ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Bremen/ Munich — Funds advi­sed by the Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company DPDeut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) have inves­ted in atacama Soft­ware GmbH (“atacama” or the “Group”). The foun­ders of atacama, Dr. Jürgen Deit­mers and Rene Lenga, retire from day-to-day busi­ness and become members of atacama’s advi­sory board. Michael Jansen, former Mana­ging Direc­tor of the subsi­diary atacama KV Soft­ware GmbH (“akv”), is appoin­ted CEO of atacama along­side CFO Rainer Dona­lies. The mana­ging direc­tors of apenio GmbH & Co. KG (“apenio”), Sebas­tian Fraas and Daniil Liber­man, as well as Sebas­tian Zebbi­ties, mana­ging direc­tor of atacama blooms GmbH & Co. KG (“blooms”), will also be appoin­ted to the group’s manage­ment board and will remain respon­si­ble for their previous areas. All parties have agreed to invest along­side DPE and to keep the purchase price of the tran­sac­tion confidential.

atacama is a leading provi­der of health­care soft­ware, consis­ting of three opera­ting subsi­dia­ries (i) akv, (ii) apenio and (iii) blooms. The Group employs around 90 people and is head­quar­te­red in Bremen, Germany.

akv offers web-based solu­ti­ons for the case manage­ment of statu­tory health insu­r­ers in the dental and care sectors, which opti­mize inter­nal case proces­sing and signi­fi­cantly increase effi­ci­ency in case proces­sing. In colla­bo­ra­tion with blooms, the company offers its custo­mers a unique AI-based dark proces­sing appli­ca­tion that reco­gni­zes and auto­ma­ti­cally proces­ses case-rela­ted docu­ments, provi­ding a future-proof solu­tion for auto­ma­ting labor-inten­sive work. Over 70 statu­tory health insu­rance compa­nies work with akv soft­ware solu­ti­ons on a daily basis.

Blooms supports akv and other part­ners with the AI solu­tion AVIDOC‑R in auto­ma­ting proces­ses in health insu­rance through digi­tiza­tion and seman­tic analy­sis of complex docu­ments. Further, blooms provi­des sister company apenio and other soft­ware vendors with an AI-powered, nursing science foun­da­tion for docu­men­ta­tion and auto­ma­tic gene­ra­tion of reports and calcu­la­ti­ons such as PPR 2.0.

apenio offers an intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­tion for pati­ent docu­men­ta­tion and care plan­ning in hospi­tals. The soft­ware provi­des a complete over­view of the patient’s condi­tion inclu­ding docu­men­ta­tion for diffe­rent special­ties (geria­trics, pallia­tive medi­cine, pedia­trics, inten­sive care, etc.). The apenio soft­ware is used in over 75 hospi­tals, seve­ral nursing homes and more than 75 nursing schools and univer­si­ties in Germany and Austria.

“In recent years, toge­ther with our manage­ment team, we have been able to signi­fi­cantly improve our offe­ring and streng­then the trus­ting rela­ti­onship with our custo­mers. With DPE, we have now found an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner who under­stands and appre­cia­tes our colla­bo­ra­tion with key play­ers in the German health­care market and will further expand our plat­form by support­ing tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment,” said Jürgen Deit­mers and Rene Lenga, the two foun­ders of atacama.

Dr. Frank Müller, mana­ging part­ner of DPE (photo © DPE), explains, “We were impres­sed by atacama’s solu­tion-orien­ted appli­ca­ti­ons, which have been conti­nuously impro­ved and enhan­ced with new modu­les over the years to help the group’s custo­mers opti­mize and simplify their daily tasks.” Andreas Schmid, part­ner at DPE, added: “The group’s soft­ware appli­ca­ti­ons, which are targe­ted at health insu­rance compa­nies, hospi­tals and other service provi­ders, meet the urgent need to auto­mate labor-inten­sive work and actively support the ongo­ing digi­tiza­tion of the German health­care system.”

Consul­tant atacama:

miura Advi­sors (M&A sell side), Pinsent Masons (legal) and FIDES (finance and tax).

Consul­tant DPE: 

strategy& (Commer­cial Due Dili­gence), PwC (Finan­cial, Tax & ESG Due Dili­gence), GOF (Legal) and Cowen (Debt Advisory).

About atacama

For 25 years, the teams of the atacama group have been provi­ding trans­pa­rency and effi­ci­ency in the health­care sector with inno­va­tive indus­try soft­ware. As a holding company, atacama | Soft­ware GmbH unites under its umbrella atacama | KV Soft­ware GmbH & Co. KG and apenio GmbH & Co. KG, two specia­li­zed subsi­dia­ries that have estab­lished leading profes­sio­nal and tech­ni­cal solu­ti­ons in the markets of payers and service provi­ders. More than 70 health and long-term care insu­rance compa­nies use the atacama | GKV Suite for their case manage­ment. More than 75 hospi­tals, seve­ral nursing faci­li­ties and over 75 nursing schools and univer­si­ties use the know­ledge-based solu­tion apenio for digi­tal pati­ent and resi­dent docu­men­ta­tion. The company port­fo­lio is comple­men­ted by atacama blooms GmbH & Co. KG as an inno­va­tive newco­mer with the AI-based solu­ti­ons apenio NKS for intel­li­gent care and inter­ope­ra­bi­lity and AVIDOC‑R for docu­ment reco­gni­tion and process auto­ma­tion. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit: https://www.atacama.de

About DPE Deut­sche Private Equity

DPE Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that supports medium-sized compa­nies on their growth path as a part­ner­ship inves­tor. Over the past 15 years, DPE has become one of the largest growth inves­tors in the DACH region and curr­ently mana­ges total assets of over €3 billion. The core of DPE’s invest­ment stra­tegy is in the areas of digitalization/software, health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy, B2B services, energy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Within these sectors, DPE focu­ses on estab­lished compa­nies that hold a strong market posi­tion with a leading product or service offe­ring and offer signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for the future. DPE focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and invests 10 to 200 million euros per tran­sac­tion. https://www.dpe.de

News

London — The majo­rity of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors (limi­ted part­ners, LPs) are posi­tive about the pros­pects for private equity in North America and Europe in 2023 and 2024 and expect them to be strong vinta­ges, accor­ding to Coller Capital’s latest Global Private Equity Baro­me­ter. When it comes to the outlook for private equity in the Asia-Paci­fic region, inves­tors’ opini­ons tend to be balanced.

For private equity, most inves­tors believe that the health­care and phar­maceu­ti­cal sectors will offer attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties over the next two years. Three-quar­ters say the same about IT and busi­ness services. There are clear diffe­ren­ces on energy, where more LPs favor rene­wa­ble energy than fossil hydrocarbons.

In terms of invest­ment stra­te­gies, the majo­rity of inves­tors see good oppor­tu­ni­ties in the next two years for mid-market and special situa­tions funds. Three-quar­ters of LPs also expect good oppor­tu­ni­ties in secon­dary market invest­ments, seeing an incre­asing number of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors using this market to reba­lance their port­fo­lios. Fewer LPs see oppor­tu­ni­ties with fund mana­gers (gene­ral part­ners, GPs) for large and mega buyouts — a signi­fi­cant change from their opinion five years ago. Inves­tors are also concer­ned about the amount of debt invol­ved in buyout deals. Half think the current percen­tage is too high.

“Inves­tor appe­tite for private credit funds shows no signs of abating,” said Michael Schad, part­ner and head of Coller Credit Secon­da­ries. “In that regard, it’s inte­res­t­ing to see that they expect to see a grea­ter concen­tra­tion of capi­tal on larger fund mana­gers in private debt over the next few years.”

Inves­tor beha­vior during due dili­gence and travel

Over the past two years, inves­tors have increased their audit effort, with this apply­ing to a higher propor­tion among Euro­pean LPs than among those from North America and Asia Paci­fic. Due dili­gence for fund expo­sures is a major reason why LP travel has retur­ned to levels not seen since the begin­ning of the pande­mic. Inves­tors are also likely to return to trave­ling to confe­ren­ces and annual gene­ral meetings, although a rather small number of them plan to return to their previous busi­ness travel patterns. In the invest­ment process itself, three-fifths of inves­tors see nego­tia­ting terms as a chall­enge, but fewer see evalua­ting mana­gers or acces­sing funds as a chall­enge. They differ in their assess­ment of the importance of incen­ti­ves for a first degree.

Importance of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence for Private Equity

Inves­tors are open to the bene­fits of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) for the private equity tran­sac­tion process. Three-quar­ters of LPs believe it could be a useful tool for initia­ting tran­sac­tions. Three-fifths of LPs believe it could be useful for deal evalua­tion or post-tran­sac­tion enga­ge­ment with port­fo­lio companies.

Anti-ESG move­ment in the USA

The importance of envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance (ESG) stan­dards in private equity conti­nues to be taken seriously by insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, despite the “anti-ESG move­ment” emana­ting from Repu­bli­can gover­nors in the US. Three-quar­ters of LPs do not expect this to impact the importance that fund mana­gers place on ESG. Euro­pean LPs are ahead of their global peers when it comes to estab­li­shing ESG teams in their compa­nies: three-quar­ters of Euro­pean LPs have alre­ady hired their own ESG staff. The reverse is true for North Ameri­can LPs, with the same percen­tage indi­ca­ting they have no plans to hire specia­li­zed ESG staff.

Perfor­mance of buy-and-build portfolios

Across all private equity port­fo­lios, LPs are posting record returns, with two-fifths gene­ra­ting annual net returns of 16 percent or more over the life of the port­fo­lios. Perfor­mance differs by stra­tegy, parti­cu­larly between buy-and-build invest­ments and those more focu­sed on orga­nic growth. Two-thirds of LPs repor­ted that their buy-and-build port­fo­lios outper­for­med. Inves­tors also provi­ded infor­ma­tion on where they think the best invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for private equity will come from: About three-fifths of LPs said that invest­ments in family and start-up busi­nesses, as well as company sales and spin-offs, will provide the best oppor­tu­ni­ties over the next two years.

