ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Berlin / Frank­furt a. Main — Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP has advi­sed Bregal Mile­stone as lead inves­tor on its USD 115 million Series C growth invest­ment in Uber­all. The current inves­tor United Inter­net and the manage­ment also parti­ci­pate in the round. Previous inves­tors in Uber­all include HPE Growth and Project A.

The tran­sac­tion is Bregal Milestone’s tenth invest­ment and the first tran­sac­tion in Germany. Uber­all offers a leading full-suite SaaS loca­tion marke­ting and analy­tics plat­form that helps brands and busi­nesses with every step of the “Near Me” jour­ney: from finding and selec­ting online, to gene­ra­ting offline sales, to gathe­ring and mana­ging online feed­back, to recommending.

Uber­all is relied upon by thou­sands of custo­mers, inclu­ding more than 600 major global compa­nies in Europe, North America and Asia, both in direct sales and through its exten­sive global network of chan­nel part­ners. Since long­time friends David Feder­hen and Florian Hübner foun­ded the company in Berlin in 2013, Uber­all has grown into an inter­na­tio­nal market leader with offices in 6 count­ries and a global team of 300 employees.

The company successfully grew its ARR between FY17-20 at a CAGR of 60%. The invest­ment will allow to drive product inno­va­tion the growth stra­tegy, with parti­cu­lar focus on further conso­li­da­ting its leader­ship posi­tion in Europe and acce­le­rate global expan­sion. Will­kie advi­sed on all aspects of the tran­sac­tion, KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP issues.

Advi­sors to Bregal Mile­stone : Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
The Will­kie team was led by part­ner Dr. Matthias Schudlo (Corpo­rate) and Miriam Steets, photo (Coun­sel, Corpo­rate, both Frank­furt) and included part­ner Georg Linde (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), coun­sel Wulf Kring (Tax) and Matthias Töke (Finance, both Frank­furt) and asso­cia­tes Dr.Erik Göretz­leh­ner and Ilie Manole (both Corpo­rate), Dr. Nadine Kramer and Martin Waśkow­ski (both Labor Law) and Philip Thür­mer (Real Estate, all Frankfurt).

KNPZ Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed on IP issues:
The KNPZ team included part­ner Dr. Kai-Uwe Plath and asso­cia­tes Jan Schä­fer, Matthias Struck, Niko­laus Schmidt-Hamkens and Dr. Enno ter Haze­borg (all Hamburg).

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm of more than 850 lawy­ers with offices in New York, Washing­ton, Hous­ton, Palo Alto, San Fran­cisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Frank­furt, Brussels, Milan and Rome.

 

News

Hamburg/ Frank­furt a. M. — About You cele­bra­tes its debut on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange today, Wednes­day, June 16. The offer price for the private place­ment is set at 23.00 euros per share. CEO Tarek Müller holds a share of 4.3 percent, Sebas­tian Betz 3.7 percent and Hannes Wiese 2.7 percent.

The offer price for the private place­ment is 23.00 euros per share. The Otto Group subsi­diary is thus valued at 3.9 billion euros.

Accor­ding to Textil­wirt­schaft, the foun­ders hold the follo­wing shares: Tarek Müller has a share of 4.3 percent, Sebas­tian Betz 3.7 percent. Hannes Wiese has 2.7 percent. Howe­ver, the trio intends to sell just under 3.3 million shares, which will bring them a total of 76 million euros. After the private place­ment, Müller, Betz and Wiese will have stakes of 3.0 percent, 2.6 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.

Net, 627 million euros remain. — In addi­tion, from the holdings of the exis­ting owners GFH (Gesell­schaft für Handels­be­tei­li­gun­gen mbH), Seven­Ven­tures GmbH, GMPVC German Media Pool GmbH and Fashion Media Pool GmbH, up to 4.8 million ordi­nary bearer shares will be gran­ted as an option to cover over-allot­ments (green­shoe option).

The IPO will gene­rate gross proceeds of 657 million euros for About You. Net, 627 million euros remain. The company plans to spend 150 million euros on inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion, 115 million euros on tech­no­lo­gi­cal infra­struc­ture and 50 million euros on the further deve­lo­p­ment of its B2B tech­no­logy divi­sion. 80 million euros is to be used to repay share­hol­der loans. About You is also conside­ring acqui­si­ti­ons. 80 million euros is reco­gni­zed as a reserve for M&A transactions.

Tarek Müller, Co-Foun­der and Board Member Marke­ting & Brand: “Today is a great day for About You. Toge­ther with some of the world’s most renow­ned brands and compa­nies, we are now part of the exch­ange family. Today we cele­brate the successful listing of About You, but our focus is alre­ady fully on the future.”

In addi­tion to Deut­sche Bank, Gold­man Sachs and JPMor­gan , Numis Secu­ri­ties, Société Géné­rale and UBS also supported the IPO.

News

Langels­heim (Germany)/New York — Swiss specialty chemi­cals group Clari­ant has announ­ced that it will sell its pigments busi­ness to a consor­tium consis­ting of the Heubach Group and SK Capi­tal Part­ners. The tran­sac­tion is valued at $900 million. The purchase price repres­ents a multi­ple of 10.7 to 11.4 times stan­da­lone 12-month adjus­ted EBITDA as of April 2021. Clari­ant intends to reinvest at the time of closing to become a 20 percent share­hol­der in the ulti­mate holding company along­side Heubach and SK Capital.

The combi­ned company will gene­rate annual sales of more than 900 million euros with around 3,000 employees. Through the reinvest­ment, Clari­ant intends to further bene­fit from the impro­ved profi­ta­bi­lity of the pigments busi­ness. An effi­ci­ency program alre­ady initia­ted and syner­gies from the merger with the Heubach pigments busi­ness should also contri­bute to this.

Clariant’s pigments busi­ness is valued at an enter­prise value of CHF 805 million to CHF 855 million, subject to an earn-out payment of CHF 50 million linked to the finan­cial results of the pigments busi­ness in 2021. With the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Clari­ant has comple­ted the inten­ded dive­st­ments as part of the port­fo­lio stream­li­ning, follo­wing the previous dive­st­ments of the Health­care Pack­a­ging and Master­bat­ches businesses.

Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed SK Capi­tal Part­ners on the forma­tion of a consor­tium with Heubach Group and the consortium’s subse­quent acqui­si­tion of Clariant’s pigments business.

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2022, subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. At the closing of the tran­sac­tion, Clari­ant will take a 20% stake in the combi­ned business.

About SK Capital

SK Capi­tal is a private invest­ment company focu­sing on the specialty mate­ri­als, chemi­cals and phar­maceu­ti­cal sectors. The company curr­ently mana­ges assets in excess of USD 5 billion.

The Heubach Group is a leading global manu­fac­tu­rer of orga­nic, inor­ga­nic and anti­cor­ro­sive pigments and pigment prepa­ra­ti­ons. The company is head­quar­te­red in Langels­heim and opera­tes sites in Germany, the USA and India, as well as sales offices worldwide.

Advi­sors to SK Capi­tal Part­ners: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich
Attila Oldag, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (both lead, both M&A, Private Equity), Daniel Hiemer (Tax); Asso­ciate: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold (M&A, Private Equity)
Kirk­land & Ellis, London: David Holds­worth (Lead), Rachel Green­halgh (both M&A, Private Equity), Kirs­teen Nicol (Debt Finance), Shane Cran­ley (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion), Timo­thy Lowe, Cian O’Con­nor (both Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Amelia Rolfe, Louis Hopson (both M&A, Private Equity), Stefan Arnold-Soulby, Maurice Walsh (both Debt Finance), Phil­ipp Gnatzy, Sandeep Ravi­kumar (both Anti­trust & Competition).
Kirk­land & Ellis, Brussels: Dr. Thomas S. Wilson (Anti­trust & Competition)
Kirk­land & Ellis, USA: John S. Kefer (New York), Thomas James Doble­man, Joce­lyn A. Hirsch (both Chicago, all Debt Finance); Asso­cia­tes: Bridget E. Hahn (New York, Debt Finance), Joshua P. Cowin (Chicago, M&A, Private Equity)

About Kirk­land & Ellis
With appro­xi­m­ately 2,900 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery advi­sed SIGNA Sports United GmbH (SSU) in connec­tion with its merger with Yucaipa Acqui­si­tion Corpo­ra­tion (YAC), a publicly traded special purpose acqui­si­tion company (SPAC). The merger also includes the acqui­si­tion of the British online bicy­cle retailer Wiggle/CRC Group.

