ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
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News

Berlin/ Basel (Switz­er­land) — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed the global phar­maceu­ti­cal and diagno­stics group Roche on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in the Berlin-based TIB Molbiol Group, an expert in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted to occur in the fourth quar­ter of 2021. The acqui­si­tion expands Roche’s broad port­fo­lio in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics solu­ti­ons with a wide range of assays for infec­tious dise­a­ses, such as SARS-CoV2 variants.

Roche is a global company in the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment of medi­ci­nes and diagno­stics. In addi­tion, Roche is the world’s largest biotech company with drugs for onco­logy, immu­no­logy, infec­tious dise­a­ses, ophthal­mo­logy and dise­a­ses of the
Central nervous system.

Foun­ded in 1896 and head­quar­te­red in Basel, Switz­er­land, the Roche Group opera­tes in more than 100 count­ries and employed more than 100,000 people world­wide in 2020. In 2020, Roche inves­ted CHF 12.2 billion in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and gene­ra­ted sales of CHF 58.3 billion.

The biotech­no­logy company TIB Molbiol was foun­ded in 1990 and has been supp­ly­ing the inter­na­tio­nal market with diagno­stic and rese­arch reagents ever since. As a manu­fac­tu­rer of custom oligo­nu­cleo­ti­des, the company is a part­ner in the deve­lo­p­ment of mole­cu­lar diagno­stics and has a broad port­fo­lio of diagno­stic assays. The Berlin-based company has sites in the USA, Colom­bia, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Dr. Ruben Perren and Dr. Felix Kobel from Roche’s legal depart­ment were respon­si­ble for the transaction.

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team acted for Roche in the transaction:
Dr. Alex­an­der Schwarz (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Martin Viciano Gofferje (Part­ner, Berlin, both Lead), Dr. Fabian Mumme (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­toph Meiss­ner (Berlin), Fried­rich Baum­gär­tel, Kai Zimutta (both Düssel­dorf, all M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Jan Hinrichs, Dr. Felix Müller (all IP/IT), Dr. Enno Burk (Coun­sel, Health­care, all Berlin), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner, Tax, Hamburg), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs, Matthias Hahn, Lenn­art Förs­ter (all Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ingo Brin­ker (Part­ner), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, both Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Stefan Linge­mann (Part­ner), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (both Berlin), Dr. Simona Kreis (Hamburg, all Labor Law), Konrad Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frankfurt).

Gleiss Lutz has advi­sed Roche on seve­ral tran­sac­tions in the past, inclu­ding the sale of Roche Diagno­stics IT Solu­ti­ons GmbH to Nexus AG.

News

Munich/Beijing — ARQIS advi­sed Agile Robots AG, a highly inno­va­tive robo­tics company, on its Series C finan­cing round with a total invest­ment volume of US$220 million. Agile Robots is thus the first German Unicorn in the robo­tics indus­try, beco­ming the highest rated robo­tics company world­wide. The proceeds from this finan­cing will be used prima­rily for product deve­lo­p­ment, series produc­tion and the company’s global sales expan­sion. and is valued at more than one billion US dollars worldwide.

The finan­cing round was led by Soft­Bank Vision Fund 2, follo­wed by finan­cial inves­tors inclu­ding Abu Dhabi Royal Group, Hill­house Ventures, Sequoia Capi­tal China , and Linear Capi­tal (in alpha­be­ti­cal order), as well as stra­te­gic inves­tors Xiaomi Group, Foxconn Indus­trial Inter­net (“FII”), and Midas, foun­ded by former Foxconn executives.

The proceeds from this finan­cing will be used prima­rily for product deve­lo­p­ment in Munich and China, the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of series produc­tion in Germany and China, and the expan­sion of the company’s global sales activities.

Agile Robots had alre­ady succee­ded in raising funding of over $130 million in two rounds in 2020, and is now the company with the highest amount of funding for an Intel­li­gent Robo­tics company. Agile Robots is curr­ently the world’s only Unicorn in robo­tics with a valua­tion of more than $1 billion. With the closing of this finan­cing round, Agile Robots is the first robo­tics company in which Soft­Bank Vision Fund 2 has inves­ted in Europe and China.

“As part of our ongo­ing commit­ment to the very dyna­mic Chinese market and to support entre­pre­neurs driving a wave of inno­va­tion, we are plea­sed to part­ner with Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, Peter Meusel and the team at Agile Robots,” said Dr. Eric Chen, Mana­ging Part­ner at Soft­Bank Invest­ment Advi­sers. “Agile Robots combi­nes arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence with advan­ced robo­tics tech­no­logy to solve some of the industry’s most chal­len­ging problems, and is the latest exam­ple of our contin­ued support for the growing Euro­pean and Chinese tech­no­logy sectors.”

Agile Robots was foun­ded in 2018 and is head­quar­te­red in both Munich, Germany and Beijing, China. Agile Robots is a robo­tics soft­ware plat­form company with leading hard­ware exper­tise in robo­tics. With the German Aero­space Center (“DLR”) as its tech­ni­cal back­bone and the core concept of “AI Empower­ment”, the company is commit­ted to foste­ring the deep combi­na­tion and inno­va­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robo­tics, and driving the appli­ca­tion of robo­tics into even more indus­trial fields. DLR is not only the first rese­arch insti­tu­tion to send intel­li­gent robots into space and perform complex tasks such as human-robot colla­bo­ra­tion, but also the first in the world to successfully deve­lop force-control­led robots that have also been adopted by indus­try for their production.

“With its unique tech­no­logy that combi­nes a robo­tics opera­ting system and world-leading sensi­tive robots, Agile Robots is stri­ving to achieve a funda­men­tal breakth­rough in the field of robo­tics,” said Dr. Zhaopeng Chen, foun­der and CEO of Agile Robots AG. “Agile Robots reali­sti­cally brings the next gene­ra­tion of robots into indus­trial intel­li­gent precis­ion assem­bly areas and medi­cal treat­ment scena­rios that previously could only be perfor­med by humans. With the excel­lent support from our renow­ned inves­tors and custo­mers, we are confi­dent to lead robo­tics into a new era,” Zhaopeng Chen continued.

Agile Robots has inde­pendently deve­lo­ped and laun­ched soft­ware and hard­ware products, such as the “Agil­e­Core” opera­ting system for coor­di­na­ting robots and access­ories such as grip­pers and other end effec­tors from various manu­fac­tu­r­ers, the “DIANA” intel­li­gent force-control­led robot, medi­cal robots, huma­noid five-finger sensi­tive hands, and the flexi­ble intel­li­gent produc­tion plat­form (FIP).

With its unique hard­ware and soft­ware R&D capa­bi­li­ties, Agile Robots has laun­ched a highly disrup­tive “Robo­tic Worker” that serves as an intel­li­gent assistant for all kinds of workers and profes­sio­nals from various fields to perform mundane or hazar­dous tasks. Agile Robots is thus opening up new “blue ocean markets” for intel­li­gent robot appli­ca­ti­ons. Curr­ently, the company has used its robots for produc­tion in nume­rous indus­trial scena­rios. Agile Robots’ products have alre­ady been successfully deployed into mass produc­tion in the consu­mer elec­tro­nics indus­try and are widely used in medi­cal, indus­trial (consu­mer elec­tro­nics, auto­mo­tive, jewelry and other precis­ion assem­bly and manu­fac­tu­ring scena­rios), agri­cul­tu­ral, educa­tio­nal and service sectors. — Agile Robots is expan­ding its market presence world­wide with its 440 employees (140 in Germany and 300 in China).

Consul­tant Agile Robots: ARQIS (Munich):
Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem, Dr. Mauritz von Einem (both lead; both venture capi­tal), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/IT), Dr. Chris­tof Alex­an­der Schnei­der (Düssel­dorf; corpo­rate law); Asso­cia­tes: Benja­min Bandur, Louisa Theresa Graf, Anselm Graf (all venture capi­tal), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (IP/IT)

About ARQIS
ARQIS is an inde­pen­dent busi­ness law firm opera­ting inter­na­tio­nally. The firm was foun­ded in 2006 in Düssel­dorf, Munich and Tokyo. Around 55 lawy­ers and legal specia­lists advise dome­stic and foreign compa­nies at the highest level on German and Japa­nese busi­ness law. With the focus groups Tran­sac­tions, HR.Law, Japan, Data.Law and Risk, the firm is geared towards provi­ding holi­stic advice to its clients. www.arqis.com.

Espe­ci­ally for China market, Agile Robots has comple­ted the stra­te­gic layout in Northe­ast China, North China, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regi­ons. And in Germany, series produc­tion is curr­ently being set up in Kauf­beu­ren in the Allgäu region. In addi­tion, Agile has exten­sive stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with China’s listed ortho­pe­dic surgery robot company TINAVI, the leading neuro­sur­gery robot company Reme­bot, seve­ral top-tier Chinese gene­ral and specialty hospi­tals, New Hope Group, and seve­ral other world-leading compa­nies (such as an inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer elec­tro­nics manu­fac­tu­ring giant, an inter­na­tio­nal tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons service provi­der, and one of the world’s top 500 elec­tro­nic device manu­fac­tu­r­ers, etc.).

Based on a perso­nal cont­act, the expe­ri­en­ced VC expert Chris­toph von Einem has been advi­sing the company since its foun­da­tion in March 2018. From the Series A finan­cing round onwards, he shared the lead manage­ment with his son Mauritz. The young lawyer and tax advi­sor has been part of the Arqis part­ner team since the begin­ning of 2020 and also hand­led the struc­tu­ring of the tran­sac­tions. His father, who used to head the China desk at White & Case and is ther­e­fore fami­liar with the customs and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments of the Chinese inves­tor commu­nity, also serves as chair­man of the start-up’s super­vi­sory board.

Arqis, toge­ther with its Tokyo office, also coor­di­na­tes the global IP stra­tegy for Agile Robots and deve­lo­ped incen­tive programs for the Chinese and German employees with the mana­gers. Wolf­gang Keil­itz from the Bava­rian boutique Patworx is regu­larly invol­ved for special patent law issues.

About Agile Robots
Agile Robots AG is a high-tech startup based in Munich. Agile Robots is a spin-off of the German Aero­space Center (DLR) and aims to revo­lu­tio­nize the market with its intel­li­gent robot solu­ti­ons. — Our mission is to bridge the gap between arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robo­tics by deve­lo­ping systems that combine state-of-the-art force-torque sens­ing and world-leading image proces­sing tech­no­logy. This unique combi­na­tion of tech­no­lo­gies enables us to provide smart, user-friendly and afforda­ble robo­tic solu­ti­ons that enable safe human-robot inter­ac­tion. www.agile-robots.com

News

Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Berlin-based AI Venture Studio Meran­tix (MX AG) on the struc­tu­ring of its venture funds and the rela­ted invest­ment by the world’s largest tech­no­logy inves­tor Soft­Bank, which is parti­ci­pa­ting through its Vision Fund 2. Seed invest­ments are to be finan­ced from Merantix’s estab­lished in-house venture fund.
At the same time, Meran­tix and with Soft­Bank Invest­ment Advi­sers (SIBA) announ­ced a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to promote AI tech­no­logy in Germany.

Both compa­nies are convin­ced that arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will be the most signi­fi­cant tech­no­logy of our time. Soft­Bank has also inves­ted globally in the past and has taken a leading role in this field. Meran­tix was foun­ded in 2016 by Adrian Locher and Rasmus Rothe and sees itself as the world’s first AI venture studio. The company addres­ses the world’s most pres­sing problems by turning cutting-edge AI rese­arch into products. This is done through a sophisti­ca­ted venture-buil­ding process.

For exam­ple, Meran­tix has alre­ady foun­ded seven AI compa­nies to date, inclu­ding Cambrium, Kausa, SiaSe­arch and Vara. Accor­ding to the company, up to ten more compa­nies are to follow in the next few years. In April 2021, Meran­tix opened a 5,200-square-meter AI campus at Berlin’s Nord­bahn­hof, where start­ups with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-rela­ted busi­ness models can rent space. In addi­tion, Merantix’s own spin-offs are also loca­ted there.