Chan­ges in the private markets

Two-fifths of inves­tors plan to increase their target allo­ca­tion to private credit and infra­struc­ture in the next year. In the private debt markets, two-thirds of LPs expect grea­ter concen­tra­tion of capi­tal among larger GPs over the next three to five years. For private equity, fewer LPs expect to increase their average expo­sure to indi­vi­dual GPs than when we surveyed them five years ago. Howe­ver, LPs are making room for new mana­gers in their port­fo­lios, with the majo­rity making a commit­ment to a new private equity mana­ger and more than half adding new private credit and venture capi­tal managers.

Capi­tal calls and venture capi­tal down rounds

Some LPs are cautious about the expec­ted level of funds drawn down by their GPs over the next two years compared to the last two years, with two-fifths of them expec­ting less capi­tal to be drawn down. Caution also prevails with regard to their venture capi­tal port­fo­lios: Three quar­ters expect more down rounds in their port­fo­lios here due to falling valuations.

 

Coller Capital’s Global Private Equity Baro­me­ter is a unique snapshot of global private equity trends. Twice a year, it provi­des an over­view of the plans and opini­ons of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors in this asset class in North America, Europe and the Asia-Paci­fic region (inclu­ding the Middle East). It has been published semi-annu­ally in summer and winter since 2004.

The latest baro­me­ter reflects the views of 110 insti­tu­tio­nal private equity inves­tors world­wide, surveyed from Febru­ary 13 to March 31, 2023. The results are globally repre­sen­ta­tive of all LPs in terms of inves­tor loca­tion, type of inves­t­ing orga­niza­tion, total assets under manage­ment and length of expe­ri­ence with private equity investments.

About Coller Capital

Coller Capi­tal, foun­ded in 1990, is one of the world’s leading inves­tors in the secon­dary market for private asset clas­ses and is conside­red an inno­va­tor in complex secon­dary market transactions.

The company provi­des liqui­dity solu­ti­ons to private market inves­tors world­wide, acqui­ring invest­ments in private equity, private credit and other private market assets. Head­quar­te­red in London with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Beijing and Seoul, Coller’s multi­na­tio­nal invest­ment team has a global reach.

In Janu­ary 2021, the company placed the “Coller Inter­na­tio­nal Part­ners VIII” fund with capi­tal commit­ments (inclu­ding co-invest­ments) of just over $9 billion from more than 200 of the world’s leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. — In Febru­ary 2022, the firm placed the Coller Credit Oppor­tu­ni­ties I fund with $1.45 billion in capi­tal commit­ments (inclu­ding co-invest­ments) from more than 40 insti­tu­tio­nal investors.

In March 2023, Coller Capi­tal announ­ced the crea­tion of a global Private Wealth Secon­da­ries Solu­ti­ons (PWSS) busi­ness to provide high net worth indi­vi­du­als with expan­ded access to private capi­tal markets.

News

Berlin — LIQID closes the fourth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring with a record volume of 200 million euros. This makes the fund Europe’s largest private equity fund of funds for high net worth private inves­tors. The bank-inde­pen­dent wealth mana­ger LIQID is coming ever closer to its goal of demo­cra­tiz­ing high-yield asset clas­ses. The fifth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring has alre­ady been launched.

Compared to the prede­ces­sor fund, the fourth gene­ra­tion of LIQID Private Equity has grown by another third. “Expe­ri­en­ced retail inves­tors have an ever-incre­asing inte­rest in alter­na­tive asset clas­ses. The rene­wed record volume of our private equity fund shows: Aware­ness of the advan­ta­ges of private equity — after all, the highest-yiel­ding asset class (https://www.dasinvestment.com/vermoegensverwalter-thomas-huenicke-v-bank-private-equity-fuer-normalanleger/) of the past three deca­des — is also growing outside the realm of major inves­tors and the finan­cial elite,” says Moritz von Rhein, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Private Markets at LIQID. Conse­quently, LIQID has alre­ady laun­ched the fifth gene­ra­tion of its private equity offe­ring. With the new fund, the wealth mana­ger conti­nues to offer expe­ri­en­ced private inves­tors the oppor­tu­nity to invest in private equity on the same terms as smart money inves­tors, family offices and large foun­da­ti­ons. Retail inves­tors can invest through the LIQID fund offe­ring just like top insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors with indus­try giants such as KKR, EQT, Perm­ira and Bridgepoint.

Digi­tal, modern and cost-transparent

The Berlin-based Wealth­Tech, foun­ded in 2016, is thus pursuing a clear mission: “We want to provide finan­cial support to people who want to make a diffe­rence — in other words, the successful entre­pre­neurs, decis­ion-makers and doers,” empha­si­zes CEO and LIQID foun­der Chris­tian Schnei­der-Sickert. “Our clients use busi­ness as a vehicle to create prospe­rity for all. They are aware of their corpo­rate respon­si­bi­lity and deserve the invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties of tomor­row. We make exactly that possi­ble: with a digi­tal, modern and cost-trans­pa­rent offe­ring that is other­wise only available to high-net-worth indi­vi­du­als in the family office.”

LIQID’s appro­xi­m­ately 8,000 custo­mers include entre­pre­neurs, physi­ci­ans and free­lan­cers, as well as execu­ti­ves from diverse indus­tries, not just the finan­cial sector. Curr­ently, the assets under manage­ment are around 2.5 billion euros. More than 2,500 inves­tors are inves­ted in the Private Markets segment alone. In addi­tion, LIQID offers nume­rous other wealth manage­ment products such as custo­mi­zed capi­tal market stra­te­gies and the recently laun­ched Money and Inte­rest Market programs.

Private equity drives democratization

“Even if the demo­cra­tiza­tion of high-yield asset clas­ses is gaining noti­ceable momen­tum: The entry barrier, which the regu­la­tor curr­ently defi­nes at 200,000 euros, is still too high for most private inves­tors. We at LIQID are ther­e­fore very plea­sed about the upco­ming chan­ges in Euro­pean regu­la­tion. These aim to further demo­cra­tize the market and make the bene­fits of alter­na­tive asset clas­ses more widely acces­si­ble,” says Moritz von Rhein, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Head of Private Markets. He sees great poten­tial espe­ci­ally in private equity: “In terms of demo­cra­tiza­tion, private equity is seve­ral years ahead of other alter­na­tive asset clas­ses.” This is another reason why LIQID conti­nues to actively work on opening the door to other asset clas­ses besi­des private equity, which were previously reser­ved for insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. With success: 150 million euros were inves­ted in venture capi­tal by inves­tors at LIQID in the past two years.

About LIQID

LIQID, based in Berlin, is a bank-inde­pen­dent wealth mana­ger focu­sed on the needs of sophisti­ca­ted entre­pre­neurs, decis­ion-makers and doers. The company’s invest­ment stra­tegy is based on the smart money prin­ci­ples of profes­sio­nal inves­tors such as family offices and endow­ment funds.

For a frac­tion of the invest­ment previously requi­red, LIQID provi­des access to invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that were previously only available to very large fortu­nes. In addi­tion to indi­vi­dual wealth manage­ment start­ing at EUR 100,000, this includes profes­sio­nally cura­ted port­fo­lios from the world’s leading private equity, venture capi­tal and private real estate funds start­ing at EUR 200,000.

LIQID curr­ently mana­ges around 2.5 billion euros for its custo­mers. Among others, the company is backed by HQ Trust, the multi-family office of the Harald Quandt family, LGT, a private bank owned by the Prin­cely Family of Liech­ten­stein, and Project A, a Berlin-based venture capi­tal fund.

News

Munich — Wahtari GmbH (herein­af­ter “Wahtari”) has foun­ded nLine GmbH (herein­af­ter “nLine”) and raised an invest­ment from HELU Kabel GmbH (herein­af­ter “HELUKABEL”) in nLine.

The subject of the nLine is the opti­cal quality control of cables, wires, steel cables, pipes and hoses. As part of the invest­ment docu­men­ta­tion, it is agreed, among other things, that Wahtari will provide its self-deve­lo­ped AI soft­ware and tech­ni­cal know-how to nLine for the cables, wires, steel cables, pipes and hoses segment and that HELUKABEL will open its world­wide distri­bu­tion network to nLine. In this way, the aim is to quickly achieve global reach for nLine, inclu­ding in the area of support. nLine products are alre­ady in demand world­wide, inclu­ding in the USA. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the transaction.

The Wall­berg team consis­ting of foun­ders Manuel Brühl, Dr. Arno Malcher and Dr. Simon Sabel provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to Wahtari on the project. In parti­cu­lar, the distinc­tive inter­face compe­tence of Wall­berg & Cie. in the areas of tax, IT law and tran­sac­tions came into full play when assis­ting Wahtari. In addi­tion to tax struc­tu­ring and corpo­rate law, ques­ti­ons of legally secure licen­sing of the AI soft­ware are central.

“The key chall­enge was to license Wahtari’s AI soft­ware, which can be used compre­hen­si­vely and in a wide variety of indus­tries, to nLine accu­ra­tely and stably, but at the same time flexi­bly for diffe­rent scena­rios in a very speci­fic narrowly defi­ned market,” says AI expert Dr. Malcher. “In this case, of course, clean tax struc­tu­ring is always crucial, espe­ci­ally also to avoid dry-income effects,” adds tax expert Brühl. “The fasci­na­ting thing about this tran­sac­tion is that here a very young and extre­mely inno­va­tive company is attrac­ting the invest­ment of a long-estab­lished hidden cham­pion, thus also taking a strong step in the field of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion,” says tran­sac­tion expert Dr. Simon Sabel (photo).

