ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Munich — Scin­to­mics GmbH has sold its stake in Pentix­a­Ph­arm GmbH to Eckert & Zieg­ler Strah­len- und Medi­zin­tech­nik AG. It was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Gütt Olk Feld­haus (GOF). Part of the conside­ra­tion consis­ted of shares in Eckert & Zieg­ler. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Pentix­a­Ph­arm is deve­lo­ping a radio­phar­maceu­ti­cal combi­na­tion product against lymphoma and a number of rela­ted tumors that can be used for both the diagno­sis and treat­ment of cancer. In Febru­ary 2021, Pentix­a­Ph­arm had recei­ved confir­ma­tion from the Euro­pean Medi­ci­nes Agency (EMA) that its drug candi­date Pentix­a­For can advance directly into Phase III clini­cal trials.

Scin­to­mics is active in the deve­lo­p­ment, licen­sing and commer­cia­liza­tion of radio-phar­maceu­ti­cal know-how and radio­phar­maceu­ti­cals and was a foun­ding share­hol­der in PentixaPharm.

Eckert & Zieg­ler is a listed company head­quar­te­red in Berlin, Germany, which holds inte­rests in compa­nies in the fields of medi­cal and isotope tech­no­logy as well as radio-phar­macy and nuclear medi­cine, among others.

Legal advi­sors to Scin­to­mics GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich
Adrian von Prit­t­witz (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Ricarda Theis (Asso­ciate, both Corporate/M&A)

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus
Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these specia­list areas we also take on the litigation.

News

Wupper­tal — The globally active Chinese group WuXi Biolo­gics has comple­ted the acqui­si­tion of a plant for biolo­gi­cal subs­tances from Bayer AG in Wupper­tal. The closing took place in Colo­gne on April 30, 2021. A team led by Dirk W. Kolven­bach, Part­ner at the Düssel­dorf office, and Michael Pauli from the Colo­gne office of Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek provi­ded legal advice to the Chinese group on the purchase. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is around €150 million. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the first half of 2021 and is subject to regu­la­tory review.

The new faci­lity in Wupper­tal is one of the largest vaccine produc­tion sites in Germany and will be used to manu­fac­ture highly sought-after subs­tances for COVID-19 vacci­nes and other biolo­gics. WuXi Biolo­gics plans addi­tio­nal invest­ments in process equip­ment at the Wupper­tal site. “We are very proud to have provi­ded legal support for the purchase of this major vaccine produc­tion faci­lity,” said attor­ney Dirk W. Kolven­bach. “Through this tran­sac­tion, we can also make an important contri­bu­tion on an advo­cacy level for vaccine manu­fac­tu­ring, inclu­ding COVID-19 vacci­nes, in Germany.”

With the conclu­sion of the agree­ment, Bayer and WuXi Biolo­gics have at the same time ente­red into a long-term sublease and a service agree­ment. Bayer will provide various services to WuXi Biolo­gics during the start-up of the plant, contri­bu­ting its own resour­ces. The signing alre­ady took place on Decem­ber 21, 2020. The tran­sac­tion volume, inclu­ding the lease, is over 150 million euros.

WuXi Biolo­gics is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exch­ange and is a leading global open access biolo­gics tech­no­logy plat­form. The company provi­des end-to-end solu­ti­ons to help compa­nies disco­ver, deve­lop and manu­fac­ture biolo­gics from concept to commer­cial produc­tion. For Kolvenbach’s team, this is not the first tran­sac­tion for WuXi. Heuking had alre­ady advi­sed WuXi Biolo­gics on the acqui­si­tion of a drug formu­la­tion plant from Bayer in 2020.

Advi­sor to WuXi Biolo­gics: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dirk W. Kolven­bach (Corpo­rate Law/ Project Coor­di­na­tion), Düsseldorf
Michael Pauli, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law/Project Coor­di­na­tion), Cologne
Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate), Düsseldorf
Michael Below, (Public Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Bodo Dehne (invest­ment control), Düsseldorf
Wolf­ram Meven (Tax Law), Düsseldorf
Dr. Rainer Velte (Anti­trust Law), Düsseldorf
Fabian Gerst­ner, LL.M., Munich, Bettina Nehe­i­der (both Cons­truc­tion Law), Munich
Dr. Tobias Plath, LL.M. (Insu­rance Law), Tors­ten Groß, LL.M. (Labor Law), Sarah Radon, LL.M. (Commer­cial), all Düsseldorf

News

Aachen — The “Seed Fonds II für die Region Aachen GmbH & Co. KG” (Seed Fonds Aachen), toge­ther with KfW Banken­gruppe, Qiagen co-foun­der Dr. Jürgen Schu­ma­cher and Dr. Robert Huber, Profes­sor of Biopro­cess Engi­nee­ring, have sold their shares in the Aachen-based start-up aquila biolabs GmbH to Scien­ti­fic Biopro­ces­sing, Inc. (SBI), subsi­diary of Scien­ti­fic Indus­tries, Inc. and deve­lo­per of opti­cal sensors for non-inva­sive real-time moni­to­ring of cell culture systems, was divested.

This ends a six-year invest­ment part­ner­ship that began in 2015 with the entry of Seed Fund II, the prede­ces­sor of Tech­Vi­sion Fund I, with a seven-figure invest­ment in the biotech­no­logy company. “It is grati­fy­ing that we can accom­pany such a great foun­ding team to a successful exit with our early-stage funds. I look forward to seeing the success story of aquila biolabs conti­nue along this path,” says Dr. Ansgar Schlei­cher, CEO of the S‑UBG Group.

Expan­ding the platform’s reach worldwide

Foun­ded in Aachen at the end of 2014, aquila biolabs GmbH deve­lops a plat­form of intel­li­gent sensors and soft­ware for the non-inva­sive moni­to­ring and analy­sis of biopro­ces­ses in the labo­ra­tory. With the help of the paten­ted measu­re­ment methods, rese­ar­chers can auto­ma­ti­cally moni­tor process para­me­ters and observe the cells as they grow, without having to take samples. This signi­fi­cantly redu­ces deve­lo­p­ment times and costs and sustain­ably impro­ves biopro­ces­ses in acade­mic and indus­trial rese­arch. The products of aquila biolabs GmbH are now used by custo­mers in the phar­maceu­ti­cal, biotech­no­lo­gi­cal and chemi­cal indus­tries in over 25 countries.

“We are exci­ted to join SBI and expand the reach of our unique plat­form to biopro­cess scien­tists around the world,” says Daniel Grünes, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, who will assume the role of Vice Presi­dent of R&D and Opera­ti­ons at SBI. Jens Bayer, co-foun­der of aquila biolabs, adds: “We would like to thank our inves­tor consor­tium once again for the very good and harmo­nious coope­ra­tion over the past years. Espe­ci­ally the enorm­ous wealth of expe­ri­ence of inves­tors like Mr. Schu­ma­cher and the Seed Fonds Aachen, who have frequently accom­pa­nied tech­no­logy compa­nies from the start-up phase to the exit, was very helpful for us.” aquila biolabs will conti­nue to offer its products and services around the globe from its head­quar­ters in Baes­wei­ler, where the company curr­ently employs 16 people.

SBI expands presence in Europe

“When SBI was explo­ring the available tech­no­lo­gies that could drive digi­tally simpli­fied biopro­ces­sing, aquila’s approach stood out as the most impres­sive,” said Rein­hard Vogt, chair­man of SBI and former vice presi­dent and member of the Sarto­rius AG Execu­tive Board. “In addi­tion to offe­ring a broad range of advan­ced sensors and data analy­tics tools, this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion also adds new talent to our strong team and streng­thens our presence in Europe.”

About the S‑UBG Group

The S‑UBG Group, Aachen, has been the leading part­ner in the provi­sion of equity capi­tal for estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies (S‑UBG AG) and young, tech­no­logy-orien­ted start-ups (Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I) in the econo­mic regi­ons of Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach for over 30 years. S‑UBG AG invests in growth sectors; high quality of corpo­rate manage­ment is a key invest­ment criter­ion for the invest­ment company.

2020, Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I für die Region Aachen, Krefeld & Mönchen­glad­bach GmbH & Co. KG was laun­ched toge­ther with NRW.BANK, the savings banks of Aachen, Krefeld and Düren, Kreis­spar­kasse Heins­berg, Stadt­spar­kasse Mönchen­glad­bach, Noma­in­vest, DSA Invest GmbH, inves­tors from the Dr. Babor Group and other private inves­tors. It provi­des around 40 million euros in seed capi­tal for the start-up scene in the region. Tech­Vi­sion Fonds I emer­ged from Seed Fonds III for the Aachen, Krefeld and Mönchen­glad­bach region. As an exten­sion of Seed Fund III, Tech­Vi­sion Fund I now seeks to parti­ci­pate in subse­quent finan­cing rounds (Series A/B) of exis­ting port­fo­lio compa­nies in addi­tion to seed invest­ments. The S‑UBG Group curr­ently holds stakes in just under 40 compa­nies in the region, giving it a leading posi­tion in the Spar­kas­sen-Finanz­gruppe. www.s‑ubg.de; www.techvision-fonds.de

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Düssel­dorf M&A part­ners Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both lead part­ners) advi­sed SIX Swiss Exch­ange-listed Imple­nia Group, one of Switzerland’s leading cons­truc­tion and real estate services compa­nies, on the plan­ned sale of German-based Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH to Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG. As a result of the tran­sac­tion, which was signed on April 16, 2021 and is expec­ted to be comple­ted on May 31, 2021 (closing), all sites and ongo­ing projects with a total of 199 employees of the Main­ten­ance divi­sion will be trans­fer­red to Karrié Bau.

Imple­nia is dispo­sing of the main­ten­ance busi­ness in order to focus further on the defi­ned core port­fo­lio in line with its stra­tegy. Karrié Bau plans to assume respon­si­bi­lity for ongo­ing projects after the acqui­si­tion is comple­ted. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the condi­ti­ons were crea­ted for a seam­less carve-out of the main­ten­ance busi­ness and its successful conti­nua­tion by Karrié Bau.

In the imple­men­ta­tion of the project, the Deloitte Legal team was able to contri­bute to the success through a combi­na­tion of first-class legal advice, tran­sac­tion expe­ri­ence and goal-orien­ted commu­ni­ca­tion. The close coope­ra­tion with colle­agues from Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Deloitte Tran­sac­tion Services Switz­er­land and Deloitte Tax Germany enab­led compre­hen­sive inter­di­sci­pli­nary advice on all commer­cial, legal and tax aspects mate­rial to the tran­sac­tion. www.deloittelegal.de

Advi­sor Imple­nia: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Michael von Rüden and Dirk Hänisch (both Lead, Corporate/M&A), Thilo Hoff­mann (Coun­sel), André Giesen (Senior Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) Deloitte Corpo­rate Finance and Tran­sac­tion Services, Switz­er­land: Stephan Brücher, Benja­min Lechuga, Maxi­mi­lian Hornung, Nico­las Bornitz Deloitte Tax: Fabian Borkowski

Advi­sor Karrié Bau GmbH & Co KG: EY Law
Dr. Thors­ten Erhard, Dr. Robert Schil­ler, Dr. Timo Rinne EY: Chris­toph Serf, Hagen Reiser, Jan-Hendrik Pirwitz, Thors­ten Schnei­der, Tobias Kampmann

About Imple­nia
As a leading Swiss cons­truc­tion and real estate service provi­der, Imple­nia deve­lops and reali­zes living spaces, working envi­ron­ments and infra­struc­ture for future gene­ra­ti­ons in Switz­er­land and Germany. Imple­nia also plans and builds complex infra­struc­ture projects in Austria, France, Sweden and Norway. Imple­nia can look back on around 150 years of cons­truc­tion tradi­tion. The company brings toge­ther the exper­tise of highly quali­fied consul­ting, plan­ning and execu­tion units under one roof to form an inte­gra­ted, multi­na­tio­nal leading cons­truc­tion and real estate service provider.

