with our long-term vision of sustainable infra­struc­ture. At the same time, we are unlo­cking syner­gies with Aquila Clean Energy, a leading deve­lo­per and inde­pen­dent produ­cer in the green energy sector.” Markus Holzer, Chair­man of AQ Compute, said: “At AQ Compute, we are uniquely posi­tio­ned to meet the growing demand for data proces­sing by combi­ning an inno­va­tive, AI-enab­led infra­struc­ture with a commit­ment to sustaina­bi­lity. The part­ner­ship with Bain Capi­tal acce­le­ra­tes our deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line and enables us to set new stan­dards for sustainable data center opera­ti­ons across Europe.” About Bain Capital

Bain Capi­tal is one of the world’s leading private alter­na­tive multi-asset invest­ment firms, crea­ting lasting value for our inves­tors, teams, busi­nesses and the commu­ni­ties in which we live. Since our foun­ding in 1984, we have lever­a­ged our know­ledge and expe­ri­ence to orga­ni­cally expand into nume­rous asset clas­ses, inclu­ding private equity, credit, public equity, venture capi­tal, real estate and other stra­te­gic focus areas. The firm has offices on four conti­nents, more than 1,750 employees and appro­xi­m­ately $185 billion in assets under manage­ment. About Aquila Group

Aquila Group, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, Germany, is a private invest­ment firm that mana­ges a diverse port­fo­lio of compa­nies focu­sed on inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons across multi­ple sectors.

Since 2001, Aquila Group has been at the fore­front of iden­ti­fy­ing emer­ging trends and foste­ring inno­va­tion, parti­cu­larly in the areas of rene­wa­ble energy and sustainable infra­struc­ture, while actively inves­t­ing in the deve­lo­p­ment of new busi­nesses. As an inves­tor and deve­lo­per, Aquila Group remains commit­ted to crea­ting long-term value and driving solu­ti­ons that contri­bute to a more sustainable future. Aquila Group’s port­fo­lio includes asset manage­ment, indus­trial rene­wa­ble energy deve­lo­p­ment and inde­pen­dent power produc­tion (IPP) across Europe and Asia Paci­fic, as well as projects in data centers, green logi­stics and Spanish resi­den­tial real estate. With a tran­sac­tion volume of over EUR 25 billion and assets under manage­ment of EUR 15 billion, the company has a solid track record. With around 700 employees in 19 offices world­wide, Aquila Group is commit­ted to avoi­ding 1.5 billion tons of CO2 equi­va­lent over the life­time of its port­fo­lio by 2035. https://www.aquila-group.com

News

Berlin — capi­ton AG has successfully sold its stake in GRITEC TopCo GmbH (“GRITEC”) to Viess­mann Gene­ra­ti­ons Group (“Viess­mann”). GRITEC is the largest solu­tion provi­der for turn­key tech­no­logy buil­dings and stati­ons for energy, water and indus­trial infra­struc­ture in Germany. The company specia­li­zes in intel­li­gent infra­struc­ture solu­ti­ons and key compon­ents for the trans­for­ma­tion to a decen­tra­li­zed and green energy grid. As a leader in grid infra­struc­ture, GRITEC will play a key role in the green energy tran­si­tion in Europe. GRITEC offers compre­hen­sive solu­ti­ons for the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and provi­sion of ready-to-connect, system-rele­vant infra­struc­ture solu­ti­ons in the form of tech­no­logy buil­dings, trans­for­mer stati­ons and the asso­cia­ted custo­mer services for the utility grid, e‑mobility, tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, rail systems and indus­try sectors. These compon­ents are essen­tial for a nati­on­wide and stable energy supply, espe­ci­ally to meet the chal­lenges of an incre­asingly decen­tra­li­zed grid infra­struc­ture due to the tran­si­tion to rene­wa­ble ener­gies. GRITEC employs 1,300 people at six loca­ti­ons in Germany and the Czech Repu­blic. GRITEC had been a holding of the private equity company capi­ton AG since 2022. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties. In order to achieve climate neutra­lity by 2045, the share of rene­wa­ble ener­gies in Germany must be almost doubled by 2030 and the rate of expan­sion even tripled (source: Bundesregierung.de: “Anteil der erneu­er­ba­ren Ener­gien steigt”; acces­sed on 22.10.2024). As an intel­li­gent all-in-one solu­tion provi­der, GRITEC is ideally posi­tio­ned to provide and smartly inte­grate the neces­sary substa­ti­ons and tech­ni­cal buil­dings. Max Viess­mann, CEO of the Viess­mann Gene­ra­ti­ons Group (Photo © Viess­mann): “GRITEC plays a crucial role in the expan­sion of a nati­on­wide, smart and sustainable energy infra­struc­ture and we look forward to tapping into further growth poten­tial toge­ther. In order to achieve the important Euro­pean climate targets, we support inno­va­tive compa­nies that are commit­ted to scalable solu­ti­ons for redu­cing and saving CO2 emis­si­ons. Toge­ther with GRITEC and our ecosys­tem of medium-sized market leaders, we are taking respon­si­bi­lity to shape living spaces for future generations.” 

Volker Ernst & Thomas Sachers, Mana­ging Direc­tors of the GRITEC Group: “We are deligh­ted to have Viess­mann, a renow­ned and successful majo­rity share­hol­der, at our side, who will provide us with opti­mal support in imple­men­ting our next stra­te­gic and long-term goals. The fact that our corpo­rate cultures and mission state­ments fit toge­ther perfectly gives us great confi­dence in our future path to make an important contri­bu­tion to a sustainable future with our solu­ti­ons.” Thomas Brake, Direc­tor of capi­ton AG: “Toge­ther, we have been able to deve­lop GRITEC into a market leader in the field of energy infra­struc­ture in recent years and create a solid foun­da­tion for future growth. We would like to thank the Co-CEOs Volker Ernst, Thomas Sachers and the entire GRITEC team for this fanta­stic part­ner­ship and excep­tio­nal commit­ment.” Chris­toph Spors, Part­ner at capi­ton AG, adds: “We are deligh­ted to have found the perfect part­ner in Viess­mann to conti­nue GRITEC’s successful growth trajec­tory. We wish GRITEC and its employees all the best for the next chap­ter of the company under new ownership.” 

Consul­tant CAPITON: 

Houli­han Lokey as exclu­si­vely manda­ted M&A advi­sor, Milbank (sell-side coun­sel), honert (manage­ment coun­sel), Deloitte (finan­cial), Boston Consul­ting Group (commer­cial), Flick Gocke Schaum­burg (tax) and ERM (ESG).

About capi­ton AG

capi­ton (www.capiton.com) is an inde­pen­dent private equity fund mana­ger that mana­ges funds with a volume of 1.6 billion euros. Foun­ded in 1984 as an invest­ment company of a large insu­rance group, capi­ton became an inde­pen­dent part­ner­ship in 2004. Curr­ently, capi­ton invests from its latest fund capi­ton VI. capi­ton AG’s invest­ment port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses 19 medium-sized companies. 

About GRITEC Group

As a leading Euro­pean full-service provi­der for system-rele­vant infra­struc­ture solu­ti­ons, GRITEC has been secu­ring supplies in many areas of infra­struc­ture — such as elec­tri­city, gas, water, rene­wa­ble ener­gies, digi­ta­liza­tion, e‑mobility and indus­try — for over 60 years, making it a driver and enabler of the energy and mobi­lity transition.

About Viess­mann Gene­ra­ti­ons Group

Foun­ded in 1917, the inde­pen­dent family busi­ness Viess­mann is today a global, broadly diver­si­fied group. All acti­vi­ties are based on the corpo­rate mission state­ment “We create living spaces for future gene­ra­ti­ons” — this is the passion and respon­si­bi­lity that drives the members of the large global Viess­mann family every day. In line with this goal, Viess­mann offers compa­nies and co-crea­tors an ecosys­tem that goes beyond the heating indus­try and is commit­ted to the avoid­ance, reduc­tion and storage of CO2. 