Wahtari, based in Munich, Germany, deve­lops and markets AI-based image reco­gni­tion systems for precise quality control and auto­ma­tion tasks. The company supplies the coor­di­na­ted hard­ware and soft­ware compon­ents from a single source in order to fully exploit the poten­tial of AI tech­no­logy. For their custo­mi­zed complete solu­ti­ons, Wahtari’s experts combine state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies and in-depth know­ledge of IT secu­rity, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment as well as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence with versa­tile indus­try expe­ri­ence. They rely on both conven­tio­nal image reco­gni­tion algo­rithms and Deep Learning.

The HELUKABEL Group, head­quar­te­red in Hemmin­gen, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, is a leading inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of cables, wires and cable access­ories. Foun­ded in 1978, the family-owned company has deve­lo­ped broad exper­tise and in-depth know-how in many indus­tries and key tech­no­lo­gies over the years. Products and solu­ti­ons from HELUKABEL can be found today in a wide variety of appli­ca­ti­ons: from mecha­ni­cal and plant engi­nee­ring and indus­trial auto­ma­tion to oil, gas and chemi­cals, buil­ding services, infra­struc­ture, mobi­lity and rene­wa­ble energy supply. With 63 loca­ti­ons and around 2,200 employees in 39 count­ries, the company is a relia­ble and respon­sive part­ner for its custo­mers worldwide.

Advi­sor Wahtari: Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG StB
Manuel Brühl, Taxes
Dr. Arno Malcher, IT Law, Commercial
Dr. Simon Sabel, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate Law
Deloitte Legal Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH: Michael Schnei­der (Part­ner Corporate/M&A) Deloitte GmbH Wirt­schafts­prü­fungs­ge­sell­schaft: Georg Trisch­ber­ger (Part­ner Tax)

About Wall­berg & Cie.
Wall­berg Law Tax Advi­sory GmbH & Cie. KG is a specia­li­zed legal and tax consul­tancy based in Munich. The foun­ders combine their enthu­si­asm for legal and tax advice with a strong tech­no­lo­gi­cal and digi­tal DNA. The focus of Wall­berg & Cie. lie in the areas of corpo­rate law, tax law and law of the digi­tal world with a focus on digi­ta­liza­tion, tran­sac­tions and inter­na­tio­nal aspects. The exper­tise of Wall­berg & Cie. is regu­larly in demand for complex projects, espe­ci­ally in the area of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. https://www.wallberg.law

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Ardian, one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, has sold its majo­rity stake in Cubes Holding GmbH (“d&b”) to Provi­dence. Since 2016, Ardian has guided the company, which focu­ses on profes­sio­nal loud­spea­k­ers and audio systems for the event sector, and its manage­ment team led by CEO Amnon Harman on a dyna­mic path of strong orga­nic growth and geogra­phic expan­sion. The manage­ment will again parti­ci­pate in the tran­sac­tion and conti­nue the successful deve­lo­p­ment of the company.

Foun­ded in 1981 and head­quar­te­red in Back­nang, Germany, d&b is one of the world’s leading provi­ders of profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and AVLM solu­ti­ons for unique multi­sen­sory expe­ri­en­ces. d&b audio­tech­nik, the manu­fac­tu­ring divi­sion of the company, is inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed as a leader in sound rein­force­ment systems in fixed and mobile appli­ca­ti­ons, and is also known for its design quality, service stan­dards, system inte­gra­tion prin­ci­ples, and pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. d&b solu­ti­ons, the service-orien­ted busi­ness unit, offers compre­hen­sive and flexi­ble audio, video, light­ing and xR exper­tise in the areas of system plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance as well as mana­ged services.

With Ardian’s support, d&b has excel­led, achie­ving a double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2016, despite the tempo­rary market down­turn in the events sector caused by the COVID 19 pande­mic. The number of employees has tripled from around 350 to more than 1,000 since Ardian joined the company. Key to this successful momen­tum were inno­va­tions, the expan­sion of the product and solu­ti­ons port­fo­lio, and the deve­lo­p­ment of exis­ting and new markets, parti­cu­larly in the Ameri­cas and Asia-Paci­fic regi­ons. The stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the company was driven by both orga­nic growth and targe­ted acquisitions.

“The global growth trend for events, concerts and large-scale events has contin­ued unch­an­ged after a forced pause due to the COVID 19 pande­mic. This is accom­pa­nied by the incre­asing profes­sio­na­liza­tion and digi­tiza­tion of these events and thus a growing demand for profes­sio­nal event tech­no­lo­gies. As one of the world’s leading system provi­ders for audio tech­no­logy and inte­gra­ted audio, video, light­ing and media solu­ti­ons (AVLM) with a compre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of hard­ware and soft­ware tech­no­lo­gies, we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned to gain further market share. Ardian has proven to be a relia­ble entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner over the past years. Thanks to its unst­in­ting support, parti­cu­larly during the pande­mic, we were able to exploit this market crisis for inno­va­tion and emerge from it stron­ger than before. We look forward to conti­nuing our successful course with Provi­dence and further expan­ding our global posi­tion as a leader in profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and inte­gra­ted AVLM solu­ti­ons,” said Amnon Harman, CEO of D&B GROUP.

“We would like to thank Amnon Harman and his team for their outstan­ding work, unwa­ve­ring commit­ment and, above all, the trust they have placed in us over the past years. d&b has an outstan­ding corpo­rate culture that is embo­died by each and every employee. All of this has been essen­tial to the growth, but even more so to the stra­te­gic trans­for­ma­tion and inter­na­tio­nal posi­tio­ning of the Group. We are proud to have accom­pa­nied this jour­ney toge­ther with the d&b team,” explain Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout and Stefan Kappis, Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout.

“Our invest­ment is a testa­ment to the high quality and exper­tise of the d&b team, as well as the unique company culture that has allo­wed d&b to set indus­try stan­dards and regu­larly exceed custo­mer expec­ta­ti­ons for over 40 years. d&b is the gold stan­dard in the indus­try for crea­ting memo­rable expe­ri­en­ces for audi­en­ces because of its inno­va­tion, global presence, custo­mer rela­ti­onships and long history of success,” said Robert Sudo, Mana­ging Direc­tor, Providence.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion, which is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

Consul­tant ARDIAN:

Ardian: Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Stefan Kappis, Chris­tian Koch, Stefa­nie Arndt

M&A: Macqua­rie Capi­tal (Florian Geiger / Sung-Duk Kim / Anthony Yous­safi) & Gold­man Sachs (Tobias Köster / Tibor Kossa / Fred­rik Weege)

Legal: Milbank (Dr. Norbert Rieger / Dr. Matthias Schell / Dr. Thomas Ingenhoven)

Finan­cial: PwC (Peter Grönin­ger / Daniel Haas)

Commer­cial: McKin­sey & Co. (Dr. Isabel Huber / Salva­dor Martinez)

ESG: Indefi Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout(Emmanuel Parmentier)

Consul­tant PROVIDENCE:

Provi­dence: Andrew Tisdale, Robert Sudo, Daniel Zwicky

M&A: Alan­tra (Wolf­ram Schmerl), UniCre­dit (Michal Leho­cky, Marcel Kus)

Legal: White & Case (Dr. Stefan Koch), Allen & Overy Dr. Alex­an­der Fried­rich, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout (Vanessa Xu)

Tax: EY

About D&B

The d&b Group is a provi­der of profes­sio­nal audio tech­no­logy and AVLM solu­ti­ons for unfor­gettable multi­sen­sory expe­ri­en­ces. d&b audio­tech­nik, the manu­fac­tu­ring divi­sion of the company, is inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed as a leader in sound rein­force­ment systems in fixed and mobile appli­ca­ti­ons, and is also known for its design quality, service stan­dards, system inte­gra­tion prin­ci­ples, and ground­brea­king tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ments. d&b solu­ti­ons, the service-orien­ted busi­ness unit, offers compre­hen­sive and flexi­ble audio, video, light­ing and xR exper­tise in the areas of system plan­ning, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance as well as mana­ged services.
Since the company was foun­ded in 1981, d&b’s head­quar­ters have been loca­ted in Back­nang, near Stutt­gart. With loca­ti­ons in major cities around the world, the global d&b team numbers more than 1000 employees.
www.dbgroup.de
www.dbaudio.com
www.dbsolutions.com

About ARDIAN

Ardian is a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm. The company mana­ges or advi­ses on appro­xi­m­ately US$150 billion in assets for more than 1,400 inves­tors world­wide. Thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise in private equity, real assets and credit, Ardian offers a wide range of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as custo­mi­zed invest­ment solu­ti­ons — tail­o­red to inves­tors’ needs: Ardian Custo­mi­zed Solu­ti­ons enables insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors to access best-in-class mana­gers across all asset clas­ses through a custo­mi­zed port­fo­lio. Ardian Private Wealth Solu­ti­ons also offers a range of services speci­fi­cally geared to high net worth indi­vi­du­als. Ardian is parti­ally owned by its employees and places great empha­sis on their deve­lo­p­ment, as well as a culture of colla­bo­ra­tion based on an active exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. The more than 1,050 employees at 16 office loca­ti­ons in Europe, North and South America, Asia and the Middle East, follow the prin­ci­ples of respon­si­ble inves­t­ing. Ardian’s mission is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through its invest­ments and to create value that lasts. Ardian aims to deli­ver excel­lent returns in line with high ethi­cal stan­dards and social respon­si­bi­lity. At Ardian, ever­yone is dedi­ca­ted to buil­ding successful compa­nies for the long term.

ardian.com

News

Munich — The owner-mana­ged private equity company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) has acqui­red be-solu­ti­ons GmbH (“be-solu­ti­ons”), a certi­fied IT services company based in Munich. The sellers were Simon Berger, Markus Eichin­ger and Felix Zöbisch. The closing of the tran­sac­tion took place at the begin­ning of June 2023. — POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to EOS in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the imple­men­ta­tion of a manage­ment participation.

be-solu­ti­ons will be contin­ued under the umbrella of accom­pio GmbH (form­erly: IT Solu­ti­ons Holding), which curr­ently includes mod IT Services GmbH and profi­com GmbH in addi­tion to the newly acqui­red be-solu­ti­ons GmbH. EOS had acqui­red both IT compa­nies in 2021 and 2022, respec­tively, and was also legally advi­sed by POELLATH on manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in both transactions.

