ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich/Espoo — Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company, the Finnish manu­fac­tu­rer of a 100% circu­lar waste-to-textile fiber, has raised 40 million euros in a two-part Series B finan­cing round. Foun­ded in 2016, the company has deve­lo­ped a proprie­tary chemi­cal recy­cling tech­no­logy to convert textile waste or other cellu­lose-rich waste into so-called Infinna fibers, a new, 100% circu­lar and sustain­ably rege­ne­ra­ted textile fiber with the same look and feel as new cotton.

The new inves­tors are the Indi­tex Group (parent company of Zara and other brands), and TTY Manage­ment B.V., an asset manage­ment company priva­tely owned by Tada­shi Yanai, Chair­man, Presi­dent and CEO of Fast Retail­ing (parent company of the Uniqlo fashion brand). The leading outdoor clot­hing manu­fac­tu­rer Youngone Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company (YOH CVC Fund 1 Limi­ted Part­ner­ship) and the Japa­nese premium sports­wear manu­fac­tu­rer Gold­win (GOLDWIN Play Earth Fund Invest­ment Limi­ted Part­ner­ship) have also parti­ci­pa­ted in the recently comple­ted second finan­cing round of EUR 27 million. The first part of the deve­lo­p­ment finan­cing round, which was comple­ted in summer 2023, compri­sed invest­ments from exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding H&M Group, adidas, BESTSELLER and Zalando. Follo­wing the conclu­sion of this finan­cing round, Indi­tex, TTY Manage­ment and the H&M Group are the largest share­hol­ders of Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company.

Infi­ni­ted Fiber, based in Espoo, Finland, has deve­lo­ped a 100% circu­lar tech­no­logy for conver­ting waste into texti­les that bene­fits from the largest quan­ti­ties of available raw mate­ri­als, inclu­ding cellu­lo­sic products (paper, card­board, etc.) and some agri­cul­tu­ral resi­dues as well as textile waste. Seve­ral limi­ted-edition clot­hing coll­ec­tions, such as Wrang­ler jeans and Tommy Hilfi­ger T‑shirts, have alre­ady been produ­ced with the new fiber.

The company aims to play a signi­fi­cant role in trans­forming the conven­tio­nal mate­rial flow in the fashion and textile indus­try towards a circu­lar economy and is supported by leading inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer brands such as H&M, Indi­tex, Pata­go­nia and PVH. “They have tested the quality of the fiber and confirmed the market poten­tial by signing long-term purchase agree­ments in some cases. Indi­tex alone has signed a contract for more than 100 million euros,” says Falk Müller-Veerse (photo © Bran­Gar­nier), German part­ner at Bryan, Garnier & Co. who led the finan­cing round.

Infi­ni­ted Fiber curr­ently opera­tes two pilot produc­tion faci­li­ties and the newly raised funds will be used to enable the company’s contin­ued growth.

Sustainable textile market booming

The addressa­ble core market of Infi­ni­ted Fiber is esti­ma­ted by the analysts at Bryan, Garnier & Co. at EUR 66 billion and so far mainly compri­ses cotton and MMCF (man-made cellu­lose fiber). The demand for sustain­ably produ­ced texti­les is booming: “Not least due to the new Euro­pean regu­la­ti­ons, the market demand for sustainable fibres in Europe is expec­ted to triple to almost four million tons per year by 2030,” says Müller-Veerse. For exam­ple, under pres­sure from legis­la­tive measu­res and in response to a growing number of envi­ron­men­tally conscious consu­mers, one hundred of the world’s most pres­ti­gious fashion brands have commit­ted to redu­cing their green­house gas emis­si­ons by 30% by 2030.

Accor­ding to Bryan, Garnier & Co., textile produc­tion is respon­si­ble for around 20 percent of global water pollu­tion and around 2,500 liters of fresh water are needed to produce a single cotton T‑shirt. Accor­ding to Infi­ni­ted Fiber, the use of their inno­va­tive fiber results in appro­xi­m­ately 97% less water consump­tion and appro­xi­m­ately 67% less CO2 emis­si­ons per T‑shirt produ­ced compared to the use of pure cotton.

Müller-Veerse empha­si­zes: “It’s not just about repla­cing cotton produc­tion with its horren­dous water consump­tion. The new mate­rial could also replace up to 20% of the poly­es­ter fibers used world­wide today and is comple­tely biode­gra­da­ble without bioplastics.”

The Bryan, Garnier & Co deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse, Pierre Kiecolt-Wahl, Phil­ippe LeSann , Julien Polenne, Grego­ire Angleys, Jean Cail­liau, Jakub Veiner and Camille Dubroc.

About Bryan, Garnier & Co

Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with over 200 employees in six offices in Europe (London, Paris, Munich, Stock­holm, Oslo, Amster­dam) and the US (New York). As an inde­pen­dent, full-service invest­ment bank, Bryan, Garnier & Co provi­des compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the complete life­cy­cle of its clients — from initial rounds of finan­cing to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-on finan­cing. On average, the bank accom­pa­nies a good 70 tran­sac­tions per year.

News

Stuttgart/ Beuren/ Munich — The invest­ment company Fair­Cap GmbH has acqui­red Stumpp & Schüle GmbH from Lesjö­fors AB. The Swedish company Lesjö­fors AB, a subsi­diary of Beijer Alma AB, specia­li­zes in the produc­tion of tech­ni­cal springs, stam­ped and bent parts. The Group compri­ses around 40 manu­fac­tu­ring and sales compa­nies world­wide. Heuking advi­sed Fair­Cap on this transaction.

Stumpp + Schüle GmbH is a German manu­fac­tu­rer of wire springs, pres­sed and bent parts, which are used not only in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, but also in the elec­tro­nics, glass and cera­mics sectors. The company’s head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Beuren (Baden-Würt­tem­berg).

Fair­Cap GmbH is an entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment company that acqui­res medium-sized compa­nies in special situa­tions (e.g. carve-out, succes­sion) and trans­forms them holi­sti­cally into sustainable, healthy orga­niza­ti­ons. In contrast to typi­cal private equity funds, Fair­Cap is a long-term invest­ment holding company, which is ther­e­fore not subject to a fund term and can hold invest­ments for the long term. Sustaina­bi­lity is a core element of FairCap’s invest­ment philosophy.

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of S & P Federn­werk GmbH & Co KG in 2021, the acqui­si­tion of Stumpp & Schüle GmbH repres­ents FairCap’s second take­over of a company in the spring and stam­ping and bending tech­no­logy sector.

Fair­Cap works regu­larly with HEUKING and Bene­dikt Raisch.

Advi­sor Fair­Cap: HEUKING
Bene­dikt Raisch (lead part­ner / corpo­rate law/M&A),
Antje Münch, LL.M. (trade­mark, design & copy­right law),
Ramona Bauer-Schöll­kopf, LL.M. (corpo­rate law/M&A), all Stuttgart

News

Düsseldorf/Munich — Karo Health­care is expan­ding its presence in Italy with this acqui­si­tion. The acqui­si­tion also streng­thens Karo’s stra­te­gic focus on premium brands in areas asso­cia­ted with discom­fort and shame. Proc­to­se­dyl® is a leading brand in Italy for the treat­ment of hemor­rhoids. The acqui­si­tion expands Karo’s posi­tion in one of its core compe­ten­cies, diges­tive health, which includes global brands such as Proct® and Hemoproct®.

ARQIS advi­sed Karo Health­care on the acqui­si­tion of Proc­to­se­dyl® from Bayer. The tran­sac­tion gives Karo the exclu­sive distri­bu­tion rights to the OTC product in Italy.

“This acqui­si­tion adds a trus­ted brand that covers an often negle­c­ted cate­gory with untap­ped poten­tial. We are exci­ted about the oppor­tu­nity to improve access to relia­ble treat­ments for Italian consu­mers and further expand our Italian busi­ness,” said Matt Roberts, CCO of Karo Healthcare.

The acqui­si­tion was carried out as an asset deal, without person­nel and produc­tion faci­li­ties, which redu­ces the commer­cial risk and ensu­res seam­less inte­gra­tion. Karo will use its exis­ting infra­struc­ture and rely on estab­lished part­ners in Italy.

The ARQIS team around Jörn-Chr. Schulze (Photo © arqis) acted for the first time for Karo Health­care, a Swedish EQT invest­ment company. The team’s healthcare/life science and private equity focus were decisive for the mandate.

Advi­sor Karo Health­care: ARQIS (Düsseldorf/Munich)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus, Malte Grie­pen­burg (all Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Dr. Fried­rich Gebert (Regu­la­tory), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Daniel Schle­mann (Data Law), Rolf Tichy (IP), Asso­ciate: Dr. Bern­hard Gröhe (Regu­la­tory), Trade­mark Profes­sio­nal: Caro­lin von Fritsch

Fran­zosi — Dal Negro — Setti (Milan) Stefano Giberti, Fran­cesco Setti (both Italian regu­la­tory law)

About ARQIS

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

News

Frank­furt, Germany — Duravant LLC (“Duravant”), a global provi­der of engi­nee­red equip­ment and auto­ma­ted solu­ti­ons for the food proces­sing, pack­a­ging and mate­rial hand­ling indus­tries head­quar­te­red in Downers Grove, Illi­nois, USA, has acqui­red Henne­ken, a German engi­nee­ring company. — Global law firm Reed Smith has advi­sed Duravant LLC (“Duravant”) on the acqui­si­tion of Ferdi­nand Henne­ken GmbH (“Henne­ken”).

Henne­ken is a manu­fac­tu­rer of protein proces­sing solu­ti­ons based in Bad Wünnen­berg, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Germany, that deve­lops and produ­ces inno­va­tive machi­nes, inclu­ding vacuum tumb­lers, tende­ri­zers, injec­tors and brine mixers, that enable higher produc­tion volu­mes and better product quality for meat, poul­try and seafood processors.

The acqui­si­tion of Henne­ken is part of Duravant’s corpo­rate stra­tegy to expand its invest­ments in the growing protein sector. The products and services offe­red by Henne­ken are highly comple­men­tary and enhance Duravant’s ability to offer complete and inte­gra­ted plant solutions.

Duravant was advi­sed by a multi­di­sci­pli­nary, inter­na­tio­nal Reed Smith team led by Dr. Octá­vio de Sousa , Foto (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) and Sid Bale (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Chicago).

Dr. de Sousa adds: “We are very plea­sed to have been able to support Duravant in pursuing its inter­na­tio­nal growth stra­tegy in Germany. The tran­sac­tion has once again demons­tra­ted Reed Smith’s strength in provi­ding inte­gra­ted and compre­hen­sive advice on cross-border transactions.”

Advi­sor Duravant LLC: Reed Smith LLP 

Dr. Octá­vio de Sousa (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Sid Bale (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Chicago), both lead; with the assis­tance of Wim Vanden­berghe (Part­ner, Regu­la­tory Commer­cial, Brussels), Dr. Oliver Hahn­elt (Part­ner, Finance), Harald Heller (Part­ner, Real Estate), Dr. Martin Bünning (Part­ner, Tax) Chris­tian Leuth­ner (Part­ner, Tech & Data), Chris­tian Filip­pitsch (Part­ner, Anti­trust, Brussels), as well as Dr. Niklas Kout­sós (Coun­sel, Finance) and Ceci­lia Manny (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Jona­than Diehl (Asso­ciate, Real Estate), Dr. Hannah von Wickede (Asso­ciate, Tech & Data), Jonas Weimert (Asso­ciate, IP), Vincent Magotsch (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law) and Elisa Saier (Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law).

About Duravant

Head­quar­te­red in Downers Grove, Illi­nois, Duravant is a global auto­ma­ted equip­ment company with manu­fac­tu­ring, sales and service faci­li­ties in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Through its port­fo­lio of opera­ting compa­nies, Duravant deli­vers relia­ble end-to-end process solu­ti­ons for custo­mers and part­ners through engi­nee­ring and inte­gra­tion exper­tise, project manage­ment and opera­tio­nal excel­lence. With world­wide sales and service networks, Duravant provi­des imme­diate and life­time support for all the markets they serve in food proces­sing, pack­a­ging and mate­rial hand­ling. Duravant’s market-leading brands are synony­mous with inno­va­tion, dura­bi­lity and relia­bi­lity. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.duravant.com.