YPOG’s compre­hen­sive advice covered all tax, regu­la­tory and corpo­rate law issues rela­ting to the Fund. In previous years, the Berlin office of the law firm has alre­ady regu­larly advi­sed Meran­tix, inclu­ding in the context of the over­all restruc­tu­ring, in various invest­ments and also in the struc­tu­ring of a € 25 million fund in 2020.

Advi­sor Meran­tix: YPOG
Dr. Fabian Euhus (Lead Part­ner), Part­ner, Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker, Part­ner, Joel El-Qalqili, Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Dr. Sebas­tian Schwarz, Asso­cia­ted Partner

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IT/IP and nota­rial services. 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become 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 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law as well as www.linkedin.com/company/ypog.

News

Cologne/ Berlin — The invest­ment company Odewald KMU II has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in ctrl QS GmbH Roll­out Manage­ment for Digi­tal Projects. Odewald was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek.

Toge­ther with the foun­der, Mirja Silver­man, who will conti­nue to lead the company as mana­ging part­ner, the successful growth course of the company is to be contin­ued. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the econo­mic details of the invest­ment. Odewald KMU was thus able to realize the ninth invest­ment for the current second Odewald KMU Fund.

ctrl QS is a specia­li­zed service provi­der that advi­ses and opera­tio­nally supports multi­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and brands in process, tool and change manage­ment in the context of digi­tal projects. In its core market, ctrl QS alre­ady occu­p­ies a leading market posi­tion and, thanks to its exten­sive exper­tise, has a wide range of oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand its product range and conti­nue to grow successfully both natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally. A key compe­ti­tive advan­tage of ctrl QS is its in-depth under­stan­ding of custo­mers’ proces­ses and chal­lenges, as well as its many years of expe­ri­ence in successfully hand­ling cross-system, digi­tal projects. In addi­tion, further growth is to be reali­zed through targe­ted add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. The Berlin-based company was foun­ded in 2009 and today employs over 100 people.

Heiko Arnold (photo), Part­ner of Odewald KMU: “We are plea­sed to support Mirja Silver­man and her team as they execute the future growth of ctrl QS. With this acqui­si­tion, we are also demons­t­ra­ting our increased focus on tech­no­logy compa­nies: Here, there are nume­rous owner-mana­ged compa­nies with exci­ting busi­ness models and excel­lent growth prospects.”

About Odewald
The Odewald KMU II Fund has a volume of 200 million euros and invests in high-growth medium-sized compa­nies. The focus is on compa­nies in the fields of “German engi­nee­ring”, intel­li­gent services, health and software/IT.

Advi­sor Odewald KMU II: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Dr. Pär Johans­son (Lead), Dr. Phil­ipp Jansen, Anna Schä­fer (all Private Equity, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), Dr. Lutz Keppe­ler (Data Protec­tion), Dr. Verena Hoene, LL.M. (IP), all Cologne

News

Ratin­gen — ADCO Umwelt­dienste Holding GmbH (ADCO) from Ratin­gen sells all shares of its subsi­diary QITS GmbH (QITS) to Borro­min Capi­tal Fonds IV (Borro­min). Mayland AG exclu­si­vely advi­sed ADCO on this transaction.

As a specia­li­zed IT service provi­der, QITS is the tech­no­logy and market leader in the field of custo­mer commu­ni­ca­tion (“output manage­ment”) with a parti­cu­lar focus on the proces­sing of highly sensi­tive, busi­ness-criti­cal custo­mer data and its distri­bu­tion via a wide variety of physi­cal and digi­tal commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels (“omni-chan­nel”). QITS’ long-stan­ding custo­mers include a wide range of diffe­rent compa­nies with high output requi­re­ments for tran­sac­tion docu­ments and the asso­cia­ted highest secu­rity requi­re­ments from indus­tries such as energy supply, finan­cial services, insu­rance and housing. QITS supports its custo­mers in parti­cu­lar in the further digi­tiza­tion of their custo­mer communications.

The ADCO group of compa­nies with over 4,000 employees is the world market leader in the field of mobile connec­tion-free sani­tary units (“TOI TOI & DIXI”) and is repre­sen­ted by 49 opera­ting compa­nies in 29 count­ries. The ADCO Group was run as a successful family busi­ness for over 30 years. Since 2019, Apax Part­ners is the new majo­rity share­hol­der of the group. ADCO sold QITS in order to focus on its own core busi­ness, but also to allow QITS to conti­nue and further acce­le­rate its successful deve­lo­p­ment with a new inves­tor fully focu­sed on QITS.

Borro­min (form­erly Stead­fast Capi­tal) is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment company focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe and the Bene­lux count­ries. Borromin’s funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies and provide equity capi­tal for entre­pre­neu­rial succes­si­ons, manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing. Borro­min was foun­ded in 2001 and has since pursued a successful, value-orien­ted stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in profi­ta­ble compa­nies in a wide range of industries.

MAYLAND AG was exclu­si­vely manda­ted with the sales process and provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to ADCO and QITS. Within the frame­work of an inter­na­tio­nal auction, the tran­sac­tion was successfully comple­ted within 4 months.

About MAYLAND

MAYLAND is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged M&A consul­tancy based in Düssel­dorf. Since its foun­da­tion in 1998, MAYLAND has been deve­lo­ping indi­vi­dual solu­ti­ons for the purchase and sale of compa­nies or parts of compa­nies with owners and manage­ment of both medium-sized compa­nies and corpo­rate groups, and has been imple­men­ting these tran­sac­tions toge­ther with the decis­ion-makers. MAYLAND also arran­ges any neces­sary or requi­red finan­cing or asso­cia­ted restructuring.

MAYLAND provi­des struc­tu­red process manage­ment for these natio­nal and cross-border projects and coor­di­na­tes all services for a successful comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion. With analy­ti­cal excel­lence, many years of expe­ri­ence and a commit­ment to part­ner­ship, MAYLAND struc­tures tran­sac­tions in all phases of a company. MAYLAND atta­ches parti­cu­lar importance to custo­mi­zed and holi­stic solu­ti­ons, trans­pa­rent consul­ting services and long-term custo­mer rela­ti­onships based on trust. For more infor­ma­tion in German, English, Chinese and Russian, please visit www.mayland.de.

News

Stock­holm — EQT is plea­sed to announce that EQT Public Value (“EQT Public Value”) has acqui­red 6.6 million shares in Story­tel AB (“Story­tel” or “the Company”), repre­sen­ting an owner­ship of close to 10 percent of shares outstan­ding. Joakim Rubin, Part­ner within EQT Public Value Advi­sory Team, is nomi­na­ted to join the board of direc­tors, subject to appr­oval of an extra­or­di­nary gene­ral meeting.

Story­tel, listed on Nasdaq First North has a strong track record of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth in the large and fast-growing audio­book market. Story­tel is one of the world’s largest subscri­bed audio­book and e‑book strea­ming services and offers listening and reading of more than 700,000 titles on a global scale. The Company’s vision is to make the world a more empa­the­tic and crea­tive place with great stories to be shared and enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, and anytime. Storytel’s strea­ming busi­ness is conduc­ted under the brands Story­tel and Mofibo. Storytel’s publi­shing busi­ness area is carried out through the audio­book publisher Story­Side and acclai­med Nordic publi­shing houses such as Norstedts, People’s and Gumme­rus. Story­tel opera­tes in 25 markets around the globe and is head­quar­te­red in Stock­holm, Sweden.

EQT Public Value seeks to iden­tify mino­rity invest­ments in public compa­nies with market leading posi­ti­ons, strong manage­ment teams and signi­fi­cant poten­tial for top-line and earnings growth. Through share­hol­der enga­ge­ment, EQT Public Value aims to work closely with exis­ting share­hol­ders, boards, and manage­ment teams in order to allow that compa­nies reach their full poten­tial and deli­ver share­hol­der value. In addi­tion to Story­tel, EQT Public Value has previously disc­lo­sed posi­ti­ons in Secu­ri­tas, BHG Group, Store­brand, Biogaia, and AFRY.

The EQT Public Value advi­sory team looks forward, pending the Extra­or­di­nary Gene­ral Meeting, to working toge­ther with share­hol­ders, board, and manage­ment on the next phase of Storytel’s growth journey.

News

Stock­holm — Trill Impact, an inde­pen­dent private invest­ment firm backed by Nordea Asset Manage­ment (NAM), has closed its first Impact Mid-Market Buyout Fund (“the Fund”) follo­wing $900 million in place­ments by promi­nent insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors world­wide. One of the largest first-time funds raised by an inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm during the global pandemic.

Trill Impact was foun­ded in 2019 by Jan Ståhl­berg (photo ) with support from Nordea Asset Manage­ment (NAM). Today, it is one of the largest specia­li­zed impact invest­ment houses in Europe, with more than $1 billion in assets under manage­ment across its private equity and micro­fi­nance invest­ment advi­sory stra­te­gies. This will combine the exten­sive private equity expe­ri­ence of the Trill Impact team with NAM’s deep exper­tise in impact analy­sis and fund­rai­sing capa­bi­li­ties to bring best-of-breed private impact invest­ments to market.

Through its stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Nordea Asset Manage­ment, a pioneer and market leader in respon­si­ble invest­ment, Trill Impact works with NAM’s Respon­si­ble Invest­ment team and NAM’s global Inves­tor Rela­ti­ons (IR) and Fund­rai­sing team across Europe and over­seas markets.

Although the fund­rai­sing occur­red at unpre­ce­den­ted times during the global pande­mic, the fund is one of the largest in terms of capi­tal commit­ments raised by an emer­ging mana­ger since the global finan­cial crisis. It is also one of the largest first-time funds raised by an inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm during the global pandemic.

Since the fund’s incep­tion, four tran­sac­tions have been comple­ted by the fund, all targe­ted invest­ments in Nort­hern Europe aimed at gene­ra­ting returns in private equity markets and lasting, measura­ble impact. Trill Impact embarks on a jour­ney with port­fo­lio company manage­ment teams to nurture and trans­form compa­nies to reach their full impact potential.

The fund’s advi­sory board consists of, among others, AP4 (Fourth Swedish Natio­nal Pension Fund), AP6 (Sixth Swedish Natio­nal Pension Fund), Alli­anz Global Inves­tors, New York Life Insu­rance Company, Lucie and André Chagnon Foun­da­tion, Velliv, Pension & Livs­for­sik­ring A/S and Nordea Life & Pensions.

“Our mission was to gene­rate reve­nue with accoun­ta­bi­lity. That’s what has driven our busi­ness with Trill Impact. By joining our respec­tive forces, we aim to provide inves­tors with world-class private equity and ESG exper­tise, as well as the oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in the change they find meaningful in the world. We are plea­sed that many promi­nent inves­tors have reco­gni­zed the value of this part­ner­ship and believe that this initial success paves the way for future growth of the Trill Impact offe­ring,” says Nils Bolm­strand, CEO of Nordea Asset Management.

Jan Ståhl­berg, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Trill Impact, adds, “My goal for Trill Impact since its incep­tion has been to create a thought leader for posi­tive change through impact inves­t­ing, enab­ling like-minded inves­tors to actively contri­bute to a better world and inspi­ring others to join in. I am convin­ced that toge­ther with Nordea Asset Manage­ment and the fund’s inves­tors, we have now laid the foun­da­tion for future success.”

About Trill Impact

Trill Impact is an impact house with more than €1 billion in assets under manage­ment in its private equity and micro­fi­nance advi­sory stra­te­gies. Trill Impact Advi­sory, the exclu­sive invest­ment advi­sor to the Trill Impact Fund, employs a team of more than 20 expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals based in Sweden and Germany. Driven by a culture with a high sense of urgency, Trill Impact aims to become a force for posi­tive change and achieve its vision of deli­ve­ring real returns and sustainable impact for the bene­fit of inves­tors, busi­nesses and society at large.