Foun­ded in Munich in 2000, be-solu­ti­ons is an IT services company provi­ding client / server infra­struc­ture, mana­ged services, IT service / help­desk, and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and confe­ren­cing solu­ti­ons. The company’s 30-strong team of experts provi­des its custo­mers with solu­tion-orien­ted, vendor-inde­pen­dent support in all IT matters, from consul­ting and imple­men­ta­tion to opera­tion and user support in day-to-day business.

EOS is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acquisitions.

Consul­tant EOS: POELLATH
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Investments/Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Investments/Private Equity)
Jan Lukas Jung­claus, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch) (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Invest­ments /Private Equity)

News

July 10, 2023 — Rolls-Royce has acqui­red Team Italia Marine, an Italian group specia­li­zing in the inte­gra­tion of navi­ga­tion systems and marine auto­ma­tion for the yacht market. Through this stra­te­gic tran­sac­tion, Rolls-Royce’s Power Systems busi­ness unit will streng­then its leading posi­tion in the global yacht market and expand its MTU product port­fo­lio for bridge-to-propel­ler solu­ti­ons with state-of-the-art inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons for the yacht indus­try. Rolls-Royce was advi­sed by DLA Piper on this transaction.

The acqui­si­tion will enable Rolls Royce to signi­fi­cantly expand its port­fo­lio of inno­va­tive custo­mer solu­ti­ons and products and streng­then its role as a leading supplier in the Italian market. Team Italia Marine, on the other hand, bene­fits from Rolls-Royce Power Systems’ world­wide sales network.
DLA Piper advi­sed Rolls-Royce’s M&A and legal teams, consis­ting of Denise Kurtu­lus, David Sagan, Chris­tian Glöck­ler, Nicola Camuffo and, on the legal side, lawy­ers Ben Hors­ley and Knut Sönnichsen.

Advi­sor Rolls-Royce: DLA Piper

Lead part­ners: Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Benja­min Para­mes­wa­ran, photo (Hamburg) and Chris­tian der Corpo­rate Part­ner (Hamburg) and Chris­tian Iann­ac­cone (Milan). Ornella Vastola, Gior­gia Grande and Fulvio Miano also advi­sed in the Corpo­rate area. Also invol­ved were part­ner Fabri­zio Morelli and attor­ney Fran­ce­sca De Novel­lis for the employ­ment prac­tice; part­ner Elena Varese and Valen­tina Mazza and Caro­lina Battistella for the IP prac­tice; part­ner Giulio Corag­gio and Gior­dana Babini and Enila Elezi for the IT and data protec­tion prac­tice; part­ner Carmen Chier­chia for the regulatory/environmental prac­tice; part­ner Davide Rossetti for the litigation/export prac­tice; and part­ner Valen­tina Marengo and Chiara Scia­raffa for the real estate practice.

KPMG advi­sed Rolls-Royce on the finan­cial aspects of the tran­sac­tion with a team consis­ting of part­ner Klaus Riccardi and mana­ger Luca Marchetti and on the tax aspects with a team consis­ting of asso­ciate part­ner Feder­ico Quaiotti and senior mana­ger Lorenzo Schippa.

Mazars supported Team Italia with a team led by part­ner Massi­mi­liano Vento and consis­ting of lawy­ers Andrea Gambar­della, Luca Batti­l­ana and Dr. Davide Mauro for the corpo­rate aspects and lawy­ers Matteo Polla­roli and Chiara Fava­loro for the labor aspects of the transaction.
Giacomo Iannelli of Mazars’ Deal Value Crea­tion team advi­sed the sellers on the manage­ment and orga­niza­tio­nal aspects, while Advi­sor Carlo Conti covered the finan­cial aspects of the tran­sac­tion and Audi­tor Leonardo Gabbia­nelli the tax aspects on behalf of the sellers.

In addi­tion, the notary Ciro De Vivo was involved.

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is one of the world’s leading commer­cial law firms, with offices in more than 40 count­ries in Africa, Asia, Austra­lia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. In Germany, DLA Piper is repre­sen­ted by more than 250 lawy­ers at its offices in Frank­furt, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich. In certain juris­dic­tions, this infor­ma­tion may be conside­red attor­ney adver­ti­sing. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.dlapiper.com

News

Hamburg — The owner family of the Hamburg-based BORCO-Marken-Import Matthie­sen GmbH & Co. KG has sold its company, one of the largest German importers and at the same time produ­cer and marketer of spirits, to the Stock Spirits Group. Stock Spirits Group, which was acqui­red by CVC Capi­tal Part­ners in Novem­ber 2021, is one of the largest produ­cers and market­ers of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Central Europe. The purchase agree­ment was signed at the begin­ning of June 2023. The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

A corre­spon­ding purchase agree­ment was signed in June 2023. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. It is plan­ned that all jobs approx. 140 in the company as well as the name BORCO will be preser­ved. In the past fiscal year, BORCO gene­ra­ted sales of around 140 million euros. The acqui­si­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

The Hamburg-based company BORCO has been family-owned since its foun­da­tion in 1948. BORCO will conti­nue its normal opera­ti­ons and the teams and cont­acts for custo­mers and busi­ness part­ners will also remain unchanged.

Stock Spirits is tradi­tio­nal Euro­pean spirits producer

Stock Spirits Group is one of the largest produ­cers and market­ers of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Central Europe. Foun­ded in 1884 in Trieste, Italy, the company curr­ently has subsi­dia­ries in seven Euro­pean count­ries. Stock Spirits’ current core markets are Poland, Germany, the Czech Repu­blic, Italy, Slova­kia, and Bosnia and Herze­go­vina. Stock Spirits’ port­fo­lio includes over 70 brands, many of which hold market-leading posi­ti­ons in their respec­tive markets. The company employs appro­xi­m­ately 1,200 people and gene­ra­ted sales of appro­xi­m­ately 400 million euros (2022). In Novem­ber 2021, Stock Spirits was acqui­red by CVC Capi­tal Partners.

Jean-Chris­to­phe Coutures, CEO of Stock Spirits, explains, “BORCO has been a leading and respec­ted spirits produ­cer in Germany and Austria for many years. The acqui­si­tion of BORCO is of great importance for our expan­sion stra­tegy in the field of alco­ho­lic bever­a­ges in Europe. At the same time, I am convin­ced that this heralds another successful stage in BORCO’s history. We will build on our strengths: BORCO will bene­fit from better deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties inclu­ding access to our port­fo­lio, and Stock Spirits will gain access to the attrac­tive German market and BORCO’s strong distri­bu­tion network for our selec­ted brands.”

Advi­sor to the Matthie­sen family of owners: Henge­ler Henge­ler Muel­ler for Mueller

M&A: Thomas Meurer (Part­ner), Dr. Katha­rina Hesse (Part­ner, both Lead), Maxi Ludwig, Susanne Marie Struth (both Asso­cia­tes, all Düsseldorf),

Tax Law: Dr. Gunther Wagner (Part­ner, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Hein­richs (Coun­sel, Frankfurt),

Employ­ment Law: Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Vicki Treib­mann (Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Mona Geimer (Asso­ciate, Frankfurt).

The family tribe Uwe Matthie­sen was advi­sed by Dr. Ulf Renzen­brink (Renzen­brink & Part­ner) and the family tribe Bernd Matthie­sen by Dr. Lorenz Holler and Dr. Tobias Polke (VOIGT WUNSCH HOLLER Part­ner­schaft von Rechtsanwälten).

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird has advi­sed Nürn­berg­Messe, one of the world’s 15 largest exhi­bi­tion compa­nies, on the forma­tion of a joint venture with Messe München. This is the largest merger to date of two flag­ship trade shows in Germany.

In the newly foun­ded joint venture, Nürn­berg­Messe and Messe München are combi­ning the two inter­na­tio­nally most important trade fairs for the beverage and liquid food indus­try with Brau­Be­viale in Nurem­berg, the leading capi­tal goods fair for the beverage indus­try in Europe, and drink­tec from Munich, the world’s leading trade fair for the beverage and liquid food indus­try, thus streng­thening their now joint posi­tion on the world market.

Both trade shows will conti­nue to be inde­pen­dent brands, keep their names and remain as events at their respec­tive loca­ti­ons in Munich and Nurem­berg — under the joint umbrella of YONTEX. Accor­ding to Peter Ottmann, CEO Nürn­berg­Messe Group, the two exhi­bi­tion compa­nies are thus taking advan­tage of a unique oppor­tu­nity for both exhi­bi­tion compa­nies to posi­tion them­sel­ves jointly and combine forces on the world market.

Stefan Münch, Bird & Bird Client Rela­ti­onship Part­ner at Nürn­berg­Messe, comm­ents: “Bird & Bird has been advi­sing Nürn­berg­Messe for many years in various count­ries, inclu­ding China, Germany and Greece. Having alre­ady assis­ted them with the acqui­si­tion of T4M — Tech­no­logy for Medi­cal Devices in 2021, we are proud to have been selec­ted by Nürn­berg­Messe as a trus­ted legal advi­sor and indus­try expert for this important joint venture between the two largest Bava­rian exhi­bi­tion centers.”

