ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Lohne — zvoove Group, the leading provi­der of digi­ta­liza­tion solu­ti­ons for staf­fing and clea­ning compa­nies in Europe, has acqui­red Recruit­Now, the market leader in the Nether­lands for ATS (Appli­cant Track­ing Systems) and recrui­ting solu­ti­ons for tempo­rary staf­fing compa­nies. Follo­wing the merger with ERP specia­list Pivo­ton last year, this makes the zvoove Group number one in the Dutch market for digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons in tempo­rary staf­fing and clea­ning services.

ATS solu­ti­ons play a criti­cal role in mana­ging and auto­ma­ting the recruit­ment process. Indus­try leader Recruit­Now is a fast-growing company with over 150 clients in the tempo­rary staf­fing indus­try and is based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands. The flag­ship product “Cock­pit” is a recruit­ment soft­ware with CRM that combi­nes job boards and online campaigns in one plat­form and signi­fi­cantly auto­ma­tes and acce­le­ra­tes the recruit­ment process.

Based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands, Recruit­Now is a fast-growing company serving more than 150 clients in the staf­fing services environment.

zvoove Group is the market-leading provi­der of digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons for person­nel and faci­lity service provi­ders in Europe, among others. After adding ERP manage­ment specia­list Pivo­ton from the Nether­lands to the group in 2022(KWM advi­ses on the acqui­si­tion of Pivo­ton), zvoove Group beco­mes number one in the Dutch market with the acqui­si­tion of RecruitNow.

zvoove Group and KWM were also supported by local advi­sory teams in the transaction.

Advi­sors to zvoove Group GmbH: King­wood & Wood Malle­sons (KWM)


Markus Herz,
 Photo(Part­ner, Lead), Hanno Brandt (both Corporate/M&A)

About zvoove
The zvoove Group is the leading provi­der of SaaS solu­ti­ons for HR and buil­ding service provi­ders in Europe. In a dyna­mic ecosys­tem of service provi­ders, employees and compa­nies, zvoove impro­ves the world of work through end-to-end digi­ta­liza­tion for service provi­ders, more job oppor­tu­ni­ties and career pros­pects for employees and a secure work­force for compa­nies. Over 4,200 custo­mers and more than 55,000 end users alre­ady rely on zvoove. With zvoove’s solu­ti­ons, they manage 700,000 employees, 12 billion euros in annual payroll, and over one million inco­ming appli­ca­ti­ons per year. zvoove employs over 400 people at 13 loca­ti­ons in Europe.

About Recruit­Now
Recruit­Now, based in Amers­fo­ort, the Nether­lands, is the provi­der of the leading ATS solu­tion Cock­pit. Recruit­Now offers opti­miza­tion of the recrui­ting process and provi­des control, clarity and effec­ti­ve­ness. Custo­mers turn to Recruit­Now for relia­ble, best-in-class solu­ti­ons to simplify complex proces­ses. As a result of this achie­ve­ment, the company has grown to 60 employees and over 150 custo­mers in recent years.

News

Colo­gne — A YPOG team led by Jens Kretz­schmann provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Heart­felt on the struc­tu­ring and first closing of its new early-stage VC fund with a target volume of EUR 80 million. In addi­tion to estab­lished LPs, Axel Sprin­ger and Porsche again parti­ci­pa­ted in the closing as anchor investors.

With its fund, Heart­felt, like its prede­ces­sor struc­ture APX, will invest prima­rily in Euro­pean start-ups in their early-stage phase. Heart­felt invests in start­ups at the earliest possi­ble stage — often before the angel round. Initial invest­ments are up to EUR 100,000 and will be further increased until the Series A round if the start-ups show momen­tum and raise exter­nal capital.

About Heart­felt

Heart­felt is the new Berlin unit of the team of APX, a joint venture of Axel Sprin­ger and Porsche, which as an early-stage inves­tor also invests in Euro­pean, early-stage start-ups across sectors. Co-CEOs are Dr. Henric Hunger­hoff (photo © Porsche AG) and Jörg Rhein­boldt. www.heartfelt.capital

Consul­tant Heart­felt: YPOG

Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Funds), Part­ner, Cologne
Dr. Andreas Bergt­hal­ler (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Markus Alsdorf (Funds), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Dr. Carl Sieger (Tax), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszc­zek (Legal Opera­ti­ons), Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Madrid — Trucks­ters, the Spanish road haulage company revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the long-distance trans­port sector through the use of AI and Big Data, has closed a €33 million Series B round. The new injec­tion of capi­tal, backed by new and exis­ting inves­tors, will be used to achieve some of the company’s stra­te­gic goals, inclu­ding the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of its routes, which could make Trucks­ters the first elec­tric long-distance opera­tor in Europe.

The new invest­ments will support other important deve­lo­p­ments, inclu­ding the expan­sion and streng­thening of the IT and manage­ment teams and the opening of new inter­na­tio­nal corri­dors. These impro­ve­ments will support the company’s over­all goal of impro­ving drivers’ working condi­ti­ons while provi­ding effi­ci­ent trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons for its customers.

New inves­tors

The new round of finan­cing is supported by new inves­tors inclu­ding Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit, Volvo Group Venture Capi­tal, part of the Swedish multi­na­tio­nal vehicle manu­fac­tu­rer, the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) and Fond­ICO, the Spanish fund of funds.”

The funds provi­ded by the EIB are part of Euro­pean InvestEU, an invest­ment program focu­sed on the EU’s common prio­ri­ties. These include inno­va­tion, digi­ta­liza­tion and “human capi­tal,” climate protec­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, all of which are central to Trucks­ters’ busi­ness strategy.

The new inves­tors join exis­ting inves­tors who, with this support, show that they believe in Trucks­ters’ ability to revo­lu­tio­nize the trans­por­ta­tion sector and make it more effi­ci­ent, safe, produc­tive and people-centric.

Exis­ting inves­tors include inter­na­tio­nal funds Ampli­fier VC and Meta­vallon VC, as well as Spanish funds Big Sur Ventures, Bonsai Part­ners, Kibo Ventures and The Valley VC . Sacha Mich­aud, co-foun­der of Glovo and member of the Board of Direc­tors as Non-Execu­tive Chair­man, is also re-inves­t­ing in this round.

Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit is parti­ci­pa­ting in this new round for the first time. Jürgen Bilo, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Continental’s Corpo­rate Venture Capi­tal Unit, explains: “The invest­ment in Trucks­ters is in line with our vision of the future of mobi­lity: inno­va­tive, data-driven fleet manage­ment solu­ti­ons that ensure opera­tio­nal effi­ci­ency while promo­ting sustainable growth. We believe Trucks­ters’ model will revo­lu­tio­nize fleet manage­ment and shape the future of transportation.”

Martin Witt, Presi­dent of Volvo Group Venture Capi­tal, agrees: “We are impres­sed by what Trucks­ters has alre­ady achie­ved and see that Volvo Group can add stra­te­gic value to the deve­lo­p­ment of the company. Given the growing demand for freight trans­por­ta­tion, relay systems can provide a solid struc­ture for long-distance elec­tri­fi­ca­tion as well as auto­no­mous solu­ti­ons in the future.”

A dream come true

Luis Bardají, co-foun­der and CEO of Trucks­ters, says, “When we star­ted Trucks­ters, we never imagi­ned that just a few years later we would be in a posi­tion to sign a part­ner­ship with flag­ship compa­nies like Volvo Group and Conti­nen­tal. Having them as our share­hol­ders is a dream: safety, focus on drivers, sustaina­bi­lity and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion are some of the hall­marks of both compa­nies and the reasons Trucks­ters was foun­ded in the first place.”

Bardají also explains that the part­ner­ship is crucial for the deve­lo­p­ment of Trucks­ters, as it will help them “learn from them and their heri­tage. We can’t wait to start this new chap­ter together.”

Substan­tial growth, succes­ses and a busi­ness model that proves itself

Trucks­ters had previously raised €14.3 million when it comple­ted a Series A round in March 2022. The company repor­ted record annual sales of €30 million in 2022, a 300% increase over 2021 (a four­fold increase over the previous year).

One of the key factors in the company’s success, with an equally impres­sive 300% annual reve­nue growth in 2022, is its focus on large custo­mers with high growth capa­city, to whom it offers fast and relia­ble solu­ti­ons, such as incre­asing their fleet size to meet high demand. For exam­ple, Trucks­ters was able to triple the size of its fleet in 2022, over­co­ming major chal­lenges such as the severe driver shortage in Europe.

Trucks­ters is ready in 7 countries

Alre­ady present in Spain, Belgium, Germany and Poland, Trucks­ters opera­tes in seven count­ries: the Nether­lands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, the United King­dom, France and Spain. — Using a truck relay system based on Big Data and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Trucks­ters offers effi­ci­ent routes between Europe and Spain. The scale-up opera­tes four main corri­dors, inclu­ding a new corri­dor from central Spain to the United King­dom. The company moves more than 600 trucks and made nearly 2,000 relay tours last year.

www.trucksters.io

News

Munich, Germany — FERNRIDE, a pionee­ring German company in the field of auto­no­mous and elec­tric trucks, announ­ced the successful closing of a Series A finan­cing round, raising a total of $31 million. These funds will be used to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to auto­ma­ted and sustainable logistics.

FERNRIDE is funded by venture capi­tal inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Promus Ventures, Fly Ventures, Speed­in­vest and Push Vent ures as well as corpo­rate venture capi­tal inves­tors HHLA Next, DB Schen­ker via Schen­ker Ventures and Krone. Inves­tors have confi­dence in FERNRIDE’s vision and confirm the urgency for the indus­try to trans­form and address its chal­lenges. The company combi­nes a decade of rese­arch with indus­try exper­tise from auto­mo­tive and auto­no­mous driving leaders. Former senior execu­ti­ves from BMW, MAN, Mobi­leye and Argo.AI are part of the team. The company’s goal is to become the global leader in auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks within five years.

“As we profoundly change the way the logi­stics indus­try opera­tes, it is criti­cal to part­ner with some of the industry’s leading play­ers. The stra­te­gic invest­ments going into our Series A will help acce­le­rate this trans­for­ma­tion,” said Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­der of FERNRIDE.

FERNRIDE is at the fore­front of human-machine inter­ac­tion tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment here. The company’s unique approach has alre­ady won the trust of leading indus­trial groups such as Volks­wa­gen, DB Schen­ker, BSH and HHLA. Over the past twelve months, the company has inte­gra­ted self-driving trucks into their busi­ness proces­ses. FERNRIDE is using the latest funding to expand its inter­na­tio­nal colla­bo­ra­tion with exis­ting and new custo­mers and to further deve­lop its “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” technology.

M‍shortage of truck drivers

Although auto­no­mous driving as a concept is not new to the logi­stics indus­try, this is the first time a company has mana­ged to bring the tech­no­logy into opera­tio­nal use as a working solu­tion for custo­mers. The biggest chal­lenges in the logi­stics indus­try today are the extreme shortage of truck drivers, rising CO2 emis­si­ons and low profit margins. These problems are alre­ady having a signi­fi­cant impact on society and are predic­ted to conti­nue to grow. For exam­ple, the current shortage of 400,000 truck drivers in Europe alone is expec­ted to increase to 2,000,000 truck drivers by 2026. Auto­no­mous driving seems to offer a solu­tion to many of these problems. Howe­ver, previous attempts to successfully, econo­mic­ally deploy such auto­no­mous concepts failed.‍

FERNRIDE’s unique approach addres­ses these indus­try-speci­fic chal­lenges for its custo­mers today, enab­ling the bene­fits and relia­ble opera­tion of driver­less trucks from day one of inte­gra­tion. The company has deve­lo­ped an end-to-end solu­tion that can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into running opera­ti­ons without caus­ing disrup­tion or downtime.

“Our custo­mers bene­fit from our “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” approach from the begin­ning of our colla­bo­ra­tion,” says Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­der of FERNRIDE. “Our current custo­mers operate more than 1,000 trucks in yard and port logi­stics in Europe alone, so it is important to offer an easily scalable solu­tion. With FERNRIDE, we can do just that, because with our “human-assis­ted auto­nomy” approach, we can alre­ady offer a working, relia­ble solu­tion today.”‍‍

Trucks in yard and port logi­stics repre­sent a $25 billion market in Europe and North America and are just the start­ing point for the trans­for­ma­tion of the truck­ing industry.

About FERNRIDE

FERNRIDE offers scalable auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for trucks in yard and port logi­stics. These solu­ti­ons increase produc­ti­vity, promote sustaina­bi­lity and improve employee safety within the logi­stics indus­try. The company is pursuing the tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach of “human-assis­ted auto­nomy,” which enables remote take­over of auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks. This ensu­res seam­less inte­gra­tion and relia­ble opera­tion of auto­no­mous trucks for logi­stics compa­nies. FERNRIDE’s inno­va­tive tech­no­logy is based on more than ten years of scien­ti­fic rese­arch. FERNRIDE uses these with well-known custo­mers — inclu­ding Volks­wa­gen, HHLA, DB Schen­ker and BSH — to tackle the industry’s major chal­lenges, such as the shortage of drivers and the logi­stics sector’s nega­tive envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. The company was foun­ded by Hendrik Kramer, Maxi­mi­lian Fisser and Jean-Michael Georg and today employs over 120 people at its sites in Munich and Wolfs­burg. www.fernride.com

‍

 

News

Munich/ Zurich — Munich-based Eve Systems GmbH has gained the Zurich-based energy and auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy group ABB Ltd. as its new owner. Foun­ded in 1999, Eve Systems is a renow­ned provi­der of smart home products of high quality and ease of use, they include a wide range of devices for home auto­ma­tion, energy manage­ment, secu­rity and device moni­to­ring. With its 40 employees, Eve is a pioneer of the new connec­ti­vity stan­dard Matter, which allows smart home products to be fully inter­ope­ra­ble regard­less of the manu­fac­tu­rer or the user’s opera­ting system via Thread wire­less technology.