News

Düsseldorf/ Xanten — BHG Group AB has acqui­red 80% of the shares in AH-Trading GmbH from its foun­ders and a finan­cial inves­tor. AH-Trading GmbH, based in Xanten, is one of the leading German e‑commerce compa­nies for garden furni­ture in the middle and upper segments. With this acqui­si­tion, the BHG Group is further expan­ding its product range and busi­ness acti­vi­ties in Germany. The acqui­si­tion lays the foun­da­tion for further growth in the stra­te­gi­cally important German market. A team led by Düssel­dorf part­ner Dr. Martin Imhof provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to BHG Group AB.

Foun­ded in 2004, AH-Trading today employs around 120 people. The company can look back on strong and profi­ta­ble orga­nic growth. AH-Trading is one of the fastest growing German e‑commerce compa­nies for garden furni­ture selling its appro­xi­m­ately 10,000 products all online via the plat­forms Gartenmoebel.de and Loungedreams.com. Both plat­forms are among the best-known online chan­nels for garden and outdoor furni­ture in Germany.

The foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors Aron and Birgit Holter­mann will conti­nue the manage­ment of AH-Trading and deve­lop it further toge­ther with the support of the BHG team. Adam Schatz, Presi­dent and CEO of the BHG Group sees the acqui­si­tion of AH-Trading as a stra­te­gi­cally important step to further streng­then BHG’s presence in Germany. He is looking forward to expan­ding AH-Trading’s busi­ness in the future toge­ther with the foun­ders under the umbrella of the BHG Group.

BHG Group AB is the number 1 e‑commerce company in the Nordic count­ries and has a strong presence also in the rest of Europe and selec­ted markets outside Europe. The BHG group of compa­nies is one of Europe’s largest online pure-play compa­nies in the home impro­ve­ment and furnis­hings sector. With over 100 online plat­forms and more than 70 show­rooms, the BHG Group offers nearly 1 million unique products and a compre­hen­sive range of home impro­ve­ment, leisure, furni­ture and furnis­hings. BHG is head­quar­te­red in Malmö, Sweden and is listed on the Nasdaq Stock­holm Stock Exchange.

Advi­sors to BHG Group AB: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Martin Imhof (Corpo­rate Law/M&A, Lead Part­ner), Düsseldorf
Sebas­tian Poll­meier (Corpo­rate Law/M&A)
Tatiana Vorot­nit­skaya (Corporate/M&A), both Düsseldorf
Matthias M. Bosbach (Finan­cing), Düsseldorf
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (anti­trust law), Düsseldorf
Michael Kuska, LL.M., LL.M. (IT), Düsseldorf
Astrid Lued­tke (IP, data protec­tion), Düsseldorf
Fabian Schmitz (commer­cial tenancy law), Düsseldorf
Bernd Weller (Labor Law)
Dr. Chris­toph Gerhard (Labor Law), both Frankfurt
Birgit Schreier (E‑Commerce), Hamburg

News

Munich/ New York — Euro­pean Sustainable Growth Acqui­si­tion Corp. (EUSG) has acqui­red ADS-TEC Energy GmbH, a leading German manu­fac­tu­rer of battery char­ging plat­forms. The company opera­tes under the name ADS-TEC Energy and will be listed on the US Nasdaq with an expec­ted market capi­ta­liza­tion of appro­xi­m­ately USD 580 million. — Global law firm Reed Smith provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Euro­pean Sustainable Growth Acqui­si­tion Corp (EUSG) on the acqui­si­tion of ADS-TEC Energy GmbH.

ADS-TEC Energy’s promi­sing energy manage­ment tech­no­logy enables ultra-fast char­ging using the exis­ting power-limi­ted grid.

As part of the tran­sac­tion, the Special-Purpose Acqui­si­tion Company (SPAC) secu­red addi­tio­nal fully under­writ­ten private invest­ment in public equity (PIPE) funds of USD 156 million through seve­ral leading ESG and blue chip inves­tors, inclu­ding Invesco, APG, Swed­bank Robur, Bosch and Polar Struc­ture.

Florian Hirsch­mann, who led Reed Smith’s German team, said, “I am plea­sed to have advi­sed EUSG on one of the first successful SPAC tran­sac­tions in Germany. The merger in this inno­va­tive field will enable the rapid expan­sion and scaling of ADS-TEC’s energy plat­forms in the Euro­pean and US markets.”

Reed Smith advi­sed EUSG with a multi­na­tio­nal team led by part­ner Ari Edel­man (Capi­tal Markets, New York) and part­ner Florian Hirsch­mann toge­ther with coun­sel Silvio McMi­ken (both Corporate/ Private Equity, Munich).

Further advi­sed on this transaction:
— Tobias Schulz (Asso­ciate, Corporate/Private Equity, Munich)
— Caro­line Walz (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, Munich)
— Siling Zhong-Ganga (Para­le­gal, Corporate/Private Equity, Munich)
— Lyn Rein­hardt (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Dallas)
— Michael P. Lee (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, New York)
— Ron Scharn­berg (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Houston)
— John Ngo (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate, New York)
— Lauren John (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, Pittsburgh)
— Russell Schnei­der, Ari Byk (both Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, New York)
— Luke Barbour (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, Pittsburgh)
— Katie Geddes (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, Dallas)
— Caro­line Sandy (Asso­ciate, Corpo­rate, Dallas)
— Dr. Martin Bünning (Part­ner, Tax Law, Frankfurt)
— Dr. Simon Grie­ser (Part­ner, Banking & Finance, Frankfurt)
— Dr. Anselm Reinerts­ho­fer (Asso­ciate, Banking & Finance, Munich)
— Carina Park (Asso­ciate, Tax Law, Frankfurt)
— Dr. Andreas Splitt­ger­ber (Part­ner, IT/Data Protec­tion, Munich)
— Dr. Michaela Westrup (Coun­sel, Antitrust/Competition, Munich)
— Dr. Anette Gärt­ner, Dr. Alex­an­der Klett (both part­ners, IP, Frank­furt and Munich)
— Dr. Chris­toph Mikyska (Asso­ciate, IP, Munich)
— Dr. Phil­ipp Süss, Dr. Thomas Fischl (both Part­ners, Enter­tain­ment & Media, Munich)
— Dr. Etienne Richt­ham­mer (Part­ner, Real Estate, Munich)
— Frede­rik Laux, Sebas­tian Bitter (both Asso­ciate, Real Estate, Munich)
— Ulrike Bischof, Vincent Magotsch (both Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Munich)

News

Amster­dam — Dutch e‑bike manu­fac­tu­rer VanMoof has recei­ved a further 128 million US dollars from inves­tors — the equi­va­lent of around 108.5 million euros. Accor­ding to the company, this is “the largest Series C invest­ment ever made for a Euro­pean e‑bike brand.”

Toge­ther with the two previous finan­cing rounds last year, VanMoof now has total funding of $182 million (about 154 million euros). The current funding round was led by Hill­house Invest­ment, an Asia-based private equity firm. Another new inves­tor is Gillian Tans, the former CEO of Booking.com. Also on board were exis­ting inves­tors Norwest Venture Part­ners, Felix Capi­tal, Balder­ton Capi­tal and Triple­Point Capital.

The Dutch plan to use the new funds to increase produc­tion capa­city, conti­nue the deve­lo­p­ment of new tech­no­lo­gies and improve bike speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and relia­bi­lity. “We are reinven­ting, desig­ning and re-engi­nee­ring every compo­nent of the bicy­cle. This has never been done before and will fore­ver change the way a bike is made, sold and serviced,” lets Taco Carlier (photo), co-foun­der of VanMoof. This will be instru­men­tal in getting 10 million people on our bikes in the next five years.”

VanMoof was foun­ded in 2009 by brot­hers Taco and Ties Carlier, the company curr­ently offers two e‑bike models S3 and X3. Both feature auto­ma­tic elec­tro­nic shif­ting, built-in anti-theft tech­no­logy, and the Apple Find My Network loca­tion func­tion, among other features. Prices start at 2,198 euros.

The Amster­dam-based startup’s high-end bikes were alre­ady selling well, but the Corona-rela­ted lock­downs have addi­tio­nally crea­ted an order boom. Sales figu­res are expec­ted to more than triple in 2020. This spring, the company put the “global driver commu­nity” at “150,000 drivers — and growing.” At that time, VanMoof had presen­ces in Amster­dam, Berlin, London, New York, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Seat­tle and Tokyo. Retail loca­ti­ons have now been estab­lished in 50 cities, the company says. VanMoof has iden­ti­fied the USA as the largest growth market.

In April, VanMoof announ­ced some new products. This year, for exam­ple, the Dutch e‑bike manu­fac­tu­rer laun­ched a detacha­ble power­bank desi­gned to give riders up to 100 kilo­me­ters of addi­tio­nal range on VanMoof bikes, which can be easily char­ged indoors. In addi­tion, the bikes now feature a more visi­ble matrix display, rede­si­gned fender flaps and pedals, and better inter­nal wiring. In addi­tion, as an acces­sory, VanMoof’s bike boxes are now more compact and contain 70% less plastic.

“Since the launch of the S3 & X3, we have listened carefully. Driver feed­back is key to our new tech­no­logy,” says Taco Carlier. “Our ability to incor­po­rate them quickly is what makes VanMoof unique.” The Carlier brot­hers attri­bute this speed to their verti­cal supply chain, which combi­nes ever­y­thing from design to compo­nent engi­nee­ring to distri­bu­tion. This way, you can constantly update your product.

News

Leip­zig — Five Seasons Ventures, DLF Venture and DX Ventures, the corpo­rate venture arm of Deli­very Hero, are inves­t­ing 14 million euros in the nu company with Formula One World Cham­pion Nico Rosberg, Back­Bone Ventures and Austrian food VC fund Square One Foods.

The food startup from Leip­zig, which was foun­ded in 2016, offers vegan and sugar-redu­ced choco­late bars under the nucao brand. The three foun­ders, indus­trial engi­neers Chris­tian Fenner, Thomas Stof­fels and Mathias Tholey, focus on healthy, plas­tic-free and climate-posi­tive snacks. “The Series A helps us bring more products to market that can make a real posi­tive diffe­rence in the mass market,” the company shares.

The Board of Direc­tors of the nu company welco­mes Tina Müller, CEO of the perfu­mery chain Douglas and Andrea Gisle Joosen, an expert in brand stra­tegy and busi­ness development.

Forest­Fi­nance, Formula 1 World Cham­pion Rosberg, Deve­ley Mana­ging Direc­tor Michael Durach and Square One Foods recently inves­ted around 3.7 million euros in the nu company.

News

Berlin — INKEF Capi­tal led the consor­tium of inves­tors in the €64 million Series B finan­cing round invest­ment in Hano­ver-based Cardior Phar­maceu­ti­cals. — In addi­tion to lead inves­tor INKEF, new inves­tors Fund+, Sunstone, Hadean Ventures and Copa­rion parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. In addi­tion, exis­ting inves­tors such as LSP, BioMed­Part­ners, Bris­tol Myers Squibb and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. In connec­tion with the finan­cing, repre­sen­ta­ti­ves from INKEF, Fund+ and Sunstone will join the company’s advi­sory board.

Cardior Phar­maceu­ti­cals is a leading biophar­maceu­ti­cal company pionee­ring the disco­very and deve­lo­p­ment of RNA-based thera­peu­tics to prevent, treat and reverse heart dise­ase. The company’s mission is to provide pati­ents with novel thera­peu­tics and diagno­stics that will have a lasting impact on the treat­ment of heart dise­ase worldwide.

“We believe ncRNAs can funda­men­tally change the treat­ment of heart dise­ase by preven­ting, repai­ring and rever­sing damage to cardiac tissue. We thank our new and exis­ting inves­tors for their support and their confi­dence in our ability to achieve our goal,” said Dr. Clau­dia Ulbrich (photo), Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer and Co-Foun­der of Cardior.