Advi­sor Ferdi­nand Henne­ken GmbH: Kanz­lei im Technologiepark
Peter Suminski

About Henne­ken

Henne­ken, head­quar­te­red in Bad Wünnen­berg, Germany, is a manu­fac­tu­rer and service provi­der of inno­va­tive machi­nes for the meat, poul­try and seafood indus­try. The Henne­ken port­fo­lio of highly deve­lo­ped machine solu­ti­ons includes vacuum tumb­lers, tende­ri­zers, injec­tors, curing mixers, flat­ten­ers as well as product hand­ling and loading systems. Since 1977, the company has been a leader in deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons that meet the needs of food proces­sors who demand quality and safety while maxi­mi­zing produc­ti­vity and produc­tion volume. Henne­ken is commit­ted to custo­mer satis­fac­tion and works with its custo­mers to find the right solu­tion. The company deve­lops and deli­vers its systems on time and offers a relia­ble service and spare parts service. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.henneken-tumblers.de.

About Reed Smith

Reed Smith is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms. The firm compri­ses 31 offices with more than 1,700 lawy­ers in Europe, the USA, the Middle East and Asia. www.reedsmith.com

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Altium LLC, a leading provi­der of design soft­ware for the elec­tro­nics indus­try, on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Bremen-based Vali­space GmbH and its wholly-owned Portu­guese subsi­diary Galac­tic Purpose Unipes­soal LDA.

Vali­space, foun­ded in Bremen in 2016, has deve­lo­ped a brow­ser-based engi­nee­ring SaaS plat­form that makes it easier for engi­neers to deve­lop tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion for complex hard­ware products, among other things.

Head­quar­te­red in San Diego, Cali­for­nia, Altium is a multi­na­tio­nal soft­ware company foun­ded in 1985 and publicly traded in Austra­lia that provi­des elec­tro­nic design auto­ma­tion soft­ware for engi­neers who design prin­ted circuit boards.

Advi­sor Altium LLC: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Prof. Dr. Clemens JustFoto (Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Tax), Isabelle Suzanne Müller (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion, Munich), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Employ­ment, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Honzen (Real Estate), Renate Prinz (Finan­cial Regu­la­tory, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Dr. Chris­tian Masch (IP/IT, Munich), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (Coun­sel, Anti­trust); Asso­cia­tes: Simon Apelojg (IP, Munich), Alex­an­dra Heber­ber (Healthcare/Regulatory, Munich), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (IP, Anti­trust). Chris­tian Masch (IP/IT, Munich), Dr. Laura Stamm­witz (Coun­sel, Anti­trust Law); Asso­cia­tes: Simon Apelojg (IP, Munich), Alex­an­dra Heberle (Healthcare/Regulatory), Lisa Schei­pers (Employ­ment Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Anja Bert­rand (Anti­trust Law, Cologne/Düsseldorf), Matthias M. Bosbach, Romy Lanz (both Finance, Düssel­dorf), Tina Happ (Real Estate Law)

News

Munich — The joint venture company under the name “HMotion” is to combine the best of both worlds: The flight data and know-how of Airbus as a leading heli­c­op­ter manu­fac­tu­rer and the expe­ri­ence of ADAC Luft­ret­tung as a world-renow­ned heli­c­op­ter opera­tor. Toge­ther, the two part­ners want to create the world’s most modern simu­la­tor trai­ning center for H135 and H145 heli­c­op­ters. — The law firms Green­Gate Part­ners and Baker Tilly advi­sed both compa­nies on the estab­lish­ment of the joint venture between ADAC HEMS Academy and Airbus Heli­c­op­ters for flight simu­la­tor training.

Follo­wing appr­oval by the rele­vant super­vi­sory autho­ri­ties, the new joint venture, named HMotion, commen­ced opera­ti­ons on March 1, 2024.

The new joint venture offers a wide range of cost-effec­tive trai­ning cour­ses for heli­c­op­ter person­nel, inclu­ding mission and criti­cal flight trai­ning. In a first phase, HMotion will inte­grate the full-flight simu­la­tors at the Airbus Heli­c­op­ters site in Donau­wörth and at the ADAC HEMS Academy in Sankt Augus­tin near Bonn. In a second phase, all simu­la­tor acti­vi­ties will be relo­ca­ted to a new, state-of-the-art trai­ning center in Ober­pfaf­fen­ho­fen near Munich from 2025.

Green­Gate Part­ners and Baker Tilly each provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice on the tran­sac­tion and, in addi­tion to struc­tu­ring the joint venture, also draf­ted and nego­tia­ted all tran­sac­tion agreements.

Advi­sor Airbus Heli­c­op­ters: Green­Gate Partners

Dr. Diet­helm Baumann (lead; corpo­rate, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Raif (employ­ment law, Berlin), Alex­an­der Tribess (IT/IP, Hamburg), Tobias Percher­meier (corpo­rate, Munich).

Advi­sor ADAC: Baker Tilly

Stephan Zuber (lead; corporate/M&A, Munich), Kers­tin Weckert (employ­ment law, Frank­furt), Dr. Chris­tian Engel­hardt (IP/IT, Hamburg), Ines Paucksch (tax law, Munich), Dr. Stefan Meßmer (anti­trust law, Stutt­gart), Till Werner (corporate/M&A, Munich), Thomas Böhm (corporate/real estate, Munich), Peter Reiß (corporate/M&A, Munich), Chris­tine Ostwald (employ­ment law, Munich), Tobias Wald­schmidt (tax law, Munich).

About Green­Gate Partners

Green­Gate Part­ners, foun­ded in 2022, is a boutique law firm with a focus on tech­no­logy and tran­sac­tions, provi­ding sound legal advice to enable progress and prepare the legal ground for inno­va­tion. With a high level of indus­try know­ledge and a deep under­stan­ding of entre­pre­neu­rial proces­ses, not least due to sound expe­ri­ence as in-house coun­sel, the lawy­ers at Green­Gate Part­ners advise on corpo­rate law, labor law and gene­ral commer­cial law, among other things. In cross-border matters, Green­Gate Part­ners can offer custo­mi­zed advice from a single source thanks to its outstan­ding inter­na­tio­nal network.

News

Paris — The PEARL and Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity teams announce the third closing of their new PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal II SCA fund, RAIF, which closed on Febru­ary 28, 2024 with a volume of EUR 306 million. This result comes seven months after the first closing of the fund and corre­sponds to the target of EUR 400 million.

The envi­ron­men­tal infra­struc­ture specia­list and part­ner of Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity also announ­ces the start of the test­ing phase for the final invest­ment of its first vintage fund, the Green Valley Ener­gie biomass coge­nera­tion plant in France, Edmond de Roth­schild Asset Manage­ment said.

PEARL II has a solid base of French and Euro­pean inves­tors, inclu­ding the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (under the InvestEU program), banks, insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds.

PEARL II is an invest­ment fund specia­li­zing in the majo­rity finan­cing of envi­ron­men­tal infra­struc­ture projects in Europe. These projects include rene­wa­ble energy produc­tion, waste recy­cling and the circu­lar economy and are prima­rily aimed at large indus­trial groups and local autho­ri­ties facing the dual chall­enge of ecolo­gi­cal and energy transformation.

PEARL II is charac­te­ri­zed by its commit­ment to rene­wa­ble base load energy carri­ers that meet the industry’s decar­bo­niza­tion goals while meeting the requi­re­ments for the conti­nuous opera­tion of indus­trial and heating networks. The fund’s invest­ments will focus on various segments, inclu­ding biomass, biogas, biome­thane, solid and liquid biofuels for the trans­port sector (inclu­ding AFS), green hydro­gen, geother­mal energy and waste recycling.

PEARL II is clas­si­fied as Article 9 under the EU SFDR, bears the Green­fin label and complies with at least 66 percent of the Euro­pean taxonomy.

In line with its road­map, PEARL fully placed its first vintage fund, PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal I SCA, RAIF, within two and a half years of the final closing in March 2020. In this context, PEARL has reached a decisive mile­stone for its latest green­field invest­ment after one and a half years of cons­truc­tion: the Green Valley Ener­gie biomass coge­nera­tion plant in the Vosges (France), which will go into opera­tion with the first cold tests. Green Valley Ener­gie, which is sche­du­led to be fully opera­tio­nal in summer 2024, will be the largest biomass coge­nera­tion plant based on wood waste in France with a capa­city of 100 MWth of carbon-free heat and 25 MWe of rene­wa­ble elec­tri­city gene­ra­tion. The plant will gene­rate more than 900 GWh/year of rene­wa­ble energy (elec­tri­city and heat) and avoid the emis­sion of 213,000 tCO2eq per year.

Jean-Chris­to­phe Guimard (photo © PEARL), co-foun­der and Presi­dent of PEARL, says: “Europe is commit­ted to an indus­trial pact to recon­cile the objec­ti­ves of the energy tran­si­tion and re-indus­tria­liza­tion. In this context, PEARL is proud to contri­bute to the decar­bo­niza­tion of the indus­try with the launch of the test phase of its Green Valley Ener­gie combi­ned heat and power plant and the third closing of its second fund.”

Johnny el Hachem, CEO of Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity, says: “Against the back­drop of infla­tion, inves­tors conti­nue to place their trust in us. The PEARL stra­tegy demons­tra­tes its importance and rele­vance in buil­ding a low-carbon, resi­li­ent and sustainable economy for future gene­ra­ti­ons, to which our Group is firmly committed.”

About PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capital

PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal is a private equity invest­ment fund that closed its first fund in March 2020 and focu­ses on infra­struc­ture for the energy tran­si­tion and circu­lar economy in Europe, mainly for indus­trial compa­nies. PEARL was foun­ded by a team of expe­ri­en­ced experts from the energy and envi­ron­men­tal sector and a part­ner from Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity. As the majo­rity share­hol­der, PEARL invests in medium-sized, non-inter­mit­tent plants and rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion projects inten­ded for indus­trial compa­nies and local autho­ri­ties. To date, PEARL has inves­ted in eight biomass coge­nera­tion plants in France, Germany and Croa­tia and comple­ted the first closing of its succes­sor fund PEARL Infra­struc­ture Capi­tal II SCA, RAIF, on July 13, 2023.

About Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity

Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity mana­ges assets of over EUR 4.0 billion via two AIFMs. With an entre­pre­neu­rial approach to finance and backed by strong convic­tions, Edmond de Roth­schild Private Equity deve­lops diffe­ren­tia­ted invest­ment stra­te­gies that provide a sustainable response to envi­ron­men­tal and social issues. Foun­ded in 1953, the Group mana­ges assets of around CHF 160 billion, employs 2,500 people and is repre­sen­ted in 30 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

News

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to German elec­tro­ly­zer manu­fac­tu­rer Sunfire GmbH on its Series E finan­cing round, which raised €215 million in equity. The new inves­tors include LGT Private Banking, GIC, Ahren Inno­va­tion Capi­tal and Carbon Equity. The tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second quar­ter of 2024.
Exis­ting share­hol­ders have increased their invest­ments in Sunfire — inclu­ding Light­rock, Planet First Part­ners, Carbon Direct Capi­tal, the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Blue Earth Capital.

The rene­wed invest­ment in Sunfire, which repres­ents one of the largest finan­cing rounds to date in 2024, is a strong signal of the company’s crucial role in expan­ding the hydro­gen economy in a diffi­cult finan­cial envi­ron­ment. — In addi­tion, the company has secu­red a loan of up to €100 million from the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB), which will enable it to conti­nue the deve­lo­p­ment and indus­tria­liza­tion of solid oxide electrolysers.

In addi­tion, Sunfire has access to appro­xi­m­ately €200 million from alre­ady appro­ved finan­cing projects to drive its growth. This makes the Dres­den-based company one of the most capi­ta­li­zed compa­nies in the elec­tro­ly­sis sector.

Sunfire is a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of indus­trial elec­tro­ly­zers based on pres­sure-based alka­line and solid oxide tech­no­lo­gies (SOEC). With its elec­tro­ly­sis solu­ti­ons, Sunfire is tack­ling a central chall­enge of today’s energy system: The provi­sion of rene­wa­ble hydro­gen and synthe­sis gas as a climate-neutral repla­ce­ment for fossil fuels. Sunfire’s inno­va­tive and proven elec­tro­ly­sis tech­no­logy enables the conver­sion of carbon-inten­sive indus­tries that curr­ently rely on fossil oil, gas or coal. The company employs more than 500 people in Germany and Switzerland.

Advi­sor Sunfire: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Matthias Kres­ser (Finance), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Ferdi­nand Cadmus (Finance), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Alex­an­der Sekunde (Transactions/FDI), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Jonas von Kalben (Transactions/FDI), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Benja­min Müller (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Roman Schäle(Transactions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

 

News

Darm­stadt — Threedy is a high-tech start-up that was foun­ded in 2020 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Compu­ter Graphics Rese­arch (IGD) in Darm­stadt. Three remar­kably successful years after its foun­ding, Threedy has secu­red a USD 10.4 million invest­ment to acce­le­rate growth across multi­ple indus­tries and geogra­phies. New inves­tors in Threedy’s cutting-edge tech­no­logy include LBBW Venture Capi­tal, TRUMPF VENTURE, Futury Capi­tal and Equi­ty­Pit­cher Ventures. The invest­ment unders­cores Threedy’s strong posi­tion to capture a signi­fi­cant market share in the fast-growing indus­trial digi­tal twin space.

Digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in the industry

Threedy’s instant3Dhub is a high-perfor­mance spatial compu­ting tech­no­logy that enables custo­mers to use their 3D data in any confi­gu­ra­tion and visua­lize it on a large scale. By making data available and acces­si­ble in real time on any device and at any time, it enables the opti­miza­tion of a variety of digi­tal proces­ses along the entire indus­trial value chain and a signi­fi­cant reduc­tion in the asso­cia­ted costs. By imple­men­ting instant3Dhub, compa­nies can save valuable time and resour­ces, e.g. by elimi­na­ting waiting times and redu­cing license and infra­struc­ture costs.

Threedy enables its custo­mers to estab­lish a modern soft­ware archi­tec­ture that redu­ces depen­dency on the mono­li­thic and closed stacks of estab­lished soft­ware vendors and opens the door for agile deve­lo­p­ment and the scalable roll-out of a modern, light­weight appli­ca­tion layer.

With a wide range of features for digi­tal engi­nee­ring, advan­ced colla­bo­ra­tion and seam­less mixed reality, Threedy’s soft­ware provi­des a strong foun­da­tion for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the industry.

Working with 3D data beco­mes as easy as sharing a link by simply refe­ren­cing it from any source, e.g. exis­ting PDM/PLM solu­ti­ons, without any prepa­ra­tion or simpli­fi­ca­tion. Threedy’s tech­no­logy enables new, scalable appli­ca­ti­ons across the entire product life­cy­cle, from deve­lo­p­ment to after-sales — web-based and with a zero-foot­print on the client.

By opti­mi­zing 3D data usage and commu­ni­ca­tion, compa­nies can also reduce their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print: busi­ness trips can largely be repla­ced by virtual exch­an­ges, saving resour­ces and time.

In the first three years, Threedy has successfully deve­lo­ped from a Fraun­ho­fer depart­ment into an inde­pen­dent company. Since its foun­ding at the end of 2020, Threedy has grown signi­fi­cantly, almost tripling its work­force to build a team of more than 50 highly quali­fied profes­sio­nals from around the world. The company has not only main­tai­ned its strong custo­mer rela­ti­onships, but has also expe­ri­en­ced remar­kable growth, parti­cu­larly in the auto­mo­tive and manu­fac­tu­ring industries.

Threedy’s cutting-edge tech­no­logy is valued by nume­rous indus­try leaders, inclu­ding the leading German car manu­fac­tu­r­ers. In addi­tion, Threedy has successfully expan­ded its network of part­ner­ships and has grown beyond its origi­nal focus areas of auto­mo­tive and the German market. With a substan­tial 10.4 million dollar Series A invest­ment, Threedy is now ready for the next step, backed by new inves­tors LBBW Venture Capi­tal, TRUMPF VENTURE, Futury Capi­tal and Equi­ty­Pit­cher Ventures. Exis­ting inves­tors Matter­wave Ventures, Fraun­ho­fer and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) rene­wed their commit­ment by parti­ci­pa­ting in the Series A investment.

Threedy will conti­nue its commit­ment to commer­cia­lize its inno­va­tive spatial compu­ting infra­struc­ture and acce­le­rate its adop­tion in various indus­tries and use cases. The invest­ment will enable Threedy to further advance the deve­lo­p­ment of its product portfolio.

Threedy’s expan­sion plans include further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, while the company conti­nues to focus on excel­lence and inno­va­tion and sustain­ably supports the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of its part­ners. Threedy is now actively looking for new employees in various roles to join the team and help shape the future of the indus­trial digi­tal twin.

“Threedy imme­dia­tely caught our inte­rest with its cutting-edge tech­no­logy and enorm­ous growth poten­tial. The advan­ced spatial compu­ting plat­form fits in with our invest­ment stra­tegy to support breakth­rough digi­tal inno­va­tions that trans­form key indus­tries in the DACH region such as mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring or the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Threedy’s instant3Dhub enables orga­niza­ti­ons to effort­lessly access their most valuable assets — 3D data — in real time, on any device, at any time. We are exci­ted to lead this invest­ment and support Threedy’s great team on its future jour­ney,” said Patrick Herlin­ger (Invest­ment Mana­ger, LBBW Venture Capital)

“Threedy has successfully built a strong custo­mer network of leading auto­mo­tive and manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies for its revo­lu­tio­nary spatial compu­ting tech­no­logy, giving it the poten­tial to become the market leader. As one of Threedy’s valued custo­mers, TRUMPF relies on instant3Dhub to support sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ves with 3D visua­liza­tion. We are very plea­sed to support Threedy’s next growth step with our invest­ment,” explains Jens Ortgiese (Prin­ci­pal, TRUMPF VENTURE)

“We are exci­ted about the oppor­tu­nity to support the Hessian deep-tech company Threedy in a strong inves­tor consor­tium to drive the digi­ta­liza­tion of manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies world­wide”, Benja­min Krah­mer (Mana­ging Direc­tor, Futury Capital)

“Inno­va­tive compa­nies from the DACH region always arouse our inte­rest imme­dia­tely. With its revo­lu­tio­nary spatial compu­ting approach, Threedy fits perfectly into our invest­ment stra­tegy,” says Sascha Horrig (Foun­ding Part­ner, Equi­ty­Pit­cher Ventures)

“We conti­nue to support Threedy with full commit­ment. In the last three years since its foun­da­tion, Threedy has shown a remar­kable success story and deve­lo­ped from a start-up and Fraun­ho­fer spin-off into an estab­lished company. With more than 50 employees, a growing custo­mer base, valuable part­ner­ships and incre­asing use cases, we look forward to support­ing Threedy’s next growth step,” said Robert Gallen­ber­ger (Foun­ding Part­ner at Matter­wave Ventures), Gregor Haidl (Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds) and Markus Weit­zel (Invest­ment Mana­ger at Fraun­ho­fer Venture)

About LBBW Venture Capital

As an ever­green fund, LBBW Venture Capi­tal has been support­ing startup foun­ders in raising seed or Series A rounds in the DACH region since 1998. Its fields of acti­vity include B2B soft­ware, FinTech, DeepT­ech and life science. LBBW Venture Capi­tal also offers growth support through LBBW’s large custo­mer network and can offer addi­tio­nal finan­cial services in later phases as well as advice on M&A or IPO exits. https://www.lbbwvc.de/

TRUMPF VENTURE

TRUMPF Venture is the corpo­rate venture capi­tal unit of the TRUMPF Group. The CVC arm invests world­wide in early-stage deep-tech start-ups that operate in areas that comple­ment or are adja­cent to TRUMPF’s core business.
https://www.trumpf.com/en_INT/company/trumpf-group/trumpf-venture/

About Futury Capital

Futury Capi­tal is an early and growth stage inves­tor with a focus on tech start­ups in Germany and world­wide. The invest­ment port­fo­lio favors globally scalable busi­ness models in various sectors. Through its LP struc­ture with the State of Hesse, family offices, insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies, Futury Capi­tal provi­des stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal support to the port­fo­lio to help build excep­tio­nal compa­nies. https://www.futurycapital.vc/en

Equi­ty­Pit­cher Ventures

Equi­ty­Pit­cher Ventures is a leading Swiss venture capi­tal firm foun­ded in 2016. It invests in high-growth start-ups from the DACH region in an indus­try-agno­stic manner. By working closely with renow­ned indus­try experts, co-inves­tors and exit part­ners, Equi­ty­Pit­cher paves the way for entre­pre­neurs to access the three key success factors: capi­tal, know-how and network.
https://equitypitcher.com/en/

About Fraun­ho­fer Venture

Fraun­ho­fer Venture is the central spin-off and invest­ment manage­ment depart­ment of the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft. It offers foun­ders, start-ups, indus­trial compa­nies and inves­tors a compre­hen­sive support program with access to the cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies of 76 Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tu­tes as well as to Fraunhofer’s infra­struc­ture and exper­tise — inclu­ding more than 7,600 patent fami­lies. The range of services offe­red by Fraun­ho­fer Venture includes compre­hen­sive support and advice from the concep­tion to the foun­ding of a company, active manage­ment of Fraun­ho­fer invest­ments, support in the search for finan­cing oppor­tu­ni­ties through to the possi­ble sale of the company.
https://www.fraunhoferventure.de/en.html

Matter­wave Ventures

Matter­wave Ventures is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal company based in Munich that has specia­li­zed in deep tech inno­va­tions with indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons for many years. The expe­ri­en­ced team invests in early-stage soft­ware and hard­ware-based busi­ness models throug­hout Europe. The aim is to build world-leading compa­nies that drive the future of indus­trial value crea­tion, impro­ving resource effi­ci­ency, tech­no­logy sove­reig­nty and opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency. Over the past 20 years, the team has inves­ted in over 60 compa­nies. Matter­wave invests in the “full stack”, from mate­ri­als and compon­ents to complete systems and soft­ware solu­ti­ons. With over EUR 200 million of capi­tal under manage­ment, Matter­wave typi­cally parti­ci­pa­tes in seed and Series A finan­cing rounds with initial invest­ments between EUR 1–4 million. Inclu­ding follow-up finan­cing rounds, more than EUR 10 million can be inves­ted per port­fo­lio company.
https://matterwave.vc

High-Tech Grün­der­fonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. To date, exter­nal inves­tors have inves­ted around EUR 5 billion in the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 170 companies.

Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

News

Achen — Membion GmbH from Roet­gen near Aachen recei­ved a Series A led by the Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) and the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF) in the amount of around 5 million euros. The company deve­lops and produ­ces membrane biore­ac­tor (MBR) modu­les for waste­wa­ter treat­ment. The multi-paten­ted tech­no­logy enables muni­ci­pal and indus­trial waste­wa­ter treat­ment plant opera­tors to meet the growing demands on water quality and signi­fi­cantly reduce opera­ting costs. — DC Advi­sory was commis­sio­ned by Membion to evaluate and imple­ment the stra­te­gic opti­ons for this transaction.

More filter perfor­mance in a smal­ler space — with up to 90 percent less energy consumption

Membion will use the capi­tal to achieve broad market entry, set up further produc­tion lines and deve­lop addi­tio­nal product features. — Foun­ded in 2012 by Dr. Klaus Vossen­kaul and Dirk Volme­ring, Membion is a deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of a highly disrup­tive membrane biore­ac­tor (MBR) solu­tion with appli­ca­ti­ons in muni­ci­pal and indus­trial waste­wa­ter treat­ment. The product, secu­red by seve­ral patents, addres­ses key problems of modern waste­wa­ter treat­ment by: Redu­cing energy requi­re­ments by appro­xi­m­ately 90%, it requi­res signi­fi­cantly less space (appro­xi­m­ately 75%), this results in supe­rior water quality and large savings in opera­ting costs.

DC Advi­sory was enga­ged by Membion to evaluate and imple­ment stra­te­gic opti­ons, with a focus on iden­ti­fy­ing and intro­du­cing Membion’s disrup­tive solu­tion to poten­tial investors
DC Advi­sory conduc­ted a compre­hen­sive process to iden­tify the best part­ners for Membion — provi­ding stra­te­gic advice, prepa­ra­tion of rele­vant marke­ting docu­men­ta­tion, support in the nego­tia­tion phase and due dili­gence coordination.

This tran­sac­tion enhan­ces DC Advisory’s strong track record in sourcing equity for inno­va­tive compa­nies and its clear commit­ment to support­ing compa­nies with a strong sustaina­bi­lity focus. “With the current finan­cing round, we are setting the course for the effi­ci­ent scaling of Membion. With TVF and DTCF, we have part­ners on board who share our vision and support us in achie­ving our goals,” says Dr. Klaus Vossen­kaul, CEO of Membion.

“It was a great plea­sure to work with Dr. Vossen­kaul and his team. We are proud to have supported an emer­ging cham­pion in global waste­wa­ter treat­ment with this important step,” explains Stefan Jaecker (photo © CD Advi­sory), CEO of DC Advi­sory Germany.

