ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Hamburg, Walters­hau­sen — Daet­wy­ler has sold its civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness to repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the exis­ting manage­ment team. The manage­ment buy-out was supported by the Hamburg-based invest­ment company BPE, which has specia­li­zed in tran­sac­tions in the German SME sector for over 20 years (photo: BPE manage­ment team).

Daet­wy­ler Seal­ing Tech­no­lo­gies Deutsch­land GmbH, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted opera­ting real estate, is being sold. The company combi­nes the civil engi­nee­ring busi­ness with elas­to­mer profiles for appli­ca­ti­ons in tunnels, civil engi­nee­ring and track super­s­truc­tures at the German site in Walters­hau­sen. Around 180 employees gene­rate annual sales of appro­xi­m­ately CHF 40 million. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transactions.

Follo­wing the previously announ­ced sale of the Distrelec and Nedis distri­bu­tion compa­nies, the Daet­wy­ler Group will in future focus on high-growth, high-margin seal­ing compon­ents for attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas, food & beverage and gene­ral industry.

About Daet­wy­ler Holding Inc.
Datwy­ler is a leading provi­der of high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents. Datwy­ler is focu­sing on high-quality, system-criti­cal elas­to­mer compon­ents and has leading posi­ti­ons in attrac­tive global markets such as health­care, mobi­lity, oil & gas and food & beverage. With its reco­gni­zed core compe­ten­cies and tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, the company deli­vers added value to custo­mers in the markets served. Datwy­ler concen­tra­tes on markets that offer oppor­tu­ni­ties to create more value and sustain profi­ta­ble growth. With a global presence with more than 20 opera­ting compa­nies, sales in over 100 count­ries and more than 7,000 employees Datwy­ler, head­quar­te­red in Switz­er­land, gene­ra­tes annual sales of more than CHF 1,000 million. The Group has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exch­ange since 1986 (secu­rity no. 3048677).

About BPE Unter­neh­mens­be­tei­li­gun­gen GmbH
Philo­so­phy: “As a specia­list in manage­ment buy-outs/ins, we have been turning mana­gers into entre­pre­neurs since 1998 and streng­thening, crea­ting or safe­guar­ding the inde­pen­dence and inno­va­tive strength of German SMEs.” The company’s philo­so­phy is to provide more than just equity. The aim is to work towards opti­mi­zing the company after it has been taken over by support­ing its opera­tio­nal manage­ment. This may include an opera­tio­nal and stra­te­gic realignment to be initia­ted by the manage­ment of the company, the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and realiza­tion of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth poten­tial in order to sustain­ably increase the value of the company.

News

Berlin/Frankfurt — Gapless, the plat­form for things you love, has closed a seven-figure funding round. The block­chain start-up from Berlin around the foun­ding trio (photo) Jan Karnath (CEO), Malte Häus­ler (CFO) and Andreas Joeg­bes (CTO) has raised a total of 5.5 million euros from investors.

Lead inves­tor is FinLab EOS VC Fund — a joint venture between FinLab AG (ISIN: DE0001218063) and EOSIO block­chain deve­lo­per Block.one, global experts in block­chain tech­no­logy. In addi­tion to the fund, insu­rance entre­pre­neur Kers­ten Jodex­nis and his family office LA ROCA Capi­tal and Porsche AG, which has alre­ady inves­ted in Gapless since 2018, are also invol­ved in the financing.

The all-in-one app for the vehicle — and more Gapless is the all-in-one app for the vehicle — enab­ling users to create a complete and compre­hen­sive vehicle history and use vehicle-rela­ted third-party services. “With FinLab EOS VC Fund as well as EOS VC, the venture capi­tal arm of Block.One, we have found the part­ner of choice for the further deve­lo­p­ment of our young company,” says Gapless CEO Jan Karnath about the successful seed finan­cing. “We are now taking the next step toge­ther to become the ‘plat­form, for things you love’.”

Toge­ther with Malte Häus­ler and Andreas Joeb­ges, Karnath foun­ded the plat­form in 2018 with the aim of safe­guar­ding the value and emotio­nal signi­fi­cance of vehic­les for the future. Block­chain archi­tec­ture exten­sion Block.one is the deve­lo­per of the leading block­chain proto­col EOSIO, which was released in June 2018. EOSIO is widely regarded as the first powerful enter­prise block­chain plat­form and is curr­ently one of the most active block­chain soft­ware plat­forms in the world. Gapless intends to invest the newly raised capi­tal in the product, block­chain archi­tec­ture expan­sion and user growth of the platform.

“We are plea­sed to welcome Gapless as a new invest­ment in our port­fo­lio,” said Stefan Schütze, Mana­ging Direc­tor of FinLab EOS VC Fund. “Gapless shows how block­chain tech­no­logy can trans­form services from the ground up — always thin­king from the user’s perspec­tive. FinLab AG mana­ges the FinLab EOS VC Fund and is one of the largest fintech and block­chain inves­tors in Europe. Part­ner from the very begin­ning: Porsche Since the foun­ding of Gapless, the Stutt­gart-based sports car manu­fac­tu­rer Porsche has stood by the side of the Berlin-based block­chain start-up, which today employs 20 people. Since Septem­ber 2018, Gapless
ancho­red in the Zuffen­hau­sen ecosys­tem and was also part of Porsche’s “Next Visi­ons” inno­va­tion agenda at the Slush Confe­rence in Helsinki and the IAA in Frank­furt am Main.

In addi­tion, the global inno­va­tion plat­form STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play has included the young Berlin-based company in its current program. More than 50,000 regis­tered vehic­les Today, Gapless alre­ady mana­ges more than 50,00 vehic­les on the plat­form, with most of the users of the so-called digi­tal gara­ges coming from the USA, the UK and Germany. By the end of the year, block­chain specia­lists expect up to 100,000. www.gapless.app.

About Gapless
Gapless is the world’s first block­chain plat­form for vehicle owners. At www.gapless.app, users can manage their vehic­les online and create digi­tal, complete vehicle histo­ries or have them crea­ted by Gapless. All docu­ments, photos and infor­ma­tion belon­ging to the car are in one secure place and can be acces­sed online at any time, mana­ged or shared in the form of digi­tal expo­sés with veri­fied histo­ri­cal entries. This includes, among other things, infor­ma­tion on previous vehicle recalls, data on equip­ment features or even expenses.

About Block.one and EOS VC
Block.one’s EOS VC program helps deve­lo­pers and entre­pre­neurs launch commu­nity-based busi­nesses using EOSIO. It provi­des support in the form of venture capi­tal part­ner­ships prima­rily aimed at sustainable use of the EOSIO ecosys­tem by inves­t­ing in a concen­tra­ted and diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of block­chain-orien­ted compa­nies based on the EOSIO soft­ware. The EOS VC initia­tive aims to foster a global network of indi­vi­du­als from diffe­rent disci­pli­nes by holding events. As part of its mission and vision, EOS VC regu­larly colla­bo­ra­tes with the block­chain deve­lo­per commu­nity. More infor­ma­tion is available online at www.Block.one and at www.vc.eos.io.

About Porsche
The Dr. Ing. h.c.. F. Porsche AG, head­quar­te­red in Stutt­gart-Zuffen­hau­sen, is one of the most profi­ta­ble auto­mo­bile manu­fac­tu­r­ers in the world. In 2019, Porsche deli­vered 280,800 vehic­les of the 911, 718 Boxs­ter, 718 Cayman, Cayenne, Macan, Panamera and Taycan models to custo­mers around the world. This was ten percent more than in the previous year. Porsche opera­tes plants in Stutt­gart and Leip­zig as well as a deve­lo­p­ment center in Weiss­ach. The sports car manu­fac­tu­rer employs 35,429 people. Porsche is commit­ted to inno­va­tion, and many of its tech­no­lo­gies have their orig­ins in motorsport.

About FinLab AG
Listed FinLab AG (WKN 121806 / ISIN DE0001218063) is one of the first and largest inves­tors in finan­cial services tech­no­lo­gies (“fintech”) and block­chain in Europe. To this end, FinLab’s focus is on provi­ding venture capi­tal to start-ups. FinLab aims to provide active and long-term support for its invest­ments. FinLab supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their respec­tive deve­lo­p­ment phases with its network and know-how. In addi­tion, FinLab acts as an asset mana­ger and mana­ges assets in the triple-digit million range.

News

Munich — Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), an invest­ment company advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the sara­cus consul­ting group. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg in connec­tion with the tran­sac­tion. Photo: Moritz Greve, foun­der of Maxburg Capi­tal Partners.

sara­cus consul­ting deve­lops custo­mi­zed on-premise and cloud-based solu­ti­ons in the areas of Data Manage­ment, Data Warehouse, Data Analy­tics & Data Science as well as Busi­ness Intel­li­gence. Current focus topics are the cloud migra­tion of analy­ti­cal and dispo­si­tive systems as well as the analy­sis of big data using AI-based methods such as self-lear­ning algo­rithms or neural networks. The company was foun­ded in 1991. Custo­mers include insu­rance compa­nies, finan­cial service provi­ders and public administration.

Maxburg is an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region, which invests with a flexi­ble mandate along the capi­tal struc­ture in priva­tely held as well as listed compa­nies. The Maxburg invest­ment compa­nies have capi­tal commit­ments tota­ling around EUR 600 million at their disposal.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive tax advice to Maxburg with the follo­wing Munich team: Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Lead, Tax Law), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax Law), Tobias Deschen­halm (Asso­ciate, Tax Law).

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners regu­larly advi­ses Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners on tax matters, most recently for exam­ple on the acqui­si­tion of majo­rity stakes in the tech­no­logy company STARFACE GmbH and GfS — Gesell­schaft für Sicher­heits­tech­nik mbH.

News

Paris/Munich — Stefan Kalten­ba­cher (56), photo, will head Bryan, Garnier and Co. ’s German-spea­king invest­ment banking acti­vi­ties in the life scien­ces sector (DACH region) from May 1, 2020. The new Mana­ging Direc­tor has exten­sive gene­ral manage­ment expe­ri­ence in the phar­maceu­ti­cal and medi­cal tech­no­logy indus­try as well as in private equity: Among other things, he was respon­si­ble for the Nort­hern and Central Euro­pean busi­ness of the medi­cal tech­no­logy company Care­Fu­sion (now part of Becton Dick­in­son), led the medi­cal device sector of John­son & John­son in Germany and Austria, and was a member of John­son & Johnson’s Stra­tegy Team Europe. Prior to that, he worked in Paris and London as direc­tor for the inter­na­tio­nal diagno­stics divi­sion of Bayer AG. Most recently, as Mana­ging Direc­tor of an owner-mana­ged, inde­pen­dent M&A consul­tancy, he advi­sed a large number of growth compa­nies and estab­lished compa­nies in the German-spea­king region and was Senior Advi­sor to Deut­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft, Frank­furt, on its enga­ge­ments in the life scien­ces sector.

