ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — GENUI acqui­res a stake in FACT-Finder. FACT-Finder is the Euro­pean market leader for search, navi­ga­tion and merchan­di­sing in eCom­merce. Since the early 2000s, the company has been deve­lo­ping AI-based search tech­no­lo­gies to help online shop­pers find the right products. Inter­na­tio­nally, the tech­no­logy is used in more than 1,800 stores. GENUI was advi­sed on this invest­ment by Pöllath & Partners.

GENUI is a company foun­ded by renow­ned entre­pre­neurs and invest­ment experts who believe in “Good Entre­pre­neur­ship”: GENUI only makes long-term commit­ments to compa­nies with the aim of crea­ting sustainable growth and social value. Compa­nies gain access to special entre­pre­neurs with indus­try-rele­vant exper­tise and the asso­cia­ted network as part of profes­sio­nal governance.

POELLATH advi­sed GENUI on the invest­ment with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Tim Kauf­hold, Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/IT, Frankfurt)
Dr. Moritz Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Matthias Ober­bauer (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, M&A, Private Equity, Munich)

About PPLAW

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.

News

Munich / Münner­stadt — “We spice the future” — under this motto, the spice specia­list Vision Food GmbH, Münner­stadt, has been on the road to success for years. A dormant equity holding (mezza­nine) by BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft enables further invest­ments and streng­thens working capi­tal. This means that the company, which was foun­ded in 2005, remains on a growth path.

The Lower Fran­co­nian company supplies, grinds and blends high-quality spices, extra­cts or vanilla for its custo­mers throug­hout Europe. Howe­ver, Vision Food does not limit itself to pure retail­ing, but clearly stands out from the compe­ti­tion with its “custo­mi­zing”. Vision Food thus offers not only “stan­dar­di­zed” spices and blends, but also products precis­ely tail­o­red to custo­mers’ requi­re­ments, for exam­ple in terms of oil or pipe­rine content in pepper. “With this and its many years of expe­ri­ence, Vision Food has a strong posi­tion with its custo­mers, which include the meat proces­sing indus­try or manu­fac­tu­r­ers of spice blends for the retail trade,” says Martin Kunze, invest­ment mana­ger at BayBG, describ­ing the company. “We see great poten­tial in the company, the market and the product,” adds Alois Bösl, who is respon­si­ble for BayBG’s busi­ness acti­vi­ties throug­hout nort­hern Bava­ria: “Cooking and ever­y­thing to do with it has and is gaining further cult charac­ter. This means that high-quality spices, for which Vision Food stands, are also incre­asingly in demand.”

Uwe Scher­baum, owner and mana­ging direc­tor of Vision Food, is also satis­fied: “With BayBG, we have gained a renow­ned part­ner that is very well ancho­red in the dome­stic SME sector and will support us in the long term. This puts us in a good posi­tion. The addi­tio­nal capi­tal will enable us to conti­nue our growth stra­tegy with balan­ced financing.”

About BayBG — Baye­ri­sche Beteiligungsgesellschaft

With an inves­ted volume of more than 300 million euros, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft is one of the largest provi­ders of equity capi­tal, espe­ci­ally for Bava­rian SMEs. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, which it provi­des in the form of equity and mezza­nine, it enables medium-sized compa­nies to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, manage corpo­rate succes­sion or opti­mize their capi­tal struc­ture. BayBG opera­tes as an ever­green fund and is not subject to exit pressure.

News

Frankfurt/Düsseldorf — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed soft­ware inves­tor Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of DATA-PLAN Compu­ter Consul­ting GmbH as an add-on invest­ment by MACH AG.

MACH AG, an e‑government soft­ware and consul­ting company based in Lübeck, has been one of Main Capital’s port­fo­lio compa­nies since 2020. — DATA-PLAN Compu­ter Consul­ting GmbH is an IT system house with a focus on public admi­nis­tra­tion. The company employs around 50 people at its Stutt­gart and Chem­nitz sites.

Main Capi­tal is a stra­te­gic inves­tor focu­sing on the soft­ware sector in the Bene­lux, DACH region and Scan­di­na­via, with offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf and Stock­holm. Main Capi­tal mana­ges appro­xi­m­ately €1 billion in assets for invest­ment in mature and growing soft­ware companies.

McDer­mott had alre­ady advi­sed Main Capi­tal on the acqui­si­tion of Mach AG. The team led by Frank­furt part­ner Norman Wasse has parti­cu­lar exper­tise in soft­ware and tech tran­sac­tions and has advi­sed, among others, Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion and subse­quent sale of Avira and Ratio­data AG on the acqui­si­tion of the Accesa Group.

Advi­sors to Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt/Düsseldorf
Norman Wasse (Lead, Private Equity, Frank­furt), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger (Corporate/Finance, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Kian Tauser, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Gudrun Germa­kow­ski (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian L. Masch (IT/IP, Munich), Dr. Alexa Ningel­gen (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Marion von Grön­heim, Victo­ria Huf (Tran­sac­tion Specia­list; both Corporate/M&A, Frank­furt), Julian Jäger (Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Isabella Kätzl­meier (IT/IP, Munich), Lene Niemeier (Public Law, Düssel­dorf), Elena Platte (Real Estate, Frankfurt)

News

Lausanne/Boston — Next­hink, the leading provi­der of digi­tal employee expe­ri­ence manage­ment soft­ware, today announ­ced a $180 million Series D funding round. This brings the company’s valua­tion to $1.1 billion.

The finan­cing round is led by the Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund of inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment firm Perm­ira, with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tors such as High­land Europe and Index Ventures. Bruce Chizen, Senior Advi­sor at Perm­ira and former CEO of Adobe, joins Nexthink’s Board of Direc­tors. The company intends to use the proceeds from the finan­cing round to further acce­le­rate inno­va­tion, growth and global expan­sion, parti­cu­larly in the US.

Next­hink provi­des IT teams with a compre­hen­sive plat­form for mana­ging the digi­tal expe­ri­ence of enter­prise employees. This enables digi­tal employee bene­fits to be moder­ni­zed, relia­bly deli­vered, and proac­tively impro­ved. Accor­ding to a recent survey, 96 percent of tech­no­logy execu­ti­ves agree that mana­ging the enter­prise digi­tal expe­ri­ence with tech­no­logy is an essen­tial part of IT teams’ jobs. Still, more than a third (34%) rely on occa­sio­nal surveys to coll­ect rela­ted data, and nearly half (46%) don’t measure their employees’ digi­tal expe­ri­ence at all. Nexthink’s award-winning plat­form provi­des enter­prise IT with a cloud-based solu­tion that provi­des compre­hen­sive visi­bi­lity into employees’ day-to-day expe­ri­en­ces with tech­no­logy at the device, appli­ca­tion and network levels. The detailed analy­sis capa­bi­li­ties and visua­liza­ti­ons greatly faci­li­tate trou­ble­shoo­ting and enable IT teams to conti­nuously improve employee satis­fac­tion with IT and resolve issues within minutes.

Next­hink curr­ently employs nearly 700 people and plans to grow to 900 by the end of 2021 — across all major loca­ti­ons in Europe, India and the US. In the past fiscal year, the company contin­ued to grow rapidly, surpas­sing the $100 million mark in recur­ring reve­nue (ARR). The number of custo­mers has increased by more than 180 to now more than 1,000 compa­nies, inclu­ding global firms that use the soft­ware on more than eleven million workstations.

In 2020, Next­hink laun­ched nume­rous new products, inclu­ding the Remote Worker Expe­ri­ence solu­tion, Expe­ri­ence Opti­miza­tion for proac­tive support teams, and addi­tio­nal features for virtua­liza­tion and indi­vi­dua­li­zed IT support. In the Forres­ter New Wave™: End-User Expe­ri­ence Manage­ment, Q4 2020, Next­hink was reco­gni­zed as a market leader.

“The trend towards decen­tra­li­zed working has signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ted the need for soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the digi­tal expe­ri­ence with IT in compa­nies. This is because a signi­fi­cant portion of employee inter­ac­tions are now comple­tely digi­tal,” says Pedro Bados, CEO and co-foun­der of Next­hink. “We are facing a unique oppor­tu­nity to rede­fine now how compa­nies will provide digi­tal work­places to their employees in the future. We are deligh­ted to have found a new part­ner in growth inves­tor Perm­ira to accom­pany us on this exci­ting jour­ney. Bruce is an excel­lent addi­tion to our team. As CEO of Adobe, he has inspi­red milli­ons of users with visio­nary soft­ware and perma­nently chan­ged the way people work toge­ther. Toge­ther with him, we now aim to do the same with Next­hink at thou­sands of compa­nies worldwide.”

“Next­hink has seen rapid growth in recent years,” says Bruce Chizen. “With the shift towards decen­tra­li­zed and digi­tal working, the digi­tal expe­ri­ence with IT in compa­nies takes on a promi­nent importance for employee satis­fac­tion. With this round of funding, Next­hink is well equip­ped to reshape the role of IT for the world’s largest compa­nies and provide a plat­form for opti­mally aligned digi­tal workplaces.”

“Disrup­tive soft­ware provi­ders that help increase produc­ti­vity and employee satis­fac­tion in compa­nies are a key invest­ment focus for Perm­ira in the tech­no­logy sector. With its strong growth and tech­no­logy focus, Next­hink ther­e­fore fits perfectly into the stra­tegy of the Perm­ira Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund,” adds Pierre Pozzo, Prin­ci­pal at Permira.

The Perm­ira Funds’ invest­ment is from the Growth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Fund I, which focu­ses on mino­rity invest­ments in high-growth compa­nies. The Perm­ira funds are among the largest soft­ware inves­tors in the world. Well-known invest­ments include Team­Viewer, a global plat­form for the digi­tal networ­king of people and machi­nes, Mirakl, a SaaS market­place plat­form, Zwift, a global online fitness plat­form for cyclists and runners, and Klarna, the leading inno­va­tive payment service provider.

The closing of this tran­sac­tion is sche­du­led for Q1. www.nexthink.com.

About Perm­ira

Perm­ira is a global private equity firm, was foun­ded in 1985 and advi­ses funds with a total volume of around USD 50 billion. The Permira
advi­sed funds invest in compa­nies for the long term with the aim of incre­asing the value of these compa­nies through sustainable growth. Perm­ira advi­sed funds have comple­ted more than 250 tran­sac­tions in four key sectors: Tech­no­logy, Consu­mer Goods, Services and Health­care. Perm­ira employs more than 250 people at 15 loca­ti­ons in Europe,
North America and Asia.

About High­land Europe
High­land Europe invests in extre­mely high-growth soft­ware and Inter­net compa­nies. Opera­ting as High­land Capi­tal Part­ners in Europe since 2003 and offi­ci­ally laun­ched in 2012, High­land Europe has raised over €1.8 billion and inves­ted in compa­nies such as Adjust, AMCS, Camunda, ContentS­quare, Feature­space, GetY­our­Guide, Huel, Jellys­mack, Malware­bytes, Matches­Fa­shion, NewVoice­Me­dia, Next­hink, Spot, Super­me­trics, WeTrans­fer, Wolt and Zwift. Highland’s total invest­ments in the U.S., Europe and China include 46 IPOs and compa­nies valued at more than $19 billion.

About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm based in London and San Fran­cisco that helps the most ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs turn bold ideas into global busi­ness. Index-backed compa­nies that are resha­ping the world around us include Data­dog, Drop­box, Elas­tic and Slack.