INKEF Capi­tal is an Amster­dam-based invest­ment fund with a port­fo­lio of more than 45 compa­nies in the health­care and tech­no­logy sectors.

Advi­sor INKEF + Inves­tor Consor­tium: YPOG
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead Part­ner), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann, Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat, Senior Associate
Dr. Ansgar Frank, Asso­cia­ted Partner
Ann-Kris­tin Loch­mann, Senior Associate
Pia Meven, Associate
Jonas Huth, Associate
Lukas Schmitt, Associate

The law firm KNPZ (Dr. Kai Plath, Matthias Struck and Jan Schä­fer) advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion along­side the YPOG team in the IP area.

About YPOG

YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm, opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax, tran­sac­tions, IT/IP and nota­rial services. 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. Since its foun­da­tion in 2017, the firm has become 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 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Aachen/ DV Eind­ho­ven (NL) — Oppen­hoff advi­sed nd indus­trial invest­ments B.V. on the Series‑C finan­cing round of Next.e.GO Mobile SE, a German manu­fac­tu­rer of battery-powered elec­tric vehic­les. As majo­rity share­hol­der of Next.e.GO Mobile SE, nd indus­trial invest­ments B.V. acted as lead advi­sor for the Series C finan­cing round. The new capi­tal of over 49 million euros will be inves­ted in the produc­tion of the e.GO Life plat­form, the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal models and the imple­men­ta­tion of e.GO Life’s special feature, the battery swap. Both exis­ting and new inves­tors parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round.

Next.e.GO Mobile SE, based in Aachen, Germany, manu­fac­tures battery-powered elec­tric vehic­les and deve­lops sustainable e‑mobility systems. Through inno­va­tive produc­tion struc­tures and proces­ses based on the so-called Inter­net of Produc­tion, the company with its nearly 400 employees aims to acce­le­rate the trans­for­ma­tion through e‑mobility.

nd indus­trial invest­ments B.V. is part of ND Group B.V., a private equity and holding company based in the Nether­lands. The company was foun­ded in 2008. The invest­ment port­fo­lio includes e‑mobility, hydro­gen, climate tech, fintech, health­care and inte­gra­ted services.

BEra­ter of nd indus­trial invest­ments B.V.: Oppen­hoff Partner
Manage­ment Dr. Nefail Berja­se­vic (corpo­rate law/M&A) advi­sed nd indus­trial invest­ments B.V. compre­hen­si­vely on the tran­sac­tion; Dr. Günter Seulen (stock corpo­ra­tion law), Dr. Johan­nes Janning (finan­cing), David Falkow­ski (corpo­rate law/M&A) and Marc Krischer (tax).

Oppen­hoff regu­larly repres­ents clients in the field of venture capi­tal, such as ND Group B.V. in the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Next.e.GO Mobile SE and in the Series B finan­cing round of Next.e.GO Mobile SE. The Auto­mo­tive and Mobi­lity sector group at Oppen­hoff advi­ses clients on trend topics such as e‑mobility, auto­no­mous driving, shared mobi­lity and connec­ti­vity. Clients include leading OEMs and suppli­ers in Germany and abroad.

News

Vienna — A seed funding round of €1.8 million for crypto invest­ment start-up Coin­pa­n­ion by High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, co-foun­ders of Scalable Capi­tal and CLARK. Coin­pa­n­ion allows anyone, without any prior know­ledge, to profit from the cryp­to­cur­rency market in an auto­ma­ted way. In doing so, the startup takes care of ever­y­thing from simple market entry to auto­ma­ted cryp­to­cur­rency manage­ment. After just under a year, Coin­pa­n­ion alre­ady mana­ges seve­ral million euros for its custo­mers and is now recei­ving 1.8 million euros in seed invest­ment from well-known inves­tors from Germany and Austria.

The lead inves­tor in the round is the German High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), one of the most active venture capi­tal funds on the Euro­pean market. In addi­tion, Patrick Pöschl, co-foun­der of Munich-based robo-advi­sor Scalable Capi­tal, which is now rated as a unicorn (over €1 billion valua­tion), and Chris­to­pher Oster, CEO of insu­rance mana­ger CLARK, are inves­t­ing. Also on board are Florian Gschwandt­ner, foun­der of the fitness app Runta­stic and Austria’s proba­bly best-known start-up inves­tor Johann Hans­mann, who has accom­pa­nied Austria’s biggest start-up exits (inclu­ding Runta­stic, Shpock, mySugr) and lead inves­tor of the pre-seed round Frank Wester­mann, co-foun­der of the diabe­tes app mySugr.

Bitcoin and Ethe­reum have been the talk of the town for some time now, while many still don’t really know what to make of terms like Card­ano, Chain­link or EOS. This is exactly where Coin­pa­n­ion comes in.

“Our goal is to simplify access to the cryp­to­cur­rency market for the gene­ral public. We are thril­led that we were able to convince some of the most successful entre­pre­neurs and inves­tors in Germany and Austria of our vision. And the Coin­pa­n­ion foun­ding team has big plans: The 1.8 million euros in capi­tal are to be used prima­rily for further growth. We want to further expand our strong user growth. We also plan to grow from 18 to 50 employees within a year,” explains Alex­an­der Valtin­gojer, co-foun­der and CEO of Coinpanion

“With Coin­pa­n­ion, a startup is finally demo­cra­tiz­ing the opaque cryp­to­cur­rency market. Now really anyone can become a crypto inves­tor without any prior know­ledge,” said Kilian von Berli­chin­gen, invest­ment mana­ger at High-Tech Gründerfonds

Coin­pa­n­ion makes cryp­to­cur­rency inves­t­ing easy

Coin­pa­n­ion provi­des an easy and safe entry into the complex world of cryp­to­cur­ren­cies. Users can choose from diffe­rent smart port­fo­lios with diffe­rent risk levels that include carefully pre-selec­ted cryp­to­cur­ren­cies. Coin­pa­n­ion mana­ges the cryp­to­cur­rency invest­ment in an auto­ma­ted way after that and addi­tio­nally offers the possi­bi­lity to conclude savings plans. With the Coin­pa­n­ion app and online access, users keep track of their invest­ment anytime and anywhere. Each port­fo­lio is protec­ted with state-of-the-art secu­rity stan­dards, and all cryp­to­cur­ren­cies are insured.

About Coin­pa­n­ion

Crypto invest­ment startup Coin­pa­n­ion was foun­ded in Vienna in 2019 and laun­ched into private beta in August 2020. In the mean­time, the plat­form is acces­si­ble to ever­yone and auto­ma­ti­cally mana­ges seve­ral million euros in crypto invest­ments for its female custo­mers. The four-member foun­ding team aims to make the highly complex cryp­to­cur­rency market acces­si­ble to the gene­ral public, ther­eby simpli­fy­ing invest­ments. The rapidly growing fintech company curr­ently employs 18 people. www.coinpanion.com

News

Zurich (Switz­er­land) — The merger of the online market­places of TX Markets and Scout24 Switz­er­land crea­tes a leading Swiss group in real estate, vehic­les, finan­cial services and gene­ral market­places. The joint venture will be one of the largest digi­tal compa­nies in Switz­er­land. All parties invol­ved hold mino­rity inte­rests in the joint venture. The inde­pen­dent group of compa­nies is pursuing an IPO as a medium-term goal.

TX Group brings the TX Markets plat­forms Ricardo, tutti.ch, Home­gate and Car For You into the new joint venture. Ringier as well as Mobi­liar parti­ci­pate by contri­bu­ting the Scout24 Schweiz Group, which opera­tes the plat­forms ImmoScout24, AutoScout24, MotoScout24, FinanceScout24 and anibis.ch. The fourth share­hol­der will be the globally active growth inves­tor Gene­ral Atlan­tic, which will support the group with its many years of inter­na­tio­nal exper­tise in the field of digi­tal marketplaces.

Lothar Lanz is appoin­ted Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors of the new, inde­pen­dent company. The expe­ri­en­ced finance and digi­tal expert is curr­ently Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Home24 SE, Deputy Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of TAG Immo­bi­lien AG and a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Derm­a­ph­arm SE. He was also a member of the Super­vi­sory Board of Zalando SE (Presi­dent) and Axel Sprin­ger SE, among others. Previously, he was Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer for many years at ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE.

The Board of Direc­tors will conti­nue to include: Jörn Niko­lay, Olivier Rihs, Michèle Rodoni, Pietro Supino and Marc Walder.

CEO of the joint venture will be Gilles Despas (photo), curr­ently CEO of Scout24 Switz­er­land Group. Previously, he was Chief Digi­tal Offi­cer and Group Chief Marke­ting Offi­cer at Thomas Cook in London, and Mana­ging Direc­tor and CEO of Eboo­kers and HolidayCheck.

The market­places of TX Group, Ringier and Mobi­liar have shown strong growth in recent years, both in terms of user numbers and range of services. At the same time, the plat­forms operate in an extre­mely chal­len­ging envi­ron­ment. Constantly rising custo­mer demands as well as inter­na­tio­nal compe­ti­tors — from globally opera­ting plat­forms to fast-growing disrup­tive start-ups — are crea­ting incre­asing market dynamics.

Combi­ning forces to form one of the largest digi­tal compa­nies in Switz­er­land makes it possi­ble to create a compe­ti­tive Swiss market­place offe­ring and thus act as a pioneer in the Swiss market.

The new joint venture will combine the exper­tise of exis­ting teams and digi­tal talent to drive the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive digi­tal products and services. In this way, the incre­asing demands of users and custo­mers will be served even better in the future. At the same time, the joint venture will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to further digi­tiza­tion in Switzerland.

Pietro Supino, Presi­dent and Publisher of TX Group: “Our part­ner­ship with Gene­ral Atlan­tic, Mobi­liar and Ringier is the fruit of a long process. It is a big step for all parties invol­ved, which shows a promi­sing, digi­tal perspec­tive for Switz­er­land as a loca­tion in the incre­asingly inter­na­tio­nal compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment. We are convin­ced that by combi­ning our strong market­places, we will promote their further growth. The key prere­qui­site for further successful deve­lo­p­ment is to increase the rele­vance of our services for our users. This will also enable us to offer our busi­ness custo­mers grea­ter effi­ci­ency directly. Toge­ther, we can expand invest­ment in product deve­lo­p­ment and our attrac­ti­ve­ness as an employer.”

Marc Walder, CEO of Ringier: “Ringier, TX Group and Mobi­liar have succee­ded in brin­ging toge­ther their leading real estate, vehicle, finan­cing and clas­si­fieds plat­forms. With Gene­ral Atlan­tic, we are joined by a globally reco­gni­zed, successful inves­tor with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in digi­tal market­places. This crea­tes a uniquely posi­tio­ned company in Switz­er­land. With this group, we will signi­fi­cantly expand our custo­mer focus across all busi­ness areas. Through targe­ted invest­ments in inno­va­tive products and services, we will meet the requi­re­ments of our custo­mers and users even better. This shared vision drives all share­hol­ders involved.”

Michèle Rodoni, CEO of Mobi­liar: “As a leading Swiss insu­rance company, we strive to find solu­ti­ons that enable us to strike the right balance in the long term between the rapidly growing digi­tal offer worlds and our long-stan­ding, successful presence with our local entre­pre­neu­rial gene­ral agen­cies. Thanks to our invest­ment in Scout24 Switz­er­land five years ago, we have gained important insights for the deve­lo­p­ment and expan­sion of our own offe­rings around housing and for SMEs. That’s why it’s abso­lut­ely logi­cal for us to be on board and remain so when one of the leading Swiss digi­tal market­places is created.”