“Parti­cu­larly in the life scien­ces sector, indus­try expe­ri­ence is abso­lut­ely essen­tial and we are deligh­ted to have gained such an expe­ri­en­ced indus­try expert for our German team,” empha­si­zes Falk Müller-Veerse, who as Part­ner is respon­si­ble for Bryan, Garnier & Co.’s busi­ness in the DACH region.

The health­care indus­try is a central focus of the invest­ment bank for tech­no­logy compa­nies, which was foun­ded in Paris and London in 1996: Bryan, Garnier & Co. was invol­ved in the successful Nasdaq IPO of biotech company BionTech, accom­pa­nied medi­cal tech­no­logy company Medar­tis to the Swiss stock exch­ange, and orchestra­ted a number of private finan­cing rounds of life scien­ces start-ups with global inves­tors, among others.

About Bryan, Garnier & Co
Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with a presence in London, Paris, Munich, Stock­holm, Oslo, Reykja­vík, New York, Palo Alto and Shang­hai. As an inde­pen­dent full-service invest­ment bank, it offers compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the entire life cycle of its clients — from initial finan­cing rounds to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-up finan­cing. The range of services includes equity analy­sis, equity sales and trading, private and public capi­tal raising, and M&A advi­sory for growth compa­nies and their inves­tors. The focus is on the growth sectors of tech­no­logy, health­care, bran­ded and consu­mer goods, and busi­ness services. Bryan Garnier is a regis­tered broker and licen­sed with the FCA in Europe and FINRA in the US.

News

Hamburg — BÖAG Börsen AG acqui­res the majo­rity of shares in ICF BANK AG from the company’s foun­ders. As part of the tran­sac­tion, BÖAG Börsen AG (photo: Hamburg Stock Exch­ange), the spon­so­ring company of the stock exch­an­ges in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg and Hano­ver, also secu­red an option on further shares. With the acqui­si­tion of the majo­rity of shares, BÖAG Börsen AG streng­thens its posi­tion and sets the course for further joint inno­va­tive growth. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by boards and the rele­vant regu­la­tory authorities.

The current stra­te­gic part­ner­ship between BÖAG Börsen AG and ICF BANK AG is based on years of successful coope­ra­tion. Since 2017, ICF BANK AG has acted as a market maker in Quotrix, the elec­tro­nic trading system of the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange. Since the begin­ning of 2020, she has been respon­si­ble for trading in equi­ties, bonds, invest­ment funds as well as ETPs on the Düssel­dorf Stock Exch­ange as an order book mana­ger. The posi­tio­ning in the “Capi­tal Markets” and “Brokerage Services” busi­ness areas opens up addi­tio­nal sources of growth and earnings along­side the origi­nal secu­ri­ties trading business.

BÖAG Börsen AG is the owner of the broker-supported stock exch­an­ges in Düssel­dorf, Hamburg and Hano­ver as well as the elec­tro­nic trading plat­forms Quotrix and LS Exch­ange. Toge­ther, the three exch­an­ges, inclu­ding their trading plat­forms, have more than 50,000 listings of secu­ri­ties (equi­ties, open-end funds/ETFs, bonds, parti­ci­pa­tion certi­fi­ca­tes and certificates/ETCs). Trading parti­ci­pants include dome­stic credit insti­tu­ti­ons and finan­cial services companies.

ICF BANK AG is a secu­ri­ties trading bank with around 65 employees head­quar­te­red in Frank­furt. With its IT subsi­dia­ries ICF SYSTEMS AG and Novis Soft­ware GmbH, it is one of the leading service and solu­tion provi­ders for all aspects of secu­ri­ties trading in Germany.

Advi­sors to BÖAG Börsen AG: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Michael Dröge, Dr. Jörg Schewe(both M&A/Corporate), both lead, Julia Cramer (Capi­tal Markets), Sven Johann­sen (Capi­tal Markets, Banking Super­vi­sion), all Hamburg

News

Munich - Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie (HSCie) exclu­si­vely advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Reifen Baier­la­cher KG on the sale to the Goodyear Group. The manage­ment team, inclu­ding mana­ging part­ner Manuel Baier­la­cher, will remain with the company and, toge­ther with the new inves­tor, will conti­nue to actively drive Reifen Baierlacher’s growth stra­tegy in the future. With this tran­sac­tion, Goodyear further expands its sales and distri­bu­tion struc­ture, adds value to its products and brands and streng­thens its presence in an important key market.

Reifen Baier­la­cher will conti­nue to operate with a high degree of inde­pen­dence and flexi­bi­lity, main­tai­ning its medium-sized custo­mer and employee focus while bene­fiting from the strong brand reco­gni­tion and struc­tures of a globally active tire manu­fac­tu­rer. “This tran­sac­tion repres­ents the combi­na­tion of one of Germany’s leading tire trading compa­nies with one of the world’s best-known tire brands. The combi­na­tion with Goodyear will enable Baier­la­cher to further roll out its successful busi­ness model and posi­tion itself even more stron­gly in a conso­li­da­ting market envi­ron­ment. We are plea­sed to have advi­sed the Baier­la­cher family in the sales process,” explains Sabine Moel­ler (photo), part­ner at HSCie.

HSCie advi­sed the sellers in all steps of the sales process. The mana­ging part­ner comm­ents: “We reali­zed from the very first minute that the decis­ion to choose HSCie as our M&A advi­sor was the right one. Throug­hout the entire consul­ting period, we recei­ved extre­mely compe­tent, friendly and goal-orien­ted support. The profes­sio­na­lism and compe­tence of our cont­act persons was impres­sive. We are glad to have chosen HSCie and thank the consul­tants involved.”

About Reifen Baierlacher
Reifen Baier­la­cher is a German tire whole­sale and retail company based in Weil­heim near Munich. Retail compri­ses the busi­ness with new repla­ce­ment tires and comple­men­tary services for end custo­mers in the Southern Germany region. Whole­sale compri­ses the Europe-wide busi­ness with repla­ce­ment tires. For more infor­ma­tion on Reifen Baier­la­cher, visit www.baierlacher.com.

About HSCie
Hübner Schlös­ser & Cie, is an inter­na­tio­nally active, inde­pen­dent corpo­rate finance consul­ting firm based in Munich. In recent years, HSCie has comple­ted more than 160 tran­sac­tions in various indus­tries with a total volume of more than € 17 billion. HSCie is one of the leading consul­ting firms in Germany in the segment of medium-sized transactions.

News

Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien GmbH & Co. KG(THEE) is expan­ding its port­fo­lio with two exis­ting wind farms in Bran­den­burg and Rhine­land-Pala­ti­nate and two solar farms in Meck­len­burg-Western Pome­ra­nia. This increa­ses THEE ’s wind energy port­fo­lio by 13.6 MW to appro­xi­m­ately 282 MW. In 2018/2019, THEE had alre­ady acqui­red six solar parks, some of which are opera­ted by its subsi­diary THEE Solar GmbH & Co. KG. With the current acqui­si­tion of the two addi­tio­nal projects, THEE’s solar energy port­fo­lio increa­ses by 3.2 MWp to 14.2 MWp. The muni­ci­pal inves­tor thus curr­ently opera­tes a total of 27 wind farms and eight solar farms. Taylor Wessing ’s energy team, led by Hamburg-based part­ner Cars­ten Bartholl (pictu­red), provi­ded legal advice to THEE on the acqui­si­ti­ons, as it has seve­ral times in the past. These are not isola­ted cases: last year alone, the firm’s energy team advi­sed on rene­wa­ble energy projects with a scope of more than 2,500 MW at various stages of deve­lo­p­ment in Europe and overseas.

Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien GmbH & Co. KG (THEE), based in Hamburg, is a joint venture between seve­ral compa­nies in the Thüga Group. All compa­nies are mino­rity share­hol­ders in THEE. In prin­ci­ple, parti­ci­pa­tion in THEE is open to all compa­nies of the Thüga Group. THEE invests in rene­wa­ble energy gene­ra­tion projects with a focus on Germany. The aim of THEE is to bundle know-how and capi­tal in order to expand its own energy produc­tion from rene­wa­ble sources in the coming years.

Legal advi­sors Thüga Erneu­er­bare Ener­gien: Taylor Wessing
Lead Part­ner Cars­ten Bartholl (Part­ner M&A/Corporate, Head of Energy), Hannes Tutt (Salary Part­ner, Commer­cial Real Estate, Hamburg), Dr. Markus Böhme, LL.M. (Salary Part­ner, Regu­la­tory Energy Law, Düssel­dorf), Lars Borchardt (Asso­ciate, Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning & Regu­la­tory); Chris­tian Kupfer (Asso­ciate, Corporate/Energy), Jasmin Schlee (Asso­ciate, Corporate/Energy), all Hamburg, unless other­wise stated.

News

Frank­furt am Main / Mark­grö­nin­gen — Kälte Eckert GmbH, a refri­ge­ra­tion equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer based in Mark­grö­nin­gen, Germany, has acqui­red Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH. The seller of the shares is the hitherto sole share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor Frank Keil, who will conti­nue to manage the company opera­tio­nally. The aims of the part­ner­ship are to expand the service network and the quali­fied employee base and to bundle know-how. For the port­fo­lio company of VR Equi­typ­art­ner (photo: Chris­tian Futter­lieb, Mana­ging Direc­tor), this is the second add-on acqui­si­tion within a few months: Only in Novem­ber 2019, the merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik laid the foun­da­tion for a successful plat­form strategy.

Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, Part­ner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek, advi­sed Kälte Eckert GmbH on the acqui­si­tion of Gart­ner, Keil & Co Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH.

Gart­ner, Keil & Co. Klima- und Kälte­tech­nik GmbH specia­li­zes in consul­ting and sales of indi­vi­dua­li­zed systems in the fields of refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning tech­no­logy, cold storage tech­no­logy, cold and deep-freeze rooms as well as special plant engi­nee­ring. Foun­ded in 1990, the company is based in Neuluß­heim, Baden-Würt­tem­berg, and employs 16 people.

