ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin — A Berlin team of Deloitte Legal led by Dr. Julia Peter­sen (Part­ner) advi­sed capi­ton V GmbH & Co Betei­li­gungs KG on the sale of Raith GmbH and AEMtec GmbH and their subsi­dia­ries to the newly estab­lished “capi­ton Quan­tum” fund.

Raith and AEMtec are leading compa­nies in the field of indus­trial tech­no­logy. Under capiton’s owner­ship, both compa­nies have focu­sed on capa­city expan­sion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and impro­ving their tech­no­logy offe­ring in recent years. Toge­ther with the respec­tive manage­ment teams, who will remain on board after the tran­sac­tion, a stra­tegy of orga­nic growth and addi­tio­nal acqui­si­ti­ons will conti­nue to be pursued.

Chris­toph Karbenk, Mana­ging Part­ner at capi­ton (Photo © Capi­ton): “On behalf of the entire capi­ton team, I would like to thank the group of inves­tors who supported us in this tran­sac­tion, as well as the manage­ment teams who have done an outstan­ding job to date. We are very exci­ted to conti­nue this successful part­ner­ship and take both compa­nies to the next level. The trans- action gene­ra­tes strong returns for our exis­ting capi­ton V LPs, who have been left free to either gene­rate liqui­dity or parti­ci­pate in the next chap­ter of both companies.”

In the context of the tran­sac­tion, the Deloitte Legal team was respon­si­ble in parti­cu­lar for the prepa­ra­tion of a compre­hen­sive legal fact­book as well as the execu­tion of the multi­na­tio­nal legal due dili­gence regar­ding the compa­nies of the Raith and AEMtec Group. Under the leader­ship of Deloitte Legal, legal advi­sors from China, the USA and the Nether­lands were invol­ved in the due dili­gence. The finan­cial due dili­gence was perfor­med by Deloitte Finan­cial Advisory.

Advi­sor Capi­ton: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Julia Peter­sen (lead), Dr. Moritz Erkel, Anna Reshe­tina-Kork­hova, Dr. Klaus Pilz (all Corpo­rate M&A, Berlin), Stefan Weste (Labor Law, Berlin).
Deloitte Finan­cial Advisory:
Kars­ten Holl­asch, Roland Basler, Caro­lin Kopy­ciok, Nastas­sja Nier­ling, Tim Geil­ker (all Finan­cial Advi­sory, Düssel­dorf; hand­ling Raith Finan­cial Due Dili­gence); Jens Schulze-Velling­hau­sen, Dirk Uhl, Chris­tof Schrei­ber, Alex­an­der Schmidt, Fabian Hansen, Fedor Ivanov (all Finan­cial Advi­sory, Hamburg; hand­ling AEMtec Finan­cial Due Diligence).

Other advi­sors: UBS Invest­ment Bank, Stephen­son Harwood LLP, P+P Pöllath, BMH Bräu­ti­gam, Ashurst LLP, Ernst & Young, Houli­han Lokey and Roland Berger

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery is advi­sing Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Dutch soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer NetRom Holding B.V. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in Q1 2023.

McDer­mott consis­t­ently advi­ses Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on tran­sac­tions in the tech­no­logy sector. For exam­ple, the acqui­si­tion of cyber­se­cu­rity company Avira for around 165 million euros and its sale for around 360 million dollars to Norton­Li­feL­ock Inc. and on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity inte­rest in the Content­serv Group.

Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners focu­ses on inves­t­ing in fast-growing, foun­der-led compa­nies in Europe. The tech­no­logy team is conside­red a market leader in inves­t­ing in lower middle market compa­nies with a focus on soft­ware, data/analytics, cyber­se­cu­rity and fintech/payment. Since 2001, Invest­corp has raised more than $1.5 billion to invest in tech­no­logy companies.

Advi­sors to Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt

Dr. Michael Cziesla (Photo © McDer­mott Will & Emery), Norman Wasse, LL.M. (both Corporate/M&A, lead), Dr. Heiko Kermer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law); Asso­ciate: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim (Corporate/M&A)
Orange Clover (Nether­lands)
Mușat și Asociații (Roma­nia)

 

News

Berlin — Raue is expan­ding its corpo­rate and tran­sac­tional team with the addi­tion of Dr. Nadine Hartung (photo © Raue) as Equity Part­ner on March 1, 2023. Dr. Nadine Hartung specia­li­zes in corpo­rate law and M&A advice in the health­care sector and was previously a part­ner at McDer­mott Will & Emery in Munich.

Dr. Nadine Hartung advi­ses natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors as well as health­care provi­ders on corpo­rate law, M&A tran­sac­tions, contract draf­ting and corpo­rate gover­nance and compli­ance issues. Her clients include private equity and venture capi­tal funds, medi­cal care centers (MVZ), opera­tors of hospi­tals and nursing homes, as well as phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies and medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­r­ers. It is recom­men­ded by Legal 500, Best Lawy­ers and Handelsblatt.

Dr. Nadine Hartung studied and recei­ved her docto­rate in Marburg. From 2010 to 2016, she worked at Henge­ler Muel­ler in Berlin and Frank­furt am Main before joining McDer­mott Will & Emery LLP in 2016. In 2013/2014, she spent a second­ment in the M&A team of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York.

Dr. Hartung explains the reasons for her move to Raue: “Raue offers nume­rous syner­gies to my advi­sory prac­tice, espe­ci­ally in corpo­rate law and VC advi­sory as well as in health­care law and digi­tal economy. I look forward to working with my colle­agues at Raue to further expand tran­sac­tional advice focu­sed on the health­care sector in particular.”

Raue Mana­ging Part­ner Dr. Wolf­ram Hertel: “We are very plea­sed that Dr. Hartung has joined us. With her, we have found an expe­ri­en­ced part­ner perso­na­lity who has deve­lo­ped an indus­try-focu­sed advi­sory offe­ring — this fits perfectly with our own stra­te­gic approach. We conti­nue to focus on growth in advi­sing regu­la­ted indus­tries and technologies.”

Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle, Part­ner at Raue in the Corpo­rate and M&A prac­tice, says of Dr. Hartung’s arri­val: “Dr. Hartung is an excel­lent addi­tion to our private equity / venture capi­tal advi­sory prac­tice. With her, we will further increase our exper­tise in advi­sing tran­sac­tions, in parti­cu­lar also for natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors in the health­care industry.”

Dr. Katha­rina Wodarz, part­ner at Raue in the health­care sector adds: “Dr. Nadine Hartung is an almost ideal addi­tion for us. She has known the health­care sector for many years and is fami­liar with its complex regu­la­tion. This allows for seam­less colla­bo­ra­tion with our strong regu­la­tory team when advi­sing on new busi­ness models and transactions.”

With the addi­tion of Dr. Nadine Hartung, Raue’s Corporate/M&A, PE/VC prac­tice compri­ses a total of 14 profes­sio­nals (six equity part­ners, one coun­sel, one senior asso­ciate, one of coun­sel and five associates).

About RAUE

Raue is an inter­na­tio­nally active law firm based in Berlin. She provi­des compre­hen­sive advice to natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies and public enti­ties on invest­ment projects, tran­sac­tions, regu­la­tory issues and conten­tious dispu­tes. www.raue.com.

News

Landshut/ Nurem­berg — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, and the seed fund BORN2GROW, which specia­li­zes in high-growth start-ups in pionee­ring tech­no­lo­gies, are jointly inves­t­ing in trap­lin­ked. The Nurem­berg-based start-up deve­lops perma­nent moni­to­ring systems and networked traps for the control and moni­to­ring of rats, mice, insects and other pests. Seve­ral busi­ness angels are also invol­ved in the invest­ment, which totals EUR 2.3 million.

trap­lin­ked GmbH was foun­ded in 2019 by Tim Kirch­hof in Nurem­berg and produ­ces remo­tely moni­to­red auto­ma­tic pest traps as well as accom­pany­ing soft­ware that covers all the office work of a pest control­ler, from infe­sta­tion and treat­ment docu­men­ta­tion to deploy­ment route plan­ning and moni­to­ring to invoi­cing. The idea for the start-up matu­red while the foun­der was a student trai­nee at a pest control company. Here Kirch­hof reco­gni­zed the enorm­ous poten­tial for auto­ma­ting work proces­ses, which lay parti­cu­larly in the daily mono­to­nous work with trap boxes in which no catches were recorded.

With the combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy, trap­lin­ked has since contri­bu­ted signi­fi­cantly to the digi­tiza­tion of the pest control indus­try. The JERRY and TOM smart sensor modu­les moni­tor and docu­ment the condi­tion of trap boxes with real-time noti­fi­ca­ti­ons across multi­ple sites, making impact traps a time- and cost-effec­tive control method for pests of all kinds. This can signi­fi­cantly reduce food loss, the spread of dise­ase, and the use of contro­ver­sial poison baits ridd­led with draw­backs and risks.

So far, trap­lin­ked has sold more than 55,000 sensor modu­les across Europe. The new finan­cial resour­ces will be used to drive forward the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy and to expand the hard­ware — parti­cu­larly in the areas of connec­ti­vity and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for auto­ma­tic data analy­sis. Another focus is on mone­tiz­ing the in-house trap­lin­ked software.

Daniel Peli­kan, CEO of trap­lin­ked, comm­ents: “The hard­ware was our market entry. We have imple­men­ted this very successfully. With the fresh capi­tal, we now put the focus on soft­ware. Our goal is to gene­rate around 1,000,000 ARR by 2024.”

Manuel Böhrin­ger (Photo © Manuel Böhrin­ger), invest­ment mana­ger of BORN2GROW adds: “The market poten­tial in pest control is huge. We are convin­ced to revo­lu­tio­nize the market for digi­tal pest control toge­ther with the strong foun­ding team of traplinked.”

“Limi­ting pest effects is beco­ming incre­asingly important and at the same time more diffi­cult in the context of global warm­ing,” comm­ents Monika Steger, mana­ging direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “By elimi­na­ting poison bait and other toxics, trap­lin­ked is taking a sustainable approach to working at the cutting edge here, which is why we’re happy to support the company with our investment.”

About trap­lin­ked Gmbh

trap­lin­ked deve­lops digi­tal solu­ti­ons for pest control. Networked beat traps and the trap­lin­ked app save pest control opera­tors time and enable them to provide outstan­ding service to their custo­mers in all indus­tries. The goal: to make stri­ker traps a time- and cost-effi­ci­ent control method. Curr­ently, the use of traps is asso­cia­ted with high person­nel costs, as they must be checked daily. This is where traplinked’s digi­tal solu­tion comes in: A combi­na­tion of wire­less commu­ni­ca­tion and sensor tech­no­logy moni­tors and docu­ments pest infe­sta­ti­ons, even across multi­ple loca­ti­ons. www.traplinked.com

About BORN2GROW

BORN2GROW (B2G) is a Heil­bronn-based and inter­na­tio­nally active seed fund that focu­ses on invest­ments in high-growth start­ups in forward-looking tech­no­lo­gies such as Life Scien­ces, Clean­Tech, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence & Machine Lear­ning, IoT, Hard­ware & Robo­tics, and Soft­ware. B2G was foun­ded in 2013 and supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and its exten­sive network. Since its incep­tion, the fund has actively supported more than 25 port­fo­lio compa­nies. B2G works toge­ther with other VC funds and busi­ness angels. B2G is a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, a family office that focu­ses on networ­king acti­vi­ties and invest­ments in the Heil­bronn-Fran­ken region. In this context, the coope­ra­tion between natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal start-ups and medium-sized compa­nies from the region is inten­si­fied. www.born2grow.de

About Bayern Kapital

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

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

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

 

News

Berlin — The Berlin-based company Selfapy, which offers people with mental illnesses effec­tive help in the form of digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons, has gained a strong part­ner in Medice Arznei­mit­tel as an inves­tor. The tran­sac­tion was supported by the invest­ment bank Bryan, Garnier & Co. On Decem­ber 23, 2022, a finan­cing round of 7 million euros was nota­ri­zed in Berlin. Leading the pack was Medice Arznei­mit­tel, a family-owned phar­maceu­ti­cal company focu­sed on the treat­ment of ADHD. All exis­ting inves­tors were also invol­ved, inclu­ding the health­care inves­tor SHS, Think.Health Ventures, IBB Ventures and HTGF.