Accor­ding to ABB manage­ment, the tran­sac­tion will make ABB a leading provi­der of smart home products based on Matter and Thread, the new inter­ope­ra­bi­lity stan­dard and wire­less connec­ti­vity tech­no­logy. Combi­ned with Eve’s comple­men­tary range of products tail­o­red to the consu­mer retro­fit market, ABB aims to acce­le­rate the deli­very of safe, smart and energy-effi­ci­ent homes and buil­dings. The finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion were not disclosed.

Signi­fi­cant market growth and robust valuations

Accor­ding to the experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co., provi­ders of smart home appli­ca­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally compa­nies with corre­spon­ding energy solu­ti­ons, have recently bene­fi­ted greatly from the energy crisis. The invest­ment bank also expects signi­fi­cant growth in this area in the future: the number of smart homes world­wide, curr­ently around 300 million, is expec­ted to rise to around 500 million by 2025. Accor­din­gly, this market is attrac­tive for inves­tors — for exam­ple, the German heating app specia­list tado repor­ted at the begin­ning of April 2023 that the finan­cing round of EUR 43 million, which was only concluded at the begin­ning of Janu­ary 2023, was subse­quently increased by a further EUR 12 million.

The experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co. are also obser­ving a sustained high level of M&A tran­sac­tions in the smart home segment: after 44 acqui­si­ti­ons across Europe in 2021, there were a total of 41 deals in 2022, with a further 15 tran­sac­tions alre­ady added by the end of May 2023. Accor­ding to invest­ment bankers, this trend will continue:

“There is a high level of inno­va­tion in the market for smart home appli­ca­ti­ons, many vendors are expe­ri­en­cing strong growth rates, and both stra­te­gic play­ers and finan­cial inves­tors are incre­asingly inves­t­ing in this space to capi­ta­lize on the trend toward connec­ted and smart homes,” said Falk Müller-Veerse, part­ner at Bryan, Garnier & Co. (Photo © Bryan Garnier) “In doing so, we observe robust company valuations.”

Stra­te­gists in parti­cu­lar are willing to pay considera­ble premi­ums to expand their product port­fo­lios or enter new markets, as can be seen in the exam­ple of Somfy SA. At the begin­ning of 2023, the Despa­ture family, based in France, had comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of the remai­ning 26.1% of this listed company, paying almost 1.4 billion euros. “This corre­spon­ded to a multi­ple of 3.1x reve­nue and 14.4x EBITDA,” Müller-Veerse explains.

Accor­ding to the experts at Bryan, Garnier & Co., Eve is curr­ently the global tech­no­logy leader with a total of 16 Thread-certi­fied devices and four Matter-certi­fied products alre­ady. Matter is a tech­no­logy that ensu­res inter­ope­ra­bi­lity of brands and devices while maxi­mi­zing usabi­lity, Thread is a wire­less stan­dard deve­lo­ped for the Inter­net of Things (IoT), which is used by Matter to improve connec­ti­vity between devices. Both stan­dards are conside­red ground­brea­king for the industry.

Markus Fest, foun­der of Eve Systems comm­ents, “Selling a company you foun­ded and helped build is a big step for any entre­pre­neur. This was my fourth exit, and I was abso­lut­ely thril­led with the support and indus­try exper­tise we recei­ved from the Bryan Garnier team throug­hout the process.”

“This mile­stone is signi­fi­cant for me as CEO and marks an exci­ting new chap­ter for Eve. ABB is the perfect fit for Eve’s mission to deve­lop energy-effi­ci­ent connec­ted home products that protect user privacy. We are very grateful to Bryan Garnier for putting this deal toge­ther for us. Her network and in-depth indus­try know­ledge were instru­men­tal in brin­ging this deal to frui­tion. The entire Eve team looks forward to conti­nuing to grow with one of the world’s most inno­va­tive brands as a leader in the smart home market,” said Jerome Gackel, CEO of Eve Systems.

Bryan Garnier’s multi­na­tio­nal deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse (Part­ner), Olivier Beau­douin (Part­ner), Martin Eich­ler (Direc­tor) and Jakub Veiner (Asso­ciate).

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.

News

Dues­sel­dorf, Germany — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) announ­ces the highly successful sale of Clever­soft to Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners (“LLCP”). Clever­soft has become a major player in the field of regu­la­tory tech­no­logy (RegTech), provi­ding effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons to address complex regu­la­tory chal­lenges in the finan­cial industry.

Due to Cleversoft’s great poten­tial to become a leading RegTech soft­ware provi­der, Main Capi­tal Part­ners inves­ted in the company back in 2018. During Main’s invest­ment period, Clever­soft trans­for­med from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of regu­la­tory soft­ware for finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and achie­ved outstan­ding growth. During this time, Cleversoft’s sales more than tripled and Clever­soft was able to conso­li­date its posi­tion as the market leader.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners supported through acquisitions

Main played a criti­cal role in support­ing Cleversoft’s growth trajec­tory, inclu­ding stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons that signi­fi­cantly enhan­ced the company’s product port­fo­lio and market presence. In this regard, Main supported Cleversoft’s acqui­si­tion of CDDS, a holi­stic soft­ware provi­der specia­li­zing in anti-money laun­de­ring solu­ti­ons for banks, asset mana­gers and other finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, Clever­soft further expan­ded its offe­ring with the acqui­si­tion of Busi­ness­Fo­ren­sics, a provi­der of finan­cial and white-collar crime preven­tion solu­ti­ons, and Second­Flow, a provi­der of inno­va­tive compli­ance and risk manage­ment soft­ware focu­sed on the insu­rance sector.

The sale of Clever­soft to LLCP repres­ents another signi­fi­cant achie­ve­ment for Main Capi­tal Part­ners. LLCP, as the buyer, appre­cia­tes the excep­tio­nal value and exper­tise Clever­soft brings to the RegTech market. The tran­sac­tion will provide Clever­soft with the neces­sary resour­ces and support to drive its future growth and soli­dify its posi­tion as a global leader in the industry.

Florian Clever, CEO of Clever­soft, comm­ents, “Toge­ther with Main Capi­tal, we have laid the foun­da­tion for the Euro­pean RegTech plat­form, which we now plan to aggres­si­vely expand globally with our new part­ner Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners. We would like to perso­nally thank Main Capi­tal Part­ners and espe­ci­ally Sven van Berge for almost 5 years of part­ner­ship and excel­lent coope­ra­tion on our way to become a pan-Euro­pean cham­pion in the RegTech market. In these 5 years, toge­ther we have refi­ned our stra­tegy for success, inter­na­tio­na­li­zed our custo­mer base, acqui­red and successfully inte­gra­ted three compa­nies, and acce­le­ra­ted our over­all deve­lo­p­ment. I am confi­dent that our time with Main is the foun­da­tion for a bright future, and we look forward to conti­nuing on this path with our new part­ner, LLCP.”

Matthias Tabbert, Head of DACH at LLCP, added: “We are deligh­ted to have acqui­red Clever­soft, a leading company in the RegTech sector. Clever­soft offers its custo­mers a range of inno­va­tive compli­ance solu­ti­ons and has many attrac­tive growth oppor­tu­ni­ties. We look forward to provi­ding Florian and the manage­ment team with our exper­tise and resour­ces to support their expan­sion plans and further grow Cleversoft’s market position.”

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen, Mana­ging Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “We congra­tu­late Clever­soft on the successful sale to LLCP and on the remar­kable jour­ney we have taken toge­ther. Cleversoft’s deve­lo­p­ment into a pan-Euro­pean market leader is a testa­ment to the commit­ment and vision of Florian Clever and his manage­ment team. We are proud to have supported Clever­soft in its growth and stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, and we are confi­dent that LLCP will provide the ideal plat­form for Cleversoft’s contin­ued success.”

About Clever­soft

Foun­ded in 2004, Clever­soft has become a leading soft­ware specia­list in the RegTech market, serving global banks, asset mana­gers and insu­r­ers. With over 100 dedi­ca­ted employees, Clever­soft helps finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons effi­ci­ently comply with incre­asingly complex regu­la­ti­ons. The company’s compre­hen­sive solu­ti­ons address regu­la­tory chal­lenges under regimes such as PRIIPs, MiFID II, PIB, FIDLEG and AML. Cleversoft’s services are comple­men­ted by life­cy­cle manage­ment solu­ti­ons, inclu­ding custo­mer rela­ti­onship manage­ment (CRM) and marke­ting proces­ses. Curr­ently, Clever­soft serves over 200 inter­na­tio­nal customers.

About clever­soft

About Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Partners

Levine Leicht­man Capi­tal Part­ners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 39-year history of inves­t­ing in a variety of focus sectors, inclu­ding Fran­chi­sing & Multi-unit, Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Trai­ning, and Engi­nee­red Products & Manu­fac­tu­ring. LLCP pursues a diffe­ren­tia­ted struc­tu­red private equity stra­tegy that combi­nes debt and equity invest­ments in port­fo­lio companies.

LLCP’s global team of dedi­ca­ted invest­ment profes­sio­nals is led by nine part­ners who have been with LLCP for an average of 19 years. Since incep­tion, LLCP has mana­ged appro­xi­m­ately $13.3 billion of insti­tu­tio­nal capi­tal in 15 mutual funds and inves­ted in over 100 port­fo­lio compa­nies. LLCP curr­ently mana­ges $9.3 billion in assets and has offices in Los Ange­les, New York, Chicago, Char­lotte, Miami, London, Stock­holm, The Hague and Frank­furt. https://www.llcp.com

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region and the Nordic count­ries. Main has nearly 20 years of expe­ri­ence streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio compa­nies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to realize sustainable growth and build excel­lent soft­ware groups. Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and the USA (Boston). As of Octo­ber 2021, Main has over €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has inves­ted in more than 150 soft­ware compa­nies to date. These compa­nies have crea­ted jobs for about 9000 employees. https://main.nl/about

The McDer­mott team led by part­ners Norman Wasse and Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on many tran­sac­tions and financings.

Advi­sors Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Norman Wasse, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger (Finan­cing, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Commercial/Regulatory), Dr. Chris­tian Masch (IP/IT, Munich), Edward A. Gordon (IP, Boston), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Lisa Schick­ling (both Corporate/M&A), Alex­an­dra Heberle (Regu­la­tory), Simon Apelojg (IP, Munich)

 

News

Zurich / Munich / Berne — Peri­gon GmbH, a subsi­diary of the Sihl Group, has acqui­red Trichord Ltd. Peri­gon is one of the world’s first provi­ders of a process for indus­trial, full-area prin­ting of complex 3D objects that guaran­tees the highest quality regard­less of the mate­rial. With the acqui­si­tion of the tech­no­logy provi­der and joint venture part­ner Trichord, the Sihl Group secu­res all shares in the tech­no­logy as well as the consumables.

Peri­gon was foun­ded in 2021 by Sihl Group and Trichord, two leading compa­nies in mate­ri­als and tech­no­logy, as a joint venture. Based in Düren, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, the specialist’s globally unique tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons enable designs to be trans­fer­red cost-effec­tively to complex 3D objects. The paten­ted, proven process can be used to design a wide variety of complex shapes, with mold mate­rial and produc­tion quan­ti­ties being irrelevant.

With the complete acqui­si­tion of Trichord by Peri­gon, the joint venture part­ner now beco­mes part of the Sihl Group, which can now serve its custo­mers even more compre­hen­si­vely and conve­ni­ently as a one-stop provi­der. The tran­sac­tion marks the second acqui­si­tion of Sihl Group under the aegis of funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe (“Equis­tone”). In 2016, the funds had acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the long-estab­lished company based near Bern; at the end of 2021, the US-based Diez­gen Corp. was added.

“Trichord is the ideal addi­tion to our group, enab­ling us to offer custo­mers all services from a single source in the future,” says Peter Wahs­ner, CEO of Sihl Group. “With this acqui­si­tion, we are laying the foun­da­tion for the global expan­sion of our stra­te­gic Surface Deco­ra­ti­ons busi­ness. We look forward to working toge­ther with Trichord’s manage­ment to take the next step in our growth strategy.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Stefan Maser, David Zahnd and Roman E. Hegglin.

Consul­tant to the Sihl Group: 

Deloitte (Finan­cial), Bär & Karrer (Legal & Tax Switz­er­land), Addle­shaw Goddard (Legal UK) and Good­win (Finan­cing).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

The funds advi­sed by Equis­tone Part­ners Europe are among the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, the funds have inves­ted equity in more than 180 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 invest­ments in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone funds are curr­ently inves­t­ing from the sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with 2.8 billion euros. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.equistonepe.com.

News

The fund’s inves­tor base includes major insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors such as the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (from the ERP-EIF faci­lity), LfA Förder­bank Bayern and NRW.Bank, as well as indus­trial compa­nies, foun­da­ti­ons and family offices, and well-known tech­no­logy-orien­ted part­ners from indus­try such as ZF Ventures, ZEISS Ventures and Montan-Stif­tung-Saar. A large part of the capi­tal commit­ments of over EUR 75 million came from exis­ting investors.