About DeepT­ech & Climate Fund

The DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF) is a new fund that invests in the growth of compa­nies with future tech­no­lo­gies. It is finan­ced by the Future Fund and the ERP Special Fund and helps to expand the tech­no­logy ecosys­tem of the future. As an anchor inves­tor and part­ner of long-term inves­tors such as family offices, the DTCF will invest up to one billion euros in the coming years to deve­lop the new tech­no­logy-based SMEs of tomor­row. https://dtcf.de

About TVF

Tech­Vi­sion Fonds (TVF) is a leading early stage VC fund from the Rhineland/NRW with a focus on tech­no­logy start-ups in the pre-seed to Series A phase. TVF focu­ses on outstan­ding teams from the region, inclu­ding the neigh­bor­ing Nether­lands and Belgium. TVF Manage­ment has expe­ri­ence from four gene­ra­ti­ons of funds and curr­ently has over € 100 million in assets under manage­ment. The fund is backed by strong inves­tors such as NRW.BANK, seven savings banks from western NRW and more than 15 successful entrepreneurs.
The TVF supports start-up teams with proxi­mity, network and know-how and paves the way for them to become the next inter­na­tio­nal indus­try leader. Through the network of the S‑UBG Group, TVF offers unique access to over 150 successful compa­nies in various indus­tries and estab­lishes cont­acts between start-ups and their first custo­mers, part­ners and consul­tants. https://techvision-fonds.de

 

News

Stuttgart/Bogota — GFT Tech­no­lo­gies SE (GFT) acqui­res 100% of the shares in the Colom­bian core banking expert Sophos Solu­ti­ons S.A.S.. With Sophos, GFT beco­mes one of the top 3 provi­ders of IT services for banks in Latin America and also increa­ses its global deli­very capa­bi­lity. GFT acqui­res the company from Advent Inter­na­tio­nal, one of the largest and most expe­ri­en­ced global private equity inves­tors. The acqui­si­tion is a clear sign of GFT’s contin­ued focus on growth and profitability.

GFT gains a new foot­hold in core banking solu­ti­ons, AI and cloud moder­niza­tion, as well as addi­tio­nal part­ners and clients, inclu­ding Colombia’s major finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. The company is expan­ding its presence to 20 count­ries, six of which are in Latin America: Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica are now joined by Colom­bia, Chile and Panama. The combi­ned strength of the two compa­nies will result in GFT beco­ming one of the top three provi­ders of IT services to banks across Latin America.

Thanks to the more than 1,700 employees of Sophos, GFT’s global work­force is growing by almost 20 percent to more than 12,000. This is the largest number of employees that GFT has ever gained through an acqui­si­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted at the begin­ning of Febru­ary 2024. In 2022, Sophos gene­ra­ted reve­nue of around 257 billion Colom­bian pesos (curr­ently around 60 million euros) and GFT global reve­nue of over 730 million euros.

“With this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion, we are not only merging compa­nies, but multi­ply­ing poten­tial,” says GFT CEO Marika Lulay (photo © GFT). “It is a logi­cal conti­nua­tion of our profi­ta­ble growth stra­tegy. All aspects of Sophos are very valuable to us. From the new colle­agues, new compe­ten­cies and clients to the new part­ners for core banking solu­ti­ons such as Oracle Flex­cube. All of this leads to strong momen­tum for GFT in Colom­bia, the third largest Latin Ameri­can market, as well as expo­nen­tial growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the Ameri­cas and beyond.”

Custo­mers bene­fit from exper­tise in core banking, AI and cloud modernization

Sophos is parti­cu­larly known for its exper­tise in the areas of core banking, AI and cloud moder­niza­tion as well as inno­va­tion and digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. GFT’s clients will bene­fit from expan­ded deli­very capa­city and access to new exper­tise, inclu­ding core banking solu­ti­ons with Sophos’s estab­lished part­ners. For Sophos custo­mers, the acqui­si­tion means access to GFT’s large talent pool, exten­sive expe­ri­ence in successfully imple­men­ting cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies, more part­ners such as Thought Machine and pre-built solu­ti­ons. All of this toge­ther leads to shorter time-to-market and effec­tive deli­very of services to all customers.

“We are proud to be working with the entire Sophos team at a time of strong growth for the company,” says Lucas Maru­landa, Direc­tor at Advent Inter­na­tio­nal. “Since our invest­ment in 2020, Sophos has stra­te­gi­cally scaled its plat­form through inter­na­tio­nal and regio­nal expan­sion, helping to drive tech­no­logy trans­for­ma­tion and moder­niza­tion in the finan­cial indus­try. We look forward to follo­wing the company’s contin­ued success.”

“It is a great oppor­tu­nity for ever­yone at Sophos to become part of GFT,” adds Felipe Villa, CEO of Sophos. “With the combi­ned exper­tise and global presence of Sophos and GFT, we comple­ment each other perfectly. This will enable us to better support our custo­mers in their digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — great news for our employees and their profes­sio­nal deve­lo­p­ment, as well as for our custo­mers. We are grateful to Advent for taking our busi­ness to the next level.”

Canac­cord Genuity acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to Advent and Sophos in connec­tion with the transaction.

News

Berlin — Green Gene­ra­tion Fund was advi­sed on its $16 million seed finan­cing of Swiss AI start-up Jua by YPOG toge­ther with Swiss law firm Wenger Vieli. The round was led by the Green Gene­ra­tion Fund toge­ther with 468 Capi­tal. Other inves­tors include Promus Ventures, Kadmos Capi­tal, the foun­ders of Flix Mobi­lity, Session.vc, Virtus Resour­ces Part­ners, Notion.vc and InnoSuisse.

Foun­ded in 2022 by Andreas Bren­ner and Marvin Gabler, the Swiss start-up has deve­lo­ped a weather fore­cas­ting plat­form based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence that can be used to display custo­mi­zed, high-reso­lu­tion weather models.

Big AI models — the large amounts of voice, image and audio data that power gene­ra­tive arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence services — will be as important to the deve­lo­p­ment of AI as opera­ting systems are to the deve­lo­p­ment of smart­phones: in a sense, they look like the plat­forms of the space (an idea that others are also tinke­ring with). Now a Swiss startup called Jua is using this para­digm with the aim of crea­ting a new fron­tier for the use of AI in the physi­cal world. The company has recei­ved 16 million dollars to deve­lop a large “physics” model for the natu­ral world.

The company is still at a very early stage. Its first appli­ca­tion will be the mode­ling and fore­cas­ting of weather and climate patterns, initi­ally in rela­tion to the play­ers in the energy indus­try. Accor­ding to the company, this will be intro­du­ced in the coming weeks. Other sectors that the company is targe­ting with its model are agri­cul­ture, insu­rance, trans­por­ta­tion and government.

Legal advice Green Gene­ra­tion Fund: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Farina Weber (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

and Wenger Vieli (Switz­er­land)

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed NORD/LB on the finan­cing of a majo­rity stake in cisbox GmbH by the soft­ware inves­tor Main Capi­tal. The cisbox foun­ders Stephan Kern and Sebas­tian Mehrle will remain in the company and have acqui­red a signi­fi­cant stake in the company.
Foun­ded in 2005, cisbox offers cloud and AI-based soft­ware solu­ti­ons for opti­mi­zing procure-to-pay (P2P) proces­ses, prima­rily in the health­care, hospi­ta­lity, services and public sectors. The company employs more than 150 people in Solin­gen and at two loca­ti­ons in Vietnam.

NORD/LB Nord­deut­sche Landes­bank is one of the leading German commer­cial banks. As a public-law insti­tu­tion, it is part of the S‑Finanzgruppe. The core busi­ness areas include corpo­rate custo­mers, special finan­cing in the energy and infra­struc­ture sector and for aircraft, the finan­cing of commer­cial real estate via Deut­sche Hypo, capi­tal market busi­ness, S‑Group busi­ness with the savings banks and private and busi­ness custo­mers inclu­ding private banking. The bank is based in Hano­ver, Braun­schweig and Magde­burg and has bran­ches in Olden­burg, Hamburg, Schwe­rin, Düssel­dorf and Munich. Outside Germany, NORD/LB is repre­sen­ted by a Pfand­brief bank (NORD/LB Covered Bond Bank) in Luxem­bourg and by bran­ches in London, New York and Singapore.

Advi­sor NORD/LB:
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich: Dr. Matthias Weis­sin­ger (photo), Ludwig Zesch (both Finance, both lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Meyer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Tim Becker, Laura Soll­a­cher, Romy Lanz (Düssel­dorf; all Finance)

 

News

Munich/ Stock­holm — EQT’s flag­ship private equity fund recei­ves commit­ments tota­ling EUR 22 billion (USD 24 billion) in its largest fund­rai­sing to date, of which EUR 21.7 billion (USD 23.5 billion) rela­tes to assets under manage­ment, excee­ding the target of EUR 20 billion (USD 21.6 billion).

This repres­ents an increase of almost 40 percent over EQT IX, thanks to strong support from exis­ting and new inves­tors, with a grea­ter propor­tion of commit­ments coming from private assets.

EQT X builds on EQT Private Equity’s 30-year track record of inves­t­ing prima­rily in the health­care, tech­no­logy and tech­no­logy-enab­led services sectors in Europe and North America.
EQT is plea­sed to announce that EQT X (the “Fund”) has comple­ted its final close and has raised a total of EUR 22 billion (USD 24 billion) in commit­ments, of which EUR 21.7 billion (USD 23.5 billion) are fee-gene­ra­ting assets under manage­ment. The fund­rai­sing excee­ded the target of EUR 20 billion (USD 21.6 billion) and repres­ents an increase of almost 40% compared to EQT IX, which closed in April 2021 at EUR 15.6 billion. It is also one of the largest private equity funds ever launched.

The fund recei­ved commit­ments from a wide range of inves­tors, inclu­ding pension and sove­reign wealth funds, asset mana­gers and the private wealth segment. The latter accoun­ted for a larger share of total commit­ments, reflec­ting EQT’s recent stra­te­gic efforts to offer this segment better access to EQT funds with the launch of EQT Nexus. The fund inves­tors were based in North and South America, the Asia-Paci­fic region, the Middle East, Europe and the Nordic countries.

EQT X is the latest fund in EQT’s private equity strategy

The stra­tegy has been inves­t­ing in the health­care, tech­no­logy, tech­no­logy-enab­led services and indus­trial tech­no­logy sectors in Europe and North America for thirty years and has achie­ved a gross multi­ple on inves­ted capi­tal of 2.7x during this time. The fund has announ­ced seven invest­ments since June 2022, start­ing with the acqui­si­tion of Envi­ro­tai­ner, the world’s leading provi­der of mission-criti­cal trans­por­ta­tion services to the biopharma indus­try. Other invest­ments include advan­ced medi­cal compon­ents provi­der Zeus, leading accounts receiva­ble auto­ma­tion company Bill­trust and vete­ri­nary phar­maceu­ti­cals company Dechra Pharmaceuticals.

Per Fran­zén (photo), Head of Private Capi­tal Europe & North America at EQT and Chair­man of the EQT Private Equity Invest­ment Commit­tee, said: “We remain focu­sed on support­ing and future-proofing busi­nesses in attrac­tive and resi­li­ent sectors such as health­care and tech­no­logy and have proven our ability to perform and return capi­tal through cycles. We are conti­nuing to invest in our sector exper­tise, shar­pe­ning our invest­ment model and deve­lo­ping our value crea­tion tools. Our thema­tic invest­ment stra­tegy and our strong local presence are compe­ti­tive advan­ta­ges when it comes to sourcing oppor­tu­ni­ties, not least in an envi­ron­ment where deals are slower to close. EQT X has made a good start: We have alre­ady announ­ced four take-priva­tes and offer exten­sive co-invest­ment opportunities.”

Suzanne Dono­hoe, Chief Commer­cial Offi­cer at EQT, said: “We would like to thank both our long-stan­ding and new clients for their support of EQT X. We look forward to working with them in the future. Around 70 percent of commit­ments to the fund came from exis­ting EQT IX inves­tors, a testa­ment to the long-term trust we have built toge­ther. We are also grateful for the support of new clients who have reco­gni­zed our 30-year track record of deli­ve­ring strong and consis­tent returns. We look forward to further streng­thening our part­ner­ships over the next 30 years and beyond.”

As one of EQT’s eleven busi­ness units, the EQT Private Equity team consists of more than 130 invest­ment profes­sio­nals spread across 15 offices in Europe and North America. They work with port­fo­lio compa­nies to acce­le­rate growth, streng­then profi­ta­bi­lity and increase resi­li­ence through an active parti­ci­pa­tion model. This is done by provi­ding prac­ti­cal support to manage­ment teams, taking a long-term perspec­tive and contri­bu­ting in-depth exper­tise in areas such as AI, digi­ta­liza­tion and sustaina­bi­lity. The teams also draw on the exper­tise of EQT’s network of over 600 indus­try consul­tants, all of whom have expe­ri­ence in mana­ging compa­nies in EQT Private Equity’s core sectors. EQT Private Equity works closely with EQT’s other private capi­tal busi­nesses, which include EQT Private Capi­tal Asia, EQT Future, EQT Health­care Growth, EQT Growth and EQT Ventures.

