ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Frank­furt, London and Munich — KKR Health Care Growth Fund II has made an invest­ment in German biophar­maceu­ti­cal rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment company Corio­lis Pharma. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Corio­lis Pharma will enter into a stra­te­gic growth part­ner­ship with Fron­tier Bioso­lu­ti­ons, a global phar­maceu­ti­cal services plat­form newly formed by KKR and Flerie Invest AB.

KKR’s invest­ment will enable Corio­lis to embark on the next phase of growth in its core busi­ness, expand its port­fo­lio of services along the value chain, streng­then its global presence and conti­nue to inte­grate AI-based technologies.

Corio­lis is expec­ted to gain access to KKR’s global health­care network and Fron­tier Bioso­lu­ti­ons to expand Corio­lis’ global opera­ti­ons and growth plans in inno­va­tive, high-value formu­la­tion rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment services.

“Since Corio­lis was foun­ded 15 years ago, our vision has been to revo­lu­tio­nize the biophar­maceu­ti­cal drug deve­lo­p­ment process by inte­gra­ting inno­va­tive digi­tal formu­la­tion approa­ches from deve­lo­p­ment through commer­cial products,” said Corio­lis co-foun­ders and board members Michael and Thomas Wiggen­horn. The coope­ra­tion with KKR should enable major steps forward in this regard and further expand the company’s scien­ti­fic leader­ship posi­tion, he said.

The Gibson Dunn team, led by London part­ner and co-head of the private equity prac­tice in Europe Wim De Vlie­ger and Frank­furt part­ners Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt and Dr. Jan Schu­bert, included London coun­sel Dr. Jakob Egle and asso­cia­tes Sonja Rutt­mann, Dr. Dennis Seif­arth (both Munich), Lisa Holl­fel­der (Frank­furt) and Gisele Zouein (London). Brussels anti­trust and compe­ti­tion law part­ner Attila Borsos and London asso­cia­tes Ben Nunez and Robert Albert­son Kill as well as corpo­rate coun­sel Dr. Birgit Friedl and asso­ciate Dr. Marcus Geiss (both Munich) supported the team. In Munich, part­ner Kai Gesing and asso­cia­tes Chris­toph Jacob and Yannick Ober­acker advi­sed on IP issues, while Frank­furt finance coun­sel Alex­an­der Klein and asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters advi­sed on finan­cing issues.

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,800 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn 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, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Munich, Octo­ber 12, 2023 — Birken­stock Holding plc (NYSE: BIRK) and its prin­ci­pal share­hol­der L Catter­ton are being advi­sed by Kirk­land & Ellis on the IPO of Birken­stock. The IPO included 10,752,688 million ordi­nary shares issued and sold by Birken­stock and 21,505,376 ordi­nary shares sold by BK LC Lux MidCo S.à r.l., an affi­liate of L Catter­ton. The common shares were each offe­red at an issue price of $46.00 per share.

In connec­tion with the offe­ring, the selling share­hol­der gran­ted the under­wri­ters a 30-day option to purchase up to an addi­tio­nal 4,838,709 shares of common stock to cover over-allot­ments. The shares have been traded on the New York Stock Exch­ange under the symbol “BIRK” since Octo­ber 11, 2023. The closing of the offe­ring is expec­ted to occur on Octo­ber 13, 2023.

Birken­stock is a global univer­sal brand that appeals equally to all consu­mers regard­less of geogra­phy, gender, age or income and is commit­ted to a clear goal — preser­ving foot health.

Advi­sors to Birken­stock Holding plc and L Catter­ton: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Anna Schwan­der, Foto (Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. Philip Goj (both Private Equity/M&A) (all Lead), Sieg­fried Bütt­ner (Capi­tal Markets), Dr. David Huth­ma­cher, Greta-Jose­fin Harnisch (both Private Equity/M&A), Daniel Hiemer (Tax)

Kirk­land & Ellis, New York: Ross Leff, Joshua Korff, Zoey Hitzert (all lead, all Capi­tal Markets), Joshua Kogan (Private Equity/M&A), Steph Matko (Execu­tive Compen­sa­tion); Asso­cia­tes: Sarah Lipin­ski, Jessica Pushka, Varun Baliga (all Capi­tal Markets)
Kirk­land & Ellis, Boston: Vincent Thorn, Bran­don Short (both Tax)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Alan Walker (Tax)

About Kirk­land

Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading firms for high-cali­ber legal services, with appro­xi­m­ately 3,500 lawy­ers in 19 cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The Munich team advi­ses with a focus on private equity, M&A, corpo­rate law, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law. www.kirkland.com.

News

Isern­ha­gen — The ARTUS Group acqui­res the SI.TEQ Group from an inves­tor group advi­sed by Rigeto Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal. In total, ARTUS BSG is thus growing by a further thir­teen loca­ti­ons and by a further 140 employees. — A Colo­gne-based private equity team led by Dr. Pär Johans­son and Kris­tina Schnei­der provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to the ARTUS Group on the acqui­si­tion of the SI.TEQ Group from the previous share­hol­ders, under the leader­ship of rigeto.

The SI.TEQ Group is a leading reme­dia­tion service provi­der opera­ting in Nort­hern Germany and Bava­ria and has been active in the market since 2005. The main focus of the SI.TEQ Group is the provi­sion of craft services for the resto­ra­tion of small to medium damage to resi­den­tial buildings.

ARTUS Bautrock­nung- und Sanie­rungs­gruppe is one of Germany’s leading resto­ra­tion service provi­ders in the field of fire, water, mold and natu­ral hazard damage as well as buil­ding drying and heating. With more than 1,400 employees at over 75 loca­ti­ons, the company offers complete solu­ti­ons for the entire refur­bish­ment process.

With the acqui­si­tion of the SI.TEQ Group, ARTUS Bautrock­nung- und Sanie­rungs­gruppe is further expan­ding its site density in order to offer its custo­mers a compre­hen­sive and holi­stic service approach. In parti­cu­lar, the exper­tise of SANTEQ GmbH Scha­den­ma­nage­ment in the medium and large loss segment is expec­ted to contri­bute to the further growth of the over­all group.

The Heuking team has alre­ady been advi­sing ARTUS since 2019 and now acted for ARTUS in its second add-on acqui­si­tion since the entry of private equity inves­tor Castik.

Advi­sor to the ARTUS Group: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Pär Johans­son, Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M. (Photo © Heuking), Dr. Ann-Kath­rin Jungen, (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A); Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP, Media & Tech­no­logy), Dr. Lutz Martin Keppe­ler (Data Privacy), Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), all Cologne,
Mathis Dick, LL.M., Markus Vlasic, Dr. Peter Zimmer­mann (all Real Estate), all Düsseldorf,
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Dr. Frede­rik Wiemer (Anti­trust Law), both Hamburg

News

Helsinki/ Langen­feld — Labqua­lity Oy acqui­res P.R.I.S.M.A.-CRO Clini­cal Rese­arch Orga­niza­tion. P.R.I.S.M.A. is a German company specia­li­zing in clini­cal trial services for the phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech indus­tries. P.R.I.S.M.A. and its expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals streng­then Labquality’s offer of clini­cal trials in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech markets. The acqui­si­tion is in line with Labquality’s stra­tegy to build a full-service inter­na­tio­nal contract rese­arch orga­niza­tion (CRO). — A team led by Dr. Jörg Schewe, Heuking Part­ner at the Hamburg office, advi­sed Finnish Labqua­lity Oy on the acqui­si­tion of P.R.I.S.M.A.-CRO Clini­cal Rese­arch Orga­ni­sa­tion GmbH.

Labqua­lity Oy is a Finnish company based in Helsinki. The team consists of health­care and health tech quality experts. Labqua­lity provi­des quality services to the health­care, phar­maceu­ti­cal and medi­cal device indus­tries; these include exter­nal quality assess­ments, regu­la­tory consul­ting, clini­cal trials and studies, audits and certi­fi­ca­ti­ons, and trai­ning. Labqua­lity supports medi­cal device and in vitro diagno­stic manu­fac­tu­r­ers, phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, health­care faci­li­ties, and clini­cal labo­ra­to­ries, among others.

The acqui­si­tion of P.R.I.S.M.A. enables Labqua­lity to expand its CRO busi­ness in the Euro­pean phar­maceu­ti­cal market. This expands Labquality’s clini­cal trial services to phar­maceu­ti­cals in Germany and streng­thens its posi­tion as a CRO service provi­der for the phar­maceu­ti­cal and health­care tech­no­logy indus­try.

Advi­sor Labqua­lity Oy: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Jörg Schewe (lead), Caro­line Frohn­wie­ser (photo © Heuking), both Hamburg,
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (all M&A /Corporate), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Henrik Lay, Simon Pommer, LL.M. (both tax law), both Hamburg,
Dr. Lutz Keppe­ler (Infor­ma­tion Tech­no­logy & Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons), Cologne,
Dr. Andreas Walle, Theresa Arndt, LL.M. (both Labor Law), Larissa Krebs (Corpo­rate / Finance), all Hamburg,
Michael Kuska, LL.M., LL.M. (Infor­ma­tion Tech­no­logy & Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, GDPR), Julian Rosen­feld (GDPR), both Düsseldorf,
Cata­rina Ange­lika Seemann, LL.M. (Regu­la­tory / Health Care & Life Scien­ces), Munich

News

Hamburg — Ventus­Ven­tures has sold 80% of its shares in eMIS Deutsch­land GmbH to EB Ener­gie­wende Fonds, an impact-gene­ra­ting Article 9 fund of sustainable asset mana­ger EB-SIM. Even after the sale of these majo­rity shares, Ventus­Ven­tures remains a share­hol­der in the company.

eMIS Deutsch­land GmbH supports public trans­port compa­nies, muni­ci­pal utili­ties and compa­nies in the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of their vehicle fleets. To this end, the company rents out the entire infra­struc­ture consis­ting of elec­tri­city, buses, trans­for­mer, char­ging infra­struc­ture, energy manage­ment and offers compre­hen­sive services.

