ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
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.

News

Munich — Auto­mo­tive supplier Magna has signed an agree­ment with listed invest­ment company Muta­res SE & Co. KGaA (Muta­res) to sell three German Exte­ri­ors plants. The acqui­si­tion compri­ses Magna’s three sites in Oberts­hau­sen, Sulz­bach and Idar-Ober­stein as well as the two satel­lite sites in Neckar­sulm and Klein-Krot­zen­burg with a total of 1,700 employees and sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million.

The plants produce plas­tic compon­ents such as bumper and exte­rior trim, radia­tor gril­les and other trim compon­ents for leading OEMs in the premium segment and gene­rate sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 360 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the third quar­ter of 2021. The business’s main custo­mers include well-known German auto­ma­kers. The three plants have exten­sive design know-how and tech­ni­cally mature in-house deve­lo­p­ment capabilities.

Advi­sor Magna: Henge­ler Mueller

The part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (Munich), Dr. Peter Weyland (Frank­furt) (both lead, M&A), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Prof. Dr. Dirk Uwer (Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Johan­nes Tieves (Finan­cing, Frank­furt) and Dr. Matthias Schei­fele (Tax, Munich), the Coun­sel Patrick Wilke­ning (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Moritz Rade­ma­cher (Public Commer­cial Law) (both Düssel­dorf) and the Asso­cia­tes Dr. Achim Speng­ler, Dr. Florian Dendl, Dr. David Negen­born (all Munich), Dr. Nicho­las Kubesch (Frank­furt) (all M&A), Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Düssel­dorf), Simone Terbrack (Berlin) (both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Sarah Milde (Anti­trust), Dr. Daniel Engel (Dispute Reso­lu­tion) (both Munich), Dr. Henning Hilke (Finan­cing), Dr. Sebas­tian Hein­richs (Tax) and Dr. Andreas Kaletsch (Labor Law) (all Frankfurt).

News

Aachen — The Tech­Vi­sion Fund I (TVF) will be increased by another 15 million euros. This means that the fund, which belongs to the S‑UBG Group, now has a total of 55 million euros in venture capi­tal available for start-up finan­cing in the Aachen region and the Lower Rhine area. TVF’s exis­ting inves­tors [1] are joined by Spar­kasse Neuss, Stadt­mar­ken GmbH and Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH as finan­ci­ally strong private inves­tors from Aachen. “We are plea­sed to be able to support and further deve­lop inno­va­tive start-up teams from the western Rhine­land even more stron­gly through more capi­tal and new inves­tors,” says Bern­hard Kugel, CEO of S‑UBG AG and mana­ging direc­tor of the Tech­Vi­sion Fund.

Geogra­phi­cal expan­sion of finan­cing activities

“With Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, in addi­tion to seed invest­ments, we also aim to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds, Series A and B, of exis­ting and new port­fo­lio compa­nies,” Kugel empha­si­zed. The venture capi­tal fund specia­li­zes in finan­cing start-ups with a distinct opportunity/risk profile. “As a new inves­tor, we want to be a relia­ble finan­cial part­ner for start-ups in the grea­ter Neuss area as well. For all our down-to-earth­ness, we are very open to new products and tech­no­lo­gies,” says Marcus Longe­rich, Deputy Board Member of Spar­kasse Neuss. “Toge­ther with the other capi­tal provi­ders, we have made it our goal to further promote start-up acti­vi­ties in our region. We also want to support the struc­tu­ral change that is neces­sary because of the plan­ned energy turnaround.”

Norbert Hermanns, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Aache­ner Stadt­mar­ken GmbH, adds: “Thanks to the diverse rese­arch land­scape in the western Rhine­land, the region is predesti­ned to produce forward-looking ideas. Howe­ver, in order to make these marke­ta­ble, inno­va­tive young entre­pre­neurs need appro­priate finan­cial resour­ces.” Manuel Nadenau, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Moder­ner Baube­darf GmbH, also sees the poten­tial: “An exci­ting new task lies ahead of us and we are plea­sed to be able to bring a breath of fresh air to the start-up scene toge­ther with the other inves­tors by support­ing young and inno­va­tive foun­ders from the region.”

