Author: Tatjana Anderer

Tel Aviv — Israeli start-up Hi Auto will unveil the world’s first audio-visual commer­cial solu­tion for back­ground noise-free spea­ker recor­ding and speech enhance­ment. The company has comple­ted a seed phase with a $4.5 million invest­ment led by Israeli auto importer Delek Motors and Hi Auto’s acting chair­man Zohar Zisa­pel (pictu­red).

Other inves­tors included Allied Holdings (holding company of auto importer Cham­pion Motors), Singa­pore-based Gold­bell Group, a leader in indus­trial vehicle sales and leasing, and Plug & Play, which works with auto­mo­tive part­ners to innovate.

Hi Auto plans to use the seed stage funds to complete deve­lo­p­ment of its first product, launch distri­bu­tion and expand its team.

Speech reco­gni­tion plat­forms are curr­ently strugg­ling with the problem of poor reco­gni­tion rates in noisy envi­ron­ments, such as when there are child­ren in the back seat of a car, an ambu­lance drives by, or it is raining heavily. Hi Auto’s audio­vi­sual solu­tion elimi­na­tes all noise and ensu­res that the speech reco­gni­tion plat­form works relia­bly in all noise conditions.

The novel solu­tion can be used in a wide range of use cases in various fields where speech reco­gni­tion and clearly intel­li­gi­ble conver­sa­ti­ons are requi­red, such as in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, cont­act centers, video confe­ren­cing, or robots serving custo­mers in the hospi­ta­lity indus­try. Curr­ently, Hi Auto is focu­sed on the auto­mo­tive sector and envi­si­ons the new tech­no­logy as a solu­tion to the problem of voice-based vehicle control.

Hi Auto is based in Tel Aviv and was foun­ded in Febru­ary 2019 by CEO Roy Baha­rav, CTO Eyal Shapira and Zohar Zisa­pel, who serves as the company’s acting chair­man and inves­tor. Baha­rav recently retur­ned to Israel after living on the West Coast of the United States for 12 years. There he held various product manage­ment posi­ti­ons at Google’s Moun­tain View head­quar­ters in Cali­for­nia, as well as CEO of SeamBI, a company he foun­ded in 2006. In the past, he held senior posi­ti­ons in an elite intel­li­gence unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), such as comman­der of a divi­sion of 40 engi­neers and tech­ni­cal experts.

Eyal Shapira also comman­ded a detach­ment of some 40 engi­neers and specia­lists in an elite IDF tech­no­logy unit, in which he served and was awarded the Israel Defense Prize. After his mili­tary service, Shapira was a foun­der and admi­nis­tra­tor of start-up compa­nies and a consul­tant for compa­nies such as Intel and Broad­com. Zohar Zisa­pel, a major inves­tor in the auto­mo­tive sector, is one of Israel’s best-known high-tech entre­pre­neurs and mana­gers. Zisa­pel helped found and is chair­man of some of Israel’s best-known auto­mo­tive start-ups, inclu­ding Hailo, Argus and Innoviz.

Hi Auto will unveil a proto­type of the world’s first commer­cial driver voice reco­gni­tion solu­tion, which sepa­ra­tes the driver’s voice from all other voices in the vehicle, as well as noises inside and outside the vehicle, or hides all back­ground noise, at CES 2020 in Las Vegas from Jan. 7–10. Thus, for the first time, such a solu­tion is coming to the market that combi­nes a micro­phone placed in front of the inten­ded spea­ker with a camera that tracks his or her lips. The system is based on a deep-lear­ning soft­ware program instal­led on the device that elimi­na­tes noise, which cannot be achie­ved by using audio tech­ni­ques alone. The company has alre­ady estab­lished cont­acts with leading auto­mo­tive compa­nies, which are expec­ted to test its tech­no­logy in early 2020.

“Whether for use in purcha­sing train tickets, navi­ga­tion control or lane change commands, voice reco­gni­tion is rapidly beco­ming the most popu­lar device control method almost ever­y­where in the world,” said Roy Baha­rav, CEO and co-foun­der of Hi Auto. “Howe­ver, when the devices are opera­ted in envi­ron­ments with multi­ple spea­k­ers or in noisy envi­ron­ments, their relia­bi­lity decrea­ses drama­ti­cally. Our audio­vi­sual solu­tion is able to focus on the spea­ker and remove all back­ground noise, making it sound like they are in a recor­ding studio. Our solu­tion will make the expe­ri­ence around speech reco­gni­tion in the car, as well as in other envi­ron­ments, more satis­fy­ing for consu­mers and enable the intro­duc­tion of more complex and sensi­tive features by origi­nal equip­ment manufacturers.”