Ventus­Ven­tures provi­des consul­ting and services to clients in the energy and finance indus­tries with a focus on rene­wa­ble energy. The busi­ness areas of the group, which is head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, include wind energy, solar energy, real estate and mobi­lity transition.

Advi­sor Ventus­Ven­tures: GvW

Led by Dr. Marco Zessel (photo © GvW) with a cross-loca­tion team consis­ting of Jan Hüni­ken, Alex­an­der Metz (all M&A), Dr. Michael Engel (Tax), Dr. Malte Evers, Marius Boden­stedt (both Labor), Dr. Chris­tian Triebe, Naomi Nieder­meier (both IP), Dr. Patrick Wolff (Finan­cing), Dr. Gerd Schwen­din­ger and Chris­to­pher Vollert (both State Aid).

About GvW

GvW is a part­ner­ship with over 200 lawy­ers. With offices in Berlin, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main, Hamburg, Munich, Stutt­gart and foreign offices/representative offices in Brussels, Istan­bul and Shang­hai, the firm is one of the largest inde­pen­dent law firms in Germany. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gvw.com.

News

Braunschweig/ Munich/ Texas — Oppen­hoff advi­sed the US-based Stat­Lab Medi­cal Products Group on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in Walde­mar Knit­tel Glas­be­ar­bei­tungs GmbH. Stat­Lab conti­nues its stra­tegy to expand globally, provi­ding the most stable supply chain of high quality products for labo­ra­to­ries around the world. Stat­Lab has been a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tors Audax Private Equity and Linden Capi­tal Part­ners since 2021.

Head­quar­te­red in Texas, USA, Stat­Lab was foun­ded in 1976 and is a leading deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer of anato­mic patho­logy consu­ma­bles, labe­l­ing and control equip­ment for rese­arch and clini­cal laboratories.

Knit­tel was foun­ded in Braun­schweig, Germany in 1987 and is one of the world’s largest manu­fac­tu­r­ers of micro­scope slides and cover­slips produ­ced in ISO13485 certi­fied faci­li­ties. Knit­tel also offers tech­ni­cal consul­ting services for the glass industry.

Audax Private Equity, based in Boston and San Fran­cisco, USA, is a leading middle-market invest­ment firm with appro­xi­m­ately $16 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since its foun­ding in 1999, the company has inves­ted in more than 160 plat­forms and 1,200 add-ons. Audax Private Equity is part of the Audax Group.

Linden Capi­tal Part­ners, based in Chicago, USA, is a private equity firm focu­sed exclu­si­vely on the health­care indus­try. Since its incep­tion in 2004, Linden has inves­ted in more than 40 health­care compa­nies, with a total of more than 250 transactions.

Advi­sor Stat­Lab Medi­cal Products Group: Oppenhoff

Lead by Dr. Markus Rasner included Moritz Schmitz, Till Liebau, Lisa Zimmer­mann (all private equity), Dr. Gunnar Knorr (tax), Dr. Simon Spang­ler (merger control), Stephan Müller, Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Invest­ment Control), Marc Alex­an­der Häger, Julia Höyng (Real Estate), Anja Dombrow­sky, Corne­lia-Cris­tina Scupra (Labor Law), Dr. Jürgen Hartung, Tobias Kolla­kow­ski, Patrick Schwarze (IT/Data Protec­tion), Dr. Hanna Schmidt (Commer­cial) and Georg Leche­ler (Intellec­tual Property).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses on add-ons of private equity port­fo­lio compa­nies, such as most recently DISA Global Solu­ti­ons on the acqui­si­tion of SIGNUM Consul­ting, Christ & Wirth Haus­tech­nik on the acqui­si­tion of Möller Klima-Kälte GmbH or the MRH Trowe Group on the acqui­si­tion of Lurse AG.

The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 100 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law.

News

Munich, Germany — Euro­pean tech inves­tor Tenzing today announ­ced that it has inves­ted in Mahr EDV (“Mahr”), a provi­der of mana­ged IT services for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs). This colla­bo­ra­tion repres­ents an important mile­stone for Tenzing, as it is the first Euro­pean invest­ment since its expan­sion into the DACH region in Janu­ary 2023.

Tenzing, a Euro­pean tech­no­logy inves­tor head­quar­te­red in London with addi­tio­nal offices in Stock­holm and Munich, focu­ses on invest­ments in tech­no­logy and tech­no­logy-orien­ted companies.

Mahr was foun­ded in 1999 by visio­nary CEO Fabian Mahr and is head­quar­te­red in Berlin. With a strong presence throug­hout Germany, inclu­ding key loca­ti­ons such as Düssel­dorf, Colo­gne, Dres­den, Leip­zig, Essen and Hamburg, Mahr has a dyna­mic team of over 180 experts. The dedi­ca­ted employees serve a diver­si­fied custo­mer base of more than 600 medium-sized custo­mers, most of which are loca­ted in Germany.

In times of IT skills shorta­ges and constant cyber thre­ats, demand for IT outsour­cing and mana­ged cloud services conti­nues unab­a­ted. Mahr is ready to tackle these chal­lenges head-on with its one-face-to-the-custo­mer approach tail­o­red to the under-digi­ti­zed German SME sector.

The company’s unwa­ve­ring commit­ment to unpar­al­le­led custo­mer service was reco­gni­zed in the leading DACH IT services study, “Best IT Service Provi­ders,” conduc­ted by IT decis­ion-makers from 2,500 midsize compa­nies and conduc­ted by Chan­nel­Part­ner and the market rese­arch insti­tute iSCM: Mahr took first place among more than 700 IT service provi­ders in the cate­go­ries of exper­tise, stra­te­gic custo­mer under­stan­ding and response time.

Fabian Mahr, foun­der and CEO of Mahr, comm­ents: “In the search for the perfect part­ner, Mahr has shown a lot of pati­ence, because we know that our true poten­tial can only be reali­zed with the right alli­ance. While we achie­ved key mile­sto­nes on our own, the dyna­mic and highly compe­ti­tive IT land­scape requi­red a part­ner with the exper­tise and agility to help us execute our expan­sion plans. Tenzing goes beyond the tradi­tio­nal M&A role; they are the bridge that will quickly take us to a promi­sing future. Their inno­va­tive thin­king and approach to value crea­tion seam­lessly comple­ments our uncon­ven­tio­nal approach to problem solving.”

Chris­tian Ramme, Invest­ment Lead DACH at Tenzing (Photo © TENZING), added: “The DACH IT services market, worth €4.8 billion and growing at 7.6% annu­ally, holds immense poten­tial for Mahr. Mahr has increased its sales by 34% in the last 12 months and has been able to open bran­ches in four addi­tio­nal cities, cove­ring all of Germany with 14 locations.”

Mahr is the ninth invest­ment under Tenzing’s £400 million Fund II, which has been inves­t­ing since 2021 and is one of sixteen high-growth compa­nies in Tenzing’s portfolio.

Legal advi­sors Tenzing: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Lead Part­ner), Adrian von Prit­t­witz, LL.M. (LSE) (both part­ners, M&A/Corporate), Thomas Becker, LL.M. (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion and Commer­cial), Matthias Uelner (Senior Asso­ciate), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate; both M&A/Corporate)

Alten­burg Fach­an­wälte für Arbeits­recht, Munich: Andreas Ege, Dr. Dirk Schnelle (both Labor Law)

held jagut­tis, Colo­gne: Dr. Simeon Held, Dr. Malte Jagut­tis, Dr. Bernard Altpe­ter, Dr. Alex­an­der Pehl (all Public Commer­cial Law)

Kind & Drews, Düssel­dorf: Dr. Ernesto Drews (Tax, Real Estate)

Consul­tant Tenzing:

Houli­han Lokey (M&A), OMMAX (Commer­cial) and KPMG (Finan­cial and Tax) advised.

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz advi­sed the French SOLCERA GROUP SAS on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in VITRON Spezi­al­werk­stoffe GmbH. The tran­sac­tion streng­thens the SOLCERA Group’s opti­cal and infrared mate­ri­als business.

The SOLCERA Group has been deve­lo­ping and distri­bu­ting advan­ced cera­mics for over 200 years and has a strong presence in the aero­space, defense and nuclear industries.

VITRON Spezi­al­werk­stoffe GmbH, based in Jena, Germany, is a specia­li­zed manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of mate­ri­als and compon­ents for infrared optics (zinc sulfide and chal­co­ge­nide glas­ses) and machinable glass cera­mics for tech­no­logy and medicine.

Advi­sor SOLCERA GROUP SAS: SKW Schwarz, Munich

Dr. Stephan Morsch (Lead Part­ner), Dr. Angela Poschen­rie­der (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Klaus Jankow­ski (Foreign Trade Law, Berlin); Asso­ciate: Maria Rothä­mel (Foreign Trade Law, Berlin)

News

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed US private equity inves­tor Great Moun­tain Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of SquareOne Enter­tain­ment GmbH for the newly formed Vuelta Group. SquareOne Enter­tain­ment GmbH is a film and TV produc­tion and distri­bu­tion company based in Unter­föh­ring near Munich.

The Vuelta Group is a pan-Euro­pean company for the distri­bu­tion and produc­tion of cinema and TV projects for an inter­na­tio­nal audi­ence. The Irish-based group alre­ady includes the Danish produc­tion and distri­bu­tion company Scan­box and the French sales company Play­time, which were also acqui­red with McDermott’s support. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are plan­ned in France, Italy, Spain and the Bene­lux count­ries. All compa­nies will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently under the Vuelta Group umbrella brand in their respec­tive countries.

Great Moun­tain Part­ners (GMP), based in New Haven, USA, is a private market inves­tor with $10 billion in capi­tal. The GMP team deve­lops sector-speci­fic macro stra­te­gies to iden­tify the poten­tial for long-term growth and returns. GMP focu­ses on compa­nies with balance sheet inten­sive assets and aims to build plat­form compa­nies in part­ner­ship with manage­ment teams. The company curr­ently offers asset manage­ment products in various indus­tries, inclu­ding media & enter­tain­ment, infra­struc­ture, trans­por­ta­tion, energy and finan­cial services.