Success stories made in the Rhineland

To date, the Seed Fonds Aachen and the Tech­Vi­sion Fonds have supported over 20 start-ups with capi­tal, stra­te­gic know­ledge and S‑UBG’s exten­sive network — inclu­ding taxy.io GmbH, a start-up dedi­ca­ted to provi­ding the basis for auto­ma­ted B2B tax advice using arti­fi­ci­ally intel­li­gent soft­ware. In TVF’s port­fo­lio since 2019, the young company has alre­ady been able to grow rapidly through two rounds of finan­cing and further expand its offe­ring in terms of indus­try and geogra­phy. The Tech­Vi­sion Fund port­fo­lio also includes the Düssel­dorf-based soft­ware deve­lo­per talent::digital and the mobi­lity plat­form MOQO — these start-ups have also achie­ved entre­pre­neu­rial mile­sto­nes through indi­vi­dual finan­cing models. In the health and biosci­ence sector, the invest­ment enab­led the compa­nies PL BioSci­ence and Protem­bis to further deve­lop their products and bring them to market maturity.

News

Berlin — SMP provi­ded legal advice to 1717 Life Science Ventures on the sale of its stake in drug deve­lo­per PENTIXAPHARM to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. In the course of the tran­sac­tion, Eckert & Zieg­ler acqui­red a direct majo­rity stake in PENTIXAPHARM, a joint venture between Scin­to­mics GmbH and 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH.

With a solid history of buil­ding successful radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal start­ups, the 1717 team has perso­nal expe­ri­ence in all key func­tions of an early-stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal deve­lo­p­ment company. PENTIXAPHARM is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors. Toge­ther with an inter­nal trans­fer, Eckert & Zieg­ler says it will directly hold around 83% of the shares in the Würz­burg-based company after the closing. The manage­ment of PENTIXAPHARM, which holds the remai­ning 17% of PENTIXAPHARM shares, also recei­ved put opti­ons on the remai­ning shares as part of the share sale. More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

SMP had alre­ady advi­sed on the estab­lish­ment of the joint venture in 2019.

1717 LSV empowers scien­tists and inves­tors to trans­form early stage radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal projects into attrac­tive assets for licen­sing part­ners in industry.

About 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH
By intro­du­cing early stage inves­tors to promi­sing new projects, 1717 LSV seeks to enable novel radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal thera­pies to traverse the early stages of manu­fac­tu­ring and clini­cal development.
We laun­ched 1717 LSV in March 2018 to trans­late scien­ti­fic results into pati­ents bene­fits by filling the opera­tio­nal and finan­cial gaps between the inven­tion of radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal subs­tances and their first clini­cal trials. We are focu­sed, but not limi­ted, to onco­logy indi­ca­ti­ons to apply the full concept of Theranostics.

Advi­sor 1717 Life Science Ventures GmbH: SMP
Dr. Martin Scha­per, Partner

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 60 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

London — Bird & Bird LLP has advi­sed Inves­tec Bank plc (“Inves­tec”) on its stra­te­gic mino­rity invest­ment in three Capi­tal­mind Inter­na­tio­nal (“Capi­tal­mind”) compa­nies in France, Germany and the Nether­lands. The tran­sac­tion expands the rela­ti­onship between Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind and repres­ents an acce­le­ra­tion of both firms’ consul­ting strategies.

Investec’s parent company, Inves­tec plc, is listed on the two stock exch­an­ges in London and Johan­nes­burg. Investec’s banking busi­ness works with growth compa­nies, insti­tu­ti­ons and private equity funds, advi­sing clients on capi­tal and treasury risk management.