7 million for further growth in Germany and Europe

“The funding round is an important mile­stone and a confir­ma­tion of confi­dence in the success of Selfapy,” Nora Blum, Co-CEO and Foun­der of Selfapy. The capi­tal provi­ded is to be used for the deve­lo­p­ment of further digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons for various mental disor­ders and for growth in the German market. More doctors and psycho­the­ra­pists can now be infor­med by Selfapy about the bene­fits of DiGA and prescribe Selfapy’s therapy cour­ses to their mentally ill patients.

A further part of the capi­tal is to be used for market entry in other Euro­pean countries:

“We see great poten­tial for digi­tal thera­pies in the area of mental illness, both in Germany and inter­na­tio­nally. With five comple­ted RCT studies and a broad user base in Germany, we are well on our way to expand our offe­ring to other indi­ca­ti­ons and into other markets,” Adham Kassab, Co-CEO of Selfapy

“Selfapy’s strong perfor­mance over the past few years speaks for itself. Digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons will conti­nue to gain importance in the coming years. We conti­nue to see a lot of growth poten­tial here and look forward to accom­pany­ing Selfapy on this jour­ney,” Dr. Richard Ammer, CEO of Medice. — Today, the MEDICE Group is one of the most successful owner-mana­ged family compa­nies in the German phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try, with more than 1,000 employees and annual sales of over 300 million EURO in around 50 markets worldwide.

New digi­tal health apps for people with mental illnesses
Since 2021, Selfapy’s perma­nently listed online cour­ses for people with depres­sion and anxiety disor­ders have alre­ady been reim­bur­sed by all health insu­r­ers. The back­ground to this is the certi­fi­ca­tion of the therapy cour­ses as digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons (DiGA), which are perma­nently listed in the direc­tory of the Fede­ral Minis­try for Drugs and Medi­cal Devices (BfArM). The on the
Selfapy online cour­ses based on cogni­tive beha­vi­oral therapy methods signi­fi­cantly reduce the symptoms of people with depres­sion and gene­ra­li­zed anxiety disor­der: the effec­ti­ve­ness has been proven in rando­mi­zed control­led trials. Just a few weeks ago, Selfapy was able to offer two more online cour­ses for people with binge-eating disor­der and bulimia
Nervosa to its port­fo­lio, making it the first DiGA provi­der for eating disor­ders. But the total of four certi­fied online cour­ses is not to be the end of the story: The capi­tal raised will be used to deve­lop further digi­tal health appli­ca­ti­ons and to conduct addi­tio­nal clini­cal studies. www.selfapy.com

 

News

Munich — For the first time, Siemens AG has issued a crypto secu­rity under the Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act in the amount of €60 million in a decen­tra­li­zed manner on a public block­chain. Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe acted as regis­trar and paying agent in the tran­sac­tion. Deka­Bank, DZ Bank and Union Invest­ment inves­ted in the bearer bond. GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Siemens AG on the legal struc­tu­ring and issu­ance of the crypto secu­ri­ties bond under the German Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Act (eWpG). This is the first issu­ance of a crypto secu­rity by a DAX-40 company in the millions.

New oppor­tu­ni­ties for elec­tro­nic securities

The eWpG, which has been in force since June 2021, has made it possi­ble for the first time in Germany to issue elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties in fully digi­tal form, i.e. without a physi­cal global certi­fi­cate. The distinc­tive feature of crypto secu­ri­ties is that they are kept in a block­chain-based regis­try. To date, 20 such secu­ri­ties have been issued. With Siemens AG, one of Germany’s largest compa­nies is now taking advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity on a substan­tial scale for the first time.

The parties have thus set a mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal secu­ri­ties in Germany in terms of the form and amount of the issue. The paper was regis­tered in a decen­tra­li­zed regis­try on a public block­chain in accordance with the legal frame­work for elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties. The private keys are secu­red by Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG’s in-house crypto custo­dian, Hauck Aufhäu­ser Digi­tal Cust­ody (HADC). This struc­ture meant that sett­le­ment via a central secu­ri­ties depo­si­tory or a market maker was not neces­sary. The parties could thus deal directly with each other bila­te­rally and settle the paper through the register.

GSK Stock­mann and a team led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Tobias Rieth­mül­ler advi­sed Siemens AG on the capi­tal markets and banking regu­la­tory aspects of the issue. Among other things, the advice rela­ted to support in the draf­ting and nego­tia­tion of the requi­red contrac­tual docu­ments (bond terms and condi­ti­ons, issu­ance agree­ment, crypto secu­ri­ties regis­tra­tion agree­ment, paying agent agree­ment) as well as compli­ance under the eWpG.

GSK Stock­mann was able to draw on expe­ri­ence in the project, among other things, from advi­sing on one of the first ever block­chain secu­ri­ties tran­sac­tions in Germany, which also invol­ved Siemens AG in 2019. Most recently, GSK Stock­mann advi­sed Deut­sche Finance Group on the issu­ance of an elec­tro­nic secu­rity in Novem­ber 2022, also led by Dr. Tobias Riethmüller.

Advi­sors to Siemens AG: GSK Stockmann
Dr. Tobias Rieth­mül­ler (Lead Part­ner, Banking and Capi­tal Markets), Dr. Timo Patrick Bernau (Banking and Finan­cial Regu­la­tory Law); Asso­cia­tes: Patrick Wambold (Banking and Capi­tal Markets, Digi­tal Finan­cing Plat­forms), Dr. Martin Frey­tag (Banking and Finan­cial Regu­la­tory Law)

Heuking advi­sed Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG on the first crypto secu­ri­ties issue of Siemens AG, led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl. Also advi­sing on various aspects of the tran­sac­tion were part­ner Dr. Anne de Boer, part­ners Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe and Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, and asso­cia­tes Linda Karl, Michèle von Lewin­ski and Lena Wagner.

The compa­nies invol­ved have thus set a mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal secu­ri­ties in Germany in terms of the form and amount of the issue. The paper was regis­tered in a decen­tra­li­zed regis­try on a public block­chain, in accordance with the legal frame­work for elec­tro­nic secu­ri­ties. The private keys were secu­red by Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe Privat­bank AG’s in-house crypto custo­dian, Hauck Aufhäu­ser Digi­tal Cust­ody (HADC).

As part of the tran­sac­tion, various contracts had to be drawn up. In parti­cu­lar, new regu­la­ti­ons such as the new Regu­la­tion on Requi­re­ments for Elec­tro­nic Secu­ri­ties Regis­tries (eWpRV) require crypto secu­ri­ties regis­trars to adhere to high regu­la­tory stan­dards for such tran­sac­tions. For Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl, who has been advi­sing Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe on various projects for quite some time, this is his first tran­sac­tion as a Part­ner at Heuking. The crypto and compli­ance expert had only joined Heuking in mid-January.

Advi­sors to Hauck Aufhäu­ser Lampe: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Dr. Johan­nes Blassl (lead), Frank­furt; Dr. Anne de Boer, LL.M., Stutt­gart; Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe, Colo­gne; Dr. Chris­toph Grin­gel, Michèle von Lewin­ski, Linda Karl, Lena Wagner, (all Capi­tal Markets), all Frankfurt.

News

Stutt­gart — Keen­sight Capi­tal acqui­res Onven­tis, a leading provi­der of cloud procu­re­ment solu­ti­ons for SMEs in the DACH region, Bene­lux and Scan­di­na­via Part­ners. The seller is Main Capi­tal Part­ners, which had inves­ted in Onven­tis in 2019. Keen­sight was advi­sed by DLA Piper on this transaction.

Keen­sight will support Onven­tis as it conti­nues to evolve into an inter­na­tio­nal SaaS cham­pion in the midmar­ket. The current manage­ment team will remain with the company and invest toge­ther with Keen­sight Capital.

Onven­tis, head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart, Germany, has been provi­ding cloud solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of purcha­sing and finance proces­ses since 2000. World­wide, more than 1,000 compa­nies in the Onven­tis network handle an annual procu­re­ment volume of over 10 billion euros with more than 50,000 suppliers.

During Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ invest­ment period, Onven­tis evol­ved from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean spend manage­ment soft­ware provi­der with local offices in the Nether­lands, Sweden and Austria. During this period, the company became an attrac­tive Rule-of-40 company with a strong focus on recur­ring reve­nue growth and an increase in total reve­nue of more than 2.0x.

Keen­sight Capi­tal is one of the leading Euro­pean growth buyout firms. For more than 20 years, the company has been making long-term invest­ments in profi­ta­ble compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and sales of between 10 and 400 million euros.

The DLA Piper team was led by Part­ner Lars Jessen (Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt) with Part­ners Sebas­tian Decker (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Dr. Konrad Rohde, Of Coun­sel Martin Hein­sius (both Tax, Frank­furt), Senior Asso­cia­tes Anne-Kath­rin Hoppe, Frie­de­rike Rickers (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg), Sven Bisch­off (Tax) and Asso­ciate Daniel Osma­no­vic (Corporate/M&A, both Frank­furt) in the core team. The team in Germany included more the partners.

In addi­tion, an inter­na­tio­nal team from DLA Piper’s offices in Sweden, the Nether­lands and Austria acted in an advi­sory capacity.

Paul Hastings, Paris, advi­sed on the French law aspects and struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tion with Olivier Deren, Allard de Waal, Vincent Naci­n­o­vic and Alban Castarède.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

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

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. www.dlapiper.com

News

Düssel­dorf — The IPO of United Internet’s subsi­diary IONOS on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange took place on Febru­ary 8. Last year, United Inter­net made public its plans to float the cloud and web hosting company on the stock exch­ange follo­wing strong growth in recent years, in order to further expand its posi­tio­ning as a key provi­der of digi­tiza­tion solu­ti­ons for the self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises.

In 2021, IONOS repor­ted sales of EUR 1.06 billion, which accoun­ted for just under 20 percent of United Internet’s total sales. The adjus­ted EBITDA margin was 32.2 percent.

McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed IONOS Group in the context of its IPO on the struc­tu­ring of the compen­sa­tion system for the Manage­ment Board and the revi­sion of the contrac­tual compen­sa­tion arran­ge­ments for top manage­ment. The shares of IONOS are listed in the Prime Stan­dard of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange. It is the first major IPO in Europe in months.

IONOS is a leading Euro­pean provi­der of hosting services, cloud services and cloud infra­struc­ture from the United Inter­net AG Group. With the IPO, the company intends to further acce­le­rate its growth course.

United Inter­net is a leading Euro­pean inter­net service provi­der and tele­coms group.

Advi­sors to IONOS: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf
Dr. Thomas Gennert (lead), Volker Teigel­köt­ter; Asso­ciate: Julian Jäger (all labor law)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery

McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,200 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de/

News

Dort­mund — Dort­mund-based start-up sovity has secu­red seven-figure seed funding to increase the effi­ci­ency and inno­va­tive capa­city of compa­nies through quick and easy access to data spaces. With the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of Europe’s leading seed inves­tors, and the Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­lo­gie-Trans­fer Fonds (FTTF), which has supported sovity since its begin­nings, two important compa­n­ions are on board. The new capi­tal will be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and the expan­sion of the market presence.

“We are very plea­sed that we were able to attract another well-known inves­tor in addi­tion to FTTF: HTGF also shares our vision of the market and the mission of our product around Data Space tech­no­logy.”, Sebas­tian Kleff, CEO and Co-Foun­der of sovity

“The market for Data Spaces is growing: compa­nies are now actively looking for solu­ti­ons that enable them to share data with part­ners as easily as possi­ble and without major tech­ni­cal hurd­les,” Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel, CTO and Co-Foun­der of sovity.

In Data Spaces, compa­nies can exch­ange and use data to measure the carbon foot­print of products, for exam­ple, or to gain trans­pa­rency about supplier requi­re­ments and capa­ci­ties. Data Spaces imple­ment prin­ci­ples of data sove­reig­nty — compa­nies retain full control over their data at all times. With sovity’s soft­ware — theCon­nec­tor-as-a-Service — compa­nies are offe­red the right solu­tion for this. This allows compa­nies to be connec­ted to a Date Spaces within ten minu­tes. Inde­pen­dent imple­men­ta­tion would take appro­xi­m­ately six to eight months.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, sovity has built a strong team of tech and busi­ness experts and curr­ently employs more than ten people. The team will use the funding to focus on further deve­lo­p­ment of the product. In addi­tion, the sales and marke­ting depart­ment is to be streng­the­ned in order to expand the market presence and acquire new custo­mers. On its website, sovity offers inte­res­ted compa­nies access to a trial version of its software.