Jörn Niko­lay, Mana­ging Direc­tor and respon­si­ble for Gene­ral Atlantic’s German busi­ness: “We are proud to be able to help shape one of Switzerland’s leading digi­tal compa­nies toge­ther with our new part­ners. As a global growth inves­tor, we bring our long-stan­ding exper­tise in the stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of digi­tal busi­ness models to this part­ner­ship, very speci­fi­cally in the online clas­si­fieds busi­ness. We are plea­sed to accom­pany the venture in this exci­ting growth phase.”

TX Group AG holds 31 percent of the new joint venture, Ringier AG and Mobi­liar 29.5 percent each and the growth inves­tor Gene­ral Atlan­tic 10 percent. The four share­hol­ders each hold 25 percent of the voting rights.

About TX Group
TX Group forms a network of digi­tal plat­forms that provi­des users with daily infor­ma­tion, orien­ta­tion, enter­tain­ment and assis­tance for ever­y­day life. Four inde­pen­dent compa­nies operate under the umbrella of the TX Group: TX Markets compri­ses the digi­tal clas­si­fieds plat­forms and market­places; Gold­bach stands for adver­ti­sing marke­ting in Switz­er­land, Germany and Austria; 20 Minu­ten is the company for commuter media in Switz­er­land and abroad; Tame­dia is leading the paid daily and weekly news­pa­pers and maga­zi­nes into the future.

About Ringier
Ringier AG is an inno­va­tive, digi­ti­zed and diver­si­fied Swiss media company active in Europe, Africa and Asia. The port­fo­lio includes over 110 subsi­dia­ries in print, digi­tal media, radio, ticke­ting, enter­tain­ment and e‑commerce, as well as leading digi­tal market­places in auto­mo­tive, real estate and jobs. As a venture capi­ta­list, Ringier promo­tes inno­va­tive digi­tal start-ups. Foun­ded in 1833 as a publi­shing house and prin­ting house, the family-owned Ringier company has consis­t­ently inves­ted in the digi­tiza­tion and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of the Group in recent years. In 2020, around 6800 employees in 18 count­ries gene­ra­ted sales of CHF 953.7 million. Today, 69 percent of opera­ting profit alre­ady comes from the digi­tal busi­ness, giving Ringier a leading posi­tion among Euro­pean media compa­nies. Ringier stands for pionee­ring spirit, inde­pen­dence and free­dom of opinion.

About Mobi­liar
Every third house­hold and every third company in Switz­er­land is insu­red with Mobi­liar. As of Decem­ber 31, 2020, the all-line insurer had a premium volume of around 4.1 billion euros. Franks on. 80 Unter­neh­mer gene­ral agen­cies with their own claims service guaran­tee proxi­mity to the appro­xi­m­ately 2.2 million custo­mers at around 160 locations.
Mobi­liar employs around 5900 people in its home markets of Switz­er­land and the Prin­ci­pa­lity of Liech­ten­stein and offers 338 appren­ti­ce­ships. Foun­ded in 1826 as a coope­ra­tive, Mobi­liar is the oldest private insu­rance company in Switz­er­land. To this day, the Board of Direc­tors of Schwei­ze­ri­sche Mobi­liar Genos­sen­schaft ensu­res that the coope­ra­tive orien­ta­tion of the Group is maintained.

About Gene­ral Atlantic
Gene­ral Atlan­tic is a leading global growth capi­tal inves­tor that has provi­ded capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to more than 400 high-growth compa­nies to date for more than four deca­des. Foun­ded in 1980 to part­ner with visio­nary entre­pre­neurs to create lasting value, the firm combi­nes a colla­bo­ra­tive global approach, indus­try-speci­fic exper­tise, a long-term invest­ment hori­zon and a deep under­stan­ding of growth drivers to create excep­tio­nal busi­ness models with outstan­ding manage­ment teams world­wide. Gene­ral Atlan­tic curr­ently mana­ges more than $65 billion in assets (as of March 31, 2021); the team includes more than 175 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai, Singa­pore and Stam­ford, Connecticut.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Vitru­vian Part­ners LLP, Euro­pean private equity firm and inves­tor in health­care service provi­der doctari GmbH, on its acqui­si­tion of three companies.

The acqui­si­tion of licht­feld gmbh with 70 office employees at the Hocken­heim and Biele­feld sites was comple­ted at the begin­ning of August. Vian­tro GmbH, which has around 30 employees and is based in Heidel­berg, became part of the doctari group back at the begin­ning of June. The third new company is Munich-based tech firm Plane­rio GmbH, with 50 employees, whose acqui­si­tion roun­ded out the acqui­si­ti­ons in early July.

Vian­tro GmbH, the career network for physi­ci­ans, brings services rela­ted to the needs of physi­ci­ans into the group of compa­nies. The focus of Vian­tro GmbH is espe­ci­ally on career plan­ning, perma­nent employ­ment and further educa­tion with the help of intel­li­gent matching algo­rithms. — Plane­rio GmbH provi­des hospi­tals and other health­care faci­li­ties with a compre­hen­sive cloud-based digi­tal solu­tion that conso­li­da­tes and auto­ma­tes rost­ers, payroll and staff time track­ing for each faci­lity. Toge­ther with licht­feld gmbh, a major player in the medi­cal staff leasing sector, the pool of quali­fied specia­lists in the doctari group grows to 60,000 physi­ci­ans and nursing professionals.

With this growth and the digi­tal solu­ti­ons available and to be expan­ded, the doctari group can aim even more effi­ci­ently at opti­mi­zing and control­ling person­nel recruit­ment and plan­ning in the health­care sector. All three compa­nies will retain their respec­tive sites. The doctari group finan­ced the three acqui­si­ti­ons from both its own and exter­nal funds. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the amount of the investment.

Advi­sors to Vitru­vian Part­ners: Bird & Bird

Part­ner Dr. Hans Peter Leube, LL.M., Lead, Coun­sel Mari­anne Nawroth and Asso­cia­tes Michael Maier and Konstan­tin Manus (all Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt am Main), Part­ner Stephan Kübler, LL.M. (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Asso­ciate Jan Medele (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann, Coun­sel Johan­nes Wirtz, LL.M. as well as Asso­cia­tes Timo Förs­ter, Julia Fröh­der and Jona­than Stoldt (all Finan­cing and Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt), Part­ner Dr. Catha­rina Klumpp, LL.M. as well as Asso­ciate Dr. Kath­rin Kruse (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf) and Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg as well as Asso­ciate Gökhan Kosak (both IT/Data Protec­tion, Munich).

The doctari group was advi­sed on the debt finan­cing by the team led by part­ner Dr. Michael Jüne­mann (Finan­cing and Finan­cial Regu­la­tion, Frank­furt am Main).

Bird & Bird has advi­sed Vitru­vian Part­ners LLP since joining doctari in 2018. This ongo­ing colla­bo­ra­tion was and conti­nues to grow based on Bird & Bird’s confi­dence in its private equity and VC exper­tise, parti­cu­larly in the areas of health tech, data-based busi­ness models, and employee leasing and placement.

About Bird & Bird

Bird & Bird is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with over 1,300 lawy­ers in 29 offices in 20 count­ries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and North America. In Germany, we are repre­sen­ted by more than 230 lawy­ers in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt, Hamburg and Munich. We focus our consul­ting in parti­cu­lar on indus­trial sectors that are deve­lo­ping new tech­no­lo­gies and helping to shape digi­ta­liza­tion or are being chan­ged by it. Our lawy­ers cover the full range of busi­ness and corpo­rate law, parti­cu­larly in areas where tech­no­logy, data, regu­la­tion and intellec­tual property play a special role. To learn more about us, visit www.twobirds.com.

News

Berlin — Proptech start-up Tiko Real Estate Tech­no­lo­gies (“Tiko”) has fina­li­zed a Series A finan­cing round worth US$65 million. The funding round was led by btov Part­ners’ digi­tal tech fund and private inves­tor network. Tiko’s share­hol­ders include other well-known venture capi­tal inves­tors such as Rocket Inter­net and busi­ness angels. The equity finan­cing round was supple­men­ted by the addi­tion of a debt investor.

Tiko’s inno­va­tive tech­no­logy plat­form allows any property owner to sell a property in just a few days. This is done using a data-driven scoring algo­rithm. The finan­cing round ensu­res Tiko’s contin­ued rapid growth. In addi­tion to the conti­nuous impro­ve­ment of the valua­tion algo­rithm, the company’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion beyond its home market of Spain is to be driven forward in particular.

Raue advi­sed Tiko on all corpo­rate aspects of the finan­cing round under German law.

About Tiko
Tiko is a proptech company foun­ded in Spain in 2018 by CEO Sina Afra, Ana Villa­nueva, Can Günay and Paco Sahu­quillo, and is now present in Madrid, Barce­lona, Valen­cia, Bilbao, Malaga and Seville. With its inno­va­tive tech­no­logy plat­form, Tiko can provide property owners with a purchase offer within 24 hours and complete the sale of a property quickly, conve­ni­ently and effi­ci­ently in just a few days.

Advi­sor Tiko: Raue, Berlin(German law)
Prof. Dr. Andreas Nelle (Part­ner, Lead, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC), Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, PE/VC)

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. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.raue.com.

News

Almere / Rosma­len / Hamburg — Water­land Private Equity (“Water­land”) conti­nues to successfully drive the long-term buy & build stra­tegy at its port­fo­lio company-Enreach: The fast-growing, pan-Euro­pean provi­der of unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons (UCaaS) acqui­res the Rosma­len, Nether­lands-based cloud soft­ware provi­der and Micro­soft part­ner DSD Europe and its sister company Cloud­Land (“DSD”) with Waterland’s support. The merger gives Enreach even grea­ter capa­bi­li­ties and reach to equip digi­tal work­places with Micro­soft soft­ware programs. Microsoft’s Office produc­ti­vity solu­ti­ons will be sold toge­ther with compa­ti­ble Enreach solu­ti­ons in the future.

Foun­ded in 2009, DSD is a high-growth provi­der of IT, secu­rity and other cloud products. Through a leading cloud market­place, DSD’s service enables more than 5,000 active re-sellers in Europe to easily and quickly acquire, acti­vate and manage various cloud services and soft­ware, with a focus on Micro­soft cloud produc­ti­vity solutions.

Enreach was formed in 2018 with the support of Water­land from the merger of Swyx (Germany), Voice­works (Nether­lands) and Centile Tele­com Appli­ca­ti­ons (France, rena­med Enreach for Service Provi­ders), each leaders in their respec­tive markets. Since then, Water­land has guided Enreach in its growth, inclu­ding syste­ma­tic acqui­si­ti­ons of best-in-class tech­no­lo­gies and their roll-out across the plat­form. In addi­tion, Water­land has now actively supported its port­fo­lio company in fifteen inter­na­tio­nal add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, five of which in the current year alone.

For Enreach, the part­ner­ship with DSD repres­ents the next buil­ding block in a long-term buy-&-build stra­tegy that aims to create a pan-Euro­pean market leader in unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and cloud products and services.

Thijs van de Moos­dijk, CEO of DSD, says: “As an estab­lished and well-known Own-IP-Cloud market­place, re-sellers across Europe rely on our exper­tise and product port­fo­lio. We have been looking for a strong player in the market for some time to drive our vision of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion with us. We are convin­ced that toge­ther with Enreach we are excel­lently posi­tio­ned for further growth.”

Stijn Nijhuis, CEO of Enreach, explains: “Thanks to Waterland’s support, we have been able to acce­le­rate our growth even further in recent months. For the coming steps in the company, we wanted to expand our service port­fo­lio to include a modern one-stop-shop offe­ring for all requi­re­ments in the area of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion. The chemis­try with DSD was right from the start.”

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land, explains: “Enreach has deve­lo­ped very posi­tively over the past years. DSD is well posi­tio­ned in the market and is one of the first points of cont­act for re-sellers throug­hout Europe in the area of soft­ware and cloud solu­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion opens up new, attrac­tive synergy effects for both compa­nies, espe­ci­ally in the area of cross-selling Enreach’s own-IP unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons as well as Microsoft’s cloud produc­ti­vity solu­ti­ons — and is thus another important buil­ding block in our long-term buy-&-build strategy.”