With its broad range of services and the in-depth expe­ri­ence of its specia­lists, the Group is able to realize complex large-scale projects and support struc­tures throug­hout their entire life cycle and in close proxi­mity to custo­mers. The focus is on the needs of custo­mers and a sustainable balance between econo­mic success and social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bi­lity. Imple­nia, head­quar­te­red in Opfi­kon near Zurich, employs more than 8,500 people across Europe and gene­ra­ted sales of almost CHF 4 billion in 2020. For more infor­ma­tion, visit implenia.com. About Imple­nia Instand­set­zung GmbH Imple­nia Instand­set­zung is a leading full-service part­ner in Germany for struc­tu­ral resto­ra­tion of buil­dings, infra­struc­ture struc­tures or parts thereof.

News

Vienna — Round2 Capi­tal, the Vienna-based growth finance invest­ment fund and Euro­pean pioneer in reve­nue-based finan­cing, closes the first quar­ter with seven invest­ments. The exis­ting port­fo­lio of 13 compa­nies will thus be expan­ded by tech scale-ups from Germany, the UK, Austria, France and Sweden. Chris­tian Czer­nich, Round2 Capi­tal foun­der and CEO, explains why the alter­na­tive finan­cing form of reve­nue-based finan­cing is so in demand right now.

The first quar­ter ended parti­cu­larly successfully for the Round2 Capi­tal team: 7 new compa­nies now expand the port­fo­lio of the Vienna-based invest­ment fund, which is prima­rily dedi­ca­ted to reve­nue-based finan­cing. Invest­ments are made far beyond natio­nal borders and scale-ups from Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, France and, of course, Austria are welco­med into the family of port­fo­lio compa­nies. The new invest­ments are:

Logsta (AT), next-gene­ra­tion soft­ware-enab­led logi­stics company with warehouse loca­ti­ons in Austria, Germany, the UK, France and the US.

Projekt­eins (DE), B2B soft­ware plat­form for the inte­gra­tion of various e‑commerce applications.

Dracoon (DE), cyber­se­cu­rity busi­ness cloud with the highest encryp­tion standards.

Hamil­ton Apps (FR), a leading work­place tech­no­logy provi­der offe­ring a wide range of solu­ti­ons within a single inte­gra­ted platform.

Sales Impact Academy (UK), an e‑learning plat­form for B2B salespeople.

Subscrip­tion-based sports commu­nity (UK)

Inter­net Yield (SE), acqui­res, owns and opera­tes reve­nue-gene­ra­ting websites curr­ently selling 40 million ad impres­si­ons per month.

Round2 Capi­tal focu­ses on young digi­tal SaaS compa­nies that are in the growth phase and alre­ady employ 20 — 150 people. As a rule, these compa­nies have alre­ady reached the opera­ting brea­k­e­ven point. The majo­rity of the port­fo­lio compa­nies were able to reach this level without exter­nal finan­cing and are now pursuing a growth stra­tegy that enables growth even without high burn rates. The Round2 port­fo­lio includes e.g. the German cyber secu­rity company Myra Secu­rity, the Swiss EduTech scale-up Aval­lain or the Finnish, multi­ple award-winning scale-up Vainu, all of which have mana­ged to grow to a sales volume of between 5- 15 million euros without exter­nal equity financing.

Reve­nue-based finan­cing is a rela­tively new finan­cing instru­ment in Europe, which has been successfully estab­lished not least through the work of Round2 Capi­tal. The high­light of this form of growth finan­cing is that the company does not have to give up any company shares, as instead the fund parti­ci­pa­tes in the company’s sales until a prede­fi­ned repay­ment amount is reached. The monthly repay­ments auto­ma­ti­cally adjust to the company’s turno­ver and thus do not cause any cash flow problems. Since leng­thy nego­tia­ti­ons on company valua­tions are no longer neces­sary, the tran­sac­tion process is also signi­fi­cantly faster. All these advan­ta­ges make reve­nue-based finance a simple, flexi­ble and fully trans­pa­rent finan­cing tool.

The capi­tal provi­ded by Round2 is mostly used by the young compa­nies to expand sales, marke­ting and inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion. In other words, for measu­res that quickly lead to sales growth.

Today, Round2 Capi­tal mana­ges over 30 million euros from mainly entre­pre­neurs and family offices from Sweden, Germany, and Austria. Wher­eby plans are alre­ady under­way to open the fund to insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and signi­fi­cantly increase the capi­tal under management.

How Reve­nue-based Finan­cing Works

Reve­nue-based finan­cing consists of a subor­di­na­ted loan whose repay­ment is linked to the reve­nue of the company in which the invest­ment is made. This share is between 2–6%, depen­ding on the amount finan­ced and sales, and consists of both a repay­ment and a royalty compo­nent. The reve­nue share is paid until a certain multi­ple of the finan­cing amount, which is between 1.35x — 2.15x, has been paid. When this is reached after 4–6 years, the finan­cing auto­ma­ti­cally expi­res. The finan­cing volume is initi­ally between EUR 500,000 and EUR 2 million and can be gradu­ally increased to over EUR 10 million by supple­men­ting it with equity. Since in some cases it can be well combi­ned with an equity invest­ment and even replace it, Round2 Capi­tal selec­tively also offers a combi­na­tion of these two invest­ment models.

The advan­tage of reve­nue-based finan­cing over other venture debt finan­cing is that repay­ments are linked to sales and thus to the company’s cash flow. In this way, this cannot become unba­lan­ced due to the repay­ment obligations.

About Round2 Capi­tal Partners
Round2 Capi­tal is a fast-growing Euro­pean invest­ment firm with over €30 million in capi­tal under manage­ment. Based in Vienna, Berlin and Stock­holm, the 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, UK and the Nordic count­ries. To date, Round2 Capi­tal has inves­ted in 20 diffe­rent compa­nies. www.round2cap.com

News

Frank­furt a. M./ POELLATH advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity, the AUVESY manage­ment team and other share­hol­ders on the sale of their stake in the AUVESY Group, a tech­no­lo­gi­cal global market leader for data manage­ment systems, to Hg Capi­tal. The exis­ting AUVESY manage­ment team will conti­nue to hold a stake in the company, while the former majo­rity owner Brock­haus Private Equity will exit completely.

Foun­ded in 2007 and based in Landau in der Pfalz, AUVESY GmbH is a leading global provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for version control and change manage­ment in auto­ma­ted indus­trial envi­ron­ments. The soft­ware enables auto­ma­ted produc­tion faci­li­ties and other intel­li­gent machi­nes, as well as their machine data and infor­ma­tion, to be auto­ma­ti­cally backed up and centrally mana­ged. The company employs around 90 people and mana­ges over 5 million indus­trial “Inter­net-of-Things” devices in 45 countries.

POELLATH alre­ady advi­sed Brock­haus Private Equity on the acqui­si­tion of AUVESY in 2017 from the then foun­ders and now also accom­pa­nied the sale to Hg Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still pending.

Advi­sor Brock­haus Private Equity: POELLATH with the follo­wing cross-loca­tion team:
Tobias Jäger (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig, LL.M. (Ford­ham) (Part­ner, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Dr. Jens Linde (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Finan­cing, Frankfurt)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Andrea Strei­fen­e­der (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Dr. Matthias Meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity, Munich)
Johanna Scherk (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­tion, Munich)

News

Stutt­gart — The invest­ment company Finexx has acqui­red 100 percent of the shares in Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria as part of a succes­sion plan. Volpini is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer in Central Europe of Pack­a­ging cups and films. The exis­ting manage­ment will conti­nue to support the company in all opera­tio­nal matters to ensure a seam­less tran­si­tion of manage­ment. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose further details of the tran­sac­tion. The new invest­ment, which stra­te­gi­cally fits perfectly into Finexx’s invest­ment stra­tegy, takes into account an increase of Finexx Fund II to the total volume of 30 million euros. The high-growth mid-market inves­tor from Stutt­gart now mana­ges a total of around EUR 65 million.

Volpini Verpa­ckun­gen GmbH Austria, based in Spit­tal an der Drau, Austria, was origi­nally foun­ded in 1811. Since 1970, the tradi­tio­nal company with its current work­force of around 60 employees has specia­li­zed in the produc­tion of plas­tic pack­a­ging, in parti­cu­lar sustainable pack­a­ging cups (yogurt pots) and ther­mo­forming sheets. In the field of Desto cups, which are conside­red to be parti­cu­larly sustainable, Volpini plays a leading role in the Central Euro­pean market. The company has modern produc­tion faci­li­ties that are opti­mally adapted to the requi­re­ments of medium-sized and large custo­mers in the food indus­try. Most recently, Volpini gene­ra­ted annual sales of around 13 million euros.

With the acqui­si­tion of Volpini, Finexx further expands its presence and exper­tise in the food indus­try. With the orga­nic food inno­va­tor BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding with the brands GSE, Fitne and Feel­good Shop, the port­fo­lio of the indus­try specia­list alre­ady includes two market-leading plat­forms in the field of orga­nic baking and cooking ingre­di­ents as well as food supple­ments and heal­ing products.

“The food indus­try is in a state of flux. Not only is the market for health-conscious nutri­tion growing rapidly, but compa­nies and inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons in the field of sustainable pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons are also booming. Volpini is alre­ady excel­lently posi­tio­ned in this area. In addi­tion, we see both orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial at Volpini. With its market-leading posi­tion, the company is ther­e­fore the opti­mal stra­te­gic addi­tion to our indus­try-orien­ted port­fo­lio,” says Finexx CEO Matthias Heining.

Accom­pany­ing the tran­sac­tion, Finexx Fund II, which was closed at the end of last year, was increased from 20 to now 30 million euros. The Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based invest­ment company, which specia­li­zes in growth invest­ments and succes­sion plan­ning, now mana­ges a total of around 65 million euros. Finexx’s cross-sector invest­ment stra­tegy focu­ses on small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses (SMEs) with sales of 10 million euros or more.

“Our invest­ment philo­so­phy is to support medium-sized compa­nies with indus­try exper­tise, capi­tal and an exten­sive network in their growth or in chal­len­ging succes­sion situa­tions as part­ners. In our self-image as an insti­tu­tio­nal family share­hol­der, we wanted to conti­nue this proven stra­tegy with our second fund from the outset. The increase of our Finexx Fund II by around ten million euros shows that we are on the right track with our entre­pre­neu­rial convic­tion,” says Dr. Markus Seiler, CEO of Finexx.

In addi­tion to Volpini, BIOVEGAN and BioneXX Holding in the pack­a­ging and food indus­try, Finexx has a stake in Sicko, a medium-sized specia­list in indus­trial auto­ma­tion in wood processing.

About Finexx
Finexx GmbH Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen, based in Stutt­gart, is an invest­ment company foun­ded in 2013 that specia­li­zes in estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies. Typi­cal fields of acti­vity are growth, invest­ment and acqui­si­tion finan­cing as well as the support of chan­ges in the share­hol­der struc­ture and succes­sion planning.

Finexx invests long-term funds from insu­rance compa­nies and pension funds, among others, in compa­nies from the German-spea­king region, predo­mi­nantly within the frame­work of majo­rity share­hol­dings. These have sales of EUR 10 million or more, a quali­fied manage­ment team, and can demons­trate sustainable earnings power and cash flow based on a successful busi­ness model.