About EQT

EQT is a global invest­ment orga­niza­tion focu­sed on active owner­ship stra­te­gies. With its Nordic heri­tage and global mind­set, EQT has an almost three-decade track record of deve­lo­ping busi­nesses across geogra­phies, sectors and stra­te­gies. EQT has invest­ment stra­te­gies that cover all stages of a company’s deve­lo­p­ment, from start-up to matu­rity. EQT has total assets under manage­ment of EUR 232 billion (EUR 130 billion in fee-earning assets) in two busi­ness segments — Private Capi­tal and Real Assets.

EQT has its roots in the entre­pre­neu­rial mind­set of the Wallen­berg family and their philo­so­phy of long-term owner­ship and is guided by a strong set of values and a distinc­tive corpo­rate culture. EQT mana­ges and advi­ses funds and vehic­les that invest globally with the aim of future-proofing compa­nies, gene­ra­ting attrac­tive returns and making a posi­tive impact with ever­y­thing EQT does. www.eqtgroup.com

News

Frank­furt am Main — A team from the law firm HEUKING has advi­sed Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH (HQIB) on the acqui­si­tion of Insti­tut Virion Serion GmbH and its Chinese joint venture (Virion\Serion). Virion\Serion has been active in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of in-vitro diagno­stics (IVD) for the diagno­sis of viral, bacte­rial, fungal and para­si­tic dise­a­ses for over 45 years. As a global supplier, the company offers both raw mate­ri­als and diagno­stic products. These are used by over 400 custo­mers, mainly labo­ra­to­ries and rese­arch insti­tu­tes, in more than 100 countries.

HQIB acqui­red Virion\Serion with the aim of further deve­lo­ping the medium-sized company in the long term. The main focus is on the further expan­sion of the raw mate­ri­als area and further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. With the help of HQIB’s finan­cial resour­ces and exper­tise, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons of comple­men­tary tech­no­lo­gies and product groups should further acce­le­rate growth. The manage­ment team around CEO Dr. Judith Stür­mer will remain with Virion\Serion beyond the transaction.

About HQIB

As an invest­ment holding company, HQIB invests in small and medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries that are active in estab­lished, future-orien­ted and tech­ni­cally sophisti­ca­ted sectors with attrac­tive growth poten­tial. The focus is on the areas of secu­rity, digi­ta­liza­tion and health. HQIB holds invest­ments in a total of 23 compa­nies. As an indus­trial holding company, HQIB pursues a long-term and sustainable invest­ment approach and is not subject to any matu­rity rest­ric­tions or limi­ted holding periods.

Advi­sor Harald Quandt Indus­trie­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH: HEUKING

Dr. Pär Johans­son, photo (© Heuking), lead part­ner (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Markus Schmül­l­ing (labor law),
Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP, Media & Technology),
Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M. (corpo­rate law / M&A), all Cologne,
Dr. Henrik Lay (tax law), Hamburg,
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Munich,
Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Cologne

News

Bonn — Altium and Vali­space are joining forces to acce­le­rate the realiza­tion of a shared vision to support engineers.
HTGF was the first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor and led the seed round in 2018 and has closely supported Vali­space in all phases of its growth jour­ney. As part of the tran­sac­tion, HTGF will sell its shares.

Louise Lind­blad, co-foun­der of Vali­space: “We look forward to working with Altium to conti­nue our mission of empowe­ring engi­neers to create great products and acce­le­rate the path to a future where new tech­no­lo­gies and products improve people’s lives.”
Chris­tian Ziach, Prin­ci­pal at HTGF: “It has been a great plea­sure to work closely with the start-up over the past six years and I look forward to the syner­gies that will result from the acquisition.”

Altium, a leading provi­der of design soft­ware for the elec­tro­nics indus­try, has acqui­red Vali­space. Valispace’s systems and requi­re­ments engi­nee­ring capa­bi­li­ties will comple­ment the Altium 365 cloud plat­form for product and elec­tro­nics design. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of Europe’s leading seed inves­tors, was the first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor and has been closely support­ing the team since the seed invest­ment in 2018.

Marco Witz­mann, co-foun­der of Vali­space, says: “We are thril­led to announce this important mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of Vali­space. This is also good news for exis­ting custo­mers: Not only will they conti­nue to have access to Valispace’s cutting-edge colla­bo­ra­tion soft­ware, but they will also gradu­ally bene­fit from features that inte­grate seam­lessly with detailed elec­tro­nics design proces­ses, closing the loop between system defi­ni­tion and implementation.”

Altium’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping tools for thou­sands of engi­neers with essen­tial elec­tro­nics design soft­ware will ensure that the Vali­space team can conti­nue to provide engi­neers with the best expe­ri­ence of colla­bo­ra­tive and AI-enab­led systems and requirements.

Acce­le­ra­ting a shared vision

Altium and Vali­space join forces to acce­le­rate the realiza­tion of a shared vision to support engi­neers. Products are incre­asingly defi­ned by their elec­tro­nics: Whereas in the 1980s a car contai­ned around 20 chips, today there are more than 2000. At the same time, the requi­re­ments to track legal and other requi­re­ments down to compo­nent level are incre­asing, and modern systems engi­nee­ring proces­ses are needed more than ever to cope with the incre­asing comple­xity of products. Engi­neers ther­e­fore rightly demand modern tools that enable them to deve­lop future products with an end-to-end solu­tion, for which Vali­space at Altium will be an important buil­ding block.

“We would like to thank ever­yone who has supported and encou­ra­ged us along the way, inclu­ding our family, friends and inves­tors. And we now look forward to working with Altium to conti­nue our mission of empowe­ring engi­neers to create great products and acce­le­rate the path to a future where new tech­no­lo­gies and products improve people’s lives,” said Louise Lind­blad, co-foun­der of Valispace.

About Vali­space

For hard­ware engi­nee­ring teams deve­lo­ping multi­di­sci­pli­nary hard­ware products, Vali­space is a breakth­rough system and requi­re­ments engi­nee­ring tool that combi­nes system design and requi­re­ments engi­nee­ring in an AI-powered and data-driven approach. This impro­ves colla­bo­ra­tion, ensu­res faster itera­ti­ons, gets the product right first time and drives inno­va­tion by making the entire deve­lo­p­ment process from requi­re­ments to system design and veri­fi­ca­tion more efficient.

About Altium

Altium is a global soft­ware company head­quar­te­red in San Diego, Cali­for­nia, that acce­le­ra­tes the pace of inno­va­tion in elec­tro­nics. For over 30 years, Altium has provi­ded soft­ware that maxi­mi­zes the produc­ti­vity of PCB desi­gners and elec­tri­cal engi­neers. From indi­vi­dual inven­tors to multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies, more and more PCB desi­gners and engi­neers are choo­sing Altium soft­ware to design and realize elec­tro­nics-based products.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. with the launch of its fourth fund, HTGF now mana­ges around 1.4 billion euros. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. HTGF focu­ses on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemi­cals and rela­ted busi­ness areas, and to date, exter­nal inves­tors have contri­bu­ted around EUR 5 billion in capi­tal to the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds, and HTGF has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 170 companies.

 

News

Düssel­dorf — The merger of HYPE and Plan­box crea­tes one of the largest inter­na­tio­nal provi­ders of inno­va­tion manage­ment soft­ware, with a turno­ver of almost 30 million euros. — Plan­box is the fourth acqui­si­tion of HYPE Inno­va­tion, a subsi­diary of Main Capi­tal since 2019, and demons­tra­tes the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of its port­fo­lio compa­nies in North America.

This stra­te­gic part­ner­ship bene­fits from Planbox’s exper­tise in full life­cy­cle inno­va­tion port­fo­lio manage­ment, emer­ging tech empower­ment and ecosys­tem enablem­ent. With more than two deca­des of expe­ri­ence, Plan­box has an impres­sive port­fo­lio of 400 imple­men­ta­ti­ons, over 5 million enga­ged parti­ci­pants and a $10 billion ROI for its clients. The company’s AI-powered, cloud-based agile inno­va­tion solu­ti­ons have been instru­men­tal in impro­ving the busi­ness results of inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed brands Bayer, Anglo Ameri­can, Doosan Bobcat, Novar­tis, Elec­tro­lux Profes­sio­nal, and Honey­well. Since the merger with Brain­bank Soft­ware in 2015, Plan­box has taken a leading posi­tion in the indus­try and achie­ved top rankings in analyst reports, most nota­bly in the Forres­ter Wave 2020.

Frank Henningsen, CEO of HYPE Inno­va­tion, said: “Our jour­ney began with a vision to change the way compa­nies inno­vate. Joining forces with Plan­box soli­di­fies this vision by combi­ning more than two deca­des of insight, tech­no­logy and passion. As the boun­da­ries between regi­ons and markets conti­nue to blur, our combi­ned exper­tise is a model for global inno­va­tion, ensu­ring that our clients not only adapt, but thrive in this dyna­mic land­scape. We have seen how tecto­nic market shifts can rede­fine entire sectors. With this merger, we will usher in a new era of inno­va­tion manage­ment for the world.”

In view of the incre­asing importance of gene­ra­tive AI, the merger is setting new indus­try stan­dards for inno­va­tion manage­ment systems. HYPE’s AI compe­ten­cies, such as the inno­va­tion network graph, AI-based data rese­arch and AI manage­ment, are now enhan­ced and enri­ched by powerful features from Plan­box. The resul­ting best-in-class plat­form repres­ents a trans­for­ma­tive change in the inno­va­tion manage­ment envi­ron­ment and marks the begin­ning of a new chap­ter where human crea­ti­vity, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and gover­nance come toge­ther to unlock unpre­ce­den­ted inno­va­tion poten­tial. It simpli­fies proces­ses, enables effi­ci­ent use of resour­ces and bridges gaps between front-end inno­va­tion work and back-end proces­ses and systems.

Ludwig Melik, CEO of Plan­box, added: “In the fast-chan­ging global market, it’s not just about survi­ving, it’s about outper­forming. Our combi­ned strengths are more than just a stra­te­gic alli­ance — they are a commit­ment to our custo­mers. Toge­ther, we are crea­ting an envi­ron­ment in which compa­nies are able to be future-ready by pre-emptively adap­ting to and bene­fiting from market chan­ges rather than simply reac­ting to them. With our expan­ded capa­bi­li­ties, we envi­sion a future where inno­va­tion manage­ment beco­mes the corner­stone of every successful business.”

Toge­ther, HYPE Inno­va­tion and Plan­box want to revo­lu­tio­nize the inno­va­tion manage­ment indus­try, offer compa­nies world­wide added value and open up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth and success. In addi­tion, custo­mers bene­fit from an exten­ded network of part­ners, employees and experts that the Group makes available to promote oppor­tu­ni­ties for colla­bo­ra­tion and the exch­ange of expe­ri­ence and to acce­le­rate their inno­va­tion efforts.

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen, Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of the DACH region at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, concluded: “HYPE Inno­va­tion has become a leading soft­ware specia­list in the enter­prise inno­va­tion manage­ment soft­ware market. North America is a very stra­te­gic market for HYPE and we are plea­sed to support the company during this criti­cal growth phase. We believe that the combi­na­tion of HYPE and Plan­box crea­tes a stron­gly posi­tio­ned group with a promi­sing future.”

About HYPE Innovation

HYPE Inno­va­tion is a leading provi­der of soft­ware and consul­ting in the field of inno­va­tion manage­ment and offers a compre­hen­sive plat­form for the entire life cycle of your inno­va­tion program. HYPE’s solu­ti­ons include end-to-end idea­tion, tech­no­logy and trend manage­ment, startup scou­ting, inno­va­tion part­ner manage­ment and ecosys­tem enga­ge­ment. As a leader in inno­va­tion manage­ment, HYPE enables clients to iden­tify oppor­tu­ni­ties, foster colla­bo­ra­tion and achieve stra­te­gic goals — from growth to cost savings to sustainable trans­for­ma­tion — to excel in innovation.

News

Munich / Wede­mark — Liberta Part­ners (“LIBERTA”) acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Amec GmbH (“AMEC”) from company foun­der Marcel Fehr­mann. AMEC is a renow­ned value-added resel­ler of elec­tro­nic compon­ents based in Wede­mark near Hano­ver. Marcel Fehr­mann remains a member of the manage­ment and conti­nues to hold a stake in the company. The manage­ment team is comple­ted by Norman Kühn and Sebas­tian Neelen, who will become share­hol­ders as part of the transaction.