Focus on medium-sized transactions
Medium-sized tran­sac­tions (€20 — €250 million) in the form of group spin-offs, succes­sion solu­ti­ons, share­hol­der buy-outs, acqui­si­ti­ons and finan­cing are now taking place in an inter­na­tio­nal envi­ron­ment. While large corpo­ra­ti­ons have access to a wide range of profes­sio­nal consul­ting and finan­cing services via inter­na­tio­nal banks and brokers with their specia­li­zed depart­ments, the services for medium-sized tran­sac­tions are still quite regio­nally struc­tu­red, very frag­men­ted and confusing.

Capi­tal­mind is a leading Euro­pean finan­cial advi­sory firm working with family busi­nesses, entre­pre­neurs, private equity houses and corpo­ra­ti­ons. Investec’s invest­ment in mino­rity stakes in each of the three compa­nies provi­des Capi­tal­mind with a link to the UK, Ireland, Asia and Africa, while Capi­tal­mind links Investec’s consul­ting busi­ness to most of Western Europe, inclu­ding Germany, France, Bene­lux, Scan­di­na­via and Switzerland.

The follo­wing Bird & Bird attor­neys, toge­ther with Investec’s in-house team in London, advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion in four jurisdictions:

The inter­na­tio­nal corpo­rate team was led by part­ner Clive Hope­well, who was supported by senior asso­ciate Richard Bloom­field and asso­ciate Char­lotte Hart (all corpo­rate, London). The French invest­ment was led by part­ner Gildas Louvel, who was supported by asso­ciate Pierre Lagresle (both Corpo­rate, Paris). The German invest­ment was made by part­ner Dr. Kai Kerger (photo), who was supported by asso­ciate Johanna Schind­ler (both Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), and the invest­ment in the Nether­lands was led by part­ner Michiel Wurf­bain, who was supported by part­ner and notary René Rieter and asso­cia­tes Nikita Gomme­ren and Musa Dinc (all Corpo­rate, The Hague).

Charles Barlow, who heads Investec’s cross-border corpo­rate finance busi­ness, said, “Bird & Bird under­stands what this tran­sac­tion means to us stra­te­gi­cally, and we are plea­sed to have them on board with their pan-Euro­pean office network to support the deve­lo­p­ment of our rela­ti­onship with Capitalmind.”

Clive Hope­well added: “We are deligh­ted to have been able to successfully assist Inves­tec in comple­ting this important stra­te­gic invest­ment in Euro­pean M&A advi­sory services. We wish the teams at Inves­tec and Capi­tal­mind every success in deve­lo­ping this exci­ting new plat­form for M&A advi­sory services across much of Western Europe, parti­cu­larly at a time when demand is expec­ted to be signi­fi­cant post-pandemic.”

News

Frank­furt am Main — vitro­net GmbH (“vitro­net”) and Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH (“DING”), two invest­ments from the port­fo­lio of the private equity fund DBAG ECF mana­ged by Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG), are merging and will in future operate as the vitro­net Group in the fiber optic and energy infra­struc­ture market. The merger now agreed will create a group whose pro forma sales in 2020 amoun­ted to around 340 million euros and which now employs around 2,300 people at more than 30 loca­ti­ons in Germany.

In the fast-growing market for the expan­sion of fiber-optic and energy infra­struc­ture, a provi­der is emer­ging with broad regio­nal coverage and a range of services that covers all the main value-adding steps, from plan­ning and cons­truc­tion of the faci­li­ties to opera­tion and service. The vitro­net Group conti­nues to see good oppor­tu­ni­ties to actively drive forward the conso­li­da­tion of this frag­men­ted market.

In 2017, Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs AG (DBAG) initi­ally struc­tu­red the manage­ment buy-out (MBO) of vitro­net GmbH along­side DBAG ECF. This was follo­wed in 2019 by the MBO of the STG Brauns­berg Group, which has since been opera­ting under the name Deut­sche Infra­struk­tur und Netz­ge­sell­schaft mbH. In the year of acqui­si­tion, vitro­net gene­ra­ted sales of 42 million euros, DING 18 million euros. In recent years, both compa­nies have grown stron­gly; 15 corpo­rate acqui­si­ti­ons to date have contri­bu­ted to this to a considera­ble extent. The Group’s pro forma sales have thus increased almost six-fold.