News

Vienna/Leobersdorf — Logsta, the logi­stics scale-up from Austria, with warehouse loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, UK and USA, impro­ves the effi­ci­ency of logi­stics proces­ses many times over with its highly inno­va­tive IT plat­form. For the company with over 860 satis­fied custo­mers like NEOH and Novrit­sch, the new year starts with posi­tive invest­ment news. The company secu­res a 7‑digit finan­cing from the Vien­nese invest­ment fund for growth finan­cing, Round2 Capi­tal, in order to conquer further inter­na­tio­nal markets and expand the IT plat­form, among other things. The high­light: Logsta does not give away shares in the company as usual, but instead Round2 Capi­tal parti­ci­pa­tes in the company’s sales until a prede­fi­ned upper limit has been reached.

Many people today rely — full-time or part-time — on e‑commerce to sell their products. Howe­ver, many SMBs, sole proprie­tors and start­ups invol­ved in e‑commerce that only distri­bute small quan­ti­ties or have special or crea­tive pack­a­ging needs often face the diffi­culty of finding a logi­stics company willing to work with them and provide a digi­ti­zed logi­stics process solu­tion for busi­nesses of any size. Georg Weiß, Chris­toph Glatzl and Domi­nik Bier­in­ger reco­gni­zed this in 2017 and laun­ched the logi­stics startup Logsta.

The goal of the three foun­ders was to support compa­nies that were simply too small or had too high digi­ta­li­zed requi­re­ments for the clas­sic logi­stics compa­nies with uncom­pli­ca­ted and custo­mi­zed logi­stics services world­wide from a single source and at fair prices: From inno­va­tive IT tools, warehouse loca­ti­ons in the USA, Germany, Austria and England, fast support for world­wide ship­ments to modern e‑fulfillment as well as favorable ship­ping condi­ti­ons. Now outgrown its start-up shoes, the scale-up has over 860 inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers and over 2 million products in its warehou­ses. With the speci­ally deve­lo­ped Logsta-Connec­tor, custo­mers can control and check their logi­stics world­wide free of charge, it enables 24/7 inven­tory check, expi­ra­tion date manage­ment, batch manage­ment, order status insight and much more.

In order to realize further expan­sion plans, the three foun­ders have raised a 7‑digit euro amount from Round2 Capi­tal, the invest­ment fund for growth finan­cing. The Vienna-based invest­ment fund is a Euro­pean pioneer in reve­nue-based finan­cing, inves­t­ing in leading scale-ups in the tech­no­logy and soft­ware sectors in Europe. It is a simple, trans­pa­rent and flexi­ble finan­cing instru­ment for compa­nies in the growth phase, which offers non-dilu­tive finan­cing against reve­nue sharing up to a prede­fi­ned cap. The advi­sor for this growth finan­cing was i5Invest, which sees this measure as an important step for Logsta in terms of scaling and internationalization.

“We have found the ideal part­ner for us in Round2. They convince with their flexi­ble finan­cing solu­tion, which gives us the chance to acce­le­rate our growth and conquer more inter­na­tio­nal markets,” said the foun­ders of Logsta.

Chris­tian Czer­nich, CEO and Co-Foun­der Round2 Capi­tal Part­ners: “We are impres­sed by the dyna­mism and inge­nuity of the Logsta team. The foun­ders have mana­ged to build a highly inno­va­tive and now globally opera­ting company in a short period of time without exter­nal funding. Logsta’s digi­tal logi­stics solu­ti­ons enable both large and small compa­nies to get their products sold online to the end custo­mer quickly, relia­bly and cost-effectively.”

About Round2 Capi­tal Partners

Round2 Capi­tal is a fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment firm with €30 million under its manage­ment. The Vienna-based company is a strong part­ner for Euro­pean scale-ups with digi­tal and sustainable busi­ness models. Since its incep­tion in 2017, Round2 Capi­tal has been pionee­ring reve­nue-based finan­cing in Europe and is active in seve­ral Euro­pean count­ries, with a focus on Germany, Switz­er­land, Austria and the Nordic count­ries. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 14 diffe­rent compa­nies, with Logsta being the newest company in the port­fo­lio. www.round2cap.com

News

Berlin — Educa­tion inves­tor Emerge Educa­tion is inves­t­ing in EdTech startup Tomorrow’s Educa­tion. This is the first time the VC from the UK has inves­ted in a company from Germany with its new gene­ra­tion of funds. In the course of the finan­cing round of Tomorrow’s Educa­tion, Emerge Educa­tion also acted as lead inves­tor and was legally advi­sed by SMP part­ners Frede­rik Gärt­ner and Martin Scha­per toge­ther with Jonas Huth.

“With the use of, among other things, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and a contem­po­rary concept, Tomorrow’s Educa­tion is poin­ting the way towards an even more modern and flexi­ble form of acade­mic trai­ning and is thus crea­ting a new form of know­ledge trans­fer. We are very plea­sed to have been able to provide legal support to Emerge Educa­tion in this tran­sac­tion,” says Frede­rik Gärtner.

Emerge Educa­tion

Emerge Educa­tion ranks as one of Europe’s leading inves­tors in the educa­tion sector. The London-based venture capi­ta­list focu­ses its invest­ments prima­rily on pre-seed and seed invest­ments of early-stage EdTech start­ups. In addi­tion to provi­ding capi­tal, Emerge Educa­tion also offers its port­fo­lio compa­nies access to inves­tors, stra­te­gic part­ners, and a network of key educa­tion and indus­try decis­ion makers. The venture capitalist’s invest­ments include Enga­geli, Aula, Lingumi, Four­thRev, Crehana and Eduflow.

Tomorrow’s Educa­tion

Tomorrow’s Educa­tion is a digi­tal lear­ning plat­form based in Berlin. Toge­ther with the Vienna Univer­sity of Econo­mics and Busi­ness Admi­nis­tra­tion, the company has deve­lo­ped an accre­di­ted part-time master’s program that is opti­mi­zed for mobile use and thus adapted to the needs of the target group. In addi­tion, Tomorrow’s Educa­tion focu­ses on teaching lear­ning content in compa­ra­tively short sequen­ces, as well as on prac­ti­cal and problem-orien­ted chal­lenges or even compe­ti­ti­ons from the entre­pre­neu­rial envi­ron­ment. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence also ensu­res progres­sive perso­na­liza­tion of the lear­ning envi­ron­ment. Tomorrow’s Educa­tion was foun­ded in 2020 by former N26 CTO and foun­der of the health app Vivy, Chris­tian Reber­nik, and educa­tion expert Thomas Funke, and curr­ently employs around 15 people.

About SMP

SMP is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP 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. www.smp.law

Consul­tant Emerge Educa­tion: SMP
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate Partner
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Corpo­rate), Partner
Jonas Huth (Corpo­rate), Associate

News

Munich — The MEA Group, a subsi­diary of the Munich-based indus­trial holding ADCURAM, is expan­ding its acti­vi­ties in the field of concrete light wells. With Vilgerts­ho­fer Bausys­teme GmbH (Alling), a produ­cer with a long tradi­tion beco­mes part of the inter­na­tio­nal cons­truc­tion supplier based in Aich­ach. The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been comple­ted; the parties have agreed not to disc­lose details.

Vilgerts­ho­fer Bausys­teme will operate in the future as MEA Bausys­teme Beton­fer­ti­gung GmbH and streng­then the concrete know-how of the MEA Group. The concrete light well busi­ness has been an important part of MEA’s offe­ring for many years. Comple­men­tary to the light and venti­la­tion shafts made of fiber­glass-rein­forced plas­tic, MEAVECTOR is used to produce high-quality concrete light shafts. Vilgerts­ho­fer offe­red. In addi­tion to stan­dard sizes, the incre­asing market demand for special light shafts can thus be met even better.

“With this acqui­si­tion, MEA is taking an important step towards more growth. The concrete produc­tion in Alling repres­ents the basis for a broa­der product range in the future and the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­ci­ties,” says Dr. Phil­ipp Gusinde, CEO of ADCURAM Group AG and member of the advi­sory board at MEA. Gregor Gais­böck, Mana­ging Direc­tor of MEA Bausys­teme, adds: “The expan­sion of our MEAVECTOR busi­ness is an important stra­te­gic step and the company site in Alling will become our compe­tence center for all concrete acti­vi­ties. We are very plea­sed to welcome Vilgerts­ho­fer Bausys­teme to the MEA Group.”

ADCURAM had acqui­red the family-owned company, foun­ded in 1886, in the summer of 2018 and has since been imple­men­ting an ambi­tious stra­tegy for further growth and expan­sion. MEA employs around 700 people and, as one of the leading suppli­ers to the cons­truc­tion indus­try, manu­fac­tures not only light wells but also special gratings, windows and drai­nage systems, among other products.

About ADCURAM

ADCURAM is a priva­tely owned indus­trial group. ADCURAM acqui­res compa­nies with poten­tial and deve­lops them actively and sustain­ably. For the future growth of the Group, the capi­tal-strong indus­trial holding company has a total of 300 million euros available for acqui­si­ti­ons. With the help of its own 40-strong team of experts, the indus­trial holding company conti­nues to deve­lop the port­fo­lio compa­nies stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally. Toge­ther, the group gene­ra­tes more than 400 million euros in sales with six holdings and over 2,500 employees worldwide.

ADCURAM sees itself as an entre­pre­neu­rial inves­tor and invests in succes­sion plans and corpo­rate spin-offs. www.adcuram.com

News

Hamburg — SCIO Auto­ma­tion GmbH (“SCIO”), a port­fo­lio company of the funds advi­sed by Quadriga Capi­tal Eigen­ka­pi­tal­be­ra­tung GmbH, acqui­res Bilfin­ger Grey­Lo­gix Aqua GmbH (“Aqua”), a subsi­diary of Bilfin­ger Grey­Lo­gix GmbH. Proven­tis Part­ners supported Bilfin­ger and the two mana­ging part­ners throug­hout the entire M&A process.

SCIO takes over all shares of the previous Aqua main share­hol­der Bilfin­ger Grey­Lo­gix GmbH. The two other mana­ging part­ners of Aqua will conti­nue to hold shares in the company in the future. In the future, the company will operate under the brand name VESCON AQUA GmbH and will be incor­po­ra­ted into SCIO. With the acqui­si­tion of the company, SCIO expands its custo­mer port­fo­lio and opens up new indus­tries. At the same time, it is streng­thening its auto­ma­tion and programming services in the process engi­nee­ring envi­ron­ment, thus setting the course for further growth in a future-orien­ted and sustainable envi­ron­ment such as drin­king water treat­ment and waste­wa­ter plants.

“Through this tran­sac­tion, we are streng­thening our auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy service port­fo­lio and expan­ding our custo­mer base in a very homo­ge­neous and stable envi­ron­ment. We are now contri­bu­ting our exten­sive know­ledge and expe­ri­ence in all areas of process tech­no­logy to further deve­lop Aqua in the long term,” says Michael Goepf­arth, Mana­ging Direc­tor of SCIO Automation.

The role of Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners supported Bilfin­ger and the two mana­ging part­ners throug­hout the entire M&A process. Services included prepa­ring all tran­sac­tion docu­men­ta­tion, iden­ti­fy­ing and approa­ching suita­ble inves­tors, coor­di­na­ting due dili­gence and commer­cial nego­tia­tion of the transaction.