The Munich-based Matter­wave team has been an estab­lished finan­cing part­ner for Euro­pean start­ups in the deep tech sector for many years. The focus is on auto­ma­ting, digi­tiz­ing and impro­ving the resource effi­ci­ency of the entire indus­trial value chain: from the auto­ma­tion of rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and design to the trans­pa­rency of the logi­stics chain, produc­tion opti­miza­tion and after-sales support of products in custo­mer use.

Consul­tant Matter­wave: POELLATH 

POELLATH advi­sed on the launch of the fund on all contrac­tual, regu­la­tory and tax aspects of fund struc­tu­ring and distri­bu­tion as well as on inves­tor nego­tia­ti­ons with the follo­wing Berlin team:

Dr. Philip Schwarz van Berk, LL.M. (London), photo © Pöllath; (Part­ner, Lead, Private Funds); Nele Frie (Asso­ciate, Private Funds), Dennis Fordan (Asso­ciate, Private Funds)

News

Wies­ba­den / Munich — Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH has successfully comple­ted the volun­t­ary public take­over offer for the shares of Aareal Bank AG. U.S.-based Advent Inter­na­tio­nal and Center­bridge Part­ners laun­ched a joint take­over bid for Germany’s Aareal Bank (ARLG.DE) in 2021, valuing the lender at 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).

Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH is a non-control­led company in which funds advi­sed, mana­ged or control­led by Advent Inter­na­tio­nal Corpo­ra­tion and Center­bridge Part­ners, L.P., respec­tively, as well as CPP Invest­ment Board Europe S.à r.l, a wholly-owned subsi­diary of Canada Pension Plan Invest­ment Board, and other mino­rity share­hol­ders hold inte­rests. — Atlan­tic BidCo GmbH curr­ently holds around 90 percent of the share capi­tal and voting rights of Aareal Bank AG.

Henge­ler miller Advi­ses Advent and Center­bridge on the struc­tu­ring, prepa­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of all banking regu­la­tory proce­du­res and aspects of the acqui­si­tion of Aareal Bank inclu­ding the bearer control proce­dure and the holding struc­ture vis-à-vis the Euro­pean Central Bank (ECB), the German Fede­ral Finan­cial Super­vi­sory Autho­rity (BaFin) and the German Bundes­bank as well as the Bundes­ver­band deut­scher Banken e.V. and the Audi­ting Asso­cia­tion of German Banks e.V.

Advi­sor to Advent and Center­bridge: Henge­ler Mueller

Dirk Blie­se­ner (Part­ner, Banking Regu­la­tory Law, Lead), Prof. Dr. Johan­nes Adolff (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law), Dr. Daniela Favoc­cia (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner, Labor Law, all Frank­furt); Dr. Markus Ernst (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich), Martin Peters (Coun­sel, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Jan Letto Stef­fen (Coun­sel, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Dr. Gerrit Tönningsen (Asso­ciate, Banking Super­vi­sory Law), Maxi­mi­lian Kunzel­mann (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate Law, all Frank­furt), Dr. Isabella Zimmerl (Asso­ciate, Tax Law, Munich).

News

Hanover/ Hamburg/ Cologne/ Munich — Follo­wing its invest­ment in ESG soft­ware pioneer VERSO, NORD Holding is conti­nuing its compre­hen­sive ESG initia­tive by acqui­ring stakes in Hamburg-based Silves­ter Group and Colo­gne-based sustaina­bill. The three compa­nies are merging under the majo­rity share­hol­ding of NORD Holding. VERSO is a provi­der of ESG manage­ment soft­ware and services, while Silves­ter Group guides and advi­ses clients on corpo­rate, ESG and finan­cial stra­tegy, commu­ni­ca­tion and report­ing. The sustaina­bill cloud plat­form increa­ses the trans­pa­rency and sustaina­bi­lity of supply chains.

With the merger of the compa­nies, NORD Holding is crea­ting a leading provi­der for sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment and report­ing with a holi­stic solu­tion “Made in Germany”, from which more than 200 active custo­mers are alre­ady bene­fiting today. In addi­tion to the orga­nic deve­lo­p­ment of compe­ten­cies in all sustaina­bi­lity areas, stra­te­gic addi­ti­ons are sought through syner­gi­stic acqui­si­ti­ons within the merger.

“We are plea­sed to have formed an ESG cham­pion with these three compa­nies, thus acce­le­ra­ting the sustainable trans­for­ma­tion of the economy and crea­ting a diffe­ren­tia­ted tech­no­logy and consul­ting offe­ring for medium-sized busi­nesses,” says Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Prin­ci­pal at NORD Holding.

Andreas Maslo, as co-foun­der of VERSO and CEO of the newly formed company comm­ents, “Sustaina­bi­lity is beco­ming incre­asingly complex and our newly formed company is the answer to this. We combine compre­hen­sive sustaina­bi­lity exper­tise with leading tech­no­logy. We are plea­sed that with NORD Holding we have the right part­ner to imple­ment this vision.”

“NORD Holding and we are united by a common goal: the sustainable success of our custo­mers. That is why we accom­pany the deve­lo­p­ment of the sustainable corpo­rate stra­tegy and commu­ni­cate on the status and success deve­lo­p­ment of the ESG and finan­cial perfor­mance, actively and target group-orien­ted in busi­ness and sustaina­bi­lity reports,” says Thilo Tern, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Silves­ter Group and Co-CEO of the newly formed company.

“The sustainable supply chain is an irre­placeable buil­ding block in the sustaina­bi­lity orien­ta­tion of compa­nies. The vision of NORD Holding to create a holi­stic offe­ring toge­ther with VERSO and Silves­ter Group to meet all ESG requi­re­ments now and in the future was crucial for us,” explains Klaus Wiesen, co-foun­der of sustainabill.

The invest­ment has been supported by the NORD Holding Busi­ness Services and Soft­ware team since Novem­ber 2022 and under­lines the sector exper­tise in the area of tech­no­logy-enab­led services. On the part of NORD Holding, the tran­sac­tions were imple­men­ted by Chris­tian Moritz Kukwa, Moritz Stolp and Korne­lius Karl Komischke.

About VERSO

VERSO supports medium-sized compa­nies holi­sti­cally in their sustainable trans­for­ma­tion with its soft­ware (SaaS) solu­tion and services for sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment. Consul­ting and trai­ning in ESG report­ing, manage­ment and climate accoun­ting make VERSO a compre­hen­sive part­ner for corpo­rate sustaina­bi­lity and ESG. Sustaina­bi­lity mana­gers profes­sio­na­lize and digi­tize their sustaina­bi­lity manage­ment with VERSO or bring even more effi­ci­ency into their exis­ting proces­ses, above all CSR report­ing. In addi­tion, VERSO supports them on their way to beco­ming a climate-friendly company.

About Silves­ter Group

Silves­ter Group is the leading company for inte­gra­ted stake­hol­der rela­ti­ons in Germany. With expe­ri­ence from more than 30 years in the market and over 2,150 client projects, Silves­ter Group offers corpo­rate, ESG and finan­cial commu­ni­ca­ti­ons holi­sti­cally from a single source: stra­tegy, consul­ting, rese­arch and editing. Design, brand and image. Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons (IR), Public Rela­ti­ons (PR) & ESG. Online, Offline, Social Media, Digi­tal & Film.

About sustaina­bill

With its cloud plat­form, sustaina­bill offers a compre­hen­sive solu­tion for mana­ging sustaina­bi­lity and ESG risks in the supply chain. The company was foun­ded in 2017 based on rese­arch conduc­ted at the renow­ned Wupper­tal Insti­tute, one of the world’s leading think tanks for sustainability.

About NORD Holding

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.

News

Cologne/New York — Sastrify announ­ced Series B funding round of $32 million led by Endeit Capi­tal, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Simon Capi­tal and exis­ting inves­tors HV Capi­tal, First­Mark Capi­tal and Triple­Point Capital.

The addi­tio­nal funding will go toward incre­asing the size of the global team with a focus on the U.S. and Europe, as well as further acce­le­ra­ting product deve­lo­p­ment to support mid-market and enter­prise custo­mers. Sastrify has been a strong force in Europe since its mid-2020 launch, growing more than 400% last year.

The proli­fe­ra­tion of SaaS conti­nues to pose a signi­fi­cant risk to enter­pri­ses world­wide. Accor­ding to indus­try rese­arch, more than $200 billion and 3.9 billion man-hours will be wasted on soft­ware purcha­ses in 2023, while one in five orga­niza­ti­ons will expe­ri­ence a cyber inci­dent rela­ted to shadow IT.

Accor­ding to Sastrify, the typi­cal enter­prise over­spends more than 30 percent of its SaaS costs and wastes more than 400 hours per year mana­ging its SaaS contracts.

Sastrify’s all-in-one plat­form enables users to centra­lize, visua­lize and auto­mate their entire SaaS procu­re­ment jour­ney: We are driving SaaS procu­re­ment for fast-growing compa­nies like senn­der, OnRun­ning, Babbel, and Pleo, and are posi­tio­ned to further expand our services in the U.S. as we alre­ady serve U.S. custo­mers like Capchase, a non-dilu­tive funding provi­der for SaaS companies.

The Series‑B coin­ci­des with the expan­sion of our core product offe­ring to include auto­ma­ted usage analy­tics, as well as the launch of the Sastrify Market­place, which includes flexi­ble payment and finan­cing opti­ons. We also recently announ­ced a part­ner­ship with Capchase to offer flexi­ble finan­cing opti­ons for SaaS licenses.

YPOG provi­ded legal coun­sel to Simon Capi­tal in the $32 million Series B finan­cing round.

About Simon Capital

Simon Capi­tal is an early stage VC fund based in Germany. The fund invests in dedi­ca­ted foun­ders who are trans­forming their indus­tries in the areas of consump­tion, well-being and produc­ti­vity. Simon Capi­tal lever­a­ges its broad network and exper­tise rooted in entre­pre­neu­rial tradi­tion to foster new gene­ra­ti­ons of sustainable busi­nesses. The fund takes an active port­fo­lio approach, where capi­tal means more than just money; past invest­ments include the likes of water­drop, Just Spices, MushLabs, Holy and Ordio. www.simoncapital.com

About Endeit Capital

Endeit Capi­tal is a growth capi­tal firm that has been driving inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and inno­va­tion since 2006. With local part­ner teams in the Nether­lands, Germany and Sweden, Endeit specia­li­zes in support­ing Euro­pean tech scale-ups that have grown out of the start-up phase. Endeit and its commu­nity of entre­pre­neurs and experts support these compa­nies with capi­tal and manage­ment advice. Among them Parcel­Lab, 3DHubs, Navan, Conto­rion, Gastro­fix and Tour­Ra­dar. Endeit’s part­ners have a broad opera­tio­nal expe­ri­ence in bran­ding and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, espe­ci­ally through Buy & Build. www.endeit.com

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Funds, Tax and Tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 100 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Munich — ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, one of the world’s leading suppli­ers of ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons for semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring, and Gimv, a listed Euro­pean private equity inves­tor, are joining forces to further drive ERS’ growth. The two ERS mana­ging direc­tors, Klemens Reit­in­ger and Laurent Giai-Miniet, will remain invol­ved in the company and retain their current posi­ti­ons. Finan­cial details will not be disclosed.

ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, based in Germe­ring near Munich, has more than 50 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons. These enable the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to perform relia­ble ther­mal tests during micro­chip produc­tion. The company has earned a special repu­ta­tion for its fast and precise chuck systems. These can be used to perform air-cooling-based analy­ti­cal, para­me­ter-rela­ted and produc­tion-speci­fic measu­re­ments in a test tempe­ra­ture range from ‑65 °C to +550 °C.

Since 2008, ERS elec­tro­nic has also been active in the field of advan­ced pack­a­ging with fully auto­ma­tic and manual debon­ding and warpage adjus­t­ment systems. They are now used by most semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers and OSATs (Outsour­ced Semi­con­duc­tor Assem­bly and Test Compa­nies) world­wide. The company has recei­ved wide­spread indus­try reco­gni­tion for its ability to measure and correct complex wafer defor­ma­ti­ons (also called “warpage”) that occur in the fan-out wafer-level pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­ring process.

Gimv has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in helping Euro­pean compa­nies imple­ment ambi­tious growth plans with the aim of crea­ting sustainable value for busi­ness and society. Gimv Smart Indus­tries focu­ses on leading growth compa­nies that are at the inter­sec­tion of the digi­tal and indus­trial worlds, combi­ning both areas of exper­tise to offer holi­stic solu­ti­ons — as is the case with ERS elec­tro­nic. Gimv and ERS are only joining forces to further expand ERS’ leading market posi­tion and to serve the conti­nuously incre­asing demand.

Laurent Giai-Miniet, CEO of ERS elec­tro­nic comm­ents: “Ther­mal manage­ment in semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­ring is beco­ming incre­asingly important. We are ther­e­fore in a good posi­tion to bene­fit from the rapid deve­lo­p­ment of the indus­try and conti­nue to offer our custo­mers special added value. Our decis­ion to work with Gimv is based on our shared commit­ment to excel­lence and our passion for inno­va­tion and tech­no­logy. We look forward to opening a new chap­ter in ERS’ history with Gimv and reali­zing our shared vision.”