The company was foun­ded in 2004 and specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment and procu­re­ment of microelec­tro­nic compon­ents for OEMs and EMS compa­nies, parti­cu­larly in the German SME sector. Through inno­va­tive “design-in” solu­ti­ons, AMEC evalua­tes custo­mer sugges­ti­ons, checks their feasi­bi­lity and makes its own sugges­ti­ons for impro­ve­ments to form and function.

Marcel Fehr­mann commen­ted on the sale: “I am deligh­ted to have found a strong part­ner for AMEC in LIBERTA. LIBERTA will support AMEC with its entre­pre­neu­rial deve­lo­p­ment approach in a sustainable and long-term manner and thus accom­pany the company’s growth path. This is a posi­tive signal for our long-stan­ding custo­mers, employees and partners.”

Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner at LIBERTA, empha­si­zed: “AMEC opera­tes in a promi­sing market. With a broad supplier network and the inno­va­tive “design-in” approach, the company is ideally posi­tio­ned to conti­nue its success story with the opera­tio­nal support of LIBERTA. With an increased focus on buy & build and a streng­thening of the orga­niza­tion, LIBERTA wants to set the frame­work for this.”

This is the first invest­ment by Liberta Part­ners Fund III, which closed in 2023. The fund invests in succes­sion situa­tions and group spin-offs, with a strong focus on support­ing the opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment of its port­fo­lio companies.

About AMEC GmbH

AMEC GmbH is a leading value-added resel­ler of elec­tro­nic compon­ents based in Wede­mark near Hano­ver. The company acts as a deve­lo­p­ment and purcha­sing part­ner for microelec­tro­nic compon­ents, espe­ci­ally for OEMs and EMS compa­nies. The compon­ents offer high quality at low cost. Tech­ni­cally trai­ned sales engi­neers support over 300 custo­mers not only at purcha­sing level, but also in deve­lo­p­ment. Through “design-in” solu­ti­ons, AMEC deve­lops custo­mi­zed vari­ants for custo­mers, checks the feasi­bi­lity and makes its own sugges­ti­ons in terms of form and func­tion. You can find more infor­ma­tion at: www.amec-gmbh.de

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. The company makes targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries, parti­cu­larly in succes­sion situa­tions and group spin-offs, with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. These compa­nies are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from the entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of 20 employees working in the areas of M&A, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment and Legal & Admi­nis­tra­tion, supported by an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Frank­furt — Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP has advi­sed AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of the Dorn­seiff group of compa­nies by DID Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the financing.

As part of the AURELIUS Group, AURELIUS Wachs­tums­ka­pi­tal focu­ses on buyouts and succes­sion solu­ti­ons for medium-sized compa­nies. Under the umbrella of its port­fo­lio company DID Group, service compa­nies in the fields of machine rental and indus­trial assem­bly are loca­ted. Gibson Dunn regu­larly advi­ses AURELIUS and has in the past also advi­sed on the finan­cing of DID Group’s buy & build stra­tegy, inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of Marcus Trans­port-GmbH, Ferdi­nand Scheu­rer GmbH and Schmidt-Falbe Gabel­stap­ler GmbH.

The Frank­furt finance team of Gibson Dunn, led by part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon, included asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters.

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. www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Zurich — Carbon­Pool, the world’s first insu­rance company with a carbon credit balance sheet, has closed a € 13 million seed round one year after its foun­da­tion. The finan­cing round was co-led by Heart­core Capi­tal and Vorwerk Ventures and included HCS Capi­tal, Revent Ventures and former members of the Execu­tive Board of insu­rance giant Alli­anz, Axel Theis and Chris­tof Mascher.

Foun­ded by former Alli­anz execu­ti­ves Coen­raad Vrolijk, Nandini Wilcke (photo © carbonpool.earth) and Frede­ric Olbert, Carbon­Pool aims to acce­le­rate invest­ments in carbon credits, which are criti­cal to achie­ving net zero, by provi­ding carbon credit insu­rance with bene­fits in kind.

Carbon­Pool offers in-kind credit insu­rance to ensure that compa­nies can guaran­tee the carbon credits they purchase. This insu­rance is the crucial miss­ing compo­nent that unlocks invest­ment in carbon credit projects. This market is curr­ently subject to a low level of confi­dence due to the high percei­ved risks

Almost half of the world’s 2,000 leading compa­nies plan to achieve net zero emis­si­ons by 2030. This is part of the acce­le­ra­ted efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of global net zero by 2050. Many of these compa­nies, along with thou­sands of others, rely on carbon credits to achieve their net zero targets. Follo­wing signi­fi­cant turbu­lence in the carbon markets, credit inte­grity, proper risk write-downs and the accu­racy of results are criti­cal to demons­trate to inves­tors, regu­la­tors and other stake­hol­ders that these promi­ses repre­sent real envi­ron­men­tal gains.

“CarbonPool’s in-kind services make it unique among insu­r­ers in offe­ring protec­tion not only to carbon credit holders in the event of natu­ral disas­ters or tech­no­logy collapse, but also in ensu­ring that carbon credits live up to their promise, giving buyers peace of mind and ensu­ring that they can meet their net zero targets,” said “, Coen­raad Vrolijk, former regio­nal CEO of Alli­anz Africa and co-foun­der and CEO of the Mana­ging Direc­tor of CarbonPool.

” Insu­rance accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the turno­ver of most mature markets, but CO2 certi­fi­cate trading has only just begun. A sector that despera­tely needs the credi­bi­lity that estab­lished finan­cial controls such as insu­rance can provide, said Chris­tian Jepsen, foun­ding part­ner at Heart­core. ” We are deligh­ted to support a world-class team of climate scien­tists, CO2 specia­lists and, most importantly, insu­rance experts with a combi­ned expe­ri­ence of 60 years in global under­wri­ting. I am confi­dent that they will bring much needed profes­sio­na­liza­tion to this sector. ”

“CarbonPool’s offe­ring gives buyers, deve­lo­pers and inves­tors in carbon projects the confi­dence needed to invest at scale and build the carbon removal indus­try we need,” said Dr. Domi­nik Stein­küh­ler, Part­ner at Vorwerk Ventures. ” We were hugely impres­sed by the exper­tise and track record of the Carbon­Pool foun­ders and are deligh­ted to support such an ambi­tious and focu­sed team. Their inno­va­tive approach goes beyond typi­cal corpo­rate insu­rance and protects the earth’s carbon footprint. ”

CarbonPool’s insu­rance license appli­ca­tion is under­way in Switz­er­land and the company is alre­ady offe­ring valua­tions and pre-agree­ments to clients such as corpo­ra­ti­ons, insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and carbon certi­fi­cate deve­lo­pers. It is also in discus­sion with govern­ment bodies, inclu­ding the United Nati­ons and the State of Cali­for­nia, sharing perspec­ti­ves on how insu­rance can solve some of the industry’s key chal­lenges, such as ensu­ring the perma­nence of carbon removal from the atmosphere.

” We are very exci­ted to invest in Carbon­Pool. As a VC with a deep focus on insur­tech, we believe in the power of inno­va­tion to address the pres­sing chal­lenges of our time, CarbonPool’s commit­ment to miti­ga­ting climate-rela­ted risks fits perfectly with our vision for the future of the insu­rance indus­try,” said Alex Horvitz, CEO of HCS Capi­tal.

About Carbon­Pool

Carbon­Pool helps the company achieve net zero by provi­ding property insu­rance for fail­ure to meet net zero obli­ga­ti­ons due to defi­cits and rever­sals, busi­ness inter­rup­ti­ons and natu­ral disas­ters that either reduce the amount of carbon dioxide removals or inad­ver­t­ently return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

CarbonPool’s team of insu­rance execu­ti­ves, climate scien­tists, weather mode­lers, geograph­ers and engi­neers assess each risk to build custo­mi­zed risk models. In addi­tion to CarbonPool’s own capi­tal, the premi­ums coll­ec­ted from each custo­mer are inves­ted in high-quality CO2 removal projects to provide bene­fits in kind. www.carbonpool.earth

About Vorwerk Ventures

Vorwerk Ventures is an inde­pen­dent € 150 million venture capi­tal fund. We invest in foun­ders with sustainable busi­ness models that have a posi­tive impact. We are defi­ned by a strong commit­ment to consu­mer-orien­ted digi­tal compa­nies, but we also go beyond this and invest in selec­ted B2B compa­nies that match our indus­try exper­tise. Find out more: 
https://vorwerkventures.com/

About Heart­Core Capital

Heart­core Capi­tal is an early-stage venture capi­tal fund foun­ded in Denmark in 2007 with offices in Copen­ha­gen, Stock­holm, Berlin and Paris. We are a multi-product fund with 5 early-stage funds, 2 growth funds and 1 mana­ged Web3 fund. Our cumu­la­tive tied-up capi­tal is appro­xi­m­ately € 770 million. We are Euro­pean by origin, but globally orien­ted. Our team compri­ses nine natio­na­li­ties and speaks ten languages. To date, we have inves­ted in over 100 start-up teams from 13 count­ries. We have supported some of the largest cate­gory-defi­ning compa­nies in Europe, such as Tink, Neo4j, Boozt, Ernst­haft and Travel­Perk. www.heartcore.com

About HCS Capital

HCS Capi­tal is an insur­tech, fintech and cyber­se­cu­rity invest­ment fund foun­ded in 2017 and based in Miami. It invests mainly in North America, Latin America and Israel. The aim of the fund is to support tech­no­logy start-ups in beco­ming scalable, sustainable compa­nies with a social impact. HCS Capital’s focus is not only on inves­t­ing, but also on crea­ting an ecosys­tem where port­fo­lio start­ups can inter­act and receive finan­cial, stra­te­gic, human and tech­no­lo­gi­cal support from the HCS Capi­tal team. https://www.hcscapital.com

About Revent Ventures

Revent is a €60 million early-stage VC fund that invests first checks in mission-driven foun­ders across Europe. We are looking for step-change tech­no­lo­gies and finan­cial and data infra­struc­ture provi­ders to build the struc­tures that connect markets in the areas of climate, health­care and econo­mic empower­ment. https://www.revent.vc/

News

Berlin — Raue has advi­sed the Turin and Berlin-based tech­no­logy start-up Tau ACT GmbH (“Tau”) on the exten­sion of its Series B finan­cing round from 2023 (Series B Exten­sion) with a volume of EUR 11 million. This time, CDP Venture Capi­tal and Santan­der Alter­na­tive Invest­ments joined Tau as new lead inves­tors. CDP Venture Capi­tal is an asset manage­ment company that mana­ges 13 invest­ment funds with a total volume of over EUR 3 billion that support young compa­nies in all phases of their life cycle. Santan­der Alter­na­tive Invest­ments, part of Santan­der Asset Manage­ment, mana­ges alter­na­tive invest­ment funds with a volume of two billion euros.

Tau has estab­lished itself as an inno­va­tive supplier to the auto­mo­tive indus­try and has set a new global stan­dard for winding wire for e‑mobility. Tau reached an important commer­cial mile­stone when its wire products comple­ted vali­da­tion proces­ses for seve­ral auto­mo­tive OEMs and Tier 1 suppli­ers in Europe, Asia and North America. Tau is curr­ently expan­ding its produc­tion capa­ci­ties and prepa­ring for CO2-neutral produc­tion of winding wire in Italy.

Raue advi­sed Tau compre­hen­si­vely on all legal issues in connec­tion with the finan­cing round. Raue had alre­ady advi­sed the startup compre­hen­si­vely in its Series A and B finan­cing rounds in 2020, 2021 and 2023.

About dew

Tau focu­ses on appli­ca­ti­ons in the auto­mo­tive, energy and agri­cul­tu­ral sectors and makes protec­tive coatings for copper, alumi­num and steel wire more dura­ble, resistant and ligh­ter. The DryCy­cle and LILIT tech­no­lo­gies deve­lo­ped by Tau meet the requi­re­ments of elec­tric auto­mo­tive tech­no­logy for ever smal­ler, ligh­ter and yet more powerful and relia­ble elec­tric motors. DryCy­cle tech­no­logy offers higher perfor­mance, better sustaina­bi­lity and grea­ter relia­bi­lity of the wire. By using only solvent-free poly­mers, DryCy­cle redu­ces the produc­tion of harmful vola­tile orga­nic compounds during the coating process, ther­eby lowe­ring carbon dioxide emissions.