Kälte Eckert GmbH has focu­sed on special plant engi­nee­ring for commer­cial refri­ge­ra­tion with an empha­sis on indus­trial kitchens, indus­trial refri­ge­ra­tion and air condi­tio­ning. In addi­tion, the company is the nati­on­wide tech­no­logy leader in the field of alter­na­tive ecolo­gi­cal coolants. Custo­mers include Daim­ler, UniCre­dit and LBBW. The company was foun­ded in 1966 and is now mana­ged by Michael Eckert and Holger Eckert, the sons of the company founder.

VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

Herschlein’s team most recently advi­sed Kälte Eckert on its merger with Günther Kälte­tech­nik GmbH in Novem­ber 2019.

Advi­sors to VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Rainer Hersch­lein, LL.M. (Lead, Corpo­rate), Stuttgart
Char­lotte Schmitt, LL.M. (Corpo­rate, M&A), Stuttgart

About VR Equitypartner
VR Equi­typ­art­ner GmbH is one of the leading equity finan­ciers in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land. The company supports medium-sized family busi­nesses in finding stra­te­gic solu­ti­ons to complex finan­cing issues. VR Equi­typ­art­ner offers majo­rity and mino­rity invest­ments as well as mezza­nine finan­cing. VR Equitypartner’s port­fo­lio includes around 100 commit­ments with an invest­ment volume of EUR 500 million.

News

Tett­nang — Euro­pean tech­no­logy inves­tor Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Avira Holding GmbH & Co KG and ALV GmbH & Co KG (“Avira”) for US $180 million. P+P Pöllath + Part­ners advi­sed the sellers and the Avira manage­ment in the course of the transaction.

Avira is a multi­na­tio­nal company for soft­ware solu­ti­ons in the field of cyber secu­rity and anti-virus programs with head­quar­ters in Tett­nang, Baden-Würt­tem­berg. Avira serves both the OEM (origi­nal equip­ment manu­fac­tu­rer) and consu­mer end markets and protects over 500 million end devices world­wide. Foun­ded in 1986, the company focu­ses on anti-malware, threat intel­li­gence and IoT solu­ti­ons. Avira soft­ware protects against viru­ses and malware and provi­des users with secu­rity for online iden­tity as well as for finan­ces and other private data.

The buyer, Invest­corp Tech­no­logy Part­ners, focu­ses on inves­t­ing in mid-market tech­no­logy compa­nies with a focus on data, analy­tics, IT secu­rity and fintech/payments. The Avira acqui­si­tion is the seventh deal from the $400 million fourth tech­no­logy fund and the third acqui­si­tion of a soft­ware company in the DACH region in 18 months, noted Gilbert Kami­e­niecky (pictu­red), mana­ging direc­tor and head of Investcorp’s tech­no­logy private equity divi­sion.

Advi­sors to AVIRA: P+P provi­ded legal and tax advice with the follo­wing Munich team
Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/Private Equity), Gerald Herr­mann (Coun­sel, Tax), Laura Grei­mel (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity), Annika Jung­in­ger (née Anders, Asso­ciate, M&A/Private Equity).

News

Colo­gne — Emma — The Sleep Company has sold shares to the Haniel Group. All exis­ting inves­tors sold their shares to Haniel as part of the tran­sac­tion. The tran­sac­tion did not include a finan­cing round, as Emma is profi­ta­ble and growing on its own. The two foun­ders Manuel Müller (left: photo: Moritz Reich) and Dr. Dennis Schmoltzi will remain share­hol­ders in the company with 24.95 percent each and will conti­nue to drive the inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion as well as the acqui­si­tion of further market shares of Emma toge­ther with Haniel as active co-CEOs. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price or further details of the contrac­tual arran­ge­ments. The tran­sac­tion is subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant anti­trust authorities.

With a team led by Dr. Oliver Bött­cher and Kris­tina Schnei­der from the Colo­gne office, Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Emma — The Sleep Company (Bett­zeit GmbH) on the tran­sac­tion with Haniel.

Emma — The Sleep Company was foun­ded in 2013 and in just six years has grown from an online plat­form for mattres­ses and sleep systems to an inter­na­tio­nally opera­ting sleep tech provi­der that is one of Europe’s fastest growing compa­nies. The popu­lar direct-to-consu­mer brand Emma is available in 21 count­ries around the globe and has alre­ady estab­lished itself as the leading bed-in-a-box provi­der in the constantly growing market for sleep-rela­ted products in many Euro­pean count­ries. The rapid growth is reali­zed by a team that now consists of 350 people and is charac­te­ri­zed by product inno­va­tions, the rapid imple­men­ta­tion of ideas and indi­vi­dua­li­zed stra­te­gies for each market. Other factors in the company’s success include a high level of concen­tra­tion on tech­no­logy-supported proces­ses and a parti­cu­lar focus on rese­arch and the conti­nuous further deve­lo­p­ment of products.

Advi­sors to Emma — The Sleep Company (Bett­zeit GmbH): Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek
Dr. Oliver Bött­cher, Kris­tina Schnei­der, LL.M. (Photo)Laura Rilin­ger (all Corpo­rate), Markus Schmül­l­ing (Labor Law), all Cologne;
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax Law), Hamburg
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (anti­trust law), Düsseldorf

News

Lands­hut / Frank­furt am Main / Munich — main incu­ba­tor, early-stage inves­tor of the Commerz­bank Group, and Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, are taking a seven-figure stake in Scom­pler Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH as part of a seed finan­cing round. The Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) solu­tion from the Munich-based company covers all stra­te­gic content manage­ment (SCOM) proces­ses and brings toge­ther all corpo­rate commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and marke­ting content on a clearly struc­tu­red plat­form. Scom­pler is inves­t­ing the funds from the finan­cing round in the further deve­lo­p­ment and expan­sion of the range of func­tions of its product.

In many compa­nies, the areas of marke­ting and commu­ni­ca­tion are beco­ming incre­asingly complex and exten­sive as a result of digi­ta­liza­tion. Content is usually not crea­ted uniformly and across disci­pli­nes, but is distri­bu­ted uncoor­di­na­ted and without a long-term stra­tegy. The lack of trans­pa­rency and coor­di­na­tion between depart­ments leads to dupli­ca­tion of effort and addi­tio­nal costs, which ulti­m­ately makes commu­ni­ca­tion compli­ca­ted and expen­sive. The hoped-for effect of the campaign fails to mate­ria­lize. Scom­pler aims to solve precis­ely this problem: With the help of the combi­na­tion of soft­ware solu­tion and stra­tegy consul­ting, content can be orga­ni­zed across chan­nels and projects as a struc­tu­red edito­rial and topic plan and subse­quently published.

With Scom­pler, complex marke­ting and commu­ni­ca­tion campaign compon­ents that were previously orga­ni­zed in a decen­tra­li­zed manner come toge­ther at a single hub, where they can be plan­ned and imple­men­ted across chan­nels by all parti­ci­pants via a common plat­form. While other tools often only work accor­ding to a coll­ec­tion and check­list prin­ci­ple, Scom­pler is the tool to centrally orga­nize content marke­ting and social media campaigns, mapping and stra­te­gi­cally coor­di­na­ting all invol­ved proces­ses. The intui­tive tool thus links the indi­vi­dual depart­ments of compa­nies in an inter­di­sci­pli­nary manner: commu­ni­ca­tion focal points such as public rela­ti­ons, search engine opti­miza­tion (SEO), online marke­ting or social media are control­led from one cock­pit, which ulti­m­ately conser­ves capa­ci­ties and resources.

Scom­pler has alre­ady won a large number of well-known custo­mers, inclu­ding ADAC, BASF, Commerz­bank, Deut­sche Bahn, Merck and Nestlé. Up to 300 users work there in paral­lel and across projects on theme plans and commu­ni­ca­tion campaigns. The start-up was foun­ded in 2018 by Mirko Lange and curr­ently employs 30 people. The funds from the finan­cing round will prima­rily be used for the further deve­lo­p­ment of the Scom­pler plat­form. Among other things, the inte­gra­tion of func­tions for media moni­to­ring and analy­sis of the company’s own content is plan­ned. In the long term, for exam­ple, natu­ral language proces­sing (compu­ter-aided content analy­sis) is to be used to iden­tify devia­ti­ons from defi­ned stra­te­gies at an early stage.

Mirko Lange, Foun­der and CEO of Scom­plersays: “Mana­ging commu­ni­ca­tion content across all chan­nels in a way that is appro­priate for the target group is a very complex task given the incre­asing hete­ro­gen­eity and digi­tiza­tion. This is exactly where we come in as a holi­stic soft­ware solu­tion. Unlike almost any other plat­form, Scom­pler is able to digi­tally map even complex commu­ni­ca­tion stra­te­gies and imple­ment them across chan­nels. Last year in parti­cu­lar, we were very successful with this. The new finan­cial resour­ces will be a great help to us in incor­po­ra­ting a whole range of new tech­no­lo­gies and functions.”

Roman Huber (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal, says: “In many compa­nies, commu­ni­ca­tion and marke­ting are at a turning point: The exter­nal presen­ta­tion must incre­asingly address the speci­fic needs of their target groups in order to stand out from the compe­ti­tion. That’s why we see considera­ble market poten­tial in Scom­pler: In the age of digi­ta­liza­tion, the young high-tech company is fully hitting the nerve of the times with its sophisti­ca­ted solu­tion. Inno­va­tive approa­ches in a high-growth area ther­e­fore make invest­ments in IT compa­nies like Scom­pler parti­cu­larly inte­res­t­ing for Bava­ria as a loca­tion of the future.”

“The produc­tion of rele­vant content is both a bott­len­eck and a success factor for custo­mer-centric commu­ni­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the ever-incre­asing number of distri­bu­tion chan­nels leads to incre­asing comple­xity and thus to a grea­ter need for solu­ti­ons to deal with this comple­xity. Mirko Lange and his team, through their deca­des of consul­ting work, know the many chal­lenges large compa­nies face in the over­ar­ching topic manage­ment in the commu­ni­ca­tion stra­tegy and have found the right answer with Scom­pler,” explain Moritz Schwarz and Sebas­tian Scheib, respon­si­ble invest­ment mana­gers at main incubator.