Klemens Reit­in­ger, CTO of ERS elec­tro­nic, added: “We are convin­ced that Gimv’s proven exper­tise will help us take a big step forward in further deve­lo­ping simi­lar busi­nesses, espe­ci­ally in terms of scaling opera­ti­ons and acce­le­ra­ting inno­va­tion. This part­ner­ship will provide us with the resour­ces and flexi­bi­lity to further advance product rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and conti­nue to lead the way in our industry.”

Ronald Bartel, Part­ner at Gimv Smart Indus­tries and Head of Gimv Germany, adds: “ERS’s inno­va­tive capa­bi­lity and special custo­mer-orien­ted approach make the company an ideal addi­tion to our Smart Indus­tries plat­form. It is precis­ely such ambi­tious, inno­va­tion-driven compa­nies that we support in their further deve­lo­p­ment. Our invest­ment in ERS repres­ents the company’s poten­tial and we look forward to working with the team to execute its growth strategy.”

Advi­sor to share­hol­ders of ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH: Rödl & Partner
Lead manage­ment Dr. Oliver Schmitt and Thomas Fräbel. The team had alre­ady advi­sed on a previous invest­ment review procee­ding for ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH and its share­hol­ders through Asso­ciate Part­ner Clau­dia Geercken.
Tax advice was provi­ded by part­ner Dr. Susanne Kölbl and mana­ger Dr. Bene­dikt Keilen.

About ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH

ERS elec­tro­nic GmbH, based in Germe­ring near Munich, has more than 50 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive ther­mal manage­ment solu­ti­ons. They enable the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to perform relia­ble ther­mal tests during micro­chip produc­tion. The company has earned a special repu­ta­tion for its fast and precise chuck systems. They can be used to perform air-cooling-based analy­ti­cal, para­me­ter-rela­ted and produc­tion-speci­fic measu­re­ments in a test tempe­ra­ture range from ‑65 °C to +550 °C. Since 2008, ERS elec­tro­nic has also been active in the field of advan­ced pack­a­ging with fully auto­ma­tic and manual debon­ding and warpage adjus­t­ment systems. They are now used by most semi­con­duc­tor manu­fac­tu­r­ers and OSATs (Outsour­ced Semi­con­duc­tor Assem­bly and Test Compa­nies) world­wide. The company has recei­ved wide­spread indus­try reco­gni­tion for its ability to measure and correct complex wafer defor­ma­ti­ons (also called “warpage”) that occur in the fan-out wafer-level pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­ring process.

About Gimv

Gimv, a Belgian private equity inves­tor listed on Euron­ext 100, has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in guiding Euro­pean compa­nies to imple­ment ambi­tious growth plans with the aim of crea­ting sustainable value for busi­ness and society. Gimv Smart Indus­tries focu­ses on leading growth compa­nies that are at the inter­sec­tion of the digi­tal and indus­trial worlds, combi­ning both areas of exper­tise to provide holi­stic solutions.

News

Munich/Frankfurt — Euro­pean private equity firm Rivean Capi­tal acqui­res a majo­rity stake in Green Mobi­lity Holding (GMH), one of Europe’s leading tech­no­logy-based (e-)bike leasing provi­ders. The previous majo­rity owner DPE Deut­sche Private Equity remains inves­ted with a mino­rity share. Further shares are held by the foun­ders and manage­ment of the two subsi­dia­ries Company Bike and mein-dienstrad.de.

“We will support Green Mobi­lity Holding with capi­tal and stra­te­gic know-how to further grow and expand its busi­ness in Germany and Europe,” said Matthias Wilcken, senior part­ner at Rivean Capi­tal. Further acqui­si­ti­ons are conceiva­ble in the coming years. “Our invest­ment philo­so­phy is based on value enhance­ment through digi­tiza­tion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and a focus on sustaina­bi­lity. These aspects, which are signi­fi­cant for our invest­ment decis­ion, will also signi­fi­cantly influence GMH’s further deve­lo­p­ment. That makes us ideal partners.”

“Bicy­cles and e‑bikes have become an alter­na­tive to cars or mass tran­sit over the past decade. Through our cost-effec­tive and easily acces­si­ble leasing offers, we support the chan­ging mobi­lity and promote an envi­ron­men­tally friendly and healthy life­style,” said Maxi­mi­lian Acht, CEO of Green Mobi­lity Holding. “With Rivean Capi­tal, we have found the right part­ner to further improve our holi­stic concept and expand our market share in Germany and neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean countries.”

Volker Hichert (Photo © DPE), Foun­der and Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board at DPE, says: “Despite our clear focus on growth compa­nies, it is also rare at DPE that the manage­ment team, in coope­ra­tion with its foun­ders and capi­tal provi­ders, succeeds in multi­ply­ing sales within two years. This is an extra­or­di­nary achie­ve­ment to which it has been a great plea­sure to contri­bute. With Rivean Capi­tal on board, we are confi­dent that we will be equally successful in the next phase of strong growth.”

With its digi­tal plat­forms, GMH connects compa­nies with bicy­cle dealers, manu­fac­tu­r­ers and leasing provi­ders to enable sustainable mobi­lity for their employees. To this end, the subsi­dia­ries Company Bike and mein-dienstrad.de conclude frame­work agree­ments with corpo­rate custo­mers, who provide their employees with the desi­red bicy­cles as lessees. The monthly leasing install­ments are with­held from the gross salary as part of defer­red compen­sa­tion and trans­fer­red directly to leasing banks contrac­tually affi­lia­ted with GMH. Employees bene­fit from tax advan­ta­ges and services such as main­ten­ance and insu­rance. With (e-)bike leasing offers, compa­nies can increase employee satis­fac­tion, contri­bute to their well-being and health, make commu­ting to work more attrac­tive, and help reduce the ecolo­gi­cal footprint.

GMH’s corpo­rate custo­mers include Daim­ler Truck, Euro­gate, Funke Medi­en­gruppe, Johan­ni­ter and nume­rous medium-sized companies.

GMH is head­quar­te­red in Munich and employs more than 200 people throug­hout Germany. Last year, the company gene­ra­ted sales of around 140 million euros. As in previous years, a signi­fi­cant increase in sales is plan­ned for this year.

The company is the only provi­der to offer direct access to the manu­fac­tu­r­ers of bicy­cles and (e-)bikes, as well as its own deli­very and service network with more than 60 employees.

GMH(https://www.greenmobility.technology) is curr­ently Rivean Capital’s fourth plat­form invest­ment in Germany, along­side Best4Tires, ]init[ AG für digi­tale Kommu­ni­ka­tion and TonerPartner.

About Rivean Capital

Rivean Capi­tal is a leading Euro­pean private equity inves­tor for mid-market tran­sac­tions with acti­vi­ties in the DACH region, Bene­lux and Italy. Funds advi­sed by Rivean Capi­tal manage funds in excess of EUR 3 billion. Rivean Capi­tal has offices in Frank­furt, Zurich, Amster­dam, Brussels and Milan. Since its foun­ding in 1982, Rivean Capi­tal has helped more than 250 compa­nies achieve their growth objectives.

News

Berlin / Austin (Texas) — Weil advi­ses e‑commerce aggre­ga­tor Elevate Brands on its acqui­si­tion by SellerX. SellerX, a leading eCom­merce aggre­ga­tor in Europe, has signed an agree­ment to acquire Elevate Brands, one of the most estab­lished eCom­merce aggre­ga­tors in the US.

The combi­ned company, SellerX Group, will be one of the largest and most profi­ta­ble global conso­li­da­tors of eCom­merce brands, with total reve­nues of more than €400 million, a strong global presence and a diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio of more than 80 Amazon-owned consu­mer brands.’

Phil­ipp Trie­bel and Malte Horeys­eck, co-CEOs of SellerX, will lead the SellerX Group, while the co-foun­ders of Elevate Brands (Ryan Gnesin, Jeremy Bell, Robert Bell) will remain in key leader­ship posi­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to close by the end of June 2023, subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons. The exis­ting share­hol­ders of SellerX and Elevate Brands have also agreed to invest more than €60 million in a new equity finan­cing round.

Consul­tant Aggre­ga­tor Elevate Brands: WEIL

The German Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by the Munich Corpo­rate Part­ners Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt and Dr. Barbara Jagers­ber­ger. (both Corpo­rate, Munich) and compri­sed part­ner Tobias Geer­ling (Tax, Munich), coun­sel Julian Schwa­ne­beck (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt) and Dr. Konstan­tin Hoppe (IP/IT, Munich) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schmitt, Seve­rin Scholz, Amelie Zabel (all Corpo­rate, Munich), Nata­scha Späth (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Fabian Kraupe (Labor Law, Munich), Mario Kuhn (Data Protec­tion Law, Frank­furt), Laura Kirch­ber­ger (Real Estate, Munich), Manuela Minsel (Tax, Munich) and Stef­fen Giolda (Anti­trust, Munich). The U.S. aspects were legally advi­sed by part­ners Eoghan P. Keenan (Lead, Corpo­rate, New York), Paul J. Wessel (Tax, New York) and Devon Bodoh (Tax, Washing­ton) with support from Coun­sel Michael Naugh­ton (Anti­trust, New York) and asso­cia­tes Nathan Trun­nell, Sichun (Julia) Liu (both Corpo­rate, New York), Radhika Tahi­liani (Tax, New York) and Carlos Parra (Tax, Miami).

News

London — Global buy-and-build analy­sis: add-on acti­vity in German M&A market increa­ses signi­fi­cantly TMT, busi­ness services and health­care sector are the drivers.

In times of adverse finan­cing condi­ti­ons, buy-and-build stra­te­gies have gained signi­fi­cant trac­tion in M&A globally, with TMT, busi­ness services and health­care sectors as drivers. This is the conclu­sion of the latest buy-and-build inte­gra­tion study by Eight Advi­sory, Europe’s leading tran­sac­tion, restruc­tu­ring and trans­for­ma­tion consultancy.

While the Anglo-Saxon market has tradi­tio­nally domi­na­ted in this area, Germany is now clearly follo­wing suit. In parti­cu­lar, highly frag­men­ted sectors charac­te­ri­zed by strong growth and a large number of compe­ti­tors are popu­lar with inves­tors, who grow a plat­form company via add-on acqui­si­tion and inte­gra­tion of suita­ble other compa­nies. The white­pa­per on buy-and-build inte­gra­tion is based on figu­res from indus­try services provi­der Mergermarket.

Accor­ding to the report, the share of buy-and-build acqui­si­ti­ons, as a percen­tage of the total number of all M&A tran­sac­tions, grew globally from 6% (2012) to 15% (2022) over the past decade. In this context, Germany has been consis­t­ently repre­sen­ted in the list of the most active five count­ries since 2012 and has recor­ded the stron­gest growth rates compared with the leading markets of the USA, the United King­dom and France. While buy-and-build deals accoun­ted for just 5% of total tran­sac­tion volume in 2015, this figure rose to 12% last year.

The growing importance of the buy-and-build stra­tegy for inves­tors in Germany is also reflec­ted in the deve­lo­p­ment of abso­lute figu­res: In recent years, the number of acqui­si­ti­ons rose from 62 (2015) to 282 (2022), an increase of around 355 percent. Marc Niclas and Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg, part­ners at Eight Advi­sory in Tran­sac­tion Support and Stra­tegy & Opera­ti­ons, respec­tively, agree, saying, “Given the incre­asing econo­mic uncer­tainty, we believe the buy-and-build stra­tegy will conti­nue to gain trac­tion. This is espe­ci­ally true for inves­tors who want to conti­nue to achieve high returns along­side ambi­tious manage­ment teams, espe­ci­ally in light of fluc­tua­ting tran­sac­tion values.”

TMT, Busi­ness Services and Health & Pharma at the top in Germany

The success of a buy-and-build stra­tegy depends heavily on the sector in which the invest­ment was made. In Germany, the focus of buy-and-build inves­tors last year was parti­cu­larly on TMT (112 tran­sac­tions), Busi­ness Services (40 tran­sac­tions) and Health­care (30 tran­sac­tions). In percen­tage terms, the Busi­ness Services sector was the busiest, accoun­ting for 19% of all tran­sac­tions: almost one in five tran­sac­tions was an add-on as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy. In the TMT (112 out of 749) and Cons­truc­tion & Manu­fac­tu­ring (25 out of 167) sectors, add-ons accoun­ted for 15 percent of M&A tran­sac­tions each, while in the Chemi­cals & Mate­ri­als sector, add-ons accoun­ted for 9 out of 64 tran­sac­tions, or about 14 percent.
“Howe­ver, Healthcare’s soaring fortu­nes could soon slow down again in Germany if the Fede­ral Minis­ter of Health’s plans to ban the acqui­si­tion of medi­cal care centers by finan­cial inves­tors become reality. This would make buy-and-build, which is espe­ci­ally popu­lar in areas such as dental and ophthal­mo­logy chains, much more diffi­cult or even impos­si­ble,” Niclas said.

Gene­rally less suita­ble for buy-and-build stra­te­gies are complex indus­tries with mostly cycli­cal busi­ness models, inclu­ding mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring or utili­ties & energy. Even in the tech indus­try, there are often diffi­cul­ties with inte­gra­tion because compa­nies are very diffe­rent and product appli­ca­ti­ons differ, making it more diffi­cult to align systems.