 

News

Copen­ha­gen — Verdane, a Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, has announ­ced the successful final closing of the Verdane Idun II fund (“Idun II” or “the Fund”) at a hard cap of EUR 700 million. This is more than double the size of its prede­ces­sor fund with a volume of EUR 300 million. The Fund will invest in compa­nies focu­sed on the struc­tu­ral growth trend of decar­bo­niza­tion. The invest­ment focus of Idun II is on inves­t­ing in ambi­tious growth compa­nies that contri­bute to more sustainable social deve­lo­p­ment. Idun II is a fund clas­si­fied under Article 9 of the EU Finan­cial Infor­ma­tion Regu­la­tion, which will focus on invest­ments in the areas of energy tran­si­tion and resource effi­ci­ency that contri­bute to the decar­bo­niza­tion of the economy. The Idun funds each invest between 20 and 100 million euros in sustainable compa­nies. All Idun II invest­ments are linked to strict sustaina­bi­lity crite­ria in order to make their posi­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment measura­ble. This includes, for exam­ple, the goal of avoi­ding at least 5,000 tons of CO2 for every million euros inves­ted. Verdane has offices in Berlin, Copen­ha­gen, Helsinki, London, Munich, Stock­holm and Oslo. To ensure that Idun II only invests in compa­nies that have the poten­tial to be successful in a sustainable econo­mic envi­ron­ment, Verdane applies its own so-called “2040 test”. Further infor­ma­tion on the test can be found in Verdane’s current Sustaina­bi­lity Report 2023. Verdane successfully closed the Edda III mid-market growth buyout fund at the begin­ning of the year with a hard cap of 1.1 billion euros. This brought Verdane’s assets under manage­ment to over 8 billion euros. The third fund stra­tegy, Freya, which has been successful for more than 20 years, curr­ently invests through the Freya XI fund with a sophisti­ca­ted and broadly diver­si­fied mandate that invests in both company port­fo­lios and indi­vi­dual compa­nies. Verdane is a pioneer in sustainable invest­ments and has supported a total of 42 compa­nies in this area since 2003. The invest­ment company has deve­lo­ped a unique approach to measu­ring CO2 avoid­ance (more infor­ma­tion can be found in the corre­spon­ding white paper on Verdane’s home­page) and carries out a compre­hen­sive sustaina­bi­lity assess­ment for all compa­nies in the Idun port­fo­lio. Current invest­ments in the first Idun fund include NORNORM, a provi­der of inno­va­tive office furni­ture rental models that enable compa­nies to reduce their green­house gas emis­si­ons, and Scan­bio, a leading produ­cer of high-quality fish protein concen­tra­tes and oils that specia­li­zes in the recy­cling of resi­dual products and enables compa­nies to reduce the use of resource-inten­sive raw materials. 

Idun II has capi­tal commit­ments from inves­tors inclu­ding Nysnø Climate Invest­ments, the Norwe­gian state climate invest­ment fund, Banque de Luxem­bourg, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund, MN, a provi­der of fidu­ciary services to Dutch pension funds, the Finnish invest­ment company Tesi and Carbon Equity, a provi­der that enables private and profes­sio­nal inves­tors to invest in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of the world’s best climate funds. Other inves­tors in Idun II include seve­ral global private and public pension funds, leading univer­sity funds, foun­da­ti­ons, insu­rance compa­nies and family offices. The fund was closed within just five months. Most of the commit­ments for Idun II come from non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and inves­tors commit­ted to the common good. — Verdane’s inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor base is growing conti­nuously. In total, inves­tors from more than 13 count­ries are parti­ci­pa­ting in Idun II. US inves­tors alone account for 29 percent of the capi­tal commit­ments. Verdane’s thema­tic invest­ment approach focu­ses on leading Euro­pean compa­nies in the fields of digi­ta­liza­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion of the economy. Verdane has consis­t­ently inves­ted in these two growing mega­trends and has backed 16 Euro­pean compa­nies with more than 600 million euros in the last twelve months. Verdane offers growth compa­nies a compre­hen­sive set of tools and in-depth indus­try know­ledge. With a team of more than 150 invest­ment profes­sio­nals and a local presence in the core Euro­pean markets, Verdane has exclu­sive access to the best tech­no­logy compa­nies in the region. In addi­tion, Verdane’s plat­form has a bench­mar­king tool with more than 100 million data points and a unique network of over 600 expe­ri­en­ced execu­ti­ves with exten­sive indus­try exper­tise. Verdane’s port­fo­lio compa­nies are further supported by Elevate, an in-house team of 35 opera­tio­nal experts with exten­sive know­ledge in all areas requi­red to scale growth compa­nies. Frida Einar­son, Part­ner, Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons at Verdane (photo © Verdane), said: “The fact that we have succee­ded in mobi­li­zing private capi­tal at scale in 2024 to build a more sustainable economy is not only good news for our indus­try, but also for our planet. We look forward to welco­ming exis­ting and new inves­tors to Idun II and are confi­dent that we will achieve both high returns and measura­ble and demons­tra­ble posi­tive effects for the climate.” Bjarne Kveim Lie, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Verdane, said: “With Idun II, we want to show that it is possi­ble to deli­ver best-in-class returns for inves­tors while making an important contri­bu­tion to the decar­bo­niza­tion of our economy. We are convin­ced that decar­bo­niza­tion is a gene­ra­tio­nal mega­trend and we want to be the growth part­ner of choice for the compa­nies best posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from this trend and help them realize their full poten­tial.” “Our team of specia­lists in the field of decar­bo­niza­tion now compri­ses 13 experts, making it one of the largest in Europe. 

Supported by our 35-strong Elevate team, they bene­fit from the networks and expe­ri­ence of the entire company, which has helped sustainable Euro­pean growth compa­nies to scale over the past two deca­des. This enables us to further deepen our exper­tise in the struc­tu­ral growth trend of decar­bo­niza­tion and to support our port­fo­lio compa­nies in their growth with a local presence in the key markets of Nort­hern Europe. We are very plea­sed with the great confi­dence of our inves­tors and will do our utmost to meet their high expec­ta­ti­ons.” Verdane Idun II was advi­sed by Rede Part­ners, an inde­pen­dent fund­rai­sing advi­sor to the private equity indus­try, and legally by Andulf Advo­kat AB.

About Verdane

Verdane is an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal that supports compa­nies with sustainable and tech­no­logy-based busi­ness models. Verdane invests as a mino­rity or majo­rity inves­tor in indi­vi­dual compa­nies or company port­fo­lios and focu­ses on two core themes: Digi­ta­liza­tion and decar­bo­niza­tion. Verdane’s funds have capi­tal commit­ments of more than 8 billion euros. Since 2003, the company has inves­ted in over 400 fast-growing compa­nies. Verdane has more than 150 employees, with offices in Berlin, Munich, Copen­ha­gen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and Stock­holm, and is commit­ted to being the best growth capi­tal part­ner in Europe. Verdane has a B‑Corporation certi­fi­ca­tion, which is conside­red the world’s most deman­ding in the area of sustaina­bi­lity. In addi­tion, the invest­ment company only supports compa­nies that pass the 2040 test. This exami­nes whether the company can be successful in a more sustainable econo­mic envi­ron­ment in the future. Verdane is also a share­hol­der in the Verdane Foun­da­tion, which focu­ses on two areas: Climate change and a fairer and inclu­sive society.