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 eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 385 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 310 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 275 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 7,500 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.
www.bayernkapital.de

About main incubator
main incu­ba­tor is the early-stage inves­tor and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group. It inves­ti­ga­tes future tech­no­lo­gies that are rele­vant to the economy and society, and promo­tes and deve­lops sustainable solu­ti­ons. He deve­lops proto­ty­pes based on future tech­no­lo­gies such as addi­tive prin­ting, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cross reality, Inter­net of Things, networks, robo­tics and quan­tum compu­ting, often in colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners from indus­try and rese­arch. In this way, it actively helps to shape future-proof products, solu­ti­ons and infra­struc­tures. Through stra­te­gic invest­ments in young tech-driven start­ups, the main incu­ba­tor supports inno­va­tions at an early stage and makes them acces­si­ble to Commerz­bank and its custo­mers. Further­more, the main incu­ba­tor promo­tes the tech ecosys­tem through active parti­ci­pa­tion in opinion-forming proces­ses and commit­tee work as well as through its own events, such as the monthly tech startup event series “Between the Towers”.

Main Incu­ba­tor GmbH, or main incu­ba­tor for short, is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank AG based in Frank­furt am Main. www.main-incubator.de

News

Zeven — REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance advi­sed DMK Group on the sale of its subsi­diary sanot­act GmbH to the family office of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family through its invest­ment arm FLOTTE Holding.

sanot­act is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal specialty suppli­ers of nutri­tio­nal supple­ments, such as effer­ve­s­cent tablets with vitamins and mine­rals and lactase products, which are sold in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Germany, sanot­act is mainly repre­sen­ted in drugs­to­res and food retail­ers. With 190 employees, sanot­act produ­ces and distri­bu­tes not only dietary supple­ments but also func­tional confec­tion­ery, espe­ci­ally breath fres­he­ners and dextrose products. Many consu­mers are fami­liar with the colorful dextrose rolls of the “intact” brand from phar­macies; with a market share of 60 percent, sanot­act has been the market leader there for more than 30 years. Through focu­sed expan­sion of the product range and the deve­lo­p­ment of new, inter­na­tio­nal sales markets, the company has deve­lo­ped very successfully in recent years.

DMK Group wants to focus on its core compe­tence dairy products in the future and has ther­e­fore deci­ded to divest under the lead of REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance. FLOTTE Holding was able to prevail in a compe­ti­tive M&A bidding process against natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal stra­te­gic inte­res­ted parties, finan­cial inves­tors and other family offices. The manage­ment has inves­ted in the company toge­ther with FLOTTE and will conti­nue the successful growth strategy.

With sales of 5.6 billion euros and 7,700 employees, DMK Group is the largest dairy coope­ra­tive in Germany and one of the leading dairy compa­nies in Europe. The product port­fo­lio ranges from cheese, dairy products and ingre­di­ents to baby food, ice cream and whey products with brands such as MILRAM, Olden­bur­ger, Unie­kaas, Alete and Humana.

The acqui­rer FLOTTE Holding is the invest­ment arm of the Piëch-Nord­hoff family, which is in the process of buil­ding a direct invest­ment port­fo­lio focu­sed on sustainable companies.

About REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance
REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance specia­li­zes in advi­sing on the sale and acqui­si­tion of compa­nies (M&A), MBO/MBI and struc­tu­ring of finan­cing. As “M&A specia­list for medium-sized compa­nies” REDHILL Corpo­rate Finance offers perso­nal M&A consul­ting for owner- and family-mana­ged compa­nies with a turno­ver between EUR 10 million and EUR 100 million as well as their share­hol­ders and inves­tors. Foun­der Kai Sessing­haus (photo) has 25 years of expe­ri­ence in this segment and is one of the most expe­ri­en­ced M&A advi­sors for medium-sized tran­sac­tions in Germany.

News

Frank­furt — Baker McKen­zie advi­ses the French indus­trial gases group Air Liquide on the plan­ned sale of the Schülke Group to the Swedish finan­cial inves­tor EQT. In a bidding process for the sale of Schülke, EQT prevai­led as the bidder. The sale is subject to labor consul­ta­ti­ons and regu­la­tory appr­ovals. In addi­tion to EQT, inves­tors Ardian, PAI and Plati­num were also among the inte­res­ted parties. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the tran­sac­tion volume.

Foun­ded in 1889 in Hamburg, Schülke & Mayr GmbH (today: Schülke) is an inter­na­tio­nal leader in the fields of hygiene infec­tion preven­tion(photo: products to prevent conta­mi­na­tion and infec­tion, among others). It supplies disin­fec­tants, anti­sep­tics, preser­va­ti­ves, bioci­des, medi­cal skin care products, deodo­rants and system clea­ners. Schülke employs more than 1,250 people world­wide, distri­bu­tes its products in more than 100 count­ries and, in addi­tion to Germany, also manu­fac­tures in France and Brazil. Schülke’s sales in 2019 were around 335 million euros.

Air Liquide is the global market leader in gases, tech­no­lo­gies and services for indus­try and health­care. With more than 50,000 employees in 80 count­ries, Air Liquide supplies oxygen, nitro­gen, hydro­gen and other gases to more than 2 million custo­mers and patients.

An inter­na­tio­nal team of Baker McKen­zie lawy­ers is advi­sing Air Liquide on the legal aspects of the tran­sac­tion. The advice included the prepa­ra­tion and support of the bidding process and the draf­ting of contracts and nego­tia­ti­ons with seve­ral bidders as well as the carve-out of Schülke from the Air Liquide Group. — In 2019, Baker McKen­zie alre­ady advi­sed Schülke on the sale of its Tech­ni­cal Bioci­des divi­sion to Vink Chemicals.

Legal advi­sor Air Liquide: Baker McKenzie
Lead: Corporate/M&A: Dr. Florian Kästle (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Ulrich Weide­mann (Coun­sel, Frankfurt)

Advi­sors to EQT: Fresh­fields Bruck­haus Derin­ger (Munich)
Dr. Wessel Heukamp (Lead; Corporate/M&A), Dr. Juliane Hilf (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Ramb (Berlin; both Public Commer­cial Law), Dr. Uta Itzen (Anti­trust Law; Düssel­dorf), Dr. Michael Josen­hans (Finance Law; Frank­furt), Dr. David Beutel (Tax), Dr. René Döring (Labor Law; Frank­furt), Juliane Ziebarth (Anti­trust Law; Düsseldorf).

Latham & Watkins: Domi­nic Newcomb (London), Thomas Weit­kamp (Munich), William Lam (London).

News

Frank­furt a. Main — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), toge­ther with co-inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal, the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, and TEV, has successfully sold its stake in Munich-based soft­ware company metoda. metoda is a leading provi­der of soft­ware-as-a-service solu­ti­ons for real-time market analy­sis in online retail. The new owner is Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners. The three early-stage inves­tors had first inves­ted in metoda toge­ther with seve­ral busi­ness angels as part of the seed round in 2013, and in 2015 they reaf­firmed their commit­ments as part of a Series A finan­cing round.

metoda GmbH is one of the world’s leading provi­ders of real-time market analy­ses in the field of e‑commerce. The world of online commerce is highly dyna­mic, so market parti­ci­pants need to rely on auto­ma­ted tools to gain an over­view of the market situa­tion and their compe­ti­tors. The Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) solu­ti­ons from metoda offer a solu­tion for this, with which the product data (prices, avai­la­bi­lity, ship­ping costs or deli­very times) of online retail­ers world­wide, inclu­ding Amazon, are conti­nuously recor­ded and analy­zed in a data protec­tion-compli­ant manner. The former start-up’s service enables retail­ers to adjust their own prices and assort­ment in real time to deve­lo­p­ments in the market. With “Amazon Adver­ti­sing AI”, metoda also offers an easy-to-use solu­tion for the auto­ma­tic crea­tion and analy­sis of adver­ti­sing on Amazon.

With a team of 50 employees, metoda today serves more than 200 blue-chip and mid-sized compa­nies, coor­di­na­tes around 50,000 adver­ti­sing campaigns per month, and proces­ses more than one billion e‑commerce data points from 28 count­ries every day.The new majo­rity share­hol­der is Maxburg Betei­li­gun­gen III (“Maxburg”), a fund advi­sed by Maxburg Capi­tal Part­ners, an invest­ment company focu­sed on the German-spea­king region with capi­tal commit­ments of € 600 million from the RAG Foun­da­tion. Maxburg focu­ses on long-term corpo­rate invest­ments with the goal of perma­nent and sustainable value enhance­ment and alre­ady holds stakes in seve­ral soft­ware and tech­no­logy companies.

“High-Tech Grün­der­fonds has actively supported the path from start-up to rele­vant indus­try player from the very begin­ning and reco­gni­zed the poten­tial of the idea behind metoda early on. It is impres­sive what the metoda team around Stefan Bures and Robert Schmidtke has crea­ted. We are convin­ced that Maxburg is the right part­ner to successfully accom­pany the company in its further growth.” Romy Schnelle (photo), part­ner at High-Tech Grün­der­fonds.

For Stefan Bures, foun­der and CEO of metoda GmbH, the tran­sac­tion is another important mile­stone in the deve­lo­p­ment of the company: “We are convin­ced that in Maxburg we have found an entre­pre­neu­rial, long-term orien­ted part­ner who will accom­pany us on our future path. At the same time, we would like to thank our previous inves­tors, without whom our success story would not have been possible.”

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 eleven invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 385 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 310 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 275 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 7,500 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable companies.

About TEV
TEV (Tengel­mann Ventures) has been inves­t­ing in start-ups in the consu­mer inter­net, digi­tal services and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies sectors since 2009. With around 50 invest­ments, Tengel­mann Ventures is one of the most important venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany. Its best-known invest­ments include compa­nies such as Zalando (IPO), Deli­very Hero (IPO), Klarna, Scalable Capi­tal and data Artisans.
www.tev.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

News

Munich — Water­land Private Equity (“Water­land”) acqui­res majo­rity stakes in the three IT service provi­ders Beck et al, binary and direkt gruppe. The compa­nies will be united in a new plat­form in the rapidly growing mana­ged enter­prise cloud market. In the future, the new group will offer a compre­hen­sive range of end-to-end solu­ti­ons in the areas of private cloud and public cloud in the DACH region and thus support compa­nies in the digi­tiza­tion of busi­ness proces­ses and on their way to the cloud. The sellers of the shares are the respec­tive foun­ders of the three compa­nies, who will all remain on board in manage­ment posi­ti­ons and will take a signi­fi­cant stake in the new group of companies.