The team has many years of indus­trial and manage­ment expe­ri­ence as well as profound know-how in the invest­ment sector — both are brought to bear for the successful further deve­lo­p­ment of compa­nies and in the asso­cia­ted change proces­ses. Finexx supports manage­ment by provi­ding active commer­cial and tech­ni­cal advice without inter­fe­ring with day-to-day opera­ti­ons, as well as a cross-indus­try network. www.finexx.de

News

Berlin — BMH BRÄUTIGAM accom­pa­nies with Reds­tone the invest­ment of the Family Office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten in the context of the recently closed finan­cing round of the AI- tech startup German Autolabs. In addi­tion to Schwarz­wäl­der Boten as lead inves­tor and share­hol­der of some of Germany’s largest media groups, exis­ting inves­tors Target Part­ners, nbr Tech Ventures and Copa­rion are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the finan­cing round.

German Autolabs, foun­ded in 2016 by serial entre­pre­neur Holger G. Weiss, specia­li­zes in voice assis­tance solu­ti­ons for profes­sio­nal drivers, couriers and deli­very people and became known for the first retro­fit­ta­ble smart voice assistant for cars. The modu­lar voice AI plat­form enables compa­nies in the logi­stics indus­try to opti­mize ever­y­day work­flows and proces­ses by linking deli­very addres­ses, deli­very speci­fics, and route info from various data sources to further improve deli­very quality.

With the growing success of voice assistants, the need for verti­cal solu­ti­ons in the auto­mo­tive sector will increase. Important diffe­ren­tia­tors in this area are data secu­rity, the very speci­fic use case in the vehicle, and the possi­bi­lity of addres­sing one’s own custo­mers directly. German Autolabs does not see itself as a compe­ti­tor to hori­zon­tal play­ers such as Amazon or Google. His approach is verti­cally and comple­men­ta­rily integrable.

Holger G. Weiss, co-foun­der and CEO of German Autolabs: “Since produc­tion cycles in the auto­mo­tive indus­try are tradi­tio­nally too long to itera­tively deve­lop and train voice AI, our retro­fit approach is one of the major advan­ta­ges of our stra­tegy.” The new multi-million funding will now be used to acce­le­rate the roll­out of the voice assis­tance platform.

The team of BMH BRÄUTIGAM has repea­tedly acted along­side Reds­tone in the context of this invest­ment. Having alre­ady advi­sed on the invest­ments of venture capi­ta­list VR Ventures and the family office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten in Right­Now at the end of last year, we are very plea­sed to be able to further streng­then and expand the rela­ti­onship with Reds­tone. www.bmh-partner.com

Consul­tant Reds­tone and the Family Office of Schwarz­wäl­der Boten: BMH BRÄUTIGAM, Berlin

Dr. Patrick Auer­bach, Edzard Rothen (both Venture Capital)

News

Paris/ Frank­furt am Main — Eura­zeo laun­ches Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture, a thema­tic fund to finance envi­ron­men­tally friendly infra­struc­ture and tech­no­logy in the mari­time sector. The Fund enables sustainable deve­lo­p­ment as defi­ned in Article 9 of Regu­la­tion (EU) 2019/2088 (known as the “Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion”) and thus directly contri­bu­tes to Eurazeo’s ESG stra­tegy called “O+”, through which the company aims to achieve carbon neutra­lity by 2040. The target size of the fund is 300 million euros, and seve­ral renow­ned state and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors have alre­ady pled­ged their participation.

Curr­ently, 90 percent of the world’s goods are trans­por­ted by sea. Carbon dioxide reduc­tion in the mari­time sector is thus crucial to halting climate change. To meet this chall­enge, the fund will finance mainly in three areas: Ships equip­ped with advan­ced tech­no­lo­gies and ther­e­fore more envi­ron­men­tally friendly, inno­va­tive port faci­li­ties, and capi­tal equip­ment used in the deve­lo­p­ment of offshore rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion facilities.

The Euro­pean Commission’s Green Deal envi­sa­ges Europe achie­ving the goal of climate neutra­lity by 2050. The Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture will finance around fifty projects or faci­li­ties in the mari­time indus­try across Europe that contri­bute to achie­ving this goal. Germany is to play a key role in this as an invest­ment loca­tion. The mari­time indus­try in this coun­try has an annual sales volume of up to 50 billion euros, the coun­try is one of the largest ship­buil­ding nati­ons in the world, and around 20 percent of global contai­ner capa­city comes from here (as of 2018).

The Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture fund is mana­ged by Idin­vest Part­ners, a subsi­diary of Eura­zeo. As a leasing fund, it offers its inves­tors a parti­cu­larly secure risk profile, as the invest­ments are colla­te­ra­li­zed by the finan­ced capi­tal goods. Through the asset finance model, it gene­ra­tes quar­terly distri­bu­ti­ons from lease payments recei­ved and has an advan­ta­ge­ous solvency capi­tal requi­re­ment of less than ten percent.

As of Janu­ary 1, 2020, ship­ping compa­nies must signi­fi­cantly reduce their emis­si­ons (from 3.5 to 0.5 percent) under the new Inter­na­tio­nal Mari­time Orga­niza­tion (IMO) regu­la­tion to reduce the sulfur content of fuels. This regu­la­tion is part of a global stra­tegy by the IMO and aims to reduce total green­house gas emis­si­ons from the ship­ping indus­try by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2008 levels. The fund will help reduce both green­house gas emis­si­ons and emis­si­ons of sulfur oxides (Sox) and nitro­gen oxides (NOx), which are parti­cu­larly harmful to the air.

The emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved with the help of the fund invest­ments are measu­red using quan­ti­ta­tive indi­ca­tors whose measu­re­ment metho­do­logy has been veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and which are checked as part of an annual exter­nal survey.

In Janu­ary 2020, Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture recei­ved the LuxFLAG label (“Appli­cant Fund Status”). The label certi­fies that funds take ESG crite­ria into account at every stage of the invest­ment process.

Chris­to­phe Bavière, member of Eurazeo’s Execu­tive Board, said, “We are very plea­sed to offer our inves­tors an option that meets the ‘Article 9’ crite­ria with Eura­zeo Sustainable Mari­time Infra­struc­ture. Many inves­tors are looking for invest­ments that make a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to decar­bo­niza­tion and envi­ron­men­tal change. In addi­tion, the fund is charac­te­ri­zed by a parti­cu­larly high level of capi­tal protection.”

Daniel Emers­le­ben, who serves as invest­ment direc­tor for the fund, added:
“Our new fund is a finan­cing instru­ment that will help reduce green­house gases and sulfur. We measure the emis­sion reduc­tions achie­ved, have the values veri­fied by inde­pen­dent experts and disc­lose them to our inves­tors. The imple­men­ta­tion of this process, which was deve­lo­ped in a trans­pa­rent process toge­ther with inde­pen­dent orga­niza­ti­ons, demons­tra­tes our commit­ment to deploy­ing capi­tal in a way that makes a measura­ble contri­bu­tion to addres­sing the envi­ron­men­tal and climate chal­lenges of our time.”

About the O+ ESG strategy

Eurazeo’s sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, called “O+”, was laun­ched in 2020 and has two main components:

A net zero carbon emis­si­ons target for Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies by 2040. The Company is guided by the crite­ria of the Science Based Targets initia­tive. This goal will be achie­ved by inves­t­ing in low-carbon compa­nies, redu­cing carbon costs and risks in the port­fo­lio, and measu­ring the carbon foot­print throug­hout the invest­ment cycle.
Promo­ting grea­ter inclu­sion and soli­da­rity by achie­ving at least 40 percent leader­ship of the under­re­pre­sen­ted gender at Eura­zeo as well as its port­fo­lio compa­nies, estab­li­shing systems to ensure that all stake­hol­ders bene­fit from the value crea­ted by Eurazeo’s invest­ments, and initia­ti­ves to improve access to health­care and promote equity and philanthropy.

Eura­zeo is the only private equity company listed in the indi­ces of the five leading rating agen­cies for non-finan­cial crite­ria. With an AA rating in MSCI’s ESG ranking (as of March 2020), Eura­zeo is among the top 20 percent of best-rated compa­nies, above the indus­try average. In 2020, Eura­zeo also achie­ved the maxi­mum score (A+) in the four PRI (Prin­ci­ples for Respon­si­ble Invest­ment) assess­ment cate­go­ries rele­vant to its busi­ness: Stra­tegy & Gover­nance, Private Equity (indi­rect), Private Equity (direct) and Fixed Income (direct). In each of these cate­go­ries, Eurazeo’s scores are thus above the median for the sector.

About Eura­zeo

Eura­zeo is a leading inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment company mana­ging €21.8 billion in assets across a diver­si­fied invest­ment port­fo­lio of more than 450 compa­nies. 15.0 billion euros of the assets under manage­ment came from invest­ment part­ners. With its compre­hen­sive exper­tise in private equity, real estate and private debt, Eura­zeo supports compa­nies of all sizes. A team of nearly 300 profes­sio­nals with deep sector exper­tise as well as access to global markets supports the deve­lo­p­ment of the port­fo­lio compa­nies and provi­des them with a respon­si­ble and stable growth plat­form. The solid share­hol­der struc­ture, consis­ting of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family share­hol­ders, in combi­na­tion with a robust balance sheet without struc­tu­ral debt and a flexi­ble invest­ment hori­zon allow Eura­zeo to accom­pany port­fo­lio compa­nies over the long term.

Eura­zeo has offices in Paris, New York, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shang­hai, London, Luxem­bourg, Frank­furt, Berlin and Madrid. Eura­zeo is listed on Euron­ext Paris.

News

Frei­burg — The Schölly family has sold the majo­rity of its shares in Baden-Würt­tem­berg-based Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH to Aescu­lap AG, a subsi­diary of phar­maceu­ti­cal group B. Braun SE, but will retain a 30 percent stake. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to anti­trust clearance. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price.

Schölly Fiber­op­tic was compre­hen­si­vely legally advi­sed on the sale by a corpo­rate and M&A team from the law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, led by Dr. Barbara Mayer. FGvW thus once again unders­cores the strong health­care exper­tise of its M&A prac­tice. FGvW previously advi­sed Schölly Fiber­op­tic on the sale of its robo­tics endo­scopy busi­ness to Intui­tive Surgi­cal in 2019. Schölly was advi­sed on tax matters by Hanns-Georg Schell and Clau­dio Schmitt of the audi­ting and tax consul­ting firm BANSBACH GmbH in Frei­burg. Aescu­lap AG was advi­sed by a team from the law firm Brei­ten Burk­hardt under the leader­ship of Dr. Chris­tian Ulrich Wolf in Hamburg.

The medi­cal tech­no­logy company Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH, based in Denz­lin­gen / Baden-Würt­tem­berg, specia­li­zes in engi­nee­ring and the produc­tion of custo­mi­zed visua­liza­tion systems in the busi­ness areas of Medi­cal Endo­scopy and Visual Inspec­tion. Since 1998, the owners of the globally active company have been both the Schölly family and Aescu­lap AG in Tutt­lin­gen. Schölly Fiber­op­tic was foun­ded in 1973 and curr­ently employs about 550 people.

Aescu­lap AG, with around 3,600 employees and head­quar­ters in Tutt­lin­gen, is a leading global supplier of products and services in the field of medi­cal tech­no­logy. The company is part of the B. Braun Group.