Consul­tant Tau: Raue, Berlin

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle, Foto (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Chris­to­pher Gardt (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael K. Berg­mann (Part­ner, Regu­la­tory), Dr. Bene­dikt Schwarz­kopf (Asso­ciate, Regulatory)

News

Stutt­gart — The Clima­te­Tech start-up Cyclize from Stutt­gart is leading the way with €4.75 million in seed capi­tal to initiate a revo­lu­tion in the chemi­cal indus­try. The aim: to replace fossil resour­ces through the inno­va­tive recy­cling of carbon from plas­tic waste and CO2. The finan­cing round is being led by UVC Part­ners. The capi­tal increase is comple­men­ted by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), Aurum Impact, Unter­neh­mer­TUM Funding for Inno­va­tors and busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Dr. Klaus Schä­fer, former CTO of Cove­s­tro, who will also be part of the Advi­sory Board of Cyclize.

Repla­cing fossil resources

The chemi­cal indus­try, once firmly ancho­red in the use of fossil resour­ces, must change in order to achieve the neces­sary climate targets. The carbon atoms contai­ned in natu­ral gas and coal are used to produce synthe­sis gas — a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydro­gen. This gas mixture is a basic buil­ding block of the chemi­cal indus­try and the start­ing point for products that surround us ever­y­where, such as plas­tics, foams, adhe­si­ves, paints and many more. Their produc­tion and inci­ne­ra­tion at the end of their life account for 15 percent of global indus­trial CO2 emis­si­ons. Other proces­ses, such as elec­tro­ly­sis or the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS), cannot meet the growing demand for CO2-neutral synthe­sis gas.

Cyclize offers a solu­tion here: a highly inno­va­tive, plasma-based process in which mixed plas­tic waste of all kinds is recy­cled to produce synthe­sis gas that easily compe­tes econo­mic­ally with fossil synthe­sis gas. Cyclize is thus setting pionee­ring stan­dards in the unri­val­led repla­ce­ment of fossil resources.

“With our process, we are sending an important signal for climate-neutral chemis­try. Our paten­ted Cyclize process enables chemi­cal compa­nies to remain compe­ti­tive despite rising energy prices in Europe. Cyclize plasma is not only the future of the chemi­cal indus­try — it is an inno­va­tor for the circu­lar economy: “Plas­tic waste beco­mes a real raw mate­rial with mone­tary value,” says Maike Lambarth, co-foun­der and CEO of Cyclize.

Setting out for new markets, the net zero revolution

The move towards net-zero produc­tion is opening up new markets in Europe and Cyclize is paving the way for the chemi­cal indus­try through a low-thres­hold trans­for­ma­tion. With the produc­tion of synthe­sis gas, the company is merely chan­ging the first step in a long value chain and substi­tu­ting the fossil carbon source. Thanks to the reten­tion of the follo­wing process steps, exis­ting assets can conti­nue to be used and produc­tion costs can be kept low.

With their solu­tion, they not only serve nume­rous chemi­cal segments that previously relied on fossil hydro­gen and synthe­sis gas, but also solve the global problem of recy­cling previously non-recy­clable plas­tic waste. Cyclize is an inno­va­tion pioneer that reso­lut­ely tack­les the global chal­lenges of our time.

Further deve­lo­p­ment of plasma technology 

Cyclize has alre­ady attrac­ted a great deal of inte­rest from indus­try and poli­tics. Since May 2022, the spin-off of the Univer­sity of Stutt­gart has been funded by the EXIST rese­arch trans­fer program of the Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Climate Protec­tion (BMWK). With the newly raised capi­tal, the company is taking its realiza­tion to the next level. In the next step, Cyclize will dedi­cate itself to scaling up the tech­no­logy and apply­ing it on an indus­trial scale with an expan­ded team. Test series with pilot custo­mers who require synthe­sis gas or want to recy­cle complex waste streams are also alre­ady being plan­ned. The young company is thus actively driving tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment towards commer­cia­liza­tion. The next goal is to set up and operate the first waste-to-syngas plant of its kind in a chemi­cal park in order to demons­trate its appli­ca­bi­lity in an indus­trial envi­ron­ment through pilot opera­tion.About Cyclize

As a spin-off from the Univer­sity of Stutt­gart, Cyclize has deve­lo­ped a defos­si­liza­tion tech­no­logy for the chemi­cal indus­try in which mixed plas­tic waste and CO2 are used as a start­ing mate­rial to produce synthe­sis gas (a gas mixture of carbon monoxide and hydro­gen). This synthe­sis gas serves as a basic buil­ding block for higher-value chemi­cals and is used to produce plas­tics, metha­nol, hydro­gen and e‑fuels. To date, synthe­sis gas has still been produ­ced through the linear use of fossil resour­ces such as natu­ral gas. The inno­va­tive plasma-based process makes it possi­ble to replace fossil resour­ces with waste mate­ri­als, enable a circu­lar economy for carbon and avoid hundreds of mega­tons of CO2 annu­ally by 2050. www.cyclize.de.

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a leading early stage venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Berlin that invests in Euro­pean B2B tech start-ups from pre-seed to Series A stage. With appro­xi­m­ately 400 million euros in assets under manage­ment, UVC Part­ners typi­cally invests between 500,000 and 10 million euros as an initial ticket and up to 30 million euros per company. The port­fo­lio includes leading compa­nies in the fields of deep tech, climate tech, hard­ware, soft­ware and mobi­lity. As an inde­pen­dent part­ner of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest inno­va­tion and startup center, UVC Part­ners has access to proprie­tary deal flow, an indus­trial network of more than 1,000 compa­nies and access to talent from Europe’s leading tech­ni­cal univer­sity. Its invest­ments include Flix, Vimcar, planqc, Tanso, Isar Aero­space, TWAICE, Deep­Drive, STABL and many more. They all bene­fit from the team’s exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence, its ability to build sustainable indus­try leaders and its passion for deve­lo­ping the game chan­gers of tomor­row. www.uvcpartners.com.

About Aurum Impact

The impact inves­tor Aurum Impact supports start-ups and funds that are dedi­ca­ted to tack­ling major ecolo­gi­cal and social chal­lenges. As part of the Gold­beck Family Office, Aurum Impact acts as a relia­ble part­ner with a long-term invest­ment focus along the themes of circu­lar economy and mate­ri­als, climate and energy, ecosys­tems as well as equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and social stabi­lity. Initial invest­ments in start-ups focus on the early phase from pre-seed to Series A. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as UNDO, Clean­Hub and Volt­fang as well as the impact funds Planet A Ventures, Revent and Syste­miq Capi­tal. Further infor­ma­tion: www.aurum-impact.de.

 

News

Hamburg — Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment has closed its venture capi­tal fund Picus Ventures Fund II with a target volume of €200 million. This gene­ra­tion of funds has more than double the volume of its prede­ces­sor, Picus Venture Fund I, which Picus Capi­tal initia­ted in 2021, and was laun­ched as a German fund structure.

The fund’s inves­tors include selec­ted insti­tu­tio­nal anchor inves­tors and Euro­pean family offices with deep roots in indus­try leaders and promi­nent tech unicorns. Some of the inves­tors are inves­t­ing again, having alre­ady inves­ted in the prede­ces­sor fund Picus Venture Fund I.
Picus Venture Fund II will invest predo­mi­nantly in promi­sing early stage tech­no­logy compa­nies globally, lever­aging the access and infor­ma­tion advan­tage that Picus Capital’s approach to early stage inves­t­ing provi­des to achieve supe­rior returns through a de-risked structure.

Advi­sor Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment : YPOG

Dr. Fabian Euhus (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Saskia Bong (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Jannik Zerbst (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin/Hamburg Wolf­ram Dickers­bach (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Picus Capi­tal and Picus Capi­tal Management

Picus Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm head­quar­te­red in Munich with offices in New York, Beijing, Berlin, London, Banga­lore, Singa­pore, Paris and Mexico City. Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment is the Group’s fund manage­ment unit. Picus Capi­tal accom­pa­nies entre­pre­neurs from the earliest stages to the growth phase with Picus Capi­tal Management’s Venture Fund stra­tegy. The company focu­ses on tech­no­logy compa­nies in the areas of finan­cial services, human resour­ces, energy & climate, health­care, logi­stics & mobi­lity, real estate & cons­truc­tion, crypto & web3, deept­ech and e‑commerce. As an entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ner, Picus Capi­tal pursues a long-term invest­ment philo­so­phy and supports foun­ders from the idea phase to the IPO and beyond. www.picuscap.com

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 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

Munich — RENK Group AG and its share­hol­der, Rebecca BidCo S.à.r.l. Holding, have issued shares in RENK Group AG from the holdings of the selling share­hol­der Rebecca BidCo S.à.r.l. to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in an acce­le­ra­ted book­buil­ding process as part of a private place­ment. This means that Renk is now valued at around 1.9 billion euros.

The tank trans­mis­sion manu­fac­tu­rer made the leap onto the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange at the second attempt: a total of 33,333,333 shares were placed with inves­tors. The invest­ment company Tritonwhose “Triton V” fund alre­ady held a majo­rity stake in Rebecca BidCo S.à.r.l., will conti­nue to hold a majo­rity stake in RENK Group AG after the IPO. The total place­ment volume is appro­xi­m­ately EUR 500 million. Trading on the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Prime Stan­dard) commen­ced on Febru­ary 7, 2024.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the manage­ment of RENK Group AG on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in the IPO with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/Private Equity)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Taxes)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/Private Equity)

News

Munich / Gundel­fin­gen a.d. Donau — The NOBIX Group (“NOBIX”) has successfully acqui­red the company KUHN IT (“KUHN IT”), ther­eby conso­li­da­ting its market posi­tion in the Mana­ged IT Services sector. The acqui­si­tion is a signi­fi­cant step in the imple­men­ta­tion of the growth stra­tegy of the NOBIX system house group, which was foun­ded by Liberta Part­ners (“LIBERTA”). NOBIX is a pioneer in the digi­ta­liza­tion of opera­tio­nal proces­ses and busi­ness infor­ma­tion in the SME sector. KUHN IT will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently and will remain under the proven manage­ment of Thilo Kuhn.

KUHN IT, based in Welz­heim near Stutt­gart, is one of Germany’s leading DATEV Solu­tion and Corpo­rate Part­ners. The focus is on tax consul­tants, audi­tors, law firms and their clients. In addi­tion to SaaS inter­faces and mana­ged services in the DATEV envi­ron­ment, the company also offers tradi­tio­nal IT services and infra­struc­ture sales. KUHN IT has estab­lished itself as a relia­ble part­ner in the region, known for its inno­va­tive strength, quality stan­dards and first-class custo­mer service. Thanks to its own soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment depart­ment, KUHN IT GmbH crea­tes added value for its custo­mers and maxi­mi­zes the depth of inte­gra­tion of the DATEV products used.

Thilo Kuhn is deligh­ted with the take­over: “We see NOBIX as a future-orien­ted part­ner in a dyna­mic market. The poten­tial of the merger and the sustainable deve­lo­p­ment of the indi­vi­dual compa­nies convin­ced us to become part of this strong group. Our custo­mers and part­ners can be sure that we will conti­nue to provide them with relia­ble support. Toge­ther, we are a major player in the German system house market.”

NOBIX’s vision is to become one of the leading system house groups in the DACH region. NOBIX relies on the synergy of three central busi­ness areas: Mana­ged Print Services (“MPS”), Data Manage­ment Solu­ti­ons (“DMS”) and IT Services. The group of compa­nies, consis­ting of Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme, System­haus Bissin­ger, DRUCK-LOS and KUHN IT, posi­ti­ons itself as a compre­hen­sive solu­tion provi­der for its more than 7,500 custo­mers. The plan­ned growth will be driven by stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, with a focus on poten­tial compa­nies in the IT services sector.

Jörg Radler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of NOBIX, comm­ents on the acqui­si­tion as follows: “The acqui­si­tion of KUHN IT is a great step in our stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment into an IT system house leader. We look forward to pursuing this path toge­ther with the KUHN IT team.”

Nils von Wietz­low, Part­ner at LIBERTA and respon­si­ble for succes­sion situa­tions, adds: “The acqui­si­tion of KUHN IT is an ideal, both regio­nal and stra­te­gic addi­tion to NOBIX. The growth stra­tegy of the system house group will thus be driven forward in a targe­ted manner.”