Advi­sor to Water­land on the three tran­sac­tions: Henge­ler Mueller
Active are the part­ners Dr. Daniel Wiegand (Lead, M&A), Dr. Daniel Möritz (M&A), Dr. Matthias Schei­fele (Tax) (all Munich), Dr. Thors­ten Mäger (Anti­trust, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­tian Hoefs (Labor Law, Frank­furt) and Dr. Vera Jung­kind (Public Commer­cial Law), Coun­sel Patrick Wilke­ning (Intellec­tual Property/IT) (both Düssel­dorf) as well as Asso­cia­tes Elisa­beth Kreu­zer, Dr. Florian Dendl, Florian Braun, Daniel Blagoje­vic, Niels Chris­tian Schwai­ger, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Schlü­ter, Anto­nia Wege­ner (all Corporate/M&A), Marius Marx, Tobias Schwab (both Tax) (all Munich), Anne Broll (Labor Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Anja Balitzki (Anti­trust), Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Intellec­tual Property/IT) and Dr. Cars­ten Bormann (Public Commer­cial Law) (all Düsseldorf).

News

Munich — Carbon manu­fac­tu­rer Black­wave from Tauf­kir­chen has successfully comple­ted a second round of finan­cing with the support of the startup network BayStartUP. While the former share­hol­ders Cera­vis and Unger Capi­tal Manage­ment have increased their invest­ments, two new inves­tors, Profes­sor Rudolf Schwarz, owner of IABG, and CK Venture Capi­tal GmbH from Munich with the busi­ness angels Conny Hörl and Katja Ruhnke, have joined the company. In total, Black­wave was able to raise a seven-figure sum with the help of BayStartUP to expand the current 16-member team and signi­fi­cantly increase its production.

Black­wave is a company in the light­weight cons­truc­tion sector that deve­lops and produ­ces highly complex compon­ents made of carbon that cannot be manu­fac­tu­red using conven­tio­nal produc­tion methods. The compon­ents are charac­te­ri­zed by low weight as well as high stabi­lity. In addi­tion, Black­wave is also expe­ri­men­ting with new approa­ches to incor­po­rate screws, holes and threads in the produc­tion process to expand the range of appli­ca­ti­ons for its products.

“The comple­ted finan­cing round was an important step for us to turn our ambi­tious goals into reality,” said Bastian Behrens, CEO at Black­wave. “We will use the money both to open up further markets, such as medi­cal tech­no­logy, and to further auto­mate our produc­tion to become even more compe­ti­tive. Of course, the current econo­mic situa­tion also has an impact on our company. It’s reassu­ring to know that our inves­tors are fully behind us even now.”

Katja Ruhnke (photo), CEO at CK Venture Capi­tal GmbH, says: “I became aware of Black­wave through BayStartUP. Above all, the untap­ped poten­tial of carbon fiber-rein­forced plas­tics in the field of light­weight cons­truc­tion fasci­na­ted me from the very begin­ning. Moreo­ver, behind the name Black­wave is a highly moti­va­ted team that has alre­ady maste­red a number of chal­lenges in an outstan­ding manner. Black­wave meets all the requi­re­ments to be successful in the long term and to become a leader in light­weight construction.”

Whether in aero­space, auto­mo­tive, sports, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring or medi­cal tech­no­logy, compa­nies in these sectors are always on the lookout for ways to save weight, costs, fuel or mini­mize the amount of force requi­red. At the same time, the compon­ents must be extre­mely resistant to defor­ma­tion and tempe­ra­ture fluc­tua­tions. In space travel, compon­ents must be able to with­stand tempe­ra­tures from ‑150 to +175 degrees Celsius without beco­ming brittle or deforming. The Black­wave company specia­li­zes in solving precis­ely these requi­re­ments and, as an inno­va­tion driver, is play­ing a decisive role in shaping the field of light­weight construction.

Blackwave’s busi­ness centers on carbon fiber rein­forced plas­tic and a manu­fac­tu­ring process that uses pres­sure and heat to press the mate­rial into shape. The result is compon­ents that come from a single mold and are very resi­li­ent. Previous manu­fac­tu­ring proces­ses only allo­wed the produc­tion of simple, flat geome­tries, which consider­a­bly limits the areas of appli­ca­tion for carbon. Blackwave’s carbon compon­ents can not only replace metal­lic compon­ents, they are also ligh­ter and more resi­li­ent. Examp­les from space travel show that each kilo­gram of payload causes 30 to 100 kg of addi­tio­nal weight for rocket and fuel. Conver­sely, a kilo­gram of weight saved can be worth seve­ral thousand euros. The new manu­fac­tu­ring process also provi­des more design opti­ons. Dril­ling holes to insert screws and threads into carbon compon­ents inju­res the fiber struc­ture and weak­ens the stabi­lity of the mate­rial. Black­wave can inte­grate func­tional elements into the manu­fac­tu­ring process, which opens up comple­tely new indus­trial appli­ca­tion possi­bi­li­ties and enables custo­mers to deve­lop inno­va­tive products with enhan­ced functionalities.

Black­wave foun­ders Bastian Behrens and Raphael Setz met at the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich at the Formula Student Team. “We have very ambi­tious goals. In the short term, we will really ramp up produc­tion again and addi­tio­nally auto­mate it. This means that we will also be able to handle large series produc­tion. In the long term, we want to have our own carbon part in space by 2026 and take on a pionee­ring role in the field of complex and highly func­tional carbon compo­si­tes,” says Bastian Behrens, CEO of Blackwave.

To date, its custo­mers include renow­ned compa­nies from the aero­space, auto­mo­tive and sports sectors, inclu­ding Airbus, ESA, MT Aero­space, Pratt & Whit­ney as well as Porsche and M GmbH.

About BayStartUP
BayStartUP is the Bava­rian startup network for foun­ders, inves­tors and compa­nies. With the Bava­rian Busi­ness Plan Compe­ti­ti­ons, an exten­sive coaching offer and Europe’s largest inves­tor network, it supports start­ups in opti­mi­zing their stra­tegy, buil­ding their busi­ness and finding start-up and growth capi­tal. For private and insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, BayStartUP ensu­res a quali­fied deal flow and offers startup insights at exclu­sive busi­ness angel meetings and inves­tor confe­ren­ces. With nati­on­wide startup indus­try matchings and concep­tual offers, BayStartUP advi­ses estab­lished compa­nies on the deve­lo­p­ment of suita­ble stra­te­gies for coope­ra­tion with start­ups. Through BayStartUP, foun­ders have cont­act oppor­tu­ni­ties with around 300 active busi­ness angels as well as over 100 insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Since 2015, BayStartUP has broke­red over €263 million in capi­tal in 259 actively mana­ged finan­cing rounds, each with a volume of between €50,000 and €6 million. Compa­nies supported by BayStartUP are active on the market with more than 13,100 employees and gene­rate a turno­ver of almost 1.4 billion euros (as of 2017). These include eight IPOs and success stories such as Flix­bus, eGym, Maga­zino, Voxel­jet, numa­res, Transpo­reon and va-Q-tec AG.

About Black­wave
Black­wave deve­lops and produ­ces complex light­weight compon­ents with sophisti­ca­ted 3D geome­tries from carbon for compa­nies in the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, sports equip­ment and mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring sectors. The tech­no­logy, which is based on the prin­ci­ple of hot extru­sion, enables signi­fi­cant weight savings while keeping costs low. The company, based in Tauf­kir­chen, was foun­ded in 2016 and has alre­ady been able to file a promi­sing patent in the field of carbon SMC. www.blackwave.de.

News

Frank­furt a. Main — Network Corpo­rate Finance has deci­ded to add Sebas­tian Altmayer, photo (M&A) and Sven Voigt (Debt Advi­sory), two of its direc­tors, to its part­ner­ship. Both part­ners have been active in the corpo­rate finance busi­ness for over 10 years and have successfully imple­men­ted nume­rous natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal transactions.

Sebas­tian Altmayer joined Network Corpo­rate Finance in 2011 and focu­ses on M&A and Equity Capi­tal Markets at our Düssel­dorf office, where he further streng­thens the part­ner base. Sebas­tian Altmayer advi­ses medium-sized compa­nies, inter­na­tio­nal groups and private equity inves­tors on succes­sion solu­ti­ons, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons, mergers or measu­res to streng­then the equity base.

Sven Voigt has been with Network Corpo­rate Finance since 2008, initi­ally in our M&A team in Düssel­dorf and since 2013 in Frank­furt, where he has focu­sed on provi­ding finan­cing advice to private equity inves­tors and compa­nies. As a new Part­ner, he is respon­si­ble, toge­ther with Diet­rich Stol­ten­burg, for the Debt Advi­sory divi­sion in Frank­furt. In this context, Sven Voigt advi­ses on all issues rela­ted to acqui­si­tion finan­cing, refi­nan­cing and restructuring.

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

 

News

Düssel­dorf — The heristo Group has dive­s­ted its 51-year-old stake in Like­Meat, one of Germany’s leading suppli­ers of vegan meat alter­na­ti­ves. The purcha­ser of LikeMeat’s majo­rity stake is US-based Foods United Inc. The heristo Group was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Deloitte Legal Düsseldorf.

The heristo Group is a family-run group of compa­nies present in the german and inter­na­tio­nal markets in the meat finis­hing, deli­ca­tes­sen, pet food and whole­sale and foreign trade of food products, with a wide range of products and Services. It is one of the largest compa­nies in the German food indus­try, the largest Euro­pean produ­cers of pet food and the global trading compa­nies. The group gene­ra­tes about two-thirds of its turno­ver from the produc­tion of private labels.

Like­Meat deve­lops contem­po­rary products for an enjoya­ble, modern and balan­ced diet and stands for a wide range of plant-based meat substi­tu­tes. Foun­ded in 2013 as a German start-up company based in Düssel­dorf, the company expan­ded rapidly and has been offe­ring its products in other Euro­pean count­ries as well as in the USA since 2017. Like­Meat now has a total of around 100 employees at its produc­tion faci­lity in Oss, the Nether­lands, as well as at its head­quar­ters in Düsseldorf.

Foods United pursues a stra­tegy of buil­ding up and expan­ding an exten­sive port­fo­lio of invest­ments in the meat substi­tu­tes market, focu­sing on the entire value chain: from raw mate­rial procu­re­ment to produc­tion to marke­ting. The majo­rity share­hol­der of Foods United is the billionaire Swiss inves­tor Blue Hori­zon Corpo­ra­tion AG. In addi­tion to Blue Hori­zon, many other inves­tors are invol­ved in Foods United.