News

Miami (USA) — H.I.G. Capi­tal (“ H.I.G. ” or the firm “”), a leading global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment firm with USD 65 billion of capi­tal under manage­ment, announ­ced the closing of H.I.G. Capi­tal Part­ners VII (“ Fund VII ”). Fund VII was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed and closed with USD 2 billion of capi­tal commit­ments and conti­nues the firm’s highly successful stra­tegy of reali­zing majo­rity invest­ments in U.S. middle market compa­nies. Since its incep­tion in 1993, H.I.G.’s private equity plat­form has inves­ted in middle market compa­nies with elements of busi­ness, indus­try or tran­sac­tion comple­xity that repre­sent signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties for asym­me­tric risk/return. The firm is one of the largest and most active inves­tors in the middle markets and invests in a family of private equity funds focu­sed on the US, Europe and Latin America. Sami Mnaym­neh and Tony Tamer, H.I.G. Co-Foun­ders and Co-Execu­tive Chair­men commen­ted: “We have been disci­pli­ned in main­tai­ning our middle market focus and are extre­mely proud of the consis­tent results we have achie­ved for our inves­tors. Fund VII is well posi­tio­ned to deli­ver the same strong perfor­mance as its prede­ces­sor funds, driven by our scale, opera­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties and value crea­tion play­book. ” Ricky Stokes, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of H.I.G. Capi­tal Part­ners USA, said, “Our dedi­ca­ted team of 68 profes­sio­nals is capi­ta­li­zing on oppor­tu­ni­ties in today’s macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment. The current market vola­ti­lity plays to H.I.G.’s strengths in mana­ging complex dyna­mics through market cycles. Our scale and opera­tio­nal exper­tise give our team an advan­tage in captu­ring oppor­tu­ni­ties. Fund VII’s pipe­line is stron­ger than ever.” Jordan Peer Grif­fin, Execu­tive Mana­ging Direc­tor and Global Head of Capi­tal Forma­tion, commen­ted, “Fund VII was signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed by HIG’s exis­ting base of inves­tors who have long been support­ers of the firm and share our commit­ment to the Middle Market. Their support has exten­ded beyond Fund VII as inves­tors actively seek oppor­tu­ni­ties in the more attrac­tive middle market for private alter­na­ti­ves. We are grateful for the conti­nua­tion of our part­ner­ship that enab­led the closing of four H.I.G. funds in 2024, inclu­ding Fund VII, as well as H.I.G. Advan­tage Buyout Fund II, H.I.G. Europe Realty Part­ners III and H.I.G. Infra­struc­ture Part­ners I.” Fund VII was stron­gly supported by a diverse group of limi­ted part­ners, inclu­ding sove­reign wealth funds, public and corpo­rate pensi­ons, insu­rance and finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, endow­ments, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices and consul­tants in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

About H.I.G.

H.I.G. Capi­tal is one of the world’s leading alter­na­tive invest­ment firms with $65 billion of capi­tal under manage­ment.* Head­quar­te­red in Miami with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Ange­les, New York and San Fran­cisco in the U.S. and inter­na­tio­nal offices in Hamburg, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Dubai and Hong Kong, H.I.G. specia­li­zes in provi­ding both debt and equity capi­tal to middle-market compa­nies with a flexi­ble, value-added approach focu­sed on opera­ti­ons: — H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in manage­ment buy-outs, reca­pi­ta­liza­ti­ons and corpo­rate carve-outs of both profi­ta­ble and under­per­forming manu­fac­tu­ring and service compa­nies. — H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitran­che and subor­di­na­ted debt finan­cing for compa­nies of all sizes, both on a primary (direct) basis and in the secon­dary markets. H.I.G. also mana­ges a publicly traded BDC, White­Horse Finance.
— H.I.G.’s real estate funds invest in value-add real estate that can bene­fit from impro­ved asset manage­ment practices.
— H.I.G. Infra­struc­ture focu­ses on value-add and core-plus invest­ments in the infra­struc­ture sector.
Since its incep­tion in 1993, H.I.G. has inves­ted in and mana­ged more than 400 compa­nies world­wide. The firm’s current port­fo­lio compri­ses more than 100 compa­nies with a total turno­ver of over USD 53 billion. www.hig.com.

News

Vienna (ÖS)/ Munich — The Linz-based steel and proces­sing group Voest­al­pine has sold its strugg­ling German subsi­diary Bude­rus Edel­stahl to the Munich-based finan­cial inves­tor Muta­res. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. Muta­res specia­li­zes in restruc­tu­ring cases. The sale is subject to appr­oval by the compe­ti­tion autho­ri­ties. — The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the 4th calen­dar quar­ter of 2024. Foun­ded in 1731, Bude­rus Edel­stahl GmbH (“Bude­rus”) is a manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality special steels with a focus on tool steel, engi­nee­ring steel, open-die forgings, closed-die forgings, hot-rolled strip, cold-rolled strip and semi-finis­hed rolled products, which it supplies to a wide range of custo­mers world­wide. Bude­rus is a market leader in the tool steel and engi­nee­ring steel segments and is known for its high-quality products. The company’s diver­si­fied custo­mer port­fo­lio with around 350 active custo­mers is spread across various sectors and end markets, such as light vehic­les, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, the truck indus­try and wind power. With around 1,100 employees, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around EUR 360 million in the 2023/2024 finan­cial year. Bude­rus has a highly indus­tria­li­zed produc­tion site in Wetz­lar with a maxi­mum annual proces­sing capa­city of around 360 kilo­tons. The company curr­ently employs 1,130 people. 

Johan­nes Laumann, CIO of Muta­res (photo © Muta­res), commen­ted: “With the acqui­si­tion of Bude­rus Edel­stahl, we are further streng­thening our Engi­nee­ring & Tech­no­logy segment in the area of steel compon­ents and secu­ring our own steel base. Thanks to our exis­ting product range and broad custo­mer struc­ture, Bude­rus Edel­stahl will also bene­fit in the future, redu­cing its depen­dence on indi­vi­dual market risks and thus posi­tio­ning itself more broadly for future growth within the Muta­res Group. In line with the current situa­tion at Bude­rus Edel­stahl, we will nego­tiate an appro­priate redun­dancy plan with the employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves in the event of a possi­ble need to reduce the number of employees affec­ted. In order to opti­mize manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses and further stream­line the cost struc­ture, we look forward to lever­aging the exper­tise of our in-house consul­tants in opti­mi­zing manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses by imple­men­ting best prac­ti­ces from our port­fo­lio compa­nies.” Bude­rus Edel­stahl is Muta­res’ four­te­enth acqui­si­tion in 2024. Listed voest­al­pine AG is a leading global steel and tech­no­logy group with combi­ned mate­ri­als and proces­sing exper­tise. The globally active group of compa­nies compri­ses around 500 Group compa­nies and sites with 51,600 employees in more than 50 count­ries. In the finan­cial year 2023/24, the Group gene­ra­ted reve­nue of EUR 16.7 billion. 

Advi­sor to voest­al­pine AG: Gleiss Lutz 

Led by Dr. Alex­an­der Schwarz (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf) and Dr. Moritz Alex­an­der Riese­ner (Part­ner, both M&A, Munich). Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Munich), Kai Zimutta, Dr. Fabian Mumme, Dr. Phil­ipp Lucks, Thomas Felix Bald­zuhn (all Düssel­dorf), Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel), Jan Neumayer (all M&A, both Munich), Dr. Thomas Winzer (Part­ner), Dr. Tobias Abend (Coun­sel), Henrike West­phal (all Employ­ment, all Frank­furt), Dr. Gabriele Roßkopf (Part­ner), Dr. Silke Hoff­mann, Dr. Sima Samari (all Corpo­rate, all Stutt­gart), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Dr. Lars Kind­ler (Coun­sel), Matthias Hahn, Dr. Nena Huse­mann (all Public Law, all Düssel­dorf), Dr. Matthias Werner (Part­ner), Dr. Feli­zi­tas Casper, Dr. Sebas­tian Girschick (all Munich), Dr. Chris­to­pher Noll (all IP/Tech, Stutt­gart), Dr. Tim Weber (Part­ner), Maxi­mi­lian Leisen­hei­mer, Michael Clever, (all Real Estate, all Frank­furt), Dr. Jenni­fer Hattaß (Anti­trust, Stutt­gart), Fried­rich Schlott (Coun­sel, Restruc­tu­ring, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ocka Stumm (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Dr. Hanna Datzer (Düssel­dorf, both Tax). In-house, a voest­al­pine legal team led by Dr. Sabine Kelmayr-Tippow (Head of Legal, M&A and Compli­ance, voest­al­pine High Perfor­mance Metals) with the signi­fi­cant parti­ci­pa­tion of Chris­toph Hauser, Tamara Tomic and Victo­ria Raneg­ger assis­ted with the
transaction.