Advi­sors to Schölly Fiber­op­tic GmbH: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Barbara Mayer, Frei­burg, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Jan Barth, Frei­burg, Senior Asso­ciate (Corpo­rate, M&A)
Daniel Rombach, Frei­burg, Asso­ciate (Merger Control)

BANSBACH GmbH, Freiburg
Hanns-Georg Schell, Mana­ging Part­ner (Tax Law)
Clau­dio Schmitt, Asso­ciate Part­ner (Tax Law)

News

Vienna (ÖS) — GoStu­dent recei­ves 70 million euros in fresh money. Led by new inves­tor Coatue toge­ther with exis­ting part­ners Left Lane Capi­tal and DN Capi­tal, GoStu­dent has also successfully comple­ted its next round of finan­cing — raising €70 million in fresh money. In 2020, the lear­ning assis­tance plat­form had been able to coll­ect a total invest­ment of 13.3 million euros.

GoStu­dent with seat in Vienna could to its fifth birth­day its offer for on-line Nach­hilfe, which took its begin­ning from Vienna in the German-spea­king count­ries, at the begin­ning of the year to five further Euro­pean markets expan­ded. The past Corona year has seen a boom in lear­ning plat­forms. The Berlin-based provi­der Gostu­dent also profi­ted, which is now rewarded with a large funding.

Exis­ting and new inves­tors have confi­dence in the digi­tal educa­tion startup’s contin­ued expo­nen­tial growth. This is inten­ded to further advance the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of GoStu­dent and streng­then its presence in major tuto­ring markets such as France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ireland.

Lear­ning assis­tance plat­form aims to become top player in Europe
Turkey and Greece, among others, will follow in the first half of 2021. In addi­tion, GoStu­dent will invest heavily in brand buil­ding and product impro­ve­ment. The ambi­tious goal: GoStu­dent wants to posi­tion itself as a top player in Europe for high-quality educa­tion and make it widely acces­si­ble. By the end of the year, the company plans to be active in at least 15 Euro­pean count­ries and to expand the team to over 800 employees and more than 10,000 tutors.

 

News

Berlin — Plus­Den­tal has raised EUR 35 million in another finan­cing round. Jebsen Capi­tal and BioNTech SE led the finan­cing round. PING AN, HV Capi­tal, Lake­star, Kreos Capi­tal, Cadence Growth Capi­tal and World­Cup star Mario Götze also parti­ci­pa­ted. Plus­Den­tal Dr. was advi­sed by the Berlin law firm Vogel Heerma Waitz.

Just under a year ago, the Berlin-based health startup raised 32 million euros in a Series C round. At the time, Hong Kong-based insu­rance group Ping An made a new entry through its Global Voya­ger Fund.

PlusDental’s mission is to provide all pati­ents with access to high-quality, inno­va­tive denti­stry. As a pioneer in digi­ta­liza­tion, Plus­Den­tal has mana­ged to become a leading Euro­pean digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for dentists. Plus­Den­tal is led by indus­trial engi­neer and expe­ri­en­ced mana­ger Eva-Maria Meij­nen, former McKin­sey consul­tant Dr. Peter Baum­gart and well-known entre­pre­neur and angel inves­tor Lukas Brosseder.

Plus­Den­tal is now one of the top four medtech start­ups in Germany in which the most has been inves­ted. The fresh capi­tal will be used to acce­le­rate growth in Europe and China.

Consul­tant Plus­Den­tal: Vogel Heerma Waitz
Dr. Clemens Waitz (Part­ner) and Lorenz Frey

 

 

News

Düssel­dorf — ARQIS advi­sed BME Group on the acqui­si­tion of Mahler Group — a leading buil­ding mate­ri­als and tile distri­bu­tor in Bava­ria. The share sale is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust autho­ri­ties and is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the course of 2021.

BME is one of the leading buil­ding mate­ri­als trading compa­nies in Europe and is active in Germany in the sale of buil­ding mate­ri­als under the brands Bauking (gene­ral buil­ding mate­ri­als trading) and Paul­sen Gruppe, Dete­ring, Berg­mann & Franz (all sani­tary, heating and instal­la­tion trading). With the acqui­si­tion of the Mahler Group, Bauking will expand its presence to southern Germany.

The Mahler Group compri­ses the brands Bauwa­ren Mahler, Mahler Baye­ri­sche Bauwa­ren, Mahler Flie­sen & Glas­bau and Hillari Flie­sen­cen­ter. The group has a network of five bran­ches and employs a total of 273 people.

The ARQIS focus group Tran­sac­tions around Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze advi­sed BME for the second time. When Dete­ring was acqui­red in the summer of 2020, it was the first time the team worked for the then newly formed BME Group. Previously, ARQIS had alre­ady comple­ted the acqui­si­ti­ons of the Paul­sen Group and the Berg­mann & Franz Group for the former parent company CRH plc. accompanied

Advi­sor BME: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Marcus Noth­hel­fer (Commer­cial & IP/IT; Munich), Tobias Neufeld (Pensi­ons & Data Protec­tion); Coun­sel: Thomas Chwa­lek (Corporate/M&A), Sina Janke (Compli­ance; Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Kamil Flak, Dr. Nima Hanifi-Atash­gah (both Corporate/M&A), Jenni­fer Huschauer (Real Estate), Nora Meyer-Strat­mann, Rolf Tichy (both Commer­cial & IP/IT; both Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Pensi­ons & Labor), Eva Kraszkie­wicz, Juliane Lewen (both Data Privacy), Walde­mar Rembold (Risk); Legal Specia­list: Gloria Bitt­ner-Schüt­zen­dorf (Commer­cial)
Niit­väli (Frank­furt): Evelyn Niit­väli (Anti­trust)

About ARQIS

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

News

Munich — happy­brush, the Munich-based start-up for elec­tric tooth­brushes and sustainable oral hygiene products, secu­res around EUR 4 million in a Series A finan­cing round. BayBG as an exis­ting inves­tor and the family holding company of the Haniel Group as a newly acqui­red inves­tor parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing. LUTZ | ABEL provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to BayBG in this finan­cing round.

With over five million products sold, the young company is one of the fastest growing compa­nies in Europe, accor­ding to the Finan­cial Times, and is even ranked number 1 in the health sector. The start-up is also making a name for itself in terms of social commit­ment and sustaina­bi­lity and has, for exam­ple, been certi­fied as a sustainable B‑corporation and awarded a “very good” rating by Ökotest (Super­Green, 04/2021). With the fresh money from the inves­tors, happy­brush would like to posi­tion itself more stron­gly on the German market, for exam­ple with alre­ady announ­ced inno­va­tions such as the tooth­brush connec­ted to an app, as well as expand into neigh­bor­ing Euro­pean count­ries with a basic product range.

Advi­sor BayBG: LUTZ | ABEL Rechts­an­walts PartG mbB
The consul­ting team around Jan-Phil­lip Kunz, LL.M. (lead) and Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch, LL.M. (both VC/M&A) consis­ted of Ute Schenn, Nina Theresa Mutsch­ler (both Commer­cial), Dr. Corne­lius Renner, Isabelle Hohl (both IP Law), Clau­dia Knuth, Xenia Verspohl (both Labor Law) and Chris­toph Rich­ter (Anti­trust Law).

News

Munich — KORIAN Deutsch­land AG has acqui­red the ‘Inten­siv­pfle­ge­dienst Lebens­wert’ (IPDL). Bird & Bird LLP advi­sed KRIAN on this transaction.

For KORIAN, one of Europe’s leading provi­ders of care and nursing services for seni­ors, the inte­gra­tion of IPDL into its network was another important step in diver­si­fy­ing its offe­ring in care and nursing services for seni­ors and those in need of care. KORIAN also offers long-term care faci­li­ties, specialty clinics, assis­ted living, and home care and services, among other services. In addi­tion to Germany and France, the KORIAN Group is also active in Belgium, Italy, the Nether­lands and Spain.

IPDL’s services include inten­sive and respi­ra­tory care at home or in special resi­den­tial commu­ni­ties, as well as an outpa­ti­ent service for senior care at home. In addi­tion, the company’s own “Lebens­wert Academy” offers exten­sive advan­ced and further trai­ning in the field of inten­sive and respi­ra­tory care.

IPDL was foun­ded in 2009 by the married couple Martina and Rudolf Wied­mann and employs around 280 people. The care service is active in parts of Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Bava­ria. Rudolf Wied­mann remains with the company as Mana­ging Direc­tor. His wife as well as the whole manage­ment team are still active in the manage­ment and support KORIAN Germany with their know-how.

Advi­sor to KORIAN Deutsch­land AG: Bird & Bird, Munich
Lead Part­ner Stefan Münch, Coun­sel Michael Gaßner, Asso­ciate Marcel Nurk (all Corporate/M&A, Munich) and Asso­ciate Jan Medele (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Alex­an­der Duis­berg and Asso­ciate Goek­han Kosak (both Commer­cial, Munich), Part­ner Thomas Hey and Asso­ciate Alisa Nent­wig (both Labor Law, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Stephan Wald­heim and Asso­ciate Marcio da Silva Lima (both Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Part­ner Dr. Markus Körner (Trade­mark, Munich).

Bird & Bird alre­ady advi­sed KORIAN Deutsch­land AG last year on the acqui­si­tion of the care divi­sion of Quali­vita AG.

News

Berlin — Seven Senders, the leading deli­very plat­form for parcel ship­ping in Europe, looks back on a successful 2020 and has closed a Series C follow-on round of €32 million. As in the previous finan­cing round, the lead inves­tor is Digi­tal+ Part­ners, which toge­ther with btov is cove­ring the finan­cing needs of the Berlin-based scale-up. Seven Senders will use the inflow of capi­tal for further tech­ni­cal expan­sion and to conti­nue its inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy. Among other things, there are plans to support the Euro­pean busi­ness of Chinese and US online retail­ers with central service hubs.

With its focus on cross-border ship­ping, Seven Senders bene­fi­ted greatly from the expan­sion of Euro­pean online retail­ing last year. Sales have doubled since March 2020. In line with its growth target, the company recently opened new coun­try offices in Amster­dam, Vienna and Madrid. In addi­tion, Seven Senders has been offe­ring a solu­tion for ship­ping to the UK since Febru­ary 2021, ensu­ring the smooth move­ment of goods after Brexit.

With its network of over 100 local premium parcel deli­very compa­nies, the Seven Senders deli­very plat­form opti­mi­zes retail­ers’ ship­ping proces­ses to all Euro­pean count­ries. The entire network is acces­si­ble via a stan­dar­di­zed inter­face. With mini­mal comple­xity, the best possi­ble ship­ping in Europe is ensu­red for each package. This provi­des every ship­per with fast, relia­ble and afforda­ble deli­very, adapted to the needs of the end custo­mer. Excel­lent moni­to­ring, track­ing, and ship­ping-rela­ted commu­ni­ca­ti­ons round out the custo­mer expe­ri­ence. The fact that the solu­tion has been well recei­ved by the market is demons­tra­ted by the nine-figure annual sales that have now been achie­ved, as well as well-known custo­mers such as ASOS, Shop Apotheke, Lilly­doo, Mister Spex, Juniqe, Flaconi, West­wing, Best Secret, food­spring, Limango and Thomann.

Dr. Johan­nes Plehn, foun­der and co-CEO of Seven Senders: “Last year, we consis­t­ently pursued our growth stra­tegy. Thanks to invest­ments in tech­no­logy and employees, we were able to help our custo­mers cope with the enorm­ous increase in demand in online retail­ing in the wake of the Corona pande­mic. We will conti­nue to take advan­tage of the posi­tive market deve­lo­p­ment and expand our services, also with a view to retail­ers outside the Euro­pean Econo­mic Area. We are placing maxi­mum focus on this development.”