Munich — SKW Schwarz Rechts­an­wälte has advi­sed the foun­ders of parcel­Lab GmbH on a Series B finan­cing. The finan­cing round was struc­tu­red in the form of a bidding process in which inter­na­tio­nal inves­tors were also short­lis­ted. In addi­tion to some exis­ting inves­tors such as venture capi­tal inves­tor copa­rion, Capna­mic Ventures is now parti­ci­pa­ting in the company as a lead inves­tor.

parcel­Lab is the leading postal check­out expe­ri­ence plat­form in Europe. The company employs around 50 people in Munich, London and Paris and counts around 350 retail­ers and brands among its custo­mers, inclu­ding Ikea, Lidl, Media­Markt­Sa­turn and Fress­napf. The fresh capi­tal is to be used for further growth and the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal markets.

Martin Bött­ger (photo) has been advi­sing parcel­Lab and its foun­ding team Tobias Buxho­idt, Anton Ender and Julian Krenge since 2016.

Advi­sors to Parcel­Lab GmbH: SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte
Dr. Martin Bött­ger (Part­ner, Corpo­rate; Lead), Stefan Schi­cker (Part­ner, IP/IT); Asso­cia­tes: Amelie Schroth der Zweite, Wilhelm von Feilitzsch (both Corporate)

Paris/Frankfurt am Main — Idin­vest Part­ners, the Euro­pean invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in the SME segment, has announ­ced the successful final closing of its third fund focu­sed on the digi­tal economy, Idin­vest Digi­tal Fund III, at €350 million. The fund thus exceeds its origi­nal target volume of 300 million euros. In addi­tion, Digi­tal Fund III signi­fi­cantly exceeds its predecessor’s volume of 154 million euros.

The fund, which is mana­ged by a nine-person invest­ment team, includes a number of new inves­tors from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. In addi­tion, a large number of inves­tors who had alre­ady inves­ted in Digi­tal Fund II also participated.

The new fund has alre­ady inves­ted €85 million in 15 inno­va­tive and fast-growing compa­nies in the Euro­pean digi­tal economy. These include German tele­me­di­cine startup Tele­Cli­nic, as well as Acinq, Kactus, Octo­ber, Malt Commu­nity, Orni­kar and Meero. They are all shaping tomorrow’s busi­ness models in a wide variety of digi­tal economy sectors: enter­prise soft­ware, fintech, insur­tech, deept­ech (arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, big data, virtual reality, Inter­net of Things, cyber secu­rity) and digi­tal health.

Idin­vest Part­ners is one of the most active conti­nen­tal Euro­pean venture capi­tal (VC) inves­tors. The invest­ment focus is on the digi­tal economy, smart cities and health­care sectors. In Germany, the company has so far inves­ted in ten compa­nies, the current port­fo­lio includes:
Allt­hings, a PropTech company that provi­des digi­tal services that make the daily lives of buil­ding users easier, connect people and improve communication.
Campanda, a plat­form where custo­mers can rent motor­ho­mes world­wide from commer­cial opera­tors and private motor­home owners.
The e‑scooter rental company Circ.
Sunfire, a supplier of rene­wa­ble tech­ni­cal gas and fuel produc­tion equipment.
Tele­me­di­cine company Tele­Cli­nic, which offers around-the-clock video and phone consul­ta­ti­ons with specia­lists and primary care physicians.
Wefox, one of the leading insurtechs that helps consu­mers manage and opti­mize their insu­rance online.

The total volume of Idin­vest Part­ners’ venture capi­tal invest­ments in Germany amounts to 78 million euros. In terms of invest­ment volume and number of port­fo­lio compa­nies, Germany ranks third among the count­ries in which the company has inves­ted in the venture capi­tal sector.

Benoist Gross­mann, Mana­ging Part­ner at Idin­vest Part­ners, said: “The goal of our invest­ment acti­vity is to create an ecosys­tem that provi­des foun­ders with opti­mal deve­lo­p­ment condi­ti­ons. We are ther­e­fore extre­mely plea­sed with the fund­rai­sing success of our team. This success under­lines our exten­sive exper­tise in the digi­tal sector and the trust placed in us by leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and corpo­ra­tes in Europe and internationally.”

Matthieu Baret (photo), Mana­ging Part­ner at Idin­vest Part­ners, added: “The start-up scene in Europe is growing and deve­lo­ping steadily. This offers excel­lent invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, espe­ci­ally in the digi­tal sector. For many years now, Idin­vest Part­ners has been helping the most inno­va­tive and dyna­mic compa­nies in the Euro­pean tech­no­logy sector achieve their goals with a long-term, part­ner­ship-based approach that we will conti­nue to follow.”