About Bilfin­ger Grey­Lo­gix Aqua GmbH

Aqua was foun­ded in 1998 by Olaf Krem­sier and has been part of the Bilfin­ger Group since 2013 as a subsi­diary of Bilfin­ger Grey­Lo­gix GmbH. The focus is on control and process control tech­no­logy for drin­king water treat­ment and waste­wa­ter plants, mainly for custo­mers in the public sector. In doing so, Aqua acts as a systems inte­gra­tor with a focus on project manage­ment and high-end auto­ma­tion and programming services. Across seven loca­ti­ons, the company ensu­res that custo­mers receive compre­hen­sive support close to their sites.

About SCIO Auto­ma­tion Group

SCIO Auto­ma­tion GmbH was foun­ded in Janu­ary 2019 as a medium-sized plat­form in the field of indus­trial auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy and rela­ted engi­nee­ring services, combi­ning niche provi­ders with deca­des of expe­ri­ence in their fields of acti­vity. Custo­mers come from the auto­mo­tive, logi­stics, chemi­cal and process indus­tries, clean room and elec­tro­nics, life science and medi­cal tech­no­logy, as well as the energy indus­try and envi­ron­men­tal technology.
About Proven­tis Partners

About Proven­tis Partners

Proven­tis Part­ners is a part­ner-led M&A advi­sory firm whose clients include a majo­rity of mid-sized family busi­nesses, corpo­rate subsi­dia­ries and private equity funds. With 30 M&A advi­sors, Proven­tis Part­ners is one of the largest inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancies in the German-spea­king region and looks back on 20 years of M&A expe­ri­ence and over 300 comple­ted tran­sac­tions. The M&A advi­sors with offices in Zurich, Hamburg, Colo­gne and Munich are active in the sectors Indus­tri­als, Busi­ness Services, Consu­mer & Retail, TMT, Health­care and Energy. Exclu­sive member­ship in Mergers Alli­ance — an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner­ship of leading M&A specia­lists — enables Proven­tis Part­ners to assist clients in 30 count­ries in key markets world­wide. Mergers Alli­ance members, with over 200 M&A profes­sio­nals, provide Proven­tis Part­ners, and thus its clients, with unique access to local markets in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

News

Munich/ Frei­burg — With a team led by Part­ner Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Wagner Fern­mel­de­bau Holding GmbH on the majo­rity acqui­si­tion of Benzina Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH of Frei­burg. The seller of the shares is the sole share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor M. Benzina. He will remain on board unch­an­ged after the closing of the tran­sac­tion, and the company name will be continued.

The Wagner Group is curr­ently forming a full-service provi­der for the cons­truc­tion of fiber optic infra­struc­ture as part of a buy-and-build stra­tegy. With this acqui­si­tion, the Wagner Group is further expan­ding its range of services and will in future be able to imple­ment compre­hen­sive projects in the FTTX sector using a gene­ral contrac­tor approach. Benzina Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH comple­ments the exis­ting service port­fo­lio with all services within commu­ni­ca­tion and network technology.

Benzina Kommu­ni­ka­tion GmbH was foun­ded in 1999 by M. Benzina and has been owner-mana­ged ever since. The company imple­ments needs-based solu­ti­ons in the areas of commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and network tech­no­logy, buil­ding and light­ing tech­no­logy, and elec­tro­mo­bi­lity infra­struc­ture for muni­ci­pal faci­li­ties, compa­nies, and public-sector clients.

Wagner GmbH, based in Wald­bö­ckel­heim near Bad Kreuz­nach, is a prefer­red part­ner of Deut­sche Tele­kom AG in FTTC/B/H expan­sion in Germany. Wagner GmbH was foun­ded in 2006 by Peter Wagner and has been mana­ged by him ever since.

Advi­sors to Wagner Fern­mel­de­bau Holding: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead, Corporate),
Char­lotte Schmitt, LL.M. (Corpo­rate, M&A), both Stuttgart

News

Frank­furt a.M. — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed ABL-TECHNIC Entla­ckung GmbH and the invest­ment company behind it, Rubicon Part­ners, on the acqui­si­tion of Indus­trie­be­darf GmbH as part of an asset deal.

Indus­trie­be­darf GmbH, foun­ded in 1979 and based in Sulz am Neckar, is a medium-sized company for envi­ron­men­tally friendly paint strip­ping with over 30 employees. Custo­mers include compa­nies from the auto­mo­tive indus­try, their suppli­ers and other compa­nies from all areas of surface technology.

The ABL Group — with ABL-TECHNIC Entla­ckung GmbH as the opera­ting parent company — is a specia­list service provi­der for indus­trial paint strip­ping and offers a broad port­fo­lio of services ranging from paint strip­ping manage­ment to dispo­sal and reco­very of recy­clable mate­ri­als. The company has 23 loca­ti­ons in 14 count­ries. The ABL Group has been part of the Rubicon Part­ners port­fo­lio since 2011.

The McDer­mott team most recently advi­sed ABL Group and the invest­ment company behind it, Rubicon Part­ners, on the successful comple­tion of the refi­nan­cing of exis­ting finan­cial debt (combi­ned with a growth finan­cing component).

Advi­sors to ABL-TECHNIC Entla­ckung GmbH/ Rubicon Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Frankfurt
Dr. Michael Cziesla, Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A/Private Equity), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Clos­ter­meyer (Real Estate), Dr. Chris­tian Rolf (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Isabelle Müller, Tobias Riemen­schnei­der (both Corporate/M&A/Private Equity), Elena Platte, LL.M. (real estate law)

News

Bonn, Germany — Kranus Health, the digi­tal men’s health plat­form, today announ­ced a seven-figure seed funding. HTGF, A Round Capi­tal, Venture Base­camp and Dr. Ralph Müller are new inves­tors in Kranus Health. In addi­tion to the new inves­tors, exis­ting busi­ness angels, inclu­ding Konstan­tin Mehl (foun­der Foodora + Kaia Health), have again parti­ci­pa­ted in the seed round.

With the fresh capi­tal, Kranus Health will conti­nue to expand its men’s health plat­form and take the next step of laun­ching a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy as a sustainable solu­tion for erec­tile dysfunc­tion. The exis­ting expert network of urology specia­lists will also be further expan­ded to reach even more men with Kranus Health solutions.

The digi­tal health company Kranus Health was foun­ded in 2020 by Jens Nörters­häu­ser, Thilo Klein­schmidt, Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov and Profes­sor Kurt Miller. The goal is to rethink men’s health­care and improve it using digi­tal solu­ti­ons. Men’s life expec­tancy is still up to 6 years behind women’s, thou­sands of men world­wide die too early due to unhe­althy life­styles and lack of preven­tive care and preven­tion — there is a lack of health awareness.

Kranus Health is on a mission to change that. Digi­tal and thus easily acces­si­ble pati­ent jour­neys lower men’s inhi­bi­ti­ons about consul­ting a doctor for their problems and sustain­ably support a healthy life­style because users inter­act with the digi­tal offe­ring in an uncom­pli­ca­ted and frequent manner. The first offe­ring being deve­lo­ped is a reim­b­ursable digi­tal therapy for erec­tile dysfunc­tion (DiGA as an “app on prescrip­tion”). In this clini­cal picture, there is a close connec­tion with serious cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses such as heart attacks, the risk factors of which should also be redu­ced by Kranus Health therapy. The startup works closely with medi­cal specia­lists and has alre­ady built up a broad network of experts from German urologists.

“Kranus Health has deve­lo­ped an offe­ring based on scien­ti­fic evidence that provi­des urolo­gists with enti­rely new and, most importantly, root cause-orien­ted opti­ons in trea­ting their pati­ents, accor­ding to Profes­sor Kurt Miller,” Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer at Kranus Health

With the fresh capi­tal and the inves­tors’ network, the digi­tal therapy will be further deve­lo­ped this year and laun­ched as a reim­b­ursable product, and the digi­tal plat­form for men’s health will also be expan­ded with addi­tio­nal offerings.

“In the clini­cal picture of erec­tile dysfunc­tion, current offe­rings such as medi­ca­ti­ons are aimed at alle­via­ting the symptoms, but not the causes. With its digi­tal solu­tion, Kranus is helping to improve the quality of life of a large number of men in a long-term and goal-orien­ted manner,” explains Louis Heinz, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF

About Kranus Health

Kranus Health aims to help men live healt­hier, longer lives by provi­ding easy, straight­for­ward access to the latest medi­cal care. Foun­ders Thilo Klein­schmidt and Jens Nörters­häu­ser have known each other for many years through their time toge­ther at McKin­sey & Company, and both have been passio­nate about the possi­bi­li­ties of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion for years. But both also had a keen inte­rest in the health­care sector. Jens is origi­nally a bio-engi­neer and has years of profes­sio­nal expe­ri­ence in the phar­maceu­ti­cal field. Thilo comes from a medi­cal family, his father is a urolo­gist. The idea of foun­ding Kranus at the begin­ning of 2020 was ther­e­fore an obvious one and also took place against the back­drop of regu­la­tory chan­ges, in parti­cu­lar the Digi­tal Utility Act (DVG). Since then, it has been possi­ble to signi­fi­cantly improve health­care in Germany through digi­tal therapies.

Profes­sor Kurt Miller, former Chief of Urology at Charité Berlin, and CTO Niko­lay Dimo­la­rov (Celo­nis, among others) comple­ment the foun­ding team to jointly imple­ment Kranus’ vision. For this purpose, Kranus Health deve­lops digi­tal thera­pies based on current scien­ti­fic findings supported by tele­me­di­cal care from medi­cal specia­lists. The spec­trum of services ranges from thera­pies for taboo dise­a­ses such as erec­tile dysfunc­tion to early detec­tion and preven­tion (e.g. cardio­vas­cu­lar diseases).

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported more than 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas.

Almost EUR 3 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,700 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 120 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the compa­nies ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Bank, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

News

Munich/ Celle — Funds advi­sed by PINOVA Capi­tal GmbH (“PINOVA”) have acqui­red the majo­rity shares in ECOROLL AG Werk­zeug­tech­nik (“ECOROLL”), based in Celle, Lower Saxony, in Janu­ary 2021.

ECOROLL is a leading supplier of tools and machi­nes for mecha­ni­cal surface finis­hing of metal­lic work­pie­ces. The product port­fo­lio compri­ses mainly indi­vi­du­ally desi­gned tools and machi­nes for burnis­hing, deep rolling and cylin­der tube proces­sing. In close coope­ra­tion with custo­mers from various indus­tries, solu­ti­ons are thus crea­ted that guaran­tee high-quality compo­nent surfaces, an increase in compo­nent service life and a more effi­ci­ent produc­tion process.

“PINOVA has entre­pre­neu­rial roots and the tech­ni­cal exper­tise to sustain­ably drive the growth of medium-sized inno­va­tion leaders,” says Dr. Kars­ten Rött­ger, a long-time board member and share­hol­der, who is signi­fi­cantly expan­ding his exis­ting mino­rity stake in ECOROLL as part of the transaction.

“Dr. Rött­ger has posi­tio­ned ECOROLL as a market leader in the mecha­ni­cal surface treat­ment segment and has thus embarked on a sustainable growth path. Toge­ther with Dr. Rött­ger, we want to conti­nue to drive growth in part­ner­ship and in doing so further deve­lop ECOROLL into an inter­na­tio­nally active full-service provi­der for mecha­ni­cal surface finis­hing . We expect tail­wind from the incre­asing market demand for light­weight, dura­ble and thus sustainable metal compon­ents,” explains Herbert Segge­wiß, part­ner at PINOVA Capi­tal. Herbert Segge­wiß will also repre­sent PINOVA on the Super­vi­sory Board of ECOROLL in the future.