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the field of digi­tiza­tion and inte­gra­tion of ICT service provi­ders through corre­spon­ding invest­ments in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries. In German-spea­king count­ries, for exam­ple, Water­land alre­ady has stakes in compa­nies such as netgo (IT systems house), the Serrala Group (payment tech­no­lo­gies), Tineo (enter­prise IT) and a mana­ged enter­prise plat­form Skaylink.

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 (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over eight billion euros in equity funds are under management.

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.

News

Frank­furt — Perm­ira, the global private equity firm, has announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Engel & Völkers. Engel & Völkers is a leading global plat­form for real estate consul­tants in the high-end segment. The Völkers family and part of the manage­ment retain just under 40 percent of the shares. Company foun­der Chris­tian Völkers beco­mes Chair­man of the Advi­sory Board. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the transaction.

Since its foun­da­tion in Hamburg in 1977, Engel & Völkers has deve­lo­ped into one of the world’s most respec­ted addres­ses in the brokerage of high-quality real estate. Today, around 11,500 inde­pen­dent real estate consul­tants operate on the Engel & Völkers plat­form in 900 loca­ti­ons in more than 30 count­ries. You will bene­fit from first-class sales manda­tes, digi­tal tools, a compre­hen­sive range of services and one of the world’s most renow­ned brands in the real estate industry.

The tran­sac­tion fits Perm­ira Funds’ global stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in market-leading plat­forms with trans­for­ma­tio­nal poten­tial. Due to its unique brand, Engel & Völkers has access to high-quality and exclu­sive sales manda­tes and has thus been able to estab­lish a leading market posi­tion. The number of real estate consul­tants on the plat­form has been signi­fi­cantly increased by a highly attrac­tive and diffe­ren­tia­ted range of services and holds considera­ble further growth poten­tial. The Perm­ira funds will support Engel & Völkers in further digi­tiz­ing its busi­ness model and taking the next steps in its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In the course of the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, among other things, the offe­ring for real estate consul­tants is to be further impro­ved and the tech­no­lo­giza­tion of inter­nal proces­ses in marke­ting, mandate acqui­si­tion and the recruit­ment of quali­fied real estate consul­tants is to be driven forward.

Dr. Jörg Rocken­häu­ser, Mana­ging Part­ner DACH at Perm­ira, said: “Chris­tian Völkers, Sven Odia and the entire Engel & Völkers team have built one of the most respec­ted brands and plat­forms in real estate brokerage. Some of the best real estate consul­tants in the world are active for the company today. We are very much looking forward to support­ing the family busi­ness in its digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion toge­ther with Chris­tian Völkers and the manage­ment. With our exper­tise in digi­tiz­ing successful compa­nies, we want to help further acce­le­rate growth. We see great oppor­tu­ni­ties to signi­fi­cantly expand the ecosys­tem around Engel & Völkers in today’s digi­tal world, opening up new areas of growth.”

Chris­tian Völkers (photo left), foun­der of Engel & Völkers, said: “Our great ambi­tion is to constantly deve­lop the company and drive inno­va­tion. Toge­ther with Perm­ira, we can streng­then Engel & Völkers even more as a global indus­try pioneer and imple­ment my vision for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the brand. We look forward with enthu­si­asm to a successful future in which we will still achieve a lot together.”

Sven Odia (photo right), CEO of Engel & Völkers, added: “We are very plea­sed to have gained such a strong part­ner in Perm­ira, which has an excel­lent track record in the tech sector in addi­tion to many years of exper­tise. By the end of the year, we expect over 1 billion euros in brokerage reve­nue from more than 11,500 real estate consul­tants who are writing their own success stories under the Engel & Völkers brand. The basis for this is our outstan­ding brand name and our leading tech and service plat­form. The impres­sive growth trajec­tory is the ideal time to now set the course for an even stron­ger future in the long term, deve­lop new stra­te­gies and further expand the brand’s poten­tial, espe­ci­ally in the tech-opera­ted business.”
Subject to custo­mary tran­sac­tion condi­ti­ons, the acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to close in the fourth quarter.

About Perm­ira

Perm­ira is a global private equity firm that supports successful compa­nies with growth ambi­ti­ons. Foun­ded in 1985, the company advi­ses funds with a total volume of around 50 billion U.S. dollars (44 billion euros) and invests in compa­nies over the long term through majo­rity and stra­te­gic mino­rity share­hol­dings. Perm­ira advi­sed funds have comple­ted over 250 private equity tran­sac­tions in four key sectors: Tech­no­logy, Consu­mer Goods, Services and Health­care. The company has an exten­sive track record in services and has alre­ady inves­ted €10.7 billion in 40 compa­nies in proptech, finan­cial services and other busi­ness services. Perm­ira employs more than 350 people in 15 loca­ti­ons in Europe, North America and Asia, inclu­ding the Frank­furt office.

In Germany, the funds advi­sed by Perm­ira are inves­ted in Team­Viewer, Best­Se­cret, Neur­ax­ph­arm and Flix­Mo­bi­lity, among others. www.permira.com.

News

SaaS market leader for deli­very expe­ri­ence Parcel Perform secu­res 20 million Series A invest­ment from lead inves­tor Cambridge Capi­tal with parti­ci­pa­tion from Soft­Bank Ventures Asia

Profi­ta­ble SaaS market leader for e‑commerce deli­very expe­ri­ence recei­ves stra­te­gic invest­ment from global inves­tors. The funds will be used for further expan­sion and tech­no­logy development.

Berlin — Parcel Perform (www.parcelperform.com), the Berlin and Singa­pore-based leading cloud-based deli­very plat­form for e‑commerce busi­nesses world­wide, secu­res $20 million in a successful Series A finan­cing. Cambridge Capi­tal is acting as lead inves­tor. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia is also invol­ved in the round, as well as exis­ting inves­tors Wave­ma­ker Part­ners and Investible.

Parcel Perform mana­ges over 100 million parcel track­ing updates daily and provi­des real-time trans­pa­rent track­ing data. It also helps compa­nies increase custo­mer reve­nue value by up to 40 percent. Parcel Perform is profi­ta­ble and growing steadily. Sales have increased five­fold since the COVID 19 pande­mic outbreak.

The stra­te­gic invest­ment from leading capi­tal provi­ders will help Parcel Perform soli­dify its tech­no­logy leader­ship posi­tion, as well as drive global expan­sion and team expan­sion. The fresh funds will go toward expan­ding the company’s tech­no­logy offe­rings and advan­cing AI solu­ti­ons: This includes scaling the company’s proprie­tary Date of Arri­val tool, which calcu­la­tes accu­rate fore­casts of a shipment’s arri­val date. In addi­tion, the new funding will be used to estab­lish a regio­nal head­quar­ters in North America. The team of curr­ently 100 employees in the Asia-Paci­fic region and in Europe is to be expan­ded to 150 by the end of the year.

Through the deep indus­try know­ledge of its foun­ding team, Parcel Perform is buil­ding a global busi­ness: Focu­sed on stan­dar­di­zing last mile logi­stics data from over 700 logi­stics provi­ders world­wide. Parcel Perform has the largest data set in the indus­try. Deli­very Expe­ri­ence Plat­form tech­no­logy under­pins the logi­stics decis­ion-making and custo­mer expe­ri­ence of leading e‑commerce compa­nies such as Nespresso. Direct sellers like Water­drop and market­places like Idealo also use the technology.

“E‑commerce is incre­asingly beco­ming the primary retail chan­nel. This makes the need for an excel­lent post-purchase expe­ri­ence busi­ness-criti­cal for dealers:inside. Parcel Perform is uniquely posi­tio­ned to meet this demand with its enter­prise-grade solu­ti­ons and globally stan­dar­di­zed logi­stics data inte­gra­ti­ons. We are very plea­sed that our inves­tors reco­gnize our ability to build a sustainable and profi­ta­ble busi­ness. We alre­ady part­ner with some of the world’s most deman­ding busi­ness custo­mers, helping them opti­mize the satis­fac­tion of their online custo­mers,” says Dr. Arne Jero­schew­ski, CEO and co-foun­der of Parcel Perform.

“Our goal is to build scalable, sustainable, and custo­mer-focu­sed enter­prise soft­ware. In the process, we have grown our team to over 100 employees and expan­ded our custo­mer base from our roots in Asia to work with leading brands, market­places and logi­stics service provi­ders in Europe and North America. Today, we are proud to support hundreds of custo­mers by enab­ling them to use our plat­form as a true diffe­ren­tia­tor in their respec­tive busi­nesses,” adds Dana von der Heide (photo), CCO and co-foun­der of Parcel Perform.

Benja­min Gordon, Mana­ging Part­ner of Cambridge Capi­tal, empha­si­zes, “Cambridge Capi­tal focu­ses exclu­si­vely on global logi­stics and supply chain tech­no­logy. We are plea­sed to part­ner with Arne and Dana as the lead inves­tor in this Series A finan­cing. Visi­bi­lity is an important market in the age of e‑commerce. After evalua­ting many compa­nies world­wide, we are convin­ced that Parcel Perform offers the best solu­tion for visi­bi­lity and customer:inside expe­ri­ence. Parcel Perform has crea­ted a unique value propo­si­tion with the industry’s most compre­hen­sive solu­tion that provi­des brands, market­places and carri­ers with end-to-end ship­ment track­ing. Arne and Dana reflect what we are looking for: Outstan­ding Founder:s with exper­tise in the supply chain indus­try and a focus on buil­ding profi­ta­ble growth over the long term.”

“Recent years have high­ligh­ted the importance of global trade and stable supply chains. Parcel Perform has not only laun­ched a scalable, modu­lar enter­prise plat­form, but also built a global commu­nity for e‑commerce experts with “Parcel Moni­tor.” Through their passion for the indus­try, hyper-global approach, and diverse team, they are deli­ve­ring capa­bi­li­ties that will trans­form everyone’s expe­ri­ence in last-mile deli­very. We are exci­ted to work with them and support them in their next chap­ter of inno­va­tion in e‑commerce logi­stics,” added Cindy Jin, Part­ner at Soft­Bank Ventures Asia.

The company will conti­nue to expand its strong part­ner and inte­gra­tion network with compa­nies such as AWS and SAP. Parcel Perform recently expan­ded its B2C plat­form “Parcel Moni­tor” into a global commu­nity site. Origi­nally, the tool served as a track­ing service for end users. Curr­ently, it also offers e‑commerce logi­sti­ci­ans free access to logi­stics data.

Parcel Perform has offices in Singa­pore, Viet­nam and Germany. During the expan­sion of its LogTech SaaS busi­ness, Parcel Perform built a diverse team of over 100 employees. The company atta­ches great importance to compli­ance with its own equa­lity objectives.

State­ments from Nespresso, Idealo and other Parcel Perform custo­mers can be found here.
Here you can find more infor­ma­tion about the company as well as picture material.

About Parcel Perform

Parcel Perform is the leading plat­form for deli­very expe­ri­ence. It enables e‑commerce compa­nies world­wide to create compre­hen­sive end-to-end custo­mer expe­ri­en­ces and opti­mize logi­stics opera­ti­ons with powerful data inte­gra­ti­ons, package track­ing, deli­very noti­fi­ca­ti­ons and real-time logi­stics perfor­mance reports. Parcel Perform’s scalable SaaS plat­form performs more than 100 million parcel updates daily from 700 logi­stics service provi­ders. The data-driven company holds a market-leading posi­tion in the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­tive machine lear­ning and AI appli­ca­ti­ons in e‑commerce logi­stics. This includes, among other things, the exact predic­tion of the arri­val date of a ship­ment. Parcel Perform is the favored part­ner for leading inter­na­tio­nal brands such as Nespresso, as well as market­places and logi­stics provi­ders across all indus­tries. www.parcelperform.com.