About Mutare

Muta­res is an inter­na­tio­nal private equity inves­tor focu­sed on special situa­tions. Muta­res concen­tra­tes on the acqui­si­tion of parts of large corpo­ra­ti­ons (carve-outs) and compa­nies in situa­tions of tran­si­tion. The aim is to leverage the deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial of the gene­rally low-earning target compa­nies as part of an active turn­around process and to lead them on a stable and profi­ta­ble growth path. To this end, the Muta­res team — from manage­ment to opera­tio­nal teams — has exten­sive opera­tio­nal indus­try and restruc­tu­ring expe­ri­ence from a large number of successful tran­sac­tions. Muta­res focu­ses on compa­nies with high deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial that alre­ady have an estab­lished busi­ness model — often combi­ned with a strong brand. The focus is on compa­nies with reve­nues of EUR 100 million to EUR 750 million. https://mutares.com

News

Heidelberg/ Munich — pare­tos, an AI (arti­fi­cial intelligence)-based decis­ion intel­li­gence startup from Heidel­berg, has secu­red 8.5 million euros in a Series A finan­cing round. The round is led by Acton Capi­tal, known for its invest­ments in compa­nies such as Etsy, Cyber­port and Home­ToGo. The exis­ting inves­tors UVC Part­ners and LEA Part­ners are also parti­ci­pa­ting. In addi­tion, well-known funds and angels such as Inter­face Capi­tal, led by Niklas Jansen (Blin­kist) and Chris­tian Reber (Wunder­list, Pitch), as well as the former Voda­fone CEO Hannes Amets­rei­ter are also provi­ding support. 

With the fresh capi­tal, pare­tos foun­ders Thors­ten Heilig and Fabian Rangplan to acce­le­rate growth: “Our plat­form usually deli­vers an ROI of over 100% in the first year and gene­ra­tes busi­ness impact in the milli­ons. With the support of our inves­tors, we want to further expand our tech­no­lo­gi­cal lead,” says Thors­ten Heilig, Co-Foun­der and CEO of pare­tos. “Many compa­nies in Germany and Europe are curr­ently under pres­sure. We provide them with a tool to over­come the pres­sing chal­lenges — from chan­ging custo­mer requi­re­ments and complex supply chains to cost and effi­ci­ency pres­su­res.” The global market for decis­ion intel­li­gence is expec­ted to grow by 25% annu­ally until 2030 and quadru­ple to 50 billion euros (source: Marketsand­Mar­kets). Decis­ion intel­li­gence descri­bes the use of AI to support, opti­mize or even auto­mate complex decis­i­ons based on data. In addi­tion to fore­casts, the aim is to derive recom­men­da­ti­ons for action and measu­res — espe­ci­ally in dyna­mic plan­ning and opera­ti­ons proces­ses. This is why many experts see this tech­no­logy as simi­larly rele­vant to gene­ra­tive AI. “With its paten­ted and highly inno­va­tive tech­no­logy and strong appli­ca­tion focus, pare­tos has the best chance of taking on an inter­na­tio­nal pionee­ring role,” says Andreas Unseld, Gene­ral Part­ner at UVC Part­ners. And Nils Seele, Part­ner at LEA Part­ners, adds: “Now that AI has been concep­tua­li­zed, it’s time for the trans­for­ma­tion. Anyone looking for ROIs in AI appli­ca­ti­ons will find them at pare­tos.” The inter­na­tio­nal market rese­arch insti­tute Gart­ner has singled out pare­tos as one of nine repre­sen­ta­tive Euro­pean decis­ion intel­li­gence provi­ders (out of 30 world­wide). The AI-based plat­form from pare­tos is alre­ady support­ing market leaders such as HelloFresh, the Otto Group, Faller Pack­a­ging, ARMEDANGELS and EDEKA with decis­ion-making in busi­ness-criti­cal proces­ses. About pare­tos

pare­tos is the leading AI-based decis­ion intel­li­gence plat­form for data-driven decis­ion-making proces­ses. It enables compa­nies to quickly and relia­bly analyze complex data, gene­rate opti­mi­zed fore­casts and decis­ion propo­sals and derive measu­res — thanks to a clear no-code user inter­face and simple inte­gra­tion solu­ti­ons, even without any previous data science know­ledge. pare­tos was foun­ded in mid-2020 by Fabian Rang (CTO; machine lear­ning and mathe­ma­tics expert) and Thors­ten Heilig (CEO; digi­tal entre­pre­neur, former COO moovel / REACH NOW). The vision: Anyone can make good decis­i­ons at any time. Using the latest deep lear­ning and machine lear­ning methods, the Heidel­berg-based start-up helps compa­nies to make the most of their busi­ness poten­tial. https://paretos.com About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is an early-stage venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Berlin that invests in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, deep tech, climate tech and mobi­lity. With more than €600 million in assets under manage­ment, the fund typi­cally invests between €1 million and €10 million initi­ally and up to €30 million in total per company. 

UVC Part­ners’ invest­ments include Flix, Isar Aero­space, planqc, Proxima Fusion, Reverion, Tacto, TWAICE, Deep­Drive and STABL. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence as well as from the close colla­bo­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading center for inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship, in parti­cu­lar to acce­le­rate market entry. www.uvcpartners.com

About Acton Capital

Acton Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Vancou­ver. Since 1999, the team has been inves­t­ing in tech­no­logy-based busi­ness models from Europe and North America. With more than two deca­des of expe­ri­ence and a deep under­stan­ding of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, Acton­Ca­pi­tal has helped over 100 start­ups build successful busi­nesses, inclu­ding global market leaders such as Alpha­Sights, Clio, Home­ToGo and Mambu. www.actoncapital.com.

About LEA Partners

LEA Part­ners supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams of B2B tech compa­nies at various stages of deve­lo­p­ment as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner and helps them to grow and achieve a leading market posi­tion. In addi­tion to deep-tech invest­ments such as Aleph Alpha or SmartS­teel Tech­no­lo­gies, market leaders such as sevDesk and Flip are also part of the LEAVC port­fo­lio. www.leapartners.de.

 

News

Munich/ Batten­berg (Eder) — Viess­mann Gene­ra­ti­ons Group (“Viess­mann”), a leading family-owned company with a 107-year history, and the invest­ment holding Armira have acqui­red a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in the Euro­pean phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer PharOS as part of a consor­tium. The invest­ment under­lines Viessmann’s stra­te­gic focus on long-term value crea­tion in indus­tries that are criti­cal to the well-being of future gene­ra­ti­ons. PharOS ensu­res access to high-quality and afforda­ble health­care in Europe. The Viess­mann holding company now holds around 27 percent of the shares in the gene­rics manu­fac­tu­rer, with Armira holding a further 13 percent. PharOS is a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal company that deve­lops, produ­ces and supplies gene­rics, over-the-coun­ter medi­ci­nes and value-added medi­ci­nes. The company, based in Meta­mor­fosi near Athens, specia­li­zes in parti­cu­lar in diffi­cult-to-produce gene­rics in criti­cal treat­ment areas. These include onco­logy and drugs for neuro­lo­gi­cal and cardio­me­ta­bo­lic dise­a­ses. With Euro­pean produc­tion capa­ci­ties and stable supply chains, PharOS is a stra­te­gic part­ner for leading phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies. The company has a global port­fo­lio of over 100 products and more than 9,200 marke­ting autho­riza­ti­ons. Drug shorta­ges are reaching histo­ric highs in the US, Europe and other markets due to a heavy reli­ance on phar­maceu­ti­cal products manu­fac­tu­red in Asia. This depen­dence leads to fragile supply chains, which are further strai­ned by geopo­li­ti­cal tensi­ons and regu­la­tory chal­lenges. Local produc­tion is ther­e­fore of crucial stra­te­gic importance for Europe. Max Viess­mann, CEO of Viess­mann: “Our entre­pre­neu­rial acti­vi­ties are aimed at stra­te­gi­cally promo­ting essen­tial areas that are crucial for the well-being of future gene­ra­ti­ons. Gene­rics are the foun­da­tion of afforda­ble global health­care. With our invest­ment in PharOS, we want to contri­bute to a stable, inde­pen­dent and resi­li­ent Euro­pean supply of afforda­ble and effec­tive thera­pies for life-threa­tening diseases.” 