Rela­tive number of acqui­si­ti­ons by plat­form compa­nies also growing

The incre­asing importance of add-ons for the growth stra­tegy and the profes­sio­na­liza­tion of the inte­gra­tion of acqui­red compa­nies has led to more target compa­nies being acqui­red on average. In 2015, plat­form compa­nies bought an average of 2.9 compa­nies at the global level; this figure increased to 3.4 from 2019 and reached 4.0 in 2022. In Germany, the values deve­lo­ped slightly upward from 2.0 in 2019 to 2.4 compa­nies in 2022. Clear gover­nance prin­ci­ples are essen­tial for the successful inte­gra­tion of an add-on. For the inves­tor, it is important to ensure that the future manage­ment has the neces­sary capa­city to manage, in some cases, seve­ral inte­gra­ti­ons simul­ta­neously. In gene­ral, howe­ver, the number of add-ons shows a slow­down after five tran­sac­tions. Only 15% of compa­nies have purcha­sed more than six add-ons and less than 1% have purcha­sed more than ten.

Curt-Oliver Luch­ten­berg: “The foun­da­tion of a successful stra­tegy is laid with the suita­bi­lity of the plat­form acqui­red first and the compe­tence of the manage­ment. Add to this a compre­hen­sive and easily multi­plia­ble inte­gra­tion play­book and suffi­ci­ent inter­nal and exter­nal expert capa­city, and the chan­ces of achie­ving the desi­red value increase rapidly.”

Rising deal volu­mes in buy-and-build transactions

The published tran­sac­tion volu­mes for buy-and-build deals in Germany show a simi­lar picture: Values have risen steadily for years, apart from a slight dip in the crisis year 2020, and were at a five-year high of almost EUR 14 billion in 2022. Just under 8.5 billion of this was attri­bu­ta­ble to cross-border deals. Over­all, the share of buy-and-build tran­sac­tions in Germany is still quite low at 6.1 percent of the published total M&A tran­sac­tion value — but as this has increased by 5.5 percen­tage points since 2018, the market should conti­nue to grow rapidly in the coming years.

About Eight Advisory
Eight Advi­sory advi­ses entre­pre­neurs, CEOs, inves­tors and banks on tran­sac­tions, restruc­tu­rings and trans­for­ma­ti­ons. The group of 750 employees, inclu­ding 82 part­ners, supports execu­ti­ves in finan­cial and opera­tio­nal decis­ion-making proces­ses. Eight Advi­sory is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean group with offices in France, the UK, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Germany and Switz­er­land. As a foun­ding member of Eight Inter­na­tio­nal, the company can draw on a global network of inde­pen­dent part­ners in over 30 count­ries in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.
www.8advisory.com

News

Hamburg — Hell­o­Bet­ter raises another seven million euros for US expan­sion. A team led by Heuking Sala­ried part­ner Chris­toph Proch­nau from the Hamburg office again advi­sed Hell­o­Bet­ter on the expan­sion of its Series A finan­cing round.

Mass­Mu­tual Ventures (MMV), Health­Cap, Spar­row Ventures, Hevella Capi­tal and Expon Capi­tal have inves­ted a further seven million euros in the Hamburg-based start-up. This expan­sion increa­ses the volume of the Series A finan­cing round — despite the current chal­len­ging market envi­ron­ment for venture capi­tal finan­cing — to a total of EUR 20 million.

Hell­o­Bet­ter intends to use the new funds to expand its digi­tal health appli­ca­tion (DiGA) busi­ness in Germany and to drive it forward across Europe and in the US. The German startup began its U.S. expan­sion last year and was recently accepted into the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Breakth­rough Device program.

As a leader in inno­va­tion in the field of e‑mental health, Hell­o­Bet­ter offers custo­mers many and varied therapy programs that are deve­lo­ped and evalua­ted by inter­di­sci­pli­nary teams through many years of rese­arch. No other provi­der in the world has done a compa­ra­ble number of clini­cal studies on the effec­ti­ve­ness of its online psycho­logy cour­ses. Six of the products distri­bu­ted by Hell­o­Bet­ter have now been appro­ved as digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons and can be prescri­bed to all people with health insu­rance in Germany on prescription.

Advi­sor Hell­o­Bet­ter: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Chris­toph Proch­nau, LL.B. (Lead Part­ner / Finan­cing, Corporate/ M&A), Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax), Katha­rina Waszc­zyn­ski (Corporate/ M&A), Nils Leon Bojert, (Corporate/ M&A), all Hamburg

News

Munich — InvestEU: EIF provi­des EUR 60 million for the Euro­pean NewSpace Fund Alpine Space Ventures. Alpine Space Ventures invests in the fast-growing satel­lite market. The invest­ment under­pins Euro­pean support for the growing NewSpace commer­cial ecosys­tem. The EIF invest­ment is supported by the EU space initia­tive CASSINI and the InvestEU program, as well as by the German ERP funds. Fund recei­ves addi­tio­nal invest­ment from SpaceX execu­ti­ves to advance NewSpace innovations

The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) is inves­t­ing €60 million in Alpine Space Ventures (ASV), a German-based venture capi­tal fund focu­sed on the NewSpace sector. Funding is supported by InvestEU and the Euro­pean Space Program’s CASSINI Invest­ment Faci­lity, as well as the German government’s Euro­pean Reco­very Program (ERP).

With this invest­ment, ASV’s commit­ted capi­tal exceeds the 100 million euro mark and brings the fund closer to its target of 160 million euros, which is expec­ted to be reached this year.

The term “NewSpace” refers to the private space indus­try, as oppo­sed to the tradi­tio­nal, mostly govern­ment-run space agen­cies. NewSpace ventures span areas from private laun­ches to high-speed Inter­net constel­la­ti­ons, Earth obser­va­tion satel­li­tes, and ground or space equip­ment for track­ing space debris. In Europe, the NewSpace sector consists of a growing number of private compa­nies and start-ups deve­lo­ping commer­cial NewSpace technologies.

ASV is rapidly beco­ming one of the leading NewSpace funds in Europe. The fund focu­ses on the entire value chain of satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons and Earth obser­va­tion. To date, ASV has alre­ady inves­ted in four compa­nies: small satel­lite manu­fac­tu­rer Reflex Aero­space, elec­tric propul­sion company Morpheus Space, carbon compo­si­tes expert Black­wave, and Source Energy, a provi­der of inte­gra­ted energy solu­ti­ons for spacecraft.

The fund was foun­ded by Bülent Altan and Joram Voelk­lein. Bülent Altan is co-CEO of laser commu­ni­ca­ti­ons company Myna­ric and is expec­ted to join the Super­vi­sory Board soon (subject to share­hol­der appr­oval). He was VP Avio­nics, Guidance, Navi­ga­tion Control at SpaceX, where he was also chief engi­neer for Star­link, SpaceX’s satel­lite Inter­net constel­la­tion now opera­ting in 53 count­ries. Joram Voelk­lein, a German entre­pre­neur and tech inves­tor, alre­ady played a crucial role in funding Munich-based NewSpace company Myna­ric from its first round of finan­cing to its IPO in 2017.

The Euro­pean NewSpace ecosys­tem is gaining momen­tum. For exam­ple, German small launch provi­der Isar Aero­space recently successfully closed a record 155 million Euro Series C finan­cing round. Altan and Voelk­lein were both foun­ding inves­tors in the company and parti­ci­pa­ted in seve­ral rounds of finan­cing before forming Alpine Space Ventures. Altan is also chair­man of the company’s board of directors.

News

Berlin — The express deli­very service Flink was on the verge of bank­ruptcy, and now 150 million euros are repor­tedly flowing into the Berlin-based company as part of emer­gency finan­cing. Rewe and other inves­tors injec­ted fresh capi­tal into the company, as first repor­ted by Mana­ger Maga­zin. To date, the round has been stee­red by exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding the US deli­very service Doordash and the super­mar­ket chain Rewe. Rewe is also said to be leading the current finan­cing with more than 50 million euros. In the process, the valua­tion, which not long ago was 2.5 billion euros, has fallen consider­a­bly. As a result, inves­tors now value the deli­very service at only around one billion euros.

Tension behind the scenes with Mubadala

One of the most important share­hol­ders is no longer invol­ved: the sove­reign wealth fund Muba­d­ala from Abu-Dhabi was not only one of the major inves­tors in Flink, but also one of the largest share­hol­ders in its compe­ti­tor Getir and would bene­fit from a merger of its investments.

With the current funding, Muba­d­ala is unli­kely to have been willing to provide further capi­tal to Flink as a stan­da­lone company. The state fund is no longer invol­ved in the 150 million round.

Steady staff reductions

It had alre­ady become appa­rent during the take­over of the Berlin-based adver­sary Goril­las by the Turkish company Getir that the express deli­very services would be facing diffi­cult times after the end of the pande­mic. None of the provi­ders was able to deli­ver signals that they would soon be profi­ta­ble. Even massive staff cuts appar­ently did not bring suffi­ci­ent relief — accor­ding to rese­arch by Mana­ger Maga­zin, more than 8,000 employees at Flink alone are said to have lost their jobs in the past year.

Now comes another drastic step to cut costs. Nevert­hel­ess, Flink CEO and co-foun­der Oliver Merkel has appar­ently enti­ced inves­tors to cut costs even further. Around one hundred of the appro­xi­m­ately 600 employees are to be laid off, as repor­ted by Mana­ger Magazin.

In order to make itself leaner for poten­tial inves­tors, Flink filed for insol­vency for its Austrian subsi­diary at the end of 2022. At the time, the company explai­ned that the region would not be profi­ta­ble in the fore­seeable future. More than 160 people — both drivers and office employees — lost their jobs at that time. Expan­sion into other count­ries is not in sight. Instead of expan­ding, Flink emptied dozens of depart­ment stores in previous months and adver­ti­sed on real estate portals.

 

News

NRW.BANK successfully placed its first Green Bond in the capi­tal market in 2023. The deve­lo­p­ment bank’s 14th green bond had a volume of one billion euros and was twice over­sub­scri­bed. With the current Green Bond, NRW.BANK is refi­nan­cing in parti­cu­lar those projects in North Rhine-West­pha­lia that help to miti­gate climate change and adapt to its consequences.

“The climate-neutral trans­for­ma­tion of the economy and society is an enorm­ous chall­enge. To master it, capi­tal flows must flow into sustainable projects,” says Michael Stöl­ting, member of NRW.BANK’s Mana­ging Board. “This is precis­ely where we come in with our Green Bonds, enab­ling inves­tors to parti­ci­pate in sustainable projects in North Rhine-Westphalia.”

The current Green Bond will focus on promo­ting the expan­sion of rene­wa­ble ener­gies. More than 450 million euros alone will be used to finance wind farms and photo­vol­taic systems. Just under 200 million each will go toward energy-effi­ci­ent buil­dings and the expan­sion of climate-friendly trans­por­ta­tion, inclu­ding e‑cars, street­cars, trains and battery trol­ley­bu­ses. 200 million has been earmarked for the rena­tu­ra­tion of the Emscher and Lippe rivers. This brings the total volume of funds commit­ted by NRW.BANK for the ecolo­gi­cal rene­wal of rivers to EUR 3.8 billion. Further funds are earmarked for the expan­sion of the fiber-optic broad­band network.

The effec­ti­ve­ness of the invest­ments is also shown by the analy­sis of the Wupper­tal Insti­tute for Climate, Envi­ron­ment and Energy, which was recently published for the two NRW.BANK.Green Bonds from 2021. Accor­din­gly, the calcu­la­ti­ons showed that the refi­nan­ced projects from the NRW.BANK.Green Bonds 2021 will save green­house gases amoun­ting to around 4.2 million tons of CO2 equi­va­lents over the ten-year term of the bond.

With the 14th Green Bond now issued, the total volume of NRW.BANK.Green Bonds issued rises to a total of eight billion euros. Lead mana­gers were Barclays, Crédit Agri­cole CIB, Deka­Bank and Deut­sche Bank. The company is listed in Düssel­dorf and in Luxem­bourg under ISIN: DE000NWB0AU2. The mini­mum deno­mi­na­tion is 1,000 euros.

With sustaina­bi­lity prin­ci­ples in mind, NRW.BANK has been issuing its own Green Bonds since 2013 and Social Bonds since 2020. It also invests in a sepa­rate Sustainable Invest­ment Port­fo­lio to supple­ment its invest­ment port­fo­lio with desi­gna­ted sustainable invest­ments. With a green refi­nan­cing curve, it offers funding reci­pi­ents the oppor­tu­nity to finance projects that are in line with the EU taxo­nomy for sustainable invest­ments at parti­cu­larly favorable condi­ti­ons. This green curve is laid down in NRW.BANK’s sustaina­bi­lity guide­lines. The same applies to the orien­ta­tion of the capi­tal market busi­ness, which is based on the prin­ci­ples of the Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment (PRI), which NRW.BANK signed in Decem­ber 2020. This member­ship is a further contri­bu­tion to the holi­stic sustainable orien­ta­tion of the bank’s capi­tal market business.

The current issu­ance docu­ments for NRW.BANK’s funding programs can be found at nrwbank.de/investor-relations.

News

Munich ‑The Munich-based private equity inves­tor Family Trust Inves­tor has acqui­red a stake in Hyla Germany GmbH and was compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed by Oppen­hoff on the legal aspects of this transaction.