About Cambridge Capital

Cambridge Capi­tal is an invest­ment firm focu­sed on the applied supply chain. The firm provi­des private equity to finance the expan­sion, reca­pi­ta­liza­tion or acqui­si­tion of growth compa­nies in trans­por­ta­tion, logi­stics and supply chain tech­no­logy. Our philo­so­phy is to invest in compa­nies where our opera­ting exper­tise and in-depth supply chain know­ledge can help our port­fo­lio compa­nies achieve outstan­ding value. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.cambridgecapital.com.

About Soft­Bank Ventures Asia

Foun­ded in 2000, Soft­Bank Ventures Asia is the early-stage venture capi­tal arm of the Soft­Bank Group. Its exper­tise lies in ICT invest­ments inclu­ding AI, IoT, and smart robo­tics. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia looks for early to growth-stage start-ups that have strong busi­ness poten­tial in the global market and assist them to be plug­ged into the Soft­Bank ecosys­tem by faci­li­ta­ting side-by-side growth. Soft­Bank Ventures Asia curr­ently opera­tes approx. $1.5B under manage­ment, inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive tech­no­logy start-ups across the world. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit https://www.softbank.co.kr.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — South Korea’s leading rene­wa­ble energy company Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion (HSC) plans to acquire RES Médi­ter­ra­née SAS from Rene­wa­ble Energy Systems Limi­ted (RES Group). The Frank­furt and Paris offices of McDer­mott Will & Emery are advi­sing Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corporation.

The acqui­si­tion, worth 727 million euros, is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of Octo­ber 2021. Foun­ded in 1999 and head­quar­te­red in Avignon, RES Médi­ter­ra­née SAS is active in onshore and offshore wind power, photo­vol­taics, energy storage and repowe­ring, among other areas. The acqui­si­tion of the French project deve­lo­p­ment company of wind and solar power plants is part of Hanwha’s stra­tegy to make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the energy tran­si­tion and to complete the trans­for­ma­tion into a leading full-service provi­der of rene­wa­ble energy solu­ti­ons. The acqui­si­tion will double Hanwha’s product pipe­line in Europe to around ten giga­watts. The final closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to the comple­tion of the custo­mary employee consul­ta­tion process and custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals.

Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion is a multi­na­tio­nal energy services, petro­che­mi­cal and real estate deve­lo­p­ment company head­quar­te­red in Seoul, South Korea. HSC is the parent company of Hanwha Q‑Cells, one of the world’s leading solar compa­nies. RES Group, foun­ded in 1982 as part of the Sir Robert McAl­pine Group, claims to be the world’s largest inde­pen­dent rene­wa­ble energy company and is head­quar­te­red in Kings Lang­ley, England.

Advi­sors to Hanwha Solu­ti­ons Corpo­ra­tion: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Bernd Meyer-Witting, Florian Lech­ner (both lead partners)
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Paris: Guil­laume Kell­ner (Corporate/M&A), Jilali Maazouz (Labor), Laurent Ayache, Char­lotte Michel­let (both Regu­la­tory), Asso­cia­tes: Boris Wolkoff (Corporate/M&A), Marion Schwartz (Regu­la­tory), Abdel Abdel­lah (Labor), Charles de Raignac (IP)
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Brussels:
Hendrik Viaene; Asso­cia­tes: Caro­line Ruiz Palmer, Karo­lien Van der Putten (all Competition)

News

Karls­ruhe, Germany — Chrono24, a leading global online market­place for new and pre-owned luxury watches, announ­ced that it has secu­red more than €100 million ($118+ million) in its Series C finan­cing round. The round was led by Gene­ral Atlan­tic, a leading global growth capi­tal inves­tor, with parti­ci­pa­tion from Aglaé Ventures, the tech­no­logy arm of the Arnault family’s invest­ment company. Exis­ting inves­tors Insight Part­ners and Sprints Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the round.

Toge­ther with this latest mino­rity growth finan­cing, Chrono24 has raised a total of over €200 million (appro­xi­m­ately $236 million) in funding to date.

Chrono24 plans to use the freshly raised capi­tal to acce­le­rate its growth trajec­tory and further expand inter­na­tio­nally, build its presence in exis­ting markets and streng­then its global team with addi­tio­nal top talent. The company is alre­ady the market leader in over 100 count­ries. The plan is to further improve the user expe­ri­ence of the online market­place in order to bene­fit even more from the flou­ris­hing market for pre-owned luxury watches and to opti­mally serve a new gene­ra­tion of collectors.

Foun­ded in 2003, Chrono24 pionee­red the digi­tiza­tion of the tradi­tio­nally analog luxury watch indus­try: it was one of the first major compa­nies to bring toge­ther watch retail­ers and coll­ec­tors around the world through its online market­place. Today, the plat­form has an average of 500,000 unique visi­tors per day. With more than 3,000 dealers and 30,000 private sellers in over 100 count­ries world­wide, Chrono24 carries appro­xi­m­ately half a million luxury watches for sale at any given time.

Jörn Niko­lay, Mana­ging Direc­tor and respon­si­ble for Gene­ral Atlan­tic’s German busi­ness, says: “Since its foun­ding in 2003, Chrono24 has evol­ved from Karls­ruhe into a global pioneer in crea­ting a cross-border online market­place for luxury watches, with an inno­va­tive model based on trans­pa­rency and sustaina­bi­lity. We are plea­sed to support Chrono24 with our capi­tal and exper­tise as it conti­nues its global expansion.”

Tim Stra­cke, Co-CEO of Chrono24, adds: “Once again, Chrono24 has succee­ded in attrac­ting first-class growth inves­tors such as Gene­ral Atlan­tic and Aglaé Ventures as part­ners. We have initia­ted the concept of an online market­place for luxury watches and built a plat­form that supports and encou­ra­ges chan­ging consu­mer beha­vior. Chrono24 provi­des proof to an indus­try that has tradi­tio­nally always shied away from disrup­tion that such a concept works perfectly. We are very plea­sed that Gene­ral Atlan­tic and Aglaé Ventures reco­gnize the huge market poten­tial of digi­tiz­ing luxury retail and also our role within this industry.”

Chrono24 conti­nues to be led by its foun­der and co-CEO Tim Stra­cke, co-CEO (and former CEO of Team­Viewer) Holger Felg­ner and CFO Stephan Knie­was­ser. In addi­tion to the new inves­tor group, a majo­rity of the exis­ting share­hol­ders, inclu­ding Felg­ner and Knie­was­ser, also co-inves­ted. This new round of finan­cing follows Chrono24’s Series B in 2019, which raised €43 million from Sprints Capi­tal, Gianni Serazzi, a former Riche­mont direc­tor, and Alberto Grignolo, foun­der of YOOX-NET-A-PORTER, among others. Previously, Round A in 2015 had gene­ra­ted over €37 million in seve­ral steps, inclu­ding from Insight Partners.

About Chrono24

“Chrono24 — The World’s Watch Market” is a leading global online market­place for luxury watches since 2003. With appro­xi­m­ately 500,000 watches from more than 3,000 dealers from over 100 count­ries and over 30,000 private sellers, the portal reaches more than nine million unique visi­tors per month. In 2020, Chrono24 achie­ved growth in tran­sac­tion volume of over 30% with monthly purchase inqui­ries in the six-digit range. With a large combi­ned global offe­ring of new, used and vintage watches, Chrono24 offers a compre­hen­sive service port­fo­lio that allows buyers and sellers to conduct their tran­sac­tions in a trus­ted envi­ron­ment. The global support team provi­des assis­tance via email or phone in 15 diffe­rent languages. Chrono24 was foun­ded in 2003 and employs nearly 400 people in its offices in Karls­ruhe, Berlin, New York and Hong Kong. www.chrono24.com

Gene­ral Atlantic

Gene­ral Atlan­tic is a leading global growth capi­tal inves­tor that provi­des capi­tal and stra­te­gic support to compa­nies with high growth poten­tial. Foun­ded in 1980, the company combi­nes a colla­bo­ra­tive global approach, indus­try-speci­fic exper­tise, a long-term invest­ment hori­zon and a deep under­stan­ding of growth drivers with outstan­ding manage­ment teams to create excep­tio­nal busi­ness models world­wide. Gene­ral Atlantic’s team includes more than 175 invest­ment profes­sio­nals in New York, Amster­dam, Beijing, Green­wich, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. www.generalatlantic.com

About Aglaé Ventures

Aglaé Ventures is an inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company based in Paris, New York and Los Ange­les. It is supported by Agache, the holding company of the Arnault family and majo­rity share­hol­der of LVMH, the world leader in luxury goods. For nearly 30 years, Agache has supported fast-growing inno­va­tive compa­nies at all stages of their deve­lo­p­ment, inclu­ding Auto­mat­tic, Back­Mar­ket, Mano Mano and Noom in recent months. https://aglaeventures.com/

News

Munich — Munich-based startup Noyes Tech­no­lo­gies has recei­ved initial seed funding of €3.2 million. The finan­cing round, in which 468 Capi­tal and Abacon Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted, was led by GvW client Vsquared Ventures.

Noyes Tech­no­lo­gies deve­lops auto­ma­ted and highly flexi­ble nano-storage systems that provide a space-saving and ther­e­fore cost-effec­tive solu­tion for the logi­stics of indus­trial and commer­cial compa­nies of all kinds. Use cases for the tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by the company include, for exam­ple, sales in down­town areas through quick deli­very services (quick commerce).

For Vsquared Ventures, this invest­ment fits with its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in early-stage tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies. The Munich-based venture capi­tal firm’s invest­ment focus areas include robo­tics as well as new space, quan­tum compu­ting, new mate­ri­als and AI.

Advi­sors to Vsquared Ventures: GvW Graf von Westphalen
GvW advi­sed Vsquared Ventures on this tran­sac­tion with a Frank­furt team consis­ting of Titus Walek (lead), Jan Hüni­ken (both venture capi­tal), Kars­ten Kujath (employ­ment law) and Dr. Joachim Mulch (IP).

News

Stutt­gart — Leading French auto­mo­tive supplier Delfin­gen has sold its Tech­ni­cal Belts & Straps Divi­sion, DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg GmbH to Kairos Indus­tries in a carve-out. The audit and consul­ting firm Ebner Stolz advi­sed the seller Delfin­gen on this transaction.

DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg GmbH is an inno­va­tive manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal texti­les from Münch­berg (Bava­ria). The product port­fo­lio of the company from Upper Fran­co­nia includes nume­rous narrow fabrics, espe­ci­ally tech­ni­cal belts and tapes, which the company offers in various indus­tries. Since the tran­sac­tion, the company has been opera­ting under the old and fami­liar name ‘MBG Tech­belt Inno­va­tion GmbH’ (MBG). The aim is to conti­nue and further deve­lop the manu­fac­tu­rer of tech­ni­cal belts and straps as an inde­pen­dent company.

The buyer is Kairos Indus­tries AG, an indus­trial holding company from Berlin that specia­li­zes in acqui­ring compa­nies in special situa­tions and wants to deve­lop the tradi­tio­nal company in the long term. Kairos’ legal advi­sor was HEUSSEN Rechts­an­walts­ge­sell­schaft mbH.

With the acqui­si­tion of the Schlem­mer Group’s Euro­pean and Afri­can busi­ness last year, the Delfin­gen Group streng­the­ned its core busi­ness and the inte­gra­tion of the acqui­si­tion came to the fore. The focus conso­li­da­tes Delfingen’s posi­tion as a specia­list for insu­la­tion of liquid-carry­ing and elec­tri­cal systems in the engine compart­ment of vehicles.

DELFINGEN DE-Münch­berg was sold as part of a carve-out process. The current manage­ment will remain with the company in an advi­sory capa­city for a tran­si­tio­nal period in order to ensure the hando­ver of busi­ness opera­ti­ons. Both parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Ebner Stolz accom­pa­nied the entire M&A process from inves­tor search and tran­sac­tion prepa­ra­tion to market approach and inves­tor talks. Delfin­gen was advi­sed by Taylor Wessing on the final purchase agree­ment nego­tia­ti­ons and rela­ted agreements.