Theo­dore Panag­o­pou­los, Part­ner at PharOS: “We are deligh­ted to have Viess­mann and Armira as new part­ners. Their long-term commit­ment to high-quality, afforda­ble and effec­tive health­care solu­ti­ons fits perfectly with our own mission. Toge­ther, we are ideally posi­tio­ned to further improve health­care world­wide.” PharOS is extre­mely well posi­tio­ned to play a leading role in the multi-billion dollar market for oral solid gene­rics, over-the-coun­ter medi­ci­nes and value-added medi­ci­nes. With a strong focus on inno­va­tion and rese­arch, the company offers an end-to-end solu­tion for complex products — from patent rese­arch to dossier deve­lo­p­ment, appr­oval and produc­tion. In this way, PharOS crea­tes added value for its custo­mers by proac­tively contri­bu­ting to the further deve­lo­p­ment of their product pipe­line. PharOS employs around 400 people and is led by an expe­ri­en­ced and dedi­ca­ted foun­ding team, which remains the majo­rity shareholder.

About Viess­mann Gene­ra­ti­ons Group

Foun­ded in 1917, the inde­pen­dent family-owned company Viess­mann is now a global, broadly diver­si­fied group. All acti­vi­ties are based on the corpo­rate mission state­ment “We create living spaces for future gene­ra­ti­ons” — this is the passion and respon­si­bi­lity that drives the members of the large global Viess­mann family every day. In line with this goal, Viess­mann offers compa­nies and co-crea­tors an ecosys­tem that is commit­ted to avoi­ding, redu­cing and storing CO2 beyond the heating industry.

About Armira

Armira is a leading Munich-based invest­ment holding company focu­sed on direct invest­ments in mid-sized, profi­ta­ble family busi­nesses and high-growth compa­nies in the DACH region, Nort­hern Italy and beyond. Armira is backed by an exclu­sive circle of inves­tors consis­ting of fami­lies, entre­pre­neurs and entre­pre­neu­rial capi­tal to foster trus­ted part­ner­ships with a long-term focus. 

About PharOS

PharOS is a phar­maceu­ti­cal company specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and supply of gene­rics and value-added medi­ci­nes. With a global port­fo­lio of over 100 products and more than 9,200 marke­ting autho­riza­ti­ons world­wide, PharOS is an important part­ner for the leading phar­maceu­ti­cal companies. 

Advi­sor Armira: YPOG 

Dr. Stephan Bank (Co-Lead, Corporate/Structuring), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Co-Lead, Tax/Structuring), Part­ner, Berlin Jens Kretz­schmann (Tax/Structuring), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg.

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. www.ypog.law

News

Berlin — YPOG has advi­sed global arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company Aigno­stics on its recent $34 million Series B funding round. The round was led by ATHOS, with invest­ments from Mayo Clinic and growth funding from HTGF. Aigno­stics also recei­ved support from exis­ting inves­tors inclu­ding Welling­ton Part­ners, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund, CARMA Fund and the VC Fund Tech­no­logy mana­ged by IBB Ventures. To date, Aigno­stics has raised over $55 million, demons­t­ra­ting inves­tor confi­dence in the company’s unique AI models and well-defi­ned commer­cial stra­tegy. Aigno­stics was foun­ded in 2018 and emer­ged in 2020 as a spin-off from Charité and the Berlin Insti­tute of Health. The AI company trans­forms complex multi­mo­dal patho­lo­gi­cal data into valuable insights. Follo­wing the closing of the latest funding round, Aigno­stics plans to deve­lop new product offe­rings for biophar­maceu­ti­cal custo­mers, drive growth in the US and deve­lop advan­ced basic models for patho­logy in colla­bo­ra­tion with the Mayo Clinic. The new funding will streng­then Aigno­stics’ capa­bi­li­ties in target funding, trans­la­tio­nal rese­arch and compa­n­ion diagno­stics (CDx) and support various stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves. “2024 was a pivo­tal year for us, which included an important stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with Bayer and the launch of our first basic model, RudolfV,” said Viktor Matyas, CEO and co-foun­der of Aigno­stics. “With Rudolf, we have gained the ability to rapidly deve­lop cost-effec­tive algo­rithms that can be trans­fer­red to the real world. With this new round of funding, we are turning our most popu­lar algo­rithms into products that will help usher in an era of truly gene­ra­lizable AI for compu­ta­tio­nal patho­logy.” About Aigno­stics

Aigno­stics is an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) company that turns complex multi­mo­dal patho­logy data into trans­for­ma­tive insights. By combi­ning proprie­tary access to multi­mo­da­lity clini­cal data, indus­try-leading tech­no­lo­gies and rigo­rous science, Aigno­stics deve­lops world-class products and services for the next gene­ra­tion of precis­ion medi­cine. Through colla­bo­ra­tion with its biopharma part­ners, Aigno­stics supports drug disco­very, trans­la­tio­nal rese­arch, clini­cal trials and CDx deve­lo­p­ment. Foun­ded in 2018, Aigno­stics is a spin-off of Charité Berlin, one of the largest and most renow­ned univer­sity hospi­tals in the world. Aigno­stics is funded by leading inves­tors and has offices in Berlin and New York. www.aignostics.com.

Advi­sor Aigno­stics: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin, Anja Schind­ler (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin, Bene­dikt Kreu­der (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin, Dr. Jacob Schrei­ber (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Munich About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list law firm for tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients.

These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 150 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in four offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. www.ypog.de

News

Munich — LOGEX Health­care Analy­tics has acqui­red InMed Gmbh, Ange­wandte Infor­ma­tik für medi­zi­ni­sches Control­ling based in Hamburg and its sister company in Switz­er­land. The commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed LOGEX Health­care Analy­tics on these tran­sac­tions. LOGEX is a Euro­pean market leader in the field of health­care data analy­tics with head­quar­ters in Amster­dam. LOGEX offers its data-based SAAS solu­ti­ons and analy­tics prima­rily to hospi­tals in the areas of finan­cial analy­tics, opera­ting room perfor­mance assess­ment, pati­ent enga­ge­ment and real-world data. INMED is a leading company in Germany and Switz­er­land specia­li­zing in the opti­miza­tion of clini­cal manage­ment. INMED uses its SMART­lize! plat­form to provide hospi­tal manage­ment with stra­te­gic insights to improve clini­cal perfor­mance through medi­cal control­ling, stra­te­gic plan­ning and market posi­tion analy­sis. The insights are supported and linked by a compre­hen­sive bench­mark platform. 

Legal advi­sors LOGEX: 

Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz, LL.M. (LSE) (Photo, Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Thomas Becker, LL.M. Eur. (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion) Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Part­ner), Anne Broll (Coun­sel; both Employ­ment Law)

Kind & Drews, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Ernesto Drews (Part­ner, Tax Law)

Adves­tra, Zurich: Dr. Alex­an­der von Jein­sen (Part­ner), Anna Capaul, Beau Visser (both Asso­cia­tes; all Corporate/M&A) About Gütt Olk Feld­haus:
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich.

We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Frankfurt/ Bamberg — Rivean Capi­tal, a leading Euro­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Perbi­lity Holding GmbH, a leading provi­der of cloud-based human capi­tal manage­ment (HCM) soft­ware in Germany. The tran­sac­tion marks another signi­fi­cant plat­form invest­ment by Rivean Capi­tal in the tech­no­logy and soft­ware sector. Toge­ther with Perbility’s manage­ment team, Rivean Capi­tal will acquire the shares from the previous majo­rity share­hol­der Main Capi­tal Partners. 