Hyla Germany GmbH is the exclu­sive distri­bu­tor in Germany and Austria of Hyla D.O.O., manu­fac­tu­rer of high-quality air and room clea­ning equip­ment under the “Hyla” brand. Toge­ther with Family Trust, foun­der Michael Hausen­blas and the manage­ment of Hyla Germany GmbH will pursue further growth stra­te­gies in the coming years — inclu­ding incre­asing brand aware­ness in German-spea­king count­ries, digi­tiz­ing inter­nal proces­ses, and addres­sing addi­tio­nal end markets, such as hospi­ta­lity and healthcare.

Family Trust Inves­tor, based in Munich, is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2015 by expe­ri­en­ced private equity profes­sio­nals with an invest­ment focus on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king countries.

Advi­sor Family Trust Inves­tor: Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB

Lead Till Liebau (Private Equity/M&A) included Marcel Marko­vic (Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Wolf­gang Kotzur (Finance), Anja Dombrow­sky, Corne­lia-Cris­tina Scupra (both Labor Law), Marc Alex­an­der Häger, Caner Erta­so­glu (both Real Estate), Dr. Simon Spang­ler, Reneé Cherelle Eckruth (both Anti­trust and Commer­cial), Georg Leche­ler (IP), Dr. Jürgen Hartung (IT and Data Protec­tion) and Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax). On cross-border aspects, the Oppen­hoff team was supported by Kara­no­viæ & Part­ners (Slove­nia).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly advi­ses Family Trust, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in the urban apes group and the novia group.

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 — smart­bax, a biotech company deve­lo­ping next-gene­ra­tion anti­bio­tics, announ­ced the closing of a €1.2 million seed finan­cing round with Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF). Thus, smart­bax has so far raised a total of 1.9 million euros for the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive anti­bio­tics against multi-resistant bacteria.

With the new capi­tal, the company will advance its precli­ni­cal small mole­cule anti­bio­tic disco­very studies and expand its scien­ti­fic team to further deve­lop its inno­va­tive rese­arch plat­forms and find new solu­ti­ons against multi-drug resistant patho­gens. Unlike clas­si­cal anti-bacte­rial agents, smartbax’s product candi­da­tes act via a unique, dual-targe­ting mecha­nism. This not only inhi­bits essen­tial proces­ses in the energy meta­bo­lism of the multi-resistant bacte­ria, but also crea­tes a stimu­la­tion of the protein secre­tion of the bacte­ria, which leads to the self-diges­tion of the cells.

“The growing number of multid­rug-resistant infec­tions, which alre­ady account for 1.3 million deaths world­wide each year, high­lights the urgent need for new approa­ches to treat resistant infec­tions. We are convin­ced that with our diffe­ren­tia­ted approach we can over­come the limi­ta­ti­ons of curr­ently available anti­bio­tics and thus deve­lop effec­tive thera­peu­tics against both Gram-posi­tive and Gram-nega­tive bacte­ria,” said Dr. Robert Macsics, CEO and co-foun­der of smart­bax.

smart­bax was foun­ded in 2021 by Dr. Robert Macsics, Marco Jane­zic and Prof. Dr. Stephan Sieber and supported by initial start-up funding of 700,000 euros from the BIVF. The company’s scien­ti­fic foun­da­ti­ons are based on outstan­ding rese­arch results from Prof. Dr. Sieber’s working group at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich (TUM). These have alre­ady recei­ved the VIP+ Vali­da­tion Award from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Educa­tion and Rese­arch and the m4 Award from the Bava­rian State Minis­try of Econo­mic Affairs, Regio­nal Deve­lo­p­ment and Energy.

“The inno­va­tive mecha­nisms of action explo­red by smart­bax may open new avenues in the fight against serious bacte­rial infec­tions. The approach also appears promi­sing to over­come exis­ting resis­tance mecha­nisms and makes rapid spread of new resis­tance unli­kely. I am plea­sed that we can accom­pany the scien­ti­fi­cally strong team of smart­bax on their way to meet a highly rele­vant socie­tal chall­enge”, explains Dr. Ange­lika Vlachou, Part­ner at HTGF.

“The deve­lo­p­ment of novel anti­bio­tics repres­ents a valuable contri­bu­tion to the fight against multid­rug-resistant bacte­rial infec­tions. The foun­ding team of smart­bax is pursuing a highly inno­va­tive approach, which offers the poten­tial for broad appli­ca­bi­lity in nume­rous dise­a­ses. We are plea­sed to accom­pany smart­bax in its further rese­arch acti­vi­ties and ther­eby support the deve­lo­p­ment of new and urgen­tly needed thera­peu­tic approa­ches in the field of bacte­rial infec­tious dise­a­ses,” says Dr. Sebas­tian Kreuz, Invest­ment Mana­ger of the BIVF.

About smart­bax

smart­bax is deve­lo­ping a new gene­ra­tion of anti­bac­te­rial agents to combat the incre­asing spread of multi-resistant bacte­ria. The team of experts is rely­ing on inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons that attack bacte­ria at diffe­rent sites simul­ta­neously, thus making it more diffi­cult for resis­tance to form. In addi­tion, the company specia­li­zes in the targe­ted acti­va­tion of enzy­ma­tic proces­ses in bacte­ria, which is a parti­cu­larly promi­sing approach in the context of biofilms that are diffi­cult to treat. Knowing that tomorrow’s resis­tance crisis can only be aver­ted by acting today, smart­bax 2021 was foun­ded in Munich with the goal of making inno­va­tive rese­arch appli­ca­ble to create novel anti­bio­tics that add real value to pati­ents worldwide.
Website link: https://www.smartbax.de

About the Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund

Since its incep­tion in 2010, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund GmbH (BIVF) has been inves­t­ing in breakth­rough biotech­no­logy compa­nies in the thera­peu­tics field to foster inno­va­tion in biome­di­cal rese­arch. The BIVF seeks signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments in pati­ent care through scien­ti­fic pionee­ring and its clini­cal appli­ca­tion by buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with scien­tists and entre­pre­neurs. The BIVF focu­ses on novel thera­peu­tic concepts charac­te­ri­zed by high unmet medi­cal need in the fields of immuno-onco­logy, rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine, multi-resistant bacte­rial infec­tions and digi­tal health. This includes new plat­form tech­no­lo­gies that address previously unad­dressa­ble targets and new biolo­gi­cal entities.

The BIVF takes an active role within its port­fo­lio compa­nies — deli­ve­ring signi­fi­cant added value through its own scien­ti­fic and busi­ness exper­tise in drug deve­lo­p­ment. The BIVF has a volume of EUR 300 million, is repre­sen­ted by offices in Europe (Germany), the USA (Boston and San Fran­cisco) and China (Beijing and Hong Kong) and curr­ently over­looks a port­fo­lio of 40 companies.
www.boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com

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. More than €4.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 170 companies.

The fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and over 40 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

Advi­sors to Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF): Green­Gate Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive support to the two funds in struc­tu­ring and imple­men­ting the finan­cing round as well as in draf­ting and nego­tia­ting the rele­vant contrac­tual documents.

 

News

Wiesbaden/Berlin — BMH Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH and Compa­nisto GmbH have jointly inves­ted in Office for Micro Climate Culti­va­tion GmbH (OMC°C). The Frank­furt-based startup is deve­lo­ping a flexi­ble and loca­tion-inde­pen­dent product system that uses free-stan­ding verti­cal green spaces to improve climate resi­li­ence and air quality in urban centers. OMC°C will use the new finan­cial resour­ces to further deve­lop its product and service, prepare for market entry and further expand its team.

The company OMC°C was foun­ded by Nicola Statt­mann and Carlotta Ludig at the end of 2021 with the aim of coun­ter­ac­ting the incre­asing heating of urban centers on a large scale and in a timely manner. Their inno­va­tive “Climate Farming System” gree­ning system uses annual clim­bing plants that grow more than seven meters in height each year on free-stan­ding modu­les in a very short time. The resul­ting “plant sails” have a stan­dard size of 18 square meters and are capa­ble of cooling their surroun­dings by up to 2.5°C. Each module has six plant sails and gene­ra­tes 270 cubic meters of fresh air per day with its total sail area of 108 square meters. In addi­tion, one module can store around 0.5 tons of CO2 per year. The modu­les, which can be comple­ted in series, consist of a light­weight support struc­ture, substrate contai­ners, biode­gra­da­ble, hurri­cane-proof tendril nets and an auto­ma­ted irri­ga­tion system. They can be freely posi­tio­ned and cast shade where it is needed. Unlike trees, the modu­les do not require any earth space, as they are secu­red above ground with compa­ra­tively narrow screw foun­da­ti­ons or precast foun­da­tion elements.

The Climate Farming system is thus — in contrast to estab­lished gree­ning solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally facade and roof gree­ning — almost infi­ni­tely scalable and signi­fi­cantly more cost-effi­ci­ent. OMC°C also offers its custo­mers a one-stop solu­tion: in addi­tion to provi­ding the modu­les, the startup supports them with expert advice as well as with site plan­ning and then takes over all the neces­sary services — from sowing the seeds in the spring to coll­ec­ting the over­grown nets in the fall — as part of a green-as-a-service model. The Climate Farming system is prima­rily aimed at cities and muni­ci­pa­li­ties as well as compa­nies, espe­ci­ally from the real estate indus­try, which, for exam­ple, want to reduce energy consump­tion. want or need to reduce their carbon foot­print, lower air condi­tio­ning costs, or comply with new regulations.

OMC°C has alre­ady recei­ved seve­ral awards for its inno­va­tive system, inclu­ding third place at the Frank­furt Foun­ders’ Prize 2022, as well as various grants, inclu­ding from Hessen-Ideen, Frank­furt frischt auf and push! The project is also supported by, among others, the Frank­furt Econo­mic Deve­lo­p­ment Corpo­ra­tion, the German Weather Service and the Sencken­berg Society for Nature Rese­arch. The previous mile­sto­nes of deve­lo­ping the stand struc­ture and rank net, test­ing the irri­ga­tion system and substra­tes will now be follo­wed by the test­ing of a first proto­type in the summer of 2023 in a real labo­ra­tory in Frankfurt.

“We are on track to reach produc­tion readi­ness in the third quar­ter of 2023 and to move forward with the produc­tion setup. We plan to launch the product in Octo­ber of this year,” said Nicola Statt­mann and Carlotta Ludig, foun­ders of OMC°C. “We’re exci­ted to now be able to work with our new part­ners to make down­towns in parti­cu­lar gree­ner and more livable.”

“Espe­ci­ally for metro­po­li­tan areas, we have never needed inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the areas of climate protec­tion, climate resi­li­ence and urban biodi­ver­sity so urgen­tly. We are firmly convin­ced that OMC°C’s gree­ning system is one of the tech­no­lo­gies that will sustain­ably combine econo­mic and social added value,” says Jürgen ten Elsen, respon­si­ble invest­ment mana­ger at BMH, which mana­ges the Hessen Kapi­tal III (EFRE) GmbH fund, among others.

“The forward-looking busi­ness model as well as the strong and comple­men­tary network of OMC°C convin­ced us alre­ady at the first cont­act. In the further due dili­gence, we were convin­ced not only by the team, but also by the content of the offer: In our opinion, the gree­ning of urban infra­struc­tures carries not only imme­diate local bene­fits, but also a soci­ally rele­vant added value for an incre­asing aware­ness of climate protec­tion. The concept convin­ced not only Compa­nisto, but also the Compa­nists, who inves­ted in OMC°C with capi­tal and exper­tise,” adds Chris­toph Schwei­zer, Part­ner and Head of Invest­ment at Companisto.

About BMH

BMH Betei­li­gungs-Manage­ment­ge­sell­schaft Hessen mbH, based in Wies­ba­den, was foun­ded in 2001 and is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Landes­bank Hessen-Thürin­gen Giro­zen­trale (Helaba). Through Wirt­schafts- und Infra­struk­tur­bank Hessen (WIBank), BMH is actively invol­ved in the econo­mic deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties of the State of Hesse. As a medium-sized invest­ment and venture capi­tal company, BMH bund­les public invest­ment inte­rests and finan­cing instru­ments for early-stage, growth and medium-sized compa­nies in Hesse. BMH curr­ently mana­ges seven invest­ment funds with a total inves­ted invest­ment volume of around 125 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion, BMH has inves­ted in a total of more than 500 compa­nies. The main areas of invest­ment include the soft­ware & IT, life scien­ces, mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring, indus­trial goods, profes­sio­nal services and e‑commerce sectors. www.bmh-hessen.de

About Compa­nisto

Compa­nisto is the market-leading private inves­tor network in the D‑A-CH region and has been a leading venture capi­ta­list for startup invest­ments for seven years in a row. To date, around €191.1 million has been commit­ted via Compa­nisto in over 277 finan­cing rounds. Since 2018, Compa­nisto has expan­ded its network of curr­ently 138,000 private inves­tors with a digi­tally orga­ni­zed Busi­ness Angel Club. Around 2,000 busi­ness angels invest in the equity of compa­nies via Compa­nisto with invest­ments start­ing at EUR 10,000. The invest­ment process and invest­ment manage­ment were fully digitized.

 

News

Landshut/Berlin/Munich — Just in time for the company’s second anni­ver­sary, Reflex Aero­space is acce­le­ra­ting its course towards the first commer­cial space mission: The Berlin and Munich-based space start-up has booked a perma­nent rocket launch site for its demo satel­lite. The launch will take place in the fall of 2024 on a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX. The goal of the mission is to vali­date new tech­no­lo­gies in space for the first time. The demo satel­lite, which weighs appro­xi­m­ately 120 kilo­grams, is curr­ently under deve­lo­p­ment and will be assem­bled in Munich. The ‘micro factory’ there for the produc­tion of custo­mer-speci­fic satel­li­tes will open later this year.