Consul­tant Nürn­berg­Messe: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Dr. Marc Seeger and Asso­ciate Jan Medele (both Lead), Asso­cia­tes Henrike Camph­au­sen and Felix Spind­ler, LL.M. (all Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Thomas Hey, Asso­ciate Linus Boberg, LL.M. (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Jörg Witting, Asso­ciate Maren Stei­ert (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Joseph Fesen­mair, Coun­sel Niklas Fels, LL.M. and Clarissa Otto (all IP, Munich), Senior Coun­sel Elie Kauf­man, LL.M., Asso­ciate Amelia Weber (both Finance, Frank­furt), Asso­ciate Gökhan Kosak (Commer­cial, Munich), as well as Asso­ciate Aubrey Tao (Corporate/M&A), Part­ner Chris­tine Yiu, Asso­cia­tes Leon Li and Olivia Zhao (all IP, Shanghai)

News

Berlin — Berlin-based payment plat­form Payrails has secu­red a $14.4 million seed funding round for its end-to-end opera­ting system that covers the entire payment proces­sing value chain. The funds will go toward a “product road­map to solve custo­mers’ complex payment chal­lenges and increase go-to-market capa­city to serve the strong custo­mer pipe­line.” So it will promote growth.

The new round of funding, which builds on the $6.4 million seed round comple­ted last year, was led by new inves­tor EQT Ventures. Gene­ral Cata­lyst also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round, along with exis­ting inves­tors Andre­es­sen Horo­witz and HV Capi­tal.

The start-up was foun­ded by Orkhan Abdul­layev, Emre Talay and Nico­las Thou­zeau (photo © Payrails). They previously worked toge­ther in Deli­very Hero’s fintech services divi­sion, where they lear­ned first­hand the issues fast-growing compa­nies can face in today’s digi­tal payments land­scape. Payrails was foun­ded to elimi­nate these pain points and simplify the payments environment.

“We are very proud of what we have built and look forward to the jour­ney ahead. As payment proces­sing beco­mes more complex as orga­niza­ti­ons scale, the need to evolve the payment stack and leverage multi­ple proces­sors to improve perfor­mance is beco­ming an indus­try stan­dard. Leading compa­nies under­stand the stra­te­gic importance of opti­mi­zing payments and are looking for flexi­ble solu­ti­ons that can be adapted to their needs. With EQT Ventures, Gene­ral Cata­lyst, Andre­es­sen Horo­witz and HV Capi­tal, we have found strong part­ners with deep expe­ri­ence in FinTech and payment systems who believe in our long-term vision of enab­ling large global plat­forms to build end-to-end payment solu­ti­ons while we deve­lop the next-gene­ra­tion payment opera­ting system,” said Orkhan Abdul­layev, CEO and co-foun­der of Payrails.

“Enter­prise custo­mers need a high-quality, relia­ble payment product that can manage complex cash flows, incre­asingly in a multipro­ces­sor envi­ron­ment. Deve­lo­ping a scalable product to meet these requi­re­ments is some­thing like the SAP of payments. This requi­res both depth and expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping simi­lar products, and so the Payrails team is ideally posi­tio­ned to meet this chall­enge — the posi­tive feed­back from its live custo­mers is testa­ment to this. We have a passion for payments and for teams that deve­lop cross-gene­ra­tio­nal solu­ti­ons. Payrails addres­ses one of the biggest chal­lenges in payments, and we look forward to being part of Payrails’ jour­ney,” said Kaushik Subra­ma­nian, Part­ner at EQT Ventures.

News

Amsterdam/ Munich/ London — Egeria Capi­tal Manage­ment (“Egeria”) announ­ced that it has ente­red into a condi­tio­nal agree­ment to sell Good­Life Foods (the “Company”) to IK Part­ners (“IK”).

Good­Life Foods, head­quar­te­red in Breda, the Nether­lands, is a leading Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of frozen snacks and meal compon­ents such as spring rolls, appe­ti­zers, burgers and cheese and vege­ta­ble bites. The company offers a wide range of bran­ded and private label products that it sells to retail, food­ser­vice and indus­trial custo­mers throug­hout Europe. Good­Life employs over 700 people in six produc­tion faci­li­ties in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Denmark.

Good­Life was crea­ted through the spin-off of Izico from Wessa­nen in 2014 and has evol­ved into a fully inte­gra­ted, leading Euro­pean plat­form for frozen appe­ti­zers. Under Egeria, the company acqui­red six compa­nies in three diffe­rent count­ries, follo­wed by years of strong orga­nic growth.

Under the exis­ting manage­ment team, Good­Life has grown in strength, and through its part­ner­ship with IK, the company will conti­nue to expand its product port­fo­lio with trendy frozen bites. Good­Life also plans to further acce­le­rate growth within and outside its core regi­ons through orga­nic initia­ti­ves and buy-and-build.

Dirk Van de Walle, CEO of Good­Life Foods, said, “We look forward to the next chap­ter working with the team at IK, which has vast expe­ri­ence in the food sector and can support us in our ambi­tious plans to inter­na­tio­na­lize through orga­nic initia­ti­ves and mergers.”

Remko Hilhorst, Mana­ging Part­ner at IK and advi­sor to the IK IX Fund, said, “We are impres­sed with GoodLife’s track record to date and its ability to conti­nuously evolve its product port­fo­lio to meet the needs of its clients. The company has a diver­si­fied offe­ring with further growth poten­tial to be tapped in the coming years. We look forward to working with Dirk and the team to grow the company on a solid foundation.

Sander van Keken, Part­ner at Egeria, stated, “It was a real plea­sure to work with Dirk, Kamiel, Willem and the entire Good­Life orga­niza­tion. We are proud that under our leader­ship Good­life has evol­ved from an outsour­ced company focu­sed prima­rily on the Bene­lux to a Euro­pean company with a much broa­der range of frozen snacks.”

About Egeria

We are prag­ma­tic and ratio­nal inves­tors who do not shy away from chal­lenges. We always perform at our best when we can add value through colla­bo­ra­tion and growth. We are a value-added part­ner every step of the way — with entre­pre­neurs, manage­ment teams or our large network of indus­try experts.

Our roots are in private equity, which remains the core of our busi­ness today. We have a passion for working with ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs and execu­ti­ves to accom­pany our port­fo­lio compa­nies on their growth and deve­lo­p­ment path — orga­ni­cally as well as through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons. We focus on compa­nies with growth and deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in BENELUX and DACH with enter­prise values up to €350 million.

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About IK Partners

Our unique approach allows us to selec­tively deploy our funds in compa­nies that have demons­tra­ted signi­fi­cant deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in exis­ting and inter­na­tio­nal markets in the busi­ness services, health­care, consu­mer and indus­trial sectors. Our fund offe­ring enables us to support compa­nies at all stages of their invest­ment jour­ney, trans­forming natio­nal cham­pi­ons into inter­na­tio­nal leaders.

By part­ne­ring with us, execu­ti­ves can bene­fit from our pan-Euro­pean invest­ment execu­tion capa­bi­li­ties and access support from our in-house opera­ti­ons, capi­tal markets and ESG teams. These teams are fully inte­gra­ted at every stage of the invest­ment process and help acce­le­rate the growth of our port­fo­lio companies.

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Munich/ Sindel­fin­gen — Finan­cial inves­tor Marondo Capi­tal has acqui­red foun­der Peter Hartmann’s majo­rity stake in SPH AG, a leading specia­list in digi­ta­liza­tion and ERP solu­ti­ons for the fashion indus­try in Germany. OMMAX advi­sed Marondo Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of SPH AG. SPH AG has grown conti­nuously and profi­ta­bly over the last few years, offe­ring the leading and holi­stic service port­fo­lio (IN: OMNICHANNEL and IN:FASHION), the MS Dyna­mics ERP solu­tion in the fashion industry.

SPH AG, head­quar­te­red in Sindel­fin­gen, Germany, is an IT and consul­ting company that has been a force in digi­tiza­tion and ERP solu­ti­ons for the fashion, sports and life­style indus­tries since 1975. The company offers manu­fac­tu­r­ers and retail­ers an inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­tion based on Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365.

OMMAX advi­sed Marondo on commer­cial due dili­gence, analy­zing SPH’s busi­ness model, market dyna­mics, commer­cial perfor­mance compared to key compe­ti­tors, as well as its busi­ness plan and further value crea­tion potential.

Dr. Stefan Elßer, Foun­ding Part­ner of Marondo Capi­tal GmbH, empha­si­zes: “The steady growth of the company and the proven manage­ment have convin­ced us to conti­nue on the chosen growth path in the future. The deep under­stan­ding of the fashion indus­try, the Micro­soft Dyna­mics 365 exper­tise, coupled with the inno­va­tive approa­ches, under­line the opti­mal condi­ti­ons to become the market leader in Europe.”

Isabella Calde­ron Hoyos, Part­ner at OMMAX, commen­ted, “It was a plea­sure to work with Marondo and SPH AG manage­ment during the commer­cial due dili­gence process.”

About Marondo Capital

Marondo is an inno­va­tive invest­ment company for fast-growing, tech­no­logy-focu­sed, next-gene­ra­tion SMEs in DACH in clas­sic German engi­nee­ring disci­pli­nes, such as the indus­trial sectors of medi­cal tech­no­logy, health­care tech­no­lo­gies, soft­ware & IT, envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, and Indus­try 4.0. In addi­tion to substan­tial expan­sion capi­tal, Marondo offers liqui­dity solu­ti­ons for exis­ting share­hol­ders. https://www.marondo.com

About OMMAX

 

News

Hamburg — 1KOMMA5° has become a unicorn! Just 23 months after its incep­tion, the company has reached a $1 billion valua­tion. “With G2VP as our new lead inves­tor and the appoint­ment of Ben Kort­lang as the new Vice Chair­man of our Board, we are proud to be joined by one of the most respec­ted U.S. tech­no­logy inves­tors in the energy tran­si­tion,” the company commen­ted. Inves­tors include G2 Venture Part­ners (G2VP), Haniel, Porsche Ventures, eCapi­tal, Jan Klat­ten and others.

The mission of 1KOMMA5° is to create a world where ever­yone can live fore­ver on wind and sun for free. — 215 million in equity has now been raised for this purpose and the target volume of 150 million euros has been excee­ded due to over­sub­scrip­tion. In addi­tion, a further €215 million was made available in the form of re-share opti­ons that can be paid as part of the purchase price for new acqui­si­ti­ons. This will enable the company to invest up to €430 million, or a total of $470 million, in the verti­cal inte­gra­tion of the value chain and drive forward tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment around Heart­beat and the virtual power plant. drive.