“Sovity is very clear in their vision to make Data Spaces acces­si­ble to all busi­nesses. We see tech­no­logy as a rele­vant lever to enable compa­nies to exch­ange data with each other in order to opti­mize proces­ses and improve products and services,” Johan­nes Dier­kes, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF.

“Sovity enables the exch­ange of data while provi­ding full data control to data holders. Since its incep­tion, the team has made excel­lent tech­ni­cal progress and won important custo­mers as well as renow­ned part­ners,” said Tobias Schwind, Mana­ging Part­ner at FTTF.

Last but not least, exis­ting part­ner­ships with Data Spaces initia­ti­ves, such as Catena‑X, Mobi­lity Data Space and Gaia‑X, as well as with the Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces Asso­cia­tion (IDSA), are to be further expan­ded. In addi­tion to these initia­ti­ves, sovity is alre­ady working with a large number of indus­trial compa­nies on pilot or tech­no­logy projects.

About sovity

Foun­ded in Octo­ber 2021 as a spin-off of the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Soft­ware and Systems Engi­nee­ring ISST in Dort­mund, sovity offers data sove­reig­nty as a service. The start-up provi­des compa­nies with the tech­no­logy for Data Spaces based on stan­dards, inclu­ding Inter­na­tio­nal Data Spaces (IDS), Gaia‑X or Eclipse Foun­da­tion. Thus, sovity provi­des compa­nies with the easiest and fastest access to Data Spaces. Compa­nies exch­ange a wide range of infor­ma­tion via Data Spaces in order to opti­mize proces­ses or products and to deve­lop new busi­ness models. The mana­ging direc­tors of sovity, Sebas­tian Kleff (Co-Foun­der, CEO) and Dr. Sebas­tian Opriel (Co-Foun­der, CTO), have seve­ral years of exper­tise in the field of data exch­ange as well as corre­spon­ding use cases, e.g. from Fraun­ho­fer rese­arch and IDS, as well as seve­ral years of expe­ri­ence in manage­ment consul­ting at BCG Platinion.

About FTTF — Fraun­ho­fer Tech­no­logy Trans­fer Fund (FTTF) GmbH

The FTTF finan­ces start-ups that use Fraun­ho­fer tech­no­logy. As a strong entre­pre­neu­rial part­ner, up to 250 TEUR will be inves­ted in the pre-seed phase and up to 5 MEUR in further finan­cing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund provi­des support with exten­sive start-up expe­ri­ence and a broad inves­tor network. The fund has a volume of 60 MEUR, alre­ady more than 30 port­fo­lio compa­nies and is mainly finan­ced by the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF). www.fttf.eu

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 690 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has over 1.3 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 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, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft, and more than 40 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.

News

Munich — Eraneos Group has acqui­red DCP. DCP is a consul­ting firm specia­li­zed in finan­cial service provi­ders with head­quar­ters in Düssel­dorf. The spec­trum of services ranges from busi­ness area alignment and the manage­ment of IT imple­men­ta­ti­ons to reor­ga­niza­tion and process opti­miza­tion to the imple­men­ta­tion of new regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. Eraneos Group was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by the law firm Gütt Olk Feldhaus.

Eraneos Group is an inde­pen­dent inter­na­tio­nal manage­ment and tech­no­logy consul­tancy with offices in Switz­er­land, Germany, the Nether­lands, Spain, Luxem­bourg and Asia. It is the result of the merger of Ginkgo Manage­ment Consul­ting, Quint Group and AWK Group announ­ced in 2021. Origi­nally purely Swiss, Eraneos has become a leading inter­na­tio­nal digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion consul­ting group in recent years through mergers with Talos, Ginkgo and Quint. In 2021, the Group achie­ved sales of almost 200 million euros.

Legal advi­sors Eraneos Group: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Heiner Feld­haus (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Lead), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), David Ziegel­mayer (Of Coun­sel, IP/Competition/Litigation), Matthias Uelner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Chris­to­pher Krappitz (Asso­ciate, Banking/Finance)

Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law, Munich: Ingo Sappa (Part­ner, Employ­ment Law)

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

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Amster­dam / Munich — Andra Tech Group, a leading group of compa­nies focu­sed on the manu­fac­tu­ring of precis­ion mecha­ni­cal compon­ents, successfully makes its second acqui­si­tion under the aegis of Equis­tone: With the majo­rity acqui­si­tion of DKH Metaal­be­werk­ing B.V. (“DKH”), a specia­li­zed manu­fac­tu­rer of complex metal­lic parts and compon­ents, the Dutch group further expands its presence in its home market. The group takes over DKH from its foun­der and CEO Fran­cois van Hirtum, who has deve­lo­ped the company into an estab­lished part­ner for a deman­ding custo­mer base from various high-tech industries.

Head­quar­te­red in the Nether­lands, Andra Tech Group (form­erly Kusters Beheer) has grown into a leading group for the manu­fac­ture of high-tech precis­ion compon­ents and modu­les since its foun­ding in 1973. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of metal specia­list DKH, the Group now grows to a total of seven compa­nies. As a result, the Andra Tech Group employs around 500 highly quali­fied employees across the group, who use their many years of expe­ri­ence to serve an inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base — with a parti­cu­lar focus on the semi­con­duc­tor market as well as the aero­space, trans­port, pack­a­ging, food and medi­cal indus­tries. In addi­tion to the deve­lo­p­ment of high-tech proto­ty­pes and produc­tion of small to medium-sized series of precis­ion compon­ents, the Group combi­nes the highest level of exper­tise in the proces­sing of complex metals as well as synthe­tic and compo­site mate­ri­als with state-of-the-art tech­no­lo­gies (inclu­ding in the areas of 3D metal prin­ting and clean room assem­bly systems).

Based in Uden, the Nether­lands, DKH has grown since its foun­ding in 1999 to become a specia­list in the manu­fac­ture of complex, precis­ion mecha­ni­cal parts and compon­ents with a focus on CNC milling and turning. With solu­ti­ons for small to medium-sized product series, the company acts as a relia­ble part­ner for its custo­mers from diverse indus­tries — inclu­ding the manu­fac­tu­ring and food proces­sing indus­tries as well as the trans­por­ta­tion sector. The company curr­ently employs around 30 expe­ri­en­ced, highly quali­fied employees.

With the acqui­si­tion of DKH, Andra Tech Group successfully reali­zes its second acqui­si­tion within a short period of time. This is inten­ded on the one hand to further expand the Group’s growth and presence in its home market, and on the other hand to posi­tion DKH at the same time to best meet incre­asing custo­mer demand for its products.

“Toge­ther with the team, we have deve­lo­ped DKH into an important part­ner for the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed products in the Nether­lands. Now, through the merger with Andra Tech Group, we want to take the company’s previous success and deve­lo­p­ment to a new level,” explains Fran­cois van Hirtum, foun­der and CEO of DKH.

Geert Ketel­a­ars, CEO of Andra Tech Group, adds: “We are plea­sed to welcome DKH and its employees as a new member of our group. Toge­ther, we intend to conti­nue the impres­sive growth achie­ved under the leader­ship of Fran­cois van Hirtum.”

“With DKH, the Andra Tech Group gains another strong part­ner, which is excel­lently posi­tio­ned in its market. With its high quality stan­dards and compre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal know-how, DKH, now the seventh member, under­lines the strong tech­ni­cal capa­bi­li­ties of the group and once again increa­ses the attrac­ti­ve­ness towards the alre­ady broad custo­mer base,” explains Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Part­ner in Equistone’s Amster­dam office.

Respon­si­ble for the tran­sac­tion on the part of Equis­tone are Hubert van Wolfs­win­kel, Dr. Marc Arens (photo © Equis­tone), Phil­ipp Gauss and Josh Aalbers.

Equis­tone was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by PwC (Finan­cial & Tax) and Vesper (Legal).

About Equis­tone Part­ners Europe

Equis­tone Part­ners Europe is one of the most active Euro­pean equity inves­tors with a team of more than 40 invest­ment specia­lists in seven offices in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands, France and the UK. The Equis­tone funds invest prima­rily in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with a good market posi­tion, above-average growth poten­tial and an enter­prise value of between EUR 50 and 500 million. Since incep­tion, equity has been inves­ted in more than 170 tran­sac­tions. The port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses around 50 compa­nies across Europe, inclu­ding around 20 active holdings in Germany, Switz­er­land, the Nether­lands and Belgium. Equis­tone is curr­ently inves­t­ing from its sixth fund, which closed in March 2018 with €2.8 billion. In addi­tion, the “Equis­tone Reinvest­ment Fund” was recently laun­ched, from which it is possi­ble to reinvest in mino­rity posi­ti­ons follo­wing sales of port­fo­lio compa­nies from the main funds. www.equistonepe.com

About Andra Tech Group https://werkenbijandratech.nl/home

About DKH Metaal­be­werk­ing https://www.dkhmetaal.nl/

News

Munich — The Gimv port­fo­lio company KÖBERL Group with Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG conso­li­da­tes the main loca­tion Munich in the pipe clea­ning and sewage tech­no­logy by acqui­ring the estab­lished specia­list compa­nies Rohr­rei­ni­gungs — Service RRS GmbH and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH. The mana­ging part­ner, Andreas Stau­ber, remains on board and takes a stake in the KÖBERL Group. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The aim of the KÖBERL Group is to build up a leading full-service provi­der in buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment in Germany. Rohr­rei­ni­gungs — Service RRS GmbH (herein­af­ter also “RRS”) and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH (herein­af­ter also “THG”) expand this attrac­tive busi­ness divi­sion of Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik. This will make the Group a leading provi­der in this segment in the grea­ter Munich area as well. The specia­li­zed compa­nies are known for their custo­mer proxi­mity as well as tech­ni­cal compe­tence, avai­la­bi­lity paired with the most modern tech­ni­cal equip­ment. This merger not only increa­ses the recur­ring reve­nue of the KÖBERL Group, but also repres­ents an ideal stra­te­gic addition.

Andreas Stau­ber explains the merger: “Both RRS and THG have enjoyed an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in the grea­ter Munich area for seve­ral deca­des. I am ther­e­fore very plea­sed to have found a strong part­ner for the future of both compa­nies in the KÖBERL Group, which not only values today’s strong market posi­tion but also intends to conti­nue growing toge­ther. In parti­cu­lar, I am looking forward with great anti­ci­pa­tion to the syner­gies with Fink Gebäu­de­tech­nik that are still to be lever­a­ged. Within the frame­work of a very inten­sive process, the entre­pre­neu­rial approach of the KÖBERL Group, with Gimv as an expe­ri­en­ced and finan­ci­ally strong invest­ment company in the back­ground, was ulti­m­ately decisive.”

Armin and Karl Köberl, mana­ging part­ners of the KÖBERL Group, comment: “With RRS as well as THG we welcome two more members to the KÖBERL Group. Both compa­nies belong to the most renow­ned compa­nies in the field of pipe clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion in the Munich area and comple­ment our port­fo­lio in the field of buil­ding services but also buil­ding manage­ment. This enables us to respond even better to the wishes and requi­re­ments of our custo­mers and part­ners. We are very much looking forward to an exci­ting and inte­res­t­ing coope­ra­tion that will further increase the Group’s potential.”

“With RRS and THG, we are plea­sed about excel­lently fitting new addi­ti­ons to the group and are proud that the part­ner­ship approach of the KÖBERL Group with Mr. Köberl has convin­ced”, says Maja Marko­vic (photo © GIMV), part­ner of Gimv and advi­sory board member of the KÖBERL Group. “The merger is another important stra­te­gic step for the Group towards beco­ming a leading full-service provider.”

About the KÖBERL Group

The agile group of compa­nies is a growing tech­ni­cally-savvy full-service provi­der of buil­ding tech­no­logy and faci­lity manage­ment services for resi­den­tial and commer­cial proper­ties as well as indus­trial custo­mers in Germany with around 650 employees. In addi­tion to tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment for heating, air condi­tio­ning, venti­la­tion and refri­ge­ra­tion, the Group focu­ses on tech­ni­cal buil­ding manage­ment and inte­gra­ted faci­lity manage­ment. https://koeberl.group/.