In the course of this so-called De-SPAC tran­sac­tion, the group struc­ture of SSU will be funda­men­tally chan­ged. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, SSU’s shares will be traded on the NYSE; SSU, as well as the publicly traded TopCo, will have their corpo­rate head­quar­ters in Berlin.

A McDer­mott team led by Dr. Kian Kauser and Sebas­tian Bonk advi­sed SIGNA Sports United GmbH and its majo­rity share­hol­der SIGNA Inter­na­tio­nal Sports Holding GmbH on the corpo­rate and tax struc­tu­ring of the group as well as on the acqui­si­tion of Wiggle/CRC Group.

The tran­sac­tion unders­cores McDer­mott Will & Emery’s strong posi­tion in provi­ding corpo­rate and tax advice on complex cross-border transactions.

Advi­sors to SIGNA Sports United GmbH and SIGNA Inter­na­tio­nal Sports Holding GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düsseldorf/Frankfurt
Dr. Kian Tauser (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Sebas­tian Bonk (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf; both Lead), Dr. Matthias Kamp­s­hoff, Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (both Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Heiko Kermer (Tax Law, Frank­furt), Elea­nor West (Corporate/M&A, London), Dr. Jan Hückel (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf; both for take­over Wiggle/CRC Group), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Florian Schie­fer (Tax, Frank­furt), Sebas­tian Klein (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Daniel Ross (Corporate/M&A, London), Carina Kant (Anti­trust, Düsseldorf)

News

London/ Munich — Oakley Capi­tal (“Oakley”) announ­ces the appoint­ment of Valero Domingo as a new Part­ner in its London office and six promo­ti­ons within its invest­ment team, inclu­ding two appoint­ments to Part­ner. Valero brings a wealth of expe­ri­ence to Oakley, while recent promo­ti­ons support the company’s growth follo­wing dyna­mic deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. Oakley’s team now consists of 61 employees in the London and Munich offices, 32 of whom are invest­ment professionals.

Valero Domingo joins Oakley’s London team, where he will be respon­si­ble for deal origi­na­tion and execu­tion, as well as port­fo­lio company deve­lo­p­ment. He previously worked at Charme Capi­tal Part­ners as a Prin­ci­pal based in London and Madrid and has considera­ble expe­ri­ence in the finan­cial sector and speci­fi­cally also in the Euro­pean private equity segment, gained in previous posi­ti­ons at High­bridge, 3i and Gold­man Sachs.

In addi­tion, Oakley has promo­ted two employees from invest­ment direc­tor to part­ner: Sam Fenton-Whit­tet and Sascha Günther. Sam Fenton-Whit­tet joined Oakley’s London team in 2015 after working for the UK govern­ment for seve­ral years, inclu­ding various senior posi­ti­ons at HM Treasury. His focus at Oakley conti­nues to be on deal origi­na­tion, execu­tion and port­fo­lio manage­ment. To date, Sam Fenton-Whit­tet has been invol­ved in Oakley’s invest­ments in Career Part­ner Group, Pupil Aid and Inspi­red. Sascha Günther is based in Oakley’s Munich office and focu­ses on tran­sac­tions and the manage­ment of Oakley’s invest­ments in German-spea­king count­ries. In his time at Oakley, he has worked on invest­ments at Wish­card Tech­no­lo­gies, 7NXT/Gymondo, Wind­star Medi­cal and most recently ECOMMERCE ONE. Prior to joining Oakley, he was Vice Presi­dent at ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany, where he was respon­si­ble for seve­ral invest­ments in the tech­no­logy, media and consu­mer goods sectors.

Oakley also announ­ces four addi­tio­nal promo­ti­ons within its invest­ment team: Lovis von Andrian has been promo­ted to Invest­ment Direc­tor, having previously been Invest­ment Mana­ger, while Mike Muts­aers, Cris­tina Popescu and Jamie Wilman have been promo­ted from Invest­ment Asso­ciate to Invest­ment Mana­ger. The promo­ti­ons are the result of strong perfor­mance and contri­bu­ti­ons to the deve­lo­p­ment of Oakley’s invest­ment acti­vi­ties over the past seve­ral years.

Peter Dubens, Mana­ging Part­ner of Oakley Capi­tal, stated:

“The appoint­ment of Valero Domingo to Part­ner, along with a host of inter­nal promo­ti­ons across the Oakley team, follows another year of strong growth for Oakley. The contin­ued evolu­tion of our teams’ expe­ri­ence and sector know­ledge has been criti­cal to Oakley’s ability to gene­rate consis­tent and diver­si­fied deal flow and subse­quently drive the growth of the outstan­ding compa­nies we support to the next level. I am plea­sed to welcome Valero Domingo to our team and would like to thank all of our colle­agues who have been promo­ted for their signi­fi­cant contri­bu­ti­ons to the company’s success.”

About Oakley Capital

Oakley Capi­tal is a private equity firm with more than €4 billion in assets under manage­ment focu­sed on Western Europe. Oakley invests in middle-market compa­nies across the region in three core sectors — consu­mer, educa­tion and technology.

Oakley’s entre­pre­neu­rial mind­set and deep indus­try know­ledge allows him to iden­tify speci­fic invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gene­rate supe­rior returns. The Oakley team works closely with a unique network of entre­pre­neurs and successful manage­ment teams to access primary proprie­tary invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and gain valuable insights into the busi­ness models in which it invests. The ability to over­come comple­xity and a flexi­ble approach to value crea­tion enable Oakley to help its port­fo­lio compa­nies achieve sustainable growth.

News

Munich — Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG has acqui­red Munich Hotel Part­ners GmbH with its asso­cia­ted subsi­dia­ries (“MHP Group”) in a reverse IPO. With the acqui­si­tion, Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG, which is listed on the Munich Stock Exch­ange, will incre­asingly focus its busi­ness on the MHP Group, one of Germany’s leading hotel provi­ders, in the future and thus support the growth of the MHP Group in the wake of the openings follo­wing the COVID 19 pande­mic. Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek under the lead of Part­ner Boris Dürr.

Based on an equity value of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 59 million, the exis­ting share­hol­ders will receive a conside­ra­tion in the form of a cash compo­nent of EUR 6 million and a share compo­nent of an expec­ted 33,125,000 new shares in Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG in accordance with the contrac­tual agree­ment reached and will thus retain a signi­fi­cant indi­rect inte­rest in Munich Hotel Part­ners GmbH. The share compo­nent is to be gran­ted by way of a capi­tal increase against contri­bu­ti­ons in kind, on which the Annual Gene­ral Meeting of Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG has yet to pass a reso­lu­tion. Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG is plan­ning seve­ral cash and non-cash capi­tal increa­ses to finance and execute the acquisition.

The Heuking team provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG on all legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion, inclu­ding tran­sac­tion struc­tu­ring, legal due dili­gence, purchase agree­ment docu­men­ta­tion and also on the stock and capi­tal market law measu­res to imple­ment the transaction.

The MHP Group is one of the leading German hotel provi­ders and has estab­lished itself in the acqui­si­tion of exis­ting upper-upmar­ket hotels. MHP curr­ently opera­tes four Le Méri­dien brand hotels in Germany and Austria in Hamburg, Stutt­gart, Munich and Vienna, as well as the Shera­ton Düssel­dorf Airport Hotel.

Advi­sors to Life­s­pot Capi­tal AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek

Boris Dürr (Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Munich
Dr. Chris­toph Küster (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Dr. Ralf Nobis (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Astrid Well­hö­ner, LL.M. Eur. (Labor Law),
Stepha­nie Wurm (Labor Law),
Peter M. Schäff­ler (Tax Law),
Bettina Nehe­i­der (Public Sector and Procu­re­ment), all Munich
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Boston Univer­sity), (Real Estate & Construction),
Fabian Schmitz, (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), both Düsseldorf

Advi­sor to the share­hol­ders of Munich Hotel Part­ners: Henge­ler Mueller
The part­ners Dr. Kai-Stef­fen Scholz (lead, Corporate/M&A, Berlin) and Dr. Markus Ernst (Tax, Munich) as well as the asso­cia­tes Dr. Ingo Berner, Niclas Bettien (both Corporate/M&A, Berlin) and Dr. Tim Würst­lin (Tax, Munich) were active.