The recent acqui­si­tion of market leader Viasol in Denmark has exten­ded its reach to six markets. “We look forward to expan­ding further in Spain, Italy, Austria and Switz­er­land by the end of 2023. By ente­ring these markets, we can provide more custo­mers with sustainable energy solu­ti­ons and drive the deve­lo­p­ment of a clea­ner, gree­ner future,” the company commented.

https://www.1komma5grad.com

 

News

Ludwigs­ha­fen, Germany — BVC leads DePoly’s CHF 12.3 million seed finan­cing round toge­ther with Wing­man Ventures, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Beiers­dorf, Infi­nity Recy­cling, CIECH Ventures, Angel Invest and others. Proceeds from the finan­cing round will enable DePoly to acce­le­rate the scaling and deve­lo­p­ment of its depo­ly­me­riza­tion process, leading to the cons­truc­tion of a demons­tra­tion plant expec­ted to be opera­tio­nal in 2024.

Sion, Switz­er­land-based startup DePoly, foun­ded in 2020 by Saman­tha Ander­son, Bardiya Valiz­adeh and Chris­to­pher Ireland, is deve­lo­ping “an inno­va­tive chemi­cal recy­cling tech­no­logy.” The fled­gling company’s tech­no­logy can “convert mixed and diffi­cult-to-recy­cle consu­mer and indus­trial waste streams, for exam­ple, mixed plas­tics, mixed paints, soiled plas­tic waste, and poly­es­ter-based fabrics and fibers back into their primary raw materials.”

Plas­tics are an essen­tial part of ever­y­day life. But only about 10 percent is recy­cled; the majo­rity is inci­ne­ra­ted or land­fil­led. As brand owners incre­asingly seek higher recy­cled content in their products, demand for advan­ced recy­cling tech­no­lo­gies is expec­ted to increase. DePoly offers a unique solu­tion to meet this need.

“Our tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to funda­men­tally change the life­cy­cle of PET plas­tics and support global efforts to address climate change. We are very plea­sed that BASF Venture Capi­tal and other stra­te­gic inves­tors are support­ing us in this round to imple­ment our solu­tion on a larger scale,” said Saman­tha Ander­son (pictu­red), CEO and co-foun­der of DePoly.

BASF is stri­ving to make the tran­si­tion to a circu­lar economy by making grea­ter use of recy­cled and rene­wa­ble raw mate­ri­als, desig­ning new mate­rial cycles and deve­lo­ping new busi­ness models. BASF is ther­e­fore imple­men­ting a circu­lar economy program. The company aims to double its sales of circu­lar economy solu­ti­ons to €17 billion by 2030. One exam­ple of these efforts is BASF’s Chem­Cy­cling® busi­ness. The invest­ment in DePoly is a further commit­ment to support this goal.

“To truly make the circu­lar economy for plas­tics a reality, we need to change the way we do busi­ness, and that requi­res a concer­ted effort from multi­ple stake­hol­ders. DePoly’s tech­no­logy offers a promi­sing solu­tion to address the global problem of plas­tic waste, while helping to reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons gene­ra­ted by the produc­tion of virgin plas­tics. We are plea­sed to support the company in crea­ting a more sustainable future,” said Markus Soli­bi­eda, Mana­ging Direc­tor at BASF Venture Capi­tal.

News

Munich/ Hamburg — hema.to has set itself the task of auto­ma­ting and fully objec­ti­fy­ing the clini­cal analy­sis of blood data — so-called cyto­me­try — to enable perso­na­li­zed treat­ment for each person’s indi­vi­dual immune system. Elaia Part­ners, Heal Capi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) support the mission of hema.to with a seed finan­cing round of 3.6 million euros. hema.to will use the funding to scale its AI decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers in Euro­pean labo­ra­to­ries and provide an initial demons­tra­tion of signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment in diagno­stic quality.

In the diagno­sis of blood cancers and other immune dise­a­ses by cyto­me­try, specia­li­zed analysts and physi­ci­ans today have to evaluate abstract, high-dimen­sio­nal point clouds based on their expe­ri­ence and trai­ning. This takes a lot of valuable time (between a few minu­tes and hours per sample, about 20 minu­tes on average), which is a problem given the enorm­ous and incre­asing shortage of quali­fied labo­ra­tory person­nel. Aside from this incre­asing pres­sure on lab staff:inside, this process is noto­riously subjec­tive, with indi­vi­dual staff analy­ses typi­cally diffe­ring by 30%.hema.to aims to drama­ti­cally improve this process with its state-of-the-art, cloud-based machine lear­ning plat­form, helping labs manage their casel­oads, helping lab staff cope with incre­asing demand, provi­ding an objec­tive second opinion to any sick person, and provi­ding new insights to physi­ci­ans to tailor treat­ment to pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.

On a mission to help labo­ra­to­ries world­wide with their clini­cal cyto­me­try workflows

“Europe’s largest leuk­emia lab had an urgent need to acce­le­rate its inter­nal analy­sis work­flows and worked with us to deve­lop the world’s first AI proto­type. After the successful demons­tra­tion of AI-assis­ted clini­cal cyto­me­try, we found that all labo­ra­to­ries shared the same manual work­flows and pain points. We foun­ded hema.to two years ago to support labo­ra­to­ries world­wide in their clini­cal cyto­me­try work­flows,” said Kars­ten Mier­mans, co-foun­der and CEO of hema.to .

Based on a large and growing data­base of cyto­me­try data from multi­ple sources, hema.to has deve­lo­ped algo­rithms that can predict biomar­kers for dise­ase directly from raw blood meter data. This pres­ents a previously unsol­ved chall­enge, as the lack of stan­dar­di­zed measu­re­ment proto­cols leads to complex data varia­ti­ons that prevent auto­ma­tion. hema.to specia­li­zes in combi­ning data from multi­ple sources to iden­tify predic­tive biomar­kers for dise­ase. The team has alre­ady used this tech­no­logy in clini­cal routine for decis­ion support in two labo­ra­to­ries — the Insti­tute of Hema­topa­tho­logy in Hamburg and the Result Labo­ra­tory Dord­recht — and now plans to increase the number of user:s and supported dise­ase patterns as well as to further improve the quality of the AI models.

hema.to is based in Munich, Germany, and is led by a team of data science experts who have worked closely toge­ther for years before hema.to was foun­ded. Since its incep­tion about two years ago, they have made their product CE-IVD compli­ant, conduc­ted a clini­cal trial with four centers, and intro­du­ced the product into clini­cal prac­tice in two labo­ra­to­ries. With the second round of funding now raised, the team will be signi­fi­cantly expan­ded, with a focus on AI and soft­ware engi­neers for product deve­lo­p­ment, but also immu­no­logy and cyto­me­try specia­lists, busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and partnerships.

“The foun­ding team, consis­ting of three former entre­pre­neurs of the same company with three PhD profiles, convin­ced us and is now in the scaling phase. I am deligh­ted that hema.to is Elaia’s first invest­ment in Germany,” says Anne-Sophie Carrese, Mana­ging Part­ner at Elaia Part­ners, photo.

About hema.to

hema.to is an easy-to-use clini­cal decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers based on cyto­me­try data and using AI. hema.to acce­le­ra­tes and impro­ves the diagno­stic work­flow and thus helps both diagno­sti­ci­ans and pati­ents. hema.to is CE-IVD and FDA-regis­tered and is alre­ady routi­nely used by leading hema­to­logy labo­ra­to­ries. Foun­ded in 2021, hema.to’s mission is to fully objec­tify clini­cal analy­sis of cyto­me­try data so physi­ci­ans can tailor treat­ment to their pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.vwww.hema.to

About Elaia Partners

Elaia is a top-tier Euro­pean VC firm with a strong tech­no­logy DNA. We support tech disrup­t­ors with global ambi­ti­ons from early stage to growth. Over the past 20 years, we have been commit­ted to combi­ning high perfor­mance with values.
We are proud to be an active part­ner of over 100 start­ups, inclu­ding success stories such as Criteo (Nasdaq), Orches­tra Networks (acqui­red by Tibco), Volterra (acqui­red by F5), Mirakl (valued at $3.5 billion in Series E), and Shift Tech­no­logy (valued at over $1 billion in Series D). www.elaia.com

About Heal Capital

Heal Capi­tal is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm that invests in early and growth-stage tech­no­logy-based health­care compa­nies. The 100 million euro fund was initia­ted and finan­ced by leading private health insu­r­ers to actively drive inno­va­tion in health­care. www.healcapital.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 160 companies.
Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

 

 

News

Munich — Corpo­rate law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has advi­sed MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE on the sale of its gas turbine busi­ness to China’s CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine Co Ltd (GHGT) in a carve-out and asset deal. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals and the satis­fac­tion of other closing condi­ti­ons. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Beyond the sale, both compa­nies have concluded long-term supply and service agree­ments and will coope­rate closely in the future. — To date, MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons has been produ­cing and servicing MGT gas turbi­nes of up to 8 mega­watts in size at its sites in Ober­hau­sen and Zurich for use as mecha­ni­cal drives or for power generation.

MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE, head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg, Germany, is a leading global supplier of large-bore diesel and gas engi­nes and turbo­ma­chi­nery. The product port­fo­lio includes two- and four-stroke engi­nes for marine and statio­nary appli­ca­ti­ons, turbo­char­gers and propel­lers, as well as gas and steam turbi­nes, compres­sors and chemi­cal reac­tors. The company employs around 14,000 people at more than 120 loca­ti­ons worldwide.

Head­quar­te­red in Harbin, China, GHGT deve­lops small and medium-sized gas turbi­nes as well as high-perfor­mance and combus­tion tech­no­lo­gies. The company is a subsi­diary of China State Ship­buil­ding Corpo­ra­tion (CSSC) and employs more than 700 people worldwide.