About pipe clea­ning service RRS GmbH and THG Abwas­ser­tech­nik GmbH

RRS and THG have been provi­ding pipe and drain clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion services prima­rily to private house­holds, muni­ci­pa­li­ties and indus­trial compa­nies for over 50 years. Both compa­nies are among the longest-serving compa­nies in this segment in the grea­ter Munich area. For years, nume­rous orders in the field of pipe clea­ning and sewer reha­bi­li­ta­tion have been hand­led by an expe­ri­en­ced and well-coor­di­na­ted team of about 30 employees. www.rrs-abwassertechnik.de and www.thg-abwassertechnik.de.

About GIMV

For over 40 years, Gimv has been iden­ti­fy­ing entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and, as a Euro­pean invest­ment company, support­ing them on their way to market leader­ship. Listed on Euron­ext Brussels, Gimv curr­ently has a port­fo­lio of around EUR 1.5 billion in invest­ments in more than 60 holdings, which toge­ther realize sales of more than EUR 3.1 billion and employ 19,000 people. www.gimv.com.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) reports a very successful start to the new finan­cial year 2022/2023. Having recently focu­sed in parti­cu­lar on adding attrac­tive compa­nies to its invest­ment port­fo­lio and rapidly expan­ding its market posi­tion through acqui­si­ti­ons, DBAG agreed three dispo­sals in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 and a fourth in Febru­ary 2023. “It is parti­cu­larly plea­sing that these dispo­sals relate to the two growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and IT services and soft­ware, as well as an invest­ment from Italy,” comm­ents Tors­ten Grede, DBAG Board Spokes­man (photo 1st from left). “This means that the stra­te­gic decis­i­ons of broa­de­ning our sector focus and expan­ding geogra­phi­cally into Italy are now bearing fruit. Even in the current chal­len­ging capi­tal market envi­ron­ment, tran­sac­tions are taking place. This is eviden­ced by both our recent study published in coope­ra­tion with FINANCE and our successful dispo­sals,” Grede continued.

By selling its invest­ment in Cloudf­light in a chal­len­ging market, DBAG was able to realize more than four times the capi­tal inves­ted. The sale of the invest­ment in Heytex marks the successful conclu­sion of DBAG Fund V. DBAG Fund V is thus one of the most successful funds of its vintage for private equity invest­ments in Europe. In addi­tion, the dispo­sal of the invest­ment in Pmflex also marked the first dispo­sal in Italy and was comple­ted in Janu­ary 2023. DBAG was thus able to realize more than twice the capi­tal inves­ted after a holding period of just over two years. Finally, the sale of the stake in BTV Multi­me­dia was agreed in Febru­ary, reali­zing around three times the capi­tal invested.

The good start to the fiscal year is supported by posi­tive capi­tal market influen­ces. This affec­ted the entire breadth of our port­fo­lio, i.e. both busi­ness models with an indus­trial focus and busi­ness models in growth sectors. The chan­geo­ver to the 2023 budgets, which is custo­mary in the first quar­ter, also resul­ted in a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to earnings. Due to the value reco­very period, this also alre­ady takes into account the dispo­sal of BTV Multi­me­dia. In total, the net asset value increa­ses to 620.8 million euros. This is seven percent more than at the begin­ning of the fiscal year.

The Fund Consul­ting segment deve­lo­ped accor­ding to plan and gene­ra­ted earnings before taxes of 3.5 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: 3.7 million euros). Profit before tax in the Private Equity Invest­ments segment reached 38.4 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑11.9 million euros). Over­all, DBAG closes the first three months of finan­cial year 2022/2023 with conso­li­da­ted net income of 41.6 million euros (prior-year quar­ter: ‑8.2 million euros).

Results for a single quar­ter cannot be extra­po­la­ted to the full fiscal year. Due to DBAG’s busi­ness model, the results of indi­vi­dual peri­ods, even directly conse­cu­tive ones, may differ significantly.

The company’s key perfor­mance indi­ca­tors in the first quar­ter of 2022/2023 are within the corri­dor of the fore­cast published at the begin­ning of Decem­ber 2022; it is ther­e­fore unch­an­ged. In its fore­cast, DBAG assu­mes that the valua­tion condi­ti­ons on the capi­tal markets at the end of the current finan­cial year will not differ signi­fi­cantly from those at the time the fore­cast was prepared.

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), listed on the stock exch­ange since 1985, is one of Germany’s most renow­ned private equity compa­nies. As an inves­tor and fund advi­sor, DBAG’s invest­ment focus has tradi­tio­nally been on medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on well-posi­tio­ned compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, prima­rily in the DACH region. The indus­try focus is on manu­fac­tu­ring compa­nies, indus­trial service provi­ders and Indus­try­Tech compa­nies — i.e. compa­nies whose products enable auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and digi­tiza­tion — as well as compa­nies from the broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services, soft­ware and health­care sectors. Since 2020, DBAG has also been repre­sen­ted in Italy with its own office in Milan. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to appro­xi­m­ately 2.6 billion euros.

News

Schaan, Liech­ten­stein — FMA Holding AG (“FMA Group”) announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of NOX Systems AG (“NOX”), a leading deve­lo­per and manu­fac­tu­rer in the field of secu­rity tech­no­logy, with a focus on intru­sion detec­tion and access control systems, head­quar­te­red in Vaduz, Liech­ten­stein. The FMA Group thus under­lines its strong growth with another stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion. NOX brings to the group not only outstan­ding deve­lo­p­ment exper­tise in the field of safety systems, but also a new mecha­tro­nic product and a strong custo­mer base. The company’s foun­der, Sven Sauter, will remain with the company in his current role as Mana­ging Director.

NOX products are widely used to support access control, intru­sion detec­tion systems and video surveil­lance. Further­more, the products have a special repu­ta­tion, espe­ci­ally with larger inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers, due to the flexi­bi­lity, indi­vi­dua­lity and holi­stic offer. NOX is able to meet all the secu­rity needs of these custo­mers. Custo­mers include, for exam­ple, banks, muse­ums and other buil­dings that have parti­cu­larly high secu­rity requirements.

“We are deligh­ted about this promi­sing merger,” says NOX Mana­ging Direc­tor Sven Sauter. “We have had trus­ting and valuable discus­sions over time, which have convin­ced me that we have found the right further deve­lo­p­ment for NOX. This step is a posi­tive sign for our employees, custo­mers, suppli­ers and other busi­ness part­ners. We are convin­ced to streng­then our growth with the FMA Group as a strong part­ner. I look forward to actively shaping this path as Mana­ging Director.”

Through the acqui­si­tion of NOX, the FMA Group expands its busi­ness model with a strong product port­fo­lio in the field of safety tech­no­logy. As a result, the FMA Group grows to three compa­nies with a total of four produc­tion sites and appro­xi­m­ately 120 employees, thus streng­thening its posi­tion as a mecha­tro­nics group in the DACH region. NOX will remain as an opera­ting unit under the manage­ment of Sven Sauter.

“The busi­ness model is comple­men­tary to FMA and allows a stra­te­gic further deve­lo­p­ment from “manu­fac­tu­ring service provi­der of mecha­tro­nic assem­blies” to “mecha­tro­nics group with own and third-party products” with a versa­tile engi­nee­ring know-how”, says mana­ging direc­tor of FMA, Erich Trink­ler. “By being geogra­phi­cally close, we hope to mutually bene­fit from this busi­ness combi­na­tion and increase mutual growth.”

About NOX Systems AG

NOX Systems AG was foun­ded in 2001 by Sven Sauter. In a very short time, the company succee­ded in beco­ming a sought-after specia­list for secu­rity systems in the Euro­pean market. The products convince with inno­va­tive spirit and almost unli­mi­ted possi­bi­li­ties. Custo­mer wishes and speci­fic requi­re­ments are always incor­po­ra­ted into the deve­lo­p­ment process, resul­ting in a modu­lar product range that offers maxi­mum perfor­mance and relia­bi­lity, while being precis­ely tail­o­red to the respec­tive custo­mer requi­re­ments. The company is head­quar­te­red in Vaduz, Liech­ten­stein. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.noxsystems.com

About FMA Mecha­tro­nic Solu­ti­ons AG

Foun­ded in 1955 and head­quar­te­red in Schaan, Liech­ten­stein, the company star­ted with the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of simple mecha­ni­cal parts. Since the take­over by Stefan Dürr in the 1990s, FMA has deve­lo­ped into a renow­ned mecha­tro­nics service provi­der. As such, FMA supplies custo­mers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, water manage­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and the alumi­num indus­try, among others. Since 2019, FMA has been majo­rity-owned by the multi-family holding company Liberta Part­ners. For more infor­ma­tion, visit: www.fma.li

About Liberta Partners

Liberta Part­ners was foun­ded in 2016 and is a multi-family holding company based in Munich. Liberta Part­ners invests in compa­nies in German-spea­king count­ries with clear opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in succes­sion situa­tions and corpo­rate spin-offs. These are actively deve­lo­ped as part of the long-term “100% Core & Care” concept and bene­fit from Liberta Part­ners’ inno­va­tive entre­pre­neu­rial under­stan­ding. Liberta Part­ners’ team curr­ently consists of 20 employees working in M&A, corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment and legal, as well as an active indus­try advi­sory board. www.liberta-partners.com

News

Munich — Private equity inves­tor Altor has acqui­red a majo­rity stake of 80% in Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG on behalf of Altor Funds. Altor will part­ner with the bank’s exis­ting owners and manage­ment. — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance advi­sed Altor on behalf of Altor Funds on the signing of the agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake of 80% in Kommu­nal­kre­dit Austria AG.

Altor will support Kommu­nal­kre­dit with addi­tio­nal capi­tal to conti­nue its growth trajec­tory and become the leading sustainable infra­struc­ture plat­form in Europe. The exis­ting long-term share­hol­ders, Inter­ri­tus, Trinity Invest­ment Manage­ment and the Austrian Asso­cia­tion of Muni­ci­pa­li­ties, will remain mino­rity shareholders.

Kommu­nal­kre­dit was foun­ded in 1958 and is a provi­der of finan­cing solu­ti­ons for infra­struc­ture and energy projects throug­hout Europe. Head­quar­te­red in Austria and with a team of 350 full-time employees, Kommu­nal­kre­dit has become a leading specia­list infra­struc­ture bank, finan­cing some 200 projects over the past seven years with a focus on green trans­for­ma­tion and rene­wa­ble energy. With total assets of EUR 4.4 billion, Kommu­nal­kre­dit is expec­ted to gene­rate net inte­rest income of around EUR 120 million in 2022, repre­sen­ting an impres­sive annual growth rate of over 50% in recent years.

Altor Equity Part­ners is a private equity firm focu­sed on lever­a­ged buyouts and growth capi­tal invest­ments in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the DACH region. Since their incep­tion, Altor funds have recei­ved a total of more than 10 billion euros in commit­ments. The funds are inves­ted in more than 85 mid-sized, predo­mi­nantly Nordic compa­nies, with the aim of crea­ting value through growth initia­ti­ves and opera­tio­nal improvements.

Paal Weberg (photo © Altor), Co-Mana­ging Part­ner at Altor: “Kommu­nal­kre­dit has a unique posi­tion as a finan­cing part­ner for some of the most promi­nent green trans­for­ma­tion projects and we believe that toge­ther we can build the Euro­pean cham­pion in sustainable infra­struc­ture finan­cing. Altor will support Kommu­nal­kre­dit with capi­tal and resour­ces to streng­then its capa­bi­li­ties. In doing so, we can build on our expe­ri­ence inves­t­ing in other leading finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons and Green Tran­si­tion Champions.”

Kommu­nal­kre­dit and Altor are united in their vision to promote the tran­si­tion to a green and sustainable future. Both insti­tu­ti­ons have alre­ady gained exten­sive expe­ri­ence in finan­cing the tran­si­tion to a sustainable economy through their invest­ments and invol­vement in sustainable infra­struc­ture and energy projects across Europe.

The Clif­ford Chance team advi­sing Altor on this tran­sac­tion was led by part­ners Dr. Thomas Krecek (Frank­furt) and Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner (Munich, both Corporate/Private Equity). Clif­ford Chance worked closely with Wolf Theiss (Lead Part­ners: Andrea Grit­sch and Florian Kusznier) on all Austrian legal matters.