 

 

News

Berlin — EVP Group, a port­fo­lio company of Capi­ton acqui­res Group Korott. Group Korott is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer and distri­bu­tor of vitamins, mine­rals, natu­ral cosme­tics, as well as sport supple­ments for the Spanish consu­mer health­care market. In addi­tion to its store-brand part­ne­ring busi­ness, Korott has its own brand port­fo­lio, inclu­ding well-known brands such as Vive+ and Power­Gym. Head­quar­te­red in Alcoy (Spain), the group opera­tes a modern produc­tion faci­lity with free capa­ci­ties that can also be utili­zed by EVP Group.

Korott serves a variety of super/hypermarkets, phar­macies, and health food chains with its broad product port­fo­lio. The produc­tion faci­lity with its wide-ranging capa­bi­li­ties of formats and dosage forms enables Korott to adapt and meet clients’ needs. The broad product port­fo­lio and manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties are backed by a strong in-house R&D depart­ment, secu­ring constant inno­va­tion and proxi­mity to custo­mers. In the current finan­cial year, Korott will gene­rate annual reve­nues of appro­xi­m­ately € 20 million.

Tran­sac­tion

Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion of Prin­ci­ple Health­care (Novem­ber 2020), Group Korott further expands EVP’s Euro­pean reach, product port­fo­lio and own produc­tion capa­bi­li­ties while unlo­cking signi­fi­cant group-wide syner­gies. Toge­ther with Korott, EVP Group mani­fests its posi­tio­ning as a leading player in the Euro­pean consu­mer health­care market and an ideal plat­form to further grow orga­ni­cally and through acquisitions.

Korott’s expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team will reinvest signi­fi­cantly, beco­ming the second-largest share­hol­der after capi­ton, and remain with the company to conti­nue the company’s growth path as part of a larger, pan-Euro­pean player.

Capi­ton Deal Team: Alex­an­der Zamora (foto) and Jona­than Lerman.
The parties have agreed not to disc­lose finan­cial details of the transaction.

EVP Group and capi­ton were advi­sed in this tran­sac­tion by Strategy& (commer­cial), PwC (finan­cial), EY (tax), Shoos­miths, Cuat­re­ca­sas, BMH Braeu­ti­gam (legal) and Fide­lio Health­care Part­ners (technical/operations).

About capi­ton AG

capi­ton is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged private equity firm that mana­ges a total fund volume of €1.3 billion. The invest­ment port­fo­lio of capi­ton AG curr­ently compri­ses 14 medium-sized compa­nies. As an equity part­ner, capi­ton supports manage­ment buy-outs and growth finan­cing in estab­lished medium-sized companies.

News

Frank­furt am Main — Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) successfully comple­tes its invest­ment in the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and soft­ware company Telio. Its shares in the company will be sold to Char­ter­house Capi­tal Part­ners LLP, a finan­cial inves­tor based in the United King­dom. The shares of DBAG Fund VI, which was advi­sed by DBAG, and the Telio manage­ment will also be sold. Corre­spon­ding contracts were signed last week; their execu­tion is still subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close within the next four months.

DBAG is now reali­zing proceeds from the sale, which roughly corre­spond to the valua­tion of the invest­ment in DBAG’s most recent IFRS inte­rim finan­cial state­ments (March 31, 2021). Ther­e­fore, the tran­sac­tion will not add any further value in the current quar­ter. Howe­ver, addi­tio­nal value contri­bu­ti­ons may arise from the future deve­lo­p­ment of the company via a re-invest­ment: DBAG and DBAG Fund VI will invest part of the proceeds from the sale and will hold around 13 percent (of which DBAG will hold around 2.5 percen­tage points) of Telio shares in the future.

Further dispo­sal of the DBAG Fund VI portfolio
The sale of the invest­ment in Telio is the fifth comple­tion of a manage­ment buy-out (MBO) from the DBAG Fund VI port­fo­lio. A further share­hol­ding (Pfaud­ler Group) was mainly sold last year. The fund had struc­tu­red eleven MBOs between 2013 and 2016. With DBAG Fund VI, DBAG had begun to invest incre­asingly outside tradi­tio­nal indus­trial sectors; Telio is one of the MBOs from new growth sectors.

Telio (www.tel.io, Hamburg) deve­lops, installs and opera­tes commu­ni­ca­tion and media systems for the correc­tional system, thus making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to the reso­cia­liza­tion of prisoners. Telio installs tele­pho­nes and asso­cia­ted systems in prisons that allow inma­tes to make control­led calls — from the cell wing or directly from their detention room. The range of services includes other means of commu­ni­ca­tion: tele­vi­si­ons, DVD play­ers, radios and compu­ters with limi­ted Inter­net access. The basis for commer­cial success is initi­ally invest­ment in appro­priate instal­la­ti­ons (cables, termi­nal equip­ment) and soft­ware deve­lo­ped in-house for moni­to­ring and billing usage. The soft­ware takes over part of the work of the correc­tional offi­cers and thus faci­li­ta­tes their daily prison routine. Telio also plans to tran­si­tion to Inter­net-based services and telephony.

Corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons to acce­le­rate transformation
DBAG and DBAG Fund VI had inves­ted in Telio in April 2016 in the course of an MBO and curr­ently hold 83 percent of the shares, of which DBAG holds 15.3 percen­tage points. Since then, Telio has become a global leader in inmate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and the tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture needed to support it. Sales have more than tripled; in 2020, they amoun­ted to around 83 million euros. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth, company acqui­si­ti­ons also contri­bu­ted to the growth rate of more than 22 percent per year on average; DBAG and DBAG Fund VI had twice provi­ded addi­tio­nal funds for this purpose. Telio has ente­red new regio­nal markets and signi­fi­cantly expan­ded its product offe­ring, for exam­ple with tech­no­logy that detects and stops the ille­gal use of cell phones in prisons. Telio is incre­asingly focu­sing on digi­tal solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple in the areas of video tele­phony and e‑learning. Telio is now repre­sen­ted in 700 faci­li­ties in 21 count­ries world­wide; 80 percent of sales are gene­ra­ted in Europe, nine percent of which are in Germany. Since the begin­ning of the invest­ment, the number of employees has increased to 218.
more than doubled.

“Telio has under­gone a major trans­for­ma­tion and once again impro­ved its market posi­tion,” DBAG board member Tom Alzin said today; “demons­t­ra­ting once again that corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons can decisi­vely acce­le­rate a company’s deve­lo­p­ment — and in this case, its repo­si­tio­ning.” And, “In no small part, heavy invest­ment in Inter­net-based commu­ni­ca­ti­ons has made it possi­ble for many inma­tes to main­tain cont­act with their loved ones via phone and video in recent months, despite pande­mic-rela­ted visi­tor bans.”

Alan­tra advi­sedChar­ter­house Capi­tal Part­ners on an invest­ment in Telio Manage­ment GmbH. Alan­tra is a global alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, invest­ment banking and credit port­fo­lio advi­sory firm focu­sed on provi­ding services to busi­nesses, fami­lies and inves­tors opera­ting in the middle market segment. The Group has more than 540 profes­sio­nals in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia.

About Char­ter­house

Char­ter­house is one of the longest estab­lished private equity firms in Europe. The company combi­nes exper­tise and capi­tal, working with ambi­tious foun­ders and manage­ment teams to drive trans­for­ma­tive change. Char­ter­house takes a selec­tive, convic­tion-based approach and invests in high-quality middle-market Euro­pean compa­nies in the services, health­care, specia­li­zed indus­tri­als and consu­mer sectors. The focus is on tran­sac­tions with an enter­prise value of between €200 million and €1.5 billion.

About Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG

Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG, a listed company, initia­tes closed-end private equity funds and invests — predo­mi­nantly along­side DBAG funds — in well-posi­tio­ned medium-sized compa­nies with poten­tial. One focus for many years has been indus­try. An incre­asing propor­tion of equity invest­ments are in compa­nies in the growth sectors of broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons, IT services/software and health­care. The long-term, value-enhan­cing entre­pre­neu­rial invest­ment approach makes DBAG a sought-after invest­ment part­ner in the German-spea­king region. Assets mana­ged or advi­sed by the DBAG Group amount to €2.5 billion.

News

Frank­furt am Main — With the aim of support­ing the further growth of the group of companies
support, Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV inves­ted in Little John Bikes Group (LJB) in June 2021. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. LJB is one of the leading specia­list retail­ers in the German bicy­cle retail trade and offers a
versa­tile product port­fo­lio in the bicy­cle and access­ories sector.