GOF had advi­sed MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons, among others, on the acqui­si­tion of H‑TEC SYSTEMS GmbH in 2021.

Legal advi­sors MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE:

Inhouse MAN Energy Solu­ti­ons SE: Dr. Martin Söhn­gen, LL.M. (Deputy Gene­ral Coun­sel and Head of Corpo­rate, Compe­ti­tion and M&A)

Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich: Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, M&A, Lead), Thomas Becker, LL.M. (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Commercial), Maxi­mi­lian Spind­ler, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate), Dr. Marcel Schmidt (Senior Asso­ciate), Sophie Stef­fen (Asso­ciate; all M&A)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Labor Law)

Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse, Dr. Roland Stein, Dr. Leonard Frei­herr von Rummel, LL.M. (all antitrust/foreign trade law)

held jagut­tis, Colo­gne: Dr. Malte Jagut­tis, Dr. Bernard Altpe­ter (Coun­sel; both Public Law/Subsidies)

Fangda Part­ners, Beijing: Jack Li (Chinese law)

Walder Wyss, Zurich: Florian Gunz Nieder­mann, Dr. Irène Suter-Sieber; Asso­ciate: Sabrina Kunz (all Swiss law)

News

Frank­furt am Main/Greven — Frank­furt-based private equity firm VR Equi­typ­art­ner has reached a binding agree­ment to sell its signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Grone­weg Group (Greven), a leading global specia­list in high-quality freeze-dried and air-dried herbs, vege­ta­bles and fruits. The merger with U.S.-based Thrive Foods will create a strong and compe­ti­tive player in food freeze-drying — from fruits, vege­ta­bles and spices to pet food and probio­tics. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons, inclu­ding regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the contract.

Grone­weg was foun­ded in 1969 and is a global player in freeze-dried herbs. The wide range of products includes herbs, spices, vege­ta­bles and fruits. With an inter­na­tio­nal sales team at six loca­ti­ons in Europe, North America and Latin America, the Grone­weg Group has a broad distri­bu­tion network. Groneweg’s know-how covers the entire value chain, from the high-quality raw mate­ri­als secu­red in contract farming, through prepa­ra­tion, drying and further proces­sing, to the sale of the finis­hed products. Strict inter­nal test­ing systems and inten­sive coope­ra­tion with suppli­ers have also enab­led the company to conti­nu­ally expand its market position.

Thrive Foods is a manu­fac­tu­rer of freeze-dried products such as fruits and vege­ta­bles, prote­ins, pet foods, probio­tics, enzy­mes and prepared foods. The company curr­ently has loca­ti­ons in Mode­sto, Cali­for­nia; Ameri­can Fork, Utah; and Albion, New York.

The sellers of the Grone­weg Group are Ursula Grone­weg with her two daugh­ters and VR Equi­typ­art­ner. In the course of the tran­sac­tion with the Ameri­can company Thrive Foods, they are giving up their shares in full.

“We are happy about this next important step in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company. I am sure our company foun­der Dieter Grone­weg would have been deligh­ted to see his life’s work as part of this new group of compa­nies revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the market,” says Ursula Grone­weg. Grone­weg Mana­ging Direc­tor Karl-Heinz Waszik adds: “Over the past few years, we have imple­men­ted a strin­gent growth stra­tegy with our top manage­ment and share­hol­ders and worked perma­nently on the deve­lo­p­ment of new products. This is now paying off: Grone­weg Group is a perfect part­ner for our common goals with Thrive Foods.”

VR Equi­typ­art­ner had acqui­red a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake in Novem­ber 2017. Since then, a consis­tent growth stra­tegy has been pursued, with market entry in further Euro­pean count­ries, an expan­sion of the company’s presence throug­hout North America and the further acqui­si­tion of shares in compa­nies in Latin America. In addi­tion, the product range has been expan­ded and new stra­te­gic supply part­ner­ships have ensu­red a high level of supply capa­bi­lity, which has proved very successful, parti­cu­larly in the chal­len­ging past years.

“We have achie­ved a lot in the five years we have been toge­ther with the foun­ding family,” says Peter Sachse (photo), mana­ging direc­tor of VR Equi­typ­art­ner. “It is hard to imagine a better stra­te­gic fit than the acqui­si­tion of Grone­weg by Thrive Foods. In addi­tion to the geogra­phi­cal expan­sion, the two compa­nies comple­ment each other perfectly in terms of product ranges and asso­cia­ted know-how. From our perspec­tive, this is a forward-looking decis­ion with the best pros­pects for further growth.”

About VR Equitypartner

VR Equi­typ­art­ner is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in a goal-orien­ted manner and with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the stra­te­gic solu­tion of complex finan­cing issues. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties include growth and expan­sion finan­cing, corpo­rate succes­sion or share­hol­der chan­ges. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. As a subsi­diary of DZ BANK, the central insti­tu­tion of the coope­ra­tive banks in Germany, VR Equi­typ­art­ner consis­t­ently puts the sustaina­bi­lity of corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment ahead of short-term exit thin­king. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 60 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 400 million.
www.vrep.de.

The tran­sac­tion team of VR Equi­typ­art­ner: Tim Feld, Hedwig Holken­brink, Daniel Seifert, Jens Osthoff

Advi­sor VR Equitypartner:

M&A: Square­field (Dr. Boris Hippel, Dorian Bindemann)

Finance: Grant Thorn­ton (Klaus Schaldt, Johan­nes Kost, Felix Bickel Carioni)

Tax: Grant Thorn­ton (Dr. Stefan Hahn, Dr. Nico­las Brüggen)

Legal: Noerr (Dr. Martin Neuhaus, Gerrit Henze, Florian Döpking, Hannah Best­ing, Phil­ipp Buchs, Clau­dia Rinkens)

 

News

Nuremberg/ Augs­burg — Nurem­berg-based IT moni­to­ring specia­list Paess­ler AG (“Paess­ler”) has acqui­red all shares in Augs­burg-based start-up Qbilon. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the volume of the deal.

The start-up was foun­ded in 2019 by Dr. Mela­nie Langer­meier, Dr. Simon Lohmül­ler, Dr. Thomas Dries­sen and Dr. Julian Kien­ber­ger as part of an EXIST rese­arch trans­fer project at the Univer­sity of Augs­burg and will conti­nue to be head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg after the sale.

With its IT visi­bi­lity plat­form, Qbilon enables the inte­gra­tion of a wide range of data sources, inclu­ding cloud plat­forms such as AWS or Azure, IT moni­to­ring and manage­ment solu­ti­ons such as Paess­ler PRTG or Dyna­trace, and virtua­liza­tion tools such as vSphere. Custo­mers can also import gene­ric data such as CSV or JSON to easily inte­grate older infor­ma­tion. For compa­nies, this means full trans­pa­rency of their entire IT envi­ron­ment and more resi­li­ence in their IT opera­ti­ons, with the choice between cloud and on-premi­ses solu­ti­ons. Qbilon’s custo­mers include major compa­nies in the auto­mo­tive, utili­ties and manu­fac­tu­ring industries.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1997, Paess­ler has been provi­ding moni­to­ring solu­ti­ons for compa­nies of diffe­rent indus­tries and sizes, ranging from small busi­nesses and medium-sized compa­nies to large corpo­ra­ti­ons. With its product, the company reaches more than 500,000 users in around 170 count­ries and curr­ently has 350 employees from more than 25 countries.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the foun­ders, Bayern Kapi­tal and other inves­tors with the follo­wing Munich team:

Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
David Lübke­meier, LL.M. (UCL) (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)

Advi­sors Paess­ler AG: Rödl & Part­ner in Nuremberg
Lead manage­ment: Patrick Satzinger

News

Munich — OMMAX advi­sed Innova Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of R‑GOL, a leading supplier of soccer boots and sport­ing goods based in Ostróda, Poland, active in the CEE market. In recent years, R‑GOL has grown steadily and profi­ta­bly, expan­ding its online presence to eleven countries.

OMMAX supported Innova Capi­tal with compre­hen­sive digi­tal, tech­ni­cal and data due dili­gence. This analy­sis included an in-depth exami­na­tion of R‑GOL’s busi­ness model, digi­tal market dyna­mics, custo­mer metrics, digi­tal capa­bi­li­ties, and tech­no­logy and data capa­bi­li­ties, and included a criti­cal assess­ment of the busi­ness plan and digi­tal value crea­tion initiatives.

Max Kneissl, Part­ner at OMMAX, comm­ents, “R‑GOL has had an impres­sive growth story over the last few years and has shown great perfor­mance across all chan­nels, making it a stand­out player in the specia­li­zed soccer equip­ment space in CEE. We would like to congra­tu­late the manage­ment team of Innova Capi­tal and R‑GOL on the successful partnership.”

About Innova Capital

Our expe­ri­ence can acce­le­rate your success. — Innova Capi­tal belie­ves in longer-term invest­ments to create lasting value through a finely tuned part­ner­ship with busi­ness owners, even when they decide to retire or sell their majo­rity stake. In this way, we create a powerful combi­na­tion of the founder’s know­ledge and expe­ri­ence with Innova’s proven exper­tise in company building.
https://innovacap.com

 

News

Tübingen/ Hamburg — German health­care specia­list SHS Capi­tal is selling its stake in Spie­gel­berg to Luciole Medi­cal AG. Spie­gel­berg, a medi­cal tech­no­logy company based in Hamburg, Germany, deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes highly specia­li­zed cathe­ters and measu­ring probes for neuro­sur­gi­cal appli­ca­ti­ons in the brain and has been able to grow stron­gly in recent years. Luciole Medi­cal AG, which specia­li­zes in cere­bral moni­to­ring and measu­re­ment of oxygen satu­ra­tion in the brain, expands its product range with the acqui­si­tion of Spiegelberg

Foun­ded in 1986, Spie­gel­berg has become a reco­gni­zed provi­der in the field of intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment. Signi­fi­cant growth was gene­ra­ted during the holding period of SHS. Today, the company is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of ICP probes for intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment as well as the produc­tion of high-quality cathe­ters for ventri­cu­lar drai­nage, subdu­ral drai­nage or lumbar drai­nage and matching exter­nal ventri­cu­lar drai­nage (EVD) sets. The company works with reco­gni­zed rese­arch insti­tu­tes as well as leading clinics and specia­lists in neuro­sur­gery to deve­lop products that are best tail­o­red to the patient.