About Clif­ford Chance

Clif­ford Chance, one of the world’s leading law firms, is present for its clients with around 3,400 legal advi­sors in all major busi­ness centers around the world. In Germany, Clif­ford Chance is repre­sen­ted by around 300 lawy­ers, audi­tors, tax advi­sors and soli­ci­tors in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

News

Landshut/Munich — Munich-based tech company Enmacc, opera­tor of the largest digi­tal OTC energy trading plat­form for gas and elec­tri­city in Europe, has announ­ced the second and final closing of a Series B finan­cing round — three months after the first closing with a volume in the eight-digit euro range. Now Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active growth inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, is also joining Enmacc’s circle of inves­tors with funds from the Bava­rian Growth Fund. Lead inves­tor is Alan­tra with the Climate Energy Tran­si­tion Fund and previous inves­tors such as 10x Group are also incre­asing their commitment.

Enmacc GmbH was foun­ded in Munich in 2016 and has since estab­lished itself as an alter­na­tive to tradi­tio­nal brokers and exch­an­ges for Euro­pean whole­sale energy trading with its digi­tal OTC (over the coun­ter) energy trading plat­form. As the Euro­pean market leader, the Munich-based energy company specia­li­zes in over-the-coun­ter futures trading in gas, elec­tri­city and green power certi­fi­ca­tes. The plat­form is based on the world’s leading RFQ tech­no­logy, which enables energy trad­ers, port­fo­lio and risk mana­gers to share their trading inte­rest within seconds and thus receive imme­dia­tely compa­ra­ble offers from multi­ple trading part­ners. In doing so, Enmacc elimi­na­tes inef­fi­ci­ent and time-consum­ing market condi­ti­ons such as trading via tele­phone and e‑mail, and contri­bu­tes signi­fi­cantly to impro­ving trad­ers’ liqui­dity — espe­ci­ally when tradi­tio­nal order books of exch­an­ges and brokers show only few price quotes.

Jens Hart­mann, CEO of Enmacc, explains: “We are very plea­sed to have the trust and support of Bayern Kapi­tal as a long-term part­ner. The funding will allow us to expand our reach and improve our plat­form so that we are even better equip­ped for the rapidly evol­ving energy market and the need for decarbonization.”

“Enmacc has estab­lished itself as one of the leading compa­nies within the energy indus­try in just a few years with its inno­va­tive approach to digi­tiz­ing the energy market,” commen­ted Monika Steger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “We see Enmacc as an important player in shaping the future of the indus­try and are proud to support the company as it conti­nues on its journey.”

Bastien Gambini (photo © Alan­tra), Mana­ging Part­ner at Alan­tra: “Enmacc has done an impres­sive job of digi­tally trans­forming gas and elec­tri­city trading, quickly gaining a large custo­mer base in a conser­va­tive market. We believe that the unique combi­na­tion of supe­rior tech­no­logy and indus­try exper­tise will make Enmacc successful across a broad spec­trum of energy and envi­ron­men­tal commo­dity trading. With its plat­form, the company is posi­tio­ning itself as a global market leader in energy trading and a pioneer for an acce­le­ra­ted energy transition.”

About Enmacc
Enmacc is the largest OTC energy trading plat­form in Europe. Deve­lo­ped by trad­ers for trad­ers, Enmacc digi­ti­zes the energy trading process — the digi­tal market­place enables members to trade faster, more compre­hen­si­vely and with grea­ter control. Enmacc is trus­ted by over 450 custo­mers and hosts a growing network of nearly 2000 trad­ers from various insti­tu­ti­ons — inclu­ding utili­ties, indus­trial compa­nies, energy trading houses and muni­ci­pal utilities.

In addi­tion to elec­tri­city and gas, envi­ron­men­tal goods such as guaran­tees of origin and emis­sion certi­fi­ca­tes will also be traded on the plat­form in the coming months. Enmacc was foun­ded in Munich in 2016 and has since evol­ved into a leading B2B tech­no­logy company with a diverse and growing team. www.enmacc.com

About Alan­tra

Alan­tra is an inter­na­tio­nal finan­cial services company with over 555 employees from 35 count­ries in 25 offices. We are a global company. We do not have a head office. Each market in which we operate is as important as the other. Each employee is as valuable as the other. And that means that each customer’s needs are as important as the next.

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

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

 

News

Munich — Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and start-ups, is laun­ching CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, a unique combi­na­tion of forces in the field of Circu­lar Economy. True sustaina­bi­lity and thus climate neutra­lity can only be achie­ved if we succeed in massi­vely redu­cing resource consump­tion and rethin­king estab­lished proces­ses. This enorm­ous chall­enge offers both compa­nies and start-ups immense busi­ness poten­tial and a wide range of oppor­tu­ni­ties for inno­va­tive busi­ness models. They can be crucial in making Europe more resi­li­ent by making it less depen­dent on global supply chains in the long term.

Climate and energy crisis, popu­la­tion growth, species extinc­tion, fragile supply chains and incre­asing resource scar­city: Circu­lar Economy is a key to solving exis­ten­tial crises. In line with the vision of a sustainable and people-cente­red future for Germany and Europe, Unter­neh­mer­TUM aims to create a central plat­form for the bund­ling and active shaping of such ideas in Munich. Circu­lar economy is unders­tood as a rege­ne­ra­tive econo­mic system in which resour­ces are kept in cycles and whose goal is to decou­ple value crea­tion from resource consump­tion.

Circu­la­rity works best in the ecosys­tem

CIRCULAR REPUBLIC supports compa­nies and start-ups in further deve­lo­ping their inno­va­tions and ideas for the Circu­lar Economy in line with market requi­re­ments and trans­forming them into concrete busi­ness models. In addi­tion, the initia­tive networks compa­nies and start-ups with rele­vant play­ers from science, busi­ness and the venture capi­tal indus­try. In this context, the inno­va­tion ecosys­tem of Unter­neh­mer­TUM plays a crucial role: The initia­tive speci­fi­cally offers access to the latest rese­arch findings from the field of Circu­lar Economy at Tech­ni­sche Univer­si­tät München and itself provi­des advice on entre­pre­neu­rial issues and chal­lenges. A central service also consists of directly networ­king compa­nies and start-ups in so-called “multi-stake­hol­der projects” and acting as a joint plat­form for the exch­ange of know­ledge and expe­ri­ence. Ideally, the projects deve­lo­ped will then find their way into concrete application.

The initia­tive was laun­ched with foun­ding part­ner BMW AG. The first part­ner compa­nies include SAP, PreZero and Tengel­mann.

Inter­di­sci­pli­nary foun­ding trio

To be able to fully address the field of Circu­lar Economy, you need diverse perspec­ti­ves and a team with very diffe­rent back­grounds. The foun­ding team of the initia­tive includes Dr. Susanne Kadner, Dr. Matthias Ball­weg and Niclas Mauß (Photo © CIRCULAR REPUBLIC). Kadner previously initia­ted and led the Circu­lar Economy Initia­tive Germany. Before joining CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, Ball­weg was respon­si­ble for SYSTEMIQ’s global Circu­lar Economy acti­vi­ties and Mauß initia­ted and estab­lished Germany’s largest Circu­lar Economy rese­arch network at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich.

Multi-stake­hol­der approach

The first “multi-stake­hol­der project” will focus on the textile indus­try — one of the least circu­lar sectors of all. Start-ups alre­ady offer nume­rous partial solu­ti­ons here — such as recy­cling tech­no­lo­gies — but there is a lack of a cross-indus­try solu­tion that is now being jointly deve­lo­ped. Another project will subse­quently revolve around the recy­cling of batte­ries. The findings deve­lo­ped in the initia­tive — for exam­ple, on the start-up land­scape in the Circu­lar Economy sector — will also be shared with the public. A speci­ally initia­ted festi­val will take place in Munich from Novem­ber 15–18, 2023, and aims to bring toge­ther outstan­ding play­ers in the circu­lar economy.

Dr. Matthias Ball­weg, Co-Foun­der and Direc­tor of CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, says: “The global deve­lo­p­ments around climate, lack of resour­ces or supply shorta­ges, as well as the accom­pany­ing regu­la­tory conse­quen­ces show: In the 30s of this century, there will no longer be a successful busi­ness model based on the explo­ita­tion of primary raw mate­ri­als. The Circu­lar Economy will be the key to solving the climate crisis and at the same time the driving force for inno­va­tion and prospe­rity in Europe. The large number of start­ups working on the topic of the Circu­lar Economy — we have iden­ti­fied almost 400 of them in Germany alone — is another indi­ca­tor that this is where the future lies.“
https://www.unternehmertum.de//circular-republic


CIRCULAR REPUBLIC

The Circu­lar Economy is the basis for a prospe­rous, resi­li­ent and sustainable economy. As part of Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s largest center for inno­va­tion and startup, CIRCULAR REPUBLIC empowers compa­nies and start­ups to realize circu­lar economy inno­va­tions and deve­lop new busi­ness models. As a plat­form, the initia­tive networks rele­vant actors and thus aims to set system-chan­ging impul­ses along the entire value chain.

News

Berlin — Capi­ton has announ­ced the closing of its EUR 248 million “capi­ton Quan­tum” conti­nua­tion fund. In addi­tion to exis­ting and new capi­ton inves­tors, high-profile blue-chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion have also inves­ted in capi­ton Quan­tum. capi­ton Quan­tum has reinves­ted in Raith and AEMtec, two leading indus­trial tech­no­logy compa­nies origi­nally acqui­red by capi­ton Fund V in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

The Conti­nua­tion Fund capi­ton Quan­tum was estab­lished to invest in the compa­nies AEMtec GmbH(“AEMtec”) and Raith GmbH (“Raith”). This will provide the compa­nies with addi­tio­nal capi­tal and time to conti­nue the very successful growth stra­te­gies that have been imple­men­ted in both compa­nies since capiton’s entry via the capi­ton V fund. AEMtec is one of the leading specia­lists in the deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion of complex opto- and microelec­tro­nic modu­les through to complete systems. Raith is a leading provi­der of precis­ion tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for nano-fabri­ca­tion, elec­tron beam litho­gra­phy, focu­sed ion beam manu­fac­tu­ring, nano-engi­nee­ring and reverse engi­nee­ring applications.

The conti­nua­tion fund will provide addi­tio­nal capi­tal to Raith and AEMtec to acce­le­rate their orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth and allow the capi­ton team to conti­nue inves­t­ing in both compa­nies to support their next phase of growth. Both compa­nies were origi­nally acqui­red by the capi­ton V fund. Raith, a leading equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer in the nano­tech­no­logy sector, has alre­ady been part of the capi­ton port­fo­lio since 2016, and capi­ton inves­ted in AEMtec, a full-service provi­der of state-of-the-art microelec­tro­nic and opto­elec­tro­nic systems, in 2019.

We are very plea­sed to have attrac­ted a high cali­ber group of blue chip secon­dary inves­tors led by Eura­zeo and Uniges­tion along­side exis­ting and new capi­ton LPs. This under­lines the strong convic­tion in favor of robust German SMEs even in times of considera­ble market volatility.

Under capiton’s owner­ship, Raith and AEMtec have focu­sed on capa­city expan­sion, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and impro­ving their tech­no­logy offe­ring. Toge­ther with the two manage­ment teams, we will conti­nue to execute on a combi­na­tion of orga­nic initia­ti­ves and trans­for­ma­tive bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Both manage­ment teams will remain heavily invested.

Chris­toph Karbenk, Mana­ging Part­ner at capi­ton, comm­ents: “On behalf of the entire capi­ton team, I would like to thank the group of inves­tors who supported us in this tran­sac­tion as well as the manage­ment teams who have done an excel­lent job to date. We are very exci­ted to conti­nue this successful part­ner­ship and take both compa­nies to the next level. The tran­sac­tion gene­ra­tes strong returns for our exis­ting capi­ton V LPs, who have been given the full option to either gene­rate liqui­dity or parti­ci­pate in the next chap­ter of both companies.”

Dr. Ralf Jede, CEO of Raith, said: “We are very proud to have deve­lo­ped Raith into the world market leader for nano­fa­bri­ca­tion equip­ment. Many thanks to the great commit­ment of all Raith employees and the trustful part­ner­ship with capi­ton. We very much look forward to working with capi­ton Quan­tum to realize further highly attrac­tive growth opportunities.”

Jan Trom­mers­hau­sen, CEO of AEMtec, said, “We look forward to the next chap­ter of our part­ner­ship with capi­ton, with all AEMtec employees remai­ning stron­gly commit­ted to the company. We are exci­ted to be able to leverage inter­na­tio­nal buy-and-build oppor­tu­ni­ties to further streng­then our posi­tion as a leading full-service provi­der of advan­ced micro- and opto­elec­tro­nic systems.”