McDer­mott advi­sed GMP with inter­na­tio­nal teams on the acqui­si­tion of all three foun­ding compa­nies of Vuelta Group. The German team was led by part­ners Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach and Dr. Wolf­gang von Frentz.

Advi­sors Great Moun­tain Part­ners / Vuelta Group: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf
David Grimes (New York), Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach , Photo ©McDer­mott (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Wolf­gang von Frentz, Dr. Chris­tian Masch (both TMT, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Kai Grand­pierre (Colo­gne), Sebas­tian Klein (both Corporate/M&A), Simon Apelojg (IP, Munich)

News

Wetzlar/ Hamburg — As of Novem­ber 1, 2023, the Meis­ter Camera stores in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich will operate under the umbrella of Leica Camera AG. This finally brings the era of inde­pen­dent Leica stores in Germany to an end. With its motto “Ever­y­thing Leica can deli­ver, we have in stock,” Came­ra­Meis­ter has very often been a last resort for Leica photo­graph­ers who have always had to be very pati­ent with Leica’s deli­very deadlines.

Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Leica Camera Deutsch­land GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of three Leica Stores in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, which were previously mana­ged by Meis­ter Camera. 135 years after the foun­ding of the “Meis­ter Droge­rie”, which later became Meis­ter Camera, and after more than 50 years of coope­ra­tion with Leica, owner Martin Meis­ter has deci­ded to sell his busi­ness to Leica.

Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Leica on corpo­rate and real estate aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding the coor­di­na­tion and nego­tia­tion of the acqui­si­tion. “With this acqui­si­tion, our client Leica can now conti­nue its long­stan­ding success story toge­ther with the exis­ting store teams in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich,” commen­ted Eva Kriech­bau­mer, co-lead of the transaction.

Leica is a premium manu­fac­tu­rer of came­ras and sports optics products head­quar­te­red in Wetz­lar, Germany. With this acqui­si­tion, Leica conti­nues to expand its distri­bu­tion network, which now includes eleven Leica Stores in Germany.

Legal advi­sor Leica: Baker McKenzie

Lead: Corporate/M&A: Eva Kriech­bau­mer (Senior Asso­ciate, Munich), Dr. Andreas Lohner (Part­ner, Munich)
Team: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Jon Marcus Meese (Part­ner, Munich)
Real Estate: Dr. Daniel Bork (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Moritz Jander (Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf)

Baker McKenzie’s Corporate/M&A prac­tice regu­larly advi­ses on dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions. Most recently, Baker McKen­zie advi­sed Trans­com on its acqui­si­tion of time­frame, Sika AG on its acqui­si­tion of MBCC Group from Lone Star and sale of MBCC’s concrete admix­tures busi­ness to Cinven, Senwes Ltd. in its acqui­si­tion of four agri­cul­tu­ral machi­nery dealers in the new German states, AURELIUS in its acqui­si­tion of LSG Group from Deut­sche Luft­hansa AG, Nokian Tyres plc in its sale of the Russian busi­ness to Tatneft PJSC, First Solar in its sale of the global O&M busi­ness to Nova­Source, Flui­dra in its acqui­si­tion of Mera­nus Group and Magna in its acqui­si­tion of the Veoneer Active Safety business.

News

Munich — Predium is a leading provi­der of ESG manage­ment solu­ti­ons for the real estate and finan­cial sectors, specia­li­zing in the decar­bo­niza­tion of buil­dings, and has now closed a seed finan­cing round of Euro 4.5 million. The round was led by UVC Part­ners, supported by exis­ting inves­tors such as b2venture as well as other inves­tors inclu­ding Mutsch­ler Ventures and well-known busi­ness angels such as Joachim Drees (Drees & Sommer, MAN), Alex­an­der Schwö­rer (PERI), Heike Günd­ling (Bilfin­ger, 21st Real Estate) and Maxi­mi­lian Viess­mann (Viess­mann Group). The foun­ders of Presize, who recently sold their startup to Meta (Face­book), also parti­ci­pa­ted in the funding round.

Predium offers a plat­form that enables property owners to iden­tify ESG risks and plan reno­va­tions in a cost-effec­tive manner. The plat­form supports trans­pa­rent commu­ni­ca­tion of progress through auto­ma­ted report­ing and helps with key decis­i­ons such as buying, reno­vat­ing or selling.

The funds provi­ded will be used for Predium’s further market deve­lo­p­ment and tech­no­lo­gi­cal expan­sion, with the goal of beco­ming the leading ESG manage­ment plat­form for decar­bo­ni­zing buil­dings in Europe.

About UVC Partners

UVC Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm based in Munich and Berlin inves­t­ing 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 initi­ally and up to 30 million euros per company. The port­fo­lio includes indus­try leaders in deep tech, climate tech, hard­ware and soft­ware, and mobi­lity with various tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models.

About Green­Gate Partners

Green­Gate Part­ners is a tech­no­logy law firm with parti­cu­lar exper­tise around tran­sac­tions and venture capi­tal. From our offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers offer their clients first-class advice at eye level. Green­Gate Part­ners repea­tedly provi­des bench­marks in the German market.

Advi­sor to UVC Part­ners: Green­Gate Part­ners Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH 

Dr. Tobias Schön­haar, LL.M. (Bond) (Partner/Corporate) Marc René Spitz, LL.M. (USC) (Partner/Corporate)
Dr. Leonie Singer, LL.M. (Sydney) (Associate/Corporate) Constan­tin Forst­ner (Associate/Corporate)
Alex­an­der Tribess (Partner/IT & Data Protection)
Paul Harl­off (Associate/IT & Data Protection)
Dr. Jens Ginal (Partner/Employment Law)

News

Berlin / Munich / Paris, Octo­ber 02, 2023 — Kranus Health, the digi­tal health company specia­li­zing in thera­peu­tic concepts in urology, announ­ces an expan­sion of its Series A to a total of $15 million. The finan­cing round is led by new inves­tor Swiss­He­alth Ventures and exis­ting inves­tor Karista. All other exis­ting backers (HTGF, Wenvest and A Round Capi­tal) also parti­ci­pa­ted again in the finan­cing. With the new capi­tal, Kranus Health, foun­ded in 2020, is now one of the best-funded health tech start­ups in Germany. The funds will be used prima­rily for internationalization.

Kranus Health mission is to revo­lu­tio­nize the field of urology, with the help of tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tions. The main goal is to faci­li­tate access to effec­tive thera­pies for urolo­gi­cal dise­a­ses. The company is ther­e­fore deve­lo­ping digi­tal solu­ti­ons for the treat­ment of a wide range of urolo­gi­cal diseases.

“Deve­lo­ping thera­pies that can be reim­bur­sed by health insu­r­ers will make quality health care acces­si­ble and afforda­ble for all. Thanks to inno­va­tive and inte­gra­tive therapy approa­ches, Kranus Health closes the care gap in urology and offers a cause-orien­ted solu­tion for pati­ents and physi­ci­ans,” says Prof. Dr. Kurt Miller, former Medi­cal Direc­tor of the Clinic for Urology at the Charité in Berlin.

With Kranus Edera, the company has alre­ady laun­ched the first digi­tal health appli­ca­tion (DiGA) as a fully reim­b­ursable “app on prescrip­tion” for the treat­ment of erec­tion problems and their causes. A study at Müns­ter Univer­sity Hospi­tal has confirmed the thera­peu­tic approach. The results of the study indi­cate an impro­ve­ment in erec­tile dysfunc­tion and quality of life. Kranus Edara offers a scien­ti­fi­cally proven option besi­des drugs like Viagra. Another product — Kranus Lutera — will also be reim­b­ursable early next year and fills a major gap in the treat­ment of benign prosta­tic hyper­pla­sia (BPH). Addi­tio­nal urolo­gic thera­pies for men and women are curr­ently being planned.

The fresh money will now be used to expand into other markets outside Germany. Back in June, Kranus Health expan­ded its presence in France by opening its third office in Paris. France is the second largest health­care market in the EU after Germany (esti­ma­ted at 281 billion euros).

“We believe that now is the right time for digi­tal health models to go global. The EU is a pioneer in inte­gra­ted care offe­rings, which are also gaining ground inter­na­tio­nally,” explains Jens Nörters­häu­ser, co-foun­der and co-CEO of Kranus Health.

Swiss­He­alth Ventures is parti­ci­pa­ting as a new inves­tor. With the inde­pen­dent Swiss­He­alth Ventures AG, the Swiss health insurer CSS has crea­ted the neces­sary struc­tures to invest in inno­va­tive start­ups in the health­care sector.

“Our belief in Kranus Health’s approach to inte­gra­ted urolo­gic care aligns perfectly with our mission to drive trans­for­ma­tive change in health­care and improve its acces­si­bi­lity and effec­ti­ve­ness for all,” said Philo­mena Colat­rella, CEO of CSS, on the reason for the partnership.

“We are very proud of the succes­ses of the past year: we were able to convince hundreds of urolo­gists to perma­nently inte­grate us into their treat­ment plans, helping more than thou­sands of pati­ents. In addi­tion, we have alre­ady secu­red a phar­maceu­ti­cal part­ner and are actively explo­ring addi­tio­nal part­ner­ships that will lead to further growth,” Thilo Klein­schmidt, co-foun­der and co-CEO of Kranus Health.

About Kranus Health

Kranus Health is the world’s leading provi­der of inte­gra­ted digi­tal care concepts in urology. Current products include Kranus Edera, a novel treat­ment option for erec­tile dysfunc­tion, and Kranus Lutera, a therapy for prostate enlar­ge­ment. With Kranus Edera, the company has laun­ched the first digi­tal health appli­ca­tion (DiGA) as a fully reim­b­ursable “app on prescrip­tion” for the treat­ment of erec­tion problems and their causes.