Team Ebner Stolz:
Michael Euch­ner (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A), André Laner (Prin­ci­pal, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A), Sebas­tian Rehmet (Consul­tant, Restructuring/M&A), Phil­ipp Dille (Consul­ting Analyst, Corpo­rate Finance/M&A)

Team Taylor Wessing: Dr. Chris­tian Traichel (Part­ner), Dr. Rebekka Krause (Part­ner), Chris­tian Dietz (Asso­ciate)

Team HEUSSEN: Robert A. Heym (Part­ner in Lead, Corporate/M&A), Philip Herbst (Part­ner, Employ­ment), Kilian Knes­tel (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)

News

Colo­gne — NRW.BANK is inves­t­ing in CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH via NRW.Venture as part of a growth finan­cing round. The Colo­gne-based company is active in the gene therapy market and is a leading provi­der of tech­no­lo­gies for the produc­tion of biophar­maceu­ti­cals. The invest­ment is inten­ded to expand capa­ci­ties for the growing gene therapy market.

“Gene thera­pies have become an important future market in phar­maceu­ti­cals and biotech­no­logy,” says Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos, Team Leader Life Scien­ces / Venture Capi­tal at NRW.BANK and member of the Advi­sory Board of CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH “The poten­tial for tech­no­lo­gies such as those offe­red by CEVEC is enorm­ous and we are plea­sed to be part of this finan­cing round and to support the company’s further growth.”

Gene thera­pies are being deve­lo­ped for dise­a­ses such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, among others, leading to a high demand for produc­tion capa­city. CEVEC offers phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies modern manu­fac­tu­ring solu­ti­ons here. To address the growing market, the company plans to use the funds from the finan­cing round to expand its capacity.

NRW.BANK has held a stake in CEVEC Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH since 2009 and has been support­ing the company with its network and capi­tal ever since. Through NRW.Venture, it supports start-ups and young compa­nies from North Rhine-West­pha­lia in the deve­lo­p­ment and marke­ting of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models and the rapid expan­sion of their business.

About NRW.Venture

NRW.Venture is the venture fund of NRW.BANK, the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. To this end, NRW.BANK uses a wide range of deve­lo­p­ment instru­ments: from low-inte­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and consul­ting services. With NRW.Venture, it supports start-ups in the deve­lo­p­ment and marke­ting of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and busi­ness models and the rapid expan­sion of their busi­ness. NRW.BANK invests up to ten million euros in such compa­nies over seve­ral finan­cing rounds — toge­ther with private-sector inves­tors. www.nrwbank.de/venture

News

Munich — Sola­ris­bank AG has raised a further 190 million euros in its largest finan­cing round to date. The valua­tion of the FinTech, which was foun­ded in 2016, now stands at €1.4 billion. Sola­ris­bank thus joins the ranks of the so-called unicorns. At the same time, the company acqui­res the British compe­ti­tor Contis. POELLATH also advi­sed Sola­ris­bank AG on the Series D finan­cing round of 190 million euros, as it did on the earlier rounds.

The round was led by Decisive Capi­tal Manage­ment, with support from growth inves­tors inclu­ding Pathway Capi­tal Manage­ment, CNP (Groupe Frère) and Ilavska Vuil­ler­moz Capi­tal. Exis­ting inves­tors yabeo, BBVA, Vulcan Capi­tal and HV Capi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. With the current round, the total volume of capi­tal raised amounts to 350 million euros.

More than half of the fresh capi­tal will go to the Contis acqui­si­tion, accor­ding to Sola­ris­bank. The acqui­si­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted within the next three months. The acqui­si­tion of Contis enables expan­sion into the UK, which had previously been hampe­red by Brexit. The Contis site and jobs are to be retai­ned after the takeover.

Like Sola­ris­bank, the British company Contis also offers banking-as-a-service services, but prima­rily with a focus on payment card issu­ance and processing.

Sola­ris­bank is Europe’s leading banking-as-a-service plat­form. As a tech­no­logy company with a full German banking license, Sola­ris­bank enables other compa­nies to offer their own finan­cial services. Through APIs, part­ners inte­grate Solarisbank’s modu­lar finan­cial services directly into their own product offe­rings. In Germany, for exam­ple, the Samsung Pay payment system of the South Korean tech­no­logy group Samsung runs on the Sola­ris­bank platform.

Consul­tant Sola­ris­bank: POELLATH

Cris­tian Toenies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Dr. Sebas­tian Käpplin­ger, LL.M. (Penn State), (Part­ner, Regu­la­tory Law, Frankfurt)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
Markus Döll­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)
Leonard Pietsch (Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

POELLATH has been regu­larly advi­sing Sola­ris­bank on finan­cing rounds since its foun­da­tion in 2016.

News

Heidel­berg — The AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion startup Aleph Alpha recei­ves 23 million euros in its second round of finan­cing. As Aleph Alpha’s first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, LEA Part­ners welco­mes the new Series A inves­tor set with Early­bird VC, Lake­star and UVC Part­ners on board. Toge­ther with the seed finan­cing of €5.3 million in Novem­ber 2020, the total finan­cing volume grows to €28.3 million. With the newfound and repea­ted support of Europe’s leading deep-tech inves­tors, Aleph Alpha can further acce­le­rate the inde­pen­dent deve­lo­p­ment of cutting-edge AI systems and conti­nue to expand its team of world-class AI rese­ar­chers, engi­neers and deli­very professionals.

Euro­pean AI Powerhouse

Head­quar­te­red in Heidel­berg, Germany, Aleph Alpha was foun­ded in 2019 by AI serial entre­pre­neur Jonas Andru­lis and Samuel Wein­bach. They bring toge­ther a high-cali­ber team of AI veterans, serial entre­pre­neurs, and a new gene­ra­tion of AI engi­neers coming from CERN, Apple, DARPA, and other pres­ti­gious orga­niza­ti­ons, who toge­ther are deve­lo­ping and opera­tio­na­li­zing large-scale AI systems towards gene­ra­lizable AI. Aleph Alpha will offer GPT-3-like text, image, and stra­tegy AI models via an API in the future. These will enable part­ners from the public and private sectors to moder­nize exis­ting busi­ness models as well as deve­lop new, inno­va­tive busi­ness models in data-based value creation.

Aleph Alpha’s commu­nity-driven and inter­di­sci­pli­nary approach ensu­res that tecto­nic shifts in the global AI land­scape are aligned with Euro­pean values and ethi­cal stan­dards. Aleph Alpha and its part­ner network are crea­ting a strong and sove­reign Euro­pean inno­va­tion network that supports more equi­ta­ble access to modern AI rese­arch — with the goal of coun­tering the ongo­ing “de-demo­cra­tiza­tion”, mono­po­liza­tion, and loss of control and trans­pa­rency in the global AI industry.

Jonas Andru­lis, CEO and foun­der of Aleph Alpha:

“Aleph Alpha’s mission is to enable acces­si­bi­lity, usabi­lity, and inte­gra­tion of large-scale, Euro­pean, multi­l­in­gual, and multi­mo­dal AI models along the lines of GPT‑3 and DALL‑E by driving inno­va­tion for explaina­bi­lity, adapt­a­tion, and inte­gra­tion. The funding signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­tes the process of brin­ging the latest gene­ra­tion of AI tech­no­logy into use and ensu­res digi­tal sove­reig­nty for our public and private sector part­ners in Europe and beyond.”

Secu­ring Euro­pean AI sovereignty

From model trai­ning to appli­ca­tion, Aleph Alpha guaran­tees the data sove­reig­nty of indi­vi­du­als and orga­niza­ti­ons and returns control of norma­tive value alignment to the deve­lo­per. This makes Aleph Alpha an indis­pensable success factor for the digi­tiza­tion of the private and public sectors in Europe.

Nils Seele, Prin­ci­pal at LEA Partners:

“When we first met Jonas and the team, it was imme­dia­tely clear that we shared a common vision toward gene­ra­li­zing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. For LEA, as the lead inves­tor in the seed funding round, it’s great to see the impres­sive setting that has come toge­ther over the last few months to help the Aleph Alpha team build Euro­pean sove­reig­nty in AGI.”

A New Age of Human-Machine Interaction

Aleph Alpha’s gene­ra­li­zing AI models extend and enhance human capa­bi­li­ties in deal­ing with any type of data. The tech­no­logy is capa­ble of under­stan­ding and gene­ra­ting complex text based on mini­mal human input and acts as a virtual assistant in a new gene­ra­tion of human-machine inter­ac­tion. Such deep contex­tual under­stan­ding was previously the exclu­sive domain of human experts. These new func­tion­a­li­ties will trans­form human inter­ac­tions with infor­ma­tion by struc­tu­ring know­ledge, respon­ding to complex tasks, or trans­forming, summa­ri­zing, and struc­tu­ring highly specia­li­zed, bureau­cra­tic, or legal language into easily unders­tood ever­y­day language.

About Aleph Alpha

Aleph Alpha is a Heidel­berg-based AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion company that rese­ar­ches, deve­lops, and opera­tio­na­li­zes gene­ra­li­zing AI models for text, vision, and stra­tegy at scale to ensure digi­tal sove­reig­nty for public and private sector partners.

About LEA

LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With 260 million euros of capi­tal under manage­ment and two invest­ment vehic­les, LEA Part­ners is able to contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy compa­nies with a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners. www.leapartners.de

News

Paris / Berlin — Listed global invest­ment firm Eura­zeo announ­ced the final closing of the Idin­vest Private Debt V fund at €1.5 billion. This is the company’s fifth direct lending vehicle, which was still laun­ched under the name of its subsi­diary Idin­vest Partners.

Toge­ther with 500 million euros origi­na­ting from private debt secon­dary funds and invest­ment manda­tes, Eurazeo’s current private debt program thus amounts to 2 billion euros. More than 70 percent of inves­tors are not from France. In total, Eura­zeo mana­ges around 5 billion euros in the asset class.

The Private Debt V fund is alre­ady almost 80 percent inves­ted, and the launch of Eura­zeo Private Debt VI is alre­ady in the plan­ning stage.

Eurazeo’s private debt team has been active in the market for almost 15 years, giving it invest­ment expe­ri­ence of more than 120 tran­sac­tions and across seve­ral econo­mic cycles. The stra­tegy focu­ses on compa­nies with an enter­prise value of between €30 million and €300 million. In Germany, the port­fo­lio includes Avenga, Netgo and Yieldkit.

Fran­çois Lacoste (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner and Head of Private Debt at Eura­zeocomm­ents: “In these unusual times, we are very grateful for the contin­ued support of our inves­tors and the trust they have placed in us, and we are proud to have excee­ded our initial fund­rai­sing target. We are convin­ced that the private debt market will conti­nue to be a source of new oppor­tu­ni­ties for Eura­zeo. We are keen to invest in high-performing and promi­sing compa­nies, along­side top manage­ment teams and spon­sors in Europe.”

About EURAZEO

Eura­zeo is a leading global invest­ment group, with a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of €22.7 billion in assets under manage­ment, inclu­ding €16.0 billion from third parties, inves­ted in 450 compa­nies. With its considera­ble private equity, private debt, real estate and infra­struc­ture exper­tise, Eura­zeo accom­pa­nies compa­nies of all sizes, support­ing their deve­lo­p­ment through the commit­ment of its nearly 300 profes­sio­nals and by offe­ring deep sector exper­tise, a gate­way to global markets, and a respon­si­ble and stable foot­hold for trans­for­ma­tio­nal growth. Its solid insti­tu­tio­nal and family share­hol­der base, robust finan­cial struc­ture free of struc­tu­ral debt, and flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon enable Eura­zeo to support its compa­nies over the long term.
Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, Singa­pore, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. — Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

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