Since the start of the invest­ment, DBAG and DBAG ECF have inves­ted 49 million euros in the two compa­nies, of which DBAG accounts for 22 million euros. DBAG will hold a stake of around 39 percent in the newly formed vitro­net Group, while DBAG ECF will hold 46 percent; most of the remai­ning shares will be held by the Group’s manage­ment. The tran­sac­tion will have no further impact on the valua­tion of the invest­ments in DBAG’s balance sheet. Howe­ver, as of the most recent report­ing date of March 31, 2021, the value of the latest company acqui­si­ti­ons has been increased; these have also alre­ady been included in the fore­cast for fiscal 2020/2021, which was raised on March 26, 2021.

vitro­net, based in Essen, Germany, has so far focu­sed on acting as a gene­ral contrac­tor for fiber-optic projects. In recent years, various specia­list compa­nies along the value chain have been acqui­red and inte­gra­ted. vitro­net has thus deve­lo­ped into one of Germany’s leading end-to-end part­ners in what is known as FttH expan­sion (FttH: fiber to the home), meaning that it can offer all the essen­tial process steps for this expan­sion. DING, based in Bochum, has so far stood for effi­ci­ent infra­struc­ture expan­sion in the areas of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons (fiber optics, FttH, mobile commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), energy (district heating, elec­tri­city, eMobi­lity) and utili­ties (gas, water, pipe­line) in Germany.

High market demand meets tight capacity

The Group is bene­fiting from the dyna­mic growth in demand for high-perfor­mance Inter­net connec­tions. This is trig­ge­ring strong demand for network expan­sion services, which is being met by a shortage of corre­spon­ding capa­city in the market. To date, around 70 percent of reve­nue has been gene­ra­ted by the fiber-optic infra­struc­ture busi­ness. The Group’s services range from project plan­ning for new networks and their cons­truc­tion to the opera­tion and servicing of fiber-optic networks. The service share in parti­cu­lar is to grow. Busi­ness in the energy and utili­ties market, which has so far accoun­ted for around 30 percent of sales, is set to bene­fit from the energy tran­si­tion, among other things: To enable eMobi­lity on a large scale, for exam­ple, the infra­struc­ture will have to be trans­for­med. The Group sees itself as one of the leading service provi­ders for infra­struc­ture expan­sion in Germany.

In 2013, DBAG began inves­t­ing in compa­nies that expand or operate fiber-optic networks. The first two invest­ments (inexio and DNS:Net) were sold in 2019 and March 2021. In addi­tion to vitro­net and DING, DBAG, toge­ther with DBAG ECF and DBAG Fund VIII, holds invest­ments in three other compa­nies in the sector (netz­kon­tor nord, BTV and Deut­sche Giga Access).

Larger projects of tele­phone compa­nies, utili­ties and public utilities

“We have inves­ted in a growing market in which, howe­ver, speed in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the compa­nies is decisive for invest­ment success,” expres­sed Tors­ten Grede, Spokes­man of the Manage­ment Board of DBAG on the occa­sion of the tran­sac­tion with regard to the 15 company acqui­si­ti­ons. “We will also support the newly formed group to conti­nue to watch inor­ga­ni­cally.” This invol­ves, for exam­ple, closing exis­ting gaps in the regio­nal offering.

“Our custo­mers are incre­asingly looking for provi­ders who can inde­pendently handle ever-larger projects throug­hout Germany,” says Marc Lützen­kir­chen, Chair­man of vitronet’s Manage­ment Board. “We can now fulfill this claim even better with the syner­gies of the Group and the deca­des of expe­ri­ence of our subsi­dia­ries.” Last but not least, the new size of the Group will also improve its access to the capi­tal market and thus the finan­cing opti­ons for further corpo­rate acquisitions.

About DBAG

DBAG has made six plat­form invest­ments rela­ted to broad­band tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons expan­sion in Germany since 2013. — 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 a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery, as tran­sac­tion coun­sel, advi­ses the issuer APONTIS PHARMA AG, its main share­hol­der, the invest­ment company Para­gon Part­ners, as well as the joint book­run­ners Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg on the IPO at the Frank­furt Stock Exchange.