About ECOROLL AG Werkzeugtechnik

ECOROLL curr­ently employs 85 people and produ­ces exclu­si­vely at its head­quar­ters in Celle, Lower Saxony. In addi­tion, the company has a sales office in Cincin­nati, USA. Since 1996, ECOROLL has been distri­bu­ting tools and machi­nes for burnis­hing (roller burnis­hing), deep rolling and cylin­der tube machi­ning. Today, ECOROLL serves a global port­fo­lio of custo­mers and was awarded the Bosch Global Supplier Award in the “Inno­va­tion” cate­gory in 2019. www.ecoroll.de

About PINOVA Capital

PINOVA Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company for equity finan­cing of fast-growing, inno­va­tive medium-sized compa­nies in the German-spea­king region with reve­nues between € 10 million and € 75 million and equity requi­re­ments between € 5 million and € 50 million. www.pinovacapital.com

News

Luxem­bourg — Vector Inno­va­tion Fund GP S.à.r.l. (VIF) has now laun­ched an expec­ted $300 million pande­mic protec­tion sub-fund 1. This first sub-fund aims to invest in tech­no­lo­gies for pande­mic protec­tion and future health­care, aiding and support­ing precis­ion medi­cine, highly advan­ced point of care and AI tech­no­lo­gies to support the global economy, sustainable health­care, and life longe­vity. This first sub-fund’s objec­tive is to target commit­ments total­ling $300m due to a strong deal flow, with an expec­ted first close of $120m and a final close expec­ted within 19 months.

The Gene­ral Part­ners have an excel­lent track record in indus­try, health­care, tech­no­logy and invest­ment, with 21 exits and a total value crea­tion of $2.4billion, inclu­ding two successful IPOs.

VIF is a Reser­ved Alter­na­tive Invest­ment Fund based in Luxem­bourg has just been incor­po­ra­ted under the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxem­bourg as a corpo­rate part­ner­ship limi­ted by shares (société en comman­dite par actions) quali­fy­ing as an invest­ment company with varia­ble capi­tal — reser­ved alter­na­tive invest­ment fund (société d’in­ves­tis­se­ment à capi­tal varia­ble — fonds d’in­ves­tis­se­ment alter­na­tif réservé) under the RAIF Law.

VIF has been set up as an umbrella struc­ture with sub-fund Vector Inno­va­tion Fund — Pande­mic Protec­tion Fund 1 at incor­po­ra­tion date. The Gene­ral Part­ner might, at its discre­tion, launch addi­tio­nal sub-funds (which may be open-ended or close-ended) each of which is repre­sen­ted by one or more Clas­ses of Shares. The fund quali­fies as an AIF within the meaning of the AIFM Law.

Each sub-fund shall consti­tute a distinct and segre­ga­ted part of the assets and liabi­li­ties of VIF’s umbrella structure.

Econo­mic fore­cas­ters say fall­out from COVID-19 is driving huge invest­ment within AI and nano­tech­no­logy as health­care invest­ment is expec­ted to grow at a rate of nearly 50% extra a year toward a market set to be worth $1.333 tril­lion by 2027, accor­ding to Prece­dence Rese­arch 2020.

The Pande­mic Protec­tion sub-fund 1 plans to invest in sophisti­ca­ted biotech and nano­tech­no­logy-based diagno­stics, biomar­kers, vacci­nes, novel thera­pies, highly targe­ted nano­me­di­ci­nes, and AI, allo­wing us to move to a more sustainable, digi­ti­sed, decen­tra­li­sed and demo­cra­tised point-of-care envi­ron­ment. The world cannot afford another pande­mic, the ongo­ing impact of long Covid symptoms will have a profound effect on health­care provi­sion for the next five to ten years. The world of invest­ment, indus­try and govern­ments are gearing up to be better prepared and are funding future proof tech­no­lo­gies for global health.

These dyna­mic invest­ments will help to poten­ti­ally free up our econo­mies and future-proof us from infec­tious dise­a­ses as well as deve­lop solu­ti­ons to anti­bio­tic resis­tance, another global health­care chall­enge that only tech­no­logy can solve.

VIF, repre­sen­ted by its mana­ging gene­ral part­ner Vector Inno­va­tion GP, has also appoin­ted Fuchs Asset Manage­ment S.A., led by CEO Timo­the Fuchs. Fuchs Asset Manage­ment S.A. is a public limi­ted liabi­lity company based in Luxem­bourg, as the quali­fied Fund Mana­ger (AIFM) gover­ned under Luxem­bourg law for reser­ved alter­na­tive invest­ment funds under RAIF Law 2016.

The appoin­ted invest­ment advi­sor for the fund is Enab­ling Tech Invest­ment Advi­sors S.À R.L. who is also based and incor­po­ra­ted in Luxem­bourg under Luxem­bourg law. VIF’s depo­si­tory bank is Banque de Luxem­bourg. Other inter­na­tio­nal service provi­ders include Mait­land, Ashurst, The World Nano Foun­da­tion and World Science Aid.

The fund has brought toge­ther some of the world’s leading figu­res in biome­di­cine, advan­ced diagno­stics, nano biomar­kers, tele­me­di­cine, AI and machine lear­ning to acce­le­rate these trans­for­ma­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies into the markets, backed by sophisti­ca­ted, UHNW and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors crea­ting poten­ti­ally one of the most dyna­mic inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment structures.

VIF’s fund invest­ment stra­tegy looks to deli­ver 25–30% esti­ma­ted gross IRR, 4x MOIC over the life of the fund with an esti­mate of 10–12 diver­si­fied invest­ments per sub-fund.

Each pros­pect company seeking invest­ment from VIF must demons­trate to our invest­ment advi­sors, our global advi­sory board, invest­ment commit­tee and fund mana­gers, their ability to commer­cia­lise highly disrup­tive tech­no­logy globally. For this, VIF uses its unique proprie­tary rating system for stra­tegy imple­men­ta­tion, using world-class bench­mark mode­ling for tech­no­logy and health­care investment.

The Fund’s Enab­ling Tech­no­logy Invest­ment Advi­sors and global advi­sory board are inter­na­tio­nal leaders in these fields of exper­tise. This has been demons­tra­ted via previous start ups that have gone on to become ‘unicorns’, as well as our team’s wider expe­ri­ence with large conglo­me­ra­tes in terms of advi­sing and support­ing them on stra­tegy, scaling or commer­cia­li­sing disrup­tive inno­va­tions in inter­na­tio­nal markets.

One inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment plat­form is a Pande­mic Protec­tion alter­na­tive invest­ment fund opera­ted by Vector Inno­va­tion Fund in Luxem­bourg focu­sed on limi­ting the effect of long form Covid-19, insu­la­ting the world against the impact of future pande­mics, whilst mini­mi­sing any impact on the global economy and health­care provi­sion and prepared­ness. As well as this, the fund is commit­ted to enhan­cing the deve­lo­p­ment and preva­lence of nano­tech­no­logy in healthcare.

The Vector Inno­va­tion Fund is a Reser­ved Alter­na­tive Invest­ment Fund (RAIF) specia­li­sing in support for tech­no­logy compa­nies able to trans­form global markets, nota­bly in global health­care, sustaina­bi­lity and longe­vity. These trans­for­ma­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies come from the nano­tech­no­logy, biotech, AI and machine lear­ning, medi­cal devices, thera­pies and digi­tal health sectors.

The Vector Inno­va­tion Fund (VIF) is a semi-regu­la­ted alter­na­tive invest­ment fund based in Luxem­bourg and offers all the bene­fits a sophisti­ca­ted or accre­di­ted inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor would require and has seve­ral sub-funds: Pande­mic Protec­tion Fund, Enab­ling Tech­no­lo­gies Fund, Future Health­care Fund.

The VIF was incor­po­ra­ted on Novem­ber 30th, 2020 for its first sub fund for Pande­mic Protec­tion Fund and Future Health­care. www.vectorinnovationfund.com

News

Munich — ABIONIK Group reali­zes a unitran­che finan­cing in the amount of more than 20 million euros with ELF Capi­tal Group.

ABIONIK Group GmbH, head­quar­te­red in Berlin, is one of the leading envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy provi­ders for water and air treat­ment; in parti­cu­lar, the group has an inno­va­tive and mature product port­fo­lio, which is used in muni­ci­pal as well as indus­trial and mari­time envi­ron­ments. With sales and produc­tion faci­li­ties in Europe, China and India, the company has a global presence.

The clean­tech company ABIONIK will further acce­le­rate its growth and will in future have an equally expe­ri­en­ced and entre­pre­neu­rial private debt inves­tor at its side in the Frank­furt-based ELF Capi­tal Group. In total, ELF Capi­tal Group provi­des a medium- to long-term finan­cing volume of more than EUR 20.0 million for ABIONIK to replace the previous bank finan­cing and for further growth

ELF Capi­tal Group, head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt, is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean invest­ment mana­ger offe­ring private capi­tal solu­ti­ons to middle market compa­nies in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Western Europe. www.elfcapital.de

Legal advi­sors ABIONIK Group: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Tilmann Gütt, LL.M., Julian J. Zaich, LL.M. (both part­ners, banking/finance law), Chris­to­pher Ghabel (senior asso­ciate, banking/finance law), Chris­to­pher Müller (asso­ciate, banking/finance law)

About ELF Capi­tal Group

ELF Capi­tal Group specia­li­zes in flexi­ble finan­cing solu­ti­ons for medium-sized compa­nies with a focus on Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land as well as Northwest Europe. The entire invest­ment team has many years of expe­ri­ence in struc­tu­ring custo­mi­zed finan­cing solu­ti­ons for owner-mana­ged middle-market compa­nies, manage­ment teams and private equity port­fo­lio compa­nies looking for an entre­pre­neu­rial, relia­ble and commit­ted finan­cing partner.

Through ELF Capital’s network of entre­pre­neurs, private equity spon­sors and advi­sors, ELF Capi­tal offers indi­vi­du­ally desi­gned finan­cing solu­ti­ons for estab­lished, fast-growing medium-sized compa­nies as well as for compa­nies in special situa­tions. Target invest­ments for compa­nies range from EUR 10 to 40 million, with a focus on capi­tal solu­ti­ons for compa­nies with solid and profi­ta­ble busi­ness models, leading market posi­tio­ning and good growth prospects.

News

Wall­dorf, Germany — SAP SE is acqui­ring Signa­vio GmbH from a consor­tium consis­ting of Apax Part­ners, Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners, Summit Part­ners, GP Bull­hound and the foun­ders, repor­tedly paying about 1 billion euros. — Wilkie Farr & Gallag­her LLP advi­ses the consor­tium on the sale of Signa­vio GmbH to SAP SE.

Signa­vio, foun­ded in 2009, is a leading provi­der of SaaS-based busi­ness process analy­sis and decis­ion manage­ment soft­ware that enables orga­niza­ti­ons to design, imple­ment, analyze and manage complex proces­ses, decis­i­ons and work­flows. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the 2nd quar­ter of 2021.

The inves­tors were invol­ved as follows: The Ameri­can finan­cier Summit Part­ners, which has been with Signa­vio since 2015, still held around 8.1% of the company at the exit. Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners — now better known as DTCP — held 6.6%. The Ameri­can inves­tor Apax, which, like DTCP, inves­ted in Sgna­vio in 2019, was last on board with 40.6%. Which, at best, has now raised over 400 million. Last but not least, GP Bull­hound also held a stake in Signa­vio (0.4%).