Perbi­lity offers a compre­hen­sive range of HCM solu­ti­ons that cover the entire employee life­cy­cle from talent acqui­si­tion to talent manage­ment and orga­niza­tio­nal plan­ning. The company will achieve a turno­ver of EUR 29 million this year and also exceed the “Rule of 50”. Its more than 1,500 custo­mers include well-known compa­nies and orga­niza­ti­ons from the (semi-)public sector, inclu­ding nume­rous Volks­ban­ken and Raiff­ei­sen­ban­ken, savings banks, cities, public autho­ri­ties, foun­da­ti­ons and compa­nies from the B2B sector. Head­quar­te­red in Bamberg, Perbi­lity employs around 160 full-time staff in six offices in Germany and a near­sho­ring center in Turkey. 

“Toge­ther with Main Capi­tal Part­ners, Perbi­lity has demons­tra­ted an impres­sive growth trajec­tory, supported by stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves and a track record of M&A success. As the next stra­te­gic part­ner, Rivean Capi­tal will support Perbi­lity with exper­tise and further invest­ments to conti­nue its clear growth stra­tegy. Toge­ther we will streng­then Perbility’s market posi­tion in the German-spea­king region and expand its service offe­ring through further stra­te­gic add-on acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Matthias Wilcken, Senior Part­ner at Rivean Capital.

Andreas Meck, CEO of Perbi­lity, will remain in his role and signi­fi­cantly reinvest in the company. In addi­tion, the expan­ded manage­ment team will parti­ci­pate in the future deve­lo­p­ment of Perbility. 

“We are deligh­ted to have a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner like Rivean Capi­tal at our side, who will support us with capi­tal and stra­te­gic exper­tise to achieve our growth targets. With this part­ner­ship, we are ideally posi­tio­ned to further expand our market posi­tion and acquire new custo­mers,” says Andreas Meck, CEO of Perbi­lity.

Growth and further expan­sion planned

The part­ner­ship with Rivean Capi­tal will enable Perbi­lity to further expand the HELIX plat­form and offer new modu­les and features to its exis­ting custo­mer base. Under Rivean Capital’s owner­ship, Perbi­lity plans to streng­then its orga­niza­tio­nal capa­bi­li­ties and further expand its sales team, which will enable the company to extend its reach in the (semi-)public and B2B markets and drive geogra­phic expan­sion in the DACH region — also through addi­tio­nal stra­te­gic add-on acquisitions. 

About Rivean Capital

Rivean Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor specia­li­zing in mid-market tran­sac­tions in the German-spea­king region, the Bene­lux count­ries and Italy. The funds advi­sed by Rivean Capi­tal manage assets of over 5 billion euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1982, Rivean Capi­tal has helped more than 250 compa­nies realize their growth ambi­ti­ons. The firm has an impres­sive track record of support­ing and scaling successful high-tech compa­nies with cross-border growth plans, inclu­ding expan­ding their market presence and opti­mi­zing opera­tio­nal excel­lence. Rivean Capi­tal is head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam and opera­tes addi­tio­nal offices in Brussels, Frank­furt am Main, Milan and Zug, provi­ding a strong local presence in key Euro­pean markets. 

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH, Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately €6 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve profi­ta­ble growth and larger outstan­ding soft­ware groups. Main employs 75 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and a branch in Boston. 

News

Munich — Verdane, an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in the soft­ware company Crops­ter. Verdane will support Crops­ter on its further growth path. Crops­ter offers soft­ware solu­ti­ons for use throug­hout the coffee value chain, from produ­cers, buyers and roas­ters to whole­sa­lers and retail­ers. Since the company was foun­ded in 2008, Crops­ter has steadily expan­ded its global presence and now works with leading coffee compa­nies in over 100 count­ries. Verdane’s funds have capi­tal commit­ments of more than 7.7 billion euros. Since 2003, the company with offices in Berlin, Munich, Copen­ha­gen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and Stock­holm has inves­ted in over 400 fast-growing compa­nies. The invest­ment in Crops­ter is the eleventh in the DACH region in the last 12 months and the fourth tran­sac­tion in Austria. Advi­sor Verdane: McDer­mott Will & Emery Hanno M. Witt, LL.M., Foto (Private Equity, Munich, lead), John Zukin (Private Equity, Chicago), Dr. Florian Schie­fer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax, Frank­furt), Raminta Deres­ke­vici­ute (Inter­na­tio­nal Trade, London), Nico­lette Kost De Sèvres (Regu­la­tory, Paris/Washington, DC), Amy C. Pimen­tel (Data Protec­tion, Boston), Dr. Felix Ganzer (Private Equity, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Nicole Kaps, Marion Dalvai-König (both Private Equity, Munich), Elea­nor B. Atkins (IP, Washing­ton, DC), Michal Chaj­du­kow­ski (Inter­na­tio­nal Trade, London), Erin Kansy (Tran­sac­tional, Los Ange­les), Stavroula Niko­lai­dou (Regu­la­tory, Paris), Riley O’Far­rell (Tran­sac­tional, Chicago), Melis Solak­sub­asi (Employ­ment, Chicago). 

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

 

 

News

Paris — Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy and AG Solu­tion Group have joined forces with the support of Euro­pean private equity firm Water­land Private Equity. This stra­te­gic part­ner­ship between the two compa­nies specia­li­zing in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of indus­try will enable the crea­tion of a leading Euro­pean IT service provi­der (ESN) to support its indus­trial custo­mers in their Indus­try 4.0 chal­lenges. Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy was foun­ded in 2005 in Lyon by Stéphane Lusoli and today has exten­sive know­ledge in the inte­gra­tion of MES/MOM/PLM soft­ware. This exper­tise enables the company to support inter­na­tio­nal indus­trial groups in the luxury, auto­mo­tive and energy sectors in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion to Indus­try 4.0. Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy is present in six Euro­pean count­ries (France, Switz­er­land, United King­dom, Portu­gal, Sweden, Poland) and is now the largest service provi­der for Dassault Systè­mes’ DELMIA APRISO soft­ware in Europe in terms of the number of consul­tants. The company has expe­ri­en­ced strong growth in recent years. AG Solu­tion was foun­ded in Antwerp in 2007 by Eric Billi­ard and Guy D’haese and brings its exper­tise in auto­ma­tion systems, process control, data manage­ment, opera­tio­nal intel­li­gence, MES/MOM solu­ti­ons, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, IT infra­struc­tures and OT secu­rity to indus­tries such as phar­maceu­ti­cals, chemi­cals, food and beverage and waste-to-energy. The company has 13 loca­ti­ons, eleven of which are in Europe (Belgium, Spain, France, the Nether­lands, Germany, Ukraine, Portu­gal) and two in the USA (New York, Hous­ton). As part of this Euro­pean part­ner­ship, the two compa­nies, opera­ting toge­ther under the name SAPHIR, are reaf­fir­ming their goal of beco­ming a leader in Indus­try 4.0 by 2030. The newly foun­ded group intends to acce­le­rate its inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and also grow inor­ga­ni­cally. “Six months after Waterland’s entry, we have reached an important first mile­stone in our ambi­tion to become a Euro­pean market leader in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of indus­try. Toge­ther, Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy and AG Solu­tion have a powerful team of over 400 engi­neers and consul­tants. By provi­ding our custo­mers with high-quality know­ledge, advice and services, toge­ther we will meet the incre­asingly complex requi­re­ments of Indus­try 4.0,” explains Stéphane Lusoli, CEO of Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy. “Follo­wing the success of our manage­ment buy-out two years ago, this colla­bo­ra­tion with Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy is a decisive step towards reali­zing our Vision 2030 and will enable us to offer our indus­trial custo­mers an even broa­der range of value-adding services in the MOM sector. We will also add auto­ma­tion, opera­tio­nal intel­li­gence and MES/MOM for cyber­se­cu­rity solu­ti­ons to Sofyne Active Technology’s offe­ring,” says Eric Billi­ard, CEO of AG Solu­tion.