In the fast-growing e‑bike segment, LJB posi­ti­ons itself with inno­va­tive service and consul­ting. In addi­tion, LJB curr­ently has the fastest expan­sion rate in the indus­try, with a focus on busi­ness succes­sion. Toge­ther with LJB’s manage­ment, Borro­min will drive the group’s natio­nal growth as well as support the further struc­tu­ral and stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment of the company and its employees.

Nick Money-Kyrle, Mana­ging Part­ner of Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH: “LJB has achie­ved impres­sive corpo­rate deve­lo­p­ment in recent years. With its opera­tio­nal excel­lence and expe­ri­en­ced as well as passio­nate manage­ment leader­ship, LJB is very well posi­tio­ned in the natio­nal bicy­cle market. We are convin­ced that the company will have excel­lent growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future — both orga­ni­cally and through acquisitions.”

Martin Franke, Part­ner at Borro­min Capi­tal Manage­ment GmbH, adds: “The bicy­cle market in Germany is highly frag­men­ted. We see a great oppor­tu­nity here for LJB to conti­nue its successful expan­sion course through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons (of indi­vi­dual specia­list retail­ers or small chains of specia­list retail­ers) in comple­men­tary loca­ti­ons. This stra­tegy will both bene­fit LJB’s custo­mers and secure jobs in Germany. We are very plea­sed to actively accom­pany the sustainable expan­sion of the group of compa­nies in the coming years toge­ther with the management.”

Olden­bur­gi­sche Landes­bank is support­ing the tran­sac­tion with acqui­si­tion finan­cing and a working capi­tal loan.

About Little John Bikes
LJB was foun­ded in 1997 in Neukirch, East Saxony, and has since deve­lo­ped into a leading specia­list dealer for bicy­cles and e‑bikes in Germany. The company, head­quar­te­red in Dres­den, curr­ently opera­tes 41 stores. The current focus of expan­sion is on the new German states. The product range offers modern mobi­lity solu­ti­ons for cyclists of all ages — whether for ever­y­day, recrea­tio­nal or sport­ing use. The broad spec­trum of services and consul­ting under­lines the service-orien­ted focus. Market-orien­ted thin­king, exten­sive know-how and dyna­mic growth have made LJB one of the indus­try leaders in Germany.

About BORROMIN Capital
Borro­min (form­erly Stead­fast Capi­tal) is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm focu­sed on medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe and the Bene­lux count­ries. Our funds invest in medium-sized compa­nies and provide equity capi­tal for busi­ness 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.

Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV (Borro­min Capi­tal Fund IV SCS, SICAV-RAIF) bene­fits from the finan­cial support of the Euro­pean Union under the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (“EFSI”) estab­lished under the Invest­ment Plan for Europe. The purpose of the EFSI is to support the finan­cing and imple­men­ta­tion of produc­tive invest­ments in the Euro­pean Union and to ensure better access to finance.

News

Munich / Osaka (Japan) — AURELIUS has announ­ced that it has successfully comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of all shares of the Euro­pean consu­mer battery busi­ness (“Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy”) from Pana­so­nic Europe B.V. (“Pana­so­nic Europe”). Through its Euro­pean distri­bu­tion center in Zellik, Belgium, Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy opera­tes two manu­fac­tu­ring sites in Belgium and Poland. At all loca­ti­ons, Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy now employs a total of appro­xi­m­ately 900 people and gene­ra­ted total sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 230 million in fiscal 2019. The tran­sac­tion is the first under the newly laun­ched co-invest­ment program of AURELIUS: The exch­ange-traded AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA will hold a 30 percent stake in the company.

Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of consu­mer batte­ries in Europe.

Pana­so­nic Consu­mer Energy is one of the leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of consu­mer batte­ries in Europe and has a long history of high-quality produc­tion and distri­bu­tion in the Euro­pean market dating back to 1970. The company’s main products include alka­line and zinc-carbon batte­ries, as well as rech­ar­geable Ni-MH batte­ries and specialty batteries.

About AURELIUS

AURELIUS Group is a pan-Euro­pean invest­ment group with offices in Munich, London, Stock­holm, Madrid, Amster­dam and Luxem­bourg. Since its foun­da­tion in 2006, AURELIUS has grown from a local turn­around inves­tor to an inter­na­tio­nal multi-asset manager.

Key invest­ment plat­forms are its AURELIUS Euro­pean Oppor­tu­ni­ties IV fund as well as listed AURELIUS Equity Oppor­tu­ni­ties SE & Co. KGaA (“AEO”; ISIN: DE000A0JK2A8), which acquire corpo­rate carve-outs and compa­nies with deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the mid-market (fund) and lower mid-market sector (AEO). The invest­ment strategy’s core element is opera­tio­nal support of its port­fo­lio compa­nies with a team of about 100 in-house opera­ting taskforce experts.

AURELIUS Group also opera­tes in the areas of growth capi­tal, real estate oppor­tu­ni­ties and debt. AURELIUS Growth Invest­ments invests in lever­a­ged buyouts usually in succes­sion situa­tions. AURELIUS Real Estate Oppor­tu­ni­ties focu­ses on real estate invest­ments, the value of which can be increased in the long-term by means of active manage­ment. AURELIUS Finance Company is an alter­na­tive direct lender, focu­sed on provi­ding flexi­ble debt solu­ti­ons to small and mid-market firms across Europe.

News

Montierchaume/Munich — Quan­tum Capi­tal Part­ners (“QCP”) announ­ces that Avia­group Indus­tries SAS (“Avia­group”), an affi­liate of Quan­tum Oppor­tu­nity Fund II GmbH & Co. KG, has acqui­red 100% of the shares of CPP France SAS (“CPP France” or the “Company”) from US aero­space supplier Conso­li­da­ted Precis­ion Products Corp. (“CPP”), a port­fo­lio company of Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Part­ners. — With the tran­sac­tion, the company will be rena­med to its former corpo­rate name Aero­cast SAS (“Aero­cast”). The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by the QCP team in Munich.

Aero­cast, based in Montier­chaume, France, is a leading alumi­num foundry for the aero­space & defense indus­try specia­li­zing in invest­ment casting produc­tion tech­no­logy. The castings produ­ced are used in various struc­tu­ral parts for civil and mili­tary aircraft and heli­c­op­ters. Custo­mers include well-known OEMs and Tier-1s from the aero­space indus­try. Aero­cast employs appro­xi­m­ately 100 people.

Avia­group brings toge­ther under its umbrella seve­ral aero­space compa­nies (Secan, Avia­tube, Indraero Siren and SAM) loca­ted in France and Morocco with a total of appro­xi­m­ately 1,000 employees. The Avia­group compa­nies actively exch­an­ged know-how and worked closely toge­ther to deve­lop complex custo­mer solu­ti­ons. In addi­tion, they use common syner­gies and struc­tures in the admi­nis­tra­tive as well as in the commer­cial area. Avia­group divi­des its acti­vi­ties into the focus areas Ther­mal Manage­ment, Alumi­num Tubes and Aero­s­truc­tures. In the future, Aero­cast will comple­ment the tech­no­logy and appli­ca­tion spec­trum in the Aero­s­truc­tures area.

Frédé­ric Saizy, CEO of Avia­group: “We are deligh­ted that Aero­cast will become part of Avia­group. We see inte­res­t­ing opera­tio­nal synergy poten­tial not only due to the physi­cal proxi­mity to Indraero Siren’s almost neigh­bor­ing produc­tion faci­lity. We have also recei­ved very posi­tive feed­back and support for the acqui­si­tion from custo­mers. Avia­group sees itself as a part­ner to aero­space OEMs and pursues an active conso­li­da­tion stra­tegy through selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons to stabi­lize the value and supply chains in the aero­space indus­try for the bene­fit of its customers.”

www.quantum-capital-partners.com

News

Berlin — Leaps by Bayer is inves­t­ing in Berlin-based digi­tal health company Ada Health as part of its Series B finan­cing round. The finan­cing round is worth $90 million and was led by Leaps by Bayer. In addi­tion, inves­tors Samsung Cata­lyst Fund, Vitru­vian Part­ners, Inteligo Bank, F4 and Mutsch­ler Ventures parti­ci­pa­ted in the round. SMP provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Leaps by Bayer on the Series B finan­cing round of Berlin-based digi­tal health company Ada Health.

Leaps by Bayer is the impact invest­ment unit of the phar­maceu­ti­cal company Bayer AG, which uses its invest­ments to find solu­ti­ons to some of the biggest chal­lenges of our time in the fields of health and agri­cul­ture. The invest­ment in Ada Health is Leaps’ first commit­ment in Germany.