Signa­vio foun­der Gero Decker last held around 15.2% of Signa­vio. On paper, this means around 152 million euros. Signa­vio co-foun­der Nico­las Peters, who will work at the soft­ware startup until the summer of 2020, most recently held around 9.3% of the company. Co-foun­der Willi Tsche­sch­ner (CTO) most recently held around 9.5% of the company’s shares. Co-foun­der Torben Schrei­ter, who worked at Signa­vio until 2016, came to 2.8% shortly before the exit.

Will­kie advi­sed the consor­tium consis­ting of lead inves­tor Apax Part­ners, Deut­sche Tele­kom Capi­tal Part­ners, Summit Part­ners, GP Bull­hound and the foun­ders (“Consor­tium”) on the sale of Signa­vio GmbH (“Signa­vio”) to SAP SE (“SAP”). The consor­tium announ­ced that it has ente­red into an agree­ment to sell Signa­vio, a leader in busi­ness process intel­li­gence and process manage­ment, to SAP.

Advi­sor to the consor­tium: Will­kie Farr & Gallagher
under the leader­ship of part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), consis­ted of part­ners Simon F. Spen­cer (IP, New York), Eugene L. Chang (IP, New York), William H. Rooney (Anti­trust, New York), Michael L. Katz (Corpo­rate, New York), Dr. Markus Lauer (Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), coun­sels Miriam Steets, Wolf­gang Münchow, Daniel Zakrzew­ski, Dr. Moritz Vetter­mann (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Ludger Kempf (Tax, Frank­furt), Matthias Schr­a­der (Liti­ga­tion, Frank­furt), Matthias Töke (Finance, Frank­furt) and Jona­than Konoff (Anti­trust, New York), asso­cia­tes Aurel Hille (Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Cesare Vannuc­chi, Jane Hentz, Ilie Manole, Andreas Sand­ber­ger, Philip Thür­mer (all Corpo­rate, Frank­furt), Dr. Nadine Kramer, Martin Waskow­ski (both HR, Frank­furt), Chris­tian Schmidt (Tax, Frank­furt), Chris­to­pher Cleri­hew, Stefa­nie Lech­ler (both Finance, Frank­furt), Ahmad El- Gamal (Trade & Export, Washing­ton), Scott Wallace (Tax, London).

About Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP
Will­kie Farr & Gallag­her LLP is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 750 lawy­ers with offices in New York, Washing­ton, Hous­ton, Palo Alto, San Fran­cisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Frank­furt am Main, Brussels, Milan and Rome.

News

Helsinki/ Stock­holm — EQT is plea­sed to announce that EQT Growth has inves­ted in Wolt Enter­pri­ses Oy (“Wolt” or “the Company”), a leading food deli­very plat­form. The invest­ment, which is the first by the EQT Growth stra­tegy, is made through EQT AB’s balance sheet and is part of Wolt’s USD 530 million capi­tal raise. EQT Growth will, toge­ther with EQT Ventures, support Wolt on its acce­le­ra­ted expan­sion jour­ney into new geogra­phies and verticals

Wolt was estab­lished in 2014 in Helsinki, Finland by CEO Miki Kuusi who had a vision of crea­ting a tech­no­logy company that would make it easy and fun to disco­ver great food and get it delivered
directly to your home or office. Since then, Wolt has expan­ded rapidly and today the Company
part­ners with over 30,000 restau­rants and retail part­ners and 60,000 couriers in 129 cities across 23 count­ries. Wolt’s plat­form and deli­very infra­struc­ture provide great custo­mer conve­ni­ence and new reve­nue oppor­tu­ni­ties for both restau­rants and retailers.

The trans­for­ma­tion of food deli­very into a digi­tal service model has acce­le­ra­ted over the past years and the market is esti­ma­ted to be worth around USD 365 billion by 2030 (accor­ding to UBS Evidence Labs’ report from June 2020). The combi­na­tion of mobile app usage, connec­ted restau­rants and onde­mand deli­very networks have paved the way for tech­no­logy plat­forms, such as Wolt.

The EQT Ventures I fund was one of Wolt’s first inves­tors and led the Company’s Series A finan­cing round in 2016 and has parti­ci­pa­ted in all subse­quent rounds, making the fund one of Wolt’s largest owners. Since then, the EQT plat­form has provi­ded active board and opera­tio­nal support to the Wolt team and EQT will conti­nue to part­ner with the Company on its mission to make cities better places to live and by enab­ling econo­mic oppor­tu­ni­ties in local commu­ni­ties. Wolt offsets 100 percent of its deli­very-services’ CO2 emis­si­ons and will conti­nue the imple­men­ta­tion of its green agenda with support from EQT’s sustaina­bi­lity team and global advi­sory network.

Johan Svan­strom, Part­ner and Invest­ment Advi­sor at EQT Part­nersEQT Growth is proud to support Wolt with both capi­tal and compe­tence as the company expands to new heights. Ever since EQT Ventures part­ne­red with CEO Miki Kuusi and his team in 2016, we have seen Wolt build an incre­di­bly effec­tive and inter­na­tio­nal growth machine with strong empha­sis on respon­si­ble part­ner­ships and great custo­mer solu­ti­ons. We believe that there are strong pros­pects for contin­ued inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and deeper pene­tra­tion in the company’s core markets.”

News

The share­hol­ders of Claus Nitsche & Sohn GmbH (“NITSCHE”), distri­bu­tor of high quality essen­tial oils and natu­ral flavors have sold the majo­rity of their shares to OQEMA AG. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed the owners and the company on the transaction.

As part of the company’s succes­sion, NITSCHE was able to gain the OQEMA Group as a new majo­rity share­hol­der. The product range is a perfect comple­ment to the “Flavour & Fragrance” range of the OQEMA Group. NITSCHE will conti­nue to be mana­ged by one of the current mana­ging direc­tors in order to combine the long-stan­ding product know-how with the inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer and supplier network of the OQEMA Group.

The company

NITSCHE has specia­li­zed in high-quality essen­tial oils, natu­ral flavors, fragran­ces and inno­va­tive ingre­di­ent solu­ti­ons for over 60 years. The company excels in its analy­ti­cal under­stan­ding of high quality natu­ral essen­tial oils and products. www.nitsche-gmbh.de

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002. www.ncf.de

News

Hamburg/ Bonn — GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH, a biotech company deve­lo­ping gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of muscu­los­ke­le­tal dise­a­ses, announ­ces the closing of a €5.4 million Series A finan­cing round and the raising of €3.65 million in conver­ti­ble loans and grants.

The Series A finan­cing round is led by Pacira BioSci­en­ces, Inc (Parsippany, USA), a US-based phar­maceu­ti­cal company focu­sed on pain manage­ment and rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine. Other inves­tors include High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (Bonn), which has alre­ady inves­ted in GeneQuine, as well as Noshaq SA (Liège, Belgium) and Samum Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tungs GmbH (Hamburg). Pacira Biosci­en­ces, Inc. and Samum Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tungs GmbH also provide conver­ti­ble loans in the amount of €2.75 million. A further €0.9 million comes in the form of subsi­dies from the Inves­ti­ti­ons­bank des Landes Brandenburg.

GeneQuine will use the funds raised to deve­lop lead candi­date GQ-303 for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis through to a Phase 1 clini­cal trial. Further­more, the deve­lo­p­ment of new gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of inter­ver­te­bral disc dege­ne­ra­tion will be advan­ced, and GeneQuine’s gene therapy vector plat­form will be further expan­ded. GeneQuine alre­ady expan­ded its work­force last year and estab­lished a subsi­diary in Liège (Belgium). GeneQuine has its head­quar­ters in Hamburg and a rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment labo­ra­tory in Lucken­walde (Grea­ter Berlin).

GeneQuine uses a gene therapy vector plat­form based on “Helper-depen­dent Adeno­vi­ral Vectors” (HDAd) to trans­form tissues and organs affec­ted by dise­ase into “facto­ries” for local produc­tion of thera­peu­tic prote­ins. A single, local injec­tion of a gene therapy drug could thus lead to protein produc­tion over seve­ral years without the need for repea­ted appli­ca­tion requi­red for most conven­tio­nal drugs.

GQ-303 is an HDAd vector that produ­ces the protein proteo­gly­can 4 and is curr­ently in precli­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment. Proteo­gly­can 4 (also known as lubri­cin) has been shown to have a dual mecha­nism of action in the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis: On the one hand, it has a biome­cha­ni­cal effect due to lubri­ca­ting proper­ties, and on the other hand, it has effects on mole­cu­lar mecha­nisms that lead to the inhi­bi­tion of pain, inflamm­a­tion and carti­lage dege­ne­ra­tion. Ther­e­fore, GQ-303 has the poten­tial to have both sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing effi­cacy in the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis, which has alre­ady been demons­tra­ted in seve­ral precli­ni­cal in vivo models.

GeneQuine is in advan­ced nego­tia­ti­ons with a suita­ble contract manu­fac­tu­rer for the produc­tion of GQ-303 for toxi­co­logy and clini­cal studies. Follo­wing produc­tion and formal toxi­co­logy studies with GQ-303, appr­oval for a Phase 1 clini­cal trial will be sought. GeneQuine’s former lead candi­date, an HDAd vector that produ­ces the protein interleukin‑1 (now refer­red to as FX201), was sold in 2017 to the phar­maceu­ti­cal company Flexion Thera­peu­tics, Inc. (Burling­ton, USA).

Flexion has since initia­ted a Phase 1 clini­cal trial and trea­ted multi­ple pati­ents in two dose groups with FX201. Because both GQ-303 and FX201 are HDAd vectors and both are injec­ted intra-arti­cu­larly (directly into the joint), GeneQuine esti­ma­tes that most vector-rela­ted deve­lo­p­ment risks for GQ-303 are mini­mi­zed. Although GQ-303 and FX201 are both being deve­lo­ped for knee osteo­ar­thri­tis, GeneQuine will focus on a speci­fic pati­ent popu­la­tion with GQ-303 that can poten­ti­ally bene­fit most from the dual mecha­nism of action of proteo­gly­can 4.

GeneQuine is also deve­lo­ping HDAd vector-based gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion. Despite the very high unmet medi­cal need in the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion — one of the main causes of chro­nic low back pain — no dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs are available for this indi­ca­tion. GeneQuine’s data show that gene therapy with HDAd vectors has great poten­tial in the deve­lo­p­ment of sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs for this disease.

“We are very plea­sed to have closed this finan­cing round and will now use the capi­tal effi­ci­ently to bring GQ-303 into the clinic, expand our gene therapy program for the treat­ment of disc dege­ne­ra­tion, and expand our HDAd vector plat­form. We would like to thank all inves­tors in this finan­cing round for their trust and support. In parti­cu­lar, we are plea­sed to have Pacira as an inves­tor with their strong exper­tise in clini­cal drug deve­lo­p­ment in the muscu­los­ke­le­tal field,” Kilian Guse, CEO of GeneQuine (photo).