Patrick Beitel, Mana­ging Direc­tor and Part­ner of Digi­tal+ Part­ners: “Seven Senders’ sophisti­ca­ted tech­no­logy and the high level of logi­stics exper­tise of all parties invol­ved convin­ced us from the very begin­ning. Our assess­ment has been more than confirmed over the past 18 months: In expan­ding its inter­na­tio­nal ship­ping, Seven Senders has taken advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties that have arisen from the over­all posi­tive market deve­lo­p­ment. We are ther­e­fore plea­sed to conti­nue to jointly drive Seven Senders’ growth to become Europe’s number one in parcel shipping.”

About Digi­tal+ Partners

Digi­tal+ Part­ners is a leading inves­tor and growth capi­tal specia­list focu­sed on Euro­pean and US tech­no­logy compa­nies; assets under manage­ment amount to €350 million. Digi­tal+ helps ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs build global tech­no­logy busi­nesses, provi­ding stra­te­gic advice and long-term finan­cial support to help them define and execute their growth plans. The fund focu­ses exclu­si­vely on B2B tech­no­logy compa­nies and lever­a­ges an exten­sive corpo­rate network to help port­fo­lio compa­nies enter new markets and build new part­ner­ships. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.dplus.partners.

About btov

btov Part­ners, foun­ded in 2000, is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm focu­sed on digi­tal and indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies. btov’s network of entre­pre­neu­rial private inves­tors provi­des her unique exper­tise and access to non-obvious invest­ment topics and foun­ders. The btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies Fund focu­ses on hard­ware and soft­ware inno­va­tions with indus­trial use cases such as auto­ma­tion, robo­tics, data analy­tics, indus­trial AI, addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring and quan­tum compu­ting. The btov Digi­tal Tech­no­lo­gies Fund focu­ses on start­ups in AI, fintech, SaaS, logi­stics and digi­tal market­places. btov has seen very early waves of inno­va­tion such as Machine Lear­ning or Fintech and is one of the most successful funders of AI compa­nies in Europe.

The company, with offices in Berlin, Munich, St. Gallen and Luxem­bourg, mana­ges capi­tal of 510 million euros. The network of private inves­tors consists of 250 expe­ri­en­ced entre­pre­neurs and execu­ti­ves from all over Europe. Among the best-known invest­ments are Seven Senders, Black­lane, Data Artisans, DeepL, Face­book, Food­spring, ORCAM, Raisin, SumUp, Volo­c­op­ter and XING. www.btov.vc

About SEVEN SENDERS GmbH

SEVEN SENDERS is the leading deli­very plat­form for parcel ship­ping. The company connects ship­pers with its carrier network of more than 100 parcel deli­very compa­nies in Europe, enab­ling excel­lent local ship­ping as a compe­ti­tive advan­tage. With addi­tio­nal ship­ping services, such as claims center, insu­rance, returns portal and labels, SEVEN SENDERS makes inter­na­tio­nal ship­ping a simple matter. Auto­ma­ted ship­ping noti­fi­ca­ti­ons, track­ing and moni­to­ring solu­ti­ons ensure a trans­pa­rent ship­ping process. Monthly reports and analy­ses enable data-based opti­miza­tion of inter­na­tio­nal ship­ping perfor­mance. Ship­pers get ever­y­thing from a single source and reduce comple­xity. www.sevensenders.com.

Advi­sor Seven Senders: Vogel Heerma Waitz

Dr. Clemens Waitz and Lorenz Frey, both partners.

About Vogel Heerma Waitz

Vogel Heerma Waitz is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media. www.v14.de

News

Lands­hut / Munich — Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, is inves­t­ing in Virto­nomy as part of a seed finan­cing round. The digi­tal health startup is deve­lo­ping an inno­va­tive, data­base-driven soft­ware-as-a-service (SaaS) solu­tion for medi­cal device manu­fac­tu­r­ers. Manu­fac­tu­r­ers can use Virto­nomy to bring their products to market faster and more cost-effec­tively by simu­la­ting neces­sary tests or studies on the compu­ter during deve­lo­p­ment. The lead inves­tor in the seven-figure round is Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures. In addi­tion to Bayern Kapi­tal, the Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and Plug and Play have also inves­ted in the young company from Munich’s WERK1.

Conven­tio­nal appr­oval proces­ses for medi­cal devices are time-consum­ing and costly. They are also often linked to ethi­cally ques­tionable expe­ri­ments on animals, and later on, risky human trials are often requi­red. The curr­ently more than 10 employees of Virto­nomy GmbH have ther­e­fore set them­sel­ves the goal of making these appr­oval proces­ses faster, more cost-effec­tive and safer. The company, foun­ded in 2019 and based in Munich’s WERK1, deve­lops data­base-based simu­la­tion solu­ti­ons for this purpose. The idea comes from the auto­mo­tive indus­try: instead of taking measu­re­ments while driving, a large part of the test­ing is done virtually. This allows more tests in less time and with more itera­ti­ons. Virto­nomy brings this prin­ci­ple to medi­cal tech­no­logy: The company builds virtual, custo­mizable anato­mies of human bodies. Manu­fac­tu­r­ers of medi­cal devices (for exam­ple, implants) can use Virto­nomy to test their tech­no­lo­gies on this virtual pati­ent at all stages of deve­lo­p­ment — from the concept phase to precli­ni­cal evalua­tion to long-term moni­to­ring in wide­spread pati­ent use. In this way, Virto­nomy can help to reduce the deve­lo­p­ment time and costs of medi­cal tech­no­logy products. At the same time, thanks to the large number of tests perfor­med virtually, a smal­ler number of animal and human tests are neces­sary in further development.

Virto­nomy plans to invest the funds from the seed round in the further tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment of the product, the recruit­ment of addi­tio­nal employees and the expan­sion of the constantly expan­ding database.

“From the begin­ning, we wanted to deve­lop a solu­tion that not only had econo­mic bene­fits, but also social bene­fits,” explains Dr. Simon Sonn­tag, CEO of Virto­nomy. “The deve­lo­p­ment of new medi­cal tech­no­logy products conti­nues to be parti­cu­larly time-consum­ing and cost-inten­sive. That’s why young compa­nies like us that want to make a diffe­rence in this indus­try are also depen­dent on strong capi­tal support during the start-up and growth phase. We are ther­e­fore deligh­ted to have attrac­ted a consor­tium of indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced inves­tors to our vision in Dieter von Holtz­brinck Ventures, Bayern Kapi­tal, Initia­tive for Indus­trial Inno­va­tors and Plug and Play.”

Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “In the digi­tiza­tion of health­care, there is still enorm­ous poten­tial for deve­lo­ping inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and buil­ding market leaders. Digi­tal health start-ups are inte­res­t­ing for venture capi­tal inves­tors because their products usually offer calculable deve­lo­p­ment times and good scala­bi­lity. In addi­tion, the appr­oval process is some­what easier than for medtech hard­ware. Virto­nomy scores points in seve­ral ways with its inno­va­tive idea: a promi­sing, scalable product with the poten­tial to make the deve­lo­p­ment of medi­cal devices more effi­ci­ent, faster and safer. We see enorm­ous growth poten­tial here.”

About Virto­nomy
Virto­nomy GmbH was foun­ded in Decem­ber 2019 by Dr. Simon Sonn­tag (CEO) and Wen-Yang Chu (CTO) in Munich, Germany. Virto­nomy is deve­lo­ping a cloud-based SaaS solu­tion for digi­tiz­ing the design and conduct of clini­cal trials of medi­cal devices using virtual pati­ents based on a high volume of imaging, physio­lo­gi­cal and patho­lo­gi­cal data. The over­all goal here is to end animal and human test­ing in clini­cal trials through the use of data-based virtual pati­ents. Virto­nomy curr­ently employs about 10 people, combi­ning exper­tise in medi­cal engi­nee­ring, medi­cal image proces­sing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, nume­ri­cal simu­la­tion and visua­liza­tion using exten­ded reality. www.virtonomy.io

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges twelve invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 500 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 350 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 290 inno­va­tive tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. www.bayernkapital.de

News

Hofbieber/Munich (DE), Antwerp (BE) — Gimv invests in the Apra­xon Group, a leading home­care company focu­sed on wound care in Germany. The tran­sac­tion, which has alre­ady been comple­ted, is part of a joint growth plan with the company’s foun­der and CEO, Oliver Pokrze­win­ski, who will conti­nue to be a key share­hol­der in the company.

Apra­xon, (Hofbie­ber (DE) — apraxon.com), offers high-quality wound care for (mainly elderly) people with chro­nic wounds in the home­care sector. Typi­cal wound indi­ca­ti­ons are decu­bi­tus, diabe­tic foot or ulcus cruris. In this context, the company acts as a link between pati­ents, doctors, nursing service/home and the health insu­rance companies.

Due to its high degree of specia­liza­tion, Apra­xon provi­des a conti­nuously high quality of medi­cal care and is able to tailor the treat­ment process to the indi­vi­dual needs of each pati­ent. In a market with steadily rising pati­ent numbers, driven prima­rily by demo­gra­phic change, specia­li­zed medi­cal care is beco­ming incre­asingly important. The services are reim­bur­sed by health insu­rance compa­nies, for which Apra­xon has been a relia­ble part­ner for many years.

“I am convin­ced that Gimv is the right part­ner to realize the company’s growth ambi­ti­ons and expand Apraxon’s presence in Germany,” said Oliver Pokrze­win­ski, Mana­ging Direc­tor and CEO of Apraxon.

“Thanks to Apraxon’s clear commit­ment to quality, the above-average quali­fi­ca­tion of their nursing staff and their highly digi­ta­li­zed and scalable proces­ses, we are convin­ced that Apra­xon is the right plat­form to build a true market leader in German wound care. We are very much looking forward to support­ing Mr. Pokrze­win­ski and the entire Apra­xon team in imple­men­ting their ambi­tious growth plans,” says Phil­ipp v. Hammer­stein, Part­ner at Gimv in the Health & Care team in Munich.

The new invest­ment is alre­ady Gimv’s fifth acqui­si­tion in the German-spea­king health­care market within the last four years. Gimv curr­ently holds a total of 23 invest­ments in compa­nies in the health­care and life scien­ces sector. With this acqui­si­tion, Gimv once again under­lines its posi­tion as one of the most active Euro­pean inves­tors in the health­care indus­try and its ambi­tion to posi­tively contri­bute to the United Nati­ons goals; in this case “Health and Well­be­ing”. The Gimv port­fo­lio also includes seve­ral hospi­tal and prac­tice groups as well as medi­cal tech­no­logy and biotech companies.

ABOUT GIMV
Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company with 40 years of expe­ri­ence in private equity. The company is listed on Euron­ext Brussels, curr­ently mana­ges around EUR 2.0 billion and curr­ently invests in 55 port­fo­lio compa­nies, which toge­ther gene­rate reve­nues of more than EUR 2.5 billion and employ 14,000 people. Gimv’s aspi­ra­tion to make a posi­tive value contri­bu­tion to society is reflec­ted, among other things, in the recently successfully laun­ched Sustainable Bond.

Gimv iden­ti­fies inno­va­tive, leading compa­nies with high growth poten­tial and supports them sustain­ably on their way to market leader­ship. Each of the four invest­ment plat­forms Consu­mer, Health & Care, Smart Indus­tries and Sustainable Cities is mana­ged by a dedi­ca­ted and compe­tent team, each based in Gimv’s home markets — Bene­lux, France and DACH — and supported by an exten­sive inter­na­tio­nal network of experts.