One of the largest studies in the urolo­gi­cal sector, conduc­ted at Müns­ter Univer­sity Hospi­tal, has confirmed the effi­cacy of this thera­peu­tic approach and proven that Kranus Edera is a scien­ti­fi­cally proven alter­na­tive to Viagra and simi­lar drugs.

Kranus Health was foun­ded in 2020 under the scien­ti­fic leader­ship of Prof. Dr. Kurt Miller, former Medi­cal Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Urology at Charité. The co-foun­ders and co-CEOs Jens Nörters­häu­ser & Thilo Klein­schmidt have known each other for many years through their time toge­ther at McKin­sey. Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov (Celo­nis, among others) comple­ments the four-member foun­ding team as Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer. The inter­na­tio­nal team at Kranus Health now consists of more than 70 employees working at the company’s sites in Munich, Berlin and Paris. Toge­ther with an expe­ri­en­ced leader­ship team, the company plans to deve­lop addi­tio­nal digi­tal thera­pies and expand its global foot­print to improve urology health­care worldwide.

About 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

Frank­furt a. Main — Neos­fer, the early-stage inves­tor of Commerz­bank, parti­ci­pa­tes in the EUR 3 million finan­cing round of the start-up Vamo. Also invol­ved are the newly formed Colo­gne-based VC Realyze Ventures and Caesar Ventures from Munich. Promi­nent angel inves­tors from the German start-up scene, inclu­ding McMak­ler & MAYD foun­der Hanno Heint­zen­berg, Valen­tin Sawad­ski, foun­der of Tado, or Max Schroe­ren, foun­der of Enter, complete the round.

The foun­ding team of Vamo, Laurenz Ohlig, Falk Hantl and Dr. Jan Ossen­brink, follows the vision of advan­cing the heat tran­si­tion in Germany and focu­ses on the trendy topic of heat pumps. The advan­tage of this tech­no­logy is that it is mature and has the poten­tial to decar­bo­nize the buil­ding sector in the near future. What is miss­ing from Vamo’s point of view is speed in the instal­la­tion of the heat pumps.

Vamo is a specia­list company opera­ting throug­hout Germany, specia­li­zing in heat pumps, and has set itself the goal of acce­le­ra­ting the heat tran­si­tion in Germany. In addi­tion to the consis­tent digi­ta­liza­tion of sales, logi­stics and instal­la­tion proces­ses, Vamo is also working on its own soft­ware for the opera­tion of heat pumps. The capi­tal raised in the finan­cing round is to be used to scale the core business.

As a wholly owned subsi­diary and early-stage inves­tor of Commerz­bank, neos­fer bene­fits from in-depth indus­try know-how for the imple­men­ta­tion of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons. The company was foun­ded in 2013 and employs 35 people.

Advi­sor neos­fer: DLA Piper

Part­ner Simon Vogel and Coun­sel Marcel Nurk (both Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).

About neos­fer

neos­fer GmbH, an early-stage inves­tor and inno­va­tion unit of Commerz­bank Group, inves­ti­ga­tes future tech­no­lo­gies that are rele­vant to busi­ness and society, promo­tes and deve­lops sustainable digi­tal solu­ti­ons, and brings these profi­ta­bly to Commerz­bank and its custo­mers. This is done via the three areas invest, build and connect. Through stra­te­gic venture capi­tal (invest), in-house deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models (build), and buil­ding ecosys­tems around the sustainable and digi­tal future of society (connect), neos­fer crea­tes access to innovation.

With a port­fo­lio of over 30 digi­tal and sustainable start-ups, the company is always looking to the future and conti­nuously deve­lo­ping. Some successful proto­ty­pes have alre­ady emer­ged from this and are being used in the Commerz­bank Group. These include Project Lissi, a block­chain-based iden­tity network for self-deter­mi­ned iden­ti­ties. Through its own events, such as the monthly tech start-up event series “Between the Towers” and the IMPACT FESTIVAL, neos­fer streng­thens its network in the inno­va­tion, venture and sustaina­bi­lity sectors.
www.neosfer.de

neos­fer is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank AG, head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt am Main.

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich.

News

Frank­furt a. M. / Berlin — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) enters into a part­ner­ship with ELF Capi­tal Group (ELF Capi­tal), thus expan­ding its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for medium-sized compa­nies to include private debt. To this end, DBAG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in ELF Capi­tal, which includes ELF Capi­tal Advi­sory GmbH, based in Frank­furt am Main. The terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disc­lo­sed to the extent legally possible.

ELF Capi­tal Advi­sory GmbH advi­ses funds offe­ring flexi­ble private debt finan­cing for estab­lished, market-leading medium-sized compa­nies with a geogra­phi­cal focus on the DACH region, Bene­lux and Scan­di­na­via. The part­ner­ship with DBAG offers both compa­nies the poten­tial to gene­rate rapid and sustainable growth and to realize synergies.

DBAG intends to invest EUR 100 million in the ELF Capi­tal funds as a limi­ted part­ner, simi­lar to DBAG’s usual stra­tegy of co-inves­t­ing along­side DBAG funds. Further­more, to gradu­ally increase its stake in ELF Capi­tal to 100% over the coming years.

ELF Capi­tal is a leading German provi­der of private debt finan­cing and advi­ses funds offe­ring flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region, Bene­lux and Scan­di­na­via. Through the merger, DBAG expands its range of flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for SMEs to include private debt. Further­more, DABG will parti­ci­pate in the ELF Capi­tal Funds at €100 million as a limi­ted part­ner. This is in line with DBAG’s usual stra­tegy of making co-invest­ments along­side its own funds.

As part of the part­ner­ship, the foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of ELF Capi­tal Advi­sory GmbH, Chris­tian Frit­sch, as well as Mana­ging Part­ner Florian Wimpff will conti­nue to be respon­si­ble for the private debt invest­ment busi­ness and actively drive the company’s deve­lo­p­ment. ELF Capi­tal Advi­sory GmbH will in future be supported by the two DBAG board members Tom Alzin (© DBAG) and Jannick Hune­cke and will at the same time bene­fit from DBAG’s opera­tio­nal and finan­cial resour­ces, inves­tor rela­ti­ons and network.

The addi­tion of private debt finan­cing solu­ti­ons to DBAG’s offe­ring requi­res an expan­sion of DBAG’s corpo­rate purpose. The Manage­ment Board of DBAG will submit the corre­spon­ding amend­ment to the Artic­les of Asso­cia­tion to the Annual Gene­ral Meeting of DBAG for resolution.

About DBAG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of the most renow­ned private equity compa­nies in Germany. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately € 2.5 billion (before transaction).

Advi­sor DBAG: YPOG 

Andreas Rodin (Lead, Funds), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Tammo Lüken (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg, Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg Lukas Schmitt (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg, Benja­min von Mangoldt (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin Dr. Phil­ipp Busch (Funds), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

 

News

Hamburg/ Berlin — Planet A Ventures has raised an invest­ment volume of € 160 million for its first impact fund. Inves­tors include Alli­anz Invest­ment Manage­ment, BMW, KfW Capi­tal, REWE and the Danish state invest­ment fund Vaekst­fon­den. In addi­tion, the fund is supported by well-known serial entre­pre­neurs such as Rolf Schröm­gens (Triv­ago Co-Foun­der) Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Global CMO HelloFresh) and Rubin Ritter (Ex-Zalando Co-CEO).

The fund scores high on its scien­ti­fic approach to impact inves­t­ing. Planet A Ventures, for exam­ple, has its own scien­ti­fic team that carries out so-called “life cycle analy­ses” as part of the due dili­gence process. In addi­tion to CO2 emis­si­ons, this form of analy­sis also takes into account, among other things, biodi­ver­sity protec­tion, resource conser­va­tion and waste reduction.

About Planet A Ventures

Planet A Ventures is a venture capi­ta­list inves­t­ing in Euro­pean green tech start­ups that have a signi­fi­cant posi­tive impact on our planet. As a venture capi­ta­list, Planet A aims to contri­bute to an economy within plane­tary boun­da­ries. Planet A supports inno­va­tions in four key areas: Climate protec­tion, waste preven­tion, resource conser­va­tion and biodi­ver­sity protec­tion. As the first Euro­pean VC, Planet A bases its invest­ment decis­i­ons on scien­ti­fic life­cy­cle analy­sis and helps founders:in scale their impact. Invest­ments include trace­l­ess mate­ri­als (plas­tic alter­na­ti­ves), Inera­tec (e‑fuels), C1 (green metha­nol), GA Dril­ling (geother­mal), 44.01 (carbon storage), and Maker­site (supply chain decar­bo­niza­tion). More infor­ma­tion about the invest­ment approach is available through Planet A’s website: https://planet‑a.com/about/

Advi­sor Planet A Ventures: YPOG

Dr. Julian Albrecht (Structuring/Tax), Part­ner There­sia M. R. Hein­rich (Struc­tu­ring), Asso­ciate Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Stefa­nie Nagel (Regu­la­tory), Senior Associate

News

Hamburg — Bioe­co­nomy startup trace­l­ess mate­ri­als, which produ­ces a natu­ral bioma­te­rial as an alter­na­tive to plas­tic, announ­ces the closing of a €36.6 million finan­cing round. The Series A finan­cing round is led by private equity fund UB Forest Indus­try Green Growth Fund (“UB FIGG”), which invests in sustainable and resource-effi­ci­ent forestry and bioba­sed indus­tries, and comple­men­ted by SWEN Blue Ocean, which invests in inno­va­tions that help address three exis­ten­tial thre­ats to ocean health: over­fi­shing, pollu­tion and climate change. A local bank consor­tium consis­ting of GLS Bank, Hamburg, and Hambur­ger Spar­kasse also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round, as did the company’s three exis­ting inves­tors, green tech inves­tor Planet A, seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and deep tech inves­tor b.value.