These steps are supported by an expan­sion of the so-called seed finan­cing by a further 1.75 million euros (to a total of almost 9 million euros). In addi­tion to increa­ses from exis­ting inves­tors, Bayern Kapi­tal has joined the group of share­hol­ders through its EFRE Bayern inno­va­tion fund. As one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active venture and growth inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, Bayern Kapi­tal will use the invest­ment to finance, among other things, the estab­lish­ment of the first Micro Factory near Munich. Driven by expec­ted commer­cial order intake, seed funding is expec­ted to increase further during the year. In addi­tion, the Star­burst Acce­le­ra­tor — one of the most renow­ned Euro­pean acce­le­ra­tors for aero­space start-ups — will be on board in the future to support the deve­lo­p­ment of the inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness as Reflex Aerospace’s part­ner, espe­ci­ally in the USA as well as in France.

Walter Ball­hei­mer, CEO of Reflex Aero­space, welco­mes the current deve­lo­p­ment: “As a new space start-up, we are natu­rally eager to demons­trate the perfor­mance of our tech­no­lo­gies directly in space. We are ther­e­fore very plea­sed that this mile­stone is within reach with our first perma­nent rocket launch site. The increase in our finan­cing confirms the confi­dence of our inves­tors in this goal. With this tail­wind, we are driving forward the cons­truc­tion of our first Micro Factory, which we will open in Munich in the second half of 2023. In addi­tion, we are fully on track to nearly double our work­force across all sites to around 50 employees in 2023.”

Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, adds: “We are very plea­sed to have Reflex Aero­space as another port­fo­lio company in the aero­space sector — in the field of “New Space” we are among the inves­tors from the very begin­ning and have alre­ady inves­ted in nume­rous exci­ting compa­nies such as Isar Aero­space, Quan­tum Systems and Orora­Tech. Reflex Aero­space has a promi­sing busi­ness model, and we are happy to support its further development.”

About Reflex Aerospace

Reflex Aero­space was foun­ded in 2021. The Berlin and Munich-based NewSpace start-up aims to moder­nize the market with high-perfor­mance satel­li­tes tail­o­red to indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments. Through soft­ware-based and secu­rity-opti­mi­zed product archi­tec­tures as well as custo­mer-orien­ted service offe­rings, the company meets the needs of its custo­mers signi­fi­cantly faster, chea­per and more flexi­bly than estab­lished and other NewSpace manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Toge­ther with its part­ner compa­nies Myna­ric, Isar Aero­space and SES, Reflex Aero­space is also a share­hol­der in the UNIO joint venture, which aims to estab­lish a Euro­pean satel­lite constel­la­tion for broad­band Inter­net. www.reflexaerospace.com

About Bayern Kapital

Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in at an early stage include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion, tado and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de

 

News

Hamburg — Oppen­hoff advi­sed MAI Marke­ting Auto­ma­tion Intel­li­gence Group GmbH (MAI Group) on the acqui­si­tion of xpose360 GmbH (xpose360), a specia­list agency for digi­tal perfor­mance marke­ting. MAI Group takes over all shares in xpose360, the previous share­hol­ders of xpose360 become share­hol­ders in MAI Group.

The MAI Group, head­quar­te­red in Hamburg, now compri­ses eight compa­nies: Crui­se­a­dors GmbH, DIGITALBERATUNG GmbH, Hanse CRM GmbH, Kamano GmbH, klaro media GmbH, Leonex Inter­net GmbH, media­worx berlin AG and xpose360 GmbH. They combine exten­sive exper­tise from various digi­tal areas under one roof. As a go-to digi­tal marke­ting part­ner with around 400 experts, MAI Group supports custo­mers and part­ners in digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, both in the effi­ci­ent opti­miza­tion of core busi­ness and in the expan­sion of digi­tal busi­ness. It serves custo­mers such as A1 Tele­kom Austria, Alli­anz, ebay, RedBull, REWE, StepStone and Wacker Chemie.

The main inves­tor in the MAI Group is Auctus Capi­tal Part­ners AG.

Based in Augs­burg, xpose360 focu­ses on search engine opti­miza­tion, paid media, web analy­tics, program­ma­tic adver­ti­sing, affi­liate marke­ting, influen­cer marke­ting and digi­tal stra­tegy consul­ting. With the goal of incre­asing sales and traf­fic cente­red on the custo­mer jour­ney, they work in 23 count­ries for clients such as Haribo, Jochen Schwei­zer, mydays Group, yello, Schöf­fel and HypoVereinsbank.

Advi­sors MAI Group: Oppen­hoff & Part­ner Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter mbB

The Oppen­hoff team led by Anne Vins-Niet­ham­mer (photo © Oppen­hoff) included Moritz Bock (both M&A/Corporate), Marvin Roch­ner, Julia Höyng (both Real Estate), Georg Leche­ler, Dr. Patric Mau (both Intellec­tual Property), Dr. Hanna Schmidt, Patrick Schwarze (both IT&C), Anja Dombrow­sky, Corne­lia-Cris­tina Scupra (both Labor) and Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax).

About AUCTUS Capi­tal Partners

AUCTUS is the most active invest­ment company for small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. With around 370 invest­ments in the last 20 years, we are the clear No. 1 in Germany. The focus of our invest­ments is on majo­rity share­hol­dings in compa­nies with annual sales of between 10 and 150 million euros. AUCTUS stands for sustainable orga­nic and also inor­ga­nic growth through acqui­si­ti­ons. We achieve this in a trus­ting part­ner­ship toge­ther with the manage­ment of our compa­nies. We specia­lize in buil­ding successful medium-sized groups of compa­nies — We create market leaders. The more than 20 expe­ri­en­ced AUCTUS invest­ment experts curr­ently manage around 46 plat­form invest­ments from various sectors of the economy. The sum of the plat­form holdings with a total of more than 150 indi­vi­dual compa­nies gene­ra­tes annual sales of well over 2 billion euros. Sales and earnings have been growing at >10% per year for years. www.auctus.com

 

News

Frank­furt a.M. — Private equity inves­tor Cinven has acqui­red MBCC Admix­tures, the concrete admix­tures busi­ness of MBCC Group, from Sika AG. McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed the new manage­ment of MBCC Admix­tures on the tran­sac­tion. MBCC Admix­tures is head­quar­te­red in Mann­heim, Germany, and employs more than 1,600 people at 35 produc­tion sites world­wide. The company supplies chemi­cals for concrete produc­tion and civil engineering.

The Swiss cons­truc­tion chemi­cals group Sika AG has subsi­dia­ries in 101 count­ries and gene­ra­ted annual sales of nearly CHF 10.5 billion in 2022 with 27,500 employees. Sika had acqui­red MBCC Group — the former cons­truc­tion chemi­cals busi­ness of BASF — in 2021. MBCC Group has more than 30,000 custo­mers and busi­ness part­ners around the world. It consists of some 70 compa­nies world­wide and employs around 7,500 cons­truc­tion experts in over 60 countries.

Advi­sor to the manage­ment of MBCC Admix­tures: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Dr. Michael Cziesla (Lead, Corporate/M&A/Private Equity), Dr. Felix Ganzer (Private Equity/Capital Markets), Dr. Chris­tian Marz­lin (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A/Private Equity)

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. www.mwe.com

News

Dues­sel­dorf, Germany — UHB Consul­ting AG (“UHB”), backed by Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), takes another step to streng­then its market-leading posi­tion in the German health­care soft­ware segment with the acqui­si­tion of pallia­tive soft­ware provi­der Smart‑Q. The merger will enable both compa­nies to further acce­le­rate recent deve­lo­p­ments and provide both UHB and Smart‑Q custo­mers with a broa­der and more compre­hen­sive range of health­care soft­ware solu­ti­ons. This merger is the first add-on acqui­si­tion since the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Main Capi­tal in 2022.

Foun­ded in 2010 by Daniel Zenz in Bochum, Germany, Smart‑Q provi­des a specia­li­zed pati­ent docu­men­ta­tion plat­form, ISPC, to over 550 custo­mers, inclu­ding hospi­tals, hospi­ces and univer­si­ties. The company also offers pain docu­men­ta­tion soft­ware and media­tion and liti­ga­tion soft­ware for public insti­tu­ti­ons (e.g. ethics commit­tees). Smart‑Q’s custo­mers include leading medi­cal asso­cia­ti­ons, univer­si­ties, hospi­tals and private care providers.

UHB is a leading provi­der of inno­va­tive finan­cial manage­ment, logi­stics as well as disas­ter reco­very solu­ti­ons for the health­care indus­try, head­quar­te­red in St. Wolf­gang near Munich. With over 80 employees, the company serves more than 800 faci­li­ties that rely on UHB Consulting’s products and years of expe­ri­ence. Custo­mers include some of the largest hospi­tals and medi­cal centers in Germany.

The merger will enable the newly formed group to expand and enhance its value propo­si­tion to exis­ting custo­mers with a highly comple­men­tary product offe­ring. Through the merger, Smart‑Q’s custo­mers will be able to take advan­tage of UHB’s disas­ter backup systems, while Smart‑Q will add value to UHB’s clini­cal custo­mers with its pallia­tive care docu­men­ta­tion soft­ware. The part­ner­ship is ther­e­fore a logi­cal first step in UHB’s inor­ga­nic growth stra­tegy. Toge­ther, the group employs an outstan­ding team of more than 100 people and expects to gene­rate sales well in excess of EUR 15 million.

Thomas Unter­hasl­ber­ger, foun­der and CEO of UHB, says: “With Smart‑Q, we can streng­then UHB Consulting’s market-leading posi­tion in the field of pallia­tive care for hospi­tals and hospi­ces. This part­ner­ship will allow us to expand our product port­fo­lio and custo­mer base, which in turn will make us even more attrac­tive and valuable to our customers.”

Daniel Zenz, direc­tor and CEO of Smart‑Q, added, “We are plea­sed to join forces with UHB and are confi­dent that this move will create signi­fi­cant value for both compa­nies and our customers.”

Yves Souren, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes, “Since our part­ner­ship with UHB, we have worked to comple­ment the company’s inno­va­tive port­fo­lio of products and services through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. The stra­te­gic merger with Smart‑Q is the first step in UHB’s inor­ga­nic growth ambi­ti­ons and will enable the group to expand into adja­cent custo­mer segments and broa­den the product offe­ring for its custo­mers. We very much look forward to working with UHB and Smart‑Q and will conti­nue to support the group in streng­thening its leader­ship posi­tion in the health­care sector.”

About UHB Consul­ting AG

UHB Consul­ting AG is a provi­der of inno­va­tive, process-orien­ted and indi­vi­dual soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the health­care sector based in St. Wolf­gang near Munich. More than 800 faci­li­ties rely on UHB Consulting’s products and years of expe­ri­ence in health­care. The soft­ware solu­ti­ons offe­red stand for effi­ci­ency, user-friend­li­ness and a wide range of appli­ca­tion possi­bi­li­ties. Since 1998, UHB has been solving chal­len­ging proces­ses toge­ther with custo­mers and tail­oring the solu­ti­ons offe­red to their indi­vi­dual needs. Toge­ther with 80 employees and long-stan­ding sales part­ners, UHB crea­tes holi­stic solu­ti­ons and can look back on a successful company history. https://uhb-consulting.de

About Smart‑Q GmbH

Smart‑Q, foun­ded in 2010 by Daniel Zenz in Bochum, Germany, is a soft­ware provi­der specia­li­zing in medi­cal docu­men­ta­tion systems. The company serves more than 550 health­care clients. With the ISPC soft­ware, the company offers a solu­tion that is the ideal solu­tion for many AAPV and SAPV teams, hospice staff and hospi­tals in Germany and faci­li­ta­tes the daily work in pallia­tive docu­men­ta­tion. In addi­tion, Smart‑Q deve­lops survey instru­ments for mobile pain recor­ding in doctors’ offices and for medi­cal rese­arch. The company has 22 employees (FTE). https://www.smart‑q.de

About Main Capi­tal Partners

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. Main has nearly 20 years of expe­ri­ence streng­thening soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams in its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve sustainable growth and outstan­ding soft­ware groups. Main employs 60 people and has offices in The Hague, Stock­holm, Düssel­dorf, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main has more than €2.2 billion in assets under manage­ment and curr­ently holds stakes in more than 150 soft­ware compa­nies. Toge­ther, these compa­nies offer about 9,000. www.main.nl

News

Deer­field, Illi­nois; Boston, Massa­chu­setts; and New York, N.Y. — Baxter Inter­na­tio­nal Inc. (NYSE:BAX), a leading global medi­cal tech­no­logy company, today announ­ced that it has signed a binding agree­ment to sell its BioPharma Solu­ti­ons (“BPS”) busi­ness to Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”), one of the largest and most expe­ri­en­ced global private equity inves­tors, and Warburg Pincus, a leading global growth investor.

Baxter will receive $4.25 billion in cash under the agree­ment. Net proceeds after taxes are curr­ently esti­ma­ted at appro­xi­m­ately $3.4 billion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second half of 2023 and is subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals and the satis­fac­tion of other closing condi­ti­ons. Baxter intends to use the after-tax proceeds to reduce debt, consis­tent with the company’s stated capi­tal allo­ca­tion objec­ti­ves. For the full fourth quar­ter of 2023, Baxter expects the tran­sac­tion to reduce net income by appro­xi­m­ately $0.10 per share, with the total amount depen­dent on the timing of the tran­sac­tion closing. It is assu­med that this amount will be parti­ally offset by lower inte­rest payments as a result of the expec­ted debt repayment.