Ada has deve­lo­ped a powerful arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-based health analy­tics plat­form. It is desi­gned to help users better under­stand their symptoms and iden­tify and diffe­ren­tiate dise­ase patterns with great medi­cal accu­racy. At the same time, the plat­form supports users in finding the right medi­cal care in a timely and safe manner. The Ada app, which is aimed at consu­mers, has alre­ady recor­ded more than 23 million health analy­ses perfor­med world­wide since its global launch. The goal of the funding, accor­ding to the company, is to further advance Ada’s tech­no­lo­gies and acce­le­rate the company’s path to beco­ming the global leader in perso­na­li­zed digi­tal health. This is also inten­ded to streng­then the company’s leading posi­tion in the USA.

“We are very plea­sed to have supported the Leaps team in this invest­ment in a German company that aims to improve global access to health­care through digi­ta­liza­tion,” said Stephan Bank.

Consul­tant Leaps by Bayer: SMP
Dr. Stephan Bank (Lead), Partner
Dr. Florian Wilbrink, Associate
Dr. Chris­toph Lütten­berg, Associate
Peter Schä­fer, Associate

About SMP
SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s attor­neys and tax advi­sors repre­sent 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, SMP 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, SMP employs more than 70 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. For more infor­ma­tion: www.smp.law and www.linkedin.com/company/smp.law.

News

June 02, 2021 — Today, Origin.Bio announ­ced its $15m Series Seed, led by EQT Ventures with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tor BlueY­ard Capi­tal, Taavet Hinri­kus and Sten Tamviki, Inven­tures, Acequia Capi­tal, and Char­lie Song­hurst. Origin.Bio is a next-gene­ra­tion synthe­tic biology company that repli­ca­tes and impro­ves ingre­di­ents from tradi­tio­nal chemi­cal indus­tria­liza­tion proces­ses, free­ing manu­fac­tu­r­ers from petro­che­mi­cal depen­dency. — DLA Piper advi­sed EQT Ventures on its invest­ment in Munich-based start-up Origin.Bio in a $15 million seed round.

Since its foun­ding in 2021, Origin.Bio, a synthe­tic biology company, has been connec­ting bioen­gi­neers with nature. It produ­ces synthe­tic micro­or­ga­nisms that can produce many of the same subs­tances that tradi­tio­nal chemi­cal indus­try proces­ses do today, but with signi­fi­cantly lower energy use and waste gene­ra­tion and avoi­ding petro­leum chemi­cals. The company provi­des the link between R&D‑focused insti­tu­ti­ons and manu­fac­tu­r­ers and increased climate-focu­sed innovation.

EQT Ventures is the venture capi­tal fund of the Swedish private equity fund EQT Part­ners. EQT Ventures invests in fast-growing, inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-driven compa­nies in all sectors world­wide, with a focus on Europe and the US.

Advi­sors to EQT Ventures: DLA Piper
Led by Part­ner Andreas Füch­sel (Private Equity/M&A), Part­ner Semin O (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Coun­sel Kaja Herr­mann (Labor Law), Senior Asso­ciate Phil­ipp Groll (Private Equity/M&A) and Asso­cia­tes Alex­an­der Rösch (Liti­ga­tion & Regu­la­tory), Johan­nes Klug (Labor Law, all Frank­furt) and Jessica Herr­mann (Corpo­rate, Munich).

About DLA Piper

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

News

Munich — The LEDLENSER Group has acqui­red all shares in Ledco Ltd, Sunninghill, Berkshire (UK), as part of the entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion. Ledco was foun­ded in 2004 and exclu­si­vely distri­bu­tes LEDLENSER products in Great Britain, Ireland and Nort­hern Ireland. Former owner Jon Kemp will initi­ally remain with the company to ensure a smooth hando­ver. In the COVID-19 year, Ledco’s busi­ness, like LEDLENSER’s busi­ness model, again proved to be extre­mely robust and perfor­med very well.

With the acqui­si­tion of Ledco, LEDLENSER is consis­t­ently pursuing the further opti­miza­tion of its value-enhan­cing distri­bu­tion stra­tegy. Follo­wing the successful estab­lish­ment of its own sales subsi­dia­ries in North America and Denmark, the acqui­si­tion of Ledco means that the company is now also swit­ching to direct sales in the UK. In the coming years, sales in England, Scot­land, Wales, Ireland and Nort­hern Ireland are to be syste­ma­ti­cally expan­ded further in order to streng­then the presence in these important markets for LEDLENSER and to conti­nuously expand the reve­nue and earnings contri­bu­tion to the Group.

After the Group was alre­ady able to increase its over­all perfor­mance with a high single-digit growth rate in the crisis year 2020, LEDLENSER star­ted the new year 2021 with signi­fi­cant double-digit reve­nue growth compared to the same period of the previous year. LEDLENSER’s successful deve­lo­p­ment can be attri­bu­ted to the consis­tent imple­men­ta­tion of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves since Afinum’s entry. The topic of product inno­va­tion also plays a major role here. As a result, more new products were laun­ched in 2020 than ever before in the company’s history. The e‑commerce share is also conti­nuously incre­asing due to invest­ments in tech­no­logy, online marke­ting and the team. Purcha­sing and produc­tion opti­miza­tion at our own plant in China are also alre­ady making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to earnings and ensu­ring product avai­la­bi­lity and supply capa­bi­lity in these chal­len­ging times.

LEDLENSER Group is a plat­form invest­ment of AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co. KG, which was acqui­red by the Ameri­can Leather­man Tool Group in a carve-out at the end of 2018. LEDLENSER is one of the world’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers of high-quality LED flash­lights and head­lamps for deman­ding profes­sio­nal users and outdoor enthu­si­asts. The company, head­quar­te­red in Solin­gen, Germany, was foun­ded in 1993 and is conside­red the inven­tor of the LED flashlight.

About Afinum
Afinum Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company owned by the manage­ment with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, which specia­li­zes in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

News

Munich — The owner of mod IT Services GmbH (“mod”), Anja Oster­loh, sold her shares to the owner-mana­ged invest­ment company EOS Part­ners GmbH (“EOS”) in May 2021 with retroac­tive effect to Decem­ber 31, 2020. POELLATH advi­sed EOS on the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1991, mod IT Services GmbH is a total service provi­der for indi­vi­dual work­place manage­ment and IT secu­rity solu­ti­ons. The offer includes consul­ting, custo­mi­zed solu­ti­ons as well as joint imple­men­ta­tion in projects and support for the ongo­ing opera­ti­ons of its custo­mers. The company employs around 150 people at its sites in Einbeck, Hano­ver and Kassel and supports more than 10,000 IT work­places worldwide.

EOS Part­ners GmbH is a long-term orien­ted invest­ment company focu­sing on medium-sized compa­nies in the DACH region that have unique selling propo­si­ti­ons, sustainable custo­mer rela­ti­onships and high growth poten­tial. EOS supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in streng­thening their product and service port­fo­lios, which is often linked to further invest­ments such as bolt-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Curr­ently, EOS mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately 200 million euros of equity.

mod IT Service­Be­ra­ter EOS Part­ners GmbH in the context of the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the estab­lish­ment of a manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion legally with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)

About POELLATH
POELLATH is a market-leading inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness and tax law firm with more than 150 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings regu­larly list our consul­tants as leading experts in their field.

We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Tran­sac­tions | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets | Finan­cing | Tax | Succes­sion and Wealth | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP/IT, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust | Liti­ga­tion and Arbitration.

News

Karls­ruhe — The tech­no­logy inves­tor LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) supports the merger of PROCAD, with keytech Soft­ware GmbH as well as ACATEC Soft­ware GmbH to form one of the leading soft­ware provi­ders for the digi­ta­liza­tion of the product life­cy­cle with 250 employees, around 1,350 custo­mers and more than 125,000 users. The move will increase the Group’s inno­va­tive strength and closely inte­grate its product data manage­ment (PDM), product life­cy­cle manage­ment (PLM) and product confi­gu­ra­tion (CPQ) solutions.

The low-code approach and stan­dar­di­zed imple­men­ta­tion methods mean custo­mers are produc­tive faster. The appli­ca­ti­ons’ func­tions, ease of use and custo­miza­bi­lity signi­fi­cantly increase process effi­ci­ency. The comple­xity of end-to-end digi­tiza­tion from deve­lo­p­ment, marke­ting, produc­tion and main­ten­ance to the digi­tal twin is made mana­geable — in the cloud and on-premise.