Dr. Michael von Rüden (photo) and his team from Deloitte Legal has been a regu­lar member of the heristo Group since 2016 and has alre­ady accom­pa­nied the company on various M&A tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding the sale of Paul­sen Food in 2017 and the sale of Günther Janßen Handels GmbH in 2019. As part of this tran­sac­tion, in the highly dyna­mic envi­ron­ment of plant substi­tu­tes for poul­try and meat, they were once again able to draw on their exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the food industry.

Consul­tant heristo Group: Deloitte Legal
Dr. Michael von Rüden, LL.M. (USA) (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, Lead), André Giesen, EMBA (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Horst Heinzl, M.C.L. (HKU) (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).

About Deloitte/Deloitte Legal
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.

Deloitte Legal refers to the legal advice prac­ti­ces of the member compa­nies of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted, its affi­lia­tes or affi­lia­tes that provide legal services. Deloitte refers to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limi­ted (“DTTL”), a “private limi­ted company limi­ted by guaran­tee” (limi­ted liabi­lity company under UK law), its network of member compa­nies and its affi­lia­tes. DTTL and each of its member compa­nies are legally inde­pen­dent and inde­pen­dent. DTTL (also called “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients.

News

Munich — Start-up Nera­Care GmbH, a specia­list in skin cancer risk assess­ment, has secu­red EUR 8 million in a Series A finan­cing round. MIG Funds 10, 14 and 16, BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Synvie GmbH parti­ci­pa­ted in the finan­cing round. LUTZ | ABEL as legal advi­sor to the inves­tors MIG-Fonds and BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft has the lead in this Series‑A finan­cing round.

The round was led by MIG Fonds 10, 14 and 16 — other inves­tors include BayBG Baye­ri­sche Betei­li­gungs­ge­sell­schaft and Synvie GmbH. Nera­Care is active in the field of precis­ion medi­cine against black skin cancer, defen­ding its unique posi­tion. The start-up deve­lops and markets gene expres­sion tests to deter­mine the risk of recur­rence in mali­gnant mela­n­oma. With the help of such a mela­n­oma diagno­sis, doctors will be able to make a relia­ble progno­sis in the future and make infor­med treat­ment decis­i­ons: Pati­ents with low-risk tumors will thus be spared unneces­sary drug thera­pies, while those pati­ents with incon­spi­cuous but higher-risk tumors and ther­e­fore more in need of treat­ment can be identified.

LUTZ | ABEL provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice on the finan­cing round.
Dr. Bern­hard Noreisch (VC/M&A, Munich) was the lead part­ner. The teams also included: Jan-Phil­lip Kunz (VC/M&A, Munich), Dr. Sebas­tian Sumal­vico (VC/M&A, Munich), Cars­ten Huch-Hall­wachs (IP, Munich) and Andreas Kössel (Labor Law, Munich). Nera­Care GmbH was advi­sed by Honert (Sven Frit­sche, Kai-Clemens Wehlage), the foun­ders were advi­sed by CMS (Dr. Tilman Weichert) and the manage­ment by Diss­mann Orth (Dr. Martin Lohse). The inves­tor Synvie GmbH was advi­sed by Pinsent Masons (Chris­tian Lang).

News

Munich — Latham & Watkins LLP advi­sed CDH Invest­ments (CDH) on the acqui­si­tion of a signi­fi­cant stake in WOW Tech Group, a leading global provi­der of premium sensory health and well­ness products. The manage­ment of WOW Tech Group as well as the exis­ting inves­tors will remain share­hol­ders of WOW Tech Group and will conti­nue to hold stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal func­tions. WOW Tech Group was advi­sed by ARQIS Attor­neys at Law .

As one of the world’s leading suppli­ers, WOW Tech Group specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­ture and marke­ting of high-quality products for lovemaking.

CDH, with offices in Singa­pore, Hong Kong and Beijing, mana­ges assets of appro­xi­m­ately USD 20 billion. The company has invest­ments in over 150 compa­nies focu­sed on consu­mer goods and health­care industries.

Latham & Watkins LLP advi­sed CDH with the follo­wing team:
Dr. Rainer Trau­gott (Part­ner, Lead, Munich), Susanne Decker (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Hanno Witt, Dr. Thomas Diek­mann, Dr. Hendrik Ley, Anja Schind­ler, Dr. Andreas Holzgreve, (all Asso­ciate, Private Equity), Dr. Ulf Kieker (Coun­sel, Tax), Thomas Weit­kamp (Part­ner), Ludwig Zesch, Phil­ipp Büch­ler (both Asso­ciate, all Banking and Finance, all Munich), Joachim Gritt­mann (Coun­sel, Regu­la­tory, Frank­furt), Dr. Jana Dammann (Coun­sel, Hamburg) Jan Voll­kam­mer (Asso­ciate, both Anti­trust, Frank­furt), Anne Kleff­mann (Part­ner), Annika Juds (Asso­ciate, both Labor Law, Munich) as well as lawy­ers from Latham’s Hong Kong office.

Advi­sors WOW Tech Group: ARQIS Rechts­an­wälte (Düssel­dorf)
ARQIS advi­sed Johan­nes Graf Plet­ten­berg, the foun­der and CEO of WOW Tech Group (WOW Tech), a Berlin-based sex toy manu­fac­tu­rer, in connec­tion with the sale of his busi­ness shares to Singa­pore-based private equity group CDH Invest­ments (CDH) and his subse­quent re-invest­ment in the target group.
Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Lead; Corporate/M&A); Coun­sel: Dr. Stepha­nie Lenze (Labor Law); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Corporate/M&A); Martin Wein­gärt­ner (Labor Law)

News

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte advi­sed the German single family office MAGNUS Holding on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in DREHTAINER GmbH.

DREHTAINER GmbH is a leading manu­fac­tu­rer of special contai­ners and special vehicle compon­ents. With the new majo­rity owner, the company is coun­ting on constant busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment in the long term; toge­ther with the new owner, growth in key markets is also to be driven forward.

DREHTAINER deve­lops and produ­ces modu­lar systems for infra­struc­tures and vehic­les whose level of protec­tion can be custo­mi­zed. The inter­na­tio­nal custo­mer base of the owner-mana­ged company includes nume­rous NATO armed forces as well as OEMs in the defense and aero­space industries.

The single family office MAGNUS Holding is a long-term orien­ted inves­tor that supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies in their sustainable deve­lo­p­ment. The focus is on the aero­space and defense, medi­cal tech­no­logy and phar­maceu­ti­cal primary pack­a­ging sectors.

Advi­sors to MAGNUS Holding: SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte, Munich
Dr. Matthias Nord­mann, Photo (Lead, Corporate/M&A), Eva Bona­cker (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A), Heiko Wunder­lich (Tax Law), Hanna Karl (Coun­sel, Labor Law), Stefan C. Schi­cker, LL.M. (IP), Dr. Katrin Hansen (Asso­ciate, Commercial)

SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte is an inde­pen­dent German law firm with over 130 lawy­ers in five loca­ti­ons. SKW Schwarz advi­ses compa­nies ranging from owner-mana­ged busi­nesses to listed stock corpo­ra­ti­ons, as well as private clients, in all major areas of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal busi­ness law.

News

Geneva, Switz­er­land — Firmenich announ­ced that it has ente­red into exclu­si­vity with Ardian, Tike­hau Capi­tal and family share­hol­ders to acquire Les Déri­vés Rési­ni­ques et Terpé­ni­ques (“DRT”). DRT is a world leader in plant-based chemis­try, mainly from pine trees, and is one of the leading suppli­ers globally of high quality, rene­wa­ble ingredients.

“I am thril­led to bring DRT’s unique capa­bi­li­ties for deve­lo­ping sustainable ingre­di­ents to Firmenich. This propo­sed combi­na­tion builds on our busi­ness part­ner­ship of more than 30 years and our estab­lished track record of successful co-deve­lo­p­ment in a long-stan­ding joint venture,” said Patrick Firmenich, Chair­man of the Board, Firmenich. “We thank Ardian and Tike­hau Capi­tal for their strong steward­ship and we are deligh­ted to welcome all DRT colle­agues to Firmenich. We share the same passion for our custo­mers, sustaina­bi­lity, as well as strong family values.”

“Firmenich would be the ideal home for DRT,” said Thibault Basquin, Head of Ameri­cas Invest­ment and Mana­ging Direc­tor at Ardian Buyout. “I would like to warmly thank Laurent Laba­tut and his team for our part­ner­ship over the past few years. Ardian has enab­led DRT to acce­le­rate its growth, invest in new projects and enhance its sustaina­bi­lity approach. Firmenich has been an important stra­te­gic part­ner for DRT for many years and would be uniquely posi­tio­ned to bring DRT’s product deve­lo­p­ment capa­bi­li­ties to the next level. As a family-owned busi­ness that is commit­ted to inno­va­tion, Firmenich will provide a great envi­ron­ment for DRT’s colleagues.”

Emma­nuel Lail­lier, Head of Private Equity at Tike­hau Capi­tal added: “Tike­hau Capi­tal has supported DRT’s growth stra­tegy and global deve­lo­p­ment for six years. We are today very plea­sed to help bring DRT and Firmenich toge­ther, which is a key step for the conti­nua­tion of its development.”

“DRT would further streng­then our leading Perfu­mery & Ingre­di­ents busi­ness enab­ling us to offer our custo­mers the world’s best palette of rene­wa­ble and sustainable ingre­di­ents,” said Gilbert Ghos­tine, CEO, Firmenich. “DRT would bring new capa­bi­li­ties in health & nutri­tion, cosme­tics, as well as a number of new markets, inclu­ding adhe­si­ves, coatings and agri­cul­ture. This acqui­si­tion rein­forces our presence in France, which is our second largest market where we have been estab­lished for more than 120 years. I look forward to part­ne­ring with all our custo­mers to support their trans­for­ma­tion for a sustainable future.”

“We share a long-stan­ding rela­ti­onship with Firmenich as it is one of our main part­ners,” explains Laurent Laba­tut, CEO of DRT. “Firmenich is renow­ned for its cutting-edge rese­arch that feeds into the broa­dest and finest ingre­di­ents palette. Our joint inno­va­tion capa­bi­li­ties would open up new oppor­tu­ni­ties to support our clients across our entire product port­fo­lio. Toge­ther we look forward to opening a new chap­ter with a shared ambi­tion to design best-in-class sustainable ingre­di­ents for our customers.”