“Today is an important step in Baxter’s ongo­ing trans­for­ma­tion. It enables us to execute on our stra­te­gic prio­ri­ties, streng­then our focus and create addi­tio­nal value for all of our stake­hol­ders,” said José (Joe) E. Almeida, chair­man, presi­dent and chief execu­tive offi­cer at Baxter. “BPS has long been reco­gni­zed globally as a trus­ted and proven part­ner for services in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech indus­tries. Advent Inter­na­tio­nal and Warburg Pincus have exten­sive expe­ri­ence working with inno­va­tive health­care compa­nies to help them achieve their goals and stra­te­gic prio­ri­ties. I am confi­dent that under their leader­ship, BPS will conti­nue to build on its leader­ship posi­tion, nurture its world-class work­force, invest in new skills and capa­bi­li­ties, and deli­ver modern as well as high-quality solu­ti­ons to its clients.”

BPS has been a leading provi­der of sterile manu­fac­tu­ring solu­ti­ons, paren­te­ral deli­very systems and custo­mi­zed services to the phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech indus­tries for deca­des. As a stand-alone company and in part­ner­ship with Advent and Warburg Pincus, BPS will act as a leading inde­pen­dent end-to-end CDMO, offe­ring its clients a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of services from clini­cal rese­arch to commer­cial explo­ita­tion. BPS is well posi­tio­ned to acce­le­rate its go-to-market stra­tegy and clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment pipe­line, increase manu­fac­tu­ring scale and drive further product inno­va­tion. The propo­sed tran­sac­tion includes BPS’ manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties and appro­xi­m­ately 1,700 employees in Bloo­ming­ton, Indiana, and Halle (West­pha­lia), Germany. BPS is expec­ted to gene­rate reve­nues of appro­xi­m­ately $600 million in full-year 2023.

“BPS is a premier company at the fore­front of the bio-pharma indus­try that we have been follo­wing closely for a number of years,” said John Maldo­nado, Mana­ging Part­ner at Advent (Photo © Advent) . “We believe this part­ner­ship will provide nume­rous growth oppor­tu­ni­ties through our deep indus­try know­ledge and exten­sive stra­te­gic resour­ces. We will help the company realize its full poten­tial and provide a high-quality, specia­li­zed and compre­hen­sive range of services to well-known custo­mers, inclu­ding Baxter, as a stand-alone company. We are exci­ted to part­ner with BPS and help its custo­mers deli­ver life-chan­ging thera­pies to pati­ents around the world.”

“BPS’ success and excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the phar­maceu­ti­cal sector posi­tion the company well to further expand its parti­cu­larly rele­vant services in a variety of thera­peu­tic areas, inclu­ding onco­logy, meta­bo­lic dise­a­ses and infec­tious dise­a­ses,” said TJ Carella, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Health­care at Warburg Pincus. “We are plea­sed to be working with Advent and the outstan­ding team at BPS, which has impres­sive exper­tise and has built an indus­try-leading repu­ta­tion for quality and relia­bi­lity in the paren­te­ral drug supply chain.”

“We stron­gly believe in the company’s mission to part­ner with phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies around the world to provide the scien­ti­fic exper­tise, sterile solu­ti­ons and perso­na­li­zed support needed to address today’s major health­care chal­lenges. We look forward to conti­nuing the strong busi­ness that Baxter has built at BPS,” added Ruoxi Chen, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Warburg Pincus. “This invest­ment unders­cores our commit­ment to working with compa­nies deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive life scien­ces products and services around the world.”

“BPS has been excep­tio­nally successful in provi­ding high-quality services and products that meet the unique needs of phar­maceu­ti­cal and biotech clients world­wide,” said Carmine Petrone, mana­ging direc­tor on Advent’s Health­care team. “Toge­ther with our part­ners at Warburg Pincus, we have an exten­sive track record in carve-outs. We intend to leverage this expe­ri­ence in crea­ting a scalable, diver­si­fied plat­form to capi­ta­lize on the signi­fi­cant market oppor­tu­nity. We look forward to support­ing BPS’ contin­ued growth as the company does its part to bene­fit pati­ents around the world and conti­nues to help its custo­mers achieve their commer­cia­liza­tion goals.”

Advent has been inves­t­ing in the health­care sector for over 30 years. The private equity firm has made more than 50 invest­ments in 17 count­ries world­wide across a range of sub-sectors, inclu­ding phar­maceu­ti­cals, life scien­ces and medi­cal devices. Advent’s recent invest­ments in the health­care sector include Iodine Soft­ware and RxBe­ne­fits. In global phar­maceu­ti­cal services, Advent most recently inves­ted in BioDuro, GS Capsule, ICE Group, Suven Pharmaceuticals/Cohance Life­sci­en­ces and Syneos Health.

Since its incep­tion, Warburg Pincus has inves­ted more than $16 billion in more than 180 health­care compa­nies, inclu­ding Summit Health, Moder­ni­zing Medi­cine, Ensem­ble Health­care Part­ners and Global Health­care Exch­ange. Warburg Pincus is an active inves­tor in the life scien­ces sector and has inves­ted in Poly­plus, Norstella, Sotera Health and Bausch + Lomb, among others.

Perella Wein­berg Part­ners is acting as finan­cial advi­sor and Sulli­van & Crom­well is acting as legal coun­sel to Baxter. Moelis & Company LLC and Truist Secu­ri­ties are serving as finan­cial advi­sors and Cleary Gott­lieb Steen & Hamil­ton and Ropes & Gray are serving as legal advi­sors to Advent and Warburg Pincus.

About Baxter

Every day, milli­ons of pati­ents, care­gi­vers and health­care provi­ders rely on Baxter’s leading port­fo­lio of diagno­stic, criti­cal care, renal, nutri­tion, hospi­tal supplies and surgi­cal products used in homes, hospi­tals, physi­ci­ans’ offices and long-term care faci­li­ties. For more than 90 years, we have been at the criti­cal inter­sec­tion where medi­ci­nes and systems that save and sustain lives meet health­care provi­ders who make them happen. With products, digi­tal health solu­ti­ons and thera­pies available in more than 100 count­ries, Baxter employees world­wide are buil­ding on an exten­sive legacy of medi­cal inno­va­tion and driving the deve­lo­p­ment of impro­ved thera­pies. To learn more, visit www.baxter.com and follow us on Twit­ter, Linke­dIn and Facebook.

About Advent International

Foun­ded in 1984, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal is one of the largest and most expe­ri­en­ced global private equity inves­tors. The firm has inves­ted in more than 405 private equity invest­ments in 42 count­ries and had more than $92 billion in assets under manage­ment as of Decem­ber 31, 2022. With 15 offices in 12 count­ries, Advent has built a globally inte­gra­ted team of more than 290 private equity invest­ment profes­sio­nals in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The company focu­ses on invest­ments in five core sectors, inclu­ding busi­ness and finan­cial services, health­care, indus­trial, retail, consu­mer goods and leisure, and technology.

After 35 years in the inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment busi­ness, Advent conti­nues to take the approach of working with manage­ment teams to deli­ver sustainable reve­nue and earnings growth for its port­fo­lio compa­nies. www.adventinternational.com

About Warburg Pincus

Warburg Pincus LLC is a leading global growth inves­tor. The company has more than $80 billion in assets under manage­ment. The company’s active port­fo­lio compri­ses more than 250 compa­nies and is highly diver­si­fied by growth phase, indus­try and region. Warburg Pincus is an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner for manage­ment teams seeking to build long-lived busi­nesses with sustainable value. Foun­ded in 1966, Warburg Pincus has laun­ched 21 private equity and 2 real estate funds that have inves­ted more than $109 billion in over 1,000 compa­nies in more than 40 count­ries. The company is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Amster­dam, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Luxem­bourg, Mumbai, Mauri­tius, San Fran­cisco, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. www.warburgpincus.com

News

Milan/London/Paris/Munich — Ambi­enta SGR SpA (“Ambi­enta”), one of the largest Euro­pean asset mana­gers focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity, announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Previero N S.r.l. (“Previero”). The company is curr­ently mana­ged by the third gene­ra­tion of the foun­ding family. It will conti­nue to bene­fit from Previero’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the recy­cling sector, as the family will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company.

Foun­ded in 1922 and based in Anzano del Parco (Como, Italy), the company is a pioneer in the field of mecha­ni­cal plas­tics recy­cling, driving market inno­va­tion and setting quality bench­marks. Today, Previero is one of the few provi­ders of turn­key recy­cling solu­ti­ons. These include all pre-proces­sing (“from bale to flake”) and cover all types of plas­tics (PET bott­les, films, rubber). With around 110 employees, Previero is prima­rily active in R&D, engi­nee­ring and assembly/testing. Over the years, the company has deve­lo­ped a diffe­ren­tia­ted and inte­gra­ted value propo­si­tion that addres­ses the incre­asing need of global recy­clers to find tech­no­logy part­ners to help them deve­lop and commis­sion complete recy­cling facilities.

With its solu­ti­ons, Previero is making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the recy­cla­bi­lity of plas­tics — a process that is still in its infancy, as only 15% of the plas­tic waste produ­ced world­wide is actually recy­cled. Howe­ver, this share is expec­ted to nearly double by 2040 due to stric­ter regu­la­ti­ons and brand commit­ment. Previero thus fits perfectly into Ambienta’s invest­ment stra­tegy, as it repres­ents both an invest­ment in envi­ron­men­tal protec­tion and resource effi­ci­ency. Previero’s turn­key recy­cling solu­ti­ons turn post-consu­mer waste and post-indus­trial waste into high-quality flakes, with posi­tive impacts on mate­ri­als reuse, CO2 emis­si­ons reduc­tion, and energy and land­fill space savings.

Tech­no­lo­gi­cal and regu­la­tory advan­ces, the alre­ady visi­ble acce­le­ra­tion of invest­ments in addi­tio­nal recy­cling capa­city world­wide, and the incre­asing demand for high-end solu­ti­ons to produce food-grade recy­cled mate­rial offer great oppor­tu­ni­ties for Previero. Ambi­enta aims to help the company capi­ta­lize on these oppor­tu­ni­ties and — by provi­ding finan­cial and manage­ment resour­ces, encou­ra­ging further invest­ment in physi­cal and human capi­tal, and broa­der colla­bo­ra­tion with the three Previero brot­hers — become an even stron­ger player in the global marketplace.

Previero is the first plat­form invest­ment of Ambienta’s latest fund, Ambi­enta IV. It is the largest Euro­pean private equity fund ever laun­ched, focu­sed exclu­si­vely on compa­nies that are driving posi­tive envi­ron­men­tal change in their respec­tive indus­tries. The fund closed in July 2022 after only six months of active marke­ting at the cap of 1.55 billion euros.

Mauro Roversi, Foun­ding Part­ner and Private Equity CIO at Ambi­enta, commen­ted: “Plas­tics are now ubiqui­tous in the modern economy, and their consump­tion is expec­ted to double again in the next 20 years. The need to increase the recy­cla­bi­lity of plas­tics is ther­e­fore beco­ming incre­asingly urgent. All global consu­mer pack­a­ging and retail compa­nies have commit­ted to achie­ving up to 50% recy­cled content in their pack­a­ging by 2030. Global invest­ment in addi­tio­nal recy­cling capa­city will ther­e­fore increase signi­fi­cantly over the next decade.”

Andrea Ventu­rini, Prin­ci­pal at Ambi­enta, added: “Previero is a pioneer in this field, outper­forming its compe­ti­tors in terms of quality and deli­very times, with outstan­ding R&D and engi­nee­ring capa­bi­li­ties. We look forward to working with the Previero family and contri­bu­ting to the company’s contin­ued growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, with the goal of estab­li­shing Previero as the world’s leading provi­der of inte­gra­ted and sustainable recy­cling solutions.”

Flavio Previero, Chair­man of Previero, added: “In Ambi­enta we have found a part­ner capa­ble of under­stan­ding the history and poten­tial of the company. Ambienta’s indus­trial and inter­na­tio­nal exper­tise will help us take advan­tage of the many oppor­tu­ni­ties ahead more quickly and effectively.”

Consul­tant Ambienta: 
McKin­sey (commer­cial due diligence)
Peder­soli (Law)
EY (finance and ESG) and GPBLex (tax and struc­tu­ring) advised.

About Ambi­enta
Ambi­enta is a Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity inves­tor specia­li­zing in private equity, public markets and private credit. From Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambi­enta mana­ges assets of more than 3 billion euros. The focus is on inves­t­ing in private and publicly traded compa­nies that are driven by envi­ron­men­tal mega­trends and whose products or services improve resource effi­ci­ency and envi­ron­men­tal protection.

In private equity, Ambi­enta has made 64 invest­ments to date. In the public equity sector, Ambi­enta has laun­ched one of the world’s largest abso­lute return funds fully focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity and mana­ges a whole range of other sustainable invest­ment products from low-risk multi-asset funds to long-only equity funds. Ambi­enta has also recently laun­ched a private credit stra­tegy, which — as with the other invest­ment clas­ses — focu­ses on envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. www.ambientasgr.com

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