“Our equity invest­ment in GeneQuine repres­ents a signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in the deve­lo­p­ment of what we believe is an exci­ting dise­ase-modi­fy­ing gene therapy for osteo­ar­thri­tis. GeneQuine is conduc­ting precli­ni­cal work to support the initia­tion of human studies in appro­xi­m­ately two years. In addi­tion to our confi­dence in this tran­sac­tion as a sound invest­ment, we enthu­si­a­sti­cally look forward to the matu­ra­tion of data and for further oppor­tu­nity to parti­ci­pate in GeneQuine’s successful precli­ni­cal program and entry into the clinic. Importantly, this invest­ment is consis­tent with our mission to advance inno­va­tive pain manage­ment and rege­ne­ra­tive health solu­ti­ons,” Ron Ellis, Senior Vice Presi­dent, Corpo­rate Stra­tegy and Busi­ness Deve­lo­p­ment at Pacira.

“GeneQuine is a great exam­ple of a typi­cal HTGF invest­ment: a new gene­ti­cally engi­nee­red drug disco­very plat­form that broke comple­tely new scien­ti­fic ground when we made our seed invest­ment in 2012. That combi­ned with a strong team capa­ble of advan­cing gene therapy agents toward the clinic as effi­ci­ently as possi­ble. We look forward to support­ing GeneQuine toge­ther with the inter­na­tio­nal inves­tor consor­tium and Pacira’s exper­tise in deve­lo­ping their promi­sing pipe­line,” Martin Pfis­ter, Prin­ci­pal at High-Tech Gründerfonds

About GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH

GeneQuine Biothe­ra­peu­tics GmbH is a biotech company deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive gene therapy drugs for the treat­ment of muscu­los­ke­le­tal dise­a­ses. GeneQuine uses a gene therapy plat­form to turn tissues and organs affec­ted by dise­ase into “facto­ries” for local produc­tion of thera­peu­tic prote­ins. Lead candi­date GQ-303 is being deve­lo­ped as a topi­cally applied drug for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis and has shown great poten­tial to have sympto­ma­tic and dise­ase-modi­fy­ing effi­cacy in multi­ple animal models. GeneQuine’s former lead candi­date for the treat­ment of osteo­ar­thri­tis, which is based on the same gene therapy vector tech­no­logy as GQ-303, was sold in 2017 to phar­maceu­ti­cal company Flexion Thera­peu­tics, Inc. (Burling­ton, USA) and is curr­ently being tested in a Phase 1 clini­cal trial. GeneQuine has a head office in Hamburg and branch offices in Lucken­walde (Grea­ter Berlin) and Liège (Belgium). www.genequine.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. Over €2.8 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

News

Bonn — DIV estab­lishes the inde­pen­dent infra­struc­ture fund Digi­tal Infra­struc­ture Vehicle (DIV) and acqui­res 38 percent of Cellnex Nether­lands for this purpose. SMP provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice on the estab­lish­ment of the inde­pen­dent funds vehicle (DIV) and tax advice on the anchor invest­ment in Cellnex Netherlands.

In the future, DIV will focus on invest­ments in digi­tal infra­struc­ture projects (fiber, towers and data centers) prima­rily in Europe. Deut­sche Tele­kom and Cellnex stand ready as anchor investors.

DIV’s anchor invest­ment is the acqui­si­tion of a 38% stake in Cellnex Nether­lands, in which Deut­sche Tele­kom and Cellnex combine their tower busi­ness in the Nether­lands. Upon comple­tion of the invest­ment, Cellnex Nether­lands will operate a total of 4,314 sites, inclu­ding 180 new sites to be built over the next 7 years. — Further infor­ma­tion is available in English on the Deut­sche Tele­kom and Cellnex websites.

Consul­tant DIV: SMP 
Jens Kretz­schmann (Lead Part­ner, Fund Forma­tion), Partner
Andreas Korten­dick (Lead Part­ner, Tax), Partner
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory Law), Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Fund Forma­tion), Partner
Matthias Enge (Fund Forma­tion), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Chris­tian Jois­ten (Taxes), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Michael Blank (Fund Forma­tion), Associate
Ramona Seufer (Taxes), Associate
David Wittek (Taxes), Associate
Dr. Niklas Ulrich (Regu­la­tory Law), Associate
Dr. Florian Wilbrink (Fund Forma­tion), Associate

About SMP

SMP is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and busi­ness law, with core prac­tice areas in corpo­rate, funds, liti­ga­tion, tax and tran­sac­tions. SMP’s clients include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-owned mid-sized busi­nesses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity and 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.SMP today employs over 60 expe­ri­en­ced attor­neys, tax advi­sors, and tax specia­lists in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne.

News

Darmstadt/Madrid/Lyon — Imaweb, a leading inde­pen­dent deve­lo­per and provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for auto­mo­tive dealer­ships and repair shops in Europe, today announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of Procar Infor­ma­tik AG (“Procar”), a leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships in the DACH region. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the transaction.

Darm­stadt-based Procar Infor­ma­tik AG was foun­ded in 1998 and, with around 1,000 custo­mers, is one of the leading provi­ders of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships in Germany. The company offers solu­ti­ons for dealers and work­shops of the most famous auto­mo­tive brands such as Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Seat, Volks­wa­gen, Audi, Ford and Renault.

Imaweb provi­des auto­mo­tive manu­fac­tu­r­ers (OEMs) and car dealer­ships with a compre­hen­sive range of soft­ware solu­ti­ons to help them digi­tize their entire proces­ses. The company is the market leader in custo­mer rela­ti­onship manage­ment (CRM), dealer­ship manage­ment and after­sa­les soft­ware. Since May 2019, Madrid-based Imaweb has been accom­pa­nied by funds advi­sed by PSG. PSG is an inves­tor specia­li­zing in soft­ware compa­nies that provi­des growth capi­tal to leading mid-market companies.

Through the acqui­si­tion of Procar, Imaweb estab­lishes a strong presence in the DACH region, the largest auto­mo­tive market in Europe. At the same time, the acqui­si­tion crea­tes a leading plat­form that will enable further conso­li­da­tion of the highly frag­men­ted soft­ware market for car dealer­ships. The two foun­ders of Procar, Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp, will conti­nue to manage the opera­tio­nal business.

“We are deligh­ted to have the Procar team support Imaweb. This tran­sac­tion repres­ents a leap forward in the deve­lo­p­ment of our company and is ther­e­fore an important mile­stone,” empha­si­zed Patrick Prajs, CEO, and Julian Ciccale, co-foun­der and deputy CEO, of Imaweb. “By combi­ning Procar’s posi­tion as market leader in the DACH region with our exis­ting offe­ring in other Euro­pean count­ries, we are initia­ting Imaweb’s next phase of growth towards beco­ming a leading pan-Euro­pean provider.”

Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp added: “We are very plea­sed to become part of Imaweb’s success story. Imaweb has a strong posi­tion in Europe and follows a part­ner­ship approach. This makes it exactly the right part­ner to take Procar to the next level of its development.”

PSG has been support­ing the foun­ders of Imaweb in the pan-Euro­pean expan­sion of the leading Spanish provi­der of CRM solu­ti­ons in the auto­mo­tive indus­try since May 2019. Imaweb’s strong growth in recent years has been both orga­nic and driven by M&A acti­vity. Imaweb had alre­ady acqui­red IDF/Datafirst, a leading soft­ware deve­lo­per for car dealer­ships in France, in Septem­ber 2019 and formed it into a strong plat­form with the subse­quent acqui­si­ti­ons of TMS and Adstra­tegy. In addi­tion, Imaweb was able to expand its posi­tion on the Iberian Penin­sula through the acqui­si­tion of Serin­fer in Spain and Portu­gal, and also estab­lished itself in the Bene­lux count­ries with the acqui­si­tion of IT Motive and Evolutive.

About Imaweb

Imaweb is a leading soft­ware provi­der for auto­mo­tive sales in Europe. The company resul­ted from the merger in 2019 of Imaweb, a Spanish company specia­li­zing in the deve­lo­p­ment of global CRM solu­ti­ons for sales, marke­ting and custo­mer service, with DATA­FIRST-I’Car Systems Group, the leading French provi­der of car dealer­ship soft­ware. www.imaweb.com

About Procar

Procar Infor­ma­tik AG is one of the leading German provi­ders of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for car dealer­ships. Foun­ded in 1998 by Volker Holt­haus and Karl-Heinz Schlapp, Procar today offers solu­ti­ons for around 1,000 car dealers and OEMs in the DACH region. The company’s custo­mers include dealer­ships of seve­ral global auto­mo­tive brands, inclu­ding Toyota, BMW, Skoda, Seat, VW, Audi, Ford, Renault and Nissan. www.procar.de

About PSG

PSG is a specia­list soft­ware company inves­tor, a subsi­diary of PSG Group of South Africa, which provi­des growth capi­tal to leading, fast-growing mid-market compa­nies. PSG works closely with foun­ders and manage­ment teams and supports them in imple­men­ting their stra­tegy. PSG provi­des opera­tio­nal and finan­cial resour­ces for this purpose to acce­le­rate growth. Since its incep­tion in 2014, PSG has assis­ted more than 65 soft­ware compa­nies and helped execute more than 275 add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. PSG has offices in London, Boston and Kansas City.

News

Pfäf­fi­kon (Switz­er­land) — Ufenau has made a first invest­ment in Spain and acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the company “Diseño y Manten­imi­ento de Plan­tas Frigo­rí­fi­cas” (“R&M”). R&M, previously known as APR, is a leading provi­der of inte­gral indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion solu­ti­ons based in Valencia.

With more than 70 employees at loca­ti­ons in Valen­cia and Madrid and sales of appro­xi­m­ately EUR 30 million, R&M has execu­ted some of the largest projects for the design, instal­la­tion and main­ten­ance of indus­trial cooling systems in Spain. The well-known custo­mers are mainly active in the growing food and logi­stics sector.

The company has become a refe­rence in both sectors thanks to its own very high tech­ni­cal quality stan­dards and strong focus on service quality. Even in times of pande­mic, these services are essen­tial and in high demand

The foun­ders and previous owners of R&M have taken a signi­fi­cant equity stake and conti­nue to manage the busi­ness. In addi­tion, toge­ther they will conti­nue to drive the growth of the new group through a combi­na­tion of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth initiatives.

Ricardo Mayor, foun­der of R&M, belie­ves that “Ufenau is the right part­ner for R&M’s deve­lo­p­ment, as it allows us not only to expand our presence in Spain, but also to incor­po­rate new busi­ness areas into the company. It brings toge­ther two teams with high tech­ni­cal and finan­cial skills with a clear objec­tive: to provide our custo­mers with high quality services with added value. Toge­ther, we are setting out to conso­li­date a leading indus­try group that will undoub­tedly bene­fit the entire natio­nal industry.”

Ralf Flore, mana­ging part­ner of Ufenau (photo), comm­ents: “R&M has grown rapidly in recent years and has been able to work successfully and on a recur­ring basis with blue chip custo­mers in an enorm­ously deman­ding tech­ni­cal sector. The foun­ders have succee­ded in buil­ding a great team of highly quali­fied and moti­va­ted profes­sio­nals. We, and speci­fi­cally our two Spanish colle­agues, Joaquín Alcalde and Igna­cio Goded, are plea­sed to support the entire R&M team in this new phase of growth and to contri­bute our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in value crea­tion stra­te­gies, which has enab­led us to successfully execute more than 180 growth invest­ments in the DACH region. It is our first acqui­si­tion in Spain, reflec­ting our strong commit­ment to expand our reach and acti­vity in Spain as well, which has alre­ady star­ted in 2019.”