News

Schwab­mün­chen — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed the family-owned Ritter Group on the sale of the company to US tech­no­logy group Avan­tor. The purchase price is appro­xi­m­ately €890 million, subject to further payments depen­ding on the achie­ve­ment of certain perfor­mance-based mile­sto­nes. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the 3rd quar­ter of 2021.

Ritter is head­quar­te­red in Schwab­mün­chen, Germany, and is one of the fastest growing manu­fac­tu­r­ers of high-quality consu­ma­bles for liquid hand­ling, auto­ma­ted analy­sis and clini­cal test­ing, inclu­ding conduc­tive pipette tips. These consu­ma­bles are central to a variety of mole­cu­lar scree­ning and diagno­stic appli­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding real-time poly­me­rase chain reac­tion (PCR), or as part of drug deve­lo­p­ment and clini­cal trials for phar­maceu­ti­cal and
Biotech­no­logy Research.

Avan­tor is a New York Stock Exch­ange-listed global leader in products and services used in key rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring acti­vi­ties by custo­mers in the high-tech­no­logy, biotech­no­logy, health­care and public sectors. Globally, the company serves 225,000 custo­mer sites and works with rese­arch labo­ra­to­ries and scien­tists in more than 180 countries.

Advi­sor Ritter: Gleiss Lutz
Dr. Jochen Tyrolt (Part­ner, Stutt­gart), Dr. Chris­tian Cascante (Part­ner, Frank­furt, both Lead), Johan­nes Schrägle (Coun­sel, Stutt­gart), Dr. Patrick Moss­ler (Part­ner), Dr. Daniel Heck (Coun­sel, both Hamburg), Florian Schorn (Munich), Dr. Lucas Hert­neck, Nikolas
Frey (both Stutt­gart, all M&A), Dr. Dirk Wasmann (Part­ner, Stutt­gart), Dr. Thors­ten Gayk (Coun­sel, Hamburg, both Corpo­rate), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner), Dr. Thomas Büche­ler (both Tax, Hamburg), Dr. Doris-Maria Schus­ter (Part­ner), Dr. Daniela Mayr (both Hamburg), Prof. Dr. Martin Diller (Part­ner), Dr. Sebas­tian Ernst (both Stutt­gart, all Labor Law), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Dr. Matthias Schilde, Jan Hinrichs (all IP/IT), Dr. Chris­tian Hamann (Part­ner), Simon Wegmann (both Data Protec­tion Law), Dr. Enno Burk (Coun­sel), Dr. Chris­tina Fröb
(both Health­care, all Berlin), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs (both Foreign Trade Law, both Düssel­dorf), Dr. Moritz Holm-Hadulla (Part­ner), Dr. Andreas Schüs­sel (both Anti­trust), Dr. Simon Wagner (Coun­sel, Dispute Reso­lu­tion, all Stutt­gart), Frank Schlo­b­ach (Part­ner), Dr. Thomas Kulzer (Coun­sel, both Finance), Konrad Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, all Frankfurt).

Gleiss Lutz worked as lead coun­sel with teams in various jurisdictions.

About Gleiss Lutz 

Gleiss Lutz regu­larly advi­ses family-owned compa­nies on large-volume sales tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the owners of ZKW on the sale of the company to the Korean tech­no­logy group LG for EUR 1.1 billion or the owners of Getrag on the sale to Magna for EUR 1.75 billion.

News

Düssel­dorf — A Deloitte Legal team led by Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner) and Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel; both Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf) advi­sed the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor Main Capi­tal on its invest­ment in the finan­cial services soft­ware provi­der FOCONIS.

FOCONIS is a leading provi­der of data quality, control and compli­ance soft­ware that supports finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons — prima­rily in German-spea­king count­ries — in their inter­nal report­ing and in meeting regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. The company’s more than 600 custo­mers include private banks and asso­cia­ti­ons, as well as savings banks and coope­ra­tive banks.

Main Capi­tal will support FOCONIS and the manage­ment team to further streng­then the exis­ting market posi­tion and conti­nue the strong growth trajec­tory by expan­ding into adja­cent custo­mer segments with high regu­la­tory and data quality requi­re­ments. In addi­tion to orga­nic growth initia­ti­ves, selec­tive acqui­si­ti­ons also repre­sent an important pillar of growth.

About FOCONIS

FOCONIS is a leading provi­der of data quality, control and compli­ance soft­ware for banks, desi­gned to help finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons with inter­nal report­ing and regu­la­tory requi­re­ments. The solu­tion is focu­sed on finan­cial insti­tu­ti­ons in German-spea­king count­ries and is curr­ently used by over 600 custo­mers in the finan­cial services indus­try. The company’s main product, FOCONIS-ZAK®, conso­li­da­tes data from various sources, in parti­cu­lar public stock exch­ange data, data from banking asso­cia­ti­ons, data available directly from the custo­mer or other (un)structured data . The system then analy­zes and controls the proces­sed data by apply­ing an exten­sive set of rules. If conspi­cuous busi­ness tran­sac­tions are iden­ti­fied, FOCONIS-ZAK® initia­tes the reso­lu­tion of compli­ance issues accor­ding to a firmly defi­ned process inclu­ding escala­tion paths. The checked and correc­ted data is then auto­ma­ti­cally updated in the customer’s respec­tive core banking system. The company was foun­ded in 2000 and curr­ently employs 80 people.

About Main Capital

Main Capi­tal is a stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor with an exclu­sive focus on the soft­ware sector in the Bene­lux, DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. Within this sector, Main Capi­tal is the most specia­li­zed entity for manage­ment buyouts and growth capi­tal for stra­te­gic late-stage acqui­si­ti­ons. Main Capi­tal mana­ges invest­ments worth appro­xi­m­ately €1 billion in estab­lished and growing soft­ware compa­nies in the Nether­lands, the DACH region and Scan­di­na­via. An expe­ri­en­ced team of specia­lists mana­ges these private equity funds from offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf and Stockholm.

Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen have been advi­sing Main Capi­tal since the begin­ning of its expan­sion into Germany and have alre­ady assis­ted the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor in a number of plat­form and add-on acqui­si­ti­ons. Deals advi­sed by Deloitte Legal’s M&A lawy­ers include acqui­si­ti­ons of stakes in fast-growing German soft­ware and SaaS compa­nies such as b+m Infor­ma­tik (finan­cial services), arte­gic (marke­ting auto­ma­tion), JobRou­ter (process auto­ma­tion), Clever­soft (GRC for finan­cial services), HYPE Inno­va­tion (inno­va­tion management/collaboration), GBTEC (process automation/workflow management/ GRC), Onven­tis (procu­re­ment & Invoice Manage­ment) and HLP Infor­ma­tion Manage­ment (Idea and Inno­va­tion Manage­ment Software).

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal: Deloitte Legal
Max Lüer­ßen (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf Co-Lead); Frauke Heudt­lass (Part­ner, Labor Law, Düssel­dorf); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Alex­an­der Roehl, LL.M. (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Leonie Onkel­bach (Asso­ciate, Labor Law, Düsseldorf .

Consul­tant FOCONIS: POELLATH
Phil­ipp von Braun­schweig (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich, Lead), Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich), Andrea Strei­fen­e­der, (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich).


About Deloitte

Deloitte provi­des audi­ting, risk advi­sory, tax advi­sory, finan­cial advi­sory and consul­ting services to compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons from all sectors of the economy; Legal advice is provi­ded in Germany by Deloitte Legal. With a global network of member compa­nies in more than 150 count­ries, Deloitte combi­nes excel­lence with world-class perfor­mance and helps clients solve their complex busi­ness chal­lenges. Making an impact that matters – for around 312,000 Deloitte employees, this is a common mission state­ment and indi­vi­dual ambi­tion at the same time.

News

Dortmund/ Colo­gne — With a team led by Dr. Oliver Bött­cher and Kris­tina Schnei­der from the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG on a merger with wallbe AG. The closing of the tran­sac­tion and the combi­na­tion of Compleo’s and wallbe’s opera­ti­ons are expec­ted to take place before the end of April. The merger of the compa­nies, whose products and services comple­ment each other, is expec­ted to create a major provi­der of char­ging solu­ti­ons in Europe. With the merger, Compleo and wallbe streng­then their leading posi­tion on the German market and in Europe.

Compleo will acquire 100 percent of the shares in wallbe in return for payment of appro­xi­m­ately one-third in Compleo shares, and appro­xi­m­ately two-thirds in cash from exis­ting liqui­dity. The two previous and largest owners of wallbe, ener­city AG (around 50 percent) and Weid­mül­ler Mobi­lity Concepts GmbH & Co. KG (around 26 percent), as well as Dr. Domi­nik Freund, will remain invol­ved in Compleo as new shareholders.

Compleo is a leading provi­der of char­ging solu­ti­ons for elec­tric vehic­les. In doing so, the company supports complete solu­tion provi­ders with its char­ging stati­ons and, if requi­red, also with the plan­ning, instal­la­tion, main­ten­ance, service or backend of the char­ging infra­struc­ture. Compleo’s offe­ring includes both AC and DC char­ging stati­ons. DC char­ging stati­ons from Compleo are the first DC char­ging stati­ons on the market that comply with cali­bra­tion regu­la­ti­ons. The company deve­lops and manu­fac­tures all products at its Dort­mund site. In doing so, the manu­fac­tu­rer focu­ses on inno­va­tion, safety, consu­mer-friend­li­ness and cost-effec­ti­ve­ness. Compleo star­ted produc­tion of the first char­ging stati­ons in 2009. The fast-growing company is head­quar­te­red in Dort­mund and curr­ently employs over 260 people. Since Octo­ber 2020, Compleo has been listed in the Prime Stan­dard segment of the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange (ISIN: DE000A2QDNX9).

The Böttcher/Schneider team alre­ady advi­sed the current majo­rity share­hol­der and part of the manage­ment on the acqui­si­tion of the stake in the then EBG compleo GmbH at the end of 2019. In the context of the current merger, Compleo’s advice included full advice on the acqui­si­tion, due dili­gence, contract docu­men­ta­tion, inclu­ding the exch­ange of shares carried out, up to the closing.

Advi­sors to Compleo Char­ging Solu­ti­ons AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher (Lead Partner),
Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M.,
Dr. Phil­ipp Jansen,
Dr. Chris­toph Schork, LL.M.,
Anna Schä­fer (all corporate/M&A), all Cologne
Dr. Thors­ten Kuthe,
Meike Dres­ler-Lenz (both Capi­tal Markets), both Cologne
Dr. Ruben Hofmann (IP), Cologne
Dr. Sascha Sche­wiola (Labor Law), Cologne
Dr. Lutz Keppe­ler (IT), Cologne
Tim Peter­mann (Sales Law),
Fabian G. Gaffron (Taxes), both Hamburg
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (anti­trust law), Düsseldorf
Klaus Weinand-Härer
Adam Brock­mann (both Tax Due Dili­gence), both Frankfurt

News

Hamburg / Schwa­bach / Roth — Pack­a­ging mate­ri­als and folding carton manu­fac­tu­rer Leupold is ente­ring its first part­ner­ship under the aegis of private equity firm Water­land Private Equity, which acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Leupold in August 2020. In the future, Stro­bel AG, a manu­fac­tu­rer of folding cartons and card­board pack­a­ging with a special focus on sustaina­bi­lity, will comple­ment the product range of the pack­a­ging manu­fac­tu­rer. With Waterland’s support, the two compa­nies will increase their custo­mer segments and geogra­phic reach, and mutually leverage and further expand product inno­va­tions. The current Stro­bel owners, Fried­rich and Monika Bech­told, will remain on board as part of a tran­si­tion phase.