Trans­for­ma­tion to circu­lar economy

Plas­tics not only leave behind the visi­ble traces of global plas­tic pollu­tion, but also contri­bute signi­fi­cantly to the climate crisis due to their resource-inten­sive produc­tion from fossil raw mate­ri­als. As part of a sustainable circu­lar economy, the bioe­co­nomy offers a solu­tion: trace­l­ess mate­ri­als has deve­lo­ped a holi­stic sustainable mate­rial to combat the plas­tic crisis. The natu­ral bioma­te­rial trace­l­ess® is certi­fied fully bio-based, home compost­a­ble and plas­tic-free. By using agri­cul­tu­ral resi­dues, valuable biomass resour­ces are conser­ved. The patent-pending tech­no­logy is based on natu­ral poly­mers, conta­ins no poten­ti­ally harmful chemi­cals, and has a mini­mal envi­ron­men­tal foot­print: compared to plas­tic, it saves 91% of CO2 emis­si­ons and 89% of fossil energy requi­re­ments during produc­tion and disposal.

“By scaling our inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, we are demons­t­ra­ting that a climate-friendly, circu­lar, resi­li­ent and rege­ne­ra­tive indus­try is possi­ble. With our novel bioma­te­rial, we can make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to solving plas­tic pollu­tion. We believe that UB FIGG and SWEN are a great addi­tion to our share­hol­ders as they have rele­vant know­ledge in our indus­try. The fact that both our inves­tors and the banks fully support our mission was a decisive criter­ion for us,” explains Dr. Anne Lamp (Photo© Anne Lamp), CEO and co-foun­der of trace­l­ess.

To imple­ment the inno­va­tive tech­no­logy on an indus­trial scale for the first time, trace­l­ess is buil­ding a demons­tra­tion plant in Hamburg. With this produc­tion faci­lity, the company will replace seve­ral thousand tons of conven­tio­nal plas­tic annu­ally while saving signi­fi­cant amounts of CO2 emis­si­ons, fossil resour­ces, water and agri­cul­tu­ral land.

“The trace­l­ess approach of using widely available agri­cul­tu­ral side streams to replace fossil plas­tics, and the finan­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties their solu­tion offers, convin­ced us both econo­mic­ally and envi­ron­men­tally. The trace­l­ess team has achie­ved extre­mely good results in terms of mate­rial perfor­mance, deve­lo­p­ment times and commer­cia­liza­tion of the new mate­rial. We look forward to support­ing Anne, Johanna and the team as they scale up this inno­va­tive tech­no­logy,” said Sakari Saarela, Part­ner at UB FIGG.

After the German Fede­ral Minis­try for the Envi­ron­ment (BMUV) appro­ved a €5 million grant for the cons­truc­tion of this demons­tra­tion plant earlier this year, the Series A finan­cing round is now the second part of the company’s finan­cing stra­tegy to expand its produc­tion capacities.

“Finan­cing capi­tal-inten­sive start­ups is still unfa­mi­liar to many inves­tors and banks. This makes it a special chall­enge for indus­trial manu­fac­tu­ring start­ups like us that are deve­lo­ping the inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies of tomor­row. We are very plea­sed to have found part­ners in UB FIGG, SWEN Blue Ocean, Planet A, HTGF, b.value and our local bank consor­tium who share our vision and have reco­gni­zed and unders­tood the chal­lenges of finan­cing our hard­ware scale-up. With their support, we will achieve our ambi­tious goals,” says Johanna Baare, COO and co-foun­der of traceless

The company produ­ces trace­l­ess® mate­ri­als in the form of a granu­late that can be further proces­sed using stan­dard tech­no­lo­gies in the plas­tics and pack­a­ging indus­try. As a result, the mate­rial can be used in a wide range of end products — from rigid molded parts and flexi­ble films to paper coatings or adhesives.

“The Blue Ocean Fund seeks to invest in start­ups that provide inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons to the three biggest thre­ats to our oceans: Over­fi­shing, marine pollu­tion and climate change. With plas­tic pollu­tion being one of the biggest thre­ats to our oceans, we were imme­dia­tely taken with trace­l­ess. The bio-based and biode­gra­da­ble mate­rial can replace plas­tics in products that easily enter the envi­ron­ment and thus our oceans, such as disposable pack­a­ging and hidden plas­tics in adhe­si­ves and paper coatings. trace­l­ess is a compel­ling alter­na­tive for appli­ca­ti­ons where reusable solu­ti­ons are not sustainable and tech­ni­cal recy­cling is not possi­ble,” says Olivier Raybaud, Mana­ging Direc­tor of SWEN Capi­tal Partners.

About Trace­l­ess

The bioe­co­nomy start-up trace­l­ess mate­ri­als GmbH was foun­ded in 2020 by Dr. Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare in Hamburg. The mission: to contri­bute to a rege­ne­ra­tive, climate-friendly economy and a future free of plas­tic pollu­tion. With its inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, the company produ­ces natu­ral bioma­te­ri­als from agri­busi­ness plant resi­dues that are bio-based, home-compost­a­ble, plas­tic-free and have a mini­mal envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. To exploit the ecolo­gi­cal poten­tial, the tech­no­logy is now being scaled up from pilot scale to indus­trial scale. www.traceless.eu

About UB Forrest Indus­try Green Growth Fund

UB FIGG is a private equity fund that invests in compa­nies focu­sed on repla­cing plas­tics and other fossil fuel-based mate­ri­als, higher value and more effi­ci­ent use of wood and agri­cul­tu­ral feedstock side streams, and increased use of these feedstocks in a broad range of inter­me­diate and end-use appli­ca­ti­ons. Through its invest­ments, the fund will help the forestry and bioba­sed indus­tries deve­lop solu­ti­ons to miti­gate climate change. UB FIGG is a signa­tory to the Opera­ting Prin­ci­ples for Impact Manage­ment and reports on the envi­ron­men­tal and climate impacts of its investments.

About Swen Blue Ocean

SWEN Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading player in respon­si­ble private wealth inves­t­ing in Europe, with more than €7.7 billion* in assets under manage­ment, and offers a wide range of invest­ment programs for insti­tu­tio­nal and private clients. Since 2012, the manage­ment company has inte­gra­ted ESG crite­ria into all its asset manage­ment acti­vi­ties and has imple­men­ted a climate stra­tegy since 2017. In 2021, it streng­the­ned its actions in favor of more equi­ta­ble and sustainable growth by laun­ching Blue Ocean. SWEN Capi­tal Part­ners is owned by OFI Invest Group, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and part of their team. Since Janu­ary 2022, SWEN Capi­tal Part­ners has been a co-part­ner in the NEC initia­tive, which has deve­lo­ped a metho­do­logy that enables socio-econo­mic actors to measure their contri­bu­tion to envi­ron­men­tal change in order to achieve a common goal: buil­ding a respon­si­ble and sustainable economy.

About HTGF

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.
www.htgf.de

 

News

Gronau — The pan-Euro­pean invest­ment company Active Capi­tal Company (ACC) invests in broco­lor LACKFABRIK GmbH as well as broco­lor Immo­bi­lien GmbH (Broco­lor). The German company Broco­lor, based in Gronau, is conside­red a chemi­cal expert in the field of paints, primers, coatings, adhe­si­ves and other chemi­cal products. With this plat­form invest­ment, ACC conti­nues its growth in Germany, bene­fiting from its hands-on invest­ment approach and strong track record of inves­t­ing in chemi­cal compa­nies. The inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Marktlink.

Expan­sion of inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer busi­ness and further focus on sustainability

To meet demand from exis­ting and future custo­mers, Broco­lor has expan­ded its warehouse in 2019 and plans to signi­fi­cantly increase produc­tion capa­city in the near term. The stra­te­gic growth plan provi­des for an expan­sion of the high-quality contract manu­fac­tu­ring offering.

Hart­wig Oster­meyer (Photo © ACC), Part­ner at ACC: “We are impres­sed with Brocolor’s R&D capa­bi­li­ties and process know-how, which are clear diffe­ren­tia­tors from tradi­tio­nal contract manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Broco­lor is a valuable deve­lo­p­ment part­ner to its diverse custo­mer base and we look forward to support­ing the company as it conti­nues to grow. Broco­lor is a specia­li­zed market leader with the highest envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance stan­dards and we intend to offer its services to other leading inter­na­tio­nal chemi­cal companies.”

Successful tran­sac­tion consul­ting by Markt­link brought the right part­ners together
The acqui­si­tion was also made possi­ble by advice from Markt­link. “This latest tran­sac­tion high­lights the incre­asing inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the M&A market, which Markt­link is actively respon­ding to through its inter­na­tio­nal network,” said Tom Belt­man of Markt­link. “The market approach for this acqui­si­tion was deli­bera­tely kept small to reflect Brocolor’s highly speci­fic busi­ness know­ledge and inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base. Both stra­te­gists and finan­cial inves­tors showed inte­rest, but ulti­m­ately ACC’s future plans proved most compa­ti­ble with the vision of Brocolor’s shareholders.”

About Broco­lor

Broco­lor, based in Gronau, Germany, began as a paint whole­sa­ler in 1921 and was acqui­red by the current seller in 2002. The core compe­tence lies in the contract manu­fac­tu­ring of paints, primers, adhe­si­ves, coatings and other chemi­cal products. Brocolor’s rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment team is conti­nuously working on the intro­duc­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies and the chemi­cal deve­lo­p­ment of formu­la­ti­ons and proces­ses to improve the quality of current and new products. As a result, the company has accu­mu­la­ted a signi­fi­cant base of know-how and opera­tio­nal exper­tise, meeting the latest and expec­ted regu­la­ti­ons in the chemi­cal indus­try. www.brocolor.de

About Active Capi­tal Company

ACC is an inde­pen­dent, hands-on private equity inves­tor focu­sed on small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany. ACC invests in compa­nies opera­ting in the indus­trial, tech­ni­cal whole­sale and busi­ness services sectors with sales of between €10 million and €100 million. Through a highly entre­pre­neu­rial and proac­tive approach, ACC maxi­mi­zes the long-term value of its invest­ments by support­ing manage­ment in the execu­tion of value-added projects and provi­ding access to its exten­sive part­ner network. ACC is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its fourth fund and began opera­ti­ons in Germany in 2019 with its invest­ment in and successful trans­for­ma­tion of Schahl­LED Light­ing. ACC has also been inves­ted in Werner Lieb GmbH (www.werner-lieb.de) since May 2022. ACC has offices in Amster­dam and Munich. www.activecapitalcompany.com

About Market­link

Since 1996, Markt­link has grown to become the largest inde­pen­dent acqui­si­tion specia­list in the upper mid-market segment of the Bene­lux. A team of more than 200 inter­nal M&A specia­lists supports (inter)national compa­nies with a tran­sac­tion value of 5 to 250 million euros. With a wide­spread Euro­pean network of offices in Germany, Belgium, the UK, Denmark and the Nether­lands, and an exten­sive network of buyers and sellers, Markt­link has alre­ady successfully comple­ted 150 tran­sac­tions in 2022. www.marktlink.com .