Foun­ded in Reck­ling­hau­sen in 1996, keytech Soft­ware GmbH is one of the leading PLM provi­ders in the German-spea­king region specia­li­zing in the opti­miza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses within the product lifecycle.

ACATEC Soft­ware GmbH, based near Hano­ver, was foun­ded in 2004 and has since become one of the most inno­va­tive provi­ders of Confi­gure Price Quote (CPQ) and CAD auto­ma­tion soft­ware in Germany.

Gerhard Knoch, Mana­ging Direc­tor of PROCAD:
“We are deligh­ted to join forces at eye level and aim to be the part­ner of choice for our custo­mers when it comes to orchest­ra­ting know­ledge along the entire product life­cy­cle in a highly effi­ci­ent way — no other company offers such easy digi­tiza­tion of these busi­ness proces­ses. With our strong part­ner network, we will conti­nue to expand our market posi­tion internationally.”

Dr. Reiner Heim­soth, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of keytech:
“With keytech and PROCAD, two extre­mely expe­ri­en­ced compa­nies come toge­ther. When two strong PLM experts join forces and combine their in-depth know­ledge, it’s clear that the combi­na­tion of proven PLM and PDM solu­ti­ons provi­des the indus­try with an enorm­ous increase in efficiency.”

Henning Bitter, foun­der and mana­ging direc­tor of ACATEC:
“Our speed­maxx product confi­gu­ra­tor comple­ments the PLM solu­ti­ons from keytech and PROCAD perfectly. The merger crea­tes by far the best over­all solu­tion for an all-round smart, digi­tal product life­cy­cle, start­ing from product confi­gu­ra­tion by the custo­mer at the point of sale, through produc­tion, to opera­tion and main­ten­ance of the product.”

Phil­ipp Hertel, Part­ner at LEA:
“With our invest­ment in PROCAD in August 2018, we pursued the goal of expan­ding to become the leading digi­ta­liza­tion solu­tion for product life­cy­cle manage­ment. The addi­tion of keytech and ACATEC’s market-reco­gni­zed solu­ti­ons and expert teams is another important step on this path.”

About LEA Partners
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. The merger of PROCAD, keytech and ACATEC repres­ents another trans­for­ma­tive tran­sac­tion for the €200 million B2B tech fund focu­sed on soft­ware compa­nies from the DACH region.

News

Munich — Inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance has advi­sed Frulact Servi­ços Partil­ha­dos SA, a port­fo­lio company of private equity inves­tor Ardian, on the acqui­si­tion of the food prepa­ra­tion busi­ness of Inter­na­tio­nal Flavors & Fragran­ces Inc (IFF).

The master asset purchase agree­ment was concluded in April 2021. The tran­sac­tion is subject to anti­trust clearance and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the third quar­ter of 2021.

Frulact is a leading company for the produc­tion of ingre­di­ents for the food and beverage indus­try. The company specia­li­zes in fruit proces­sing and is head­quar­te­red in Maia, Portu­gal. French private equity inves­tor Ardian had acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Frulact in 2020.

IFF is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of flavors, extra­cts and fragran­ces for consu­mer products based in New York, USA. IFF’s food prepa­ra­tion busi­ness includes the deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of fruit and vege­ta­ble prepa­ra­tion products for the food, beverage and pet food indus­tries. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Frulact will acquire the produc­tion sites in Emme­rich (Germany) and Rein­ach (Switz­er­land), a site in Dijon (France) and assets and employees in other Euro­pean countries.

The Clif­ford Chance team advi­sing Frulact was led by part­ner Frede­rik Mühl (Corporate/Private Equity, Frankfurt).

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

News

Berlin — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed US finan­cial inves­tor Tiger Global on the acqui­si­tion of a stake in Berlin-based soft­ware company Pitch Soft­ware GmbH (Pitch) as part of a finan­cing round. The funding round was led by Tiger Global and Lake­star as lead inves­tors; in addi­tion, exis­ting pitch inves­tors Index Ventures and Thrive Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­ted. In the finan­cing round, Pitch raised a total of appro­xi­m­ately $85 million.

Berlin-based soft­ware company Pitch, a presen­ta­tion plat­form for inno­va­tive work and digi­tal colla­bo­ra­tion, was foun­ded in 2018 and offers presen­ta­tion soft­ware with a focus on real-time colla­bo­ra­tion, intel­li­gent work­flows and intui­tive design features.

Tiger Global is a private equity inves­tor with invest­ment focus in the Inter­net and tech­no­logy sectors with over $60 billion in assets under manage­ment. Since 2001, the company has inves­ted in tech­no­logy compa­nies in over 30 count­ries. Gleiss Lutz has been advi­sing Tiger Global on a regu­lar basis for many years
on its acti­vi­ties in Germany, most recently on invest­ments in fintech unicorn Mambu and legal tech startup BRYTER or the sale of its stake in Flaschenpost.

Advi­sor Tiger Global: Gleiss Lutz
tran­sac­tion: Dr. Ralf Mors­häu­ser (Part­ner, Lead), Melina Grau­schopf, Dr. Tobias Falk­ner (Coun­sel), Dr. Stepha­nie Daus­in­ger (all M&A/PE, Munich), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Schilde (both IP/IT, Berlin), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner, Tax Law, Hamburg), Dr. Chris­tian Hamann (Part­ner), Simon Wegmann (both Data Protec­tion Law, Berlin), Dr. Jens Günther (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Bögl­mül­ler (both Labor Law, Munich), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs (both Public Commer­cial Law, Düsseldorf).

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Oppen­hoff advi­sed the private equity house Fina­tem on the IPO of its port­fo­lio company hGears AG. The manu­fac­tu­rer of func­tion-criti­cal high-precis­ion trans­mis­sion parts and compon­ents with a focus on e‑cars and e‑bikes is aiming to use the proceeds from the issue of around €62 million to further drive orga­nic growth in the E‑Mobility busi­ness unit.

The first day of trading on the Regu­la­ted Market of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange was May 21, 2021.

The Oppen­hoff team, led by Dr. Gabriele Fontane, Foto (M&A / Private Equity), included Dr. Gunnar Knorr (Tax), Anne Vins-Niet­ham­mer and Mara Rogier (both Corpo­rate). Gabriele Fontane was also elec­ted to the Super­vi­sory Board of hGears.

Oppen­hoff first advi­sed Fina­tem on their recent invest­ment in the Food & Service Group, Mülheim. Gabriele Fontane had alre­ady supported Fina­tem in the acqui­si­tion of hGears and in the IPO of Derby Cycle.

About Oppen­hoff
The full-service law firm Oppen­hoff finds indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons for groups, large owner-mana­ged compa­nies and finan­cial inves­tors. More than 85 attor­neys advise on all major areas of busi­ness and tax law. Clients include Ford, Körber, Trumpf, the Reimann entre­pre­neu­rial family (JAB) and Zurich Insurance.

News

Munich — Dechert LLP streng­thens its Private Equity prac­tice with Domi­nik Stüh­ler as Late­ral Part­ner of the Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties prac­tice group in Munich.

Domi­nik Stühler’s advi­sory focus is on natio­nal and cross-border private equity and M&A tran­sac­tions. Mr. Stühler’s refe­rence clients include advi­sing Hg on the sale of STP Group, Apax Part­ners and port­fo­lio company Neur­ax­ph­arm Group on the acqui­si­tion of Bucco­lam®, Summit Part­ners on the IPOs of West­wing Group AG and Global Fashion Group, and PAI Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of Armacell Group from Blackstone and on the propo­sed acqui­si­ti­ons of IFCO and of Ammer­aal Beltech.

Domi­nik Stüh­ler is high­ligh­ted by JUVE as a “frequently recom­men­ded” lawyer in the field of private equity. He is admit­ted to the German Bar and holds a double degree in law and busi­ness admi­nis­tra­tion from the Univer­sity of Regens­burg and an MBA from the Vlerick Busi­ness School in Leuven, Belgium.

“Domi­nik is a promi­nent newco­mer from the market. He brings exten­sive exper­tise in advi­sing private equity firms and stra­te­gic inves­tors on complex lever­a­ged buyouts, mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons and real estate tran­sac­tions, which will be of great value to our clients in Germany and around the world,” commen­ted Mark Thier­fel­der, head of Dechert’s Corpo­rate & Secu­ri­ties and Private Equity prac­tice group.