The place­ment price for the IPO was set at 19.00 euros per share. The place­ment volume totals 101 million euros. A total of 5,290,000 shares were placed with inves­tors as part of the IPO, which also included a U.S. tran­che in accordance with Rule 144A of the U.S. Secu­ri­ties Act. The place­ment includes 2,000,000 new shares from a cash capi­tal increase as well as 1,600,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a base deal, 1,000,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with a top-up option and 690,000 exis­ting shares in connec­tion with an over-allot­ment option from the holdings of the main share­hol­der Para­gon Part­ners. The first day of trading on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange is sche­du­led for May 11, 2021. The exis­ting share­hol­ders Para­gon Part­ners and the manage­ment of APONTIS PHARMA will remain share­hol­ders in the company after the place­ment with a stake of 31% and 7%, respectively.

APONTIS PHARMA AG is a leading phar­maceu­ti­cal company for single pills in the German market. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the issu­ance of the new shares prima­rily for selec­ted invest­ments in the deve­lo­p­ment of new single pills, acce­le­ra­ting the deve­lo­p­ment and licen­sing of the exis­ting near-term product pipe­line, and expan­ding marke­ting and sales acti­vi­ties to capture addi­tio­nal market share and product acquisitions.

McDer­mott provi­ded compre­hen­sive capi­tal markets legal advice to all parties invol­ved. The McDer­mott team was also respon­si­ble for the corpo­rate struc­tu­ring in the run-up to the IPO.

Advi­sors APONTIS, Para­gon Part­ners and banks Hauck & Aufhäu­ser and M.M.Warburg:
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frank­furt a.M./Düsseldorf
Capi­tal Markets/IPO Work­stream: Simon Weiß (Project Coor­di­na­tion; Capi­tal Markets), Joseph W. Marx (US Capi­tal Markets; joint lead), Gregory M. Weig­and (Miami), Edwin C. Lauren­son (Coun­sel, San Fran­cisco; both US Law), Dr. Deniz Tschamm­ler (Munich), Dr. Monika Rich­ter (both Coun­sel, both Life Scien­ces); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Isabelle Suzanne Müller, Chris­toph Schä­fer, Ardalan Zargari (Staff Attor­ney); Corpo­rate Work­stream: Dr. Phil­ipp Gren­ze­bach (Lead), Dr. Thomas Gennert (both Corpo­rate, both Düssel­dorf); Asso­ciate: Tom Schäfer

News

Munich — Munich-based tech startup Metis­Mo­tion has closed its second round of finan­cing and recei­ved another €1.5 million in fresh capi­tal. As in the first finan­cing round in Decem­ber 2018, the High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), BORN2GROW — a subsi­diary of the ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn — and the SIEMENS Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor (STA) inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to prepare the market launch of the patent-protec­ted naXture actua­tor platform.

“MetisMotion’s core tech­no­logy is highly dyna­mic and light­weight, powerful actua­tors for auto­ma­tion appli­ca­ti­ons. Metis­Mo­tion has deve­lo­ped an actua­tor plat­form (compa­ra­ble to servo­mo­tors) that offers unpre­ce­den­ted, tech­ni­cal possi­bi­li­ties. — Imagine being able to replace pneu­ma­tic or hydrau­lic solu­ti­ons with great power poten­tial in exis­ting instal­la­tion spaces with highly effi­ci­ent elec­tri­cally opera­ted drives! This is usually not feasi­ble with conven­tio­nal elec­tric motors,” says Patrick Fröse, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MetisMotion

Based on the outstan­ding power density and effi­ci­ency of Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors, a network of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal pilot custo­mers has grown since the company was foun­ded in 2018, using Metis­Mo­tion solu­ti­ons to drive the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drive tasks.