About Ufenau Capi­tal Partners

Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners is a Swiss inves­tor group based on Lake Zurich. The company focu­ses on majo­rity share­hol­dings in service compa­nies in Switz­er­land, Germany and Austria that are active in the areas of Busi­ness Services, Educa­tion & Life­style, Health­Care and Finan­cial Services. With an exten­sive circle of renow­ned and expe­ri­en­ced indus­try part­ners (owners, CEOs, CFOs), Ufenau Capi­tal Part­ners pursues an active value-added invest­ment approach at eye level with entrepreneurs.

News

Munich — Ques­tel has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in innosabi GmbH, based in Munich. In addi­tion to their product port­fo­lios, the two parties will leverage their respec­tive market presence to serve a global custo­mer base. In the future, innosabi will conti­nue its busi­ness under the innosabi brand as part of the Ques­tel Group.

Ques­tel will inte­grate the innosabi soft­ware into its product port­fo­lio and offer it globally to both new custo­mers and its exis­ting base of over 6,000 custo­mers in 30 count­ries. By joining Ques­tel, innosabi posi­ti­ons itself for further rapid growth and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion under the umbrella of a leading soft­ware plat­form with 50% of sales in North America, 30% in Europe and 20% in Asia.

The combi­na­tion of innosabi’s inno­va­tion soft­ware with Questel’s exten­sive range of intellec­tual property manage­ment and cura­ted data source solu­ti­ons is the answer to the chal­lenges compa­nies face in today’s
the fast-moving busi­ness world.

As digi­tiza­tion and tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tion conti­nue, the compa­nies that are able to drive their success are those that tap into their own inno­va­tion poten­tial. — The combi­na­tion of innosabi’s inno­va­tion tools and Questel’s data and work­flow manage­ment solu­ti­ons makes it easier than ever to mine tech­ni­cal, scien­ti­fic and busi­ness data for new insights and emer­ging oppor­tu­ni­ties, deve­lop them into marke­ta­ble inno­va­tions in direct colla­bo­ra­tion with all stake­hol­ders invol­ved, and conti­nuously manage the results as new IP assets. innosabi as the third acqui­si­tion in this area mani­fests Questel’s stra­te­gic focus on innovation.

For Catha­rina van Delden, co-foun­der and CEO of innosabi, the inte­gra­tion of their
company into the Ques­tel Group is the next logi­cal step in pursuing innosabi’s vision: “Since innosabi’s first day, we have always belie­ved that inno­va­tion happens where the right people, ideas and know­ledge come toge­ther. That’s exactly what’s happe­ning now that innosabi is beco­ming part of Ques­tel. Toge­ther, we will expand the way IP data is used in crea­ting inno­va­tion — and how it is in turn mana­ged as the IP of the enter­prise. We’re very exci­ted to turn this poten­tial into new, inno­va­tive tools for our customers.”

Charles Besson, CEO of Ques­tel, shares this view and empha­si­zes the importance of
Inno­va­tion solu­ti­ons for Questel’s growth plans: “Since intellec­tual property protec­tion is inter­wo­ven with all successful inno­va­tion initia­ti­ves, innosabi’s soft­ware is very syner­gi­stic to what we do best. All intellec­tual property starts with a great inno­va­tion process, and innosabi has an excep­tio­nal track record of support­ing their clients’ inno­va­tion programs and ensu­ring that inno­va­tion is about more than just ideas. This makes them a perfect fit for the Ques­tel Group.”

About innosabi
innosabi is one of the world’s leading provi­ders of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for colla­bo­ra­tive inno­va­tion and idea manage­ment. The Munich-based company was foun­ded in 2010 by Catha­rina van Delden, Jan Fischer, Hans-Peter Heid and Moritz Sebas­tian Wurf­baum. Today innosabi employs 55 people. Large inter­na­tio­nal corpo­ra­ti­ons rely on innosabi’s soft­ware and metho­do­lo­gi­cal exper­tise to trans­form their inno­va­tion proces­ses by enab­ling open colla­bo­ra­tion with custo­mers, employees, suppli­ers and other rele­vant stake­hol­ders. innosabi empowers orga­niza­ti­ons to leverage their entire ecosys­tem for inno­va­tion. In addi­tion to new forms of digi­tal, large-scale colla­bo­ra­tion, innosabi is conti­nuously deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive analy­sis and evalua­tion mecha­nisms to make more infor­ma­tion and addi­tio­nal data sources available for busi­ness inno­va­tions. Today, innosabi’s custo­mers include Siemens, Daim­ler, Post­bank, Deut­sche Tele­kom and Bayer. Since Janu­ary 2021 innosabi is part of the Ques­tel Group.

About Ques­tel
Ques­tel is an end-to-end intellec­tual property solu­ti­ons provi­der with over 900 employees and more than 6,000 custo­mers and 1 million users in 30 count­ries. Ques­tel offers a compre­hen­sive soft­ware suite for sear­ching, analy­zing and mana­ging inven­ti­ons and IP assets. Ques­tel also provi­des services for the entire intellec­tual property life­cy­cle, inclu­ding prior art sear­ches, patent draf­ting, inter­na­tio­nal filings, trans­la­ti­ons and rene­wals. These solu­ti­ons, when combi­ned with Questel’s IP cost manage­ment plat­form, deli­ver custo­mers an average savings of 30–60% across the entire Prose­cu­tion budget.

News

Munich / Mann­heim — As part of the majo­rity take­over of Bitter­Power GmbH (“Bitter­Liebe”) by ARCUS Capi­tal AG, BayBG also became invol­ved as a co-inves­tor with equity and mezza­nine. Both the foun­ders Andre Sierek and Jan Strat­mann as well as the previous share­hol­der Judith Williams will retain a signi­fi­cant stake in the company. The law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus advi­sed ARCUS Capi­tal AG on the transaction.

Mann­heim-based Bitter­Power was foun­ded in 2018 and distri­bu­tes dietary supple­ments contai­ning bitter subs­tances under the brand “Bitter­Liebe”. The company quickly achie­ved a high level of reco­gni­tion and was able to posi­tion itself sustain­ably in the market. The product port­fo­lio curr­ently includes bitters in the form of drops, capsu­les, (cooking/baking) powder as well as tea, which are manu­fac­tu­red in Germany and contain only natu­ral ingredients.

“In this promi­sing envi­ron­ment, we want to make the Bitter­Liebe brand the market leader for prepa­ra­ti­ons contai­ning bitter subs­tances in Germany toge­ther with the commit­ted foun­ders and also gain a foot­hold in the inter­na­tio­nal market,” says Stefan Eishold, CEO of ARCUS, on the acqui­si­tion of Bitterliebe.

In its third finan­cial year, Bitter­Power GmbH recor­ded growth of over 120% with the Bitter­Liebe brand, sales of almost double-digit milli­ons and a profit in the seven-digit range. The successful parti­ci­pa­tion in the VOX TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen” in 2019 has signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­ted this deve­lo­p­ment. The products are available throug­hout Germany in more than 4,000 stores at dm, Ross­mann and Budni­kow­sky, as well as regu­larly in tele­shop­ping at HSE24.

Legal advi­sors to ARCUS Capi­tal AG: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Dr. Sebas­tian Olk (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A), Dr. Tilmann Gütt (Part­ner, Banking/Finance, both Lead), Thomas Becker (Of Coun­sel, IP/IT), Matthias Uelner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A), Domi­nik Forst­ner (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A)
— Alten­burg Fach­an­wälte für Arbeits­recht, Munich: Andreas Ege, Dr. Dirk Schnelle (both Labor Law)
— Blom­stein, Berlin: Dr. Max Klasse (anti­trust law)

About Arcus Capital

ARCUS Capi­tal is a Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company focu­sing on majo­rity invest­ments in medium-sized family-owned compa­nies in the DACH region. www.arcuscapital.de

About BayBG

With an inves­ted volume of more than 300 million euros, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft is one of the largest provi­ders of equity capi­tal, espe­ci­ally for Bava­rian SMEs. With its venture capi­tal and equity invest­ments, which it provi­des in the form of equity and mezza­nine, it enables medium-sized compa­nies to imple­ment inno­va­tion and growth projects, arrange for corpo­rate succes­sion or opti­mize the capi­tal struc­ture, as well as solve special situa­tions or diver­sify the assets of entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies. BayBG opera­tes as an ever­green fund and is not subject to exit pressure.

News

Golßen/ Düssel­dorf — The share­hol­ders of the fruit and vege­ta­ble proces­sing company Spree­wald­kon­serve Golßen have sold all their shares to the French Andros Group, Biars-sur-Cère, as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. The tran­sac­tion compri­ses the two company divi­si­ons and produc­tion sites in Golßen/Germany and in Szigetvár/Hungary. Network Corpo­rate Finance exclu­si­vely advi­sed Spree­wald­kon­serve Golßen and its share­hol­ders on the transaction.

Tran­sac­tion

The share­hol­ders of the fruit and vege­ta­ble proces­sing company Spree­wald­kon­serve Golßen sell their shares to the Andros Group as part of a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship. Andros, with annual sales of more than EUR 2.2 billion in 2019 and head­quar­te­red in Biars-sur-Cère in southern France, is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of jams, fruit and dairy products. Alre­ady since 1991, the company has been present in Germany through the fruit manu­fac­tu­rer of the Oden­wald brand in Breu­berg. Further­more, the Elster­werda dairy plant with the “Mark Bran­den­burg” brand belongs to the group. With the acqui­si­tion of Spree­wald­kon­serve, Andros streng­thens its posi­tion in Germany and in the fruit and vege­ta­ble proces­sing market and plans to leverage syner­gies in regio­nal sourcing and distribution.

About Spree­wald Preserve Golßen

In Golßen (Dahme-Spree­wald), canned goods have been produ­ced with local fruit and vege­ta­ble products since 1946. The owners of Spree­wald­kon­serve are the third gene­ra­tion to run the busi­ness and have a company history of over 100 years, which began in the Lower Rhine region at the end of the 19th century. Around 32 diffe­rent types of fruit and vege­ta­bles are proces­sed into various special­ties every year. The product range includes 250 items incl. private labels and is distri­bu­ted in over 30 count­ries. In eastern Germany, the “Spree­wald­hof” brand is the market leader for pick­les in jars. www.spreewaldhof.de

About Network Corpo­rate Finance

Network Corpo­rate Finance is an inde­pen­dent, owner-mana­ged advi­sory firm focu­sed on mergers and acqui­si­ti­ons, capi­tal markets tran­sac­tions, and equity and debt finan­cing. We advise both estab­lished and young compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries. With our team of more than 20 employees at our offices in Düssel­dorf, Berlin and Frank­furt, we have estab­lished oursel­ves as one of the most successful inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firms in Germany since our foun­da­tion in 2002. www.ncf.de

News

Munich — Digi­tal insu­rance mana­ger Clark successfully closed a EUR 69 million Series C finan­cing round. The round was led by the Chinese Inter­net company Tencent (known among other things for the messen­ger service WeChat). In addi­tion, Portag3, White Star Capi­tal, Yabeo and Finleap again participated.

The Frank­furt-based startup intends to invest the addi­tio­nal funds in the German market: The number of custo­mers as well as brand aware­ness are to be signi­fi­cantly increased through advertising.

LUTZ | ABEL advi­ses Clark on the Series C finan­cing round through the follo­wing team: Dr. Marco Eick­mann, LL.M., Phil­ipp Hoene and Dr. Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (all M&A/VC, Munich). BRP Renaud und Part­ner mbB provi­ded anti­trust and foreign trade law support with Dr. Martin Beutel­mann, LL.M. (Stutt­gart).