Feder­ico Pappalardo, Mana­ging Part­ner of Dechert’s Munich and Frank­furt offices, added: “Domi­nik is an excep­tio­nal lawyer. His talent and repu­ta­tion will help us further expand our private equity presence in Germany and throug­hout Europe.”

Dechert is one of the most active law firms in the private equity indus­try and has inves­ted signi­fi­cantly in expan­ding its global private equity plat­form to provide clients with compre­hen­sive advice where­ver they do busi­ness. The global team consists of more than 250 lawy­ers world­wide in 17 offices and repres­ents a growing number of more than 300 inter­na­tio­nal private equity firms, sove­reign wealth funds, family offices and other alter­na­tive asset managers.

Recent mandate high­lights led from Germany include advi­sing OneFoot­ball on its inno­va­tion part­ner­ship with the German Foot­ball Asso­cia­tion (DFB) and the acqui­si­tion of Dugout, a digi­tal media company jointly owned by 10 of the world’s largest soccer clubs; advi­sing Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive on a €178 million finan­cing round with French luxury group Kering and U.S. tech­no­logy inves­tor Tiger Global Manage­ment; advi­sing Shur­gard Self Storage on its acqui­si­tion of Zeit­La­ger storage centers in Germany; and advi­sing Lazada on its multi-billion dollar sale to Alibaba.

News

Munich — Shear­man & Ster­ling has advi­sed Armira on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Sales­five GmbH (Sales­five), a leading digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion consultancy.

Head­quar­te­red in Munich, Sales­five was foun­ded in 2017 and has four loca­ti­ons. The company is a holi­stic digi­tiza­tion part­ner for compa­nies with exten­sive exper­tise and know-how in all Sales­force clouds. Sales­five serves compa­nies of all sizes and is one of the top 5 full-service Sales­force part­ners in the DACH region.

Armira is a holding group that focu­ses on equity invest­ments between EUR 20 and 200 million in market-leading medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team led by part­ner Winfried M. Carli most recently advi­sed Armira in connec­tion with the sale of Mehler Vario System Group and the acqui­si­tion of Scheu Dental Group.

The Shear­man & Ster­ling team included part­ner Winfried M. Carli and asso­cia­tes Andreas Breu and Daniel Wagner (all Munich-Finance).

About Shear­man & Sterling
Shear­man & Ster­ling is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with 25 offices in 13 count­ries and appro­xi­m­ately 850 lawy­ers. In Germany, Shear­man & Ster­ling has offices in Frank­furt and Munich. The firm is one of the inter­na­tio­nal market leaders in advi­sing on complex cross-border tran­sac­tions. World­wide, Shear­man & Ster­ling prima­rily advi­ses inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons and large natio­nal compa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons, and large mid-sized compa­nies. www.shearman.com.

News

Hamburg, Germany — re:ceeve, the leading SaaS provi­der of a no-code coll­ec­tion plat­form solu­tion, has increased its seed funding to US$13.5 million with venture capi­tal funds Seaya Ventures and 14W. Exis­ting inves­tors such as Mangrove, Speed­in­vest and Seed­camp also parti­ci­pa­ted in the expan­sion round.

The company offers a cloud-native plat­form that enables inter­nal coll­ec­tions and reco­very teams to take a no-code, digi­tal-first approach to resol­ving past-due accounts while support­ing custo­mer control and experience.

From self-service to intel­li­gent NPL allo­ca­tion, the platform’s seam­less expe­ri­ence is built on an inno­va­tive foun­da­tion of tech­no­logy and beha­vi­oral science. In-house teams are enab­led by the no-code plat­form to quickly and easily auto­mate proces­ses and leverage insights for maxi­mum reco­very across the credit manage­ment value chain — from coll­ec­tions to port­fo­lio allo­ca­tion or sales. re:ceeve targets compa­nies that provide finan­cing and subscrip­tion services (e.g. banks, alter­na­tive lenders, utili­ties, and tele­com compa­nies) and helps them digi­tize and auto­mate their inter­nal coll­ec­tion proces­ses end-to-end.

re:ceeve was foun­ded in 2019 by Paul Joze­fak and Michael Backes, seaso­ned entre­pre­neurs with exper­tise in the coll­ec­tions indus­try as well as expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal, inno­va­tion labs and company buil­ding. The company laun­ched its product in Q4’19 and says it alre­ady proces­ses hundreds of thou­sands of claims monthly in 12 countries.

Advi­sors to Seaya Ventures and Mangrove Capi­tal Part­ners: POELLATH + Partners

- Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
— Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead Part­ner, M&A/VC, Munich/Berlin)
— Markus Döll­ner (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/VC, Munich)

News

Munich — After a very successful growth course, AFINUM Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG (“Afinum”), advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, has sold its stake in Perfect Drive Sports Group GmbH (“Perfect Drive Sports Group”) to the inves­tor Bregal Unternehmerkapital.

POELLATH advi­sed the German manage­ment of PDSG on the transaction.

Perfect Drive Sports Group, based in Hano­ver, Lower Saxony, is Europe’s largest e‑commerce company for golfing supplies. The offer includes the entire range of golf equip­ment, clot­hing and access­ories with more than 20,000 items. The group combi­nes the brands All4Golf (“A4G”) based in Hano­ver, Germany and Club­house Golf (“CHG”) based in Manches­ter, UK. Both brands are market leaders in their respec­tive home markets with high custo­mer loyalty and, in addi­tion to their online presence, also operate retail stores in Hano­ver and Salford, UK, respec­tively. Across the Group, the company employs around 140 people.

POELLATH advi­sed the German manage­ment of Perfect Drive Sports Group on the tran­sac­tion regar­ding the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion with the follo­wing Munich team:

Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity), Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Participation/Private Equity)

News

Munich — Kirk­land & Ellis has advi­sed Tele Colum­bus AG on a capi­tal increase of EUR 475 million. The capi­tal increase was ente­red in the Company’s commer­cial regis­ter on May 12, 2021. The new shares were admit­ted to trading on May 14, 2021.

In the course of the capi­tal increase with subscrip­tion rights resol­ved on April 17, 2021, a total of 146,109,887 new no-par value shares were issued. The majo­rity of the new shares were subscri­bed and purcha­sed by Kublai GmbH, the majo­rity share­hol­der of the Company. The gross proceeds from the issue will be used in parti­cu­lar to achieve a sustainable capi­tal struc­ture for the Company and to further imple­ment its fiber cham­pion strategy.

With the comple­tion of the capi­tal increase, Kublai GmbH now holds 94.6 % of the share capi­tal and voting rights in Tele Colum­bus AG.

Tele Colum­bus AG is one of the leading fiber-optic network opera­tors in Germany with a reach of more than three million house­holds. The company, which is head­quar­te­red in Berlin and has offices in Leip­zig, Unter­föh­ring, Hamburg, Ratin­gen and Chem­nitz, has been listed in the Prime Stan­dard of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange since Janu­ary 2015.

Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Tele Colum­bus with the follo­wing team:
Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich: Dr. Anna Schwan­der (Lead), Dr. Achim Herfs (both Capi­tal Markets), Tim Volk­hei­mer (US Capi­tal Markets); Asso­ciate: Dr. Tamara Zehen­t­bauer (Capi­tal Markets)

About Kirk­land & Ellis:
With appro­xi­m­ately 2,900 lawy­ers in 16 offices world­wide, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal commer­cial law firms. The Munich team provi­des focu­sed advice in the areas of private equity, M&A, corpo­rate, capi­tal markets, restruc­tu­ring, finan­cing and tax law.

News

Zurich — Carole Acker­mann and Chris­toph Sutter and the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund are inves­t­ing 11 million Swiss francs in the impact inves­t­ing plat­form Yova. Inves­tors can use the plat­form to invest in sustainable compa­nies from as little as 1,000 Swiss francs. The young company says: “You don’t have to be a finan­cial expert to invest with Yova. You decide which topics are important to you. We take care of the rest”. Yova was foun­ded by Till­mann Lang and Erik Gloer­feld. The launch in Germany is curr­ently being prepared.

Zurich — Yova, an impact inves­t­ing plat­form foun­ded in Zurich in 2017, raises CHF 11 million in a recently closed funding round. Yova is finan­ced by well-known inves­tors, inclu­ding Carole Acker­mann (CEO at Diamonds­cull; VR at BKW, BVZ, BNP Pari­bas Switz­er­land, Alli­anz Suisse and others) or Chris­toph Sutter (Axpo, foun­der of South­pole as well as mycli­mate) as well as the Swiss Fede­ral Tech­no­logy Fund.