With the capi­tal raised in the current finan­cing round, the tech­no­logy will now be made available to a broad custo­mer group. The launch of the naXture plat­form is plan­ned for late summer.naXture enables users to quickly and easily confi­gure indi­vi­dual actua­tors for the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. Actua­tor geome­try, available forces, speeds and travels, as well as the safety beha­vior are always based on the speci­fic requi­re­ments of the application.

“Metis­Mo­tion was alre­ady very close to the market and active in many appli­ca­tion areas at the time of the spin-off. Parti­cu­larly in the Heil­bronn region, the region of world market leaders, Metis­Mo­tion has alre­ady been able to win promi­sing custo­mers in the pilot custo­mer phase. The open­ness for inno­va­tion is obvious here and we are ther­e­fore looking forward to the further roll out. We see great market oppor­tu­ni­ties — not only natio­nally,” explains Thomas Villin­ger, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn.

“The elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of today’s inef­fi­ci­ent pneu­ma­tic and hydrau­lic actua­tors, parti­cu­larly in indus­trial auto­ma­tion, is an exci­ting growth oppor­tu­nity. Metis­Mo­tion can define a new segment here with its tech­no­logy! Exci­ting for inves­tors who are looking for disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies and want to parti­ci­pate in their success,” comm­ents Jens Baum­gärt­ner, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

“Metis­Mo­tion has proven with its launch custo­mers that it can design and manu­fac­ture high-perfor­mance actua­tors for the most deman­ding envi­ron­ments. We are ther­e­fore convin­ced of the company’s poten­tial and look forward to conti­nuing to contri­bute to its success as an inves­tor and through our network within Siemens and beyond,” says Dr. Rudolf Frey­tag, CEO of Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH.

About Metis­Mo­tion
Actua­ting Inno­va­tions — Follo­wing the Genius of Nature. Accor­ding to this guiding prin­ci­ple, Metis­Mo­tion GmbH has been deve­lo­ping bio-inspi­red actua­tor systems since 2018. The company is a spin-off from the Siemens Group and sets new stan­dards for the sustainable elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of drives with maxi­mum energy effi­ci­ency. Based on highly inte­gra­ted micro-hydrau­lic circuits, Metis­Mo­tion is able for the first time to combine a parti­cu­larly high force density with ultra-dyna­mic move­ments in the smal­lest instal­la­tion spaces. At the same time, Metis­Mo­tion actua­tors gene­rally require only a quar­ter of the energy compared to pneu­ma­tic solu­ti­ons, for exam­ple. Custo­mers include natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal manu­fac­tu­r­ers from the factory and process auto­ma­tion, robo­tics and mobi­lity sectors.
The Munich site is curr­ently home to in-house deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring, marke­ting and sales.

About the ZFHN — Heil­bronn Future Fund

Since its foun­da­tion in 2005, ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn has been one of the major venture capi­ta­lists in Germany. It prima­rily supports young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that are loca­ted in the Heil­bronn area or are prepared to settle there in the short to medium term. The Future Fund is priva­tely finan­ced and has equity capi­tal in the hundreds of milli­ons. It supports compa­nies with capi­tal, know-how and cont­acts in the Heil­bronn econo­mic region. The goal is to further deve­lop Heil­bronn into a very successful tech­no­logy loca­tion. This also includes the estab­lish­ment and expan­sion of clus­ters (MedTech, BioTech, Clean­tech) locally.

Since its foun­ding in 2013, Heil­bronn-based BORN2GROW GmbH & Co. KG has been support­ing inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in the seed and start-up phase. The seed fund supports young compa­nies by accom­pany­ing them from the proof-of-concept stage to market launch. This early-stage finan­cing enables fast-growing tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-up compa­nies to deve­lop their ideas and concepts. BORN2GROW, a subsi­diary of ZFHN Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn, coope­ra­tes with other venture capi­tal funds and busi­ness angels and makes fast and trans­pa­rent finan­cing decisions.Contact:
Zukunfts­fonds Heil­bronn GmbH & Co. KG. www.zf-hn.de