Consul­tant Capiton:

UBS Private Funds Group, a fully inte­gra­ted part of UBS Invest­ment Bank, as exclu­sive secon­dary advisor

Legal advice: Stephen­son Harwood, POELLATH, BMH Bräu­ti­gam and Ashurst

EY (tax and struc­tu­ring advice), Houli­han Lokey (debt advice), Deloitte (legal and finan­cial due dili­gence), Roland Berger (commer­cial due dili­gence) and Kroll (fair­ness opinion).

The main inves­tors were advi­sed by Hogan Lovells. The tran­sac­tion was nota­ri­zed by CMS Hasche Sigle.

BMH BRÄUTIGAM advi­sed finan­cial inves­tor capi­ton in the context of the newly laun­ched 248 million Euro fund “capi­ton Quan­tum” on the acqui­si­tion of the stakes in the leading German high-tech compa­nies Raith and AEMtec.

 

News

Landshut/Munich — Bayern Kapi­tal, one of the most expe­ri­en­ced and active inves­tors in the German high-tech finan­cing land­scape, is inves­t­ing in tado°. The Munich-based scale-up is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment and deve­lops energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats to opti­mize energy consump­tion in resi­den­tial buil­dings. The inves­ted funds come from the ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern, the largest of the invest­ment funds mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal. Other inves­tors in the finan­cing round with a total volume of EUR 43 million include Kiko Ventures, Swis­scanto and Trill Impact Ventures as lead inves­tor; previous inves­tors, inclu­ding Noven­tic and Target Part­ners, among others, also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

With energy prices rising across Europe, house­holds are incre­asingly looking for ways to reduce high energy costs. An effec­tive method for cost reduc­tion and energy saving is promi­sed by the effi­ci­ent services and products of tado GmbH. Since its foun­ding in 2011, the Munich-based company has been deve­lo­ping consu­mer-friendly and energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats that are compa­ti­ble with over 95% of all house­holds in Europe across manu­fac­tu­r­ers and can be instal­led by consu­mers them­sel­ves. The energy-saving features reduce custo­mers’ heating costs by an average of 22%. By combi­ning smart ther­mo­stats with time-varia­ble energy rates, a home’s energy use can be shifted to times when energy prices are low. To acce­le­rate its market entry in this area, tado° recently acqui­red aWAT­Tar, a pioneer in energy load shif­ting and time-varia­ble energy offers. Toge­ther, the two compa­nies are now plan­ning to signi­fi­cantly expand their bund­led offe­ring to reduce costs and CO2 emis­si­ons for customers.

tado° sold around three million smart ther­mo­stats by the end of 2022 and doubled its busi­ness with smart ther­mo­stats and service offe­rings in 2022. The step into profi­ta­bi­lity is now to follow in 2023. In order to reach even more house­holds, tado° is plan­ning to work more closely with housing asso­cia­ti­ons that manage a large number of apart­ments for this purpose. A new, adapted product line is to be laun­ched for this market segment this year.

Chris­tian Deil­mann, Co-Foun­der and Chief Product Offi­cer at tado°, comm­ents, “As the market leader in smart indoor climate manage­ment, now is the right time to bring our unique energy manage­ment offe­rings to the mass market. We look forward to strong part­ner­ships with the new investors.”

“With tado°, we have inves­ted in a company that makes the problem of high energy consump­tion in resi­den­tial buil­dings, espe­ci­ally through heating and cooling, more effi­ci­ent and addres­ses it with a sustainable and cost-saving approach,” explains Monika Steger (photo © Bayern Kapi­tal), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “The strong reve­nue growth of the past years proves that with the closed finan­cing round, tado° has the tools to become one of the world’s leading play­ers for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment. We look forward to support­ing the company in its further expan­sion plans.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger says: “Espe­ci­ally in times of crisis, we need inno­va­tive ideas. tado° has its finger on the pulse with its energy-effi­ci­ent ther­mo­stats. We ther­e­fore support such ambi­tious high-tech compa­nies with our ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria. We thus help you as a co-invest­ment part­ner to realize large finan­cing rounds in parti­cu­larly capi­tal-inten­sive expan­sion phases.”

The ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria was initia­ted by the Bava­rian state govern­ment in July 2021 and has since been mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern. A prere­qui­site for parti­ci­pa­tion by the ScaleUp Fund Bava­ria is a demons­tra­bly successful, scalable busi­ness model based on an inno­va­tive tech­no­logy, ideally secu­red by property rights, with sustainable unique selling points and clear compe­ti­tive advan­ta­ges. Like all funds mana­ged by Bayern Kapi­tal, ScaleUp-Fonds Bayern never invests in compe­ti­tion, but exclu­si­vely in close coope­ra­tion and always on equal terms with private investors.

About tado°

tado° is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment. As the only cross-manu­fac­tu­rer plat­form, tado°’s Smart Ther­mo­stats and Services are compa­ti­ble with any type of heating or cooling system. Custo­mers bene­fit from energy-saving tech­no­lo­gies such as geofen­cing and window-open detec­tion and varia­ble-time rates. tado° was foun­ded in 2011 and has its company head­quar­ters in Munich. With 180 employees, tado° is revo­lu­tio­ni­zing the way energy is used at home, for more comfort, effi­ci­ency and in harm­ony with nature. www.tado.de

About Bayern Kapital

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

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

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

News

Berlin — Venture capi­tal inves­tors Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Vorwerk Ventures are merging their port­fo­lio company and co-living opera­tor Habyt with its US coun­ter­part Common. Habyt, as the largest co-living company in Europe and Asia, will join US market leader Common to form the largest global co-living operator.

Foun­ded in Berlin in 2017 and led by CEO Luca Bovone, Habyt Group is backed by major inves­tors from around the world, inclu­ding P101, Vorwerk Ventures, DI Capi­tal Solu­ti­ons, Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Mitsu­bi­shi. Common is based in the U.S. and provi­des stream­li­ned manage­ment of multi­fa­mily proper­ties through tech­no­lo­gi­cal, design and opera­tio­nal inno­va­tions. With more than $110 million in venture capi­tal invest­ments, Common provi­des excep­tio­nal expe­ri­en­ces for renters in more than 10 metro­po­li­tan areas across the United States.

The merged company now opera­tes in more than 40 cities and 14 count­ries on three conti­nents, mana­ging more than 30,000 units ranging from co-living to studios to tradi­tio­nal rental housing. Both Habyt and Common tripled their busi­ness in 2022 and expect further growth in 2023. The new merged company is expec­ted to be profi­ta­ble as early as 2023.

About Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Investments

BPI is a unit of Hubert Burda Media that provi­des long-term growth capi­tal for fast-growing digi­tal tech­no­logy and media compa­nies. Hubert Burda Media is one of the largest Euro­pean media and tech­no­logy groups, which has been successfully inves­t­ing in Inter­net-based compa­nies since 1998.

About Sequoia India and Southe­ast Asia

Sequoia helps bold foun­ders build excep­tio­nal compa­nies, from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India and Southe­ast Asia actively works with foun­ders from a wide range of compa­nies across all indus­tries, inclu­ding BYJUs, Carou­sell, Druva, GoTo, OYO Rooms, Toko­pe­dia, True­cal­ler, Zomato and nume­rous others. By part­ne­ring with Sequoia, start­ups bene­fit from over 50 years of expe­ri­ence and lessons lear­ned from early colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with compa­nies like Airbnb, Alibaba, Apple, Drop­box, Google, Linke­dIn and Stripe. From the begin­ning, univer­si­ties, foun­da­ti­ons and other non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons have formed the foun­da­tion of Sequoia’s inves­tor base. www.sequoiacap.com/india/ and www.sequoiacap.com/sea/.

About Vorwerk Ventures

Vorwerk Ventures is an inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund that emer­ged from the Vorwerk Group at the end of 2019 and is charac­te­ri­zed by a strong commit­ment to consu­mer-facing and digi­tal compa­nies. Head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Vorwerk Ventures curr­ently mana­ges assets of nearly €500 million and is constantly on the lookout for promi­sing projects. Start­ing with seed and Series A invest­ments of € 1 million up to € 10 million, Vorwerk Ventures offers ongo­ing support and provi­des up to € 15 million for subse­quent finan­cing rounds.

Advi­sors Burd­a­Prin­ci­pal Invest­ments, Sequoia Capi­tal India and Vorwerk Ventures: YPOG
Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Partner
Tobias Lovett (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (M&A), Partner
Barbara Hasse (M&A), Associate

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.

News

Frank­furt a. M. — The sale of Onven­tis to Keen­sight by Main Capi­tal Part­ners is another very successful exit for Main and under­lines the track record of top quar­tile returns. Main Capi­tal inves­ted in Onven­tis in 2019, helping the company become a leading source-to-pay (S2P) provi­der for mid-market compa­nies. Keen­sight, a reco­gni­zed tech­no­logy-focu­sed inves­tor specia­li­zing in pan-Euro­pean growth buyouts, will support Onven­tis in its next phase of growth.

Foun­ded in 2000 and head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart, Germany, the company’s offe­ring mana­ges the source-to-pay proces­ses of direct and indi­rect mate­ri­als in stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal purcha­sing. Keen­sight, who have been inte­res­ted in the spend manage­ment soft­ware space for years, iden­ti­fied Onven­tis as a market leader early on and reco­gni­zed that Onven­tis stood out for its strong product offe­ring, clear stra­te­gic vision and seam­less execu­tion. Keen­sight will support Onven­tis on its jour­ney to beco­ming an inter­na­tio­nal SaaS cham­pion in the midmar­ket. Throug­hout the part­ner­ship, the entire Onven­tis manage­ment team will remain on board and co-invest with Keen­sight Capital.

During the Main invest­ment period, the company evol­ved from a company focu­sed on the DACH region to a leading pan-Euro­pean provi­der of spend manage­ment soft­ware with local offices in the Nether­lands, Sweden and Austria. During this period, the company became an attrac­tive Rule-of-40 company with a strong focus on recur­ring reve­nue growth and an increase in total reve­nue of more than 2.0x. In addi­tion, Main Capi­tal supported Onven­tis with two stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons in the areas of spend analy­tics and invoice manage­ment to expand the group’s product offe­ring and streng­then its inter­na­tio­nal presence. These achie­ve­ments were also recently reco­gni­zed by Spend Matters, which ranked Onven­tis as one of the top ‘Provi­ders to Watch’.

Frank Schmidt, CEO of Onven­tis, commen­ted, “Onven­tis has a promi­sing future ahead of it and we look forward to start­ing this new chap­ter with Keen­sight as our new part­ner. We believe their exper­tise will drive our growth and look forward to working toge­ther. We would like to expressly thank Main Capi­tal Part­ners for the good coope­ra­tion and their support in the rapid imple­men­ta­tion of our jointly defi­ned growth strategy.”

Yuri Mikhalev, Part­ner at Keen­sight Capi­tal, added: “We are proud to welcome Onven­tis to our port­fo­lio and look forward to working with the team to streng­then the group’s growth and expand the company’s offe­ring and geogra­phic reach. We iden­ti­fied this company as a leading cloud procu­re­ment provi­der, and Onven­tis’ alre­ady outstan­ding market posi­tio­ning, strong brand and attrac­tive profile convin­ced us of the company’s high caliber.”

Sven van Berge Henegou­wen (Photo © Main Capi­tal Part­ners), Mana­ging Part­ner at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, concluded, “We congra­tu­late Onven­tis on ente­ring the next phase of growth with Keen­sight. The company has shown great promise over the past few years and we are proud to have supported Onven­tis with two very stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons that signi­fi­cantly increase custo­mer value. We wish the company, manage­ment and employees all the best for the future.”

About Onven­tis

Onven­tis has been a cloud pioneer for the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of procu­re­ment and finance proces­ses since 2000. Onven­tis Buyer cloud soft­ware is an all-in-one procu­re­ment system that helps compa­nies with all procu­re­ment opera­ti­ons to achieve finan­cial control, process effi­ci­ency, and cost savings while comply­ing with corpo­rate poli­cies and laws. Onven­tis Buyer stream­li­nes and auto­ma­tes all proces­ses from procu­re­ment source to payment, inclu­ding colla­bo­ra­tion with suppli­ers in the network. The Onven­tis network connects busi­ness proces­ses of buyers and suppli­ers — simply and secu­rely. World­wide, more than 1,000 compa­nies with appro­xi­m­ately 450,000 users in the Onven­tis network handle an annual procu­re­ment volume of over 10 billion euros with more than 50,000 suppliers.