DRT is at the fore­front of deve­lo­ping sustainable, rene­wa­ble and natu­rally-deri­ved ingre­di­ents from terpe­nes and rosin deri­va­ti­ves. DRT offers green alter­na­ti­ves for a range of appli­ca­ti­ons and markets. Foun­ded in 1932 and head­quar­te­red in Dax, France, DRT deve­lo­ped a unique, back­ward inte­gra­ted busi­ness model over many deca­des, inclu­ding access to sustainable raw mate­ri­als, best-in-class extra­c­tion and distil­la­tion capa­bi­li­ties and advan­ced inno­va­tion proces­ses. DRT has been a family-owned company for most of its history and has grown thanks to its commit­ment to long-stan­ding rela­ti­onships with its suppli­ers and its customers.

DRT has a turno­ver in excess of €550 million, employs more than 1,500 people around the world and is opera­ting through a global foot­print with four produc­tion sites loca­ted in France, two in the USA, two in India and one in China.

Finan­cial terms of the deal have not been disc­lo­sed. The propo­sed tran­sac­tion remains subject to seve­ral condi­ti­ons inclu­ding the consul­ta­tion of the rele­vant employee repre­sen­ta­ti­ves and custo­mary appr­ovals by the anti­trust authorities.
Firmenich was advi­sed by Gold­man Sachs Inter­na­tio­nal, Raphaël Finan­cial Advi­sory and Bredin Prat. Ardian was advi­sed by Citigroup, Roth­schild & Co, Latham & Watkins and White & Case.

About Firmenich
Firmenich is the world’s largest priva­tely-owned perfume and taste company, foun­ded in Geneva, Switz­er­land, in 1895. Driven by its purpose to create posi­tive emoti­ons to enhance well­be­ing, natu­rally, Firmenich has desi­gned many of the world’s best-known perfu­mes and tastes, brin­ging delight to over four billion consu­mers every day. Renow­ned for its world-class rese­arch and crea­ti­vity, as well as its leader­ship in sustaina­bi­lity, each year, Firmenich invests 10% of its turno­ver in R&D to under­stand and share the best that nature has to offer respon­si­bly. Firmenich had an annual turno­ver of 3.9 billion Swiss francs at the end of June 2019. More infor­ma­tion about Firmenich is available at www.firmenich.com.

About DRT
Foun­ded in 1932, DRT specia­li­zes in the deve­lo­p­ment of gum rosin and turpen­tine extra­c­ted from pine resin. DRT’s head office is loca­ted in Dax, France and sells its products around the world. DRT has a diver­si­fied product port­fo­lio of more than 300 ingre­di­ents addres­sing a variety of end markets. DRT opera­tes 9 manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties either directly or with joint venture part­ners. More infor­ma­tion about DRT is available at www.drt.fr

About Ardian
Ardian is a world-leading private invest­ment house with assets of US$ 96bn mana­ged or advi­sed in Europe, the Ameri­cas and Asia. The company is majo­rity-owned by its employees. It keeps entre­pre­neur­ship at its heart and focu­ses on deli­ve­ring excel­lent invest­ment perfor­mance to its global inves­tor base. Through its commit­ment to shared outco­mes for all stake­hol­ders, Ardian’s acti­vi­ties fuel indi­vi­dual, corpo­rate and econo­mic growth around the world.

Holding close its core values of excel­lence, loyalty and entre­pre­neur­ship, Ardian main­ta­ins a truly global network, with more than 680 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frank­furt, Jersey, London, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Ameri­cas (New York, San Fran­cisco and Sant­iago) and Asia (Beijing, Singa­pore, Tokyo and Seoul). It mana­ges funds on behalf of around 1,000 clients through five pillars of invest­ment exper­tise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infra­struc­ture, Real Estate and Private Debt. More infor­ma­tion about Ardian is available at https://www.ardian.com/fr

About Tike­hau Capital
Tike­hau Capi­tal is an asset manage­ment and invest­ment group which mana­ges € 25.8bn of assets under manage­ment (as at 31 Decem­ber 2019) and share­hol­ders’ equity of € 3.1 billion (as at 30 June 2019). The Group invests in various asset clas­ses (private debt, real-estate, private equity, capi­tal markets stra­te­gies), inclu­ding through its asset manage­ment subsi­dia­ries, on behalf of insti­tu­tio­nal and private inves­tors. Control­led by its mana­gers, along­side leading insti­tu­tio­nal part­ners, Tike­hau Capi­tal employs more than 500 staff (as at 30 Septem­ber 2019) in its Paris, London, Amster­dam, Brussels, Luxem­bourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Seoul, Singa­pore and Tokyo offices.

News

Munich, Frank­furt a. Main — High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), toge­ther with co-inves­tors Bayern Kapi­tal and seve­ral busi­ness angels, is taking a stake in Munich-based iATROS GmbH as part of a two million euro seed finan­cing. The digi­tal health startup has deve­lo­ped a tele­me­di­cine solu­tion that enables data-driven treat­ment of cardio­logy pati­ents. Thus, iATROS addres­ses clinics as well as pati­ents directly.

The funds from the seed round will be used to expand the work­force and further deve­lop the soft­ware. The opera­tio­nal launch is plan­ned for later this year.

iATROS was foun­ded in 2019 by two cardiac specia­lists, Prof. Alex­an­der Leber, MD, and Geor­ges von Degen­feld, MD, as well as Patrick Pala­cin, Prof. Wolf­ram Winter, and Jens Schä­fer. The deve­lo­p­ment of the plat­form aims to connect cardiac pati­ents more closely and perma­nently with their medi­cal provi­ders. The core of the solu­tion is the app-based, conti­nuous doctor-pati­ent connec­tion in the form of digi­tal health plans as well as a manu­fac­tu­rer-inde­pen­dent inte­gra­tion of mobile health sensors (so-called smart weara­bles). This invol­ves the perma­nent coll­ec­tion of pati­ent health data to assist physi­ci­ans with diagno­stics, medi­ca­tion sche­du­ling and auto­ma­ted alerts using arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Via the app, heart pati­ents are profes­sio­nally accom­pa­nied and remin­ded to take measu­re­ments or medi­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the app offers pati­ents the oppor­tu­nity to self-assess their health status. In emer­gen­cies, they can cont­act a tele­car­dio­lo­gist around the clock (24/7) at the touch of a button. The iATROS plat­form is desi­gned to help make medi­cal care for cardiac pati­ents more effi­ci­ent and prevent dise­a­ses such as strokes or heart attacks.iATROS’ solu­tion addres­ses one of the largest areas of the German health­care system: the field of cardio­logy, for exam­ple, accounts for around 16 percent of total health­care costs in Germany. Cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­ase is the leading cause of death, accoun­ting for 39 percent of all cases. In addi­tion, around 1.7 million pati­ents are trea­ted as inpa­ti­ents for cardio­vas­cu­lar dise­a­ses in this coun­try every year.

Roman Huber (photo), Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal: “Compared to other sectors, the health­care indus­try is still not very digi­ti­zed. A large market with considera­ble growth poten­tial will open up here in the coming years. Espe­ci­ally in cardio­logy, digi­tal solu­ti­ons offer signi­fi­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve pati­ents’ therapy and quality of life. That’s what makes iATROS’ well-desi­gned solu­tion so exciting.”

iATROS GmbH is one of the most inno­va­tive start-ups in digi­tal medi­cine. The compe­tence of the foun­ders, the tech­no­logy as well as the deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in this busi­ness field convin­ced us to invest, says Dr. Juri Bach, Invest­ment Mana­ger of HTGF.

News

Hano­ver — He has been active in the invest­ment busi­ness for more than 20 years: Robert Pauli (photo), a graduate engi­neer, comes from a family busi­ness hims­elf and knows what makes medium-sized compa­nies tick. At HANNOVER Finanz, an equity part­ner specia­li­zing in SMEs, his respon­si­bi­li­ties include port­fo­lio development.

Robert Pauli has been a part­ner in the HANNOVER Finanz Group since March 2020. The 46-year-old comes from a medium-sized family busi­ness in Colo­gne and disco­vered his passion for the invest­ment busi­ness early on. “Private equity should help to main­tain medium-sized compa­nies and support them in succes­sion and growth,” is Robert Pauli’s convic­tion. After study­ing elec­tri­cal engi­nee­ring in Colo­gne, the graduate engi­neer went on to study busi­ness in London, gradua­ting with an M.A. in Busi­ness and Manage­ment. He then joined the invest­ment company Nord Holding in 1999 and was invol­ved in nume­rous corpo­rate tran­sac­tions. He was employed at the invest­ment company, which origi­nally belon­ged to NordLB, until 2017 — most recently as a member of the manage­ment board and was respon­si­ble for port­fo­lio deve­lo­p­ment. From 2017, the father of two and convin­ced Hano­ver­ian by choice mana­ged epa Dosier­tech­nik GmbH in Colo­gne, where he arran­ged the succes­sion in his parents’ busi­ness. He will conti­nue to be asso­cia­ted with his family busi­ness as a shareholder.

About the HANNOVER Finanz Group
Foun­ded in 1979, the HANNOVER Finanz Group has more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence as an equity part­ner for SMEs. The private equity house based in Hano­ver and Vienna is one of the first venture capi­ta­lists for the D‑A-CH region in Germany. Well-known compa­nies such as Fiel­mann, Ross­mann and AIXTRON have reali­zed their growth with equity capi­tal from the HANNOVER Finanz Group and taken advan­tage of its entre­pre­neu­rial support. The Group also invests in company succes­si­ons and medium-sized struc­tu­red carve-outs or spin-offs. The basis for the long-term invest­ments in medium-sized compa­nies are the curr­ently five active ever­green funds with an unli­mi­ted term.

The inves­tors are mainly insu­rance compa­nies or profes­sio­nal pension funds. HANNOVER Finanz’s commit­ments range from tradi­tio­nal indus­tries to trade and new tech­no­lo­gies. Since its foun­da­tion, the equity part­ner for SMEs has been growing conti­nuously, and with it the number of successfully comple­ted invest­ments. Invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties are mainly growth finan­cing and succes­sion plan­ning for solid medium-sized compa­nies with annual sales of 20 million euros or more. In addi­tion to majo­rity share­hol­dings, the HANNOVER Finanz Group is one of the few invest­ment compa­nies in Germany to acquire mino­rity inte­rests. The port­fo­lio curr­ently includes 35 companies.