About the Siemens Tech­no­logy Accelerator
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH is a subsi­diary of Siemens AG and has been successfully commer­cia­li­zing inno­va­tive Siemens tech­no­lo­gies in appli­ca­ti­ons outside the stra­te­gic focus of Siemens busi­ness units for more than 20 years. This is done either by foun­ding venture capi­tal funded start-ups or by selling or licen­sing to estab­lished companies.Contact:
Siemens Tech­no­logy Acce­le­ra­tor GmbH. www.siemens.com/sta

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of 892.5 million euros distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 500 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the hard­ware, soft­ware, life scien­ces and chemi­cals sectors. More than €1.9 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in around 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has now successfully sold shares in 100 companies.
Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG. www.htgf.de

News

Munich — The inter­na­tio­nal law firm Clif­ford Chance streng­thens its German private equity team with the high-cali­ber part­ner addi­ti­ons of Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner (photo) and Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner as well as with the senior asso­ciate Dr. Samuel From­melt. All new hires will work out of Clif­ford Chance’s Munich office and will at the same time further streng­then the German and inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tion team with their exper­tise and market experience.

As an expe­ri­en­ced private equity specia­list, Dr. Volk­mar Bruck­ner advi­ses inves­tors, manage­ment teams and compa­nies in complex regio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal large cap and mid cap as well as M&A tran­sac­tions, in parti­cu­lar lever­a­ged buy-outs, carve-outs and joint ventures.

Dr. Mark Aschen­bren­ner has estab­lished hims­elf in the private equity scene thanks to his diverse expe­ri­ence from various high-profile acqui­si­ti­ons and is reco­gni­zed as one of the up-and-coming private equity part­ners of the new generation.

Dr. Samuel From­melt advi­ses private equity and finan­cial inves­tors on M&A tran­sac­tions. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence advi­sing clients across sectors, prima­rily on invest­ments in unlis­ted compa­nies, public take­overs, co-invest­ments and secon­dary transactions.

Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt join Clif­ford Chance from Kirk­land & Ellis in Munich. The exact date of the change has not yet been determined.

Dr. Peter Dieners, Mana­ging Part­ner of Clif­ford Chance in Germany: “For us, Munich and private equity advice belong toge­ther. Lawyer perso­na­li­ties such as Volk­mar Bruck­ner, Mark Aschen­bren­ner and Samuel From­melt are ther­e­fore a perfect fit for us. With their excep­tio­nal market profile and at the same time great ambi­tion, they enrich us on our way to the top of the German market. With them, our important Munich presence will be ideally comple­men­ted and even more powerful, even for very large projects and tran­sac­tions. We also want to grow further in the private equity area.”

Dr. Anselm Raddatz, Head of the Private Equity Group at Clif­ford Chance in Germany, said: “We are very plea­sed with the new addi­ti­ons. The great new team in Munich shar­pens our private equity profile locally and will make a great contri­bu­tion to provi­ding our clients with even more know-how and clout for the successful and safe realiza­tion of their invest­ments for their tran­sac­tions in Germany and Europe.”

Clif­ford Chance is growing stra­te­gi­cally at its offices in Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt and Munich. Parti­cu­larly in the strong Munich market, the firm is streng­thening its focus on broad-based and thus signi­fi­cantly more compre­hen­sive and effi­ci­ent tran­sac­tion and finan­cing advice for private equity houses and other finan­cial investors.

Clif­ford Chance’s global private equity prac­tice provi­des large teams in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Paci­fic and the US with market-leading exper­tise to advise finan­cial inves­tors and funds across the full spec­trum of their acti­vi­ties. Recently, the firm’s German teams have assis­ted clients in these high-profile tran­sac­tions, among others:

Medi­cal diagno­stics and labo­ra­tory services provi­der Synlab and finan­cial inves­tors Cinven, OTPP and Novo Holdings on Synlab’s IPO on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange; Perm­ira on the acqui­si­tion of leading Euro­pean CNS specialty pharma company Neur­ax­ph­arm from Apax; Triton on the acqui­si­tion of premium kitchen supplier SCHOCK from IK Invest­ment Partners.

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.

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