About Keen­sight Capital

Keen­sight Capi­tal (“Keen­sight”), one of Europe’s leading growth buyout firms, is dedi­ca­ted to helping entre­pre­neurs execute their growth stra­te­gies. For over 20 years, the Keen­sight Capi­tal team has used its know­ledge of invest­ment and growth indus­tries to make long-term invest­ments in profi­ta­ble compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and reve­nues of between €10 million and €400 million. Drawing on its exper­tise in tech­no­logy and health­care, Keen­sight iden­ti­fies the best invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe and works closely with manage­ment teams to deve­lop and execute their stra­te­gic vision. Keen­sight Capital’s success has earned it a Gold Award from the Private Equity Exch­ange & Awards for the last six conse­cu­tive years, for the best Euro­pean Growth Private Equity Fund.

About Main Capi­tal Partners

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

News

London/ Munich — Offi­cium GmbH (“Offi­cium”), a port­fo­lio company of Arcus Euro­pean Infra­struc­ture Fund 3 SCSp (“AEIF3”), a fund mana­ged by Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners LLP (“Arcus”), conti­nues its growth path and has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of Alpham­ess GmbH in Bochum, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (“Alpham­ess”). Offi­cium is one of Germany’s leading inde­pen­dent meter­ing service provi­ders in the field of heating and opera­ting cost billing and equip­ment rental for the housing indus­try. Alpham­ess is Officium’s tenth acqui­si­tion in the last two years. It under­lines the success of the conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy of leading inde­pen­dent suppli­ers. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

With the now comple­ted acqui­si­tion of Alpham­ess, Offi­cium is expan­ding its presence in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The members of the exis­ting manage­ment team will support the next phase of Alpham­ess’ busi­ness development.

Volker Wylach, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Alpham­ess GmbH, comm­ents: “We are plea­sed to take the next stra­te­gic step with the strong plat­form Offi­cium. Officium’s compre­hen­sive know-how will allow us to deve­lop in a targe­ted manner and improve our effi­ci­ency even further. This will bene­fit both our custo­mers and our employees.”

Stefano Brug­nolo, Part­ner at Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners, explains: “The German market for meter­ing services is highly fremen­ted and has been on a conso­li­da­tion course for years. Offi­cium, as one of the leading inde­pen­dent provi­ders in this attrac­tive segment, is an ideal plat­form for small to medium-sized compa­nies that want to grow without giving up their iden­tity. We support Offi­cium in pushing its buy-and-build stra­tegy even further in the future.”

Stephan Kier­meyer, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Offi­cium GmbH, adds: “With Alpham­ess, we now have another strong part­ner that opti­mally comple­ments our service port­fo­lio. With the tenth acqui­si­tion, we are once again streng­thening our market posi­tion and incre­asing our presence in North Rhine-Westphalia.”

Advi­sors Offi­cium: Noerr (Legal) and Alva­rez & Marsal (Finan­cial)

About Offi­cium

Offi­cium GmbH is one of the leading inde­pen­dent measu­re­ment service provi­ders in the field of heating and opera­ting cost billing and equip­ment rental for the housing indus­try. The company has been estab­lished as a plat­form invest­ment in 2020. As an umbrella company, Offi­cium mana­ges nume­rous regio­nal provi­ders and has a presence prima­rily in Berlin, Bran­den­burg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-West­pha­lia (for exam­ple, Düssel­dorf and Duis­burg), Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia, Saxony-Anhalt (Dessau-Roßlau), Saxony (Dres­den and Chem­nitz), Thurin­gia, and Bava­ria (Upper and Lower Fran­co­nia). Custo­mers are prima­rily small and medium-sized property manage­ment compa­nies and private land­lords. More than one million measu­ring units are now supplied. — www.officium.gmbh

About Arcus Infra­struc­ture Partners 

Arcus Infra­struc­ture Part­ners LLP is an inde­pen­dent fund mana­ger focu­sed exclu­si­vely on long-term invest­ments in Euro­pean infra­struc­ture. Arcus invests on behalf of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors through discre­tio­nary funds and dedi­ca­ted co-invest­ment vehic­les and, through its subsi­dia­ries, curr­ently mana­ges invest­ments with a total enter­prise value of over EUR 19 billion (as of Septem­ber 30, 2022). Arcus targets mid-sized, value-add infra­struc­ture invest­ments, focu­sing on compa­nies in the digi­tal tech­no­logy, trans­por­ta­tion, logi­stics and indus­trial, and energy sectors. — www.arcusip.com

News

Grün­wald /Eningen unter Achalm — G&N Holding GmbH (“G&N” or “G&N Group”), a port­fo­lio company of AURELIUS Wachs­tums­ka­pi­tal, has acqui­red Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik GmbH & Co KG (“Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik”). The company offers high-quality services in the field of tech­ni­cal buil­ding equip­ment for fire alarm systems, secu­rity tech­no­logy as well as IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons technology.

A signi­fi­cant share of sales is gene­ra­ted with main­ten­ance and service. In addi­tion, Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik has its own 24/7 service and emer­gency call center. The company’s head­quar­ters are loca­ted in Enin­gen unter Achalm. A further four bran­ches are loca­ted on Lake Cons­tance, in Ulm, in Allgäu and in Heil­bronn. G&N’s exis­ting loca­ti­ons in southern Germany will be suita­bly expan­ded. The opera­tio­nal manage­ment of Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik by Björn Renz and Jörg Schwarz will conti­nue in the long term after the tran­sac­tion. In addi­tion, Björn Renz remains signi­fi­cantly invol­ved and streng­thens the exis­ting manage­ment of the G&N Group.

The acqui­si­tion repres­ents the fourth add-on acqui­si­tion of the G&N Group and streng­thens its market posi­tion as a leading manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent service provi­der throug­hout Germany. This unders­cores AURELIUS Growth Capital’s active approach to expan­ding port­fo­lio compa­nies through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons of market participants.

“The exis­ting manage­ment team around Björn Renz has achie­ved impres­sive growth and deve­lo­ped the company into one of the region’s leading service provi­ders in the secu­rity and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons tech­no­logy sector in southern Germany. We are proud to work with Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik to streng­then the market posi­tion of the G&N Group in Germany,” said Nico Vitense, Mana­ging Part­ner at AURELIUS Wachstumskapital.

“A part­ner­ship between the G&N Group and Renz Sicher­heits­tech­nik signi­fi­cantly streng­thens our market posi­tion in the econo­mic­ally strong region of Southern Germany. We are very much looking forward to working with Björn Renz and Jörg Schwarz and their entire team,” commen­ted Stefan Carle (Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-CEO of G&N) and Chris­tian Dahl (Mana­ging Direc­tor and Co-CEO of G&N).

“We value the G&N Group as a long-stan­ding confi­dant in the market. With AURELIUS growth capi­tal behind us, we are convin­ced that we can conti­nue to expand the company sustain­ably and build on the histo­ri­cal growth. The team and I are looking forward to the future toge­ther and the next steps,” added Björn Renz (Mana­ging Direc­tor of Renz Sicherheitstechnik).

On the part of AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal, Mana­ging Part­ner Nico Vitense and his team mana­ged the transaction.

Advi­sor AURELIUS Growth Capital

Blue­mont Consul­ting (Markus Frän­kel, Commer­cial Due Diligence),
Ebner Stolz (Jörg Scho­berth, Finan­cial and Tax Due Diligence)
Kuzaj Witt­mann & Part­ner (Hans-Jörg Witt­mann, legal due dili­gence and legal advice).

AURELIUS is a pan-Euro­pean alter­na­tive invest­ment group with offices in London, Luxem­bourg, Munich, Amster­dam, Stock­holm, Madrid, Milan, Berlin and Düssel­dorf. AURELIUS has exten­sive opera­tio­nal exper­tise as well as expe­ri­ence and is thus in a posi­tion to acce­le­rate the value crea­tion process in its port­fo­lio companies.

The main invest­ment plat­forms are the AURELIUS Euro­pean Oppor­tu­ni­ties IV Fund and the exch­ange-traded AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8, stock exch­ange symbol: AR4), which acquire group spin-offs and compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the midmar­ket sector. The core element of the invest­ment stra­tegy is to grow the port­fo­lio compa­nies with a team of nearly 100 in-house opera­tio­nal taskforce experts.

AURELIUS is also active in the busi­ness areas of growth capi­tal, real estate and alter­na­tive forms of finan­cing. AURELIUS Growth Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­tes in LBO tran­sac­tions for midmar­ket succes­sion solu­ti­ons. AURELIUS Real Estate Oppor­tu­ni­ties focu­ses on real estate invest­ments with sustainable value enhance­ment poten­tial through active manage­ment. AURELIUS Finance Company offers flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for compa­nies throug­hout Europe.

News

The Hague — Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”) today announ­ced its part­ner­ship with Dutch invoi­cing soft­ware specia­list WeFact. This stra­te­gic part­ner­ship was formed to jointly acce­le­rate WeFact’s natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal growth. Under the leader­ship of the manage­ment team and supported by Main’s exper­tise in the inter­na­tio­nal soft­ware market, WeFact will streng­then its market posi­tion and further deve­lop its product port­fo­lio to provide even grea­ter value to its custo­mers and partners.

WeFact was foun­ded in 2005 and is based in Eersel, the Nether­lands. The company is a modern SaaS provi­der of invoi­cing soft­ware that faci­li­ta­tes the sending of invoices, the crea­tion of quota­ti­ons and the proces­sing of inco­ming invoices, so that custo­mers have conti­nuous insight and control over their admi­nis­tra­tion. With a go-to-market stra­tegy focu­sed on product-driven growth, WeFact serves more than 10,000 custo­mers in the Nether­lands, Belgium and nume­rous other Euro­pean count­ries. More than 750 accoun­ting firms work as distri­bu­tion part­ners for WeFact and recom­mend WeFact as the ideal online invoi­cing and manage­ment solu­tion for entrepreneurs.

Growth acce­le­ra­tion

WeFact and Main will work closely toge­ther to acce­le­rate both dome­stic and inter­na­tio­nal growth. The growth stra­tegy includes deepe­ning and broa­de­ning the product offe­ring, (inter)national sales by the inter­nal team and by part­ners, and explo­ring oppor­tu­ni­ties for stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons. The focus of this stra­tegy is on acce­le­ra­ting orga­nic growth, inclu­ding the expan­sion of the part­ner network and increased inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In addi­tion, the orga­nic growth stra­tegy will be acce­le­ra­ted through selec­tive stra­te­gic combi­na­ti­ons with other market players.”

Roel Kort­ing, CEO of WeFact, said, “We look forward to working with Main and buil­ding WeFact into a leading inter­na­tio­nal company toge­ther. The combi­na­tion of Main’s exten­sive know­ledge and inter­na­tio­nal expe­ri­ence with our tech­ni­cal and commer­cial exper­tise is an excel­lent fit. This puts us in an excel­lent posi­tion to realize our ambi­tious growth plans and the further profes­sio­na­liza­tion of our company. In short, we are the same company, with the same people, the same core values, the same service and the same ambi­ti­ons. Howe­ver, now with the rein­force­ment of Main as our stra­te­gic partner.”

Jeroen Blox, Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer of WeFact, adds, “To grow and support WeFact, we need a strong and expe­ri­en­ced part­ner that fits our unique WeFact culture. We have found this kind of part­ner in Main. The drive to deve­lop the best product has remained unch­an­ged for 18 years. With Main as our part­ner, we can ensure conti­nuity for our custo­mers while our perfor­mance-driven team focu­ses on capi­ta­li­zing on new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the market­place. This part­ner­ship will enable us to deepen and expand our product offe­ring and further roll out WeFact internationally.”

Ivo van Deude­kom (photo © Main Capi­tal), Invest­ment Direc­tor at Main Capi­tal Part­ners, summa­ri­zes: “We have known the foun­ders and the manage­ment team of WeFact for many years and are impres­sed by the way they have built the company in a sustainable and fast growing way. That’s why we’re exci­ted to work with WeFact and support the company in its next phase. WeFact is a leading soft­ware provi­der in the billing and manage­ment soft­ware market with an extre­mely modern product. With WeFact, sole proprie­tors, small busi­ness owners and SMBs can be unbur­dened and gain more insight, control and effi­ci­ency for their orga­niza­tion. So we’re really looking forward to working toge­ther to make the custo­mer base even bigger and more international.”