Stro­bel, based in Roth, was foun­ded in 1894. Over the years, the long-estab­lished company has deve­lo­ped into a specia­li­zed supplier of carton­board pack­a­ging and rela­ted services for the consu­mer and food indus­tries. Stro­bel AG’s product range, which can be indi­vi­du­ally adapted to speci­fic custo­mer requi­re­ments, extends from folding boxes to displays. Stro­bel also offers its custo­mers a range of services in areas such as pack­a­ging and logistics.

Stro­bel places a special focus on sustaina­bi­lity and climate neutra­lity in deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion: Stro­bel has alre­ady been certi­fied and awarded seve­ral times for its achie­ve­ments in this area, for exam­ple with first place in the Energy Turn­around Award of the city of Roth and the German Pack­a­ging Award 2020. Stro­bel was also the first Bava­rian pack­a­ging company to become comple­tely climate-neutral. The company’s custo­mers include renow­ned manu­fac­tu­r­ers of bran­ded goods in the sports, fitness and well­ness, food and pet food, and toy sectors.

Foun­ded in Schwa­bach in 1910, Joh. Leupold GmbH & Co. KG is one of the leading German suppli­ers of indi­vi­dual pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons made of card­board and focu­ses on the design and manu­fac­ture of folding cartons, blis­ter cards, blanks, corru­ga­ted pack­a­ging, displays and erec­ting boxes. The company is one of the largest medium-sized folding carton manu­fac­tu­r­ers and produ­ces around 1.5 million pack­a­ging solu­ti­ons daily for brand manu­fac­tu­r­ers in Germany, Europe and the USA.

“With Leupold and Water­land, we have found the ideal part­ners for our further deve­lo­p­ment. As part of a larger group, there are new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to expand our produc­tion capa­bi­li­ties, enter new markets and further deve­lop our busi­ness model. We are looking forward to the coope­ra­tion,” says Fried­rich Bech­told, CEO of Stro­bel AG.

“The part­ner­ship with Stro­bel is a natu­ral next step on our contin­ued growth path, which we have now been able to realize with the support of Water­land,” says Michael Fuchs, one of Leupold’s mana­ging direc­tors. “Not only thanks to the geogra­phi­cal proxi­mity — Strobel’s head­quar­ters in Roth is only ten kilo­me­ters away from Leupold — this coope­ra­tion offers nume­rous poten­ti­als to bundle and further deve­lop our resour­ces and exper­tise in the areas of deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and sales,” adds Thomas Göll­ner, also Mana­ging Direc­tor of Leupold.

“Leupold alre­ady has a strong posi­tio­ning in the Euro­pean carton­board pack­a­ging market, which we intend to expand into market leader­ship in the areas of quality, inno­va­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and service. A buy & build stra­tegy, which we have now laun­ched with the acqui­si­tion of Stro­bel, is an essen­tial part of our growth stra­tegy. In parti­cu­lar, the high focus on sustaina­bi­lity and climate neutra­lity convin­ced us of Stro­bel as a very good fit,” says Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner of Waterland.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over eight billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of “Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020” at the PE Awards.

News

London/ Brigh­ton — MPB, the world’s largest resel­ler of photo and video kit, has raised £49.8 million in its latest funding round, led by Vitru­vian Part­ners with parti­ci­pa­tion from current inves­tor Acton Capi­tal, joining exis­ting inves­tors Mobeus Equity Part­ners, Berin­gea and FJ Labs.

Foun­ded in Brigh­ton in 2011, MPB is a stand­out driver of the crea­tor economy groun­ded in a busi­ness model of circu­la­rity that deli­vers both econo­mic and envi­ron­men­tal sustaina­bi­lity. Recir­cu­la­ting 300,000 items of kit globally each year, MPB has trans­for­med access to photo and video kit by offe­ring a tech­no­logy-based, custo­mer-centric service that remo­ves the risk and uncer­tainty atta­ched to using many of its competitors.

Matt Barker, Foun­der and CEO, MPB said: “This funding round is a major mile­stone for MPB culmi­na­ting a decade of strong perfor­mance and a vision to make great kit acces­si­ble and affordable.

With the back­ing of Vitru­vian Part­ners and those reinves­t­ing in our busi­ness we can acce­le­rate our US and Euro­pean growth stra­tegy at scale, profi­ta­bly. Photo­gra­phy and video­gra­phy are intrin­sic to socie­ties and cultures all over the world, and at MPB we have crea­ted a circu­lar model that offers ever­yone the chance to be visual storytel­lers and content crea­tors in a way that’s good for the planet.”

The used kit market is in a period of signi­fi­cant expan­sion as more consu­mers purchase sustain­ably in the circu­lar economy. With estab­lished loca­ti­ons in the UK, US and Germany, MPB is well-posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of this growing trend. The new wave of funding will allow the company to focus on new product deve­lo­p­ments and tech­no­logy that broa­den the ways in which people can access kit, and bols­ter exis­ting opera­ti­ons to bring more kit to more people.

Tom Studd, Part­ner at Vitru­vian Part­nersthe inde­pen­dent growth-focu­sed private equity firm, said: “MPB has deve­lo­ped a unique tech-enab­led plat­form to meet a market need, trans­forming access to photo­gra­phy kit to become a global leader in its field, whilst buil­ding a product that genui­nely has a posi­tive impact on the world. Matt and the team have achie­ved strong and profi­ta­ble growth through recent laun­ches in the US and Germany, and we’re deligh­ted to part­ner with them for the next step of the jour­ney. Vitru­vian looks to back excep­tio­nal teams with unique products in large markets, and we believe Matt and the team fit those crite­ria perfectly.”

Vitru­vian Part­ners, which has previously inves­ted in successful circu­lar compa­nies inclu­ding Vesti­aire Coll­ec­tive as well as house­hold names Carwow, Just Eat, Farfetch, Skyscan­ner and Trust­pi­lot, beco­mes MPB’s largest share­hol­der and is supported in this round by exis­ting inves­tor, Acton Capi­tal. Mobeus Equity Part­ners, which first inves­ted in MPB during its Series A funding and remains MPB’s second largest insti­tu­tio­nal share­hol­der, has parti­ally exited. Berin­gea and FJ Labs remain involved.

Sebas­tian Wossagk, Mana­ging Part­ner at Acton Capi­talsaid: “It’s always a privi­lege to watch compa­nies like MPB grow and excel in their field. Matt and his team have alre­ady taken the first steps into inter­na­tio­na­li­sa­tion by opening loca­ti­ons in Brook­lyn and Berlin, and we’re exci­ted to support them as they pursue further expan­sion in both the US and Europe.”

Arma Part­ners has acted as exclu­sive finan­cial advi­sor to MPB on the £50m invest­ment led by Vitru­vian Part­ners, with parti­ci­pa­tion from exis­ting inves­tor Acton Capital.

About Arma Partners
Arma Part­ners provi­des inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance advice to compa­nies and inves­tors active in the global Digi­tal Economy. We act as trus­ted advi­sors to Digi­tal Economy leaders throug­hout their entire corpo­rate life­cy­cle, from raising private capi­tal for fast-growing disrup­t­ers and foun­der-led busi­nesses to orchest­ra­ting complex cross-border M&A deals for private equity inves­tors and global large-cap public compa­nies. Foun­ded in 2003, Arma today employs a large dedi­ca­ted advi­sory team with unpar­al­le­led domain exper­tise and an envia­ble track record in each of the diverse sub-segments that toge­ther comprise the ever-expan­ding global Digi­tal Economy.

News

WeWork has agreed to go public through a merger with blank-check firm BowX Acqui­si­tion Corp in a deal that values the office-sharing startup at $9 billion inclu­ding debt.

It marks a steep drop from the $47 billion that WeWork was valued for a listing in 2019, ahead of a botched listing plan that implo­ded due to inves­tor concerns over its busi­ness model and its foun­der Adam Neumann’s manage­ment style.

Even though WeWork has long lost billi­ons of dollars, it always found ways to attract huge invest­ments from deep-pocke­ted inves­tors. Now, less than two years after it was rescued from a collapse, the co-working company has found yet another backer willing to over­look its losses. The company announ­ced on Friday that it had agreed to merge with a blank-check firm in a deal that would give it a listing on the stock market it was denied when it was forced to shelve an initial public offe­ring as inves­tors ques­tio­ned its finan­cial strength and dubious gover­nance practices.

Instead of a tradi­tio­nal I.P.O., WeWork is merging with BowX Acqui­si­tion, a company listed on the stock exch­ange for the sole purpose of buying a busi­ness, in a type of deal that has become hugely popu­lar in recent months. Inves­tors, bankers, and even cele­bri­ties and athle­tes have rushed to float such special purpose acqui­si­tion compa­nies, or SPACs, because they offer their crea­tors a chance to mint huge profits rela­tively quickly. And merging with these vehic­les is attrac­tive to compa­nies like WeWork because they provide an express lane onto the stock market without the obsta­cles that scuttled WeWork’s public offe­ring in Septem­ber 2019.

A SPAC is a shell firm that uses proceeds from a public listing to buy a private firm and WeWork is the latest in a slew of high-profile compa­nies that have taken this route to the markets.

“There have been doubts raised about its busi­ness model, and those doubts may be diffi­cult to address in an I.P.O. road­show,” said Michael Klaus­ner, a Stan­ford busi­ness profes­sor, refer­ring to the presen­ta­ti­ons that compa­nies give to mutual funds, pension mangers and other insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors before a public offe­ring. SPACs are “highly proble­ma­tic” because their struc­ture can encou­rage buyers to over­pay, hurting share­hol­ders in return, he said.

In 2021 only, 295 SPACs had gone public (USA, source New York Times), raising $93 billion and brea­king last year’s record in a matter of months. Because so many of these compa­nies are now out there, some have tried to use star power to get busi­nesses to enter­tain their merger offers.

WeWork said the deal with BowX gave it an equity value of $7.9 billion, far less than the nearly USD 50 billion value that its inves­tors placed on the company in 2019. WeWork will receive $1.3 billion in cash from the deal, inclu­ding $800 million from Insight Part­ners, Star­wood Capi­tal Group, Black­Rock and other investors.

WeWork will fetch $1.3 billion in cash from the latest deal, inclu­ding $800 million in private invest­ment from Insight Part­ners, funds mana­ged by Star­wood Capi­tal, Fide­lity Manage­ment and others.

News

Munich — In March 2021, funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (BU) were able to conclude agree­ments to acquire a majo­rity stake in ACTICO, a leading inter­na­tio­nal provi­der of soft­ware for intel­li­gent process auto­ma­tion and digi­tal decis­ion-making. ACTICO’s manage­ment and share­hol­ders will retain a signi­fi­cant equity stake in the company. McDer­mott Will & Emery provi­ded legal advice to the share­hol­ders of ACTICO on the sale to Bregal Unternehmerkapital.

ACTICO is a leading RegTech soft­ware provi­der offe­ring intel­li­gent decis­ion auto­ma­tion, espe­ci­ally for the banking and finan­cial services indus­try. The company sells its solu­ti­ons to custo­mers in over 25 count­ries world­wide. ACTICO was crea­ted in 2015 through a carve-out from the Bosch Group and today employs around 140 people at its head­quar­ters in Immenstaad on Lake Cons­tance and other bran­ches in the USA and Singapore.