News

Graz/Frankfurt/Freiburg — The globally active high-tech company AVL List GmbH has acqui­red shares in FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH, based in Frei­burg. FIFTY2 has deve­lo­ped the inno­va­tive soft­ware tool Preon­Lab, which enables the simu­la­tion of previously unrea­lizable fluid dyna­mics use cases.

A successful sales part­ner­ship has alre­ady exis­ted between the two compa­nies for seve­ral years. The entry of AVL as a share­hol­der now rein­forces this part­ner­ship. With this step, AVL streng­thens and expands its simu­la­tion compe­ten­cies. Compared to conven­tio­nal solu­ti­ons, Preon­Lab opens up new possi­bi­li­ties for custo­mers to simu­late fluids in consider­a­bly less time, with less effort and impres­sive display capa­bi­li­ties. This simu­la­tion tech­ni­que is used in parti­cu­lar by the auto­mo­tive industry.

AVL is the world’s largest inde­pen­dent company for the deve­lo­p­ment, simu­la­tion and test­ing of power­train systems (hybrid, combus­tion engi­nes, trans­mis­si­ons, elec­tric motors, batte­ries and soft­ware) for passen­ger cars, commer­cial vehic­les and large engi­nes. AVL employs over 10,400 people world­wide. In 2018, sales amoun­ted to 1.75 billion euros.

FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH was foun­ded as a startup in 2015. Rese­arch on the Preon­Lab soft­ware tool began a decade ago at the Univer­sity of Frei­burg and is based on using mathe­ma­tics and compu­ter code to create simu­la­ti­ons that repli­cate nature. Physi­cal simu­la­ti­ons can help provide insights early in the deve­lo­p­ment cycle in many areas of engi­nee­ring. Engi­neers are thus enab­led to produce more inno­va­tive and safer products.

FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH and its two foun­ding share­hol­ders and mana­ging direc­tors, Markus Ihmsen and Jens Corne­lis, were compre­hen­si­vely advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by an M&A team from the commer­cial law firm Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner (FGvW) in Frei­burg, led by part­ner Dr. Hendrik Thies. The cont­act between FIFTY2 and FGvW came about through a recommendation.

AVL List GmbH was advi­sed by the Frank­furt office of CMS Hasche Sigle, led by Dr. Jochen Schlot­ter.

Advi­sor to FIFTY2 Tech­no­logy GmbH and its foun­ding share­hol­ders: Fried­rich Graf von West­pha­len & Part­ner, Freiburg
Dr. Hendrik Thies, Part­ner (Lead Part­ner, Corpo­rate, M&A)
Dr. Jan Henning Martens, Part­ner (Corpo­rate, Start­ups, Venture Capital)
Dr. Stefan Lammel, Part­ner (Corpo­rate Finance)
Dr. Morton Douglas, Part­ner (IP)
Dr. Matthias Jüne­mann, Part­ner (Family Law/Inheritance Law)

News

Hamburg — The HR plat­form Work­Ge­nius recei­ves another finan­cing round of USD 7 million from Axel Sven Sprin­ger, John Jahr and Oliver Heine. Work­Ge­nius has crea­ted a plat­form to shape the future of work — from task descrip­tion to finis­hed result — for both free­lan­cers and companies.

Entre­pre­neurs Axel Sven Sprin­ger, Oliver Heine, John Jahr and a Swiss family office alre­ady inves­ted €8.5 million in the Hamburg-based human resour­ces startup in 2018. The company was foun­ded in 2012 by Daniel Barke and Marlon Litz-Rosen­zweig and was form­erly known as Mylitt­le­job. Repo­si­tio­ned, it has now estab­lished itself as a plat­form for finding, mana­ging and paying free­lan­cers. Around USD 20 million has alre­ady flowed into Work­Ge­nius. The startup employs 75 people.

News

Hamburg — The Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. inte­gra­tes the estab­lished German fund of funds company for U.S. tech­no­logy funds, BPE Fund Inves­tors from Hamburg. Since 2001, the manage­ment of BPE Fund Inves­tors around Dr. Andreas Odefey, Aman Miran Khan and Arne Fieder­ling conti­nuously culti­va­ted the network and exclu­sive access to “top addres­ses” among US tech­no­logy funds. German insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as well as wealthy private inves­tors have since subscri­bed to shares in three funds of funds that inves­ted venture capi­tal in pionee­ring fund addres­ses for venture capi­tal in the USA, such as Bain Capi­tal Ventures, Canaan Part­ners, Khosla Ventures, Klei­ner Perkins, NEA or TCV. In this way, inves­tors were alre­ady invol­ved at a very early stage in compa­nies such as Beyond Meat, Face­book, FitBit, Netflix, Square, Twit­ter, Tesla or Work­day and were able to profit accor­din­gly from the dispro­por­tio­nate increa­ses in value of these companies.

“BPE Fund Inves­tors has meti­cu­lously built an extre­mely viable German invest­ment bridge out of Hamburg to the attrac­tive venture capi­tal market in the US. We are plea­sed to conti­nue the exis­ting funds of funds of BPE Fund Inves­tors under Lennertz & Co.”, says Phil­ipp Lennertz, Mana­ging Part­ner of the Hamburg-based family office Lennertz & Co. “Disrup­tive tech­no­lo­gies are finan­ced espe­ci­ally in the US and conti­nue to promise high growth poten­tial for exam­ple in the areas of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Big Data, Digi­tal Health and Precis­ion Medi­cine as well as Connec­ti­vity and Consu­mer Beha­vior”, says Dr. Odefey of BPE Fund Inves­tors. “As a succes­sor solu­tion for our fund of funds busi­ness, we are convin­ced that the Hamburg-based family office will, in the long term, further tap the great poten­tial of the U.S. venture capi­tal indus­try for German inves­tors, as seen by BPE Fund Inves­tors,” said Dr. Andreas Odefey of BPE Fund Investors.

Arne Fieder­ling joins the team of Lennertz & Co. as Mana­ging Direc­tor of BPE Fund Inves­tors. He will both ensure conti­nuity in the manage­ment of BPE’s exis­ting funds and work toge­ther with a compe­tent team at Lennertz & Co. on the further deve­lo­p­ment of the fund of funds concept. Like Arne Fieder­ling, the team members at Lennertz & Co. also look back on many years of venture capi­tal and private equity expe­ri­ence and have worked for Bain Capi­tal, BC Part­ners, Gold­man Sachs, McKin­sey and Swift Capi­tal, among others.

“With the inte­gra­tion of BPE Fund Inves­tors, we have succee­ded in speci­fi­cally expan­ding our alre­ady exis­ting plat­form for “alter­na­tive invest­ments” for our clients,” says Phil­ipp Lennertz (photo). Accor­din­gly, the Family Office crea­ted the Lennertz & Co. US Venture and Growth Fund I for its clients a few weeks ago. The port­fo­lio of this fund of funds shall consist of at least 70% U.S. early stage and growth capi­tal funds. In addi­tion, a maxi­mum of 30% of the fund volume is to be allo­ca­ted to direct and co-invest­ments. In addi­tion, it is charac­te­ri­zed by strong diver­si­fi­ca­tion through the selec­tion of seve­ral funds, resul­ting in parti­ci­pa­tion in more than 100 port­fo­lio compa­nies. The product’s target funds include well-known names such as Andre­es­sen Horo­witz, First­Mark, Insight Part­ners, Klei­ner Perkins and NEA.

In addi­tion to being able to invest in the major U.S. venture capi­tal funds, clients can also take expo­sures to Euro­pean venture capi­tal funds. In addi­tion, clients can parti­ci­pate in Lennertz & Co.’s Family Equity Fund, which provi­des direct and indi­rect invest­ments in German and Euro­pean small- and mid-cap compa­nies. The plat­form is comple­ted by the possi­bi­lity to make pre-IPO invest­ments. In the recent past, Lennertz & Co. inves­ted for its clients in compa­nies such as Pinte­rest, Airbnb, 23andMe and Meituan.

About Lennertz & Co.
Lennertz & Co. is an owner-mana­ged family office with a clear focus on the further deve­lo­p­ment and value enhance­ment of its clients’ assets. For this purpose, their indi­vi­dual family, busi­ness and asset situa­tion is conside­red in detail and on an ongo­ing basis, taking into account the legally and fiscally rele­vant frame­work condi­ti­ons. — The invest­ment recom­men­da­ti­ons are in line with the clients’ perso­nal prefe­ren­ces. They bene­fit from the inde­pen­dence of Lennertz & Co., for exam­ple in the assess­ment of global invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, their selec­tion and their discreet implementation.

As an entre­pre­neu­rial multi family office, Lennertz & Co. shares its clients’ demand for fast, profound and secure decis­i­ons. In order to thoroughly examine the oppor­tu­ni­ties that arise in the private equity segment for its clients, Lennertz & Co. has a compe­tent team at its dispo­sal that can look back on deca­des of private equity expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion, the advi­sory board consists of renow­ned indus­try and private equity experts such as Prof. Dr. Hein­rich von Pierer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Wuche­rer, Stefan Theis, Daniel Milleg and Florian Heinemann.

News

Munich / Rein­bek — P+P Pöllath + Part­ners has advi­sed Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE on the acqui­si­tion of Aller­g­o­pharma GmbH & Co KG, a subsi­diary of Merck KGaA, based in Rein­bek near Hamburg. Through Derm­a­ph­arm Betei­li­gungs GmbH, the company acqui­res 100% of the shares in the Merck subsidiary.

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the rele­vant regu­la­tory autho­rity; closing is expec­ted by the end of the second quar­ter of 2020.

Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE, head­quar­te­red in Grün­wald, Germany, focu­ses on the produc­tion and distri­bu­tion of high-quality derma­to­lo­gi­cal and aller­go­lo­gi­cal phar­maceu­ti­cals. Aller­g­o­pharma is a company specia­li­zed in desen­si­tiza­tion for allergies.

P+P Pöllath + Part­ners provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Derm­a­ph­arm Holding SE in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion with the follo­wing multi­di­sci­pli­nary and multi­site team:

Dr. Matthias Bruse, LL.M., Photo (Part­ner, Lead Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust Law, Frankfurt)
Dr. Matthias Werner (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Berlin)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, IP/M&A, Frankfurt)
Jasmin Wagner (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)
Dr. Jesko von Mirbach, LL.M., EMBA (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Berlin)
Dr. Lena Hummel (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Munich)

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