About WeFact

Foun­ded in 2005 and based in Eersel (North Brabant, the Nether­lands), WeFact has become a leading soft­ware deve­lo­per for invoi­cing and admi­nis­tra­tion. WeFact provi­des a powerful solu­tion for sending invoices, crea­ting quotes, and proces­sing inco­ming invoices so busi­ness owners can get and stay in control of their admi­nis­tra­tion. The company makes its plat­form available to more than 10,000 entre­pre­neurs in the Nether­lands, Belgium and nume­rous other Euro­pean compa­nies. More than 750 accoun­ting firms act as distri­bu­tors for WeFact, recom­men­ding it as the ideal online invoi­cing and manage­ment solu­tion for entre­pre­neurs. WeFact employs around 17 people. https://www.wefact.nl

About Main Capi­tal Partners

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

News

Frank­furt am Main — Stan­dard Char­te­red, through its SC Ventures arm, is inves­t­ing with Landes­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg (LBBW) and Frank­furt-based finan­cial soft­ware specia­list Comyno in block­chain soft­ware provi­der SWIAT, which was foun­ded by Deka­bank in Febru­ary 2022. The invest­ment is part of the first finan­cing round for the further deve­lo­p­ment of SWIAT. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Stan­dard Char­te­red, Deka­Bank and LBBW will each hold a 30 percent stake in SWIAT, while Comyno will hold a 10 percent stake.

The goal of the new joint venture is to use SWIAT to create a uniform stan­dard for proces­sing block­chain-based secu­ri­ties. The new “SWIFT” for digi­tal assets, so to speak. In the future, the decen­tra­li­zed finan­cial infra­struc­ture will enable secu­ri­ties lending, repurchase agree­ments, deri­va­ti­ves and bond issues to be sett­led in real time. SWIAT stands for Secure World­wide Inter­bank Asset Trans­fer and is an enter­prise block­chain plat­form where banks control the nodes. www.swiat.io

Advi­sor Stan­dard Char­te­red: Allen & Overy 

The Allen & Overy team was led by part­ner Dr. Hans Scho­ne­weg and senior asso­ciate Juliane Dieck­mann-Keden (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and further included part­ners Dr. Udo Olgem­öl­ler (Public Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Jens Matthes (IP, Düssel­dorf) as well as coun­sel Dr. Ioan­nis Thanos (Anti­trust) and Dr. Daniel Bolm (Real Estate). The team also included senior asso­cia­tes Dr. Marcus Macken­sen (Corporate/Private Equity, all Hamburg), Anna Kräling (IP), Catha­rina Glugla (Data Protec­tion) and Florian Annu­schat (Tax Law, all Düssel­dorf), asso­cia­tes Dr. Stephan Bühner (Public Law, Frank­furt), Chan­tal Ahne­feld (Labor Law), Chris­tin Schlorf, Juliana Palavra Gorgueira (all Hamburg), Florian Diehl (Frank­furt) as well as Tran­sac­tion Offi­cer Dario Barbato (all Corporate/M&A, Hamburg).

 

News

Stutt­gart — TRUMPF Venture II GmbH (“TRUMPF Venture”) made an invest­ment of 13 million euros in the Series D finan­cing round of Munich-based medtech company iThera Medi­cal GmbH (“iThera Medi­cal”). TRUMPF Venture recei­ved legal and tax advice on this tran­sac­tion from Heuking Part­ner in Stutt­gart. In addi­tion to TRUMPF Venture, exis­ting inves­tors such as Bayern Kapi­tal again parti­ci­pa­ted with money from the Bava­rian Growth Fund. Further invest­ments were made by the Euro­pean Coun­cil Fund of the EU Commis­sion, Mey Capi­tal Matrix and Fluxu­nit. The company intends to use the capi­tal to deve­lop its own diagno­stic product to market matu­rity and to obtain regu­la­tory appr­oval in Europe and the USA.

TRUMPF Venture is a stra­te­gic as well as corpo­rate venture capi­tal inves­tor specia­li­zing in the promo­tion of promi­sing start-ups in the indus­try world­wide. TRUMPF Venture posi­ti­ons itself as a long-term deve­lo­p­ment part­ner. TRUMPF Venture usually seeks mino­rity stakes of between five and 25 percent.

iThera Medi­cal is a start-up for optoa­cou­stic imaging in medi­cal diagno­stics. A new deve­lo­p­ment of the company is the so-called MSOT tech­no­logy (Multis­pec­tral Optoa­cou­stic Tomo­gra­phy). Through this tech­no­logy, dise­ase patterns such as cancer or fibro­sis can be diagno­sed. By conver­ting light energy into sound waves, diffe­rent types of tissue in the body can thus be charac­te­ri­zed, diffe­ren­tia­ted and displayed in 3D images.

iThera Medi­cal was foun­ded in 2010 as a spin-off of Helm­holtz Zentrum München.

Advi­sors to Trumpf Venture GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Hermann Ali Hinde­rer, LL.M. (lead), Anika Lisa Dasch­mann (both Private Equity / Venture Capi­tal), Antje Münch, LL.M. (IP), all Stuttgart;
Laura-Feli­cia Bokranz, LL.M. (Univer­sity of Cape Town), Chris­toph Hexel (both Labor Law), both Düssel­dorf; Cécile Corbet, LL.M. (Patent Law), Frankfurt;
Dr. Martin Schel­len­berg (Public Law), Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz (Tax Law), both Hamburg

News

Hamburg / Munich — Water­land Private Equity has laun­ched two new funds — with capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling four billion euros. Despite a chal­len­ging econo­mic envi­ron­ment, nume­rous insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors thus provi­ded Water­land with more fresh capi­tal than ever before. In the DACH region, too, the Euro­pean mid-market inves­tor specia­li­zing in buy & build stra­te­gies can thus conti­nue its success story even stronger.

Waterland’s ninth fund (“WPEF IX”) has a volume of 3.5 billion euros and will invest as usual in medium-sized compa­nies in frag­men­ted growth markets. With the “Water­land Part­ner­ship Fund I”, an addi­tio­nal fund was estab­lished for mino­rity share­hol­dings, e.g. in selec­ted former port­fo­lio compa­nies of Water­land. Funds amoun­ting to 500 million euros are now available here. Fund­rai­sing for both funds was comple­ted in just four months and signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the origi­nal target.

“Capi­tal commit­ments from top-class insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors from all over the world are not a matter of course in these tense and cautious times. Howe­ver, the commit­ment of many exis­ting and new inves­tors shows that our invest­ment philo­so­phy and the nume­rous success stories are sustain­ably convin­cing,” says Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs (photo © Water­land), Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land in Hamburg. In two deca­des, the company has comple­ted appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 tran­sac­tions, foun­ding and deve­lo­ping more than 150 new plat­forms to build successful long-term market leaders. The expe­ri­en­ced buy & build inves­tor imple­ments an average of appro­xi­m­ately ten add-on acqui­si­ti­ons for each of its port­fo­lio companies.

Five new plat­forms in the DACH region in 2022

Water­land is active in Bene­lux, DACH, Scan­di­na­via, Poland, France as well as in the British Isles and recently also in Spain. In the DACH region, Water­land initia­ted five strong plat­forms through majo­rity acqui­si­ti­ons last year: Duven­beck (a leading Euro­pean logi­stics service provi­der), the Sleepco Group (merger of the premium bed manu­fac­tu­r­ers RUF and BRUNO from Germany and the Belgian LS Bedding), Lions­Home (a leading Euro­pean product compa­ri­son plat­form), the Swiss commu­ni­ca­ti­ons consul­tancy Team Farner and the soft­ware solu­ti­ons provi­der MT. In addi­tion, more than 20 stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons were made for the port­fo­lio — despite a very tense and compe­ti­tive situa­tion in nume­rous sectors.

For the new year 2023, Dr. Gregor Hengst, part­ner at Water­land in Munich, sees­De­spite the vola­tile macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment, there are attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties in our target region. For exam­ple, tech­no­logy-based services and health­care remain inte­res­t­ing for us. In addi­tion, we are iden­ti­fy­ing and moni­to­ring other frag­men­ted markets where our strong buy & build approach can come into play. In the current envi­ron­ment of increased vola­ti­lity, our close colla­bo­ra­tion with port­fo­lio compa­nies on their resi­li­ence and sustainable posi­tio­ning remains an important focus — we are expan­ding our team in the 13 Euro­pean offices for this purpose.”

In Germany and Switz­er­land, Water­land is curr­ently inves­ted in the follo­wing compa­nies in addi­tion to Duven­beck, Sleepco, Lions­Home, Farner and MT: MEDIAN (reha­bi­li­ta­tion clinic opera­tor), Schö­nes Leben Group (care faci­li­ties), Fit/One (fitness studios), Hanse­fit (company fitness offe­rings), Athera (physio­the­rapy), coeo (receiv­a­bles manage­ment), Horn & Company (manage­ment consul­ting), Leupold (pack­a­ging), Serrala (payment and finance soft­ware), netgo (IT services), Skay­link (cloud services), enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), mrge (adtech), Netrics (mana­ged cloud services) and GOD (enter­prise software).

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (London, Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen), Spain (Barce­lona) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, appro­xi­m­ately four­teen billion euros in equity funds are managed.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020 at the PE Awards.
www.waterland.de

 

News

Düssel­dorf — NRW.BANK has laun­ched the fourth gene­ra­tion of its venture fund, NRW.Venture. The volume amounts to 150 million euros, which is another 50 million euros more than in previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons. Indi­vi­dual invest­ments of up to EUR 15 million are possi­ble, compared with 10 previously. NRW.BANK is thus respon­ding to the sustained growth in finan­cing requi­re­ments in the market. The invest­ment focus is on future-orien­ted topics such as climate tech or the digi­ta­liza­tion of indus­try, busi­ness and administration.

Econo­mics Minis­ter Mona Neubaur: “With NRW.BANK’s fourth venture fund, we have an offer that even better meets the finan­cing needs of high-growth start-ups. The previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons have alre­ady shown that inno­va­tive and future-orien­ted start-ups in North Rhine-West­pha­lia find the best condi­ti­ons for successful deve­lo­p­ment. We are buil­ding on this and signi­fi­cantly incre­asing the fund volume available, with a parti­cu­lar focus on future topics such as ClimateTech.”

Michael Stöl­ting (Photo © NRW.BANK), Member of the Mana­ging Board of NRW.BANK: “In the fight against climate change, we need inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in North Rhine-West­pha­lia. Start-ups can play an essen­tial role here. At NRW.BANK, we make sure that promi­sing ideas do not fail due to financing.”

Between 20 and 30 new invest­ments are plan­ned by the end of 2027. In indi­vi­dual cases, the fund then invests up to 15 million euros in a company over seve­ral finan­cing rounds — toge­ther with private-sector co-inves­tors. Howe­ver, the commit­ment of NRW.Venture does not only include capi­tal, but also further support, among others in the areas of company buil­ding and gover­nance development.

Invest­ment focus

The invest­ment focus of the NRW.Venture funds is on indus­tries such as infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­logy, IT secu­rity, digi­tal economy, Inter­net of Things, life scien­ces, digi­tal health, inno­va­tive cross-sectional tech­no­lo­gies, new mate­ri­als, clean­tech as well as sustaina­bi­lity tech­no­lo­gies and agri­cul­tu­ral tech­no­lo­gies. In NRW.Venture IV, special atten­tion is also paid to start-ups in the Climate Tech segments as well as those that can support indus­try, busi­ness and admi­nis­tra­tion in the digi­tal transformation.

Prede­ces­sor fund: 68 invest­ments, many successful exits
The previous fund gene­ra­ti­ons of NRW.Venture have inves­ted in 68 start-ups, a signi­fi­cant number of which have alre­ady led to successful exits. Among them most recently, for exam­ple, the Bochum-based company phenox, which deve­lops, produ­ces and sells medi­cal tech­no­logy products for the treat­ment of strokes and vascu­lar dise­a­ses. NRW.Venture sold its shares in the company in April 2022 to Wallaby, a stra­te­gic inter­na­tio­nal part­ner of phenox.

The last fund to date, NRW.Venture III, star­ted its invest­ment period in 2018, ending with the end of 2022 and 22 invest­ments. Despite its early phase, this fund has also alre­ady recor­ded two successful exits.

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