News
Rosenheim/ Hano­ver — From Octo­ber 2023, the Best­Fit Group will have 120 fitness studios under its roof: with the acqui­si­tion of all 9 loca­ti­ons of the premium value chain FLEXX Fitness, the nort­hern holding subsi­diary Best­Fit Group is thus growing signi­fi­cantly in the Colo­gne area. Thus, the Best­Fit Group remains the fastest growing fitness chain in Germany and reaches another mile­stone with more than 400,000 members.

With 111 studios to date, over 350,000 members and around 1,400 employees, the Best­Fit Group is one of the largest fitness opera­tors in Germany. With its estab­lished brands Ai Fitness and jumpers fitness, the Best­Fit Group is posi­tio­ned in the fast-growing premium value segment.

With the acqui­si­tion of all 9 loca­ti­ons of FLEXX Fitness, another step in the expan­sion stra­tegy of the Best­Fit Group has now been taken. With the regio­nal distri­bu­tion of FLEXX Fitness, the Best­Fit Group is expan­ding its local presence in the Colo­gne area. FLEXX Fitness loca­ti­ons will conti­nue to operate under the Ai Fitness brand.

Rainer Mast, CFO of the Best­Fit Group, comm­ents, “The fact that we have been able to expand our growth even further and reach our goal ahead of sche­dule makes me very proud. The highly successful FLEXX Fitness brand repres­ents the perfect exten­sion for us.” “The entire Best­Fit team is very exci­ted about the nine FLEXX clubs and their more than 50,000 members,” adds Stephan Schulan, CEO of the Best­Fit Group.

Even at the time of the merger of Ai Fitness and jumpers fitness in Octo­ber 2020, the Best­Fit Group, which was foun­ded at the same time, recor­ded the stron­gest growth rates within the German fitness market. Through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons of indi­vi­dual loca­ti­ons in North Rhine-West­pha­lia, Hesse and Baden-Würt­tem­berg, the Best­Fit Group has alre­ady grown by more than 35 clubs since summer 2022 to date, which are also mana­ged under the Ai Fitness and jumpers fitness brands.

“With the acqui­si­tion of FLEXX Fitness, we again under­line our clear focus on premium value fitness in Germany. We conti­nue to see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial in the German market. With our two estab­lished brands AI and jumpers Fitness, we are very well posi­tio­ned for this,” explains Maxi­mi­lian Frey (Photo © Nord­hol­ding), Prin­ci­pal at NORD Holding.

On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tion was imple­men­ted by Maxi­mi­lian Frey and Moritz Stolp.

About Best­Fit Group
With 120 studios and around 400,000 members, the Best­Fit Group is one of the most successful and fastest growing fitness groups on the German market. The Best­Fit Group emer­ged in 2020 from the merger of jumpers fitness and Ai Fitness and is now one of the largest fitness chains in the growing premium value segment in Germany. Thanks to the parti­ci­pa­tion of the equity inves­tor NORD Holding from Hano­ver, it has been possi­ble to imple­ment an ambi­tious growth course in the German-spea­king region in recent years. The brands of the Best­Fit Group jumpers fitness and Ai Fitness present them­sel­ves with an excel­lent price-perfor­mance ratio, state-of-the-art equip­ment and a diverse and inno­va­tive fitness offering.
About Nord­hol­ding

With a history of over 50 years and assets under manage­ment of € 3 billion, NORD Holding is one of the leading private equity and asset manage­ment compa­nies in Germany. The focus is on the busi­ness areas of direct invest­ments and fund invest­ments. The focus of the direct busi­ness is on the struc­tu­ring and finan­cing of corpo­rate succes­sion models, the acqui­si­tion of group divisions/subsidiaries and the expan­sion finan­cing of medium-sized compa­nies. In contrast to most other finan­cial inves­tors, who only manage time-limi­ted funds, NORD Holding acts as a so-called “ever­green fund” with no time limit and invests from its own balance sheet. The company is curr­ently invol­ved with more than 15 compa­nies in Germany and other German-spea­king count­ries. The Fund Invest­ments busi­ness unit targets the micro and small cap segment of mid-market-orien­ted private equity funds in Europe. The focus here is on primary, secon­dary and co-invest­ments. NORD Holding focu­ses stron­gly on buyout mana­gers newly estab­lished on the market, opera­tio­nal invest­ment stra­te­gies and also regu­larly acts as an anchor inves­tor. www.nordholding.de

News

Cologne/ Dort­mund — Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed TRM Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH (TRM) on the sale of a major portion of its shares in FORTEC Elek­tro­nik Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft, Germe­ring (FORTEC). The two Colo­gne-based Heuking capi­tal market experts Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M. and Sven Radke, LL.M. had alre­ady advi­sed TRM in 2012 on the acqui­si­tion of the share­hol­ding and a volun­t­ary public take­over offer made in this context. Since 2012, TRM has held more than 30% of the shares in FORTEC. With the current sale, TRM’s share­hol­ding is redu­ced to 5.16%, and an acqui­ring group acqui­res 25.07% of the shares from TRM.

The FORTEC Group is a leading supplier of indi­vi­dual compon­ents and systems in the fields of display tech­no­logy, embedded systems and power supplies. FORTEC’s shares are admit­ted to trading on the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange, Prime Stan­dard segment. FORTEC-Group could report sales in the amount of Euro 89 million in 2022.

Advi­sors to TRM Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M., Photo © Heuking (lead), Sven Radke, LL.M., Lena Pfeu­fer, Fran­ziska Marisa Decker, LL.B., M.A. (all Capi­tal Markets Law), all Cologne.

News

Hamburg — ECO Group, a group of compa­nies focu­sed on sustainable consu­mer goods brands, has inves­ted in the natu­ral cosme­tics brand BEN&ANNA from JM Nature GmbH. The invest­ment was prece­ded by a €7.5 million Series A finan­cing round. The finan­cing round was led by Euro­pean growth inves­tor Acton Capi­tal; exis­ting inves­tor Fair Capi­tal Part­ners also joined the round. — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to ECO Group on its invest­ment in the natu­ral cosme­tics brand BEN&ANNA from JM Nature GmbH.

This stra­te­gic step will enable the ECO Group to expand its capa­ci­ties in the area of sustainable consu­mer goods and streng­then its market presence. As part of the tran­sac­tion, ECO Group will also become a share­hol­der in Global Eco Pack GmbH, a manu­fac­tu­rer of pack­a­ging mate­ri­als specia­li­zing in the use of paper instead of plastic.

Foun­ded in Bad Homburg in 2022 by Chris­toph Schwerdtle and Thomas Nehfi­scher, the start-up bund­les sustainable brands such as Hydro­phil, Naiked, Kuno and Herbalind under one roof. The ECO Group pursues the goal of enab­ling healthy and envi­ron­men­tally conscious living through sustainable consu­mer goods. The Group’s growth is based on the ongo­ing deve­lo­p­ment of product inno­va­tions and the acqui­si­tion of sustainable compa­nies in rele­vant cate­go­ries of the consu­mer goods industry.

The entry into BEN&ANNA marks a stra­te­gic, important step in the joint mission to promote sustainable life­styles. BEN&ANNA was foun­ded in 2017 by Marco Hüls­beck and stands for high-quality and vegan natu­ral cosme­tics. The sustainable natu­ral products consist of one hundred percent natu­ral ingre­di­ents, if possi­ble even from orga­nic cultivation.

This move unders­cores the joint commit­ment to redu­cing plas­tic waste while provi­ding inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for more envi­ron­men­tally friendly packaging.

Consul­tant ECO Group: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Pia Meven (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin
Rosa Wizisla (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin;
Dr. Stefan Witte (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Martin Scha­per (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Johan­nes Schmidt (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Boris Schin­zel (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin;
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg, Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg

News

Düssel­dorf — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed KRÜGER GROUP on the acqui­si­tion of the rights to the Kaba, Suchard Express and Benco cocoa brands. KRÜGER is acqui­ring the brands from the French confec­tion­ery company Caram­bar & Co. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in early 2024.

KRÜGER plans to gradu­ally inte­grate produc­tion of the three brands, which include cocoa-based powde­red bever­a­ges as well as powde­red bever­a­ges for fruit-mix milk drinks, choco­late bars, and ready-to-drink choco­late milk, start­ing next year; the focus will then be on laun­ching new products.

The KRÜGER GROUP is a leading company in the food indus­try with more than 5,000 employees and sales of appro­xi­m­ately 2.3 billion euros. The product port­fo­lio of the globally active family company includes bever­a­ges, confec­tion­ery and choco­late products, infant nutri­tion, dietary supple­ments, OTC and phar­maceu­ti­cal products, and food ingredients.

The French company Caram­bar & Co. gene­ra­tes annual net sales of around 400 million euros with 14 brands. Katjes Inter­na­tio­nal, the invest­ment arm of confec­tion­ery manu­fac­tu­rer Katjes Group, has a stake of around 23 percent in Caram­bar & Co.

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses KRÜGER GROUP on inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions and natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal anti­trust and compe­ti­tion law issues.