With Luciole Medi­cal AG, the company now has the oppor­tu­nity to leverage stra­te­gic syner­gies, both in product deve­lo­p­ment and sales. The company’s products comple­ment each other ideally, and the sales chan­nels and target custo­mers with neuro­cli­nics, hospi­tals and specialty distri­bu­tors are almost iden­ti­cal. Toge­ther, the compa­nies have the oppor­tu­nity to indi­vi­dua­lize and opti­mize compre­hen­sive brain func­tion monitoring.

“We are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in Luciole Medi­cal AG that will enable us to offer further inno­va­tive products on the market and thus achieve an even better market posi­tion,” said Spie­gel­berg CEO Stefan Paschko.

“Spie­gel­berg can be descri­bed as the perfect addi­tion to our product port­fo­lio. The signi­fi­cant growth of the company, the profi­ta­ble core busi­ness, but also the strong inter­na­tio­nal presence of the company convin­ced us. We are looking forward to the upco­ming coope­ra­tion and the nume­rous oppor­tu­ni­ties we will exploit toge­ther,” explains Luciole CEO Phil­ippe Dro.

“We are plea­sed to now trans­fer our shares in Spie­gel­berg to a suita­ble part­ner after seve­ral successful years of colla­bo­ra­tion. This merger is the ideal synergy of two inno­va­tive compa­nies that will enhance both market presence and treat­ment opti­ons in the field of cere­bral health of the brain,” says SHS Mana­ging Direc­tor Uwe Stein­ba­cher.

About Spie­gel­berg

The medi­cal tech­no­logy company Spie­gel­berg GmbH & Co KG, based in Hamburg, was foun­ded in 1986 by Dr. Andreas Spie­gel­berg. Spie­gel­berg deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and markets products for intra­cra­nial pres­sure measu­re­ment, cere­bro­s­pi­nal fluid drai­nage and IAP measu­re­ment in more than sixty count­ries. The focus here is on relia­bi­lity, robust­ness and ease of use, so that work is made easier and the patient’s treat­ment takes center stage. www.spiegelberg.de

About SHS Gesell­schaft für Betei­li­gungs­ma­nage­ment mbH

SHS, an indus­try inves­tor, is a private equity firm foun­ded in 1993 that makes invest­ments in health­care compa­nies in Europe. The focus of invest­ments is on expan­sion finan­cing, share­hol­der chan­ges and succes­sion situa­tions. “Buil­ding Euro­pean Health­care Cham­pi­ons” is the invest­ment philo­so­phy accor­ding to which SHS finan­ces and deve­lops port­fo­lio compa­nies. The Tübin­gen-based inves­tor is taking both mino­rity and majo­rity stakes. SHS funds’ natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors include pension funds, funds of funds, foun­da­ti­ons, family offices, stra­te­gic inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs and the SHS manage­ment team. The equity or equity-like invest­ment of the AIF is up to €40 million. Volu­mes beyond this can be imple­men­ted with a network of co-inves­tors. In its invest­ment decis­i­ons, SHS places strong empha­sis on the conside­ra­tion of ESG aspects and has ther­e­fore commit­ted itself to the guide­lines of the UN PRI. SHS is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which was laun­ched in 2022 and has a volume of appro­xi­m­ately € 250m.
www.shs-capital.eu

About Luciola Medical

Luciole Medi­cal AG was foun­ded in Zurich, Switz­er­land and has rese­ar­ched and deve­lo­ped a deep under­stan­ding of brain hemo­dy­na­mics to the field of brain moni­to­ring. The company is led by an expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and board of expe­ri­en­ced medi­cal tech­no­logy execu­ti­ves and entre­pre­neurs. www.luciolemedical.com

 

News

Hamburg — YPOG provi­ded legal and tax advice to Hamburg-based senior living opera­tor lively on another finan­cing round. Exis­ting exis­ting inves­tors such as neworld have signi­fi­cantly increased their parti­ci­pa­tion, and this time Michael Maas has joined as an inves­tor for the first time.

lively is an opera­tor for assis­ted living with and without care degree. Foun­ded in 2021 by Constan­tin Rehberg and Chris­tina Kainz, the company is using the new capi­tal to push the further expan­sion of lively. The capi­tal raised will be used to drive the digi­tal plat­form, staff expan­sion and site expansion.

YPOG-Berater:innen had alre­ady advi­sed lively on the invest­ment by the invest­ment company neworld.

Consul­tant lively: YPOG
Dr. Adrian Haase, Photo (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Hamburg Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Alex­an­dra Stei­fen­sand (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

News

Munich — Vyoma GmbH, an emer­ging Munich-based company in the field of Space Situa­tio­nal Aware­nesss (SSA) and Space Traf­fic Manage­ment (STM), was again accom­pa­nied by Green­Gate Part­ners in an exten­ded seed finan­cing round of €8.5 million. The inves­tor is Safran Corpo­rate Ventures, the venture capi­tal arm of the Safran Group, a global tech­no­logy company in the aero­space, defense and secu­rity sectors.

Vyoma is deve­lo­ping a breakth­rough system for moni­to­ring space objects and auto­ma­ted satel­lite opera­ti­ons services to ensure the secu­rity of Europe’s space assets. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate Vyoma’s growth and deepen its part­ner­ship with Safran Corpo­rate Ventures to explore sensor diver­sity and data fusion.

The corpo­rate team of Green­Gate Part­ners specia­li­zes in the VC indus­try, among other things, and has alre­ady accom­pa­nied the young and agile company since the seed round.

Advi­sor Vyoma: Green­Gate Part­ners Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH
Dr. Tobias Schön­haar, LL.M. (Bond) (Partner/Corporate) Marc René Spitz, LL.M. (USC) (Partner/Corporate)
Dr. Leonie Singer, LL.M. (Sydney) (Associate/Corporate)

About Vyoma

Vyoma GmbH is a Munich-based company specia­li­zing in Space Situa­tio­nal Aware­ness (SSA) and Space Traf­fic Manage­ment (STM). Foun­ded in 2020, the company deve­lops inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for moni­to­ring space objects and auto­ma­ting satel­lite opera­ti­ons services to ensure safety and effi­ci­ency in space.

Vyoma provi­des real-time data for space moni­to­ring in busy orbits around the Earth. The goal is to revo­lu­tio­nize the space indus­try and contri­bute to Europe’s geostra­te­gic auto­nomy and space sove­reig­nty. https://www.vyoma.space

About Green­Gate Partners

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

News

Munich — OMMAX assis­ted Uniges­tion SA in the acqui­si­tion of Sprin­ger Fach­me­dien München and the entire mobi­lity educa­tion and trai­ning busi­ness of Sprin­ger Nature, resul­ting in the forma­tion of TecVia Group. TecVia is a leading provi­der of educa­tion and trai­ning solu­ti­ons in the mobi­lity sector with head­quar­ters in Munich. In prepa­ra­tion for the acqui­si­tion of Sprin­ger Nature’s mobi­lity educa­tion and trai­ning busi­ness, OMMAX supported Uniges­tion with tech­ni­cal due diligence.

Tech­ni­cal due dili­gence analy­zed and evalua­ted the tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties and set-up in the core markets of Germany and France. The analy­ses included modu­les such as tech­no­logy and product stra­tegy, system archi­tec­ture, soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment life­cy­cle, orga­niza­tio­nal setup and IT security.

“Uniges­tion was extre­mely plea­sed with the compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal analy­sis OMMAX provi­ded, which faci­li­ta­ted the successful acqui­si­tion of TecVia. The work of the Tech Due Dili­gence team provi­ded an excel­lent over­view of the current and future tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties of the company’s soft­ware,” said Phil­ipp Scheier, Part­ner at Unigestion.

Dr. Stefan Sambol (photo © OMMAX), co-foun­der and part­ner at OMMAX, commen­ted: “We congra­tu­late Uniges­tion on the successful acqui­si­tion of TecVia. It was a great plea­sure to work toge­ther on this tech due diligence! ”

About UNIGESTION

Uniges­tion was foun­ded in 1971 and is head­quar­te­red in Geneva. It has a global presence in Europe, North America and Asia. It is an inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed asset manage­ment firm that provi­des inno­va­tive, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons to inves­tors worldwide.

Its invest­ment approach is divi­ded into three areas of exper­tise: Private Equity, Equi­ties and Multi Asset & Wealth Manage­ment. Speci­fi­cally, risk manage­ment is inte­gra­ted into every stage of their invest­ment process. www.unigestion.com

About TecVia

TecVia Group is the leading Euro­pean provi­der of content and soft­ware solu­ti­ons for driving schools and driving license training.

Their compre­hen­sive product suite includes cutting-edge tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons such as cloud-based ERP systems desi­gned speci­fi­cally for school driving, coupled with instruc­tional soft­ware for instruc­tors and a self-lear­ning app for student drivers. The company also offers a state-of-the-art driving simu­la­tor and produ­ces high-quality content for blen­ded inter­nal lear­ning. The product range is comple­men­ted by indus­try maga­zi­nes, inclu­ding digi­tal media that are well-known in the German mobi­lity sector.

About OMMAX

Ommax is a digi­tal tran­sac­tion advi­sory firm specia­li­zing in digi­tal and data-driven growth for leading compa­nies and private equity firms. www.ommax-digital.com

 

 

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

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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.

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