“We are convin­ced of the stra­te­gic importance of this part­ner­ship. That is why we are commit­ted to support­ing Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy and AG Solu­tion throug­hout this trans­for­ma­tive project. This merger will bring real added value to both compa­nies’ clients, new service offe­rings and grea­ter exper­tise to meet the chal­lenges of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” commen­ted Louis Huetz, Part­ner, and Pierre Naftal­ski, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Water­land.

Consul­tant Waterland/SAPHIR:

Legal advice: Argo (Henri Nelen, Thomas Van Hoor­nyck, Lena Pepa), AVA Law (Nico­las Valluet, Emeline Pilon), McDer­mott & Emery (Herschel Guez, Julien-Pierre Tannoury, Grégo­ire Andrieux), Mayer Brown (Patrick Teboul, Marion Minard, Antoine Buis­son), Levine Keszler (Serge Levine, Rebecca Zbili), Chevez, Ewin Coe (Alex­andre Terrasse) Finan­cing advice: Eight­Ad­vi­sory (Pieter Wygaerts, Gijs Kriger) Finan­cial due dili­gence: Eight­Ad­vi­sory (Chris­tian Van Craey­velt, Bram de Roo) Commer­cial due dili­gence: Roland Berger (Marie Lê de Narp, Dimi­tri Pierre-Justin) Finan­cing: AccessFi (Julien Pilet)

Consul­tant AG Solution:

Legal advice: Cottyn (Jan Vanders­nickt, Frede­rik Renders), Moore About Sofyne Active Technology

Foun­ded in 2005 in Lyon and specia­li­zing in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion for indus­try, Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy has estab­lished a presence throug­hout Europe (France, Switz­er­land, UK, Portu­gal, Sweden, Poland). Sofyne Active Tech­no­logy offers a wide range of services to support leading indus­trial compa­nies in various sectors (luxury, auto­mo­tive, energy, etc.) in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion towards Indus­try 4.0. The company is parti­cu­larly sought after for its exper­tise in the inte­gra­tion of indus­trial data manage­ment systems. About AG Solution

AG Solu­tion, foun­ded in 2007, specia­li­zes in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion for indus­try in Europe and the USA (Belgium, Spain, France, Nether­lands, Germany, Ukraine, Portu­gal, USA). AG Solu­tion has a broad custo­mer base in the food and beverage, phar­maceu­ti­cal, energy, chemi­cal indus­tries, among others, and has reco­gni­zed exper­tise in auto­ma­tion systems, process control, data manage­ment, opera­tio­nal intel­li­gence, AI, MES/MOM solu­ti­ons, IT infra­struc­ture and cyber­se­cu­rity. AG Solu­tion supports custo­mers as a stra­te­gic part­ner in the defi­ni­tion of opera­tio­nal envi­ron­ments, project plan­ning and the inte­gra­tion of state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies to achieve sustainable added value and measura­ble results.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment company that supports compa­nies in reali­zing their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Norway (Oslo), Spain (Barce­lona) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, appro­xi­m­ately 14 billion euros in equity funds are under manage­ment. Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The company ranks fourth globally in the HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Ranking (Janu­ary 2023) and seventh among global private equity compa­nies in the Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report 2022.

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Eura­zeo Global Inves­tor as sole lender on the finan­cing of an acqui­si­tion of shares in the manage­ment consul­tancy UNITY AG by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG). DBAG is acqui­ring a control­ling stake in UNITY AG through a fund advi­sed by it. The previous share­hol­der, UNITY Inno­va­tion Alli­ance, acqui­res an almost equal stake. In addi­tion, UNITY AG employees are inves­t­ing directly in the company as part of the tran­sac­tion. The stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with DBAG will enable UNITY to make future acqui­si­ti­ons and M&A tran­sac­tions. UNITY Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft für Unter­neh­mens­füh­rung und Infor­ma­ti­ons­tech­no­lo­gie specia­li­zes in tech­no­logy consul­ting and digi­ta­liza­tion proces­ses. Around 400 consul­tants at 14 loca­ti­ons gene­ra­ted a total output of more than 72 million euros in 2023. The listed DBAG, based in Frank­furt am Main, tradi­tio­nally invests in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. Eura­zeo, which is listed on Euron­ext Paris, is a global invest­ment company focu­sed on SMEs with assets under manage­ment of over EUR 35 billion inves­ted in more than 600 companies.

About DBAG

We invest in promi­sing compa­nies with a proven and scalable busi­ness model in the DACH region. Deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties can result, for exam­ple, from streng­thening the stra­te­gic posi­tio­ning — for exam­ple through a broa­der product range or regio­nal expan­sion. Deve­lo­p­ment stra­te­gies often also include company acqui­si­ti­ons that acce­le­rate the trans­for­ma­tion of compa­nies or drive conso­li­da­tion in an indus­try. — Our focus is on invest­ments in compa­nies with an enter­prise value of between 50 and 250 million euros. Howe­ver, the struc­ture of our funds also allows us to struc­ture invest­ments with a company value of up to 400 million euros.
https://www.dbag.de Advi­sor Eura­zeo: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich Ludwig Zesch, Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (both Finance, both lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Meyer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Tim Becker, Romy Lanz (Düssel­dorf; both Finance); Eva Kanela (Tran­sac­tion Lawyer) 

About EURAZEO

Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment group mana­ging diver­si­fied assets of around €35 billion, inclu­ding €25 billion for insti­tu­tio­nal and private clients in the private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture sectors.
The Group supports around 600 compa­nies, rely­ing on the commit­ment of its 400+ employees, its indus­try exper­tise, its privi­le­ged access to global markets through 13 offices in Europe, Asia and the United States, and its respon­si­ble, growth-based approach to value crea­tion. https://www.eurazeo.com

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Frank­furt a.M. / India — Gibson Dunn has advi­sed seve­ral lenders of Heubach Group in connec­tion with its sale to Sudar­shan. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons, subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

The Heubach Group, based in Langels­heim and foun­ded in 1806, is an inter­na­tio­nal pigment manu­fac­tu­rer with 19 loca­ti­ons in Europe and America and around 3000 employees.

Sudar­shan Chemi­cal Indus­tries Limi­ted, foun­ded in 1952 and head­quar­te­red in Maha­rash­tra, India, is a leading color solu­ti­ons provi­der with a strong global reach of over 85 count­ries in the produc­tion of high perfor­mance colo­rants, an exten­sive range of orga­nic, inor­ga­nic and pearle­s­cent pigments and disper­si­ons. SCIL’s product offe­ring also includes clas­sic azo pigments, high perfor­mance pigments, effect pigments and pigment disper­si­ons. SCIL has manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties in Roha and Mahad in India. SCIL opera­tes under 16 brands and has a dome­stic market share of 35% in its product category. 

Gibson Dunn’s M&A team, led by Frank­furt part­ners Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht and Dr. Jan Schu­bert, included coun­sel Dr. Aliresa Fatemi, as well as asso­cia­tes Vladi­mir Koncha­kov and Lisa Holl­fel­der (all Frank­furt). Part­ner Dr. Georg Weiden­bach and Asso­ciate Dr. Andreas Mild­ner (both Frank­furt) advi­sed on anti­trust law, Part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Frank­furt and Munich) and Asso­ciate Daniel Reich (Frank­furt) advi­sed on tax law aspects. 

Part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon and asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters (both Frank­furt) advi­sed on finan­cing and restruc­tu­ring, supported by part­ner Lisa Stevens (London), coun­sel Ryan Sear­fo­orce (Hous­ton) and asso­cia­tes Peter Madden (Singa­pore), Jason Zhu, Abi Yussuf (both London), Tommy Schef­fer (New York) and Iris Hill Crab­tree (Hous­ton).

Advi­sors to the insol­vency admi­nis­tra­tor of the Heubach Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düssel­dorf Dr. Matthias Kamp­s­hoff (lead), Dr. Marc Ober­hardt, Dr. Björn Biehl (Munich; all restructuring/distressed M&A), Carina Kant (anti­trust law, Düsseldorf/Cologne), Dr. Sandra Urban-Crell (employ­ment law), Dr. Pierre-André Brand (real estate law, Düsseldorf/Munich), Steitz Woitz, LL. Sandra Urban-Crell (employ­ment law), Dr. Pierre-André Brandt (real estate law, Düsseldorf/Munich), Stef­fen Woitz, LL.M. (IP/IT, Munich), Dr. Florian Schie­fer (tax law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Tjark Pogoda (restructuring/distressed M&A), Lea Hauser (anti­trust law, Cologne)

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 1,900 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.