“Yova strikes a chord with the times, and espe­ci­ally with the youn­ger gene­ra­tion,” explains Carole Acker­mann. “Young people want to help shape a sustainable world, but don’t want to miss out on a trans­pa­rent and tech­no­lo­gi­cally state-of-the-art one.” Till­mann Lang, CEO and co-foun­der of Yova adds, “These funds will allow us to move forward with our Euro­pean expan­sion in a timely manner and at full speed, in addi­tion to expan­ding our Swiss busi­ness. As a result, this funding round was almost three times the size of April 2020.” In the first four months of this year, the number of custo­mers has alre­ady almost doubled. Yova is growing prima­rily from its own custo­mer base: every second new custo­mer comes via recom­men­da­ti­ons from exis­ting custo­mers, i.e. from Yova’s own commu­nity. Yova is curr­ently expan­ding its team. In addi­tion to the exis­ting 30 employees, 20 further posi­ti­ons are curr­ently to be filled in the short term.

As a further step towards success, Yova reports funding from the Swiss Tech­no­logy Fund of 3 million Swiss francs. This fund, estab­lished by the Swiss Confe­de­ra­tion, guaran­tees loans to Swiss compa­nies whose inno­va­tive products enable a sustainable reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­si­ons. The promise of support from the Fede­ral Office for the Envi­ron­ment (FOEN) attests that Yova and its impact inves­tors are successfully doing just that. Yova’s strong growth has alre­ady resul­ted in a CO2 reduc­tion of more than 10‘000 tons in its port­fo­lios over the past year.

Sustainable invest­ments for everyone

Inves­tors can invest in sustainable compa­nies with Yova from as little as CHF 2,000. No finan­cial know­ledge is requi­red, as they are digi­tally guided through the port­fo­lio process. This gives consu­mers 100 percent trans­pa­rency into what they are inves­t­ing in and at what cost. At the begin­ning of the invest­ment process, they can choose from 16 themes such as “plant-based food”, “rene­wa­ble energy” or “access to educa­tion” and eight exclu­sion crite­ria such as “no nuclear energy” or “no animal testing”.

The custo­mer then crea­tes his indi­vi­dual risk profile and recei­ves sugges­ti­ons from a mix of 400 compa­nies in which Yova invests for him based on his previous infor­ma­tion and atti­tude. The user can addi­tio­nally indi­vi­dua­lize his company mix and add his favo­ri­tes from over 800 addi­tio­nal companies.

Yova invests only in publicly traded compa­nies, in large mid- and large-caps, from wind turbine manu­fac­tu­r­ers to Beyond Meat to Tesla. The final port­fo­lio consists of 30 to 40 stocks diver­si­fied across diffe­rent indus­tries, count­ries, curren­cies and company sizes. In addi­tion to equi­ties, each stra­tegy also conta­ins govern­ment bonds. The costs range from 0.6 to 1.2 percent, depen­ding on the invest­ment amount. The fee is an “all-in fee”, meaning that there are no other costs such as tran­sac­tion or balan­cing costs.

News

Munich — Amsilk has closed a Series C finan­cing of EUR 29 million. The finan­cing was led by Novo Growth, the growth equity arm of Novo Holdings, with parti­ci­pa­tion from new inves­tors Cargill and E.R. Capi­tal Holdings, as well as exis­ting inves­tors MIG and Athos. With the funding, AMSilk aims to scale its global projects as well as inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. The aim is to reach new indus­tries and customers.

Envi­ron­men­tally friendly and sustainable silk biopolymers

AMSilk is a leader in the produc­tion of high-perfor­mance orga­nic silk mate­ri­als with a vision to offer more sustainable products. The silk products are made from vege­ta­ble raw mate­ri­als and are produ­ced via bacte­rial fermen­ta­tion. Thanks to their versa­tile proper­ties, silk products are in demand in many indus­tries, for exam­ple in high-perfor­mance sports­wear and medi­cal implants. The products are 100 percent recy­clable and biode­gra­da­ble. With the funding, AMSilk will acce­le­rate indus­trial scale-up and reach new markets.

Kartik Dhar­mad­hi­kari, part­ner at Novo Growth, said, “The tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to revo­lu­tio­nize a number of indus­tries and be part of the decar­bo­niza­tion push needed to address the biggest envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges of our time.”

Michael Motsch­mann, Gene­ral Part­ner of MIG, added: “As an Amsilk Seed inves­tor, we are proud of the great progress the company has made since its incep­tion. Our contin­ued invest­ment in Amsilk reflects our vision to invest in early-stage biotech and deep tech compa­nies and drive inno­va­tion that can advance the world.”

Advi­sor AMSILK: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (lead) consis­ted of Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (both VC/M&A, Munich) and Dr. Marius Mann (Commer­cial, Stuttgart).

About LUTZ | ABEL
The commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses on all aspects of commer­cial law with around 85 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin.

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive AG on its Series A finan­cing round. This was led by Safran Corpo­rate Ventures and STAR Capi­tal, a Euro­pean private equity fund mana­ger with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in deve­lo­ping emer­ging infra­struc­ture compa­nies. This is the first invest­ment in Germany by Safran Corpo­rate Ventures, the venture capi­tal arm of Safran, one of the world’s largest suppli­ers of aircraft systems.

SkyFive, based at the AIRBUS campus in Tauf­kir­chen near Munich, Germany, provi­des broad­band connec­ti­vity services and tech­no­logy to airlines and other aircraft opera­tors in key avia­tion markets world­wide, based on its paten­ted Air-To-Ground (A2G) solu­tion that uses stan­dard cellu­lar components.

“This successful first close of our Series A funding round — at the height of the COVID pande­mic — is a strong vali­da­tion of SkyFive’s tech­no­logy leader­ship and its signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity in the market. Toge­ther, we expect the digi­tiza­tion of avia­tion to acce­le­rate post-pande­mic. In this context, in-flight broad­band connec­ti­vity will become a stra­te­gic corner­stone for the entire indus­try,” says Thors­ten Robrecht, CEO of SkyFive.

ARQIS advi­sed SkyFive at the very begin­ning when the company acqui­red the key assets of its Air-to-Ground (A2G) busi­ness from Nokia in an MBO in 2019. The Munich team led by Dr. Mauritz von Einem and Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem subse­quently advi­sed on the follo­wing two finan­cing rounds and the conver­sion of SkyFive into a stock corpo­ra­tion in summer 2020. Prepa­ra­ti­ons are curr­ently under­way for the 2nd closing of the Series A as well as the expan­sion of SkyFive’s Chinese subsidiary.

Advi­sor SkyFive: ARQIS (Munich)
Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Lead; Venture Capital/Taxes), Prof. Dr. Chris­toph von Einem (Venture Capi­tal), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (IP/Commercial), Dr. Andrea Panzer-Heemeier (Labor Law; Düssel­dorf); Coun­sel: Tanja Kurt­zer (Pensi­ons); Asso­cia­tes: Louisa Graf, Benja­min Bandur, Anselm Graf (all Venture Capi­tal), Rolf Tichy, Nora Meyer-Strat­mann (both IP/Commercial)

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

News

Frank­furt a. Main — The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN CAPITAL”) on its invest­ment in tado GmbH (“tado°”). In addi­tion to new inves­tor noven­tic group, exis­ting inves­tors such as INVEN CAPITAL, Amazon, Target Part­ners, Eon and Total also parti­ci­pa­ted in the 38 million euro finan­cing round.

Munich-basedtado° is the Euro­pean market leader for intel­li­gent indoor climate manage­ment and was foun­ded in 2011. In the mean­time, tado° employs 180 people.

INVEN CAPITAL is the venture capi­tal arm of the ČEZ Group, whose invest­ment focus is on invest­ments in clean-tech and new-energy companies.

Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, such as its recent invest­ment in the logi­stics start-up Forto GmbH, finan­cing rounds at Zolar GmbH, the sale of its stake in the home battery storage provi­der sonnen to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V. and its invest­ment in the start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH, as well as the latest finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.

The Weil tran­sac­tion team was led by Frank­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Chris­tian Tapp­ei­ner. He was supported by Coun­sel Julian Schwa­ne­beck and Para­le­gal Nata­scha Späth (both Corporate).

Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley and Washing­ton, D.C.

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