The soft­ware plat­form is used in parti­cu­lar in the areas of risk manage­ment, regu­la­tory and compli­ance, fraud protec­tion, custo­mer loyalty and process opti­miza­tion. In parti­cu­lar, ACTICO excels in proces­sing large amounts of data and in deve­lo­ping relia­ble, robust and easily scalable applications.

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal invests in medium-sized compa­nies in a wide range of indus­tries in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and Nort­hern Italy. The focus is on market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth potential.

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal GmbH was foun­ded in 2015 by Florian Schick and Jan-Daniel Neumann. The funds they advise support entre­pre­neurs family busi­nesses. The focus is on majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments and growth finan­cing, prima­rily in medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria, Switz­er­land and nort­hern Italy — the “Mittel­stand”. These invest­ments are inde­pen­dent of deve­lo­p­ments on the finan­cial markets. With pati­ent capi­tal, entre­pre­neu­rial exper­tise and part­ner­ship-based dialo­gue, BU aims to focus on growing its invest­ments and helping them create sustainable value. Parti­cu­larly important are finan­cial stabi­lity, a high degree of flexi­bi­lity, short decis­ion-making paths and a high degree of entre­pre­neu­rial free­dom for the companies.

Consul­tant Share­hol­der of ACTICO
McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich: Dr. Cars­ten Böhm (Lead, Corpo­rate), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax, Frank­furt), Nina Siewert (Tax, Frank­furt), Dr. Sandra Urban-Crell (Labor, Düssel­dorf), Stef­fen Woitz (IP), Dr. Germar Enders (Coun­sel; Corpo­rate); Asso­cia­tes: Frank Weiß, Bene­dikt Gloß­ner (both Corporate)

About McDer­mott Will & Emery
McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm. With over 1,200 attor­neys, we are repre­sen­ted in 21 loca­ti­ons world­wide: Atlanta, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Düssel­dorf, Frank­furt a. M., Hous­ton, Colo­gne, London, Los Ange­les, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Paris, San Fran­cisco, Sili­con Valley, Washing­ton, D.C. and Wilm­ing­ton. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. www.mwe.com

News

Berlin — Berlin-based y42 (form­erly known as Datos Intel­li­gence) has successfully closed a $2.9 million seed funding round. Lead inves­tor was the venture capi­tal fund La Fami­glia, other inves­tors were the co-foun­ders of Food­spring, Perso­nio and Petlab.

Foun­ded in 2020 and based in Berlin, startup y42 is a colla­bo­ra­tive data plat­form that brings toge­ther tech­ni­cal and non-tech­ni­cal users to load, cleanse, connect, visua­lize and share data. The all-in-one tool enables users to inte­grate hundreds of data sources and build a scalable data infra­struc­ture without programming. Y42 intends to use the funds to expand its go-to-market stra­tegy and for product deve­lo­p­ment. “As the amount of data has increased, the systems for proces­sing data have also become more complex. Buil­ding a scalable data infra­struc­ture is a night­mare for many compa­nies,” said Hung Dang, foun­der and CEO of y42. “We want to enable all compa­nies to get value from their data without inves­t­ing in expen­sive IT projects and in-house deve­lo­per teams.” y42 is the first scalable data plat­form that can be set up and used by less IT-savvy users.

Foun­der Dang has become famous for hosting a series of Great Gatsby-style parties. He foun­ded an event company and deve­lo­ped a global data plat­form for Even­tim to analyze events. He reinves­ted the money from that in his new startup, Y42, form­erly called Datos.

Based in Berlin,La Fami­glia is a pan-Euro­pean early-stage VC fund that invests in tech­no­logy compa­nies that are empowe­ring or rethin­king large industries.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to La Fami­glia in the context of the seed finan­cing round at y42 with the follo­wing Munich team:
Tobias Jäger (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal), Dr. Sebas­tian Rosen­tritt, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity/Venture Capi­tal), Dr. Matthias Meier (Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity/Venture Capital)

About POELLATH + Partners
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 / Braun­schweig — Toge­ther with Water­land Private Equity, the soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment provi­der GOD (Gesell­schaft für Orga­ni­sa­tion und Daten­ver­ar­bei­tung mbH) plans to acce­le­rate its growth. The company from Lower Saxony is one of the leading provi­ders of custo­mi­zed enter­prise IT and soft­ware solu­ti­ons, espe­ci­ally for compa­nies with complex supply chains and produc­tion proces­ses. The port­fo­lio of services for custo­mers is to be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons as part of a buy & build stra­tegy. The share­hol­ders Igor Krahne, Ralf Holland and Dr. Thomas Wolen­ski remain signi­fi­cantly invol­ved as manage­ment team and lead the company opera­tio­nally. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

GOD has been deve­lo­ping and opera­ting custo­mi­zed enter­prise IT and soft­ware solu­ti­ons since 1985. The service provi­der, which is head­quar­te­red in Braun­schweig and has offices in Hamburg, Ingol­stadt, Wolfs­burg and Wroclaw (Poland), specia­li­zes in compa­nies with complex IT projects. The more than 400 employees of GOD support large enter­pri­ses as well as medium-sized compa­nies from requi­re­ments to archi­tec­ture to project manage­ment in the deve­lo­p­ment and opera­tion of indi­vi­dual soft­ware. The offe­ring also includes modern cloud and edge compu­ting services, as well as SAP consulting.

GOD will conti­nue to support sophisti­ca­ted compa­nies in digi­tiza­tion through indi­vi­dua­li­zed deve­lo­p­ment and expand its modern product port­fo­lio. In addi­tion, new markets are to be opened up geogra­phi­cally through further loca­ti­ons. The IT and soft­ware market conti­nues to be a rapidly growing market in the wake of digi­tiza­tion: The digi­tal asso­cia­tion Bitkom fore­casts an increase in sales to 174.4 billion euros in 2021 for Germany alone. This is expec­ted to create around 20,000 new jobs.

Igor Krahne, mana­ging part­ner of GOD, says: “The IT and soft­ware sector is constantly reinven­ting itself, which requi­res a broad product range on the one hand, but also a high degree of specia­liza­tion on the other. Waterland’s expe­ri­ence in the tech sector has convin­ced us that we have the right part­ner on board: This will secure our claim to lead the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion toge­ther with our customers.”

Dr. Gregor Hengst, Prin­ci­pal at Water­land, adds: “We are impres­sed how GOD’s team is growing sustain­ably in the area of complex soft­ware solu­ti­ons. The company is bene­fiting from demand trends through digi­ta­liza­tion, Agile deve­lo­p­ment and IoT deve­lo­p­ments, as well as in cloud compu­ting. We look forward to further acce­le­ra­ting growth through acqui­si­ti­ons as well.”

Water­land has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the digi­ta­liza­tion, IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors: the Water­land port­fo­lio in these areas includes Serrala (finan­cial auto­ma­tion and payment soft­ware), Skay­link (mana­ged cloud services), Enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), netgo group (IT services) and netrics (enter­prise IT).

Water­land Advisor:
Boston Consul­ting Group (Commer­cial)
Henge­ler Muel­ler (Legal)
Ernst & Young (Finan­cial)
GCA Altium (Debt) advised.

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands (Bussum), Belgium (Antwerp), France (Paris), Germany (Hamburg, Munich), Poland (Warsaw), the UK (Manches­ter), Ireland (Dublin), Denmark (Copen­ha­gen) and Switz­er­land (Zurich). Curr­ently, over eight billion euros in equity funds are under management.

Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The firm ranks fifth globally in the 2020 HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Rankings and eighth among global private equity firms in the 2020 Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report. In addi­tion, Real Deals awarded Water­land the title of “Pan-Euro­pean House of the Year 2020” at the PE Awards.

News

Frank­furt am Main/Gorinchem, The Nether­lands — Ardian, a leading global inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm, has ente­red into an agree­ment to acquire Deli Home with the aim of support­ing the company’s inter­na­tio­nal growth plans. Deli Home is a Dutch manu­fac­tu­rer and supplier of wood-based, custom and high quality home impro­ve­ment products such as doors, cabi­nets and floors. The products are sold through DIY stores, buil­ders’ merchants and online suppli­ers. The tran­sac­tion is the first invest­ment of the Ardian expan­sion team in the Nether­lands. Toge­ther with Ardian, Deli Home’s manage­ment plans to further imple­ment its growth stra­tegy and deve­lop Deli Home into a pan-Euro­pean player.

Deli Home, whose roots go back to 1869, is head­quar­te­red in Gorin­chem, the Nether­lands. With sales of more than 340 million euros and 1,250 employees, the company has estab­lished itself as the market leader in the Bene­lux region. In recent years, the manage­ment team, led by Victor Aquina (CEO) and Jan-Willem Smits (CFO), has deve­lo­ped the company from a pure distri­bu­tor into a manu­fac­tu­rer of custo­mi­zed, wood-based DIY products with an inte­gra­ted digi­tal confi­gu­ra­tion plat­form, a broad logi­stics network and merchan­dise group manage­ment solu­ti­ons. Through this approach, Deli Home crea­tes great value for its customers.

Victor Aquina, CEO of Deli Home, said: “We have a clearly defi­ned growth stra­tegy that has two pillars: Conti­nuing to convince custo­mers of our digi­tal solu­ti­ons for custo­mi­zed home impro­ve­ment products, as well as expan­ding our offe­ring across Europe. Two of our future core markets are France and Germany, so Ardian, with its strong Euro­pean presence and network, is the ideal part­ner for us. The Ardian team convin­ced us with its profound under­stan­ding of the market and will actively support us with its exper­tise. We look forward to unleas­hing the company’s full poten­tial through this partnership.”

Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Head of Ardian Expan­sion Germany, added: “Deli Home has a strong and expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team that has crea­ted a growth plat­form with a convin­cing M&A stra­tegy, for exam­ple through the acqui­si­ti­ons of Numdata and Weekamp Deuren. We see great poten­tial for growth through further acqui­si­ti­ons and the expan­sion of our range outside the Bene­lux region. We look forward to working with the manage­ment team and support­ing the company on its growth path.”

The parties to the tran­sac­tion were:

Ardian: Dirk Witt­ne­ben, Florian Haas, Nico­las Münzer, Janine Paustian

Legal Corpo­rate / Finance: Fresh­fields (Harald Spruit, Mandeep Lotay)

Finan­cial: Deloitte (Egon Sach­sal­ber, Tanya Fehr)

Tax / Struc­tu­ring: EY (Anne Mieke Holland)

Commer­cial / Opera­tio­nal: Roland Berger (Sameer Mehta, Swit­bert Miczka)

Tech / Digi­tal: WDP (Chris­toph Nichau, Johan­nes Dier­kes, Simon Ludwigs)

ESG: PwC (Emilie Bobin)

Envi­ron­men­tal: ERM (Werner Schulte)

M&A: ABN AMRO (Eric Altmann, Tammo Gunst)

Debt Advi­sory: Deloitte (Thomas Schouten)


ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is one of the world’s leading inde­pen­dent invest­ment firms, mana­ging over US$110 billion in assets for its inves­tors from Europe, South and North America and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees and gene­ra­tes sustainable, attrac­tive returns for its investors.

With the objec­tive of achie­ving posi­tive results for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties promote indi­vi­du­als, compa­nies and econo­mies world­wide. Ardian’s invest­ment philo­so­phy is aligned with the three guiding prin­ci­ples of excel­lence, loyalty and entrepreneurship.

The company has a global network of more than 700 employees and 15 offices in Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), South America (Sant­iago de Chile), North America (New York and San Fran­cisco) and Asia (Beijing, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo). Ardian mana­ges the assets of its more than 1,000 inves­tors in five invest­ment areas: Direct Funds, Funds of Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Private Debt and Real Estate.

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