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Paris (Fr) ‑Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners, the buyout fund specia­li­zing in finan­cial services, announ­ces the final closing of its €1.8 billion Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund IV. The new fund bene­fits from strong demand from insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in Europe (45%), the US (45%) and Asia (10%) and signi­fi­cantly exceeds its initial target of €1.5 billion. The funds raised are 80% higher than those of the most recently laun­ched Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund III. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the Dutch Central Bank and the Dutch Finan­cial Markets Autho­rity. This means that the private equity company has an 80% higher invest­ment volume in this fund than in its prede­ces­sor, Black­Fin Finan­cial Services Fund III, which closed at EUR 985 million. The fund was backed by exis­ting Black­Fin inves­tors with a 100% re-invest­ment from exis­ting inves­tors and 25 new inves­tors. Black­Fin has a global base of inves­tors with very diverse profiles, inclu­ding pension funds, sove­reign wealth funds, funds of funds, insu­rance compa­nies and family offices. The closing of Fund IV brings BlackFin’s total assets under manage­ment for its comple­men­tary buyout and FinTech stra­te­gies to €4 billion. This conso­li­da­tes BlackFin’s posi­tion as Europe’s leading private equity inves­tor in the finan­cial services sector. With over 110 tran­sac­tions since its incep­tion in 2009, Black­Fin is by far the most active inves­tor in this sector in Europe. Fund IV will conti­nue BlackFin’s diffe­ren­tia­ted invest­ment policy in asset-light segments. Brokerage and insu­rance plat­forms, inde­pen­dent asset mana­gers, asset mana­gers, payment play­ers and provi­ders of finan­cial or back-office soft­ware bene­fit from a parti­cu­larly favorable envi­ron­ment. This takes account of consu­mers’ incre­asing need for advice on finan­cial products, the deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies and chan­ging regu­la­tion. Black­Fin focu­ses on primary tran­sac­tions where the company acts as a key finan­cial spon­sor and provi­des unique opera­tio­nal support. These off-market tran­sac­tions are one of BlackFin’s parti­cu­lar areas of exper­tise, as is the execu­tion of very complex carve-outs of large finan­cial institutions. 

Fund IV has alre­ady made two investments

The new fund has alre­ady made initial invest­ments in OpGroen, a carve-out of Aon Nether­lands’ private insu­rance busi­ness, and will soon invest in IBS Capi­tal Allies, a leading inde­pen­dent asset mana­ger with €5 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since the closing of Fund III in 2019, Black­Fin has inves­ted heavily in its plat­form. New offices have been estab­lished in London and Amster­dam to expand BlackFin’s Euro­pean presence. It curr­ently employs 50 people, inclu­ding nine part­ners, in five offices. In 2022, the company also reached the closing of its second venture capi­tal fund speci­fi­cally focu­sed on FinTech. Black­Fin Tech II has €390 million in capi­tal, making it the largest FinTech-focu­sed B2B fund in Europe. Laurent Bouy­oux, Presi­dent and Foun­ding Part­ner of Black­Fin, said: “We foun­ded Black­Fin in 2009 with the convic­tion that the trans­for­ma­tion of the Euro­pean finan­cial sector towards a more compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment was over­due and that inde­pen­dent compa­nies were compe­ting directly with incumb­ents or beco­ming their service provi­ders. 15 years later, our invest­ment thesis has fully mate­ria­li­zed with one of the best track records in Europe and a global base of high cali­ber inves­tors. We are proud to have taken this decisive step for our inves­tors and thank them for their loyal and growing support. With Fund IV, we will conti­nue to pursue the stra­tegy that has made our prede­ces­sor funds so successful.” Black­Fin Capi­tal worked with Rede Part­ners on the inter­na­tio­nal fund­rai­sing, Jasmin Capi­tal on the insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in France and Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP on the legal and regu­la­tory aspects.

About Black­Fin Capi­tal Partners

Foun­ded in 2009, Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent private equity firm specia­li­zing in finan­cial services in Europe. Black­Fin is owned and mana­ged by its nine part­ners, who have worked toge­ther for many years as execu­ti­ves, mana­gers and inves­tors in the Euro­pean finan­cial indus­try. The team consists of a total of 50 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in offices in Paris, Brussels, Amster­dam, Frank­furt and London. Backed by leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in Europe, North America and Asia, Black­Fin Capi­tal Part­ners has over €4 billion under manage­ment through its venture capi­tal and buyout funds. www.blackfin.com/

 

News

Frank­furt am Main — The Frank­furt-based invest­ment company VR Equi­typ­art­ner (“VREP”) has exten­ded its invest­ment in Mr. Wash Auto­ser­vice AG, Essen, and provi­ded further mezza­nine finan­cing. The addi­tio­nal mezza­nine capi­tal is inten­ded to support a multi-year inten­sive invest­ment phase as growth finan­cing: The aim is to expand capa­ci­ties at exis­ting loca­ti­ons and to estab­lish further new loca­ti­ons. Mr. Wash, foun­ded in 1964, is today the market leader in the premium car wash sector with curr­ently 38 loca­ti­ons and around 2,000 employees throug­hout Germany. The range of services extends from exte­rior washing and inte­rior clea­ning to oil change and service station services. The company has recei­ved seve­ral awards for its service quality in recent years. VR Equi­typ­art­ner has been support­ing the family busi­ness in its conti­nuous growth since 2011 by provi­ding seve­ral mezza­nine tran­ches. The funds have been used for exten­sive invest­ments in tech­no­logy, the expan­sion of the range of services — parti­cu­larly in the area of inte­rior clea­ning — and the impro­ve­ment of service quality. Regu­lar custo­mer surveys ensure consis­t­ently high quality. Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: “We are deligh­ted to expand our long-stan­ding part­ner­ship and conti­nue to support the growth of Mr. Wash. The company has deve­lo­ped enorm­ously and has a stable, but also capi­tal-inten­sive busi­ness. Some­thing like this is gene­rally well suited for the use of mezza­nine capi­tal.” Richard Enning, CEO of Mr. Wash Auto­ser­vice AG, adds: “With VR Equi­typ­art­ner, we have had a relia­ble and uncom­pli­ca­ted part­ner who has supported and accom­pa­nied our growth stra­tegy for years. The mezza­nine capi­tal is an important compo­nent of our over­all finan­cing because it ideally comple­ments bank loans and our inter­nal finan­cing power — and thus supports the invest­ments in our growth.” About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 40 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million. Morewww.vrep.de. The VR Equi­typ­art­ner tran­sac­tion team:
Tim Feld, Jens Schöf­fel, Chris­toph Simmes, Jens Osthoff

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­ses BC Part­ners on the IPO of Sprin­ger Nature.
The offe­ring consists of new shares from a capi­tal increase of EUR 200 million and the sale of exis­ting shares held by BC Part­ners. Sprin­ger Nature’s shares have been traded in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange since Octo­ber 4, 2024 (ticker symbol: SPG). The market capi­ta­liza­tion is around € 4.9 billion. Sprin­ger Nature’s IPO was a success. Sprin­ger Nature is a leading global publisher for rese­arch, health and educa­tion. The company is owned by compa­nies control­led by the Georg von Holtz­brinck publi­shing group and funds advi­sed by BC Part­ners. A Kirk­land team had alre­ady advi­sed BC Part­ners on the exten­sion of the invest­ment in Sprin­ger Nature in 2021. 

Advi­sor BC Part­ners: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Attila Oldag (Lead, Private Equity/M&A; photo © Kirk­land), Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Capi­tal Markets); Asso­ciate: Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (Private Equity/M&A) About Kirk­land

With more than 3,500 lawy­ers in 21 cities in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets, finan­cing and tax law.

www.kirkland.com.

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