Author: Tatjana Anderer

Bonn / Berlin — AMCS and Quen­tic announ­ced that the compa­nies have reached an agree­ment for the purchase of Quen­tic GmbH — a leading provi­der of EHSQ and ESG report­ing — by AMCS. The acqui­si­tion is supported by AMCS’ inves­tors, inclu­ding Clear­lake Capi­tal Group, which is joining forces with AMCS for its next phase of growth. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) will sell its shares as part of the deal. For HTGF, it is one of the most profi­ta­ble investments.

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­oval and is expec­ted to close in the coming weeks. Follo­wing regu­la­tory appr­oval, Quen­tic will become part of AMCS.

The tran­sac­tion will give HTGF the third highest multi­ple in its fund history. The seed inves­tor from Bonn had alre­ady inves­ted in Quen­tic in 2008, accom­pa­nied it inten­si­vely for 14 years and was able to contri­bute signi­fi­cantly to the deve­lo­p­ment of the start-up through close exch­ange. HTGF reco­gni­zed the great market poten­tial of EHSQ and ESG report­ing early on. Inves­t­ing in sustainable start-ups has been an important focus of the fund since the begin­ning: Quen­tic is a leading provi­der in the field of stan­dar­di­zed soft­ware solu­ti­ons for occu­pa­tio­nal safety, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustainability.

AMCS is a leading global provi­der of inte­gra­ted soft­ware and vehicle tech­no­logy for the envi­ron­ment, recy­cling and resour­ces sectors. As part of AMCS, Quentic’s market posi­tion is to be further expan­ded. AMCS is fully aligned with Quentic’s mission to enable orga­niza­ti­ons around the world to sustain­ably manage their people, busi­ness and envi­ron­men­tal proces­ses at all levels.

The sale is a mile­stone. The foun­ding team alre­ady set the course in 2007/2008 with a view to cloud tech­no­lo­gies, the SaaS busi­ness model and then visio­nary topics such as EHSQ and ESG. “I am very happy for the three foun­ders, all of whom are still in opera­tio­nal roles, as well as all Quen­tic employees about this great success and of course to have expe­ri­en­ced this long, as well as extre­mely successful jour­ney toge­ther,” said Markus Kreß­mann, Part­ner at HTGF

“HTGF accom­pa­nied us as an inves­tor and stra­te­gic part­ner at a very early stage. For a soft­ware company like us, HTGF’s network and indus­try know­ledge are very important. We thank them for their valuable coope­ra­tion and support!” Markus Becker, CEO and co-foun­der of Quentic

Quen­tic GmbH is a spin-off of the Berlin Univer­sity of Applied Scien­ces and was supported in the early phase by an EXIST start-up grant from the German Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and Tech­no­logy. HTGF remained on board for seve­ral finan­cing phases and supported the company in further follow-up financing.

Today, the company has 250 employees at over 14 loca­ti­ons throug­hout Europe. Its custo­mers include more than 900 medium-sized compa­nies as well as major global corporations.

About Quen­tic
Quen­tic is a leading Soft­ware as a Service (SaaS) solu­tion provi­der for HSEQ and ESG manage­ment. The Quen­tic plat­form compri­ses ten indi­vi­du­ally combi­nable specia­list modu­les and thus offers the best prere­qui­si­tes for effi­ci­ent manage­ment in the areas of occu­pa­tio­nal safety, risks & audits, events & obser­va­tions, hazar­dous subs­tances, control of work, legal compli­ance, online instruc­tions, proces­ses, envi­ron­men­tal manage­ment and sustaina­bi­lity. They are comple­men­ted by the Quen­tic app for mobile report­ing and by powerful analy­sis opti­ons, as well as clear and daily updated dash­boards on HSEQ key data in Quen­tic Analy­tics. Over 900 custo­mers have built their custo­mi­zed and powerful HSEQ manage­ment plat­form with Quen­tic soft­ware solu­ti­ons, streng­thening their organization’s sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted Envi­ron­ment, Social and Gover­nance (ESG) respon­si­bi­lity areas. The inte­gra­tive soft­ware is suita­ble to support complete manage­ment systems accor­ding to ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and ISO 45001.
Quen­tic is head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, and employs more than 250 people. Subsi­dia­ries are loca­ted in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Nether­lands, France, Spain and Italy.

Dusseldorf/ Paris — Cycle Capi­tal and Deme­ter, leading clean­tech-focu­sed asset mana­gers, announ­ced the successful first finan­cing close for their new Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund (“CIF”) of $160 million and €150 million, respec­tively, with parti­ci­pa­tion from anchor inves­tor L’Oréal.