About LUTZ | ABEL

With around 80 lawy­ers and offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Berlin, the commer­cial law firm LUTZ | ABEL provi­des advice on all aspects of commer­cial law. www.lutzabel.com.

News

Frei­burg — Boston — Singa­pore — Jedox, an award-winning provi­der of enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons for busi­ness plan­ning and analy­sis, today announ­ced an invest­ment of more than $100 million from global venture capi­tal and private equity firm Insight Part­ners, along with exis­ting inves­tors Iris Capi­tal, eCAPI­TAL and Wecken & Cie. This majo­rity invest­ment by Insight Part­ners comes at a time when Jedox is expe­ri­en­cing rapid global adop­tion of its market-leading cloud solu­tion for finance executives.

The new round of funding will help Jedox acce­le­rate its custo­mer growth and global expan­sion while enhan­cing its robust plat­form for cross-depart­mental inte­gra­ted busi­ness plan­ning, report­ing and analy­tics. In parti­cu­lar, the funds will be used to grow Jedox’s product inno­va­tion team, increase invest­ment in custo­mer support, and provide even grea­ter support to users in all major geogra­phic regi­ons. In addi­tion, 2021 marks the launch of indus­try-speci­fic solu­ti­ons. Toge­ther with Jedox’s dyna­mic part­ner network and stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, the scope of the solu­ti­ons will expand beyond finance and control­ling depart­ments to become a cross-func­tional “Exten­ded Plan­ning & Analy­tics” (xP&A) platform.

“In an incre­asingly fast-paced world, disrup­tion and uncer­tainty present both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties for busi­nesses. Jedox modern cloud-based solu­ti­ons for scena­rio plan­ning, fore­cas­ting and mana­ging future value crea­tion enable our custo­mers to act even faster and outper­form the compe­ti­tion,” says Florian Winter­stein, CEO of Jedox. “Insight Part­ners’ invest­ment will further streng­then our unique EPM plat­form and momen­tum in the market and allow us to bene­fit from the exper­tise of a leading global invest­ment partner.”

Jedox offers the most advan­ced cloud-based budge­ting, plan­ning and analy­sis tools combi­ned with a fami­liar Micro­soft Excel-based inter­face. Jedox’s enter­prise-grade “Finan­cial Plan­ning & Analy­tics” (FP&A) tools are speci­fi­cally desi­gned to acce­le­rate time-to-value for CFOs and finance execu­ti­ves. From moving exis­ting finan­cial proces­ses to the cloud to lever­aging AI and “advan­ced analy­tics” for more accu­rate and agile plan­ning, Jedox helps leading compa­nies stream­line plan­ning proces­ses at all stages of growth. Jedox has over 2,500 custo­mers world­wide, inclu­ding Amazon, McDonald’s Switz­er­land and ABB.

“Jedox offers a diffe­ren­tia­ted approach to finan­cial plan­ning through its flexi­bi­lity, fami­liar Excel-based inter­face and focus on the custo­mer,” said Jeff Lieber­man, mana­ging direc­tor at Insight Part­ners. “We are exci­ted to work with Florian and the entire Jedox team to bring outstan­ding cloud plan­ning tools to market leaders in all indus­tries around the world. Our onsite team, the largest ScaleUp engine in the indus­try, will work with Jedox to provide stra­te­gic scaling exper­tise.” Rachel Geller, Mana­ging Direc­tor at Insight Part­ners, and Henry Fran­kie­vich, Prin­ci­pal, will join the Board of Directors.

Jedox’s leading EPM plat­form opti­mi­zes value crea­tion and helps compa­nies move faster than the compe­ti­tion. Jedox public and private cloud offe­rings enable finance profes­sio­nals to effec­tively colla­bo­rate across depart­ments to simplify busi­ness plan­ning through a powerful Micro­soft Excel and Power BI compa­ti­ble inter­face, while bene­fiting from arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and advan­ced analy­tics. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2021.

About Jedox

Jedox simpli­fies plan­ning, analy­sis and report­ing with a unified and cloud-based soft­ware suite. Jedox supports decis­ion makers and busi­ness users in all depart­ments and helps them work smar­ter, opti­mize colla­bo­ra­tion and make infor­med decis­i­ons. Over 2,500 compa­nies in 140 count­ries use Jedox for plan­ning on the web, in the cloud, and on any device. Jedox is an award-winning provi­der of FP&A and enter­prise perfor­mance manage­ment solu­ti­ons with offices on four conti­nents and over 250 certi­fied busi­ness part­ners world­wide. www.jedox.com

About Insight Partners

Insight Part­ners is a leading global venture capi­tal and private equity firm inves­t­ing in high-growth tech­no­logy and soft­ware scale-up compa­nies that are driving trans­for­ma­tive change in their indus­tries. Since its foun­ding year in 1995, Insight Part­ners has inves­ted in more than 400 compa­nies world­wide and raised more than $30 billion in capi­tal commit­ments through a series of funds. Insight’s mission is to find, fund and successfully part­ner with visio­nary leaders by provi­ding them with prac­ti­cal, real-world soft­ware exper­tise to drive long-term success. Through its people and port­fo­lio, Insight fosters a culture based on the belief that ScaleUp compa­nies and growth create oppor­tu­ni­ties for all. For more infor­ma­tion about Insight and all of its invest­ments, visit insightpartners.com .

News

Frank­furt am Main — Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners Fund II, advi­sed by Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“BCP”), has acqui­red a 75% majo­rity stake in Frank­furt-based Xortec GmbH (“Xortec”), closing in Janu­ary 2021.

Xortec is a leading value added distri­bu­tor of holi­stic video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons. The company’s focus is on the distri­bu­tion of profes­sio­nal video surveil­lance solu­ti­ons and a compre­hen­sive accom­pany­ing service offering.Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners alre­ady coun­ted two value-added IT distri­bu­tors in its port­fo­lio in the past and was ther­e­fore able to convince the sellers with a promi­sing and proven growth strategy.

Mana­ging Direc­tor Hubert Irka explains the decis­ion to sell shares to Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners as follows: “For us, a part­ner­ship on an equal footing was decisive and, based on the posi­tive expe­ri­ence during the nego­tia­ti­ons, we are confi­dent that we have found this part­ner in Beyond Capi­tal Partners.”

“As an estab­lished and profes­sio­nal B2B service provi­der in the video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­tion solu­tion segment, Xortec is one of the fastest growing provi­ders in Germany and has stood for dyna­mism and quality for years. We are plea­sed to accom­pany the next growth stage toge­ther with the two foun­ders. In the frag­men­ted compe­ti­tive envi­ron­ment, we see a very good oppor­tu­nity to build Xortec into one of the leading provi­ders in the DACH region with a broa­der product range and a pan-Euro­pean sales market over the coming years, also through further acqui­si­ti­ons,” says Chris­toph D. Kauter, Foun­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Beyond Capi­tal Partners.

About Beyond Capi­tal Partners

Beyond Capi­tal Part­ners is an invest­ment company and acqui­res majo­rity stakes in profi­ta­ble medium-sized compa­nies from the DACH region through the funds it advi­ses, with a focus on the asset-light sectors of services, IT, soft­ware, health­care, life­style and enter­tain­ment. www.beyondcapital-partners.com

About Xortec

Xortec GmbH, based in Frank­furt am Main, Germany, is a leading provi­der of network-based video surveil­lance and data commu­ni­ca­ti­ons solu­ti­ons. The company focu­ses on the sale of profes­sio­nal video surveil­lance solu­ti­ons and a compre­hen­sive range of accom­pany­ing services.
video.xortec.com

News

Munich — Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG, advi­sed by Afinum Manage­ment GmbH, indi­rectly acqui­res a majo­rity stake in the Sander­Stroth­mann Group, a leading full-service provi­der (CDMO) in the fast-growing market for cosme­tics, beauty and health­care products. Afinum invests toge­ther with the two mana­ging direc­tors Sabrina Berg­haus and Stefan Vogels in the context of an entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion situa­tion. Toge­ther with the manage­ment team, Afinum will support the group in conti­nuing the successful growth path of the past years.

The Sander­Stroth­mann Group (www.sanderstrothmann.de, “Sander­Stroth­mann”), consis­ting of the two group compa­nies Sander­Stroth­mann GmbH and Compes Cosme­tic GmbH & Co. KG (“Compes”), is a leading certi­fied full-service CDMO (Contract Deve­lo­p­ment and Manu­fac­tu­ring Orga­niza­tion) in the fast-growing market for cosme­tics, beauty and health­care products. Typi­cal Sander­Stroth­mann custo­mers have their own brand and/or distri­bu­tion chan­nel, but often lack the neces­sary exper­tise to deve­lop and manu­fac­ture beauty and health­care products (e.g. global e‑commerce platforms/social media networks/influencers, pharmacies/drug stores/stationary retail­ers, home shop­ping provi­ders and beauty centers).

In addi­tion to custo­mi­zed cosme­tic products, the broad product range also includes bioci­des, disin­fec­tants as well as nutri­tio­nal supple­ments with a specia­liza­tion in active ingre­di­ent cosme­tics and health-promo­ting “problem solvers”. The IP/formulation remains in the posses­sion of Sander­Stroth­mann. Thanks to the in-depth group-inter­nal know-how along the entire value chain (market analy­sis, product deve­lo­p­ment and formu­la­tion, design and pack­a­ging, regu­la­tory aspects and appr­oval proce­du­res, purcha­sing and logi­stics, produc­tion and filling, quality assu­rance, after-sales), Sander­Stroth­mann is distin­gu­is­hed by its full-service offe­ring, high flexi­bi­lity, very short deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­tion time, and — espe­ci­ally with a view to the fast-growing Asian market — its “Made in Germany” quality promise. The Group opera­tes an asset-light busi­ness model. Thus, most of the produc­tion is outsour­ced to trus­ted exter­nal part­ners, while the in-house Compes manu­fac­tu­ring exclu­si­vely produ­ces high-quality cosme­tic products for Pres­tige Beauty brands.

Sander­Stroth­mann GmbH was foun­ded in 2000 by Michael Sander and Rene Stroth­mann, who acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Compes in 2019 as part of an add-on acqui­si­tion. The two Group compa­nies toge­ther employ around 160 people at the joint site in Georgs­ma­ri­en­hütte, Lower Saxony, where the two certi­fied (inclu­ding DIN EN ISO 13485 for medi­cal products) high-tech labo­ra­to­ries with state-of-the-art equip­ment are also operated.

Afinum invests toge­ther with the two mana­ging direc­tors Sabrina Berg­haus and Stefan Vogels in the context of an entre­pre­neu­rial succes­sion situa­tion, wher­eby the foun­ders Michael Sander and Rene Stroth­mann will conti­nue to support the group as stra­te­gic advi­sors in the future. Toge­ther with the manage­ment team, Afinum will support the Group in conti­nuing the successful growth trajec­tory of the past years, inclu­ding by further streng­thening its posi­tio­ning in exis­ting and new geogra­phies and by progres­si­vely expan­ding its product and custo­mer portfolio.

The invest­ment in Sander­Stroth­mann repres­ents the eleventh plat­form tran­sac­tion of Afinum Achte Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft mbH & Co KG.

About Afinum

AFINUM Manage­ment GmbH is an inde­pen­dent manage­ment-owned invest­ment company with offices in Munich, Zurich and Hong Kong, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in successful medium-sized compa­nies in German-spea­king Europe.

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