Advi­sors KRÜGER GROUP: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf

Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust), Dr. Thomas Ammer­mann (Corporate/M&A), Stef­fen Woitz (IP/IT, Munich), Nico­las Lafont (Corporate/M&A, Paris), Romain Desmonts (Tax, Paris), Carina Kant (Coun­sel, Anti­trust); Asso­ciate: Max Kütt­ner (Anti­trust)
Inhouse: Dr. Martin Fröh­lich (Lead, M&A), Dr. Kai Danel­zik (Corpo­rate), Kai Piepen­stock (Head of Tax), Nives Gara­se­vic (Tax)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

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

News

Frankfurt/ Nörd­lin­gen — Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP advi­sed Eura­zeo Invest­ment Mana­ger S.A. in connec­tion with the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of LRE Medi­cal GmbH by Gyrus Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment company listed on the Euron­ext Paris Stock Exch­ange. Through its Direct Lending team, it provi­des flexi­ble senior and subor­di­na­ted finan­cing for acqui­si­ti­ons and Euro­pean SMEs with a valua­tion between EUR 30 million and EUR 300 million.

LRE Medi­cal, head­quar­te­red in Nörd­lin­gen, Germany, supports its global custo­mer base with a compre­hen­sive service offe­ring that provi­des high-quality tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons and manu­fac­tu­ring of medi­cal and life science diagno­stic equip­ment. LRE Medi­cal was foun­ded in 1961 and employs more than 250 people at two loca­ti­ons in Germany.

Gyrus Capi­tal is a Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in trans­for­ma­tive invest­ments in health and sustaina­bi­lity. Based in Geneva, Switz­er­land, Gyrus invests in compa­nies that address struc­tu­ral needs of society and the envi­ron­ment and are focu­sed on long-term, sustainable growth. Gyrus focu­ses on complex tran­sac­tions with a parti­cu­lar empha­sis on corpo­rate spin-offs and busi­ness succes­si­ons in the €50 million to €500 million range.

The Gibson Dunn team, led by Frank­furt finance part­ner Sebas­tian Schoon (© Gibson Dunn), included finance coun­sel Alex­an­der Klein and finance asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters (both Frankfurt).

About Gibson Dunn
Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,800 lawy­ers in 20 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn 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, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.gibsondunn.com.

News

Berlin — AI defense company Helsing announ­ced that it has raised €209 million in a Series B funding round led by Gene­ral Cata­lyst. The Swedish Saab Group is also parti­ci­pa­ting in the round as a stra­te­gic inves­tor, thus deepe­ning the exis­ting partnership.

Foun­ded in 2021, the Munich-based company is a new breed of defense contrac­tor deve­lo­ping AI-based capa­bi­li­ties to protect demo­cra­cies. Helsing’s pure soft­ware-based approach and close part­ner­ship with the indus­try have led to rapid market adop­tion across Europe. In June 2023, the German govern­ment selec­ted Helsing and its part­ner Saab to deli­ver the new AI-enab­led elec­tro­nic warfare capa­bi­li­ties for the upco­ming Euro­figh­ter update. In August 2023, Helsing and its consor­tium part­ners were tasked with provi­ding arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) deve­lo­p­ment infra­struc­ture for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

“This round of finan­cing is a vote of confi­dence in Europe,” said Tors­ten Reil, co-foun­der of Helsing. “Gene­ral Catalyst’s commit­ment to global and Euro­pean resi­li­ence aligns with our mission to protect Euro­pean democracies.”

“We foun­ded Helsing because we believe AI will be essen­tial to conti­nue defen­ding demo­cra­tic values. Our recent contracts show that this belief is shared by govern­ments and indus­try. This round of funding is further vali­da­tion from a leading global inves­tor, as well as from our part­ner Saab,” added Dr. Gund­bert Scherf, co-foun­der of Helsing (photo © helsing.ai).

Helsing places parti­cu­lar focus on the ethi­cal appli­ca­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies, espe­ci­ally arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. The company takes a targe­ted approach to trans­pa­rency, explaina­bi­lity, and the effec­ti­ve­ness of “human in the loop.” To ensure tech­ni­cal excel­lence and diverse thin­king, Helsing recruits employees from a variety of back­grounds and encou­ra­ges criti­cal thin­king and feed­back from its teams.

“We believe Helsing is an indus­try-shaping soft­ware company that is fully aligned with our global resi­li­ence thesis — the need to moder­nize our major indus­tries for the powerful chan­ges in the world,” said Paul Kwan, Mana­ging Part­ner, Gene­ral Cata­lyst.

Helsing’s mission to protect demo­cra­cies places parti­cu­lar focus on the ethi­cal appli­ca­tion of new tech­no­lo­gies, espe­ci­ally arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. The company takes a targe­ted approach to trans­pa­rency, explaina­bi­lity, and the effec­ti­ve­ness of “human in the loop.”

Consul­tant Helsing: YPOG
Team: Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin Tobias Lovett (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin; Farina Weber (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Helsing

Helsing is a key tech­no­logy and soft­ware company of the latest gene­ra­tion. In focus: criti­cal AI capa­bi­li­ties for secu­rity and defense. Helsing was foun­ded as an owner-mana­ged tech­no­logy company to pursue the exclu­sive busi­ness purpose of deve­lo­ping and deploy­ing AI capa­bi­li­ties in the secu­rity sector. It is Helsing’s claim, as a Euro­pean tech­no­logy pioneer, to enable demo­cra­tic socie­ties to make sove­reign decis­i­ons and enforce their own ethi­cal standards.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting 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. www.ypog.law

News

Tübin­gen — SHS Capi­tal has raised appro­xi­m­ately €270 million for its sixth gene­ra­tion of funds. Due to strong demand, the fund’s origi­nal target volume of 200 million euros was signi­fi­cantly excee­ded and is now more than double that of the prede­ces­sor fund. The invest­ment focus of the new SHS VI fund is on growing Euro­pean health­care companies.

The new fund is targe­ting ten to fifteen invest­ments in the form of both majo­rity and mino­rity stakes. The invest­ment amount of the fund is 10 to 40 million euros. Toge­ther with LPs and other inves­tors, tran­sac­tion values of up to 150 million euros can be reali­zed. SHS invests exclu­si­vely in compa­nies that are alre­ady gene­ra­ting signi­fi­cant sales, are on a growth trajec­tory and have the goal of beco­ming Euro­pean health­care champions.

Inves­tors in the SHS VI Fund include fund of funds, insu­rance compa­nies, pension funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, banks, health­care groups, church inves­tors and entre­pre­neurs. Further­more, the SHS invest­ment team itself has inves­ted significantly.

“Health­care is an indis­pensable sector and ther­e­fore offers many exci­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties for invest­ment. With us, inves­tors have the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in the deve­lo­p­ment of this growth market. Our track record to date shows that we have been able to gene­rate attrac­tive returns for our inves­tors while helping to improve health­care through inno­va­tion and opti­mize pati­ent care,” explains Manfred Ulmer-Weber, Mana­ging Part­ner at SHS.

“The volume of the new fund has signi­fi­cantly excee­ded our expec­ta­ti­ons and confirmed our posi­tio­ning as the leading private equity health­care specia­list in the German, and thus largest Euro­pean health­care market. We are very plea­sed that many of our exis­ting SHS inves­tors are also inves­ted in our new fund, in some cases with signi­fi­cant increa­ses in subscrip­ti­ons. In addi­tion, we were able to further inter­na­tio­na­lize our inves­tor base and expand it to include renow­ned addres­ses. We would like to thank our inves­tors for the trust they have placed in us,” says SHS Mana­ging Part­ner Sascha Alilovic.

News

Munich — Comi­tis Capi­tal (“Comi­tis”) has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Cloud7 GmbH (“Cloud 7”). Petra Junge­bluth, the foun­der of Cloud7 (photo © cloud7), reta­ins a signi­fi­cant stake in the company and will conti­nue to steer Cloud7’s inter­na­tio­nal growth as CEO.

Cloud7, based in Berlin and Königs-Wuster­hau­sen, was foun­ded in 2010 by fashion desi­gner Petra Junge­bluth. Since then, the company has become the leading brand in the premium dog access­ories market in DACH. The brand is known for its range of aesthe­tic, high-quality and sustainable dog products and has won nume­rous brand and product design awards.

Comi­tis Capi­tal is a growth inves­tor based in Frank­furt am Main. Cloud7 is Comi­tis’ second growth part­ner­ship in the broa­der pet sector.

Consul­tant Cloud7: POELLATH 

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Part­ner, M&A/VC)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC)
Ludwig Niller (Asso­ciate, M&A/VC)

News

Amster­dam — CVC, a leading global private markets mana­ger focu­sed on private equity, secon­da­ries and lever­a­ged finance, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in DIF Capi­tal Part­ners (“DIF”), a leading infra­struc­ture mana­ger. The merger will create a global private markets mana­ger with seven comple­men­tary stra­te­gies and total assets under manage­ment of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 177 billion*.

This stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion gives CVC access to a leading infra­struc­ture plat­form that ideally comple­ments the company’s exis­ting private equity, secon­da­ries and credit stra­te­gies. The acqui­si­tion also acce­le­ra­tes DIF’s growth. The company will conti­nue to operate under the DIF brand and main­tain its inde­pen­dence in terms of busi­ness acti­vi­ties and invest­ment decisions.

Head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam, DIF mana­ges EUR 16 billion in assets, employs more than 225 people in 11 offices and pursues two distinct invest­ment stra­te­gies: core/­build-to-core funds and core-plus funds. Foun­ded in 2005, the company has estab­lished itself as a leading provi­der of mid-sized infra­struc­ture invest­ments with a focus on Europe, North America and Austra­lia. By joining forces with CVC, DIF will acce­le­rate its growth and further expand its invest­ment capa­bi­li­ties, geogra­phic reach and global inves­tor base. DIF will conti­nue to be led by its current CEO and part­ners and will operate under the DIF brand.