Anchor inves­tor L’Oréal is contri­bu­ting 50 million euros through its sustaina­bi­lity program L’Oréal for the Future. The fund also bene­fits from a broad range of inves­tors, inclu­ding stra­te­gic inves­tor Axens, family offices such as Haltra and Claridge, as well as private inves­tors and the fund managers.

Through this fund, the fund mana­gers are pooling their resour­ces to scale circu­lar, sustainable and profi­ta­ble growth solu­ti­ons from North America, Europe and Asia that posi­tively contri­bute to climate change miti­ga­tion and the circu­lar use of resour­ces in a variety of sectors, inclu­ding new mate­ri­als, pack­a­ging, recy­cling and waste, logi­stics, eco-effi­ci­ent proces­ses and design. The fund will leverage the invest­ment mana­gers’ expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal, private equity and infra­struc­ture in the clean­tech sector to address the growing need for market-ready solu­ti­ons and provide capi­tal for talen­ted, entre­pre­neu­rial teams to imple­ment these innovations.

The CIF is a sustainable inno­va­tion fund clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the EU Regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. The Fund’s robust, relia­ble, and inno­va­tive impact measu­re­ment metho­do­logy includes due dili­gence and ongo­ing moni­to­ring of criti­cal non-finan­cial metrics, inclu­ding green­house gas emis­si­ons reduc­tions, resource use, and diver­sity within port­fo­lio compa­nies’ invest­ment hori­zons. Fund mana­gers’ compen­sa­tion is also based on the achie­ve­ment of a selec­tion of prede­fi­ned impact targets.

- “In a context of ’now or never,’ as stated in the latest IPCC report, private compa­nies like L’Oréal must play a grea­ter role in support­ing solu­ti­ons that are criti­cal to the future of our planet and huma­nity. At L’Oréal, we believe that impact inves­t­ing is a powerful tool to address the biggest envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges and acce­le­rate the neces­sary green trans­for­ma­tion. Through the Circu­lar Inno­va­tion Fund, we are joining forces with other commit­ted play­ers to scale circu­lar and profi­ta­ble solu­ti­ons for sustainable growth.” — Alex­an­dra Palt, Chief Corpo­rate Respon­si­bi­lity Offi­cer and CEO of Fonda­tion L’Oréal.

Invest­ments in early-stage venture capi­tal funds

Follo­wing the initial closing, CIF announ­ces indi­rect invest­ments in two early stage funds focu­sed on circu­lar inno­va­tion — the U.S. Closed Loop Venture Fund II and the Euro­pean Circu­lar Bioe­co­nomy Fund (“ECBF”).

Foun­ded in 2014, Closed Loop Part­ners is a New York-based invest­ment firm that includes venture capi­tal, growth capi­tal, private equity and cata­ly­tic capi­tal, and an inno­va­tion center focu­sed on advan­cing the circu­lar economy. The company’s venture capi­tal arm, Closed Loop Ventures Group, laun­ched in 2017 with one of the first venture capi­tal funds to invest in early-stage disrup­tive compa­nies deve­lo­ping breakth­rough solu­ti­ons to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to a circu­lar economy. In 2021, the Group laun­ched its second risk fund to build on this stra­tegy. To date, the team has made more than 30 invest­ments in both funds, targe­ting high early-stage returns.

ECBF is the first venture fund to invest exclu­si­vely in high-growth compa­nies in the Euro­pean bioe­co­nomy, inclu­ding the circu­lar economy. The fund aims to make sustainable invest­ments in our future and acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion from a fossil-based to a bio-based economy. In this way, ECBF supports compa­nies with high inno­va­tion poten­tial, attrac­tive returns and sustainable impact.
CIF will also spon­sor a global acce­le­ra­tion program through a part­ner­ship with Cycle Momen­tum. The program provi­des support for seed/series A stage start­ups with cohorts in Europe, North America and Asia over 3 years.

The CIF invest­ment team is actively explo­ring a variety of invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and welco­mes inqui­ries from and colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with foun­ders and co-investors.

About Cycle Capital
Cycle Capi­tal is a sustainable inves­tor and a leading private clean­tech venture capi­tal invest­ment plat­form with $600 million in assets under manage­ment. With offices in Mont­real and Toronto, as well as Qing­dao, China, and a presence in New York and Seat­tle, Cycle Capi­tal invests throug­hout North America and China in growing and commer­ci­ally successful compa­nies that have deve­lo­ped tech­no­lo­gies to reduce green­house gas emis­si­ons and opti­mize resour­ces and proces­ses. Cycle Capi­tal is the foun­der of the Cycle Momen­tum Acce­le­ra­tor and Cana­dian co-chair of the Beyond the Billion Initia­tive — an inter­na­tio­nal campaign to mobi­lize a consor­tium of inves­tors to support women foun­ders. cyclecapital.com.