About KUHN IT

KUHN IT GmbH, based in Welz­heim near Stutt­gart, specia­li­zes in the sale and trading of DATEV licen­ses with a focus on tax consul­tants, audi­tors, law firms and their clients. The company offers its own SaaS inter­faces and mana­ged services in the DATEV envi­ron­ment. In addi­tion to its core busi­ness in the DATEV area, KUHN IT also pursues the sale of clas­sic IT services and IT infra­struc­ture. The site in Welz­heim employs 38 people, whose exper­tise and commit­ment guaran­tee first-class support and inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons. www.kuhnit.de

About the NOBIX Group

The NOBIX Group is a medium-sized system house group specia­li­zing in office infra­struc­ture, docu­ment manage­ment systems and IT services. With a clear vision and a strong commit­ment to digi­ta­liza­tion, NOBIX helps compa­nies to opti­mize their busi­ness proces­ses and focus fully on crea­ting value. The group curr­ently consists of Kemm­ler Kopier Systeme GmbH in Kaisers­lau­tern (www.kks-kl.de), System­haus Bissin­ger GmbH (www.bissinger.de) in Gundel­fin­gen an der Donau and DRUCK-LOS GmbH in Stutt­gart and employs over 130 people at six loca­ti­ons in southern Germany. www.nobix-group.de

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. The company makes targe­ted invest­ments in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries, parti­cu­larly in succes­sion situa­tions and group spin-offs, with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial. These compa­nies are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from the entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise of Liberta Part­ners. The Liberta Part­ners team consists of 20 employees working in the areas of M&A, Corpo­rate Deve­lo­p­ment and Legal & Admi­nis­tra­tion, supported by an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Berlin — With the common goal of promo­ting sustainable and local chemi­cal and phar­maceu­ti­cal produc­tion in Europe, DuDe­Chem has raised a total of EUR 6.5 million. Vogel Heerma Waitz advi­sed b2venture and Vorwerk Ventures on the finan­cing of DuDe­Chem as part of a seed finan­cing round. Other inves­tors include Front­line, Borski Fund, Auxxo and Push Ventures. The company will use the funds to expand its team of expe­ri­en­ced scien­tists and provide the first product for one of the Euro­pean gene­rics manufacturers.

Dude Chem is mobi­li­zing an asset-poor network of Euro­pean contract manu­fac­tu­r­ers to reshape local, resi­li­ent pharma supply chains. The use of regio­nal capa­ci­ties provi­des an over­view, mini­mi­zes risks and redu­ces depen­dence on outda­ted methods and tech­no­lo­gies. By relia­bly provi­ding sustainable, Euro­pean-made chemi­cals and avoi­ding logi­sti­cal and poten­ti­ally geopo­li­ti­cal issues (the majo­rity of the world’s active ingre­di­ents come from China and India), Dude Chem is incen­ti­vi­zing play­ers across the value chain and support­ing moder­niza­tion in the region.

With its paten­ted tech­no­lo­gies and produc­tion proces­ses, Dude Chem redu­ces waste by up to 70% and CO2 emis­si­ons by 40% without compro­mi­sing on quality, which impro­ves both its envi­ron­men­tal foot­print and econo­mic compe­ti­ti­ve­ness. At the heart of Dude Chem’s green chemis­try kit and digi­tal plat­form is the opti­miza­tion of work­flows to improve trans­pa­rency, quality and sustaina­bi­lity throug­hout the supply chain. By redu­cing inef­fi­ci­en­cies in deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion, higher yields, lower costs, tracea­bi­lity and a lower envi­ron­men­tal impact are achieved.

Their envi­ron­men­tally friendly chemi­cal formu­la­ti­ons and synthe­sis opti­miza­ti­ons, in which toxic compounds are repla­ced by clea­ner alter­na­ti­ves, repre­sen­ted a convin­cing value propo­si­tion right from our first cont­acts. During our first visits to the Berlin labo­ra­tory, we were able to see first-hand the commit­ment and inno­va­tive strength of the Dude Chem team. Based on their broad patent port­fo­lio, they have achie­ved signi­fi­cant cost and issue reduc­tions, which have been confirmed by leading phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies as custo­mers, under­pin­ning their role. In addi­tion, its asset-light model, which is based on a part­ner network of Euro­pean contract manu­fac­tu­r­ers, offers flexi­bi­lity, scala­bi­lity and support for the local supply chain.

The foun­ders

Dude Chem’s ambi­tion to moder­nize and trans­form the chemi­cal indus­try is largely due to the company’s foun­ding team. Indus­try veterans Sonja, Tino, Henri­ette and Mathis have deca­des of combi­ned expe­ri­ence at leading compa­nies such as Bayer, Lonza and Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim in the fields of chemis­try, process engi­nee­ring, AI and data science.

Consul­tant: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Clemens Waitz, Falko Brüggemann

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

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

News

Frank­furt a. Main/ Lappe­en­ranta (Finland) — Ardian, a leading global private invest­ment firm, in coope­ra­tion with its opera­ting plat­form eNor­dic, today announ­ces that it has taken the Final Invest­ment Decis­ion (FID) for the cons­truc­tion of the Merta­niemi battery storage project. This is a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a capa­city of 38.5 MW in one-hour opera­tion in Finland, which is inten­ded to support the Finnish elec­tri­city grid.

The invest­ment, made from the Ardian Clean Energy Ever­green Fund (ACEEF), is the fund’s first invest­ment in the BESS asset class, which is expec­ted to grow from 11 GWh of instal­led capa­city in Europe today to 75 GWh by 2030, accor­ding to Bloom­berg New Energy Finance. Ardian evalua­ted the merits of this invest­ment using OPTA, Ardian’s proprie­tary data analy­tics plat­form, which forms the basis for the reve­nue and opera­tio­nal stra­tegy of Ardian’s rene­wa­ble energy port­fo­lio around the world.

The project is in line with the ACEEF stra­tegy in Finland, which aims to acquire and bundle wind and solar energy plants to bene­fit from econo­mies of scale and make better use of grid inter­con­nec­tion points through the deve­lo­p­ment of battery storage. This follows the acqui­si­tion of two wind farms in Finland in 2023 with a total capa­city of more than 27 mega­watts. The stra­tegy will be imple­men­ted by eNor­dic, a rene­wa­ble energy plat­form deve­lo­ped and wholly owned by Ardian to serve the Nordic region.

The battery storage project in Merta­niemi is a joint venture between ACEEF and Lappe­en­r­annan Ener­gia, a Finnish muni­ci­pal energy company. It envi­sa­ges the deve­lo­p­ment of a 38.5 mega­watt energy storage system for one hour. The project is sche­du­led for comple­tion in spring 2025 and is loca­ted near the Merta­niemi power plant in Lappeenranta.

In addi­tion to the energy storage system, the project also includes the deve­lo­p­ment of equip­ment to protect the batte­ries from extreme weather condi­ti­ons. Once comple­ted, the system will parti­ci­pate in the frequency reserve markets of the local grid and support the balan­cing of gene­ra­tion and consump­tion in the elec­tri­city grid.

ACEEF will conti­nue to pursue its stra­tegy of expan­ding the plat­form in Finland with the acqui­si­tion of further wind and battery systems in the region.

In total, Ardian’s invest­ment port­fo­lio in the rene­wa­ble energy sector in the Nordic count­ries amounts to EUR 1.2 billion. It compri­ses wind farms with a total capa­city of over 500 MW and the rene­wa­ble energy company Nevel, which is active in district heating, indus­trial energy supply and biogas in Finland, Sweden and Esto­nia. Recently, Ardian announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Verne Global, a company that owns and opera­tes three data centers in Finland, among others; this acqui­si­tion is still in the process of being appro­ved by the local authorities.

“The invest­ment in a new battery storage system, which is a first for Ardian’s Ever­green clean energy fund, is a key part of our stra­tegy in Finland. We have reco­gni­zed the oppor­tu­nity to increase Finnish wind power capa­city and incor­po­rate battery storage tech­no­lo­gies to create a balan­ced and produc­tive energy system. With our strong presence and network in the Nordics and our expe­ri­ence in finan­cing and opera­ting long-term rene­wa­ble energy projects, Ardian is perfectly posi­tio­ned to support this new market oppor­tu­nity,” said Benja­min Kennedy (photo © ardian.com), Mana­ging Direc­tor Rene­wa­bles Infra­struc­ture, Ardian.

“Ardian is commit­ted to driving the energy tran­si­tion and promo­ting the use of rene­wa­ble energy to reduce carbon emis­si­ons. Rene­wa­ble energy is curr­ently being gene­ra­ted on an unpre­ce­den­ted scale and the deve­lo­p­ment of elec­tri­city storage solu­ti­ons is crucial to balan­cing supply and demand on the grid and crea­ting a stable modern elec­tri­city network. This invest­ment is an important step towards a more sustainable and relia­ble energy future in Finland.”
Mathias Burg­hardt, Execu­tive Vice Presi­dent and Head of Infra­struc­ture, Ardian.

“The Nordic energy market is alre­ady one step ahead in the energy tran­si­tion, mainly due to the scope of new tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. The battery storage project in Merta­niemi is an exam­ple of how eNor­dic is at the fore­front of this move­ment, helping to realize the region’s goal of beco­ming a leading player in sustainable energy.”

ACEEF will conti­nue to focus on the most important rene­wa­ble ener­gies such as solar, wind and hydro­power, but also on new tech­no­lo­gies such as biogas, biomass, storage and energy efficiency.

Ardian is a pioneer of the energy tran­si­tion and began inves­t­ing in rene­wa­ble ener­gies in 2007. Across all infra­struc­ture funds, the team mana­ges a rene­wa­ble energy port­fo­lio of more than 8 GW of ther­mal and rene­wa­ble energy capa­city in Europe and the Ameri­cas and over USD 28 billion in assets under manage­ment around the world.

About Ardian

Ardian is a leading global private invest­ment firm that mana­ges or advi­ses on behalf of more than 1,560 clients world­wide with assets under manage­ment of USD 164 billion. Our exten­sive exper­tise in the areas of private equity, real assets and credit enables us to offer a broad range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and to respond flexi­bly to the diffe­rent needs of our clients. Through Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons, we create bespoke port­fo­lios that allow insti­tu­tio­nal clients to deter­mine their desi­red asset mix and gain access to funds mana­ged by leading third-party provi­ders. Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons offers specia­li­zed services and access solu­ti­ons for private banks, family offices and private insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors world­wide. Ardian’s most important share­hol­der group is its employees, and we place great empha­sis on deve­lo­ping our people and foste­ring a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion based on coll­ec­tive intel­li­gence. Our more than 1,050 employees in 19 offices in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East are commit­ted to the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble inves­t­ing and are. www.ardian.com

News

Esch­born — Rödl & Part­ner has provi­ded compre­hen­sive finan­cial advice to Product­Life Group (PLG), a French and global provi­der of consul­ting services to the life scien­ces indus­try, on the acqui­si­tion of Commer­cial Eyes Pty Ltd, an Austra­lian company focu­sed on the commer­cia­liza­tion of phar­maceu­ti­cals and medi­cal devices.

This part­ner­ship opens up nume­rous synergy effects for both compa­nies and their custo­mers. For PLG, this means not only expan­ding its geogra­phic presence and exten­ding its offe­ring to global markets, but also better support­ing custo­mers in their over­all market and pati­ent access stra­tegy. Joining PLG repres­ents a signi­fi­cant stra­te­gic step for Commer­cial Eyes for all stake­hol­ders and offers the oppor­tu­nity to utilize the plat­form built up over the last 22 years to successfully drive global expansion.

Part­ner Jochen Reis was respon­si­ble for over­all project manage­ment. The finan­cial due dili­gence was led by Asso­ciate Part­ner Felix Markow­sky; Asso­ciate Svenja Schramm comple­men­ted the Rödl & Part­ner advi­sory team.

About Product­Life Group (PLG)

Since 1993, PLG has been support­ing custo­mers around the world throug­hout the life scien­ces product life­cy­cle. The Group combi­nes local exper­tise with global reach and is active in over 150 count­ries. PLG is a consul­ting company that offers outsour­cing services in the areas of Regu­la­tory Affairs, Quality & Compli­ance, Vigi­lance and Medi­cal Infor­ma­tion. PLG’s exper­tise extends to estab­lished products as well as inno­va­tive thera­peu­tics and diagnostics.

About Commer­cial Eyes Pty Ltd

Commer­cial Eyes, head­quar­te­red in Melbourne and with a presence in New Zealand, has estab­lished itself as one of the largest local provi­ders of marke­ting services in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and medtech sector. With a team of over 100 employees, Commer­cial Eyes says it has served more than 800 clients for over 22 years, repre­sen­ting the entire spec­trum of health­care tech­no­logy compa­nies. The company’s services include Access, Rese­arch & Intel­li­gence as well as Regu­la­tory, Quality and Compli­ance, Pati­ent Safety and Medi­cal Information.

Advi­sor Product­Life Group: Rödl & Partner

Jochen Reis (photo © Rödl), Part­ner, Head of Tran­sac­tion & Valua­tion Services Esch­born, over­all project manage­ment — Financial
Felix Markow­sky, Asso­ciate Part­ner, Esch­born — Financial
Svenja Schramm, Asso­ciate, Esch­born — Financial

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