Commen­ting on the tran­sac­tion, Rolly van Rappard, Chair­man and Co-Foun­der of CVC, said: “Expan­ding into the infra­struc­ture sector is a logi­cal next step for us, as we are convin­ced of the long-term growth trends in this area and it comple­ments our exis­ting stra­te­gies. We have known the DIF team for many years and are exci­ted to have one of the world’s leading pure-play infra­struc­ture manage­ment compa­nies with an impres­sive track record of success and growth on our side going forward.”

Rob Lucas, Mana­ging Part­ner at CVC (Photo © cvc), added: “We are looking forward to working with DIF, a leading global infra­struc­ture mana­ger. DIF’s busi­ness model and culture are a great fit with our local foot­print and their new infra­struc­ture plat­form will be a great comple­ment to our leading private equity, secon­da­ries and credit stra­te­gies. We welcome Wim, the DIF part­ners and the entire DIF team to the CVC Group and look forward to working toge­ther to become a leading global infra­struc­ture manager.”

Wim Blaasse, CEO and Mana­ging Part­ner DIF, said: “The merger with CVC is a natu­ral step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company. Toge­ther with my part­ners, I look forward to leading DIF into the next phase of growth. We have known the CVC team for a long time and have been impres­sed with what they have built. That is why we are exci­ted to become part of the CVC Group. With this tran­sac­tion, we bene­fit from CVC’s global plat­form, scale and excel­lent inves­tor connec­tions. At the same time, we can fully focus on important infra­struc­ture areas such as the energy tran­si­tion and digi­ta­liza­tion without losing our inde­pen­dence in invest­ment decisions.”

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory and other appr­ovals and is expec­ted to close in the fourth quar­ter of 2023 or the first quar­ter of 2024. The Dutch works coun­cil of DIF has been infor­med about the tran­sac­tion and has appro­ved it.

Advi­sors to CVC: inter alia JPMorgan. 

Advi­sors to DIF: advi­sed by Morgan Stan­ley & Co Plc, Loyens & Loeff, PwC and De Brauw, among others.

News

Essen/ Colo­gne — The corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law experts Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M., Part­ner, and Lena Pfeu­fer, Sala­ried Part­ner, advi­sed the listed 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG on a capi­tal increase from autho­ri­zed capi­tal exclu­ding share­hol­ders’ subscrip­tion rights and, toge­ther with the accom­pany­ing bank, on the admis­sion of the new shares to the regu­la­ted market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (Prime Standard).

The capi­tal increase was made against contri­bu­ti­ons in kind in order to acquire the “pay-per-lead” provi­der Ormigo GmbH, based in Colo­gne. Euro Serve Media GmbH, which is part of the Müller Medien family of compa­nies and which in turn holds a majo­rity stake in 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG via its holding company united verti­cal media GmbH, contri­bu­ted Ormigo GmbH to 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG as a contri­bu­tion in kind as part of the capi­tal increase and recei­ved 1 million new shares in return.

Ormigo GmbH was acqui­red in order to deve­lop the “pay per lead” busi­ness area more stron­gly, to acce­le­rate growth in this area and to save costs for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the “pay per lead” business.

11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG has its head­quar­ters in Essen. For over twenty years, 11 88 0* and 11880.com have deli­vered relia­ble results in sear­ches for indi­vi­du­als and local and natio­nal vendors in all indus­tries. Germany’s second-largest direc­tory assis­tance service, which can be reached by dial­ing 11 88 0*, offers perso­nal support, while the online busi­ness direc­tory 11880.com and the app of the same name provide targe­ted infor­ma­tion and direct users to suita­ble provi­ders in the desi­red region.

Advi­sor 11 88 0 Solu­ti­ons AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Mirko Sickin­ger, LL.M., Photo (lead), Lena Pfeu­fer, Fran­ziska Marisa Decker, M.A. (all corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law), all Cologne.

News

Jena/Munich — With the support of invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co, Jena-based rooom AG has just raised over 17 million euros in a successful finan­cing round. The finan­cing round is backed by a consor­tium of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors led by Munich-based finan­cial inves­tor Marondo Capi­tal. Growth capi­tal provi­ders such as Tech­no­lo­gie-Grün­der­fonds Sach­sen (TGFS) and bm‑t Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment Thürin­gen as well as other exis­ting inves­tors are also involved.

Jena-based rooom AG has raised over 17 million euros in fresh capi­tal as part of a successful finan­cing round. In addi­tion to the new inves­tors Marondo Capi­tal and TGFS, exis­ting inves­tors such as bm|t and others parti­ci­pa­ted. This invest­ment also unders­cores the growing importance of 3D visua­liza­tion and Meta­verse solu­ti­ons in the enterprise.

Foun­ded in 2016, rooom AG offers soft­ware solu­ti­ons for crea­ting 3D content and digi­tal expe­ri­en­ces in augmen­ted and virtual reality, which are used in Meta­verse, among others. rooom’s custo­mers include Deut­sche Tele­kom, BMW, Zeiss, porta and Bosch. The Jena-based company curr­ently employs around 100 people and now reaches more than six million users in over 120 countries.

“Hans Elst­ner and his team have deve­lo­ped a proprie­tary tech­no­logy for crea­ting 3D content that stands up to global compa­ri­son. Without the use of special apps or virtual reality glas­ses, users can easily immerse them­sel­ves in virtual worlds and explore any type of 3D object using only their smart­phones,” explains Sebas­tian Schirl, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Bryan, Garnier & Co, who advi­sed on the transaction.

“A successful growth finan­cing round is anything but a matter of course in these tense times. We now want to use the funds raised prima­rily for marke­ting and further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, above all in the USA,” empha­si­zes Hans Elsner, foun­der and CEO of rooom AG.

Slowing tran­sac­tion momen­tum after initial hype in virtual reality soft­ware deve­lo­per market

As an analy­sis by Bryan, Garnier & Co shows, provi­ders of hard­ware and soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the areas of meta­verse and augmen­ted and virtual reality have been in high demand over the past two years: in 2021 and 2022, start­ups and tech­no­logy compa­nies were able to raise around €25 billion in capi­tal in almost 4,000 indi­vi­dual tran­sac­tions, but since the end of 2022, the number of tran­sac­tions has drop­ped signi­fi­cantly: In the first half of 2023, compa­nies raised only around EUR 2.0 billion in 542 tran­sac­tions, accor­ding to one result of the analysis.

“The initial hype around the Meta­verse has curr­ently died down a bit, but the market for virtual expe­ri­en­ces has long been there,” Schirl said. “Howe­ver, many compa­nies in this field are still in their infancy. rooom is one of the very few compa­nies here that is alre­ady selling its solu­ti­ons with great commer­cial success.” It is no coin­ci­dence that rooom was also named “Top Manage­ment Solu­tion Provi­der” and “Cool Vendor” by Gart­ner, the world’s leading rese­arch and consul­ting company in the IT sector.

Manage­ment consul­tants at Bain & Company expect that the market for meta­verse solu­ti­ons and virtual expe­ri­en­ces could reach a market volume of $700 billion to $900 billion by 2030. Until then, it will also become clear who the real winners in the market are.

The Bryan, Garnier & Co deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse (photo © Bryan Garnier & Co), Sebas­tian Schirl, Berk Kirca, Alex­an­der Rein­auer and Paul Hirsch.

About Marondo

Marondo, with offices in Munich and Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company for fast-growing, tech­no­logy-orien­ted, next-gene­ra­tion SMEs in Germany and DACH. The fund invests in compa­nies from the German tech­no­logy sector through majo­rity and mino­rity tran­sac­tions. These include soft­ware & IT, Indus­try 4.0, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, and health & medi­cal tech­no­lo­gies. In addi­tion to exten­sive expan­sion capi­tal, Marondo also offers liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for exis­ting share­hol­ders. The part­ner­ship is led by four part­ners with over 80 years of indus­try expe­ri­ence, 90 finan­ced compa­nies and seve­ral hundred tran­sac­tions over the past two deca­des. www.marondo.com.

About TGFS

The TGFS Tech­no­lo­gie­grün­der­fonds Sach­sen provi­des tech­no­logy-orien­ted foun­ders with equity capi­tal for the seed and start-up phase. The fund was first laun­ched in 2008 by the Free State of Saxony (inclu­ding ERDF funding) and Saxon finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and has since supported over 100 start-ups. In 2023, the TGFS laun­ched its third gene­ra­tion of funds. The target compa­nies of the TGFS are young, inno­va­tive, tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies that belong to the ICT, semi­con­duc­tor and micro­sys­tems tech­no­logy, medi­cal tech­no­logy, life science, envi­ron­men­tal and energy tech­no­logy, and new media sectors and have their head­quar­ters or opera­ting faci­li­ties in Saxony. www.tgfs.de

About bm|t

bm|t betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment thürin­gen gmbh, based in Erfurt, is the first address for venture capi­tal and private equity finan­cing in Thurin­gia. bm|t curr­ently mana­ges eleven funds with a total volume of more than 440 million euros and invests in inno­va­tive compa­nies in almost all sectors and in all phases of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment — from the start-up and growth phase to corpo­rate succes­sion and buyouts. www.bm‑t.com

About rooom

rooom AG is an IT company from Jena, which was foun­ded in 2016. They offer web-based solu­ti­ons for the crea­tion, manage­ment and play­out of immersive 3D content. The plat­form can be used for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and works with augmen­ted reality, virtual reality and gene­ra­tive AI. In recent years, the company has been awarded various inno­va­tion prizes such as the German Inno­va­tion Award, the Euro­pean Meta­verse Award and the Inno­va­tion and Excel­lence Award. rooom employs around 100 people and its most important custo­mers include Deut­sche Tele­kom, BMW, Zeiss, porta and Bosch. In addi­tion, the plat­form reaches over six million users in 120 count­ries. www.rooom.com/de

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.

The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A advi­sory for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on the growth sectors of tech­no­logy, health­care and sustaina­bi­lity. Bryan, Garnier & Co is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the AMF and FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US. www.bryangarnier.com

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