About Deme­ter
Deme­ter is a large Euro­pean invest­ment plat­form dedi­ca­ted to ecolo­gi­cal change. Deme­ter mana­ges over 1 billion euros and has alre­ady made 200 invest­ments since 2005. Deme­ter invests between 1 and 30 million euros to support compa­nies at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment: inno­va­tive start­ups, high-growth SMEs and infra­struc­ture projects. The 38-strong team works in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Greno­ble, Metz, Madrid and Düssel­dorf. Deme­ter is a respon­si­ble and commit­ted inves­tor and signa­tory to nume­rous initia­ti­ves such as PRI (Prin­ci­ple for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment), CDP (Carbon Disclo­sure Project), iC20, The Shift Project and gender diver­sity initia­ti­ves. All new Deme­ter funds are clas­si­fied as “Article 9″ under the frame­work of the new Euro­pean regu­la­tion on sustaina­bi­lity-rela­ted disclo­sure requi­re­ments in the finan­cial services sector. www.demeter-im.com.

L’Oréal
For over 110 years, L’Oréal, the world’s leading beauty care company, has been dedi­ca­ted to one thing: fulfil­ling the beauty desi­res of people around the world. Our goal to create the beauty that moves the world defi­nes our approach to beauty as inclu­sive, ethi­cal, gene­rous, and commit­ted to social and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. With our broad port­fo­lio of 35 inter­na­tio­nal brands and our ambi­tious sustaina­bi­lity commit­ments under our L’Oréal for the Future program, we offer the best in quality, effi­cacy, safety, honesty and respon­si­bi­lity to ever­yone around the world.

Bonn, Germany — Fagron, a global leader in phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring, announ­ced on April 14 that it has acqui­red Hiper­Scan, the German market leader in the secure iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als in phar­macies. High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) is selling its shares after having closely supported the team around Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter and Michael Thoma since 2008.

The Dres­den-based tech­no­logy company Hiper­Scan is a specia­list in near-infrared (NIR) spec­tro­scopy and emer­ged in 2006 as a spin-off from the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Photo­nic Micro­sys­tems (IPMS) to deve­lop inno­va­tive analy­sis systems for phar­macies and other indus­tries. With the Apo-Ident analy­sis system, which is speci­ally desi­gned for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of start­ing mate­ri­als and is used in over 5,500 phar­macies, Hiper­Scan has achie­ved market leader­ship in this segment in Germany and today employs over 50 people.

Fagron is a global leader in the phar­maceu­ti­cal manu­fac­tu­ring of perso­na­li­zed medi­ci­nes, focu­sed on provi­ding perso­na­li­zed medi­cine to hospi­tals, phar­macies, clinics and pati­ents in 35 count­ries around the world. Foun­ded in 1990, the company has over 3,000 employees world­wide. As part of the Fagron family, new markets may open up for HiperScan’s tech­no­logy to further enhance safety and drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medicine.

“HTGF joined us shortly after we were foun­ded, which enab­led us to deve­lop Fraun­ho­fer IPMS Dresden’s scan­ning grating tech­no­logy into a market-ready product. Then we gradu­ally evol­ved from a tech­no­logy provi­der to an estab­lished provi­der of indus­try solu­ti­ons that is now conside­red the gold stan­dard in German phar­macies. As part of Fagron, we can help drive the future of perso­na­li­zed medi­cine,” Dr. Alex­an­der Wolter, CEO at HiperScan.

“I have a special connec­tion with Hiper­Scan: On the one hand, the company was my first invest­ment in 2008 as a young invest­ment mana­ger at that time! On the other hand, Hiper­Scan is a prime exam­ple for seed finan­cing of tech­no­lo­gi­cally very deep compa­nies. This is all the more true since Hiper­Scan was foun­ded with MEMS tech­no­logy out of the Fraun­ho­fer IPMS. With Fagron, Hiper­Scan has now found a perfect new owner.” Explains Dr. Andreas Olmes, Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Gründerfonds.

“We at Fraun­ho­fer Venture first came into cont­act with the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea in 2004. Mana­ging Direc­tor Alex­an­der Wolter was among the first parti­ci­pants in a now estab­lished educa­tio­nal measure for pros­pec­tive foun­ders. At the same time, the Hiper­Scan spin-off idea was supported by the prede­ces­sor program of the current AHEAD program and recei­ved further inter­nal funding after its foun­da­tion with the goal of manage­ment expan­sion.” Manfred Stöger, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Fraun­ho­fer Venture.