About Idin­vest Partners
Idin­vest Part­ners is a leading Euro­pean invest­ment firm focu­sed on the mid market. Curr­ently, Idin­vest Part­ners mana­ges assets of around €8 billion with more than 90 employees and has offices in Paris, Frank­furt, Madrid, Shang­hai and Seoul. The company has three busi­ness units: Venture & Growth Capi­tal, Private Debt and Private Funds Group. The company was foun­ded in 1997 as part of the Alli­anz Group and has been inde­pen­dent since 2010. In Janu­ary 2018, Idin­vest Part­ners became part of the Eura­zeo Group. The merger crea­ted a leading global invest­ment company with €17.7 billion in assets under manage­ment (inclu­ding nearly €11.6 billion from invest­ment part­ners) inves­ted in a diver­si­fied port­fo­lio of nearly 400 corpo­rate holdings. www.idinvest.com

Karls­ruhe, Germany — HQS Quan­tum Simu­la­ti­ons enables chemi­cal and mate­ri­als scien­tists with quan­tum chemi­cal and advan­ced mate­ri­als simu­la­ti­ons using mid-term NISQ proces­sors. UVC Part­ners, HTGF and btov lead the seed funding round.

From the deve­lo­p­ment of more powerful batte­ries to highly effi­ci­ent solar cells, the search for new mate­ri­als with speci­fi­cally prede­fi­ned proper­ties is crucial. Until now, our ability to deve­lop new mate­ri­als using simu­la­tion tools has been limi­ted by the lack of suffi­ci­ent compu­ting power. The deve­lo­p­ment of new mate­ri­als requi­res an under­stan­ding of mate­rial proper­ties at the atomic level, where the laws of physics are gover­ned by quan­tum mecha­nics. Even super­com­pu­ting centers can solve, at most, tiny quan­tum problems. Howe­ver, with the advent of quan­tum compu­ting, our ability to deve­lop enti­rely new mate­ri­als will change dramatically.

HQS provi­des the soft­ware to faci­li­tate the coming revo­lu­tion in compu­ter-aided mate­ri­als design. HQS is a spin-off of the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy and offers soft­ware for quan­tum compu­ters. It was foun­ded in 2017 by Dr. Iris Schwenk, Dr. Sebas­tian Zanker, Dr. Jan Reiner and Dr. Michael Martha­ler.

The four foun­ders had worked toge­ther at KIT for four years and then took the step of closing the gap between science and indus­try. Origi­nally backed by angel inves­tors Fried­rich Hoepf­ner and Manfred Zieg­ler, HQS has now closed a seed round of €2.3 million with expe­ri­en­ced deep tech inves­tors UVC Part­ners, HTGF and btov.

“At HQS, we drive inno­va­tion by brin­ging toge­ther a group of outstan­ding scien­tists from physics, chemis­try and quan­tum infor­ma­tion in a work envi­ron­ment that combi­nes crea­ti­vity with a clear focus on product deve­lo­p­ment,” says COO Iris Schwenk. HQS is looking to signi­fi­cantly expand its team in the coming quar­ters and invi­tes top talent with exper­tise to apply.

“HQS’ broad exper­tise in quan­tum deco­he­rence, noisy quan­tum gates, and solid-state physics makes them ideally suited to trans­fer quan­tum chemi­cal and advan­ced mate­ri­als simu­la­ti­ons to mid-term NISQ proces­sors. We look forward to when these simu­la­ti­ons even­tually lead to supe­rior results that realize a quan­tum advan­tage,” says Chris­tian Reit­ber­ger of the btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies team.

HQS has well-estab­lished colla­bo­ra­ti­ons with BASF, Bosch and Merck. These colla­bo­ra­ti­ons link the chemi­cal indus­try, which has been very successful in Germany for more than a century, with a highly inno­va­tive field of the future. Quan­tum compu­ting can massi­vely increase the speed of mate­ri­als deve­lo­p­ment, making it a criti­cal tech­no­logy for the chemi­cal industry.

“HQS’ proxi­mity to strong inno­va­tive compa­nies in the chemi­cal indus­try has been of great bene­fit. It has allo­wed us to deve­lop our products with a clear view of what our custo­mers actually need. We are very plea­sed that our deve­lo­p­ment is now supported by three inves­tors who have the pati­ence needed for a complex field like quan­tum compu­ting,” says CEO Michael Marthaler.

“The team at HQS combi­nes leading tech­ni­cal and busi­ness skills, making them well posi­tio­ned to make quan­tum compu­ting acces­si­ble to their indus­trial custo­mers,” said Benja­min Erhart, part­ner at UVC Partners.

Yann Fiebig, Senior Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF adds: “The deve­lo­p­ments in quan­tum compu­ting over the last few years open up unima­gi­ned oppor­tu­ni­ties in a wide range of indus­tries. With this strong inves­tor consor­tium, HQS has found the right part­ners to open up quan­tum simu­la­ti­ons entrepreneurially.”

About HQS Quan­tum Simulations
HQS Quan­tum Simu­la­ti­ons predicts mate­rial proper­ties using quan­tum compu­ters. We acce­le­rate deve­lo­p­ment cycles in the chemi­cal and phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­tries. Quan­tum compu­ters can perform calcu­la­ti­ons impos­si­ble for even the most powerful super­com­pu­ters. Current quan­tum compu­ters suffer from intrin­sic faults that limit their perfor­mance. At HQS, we deve­lop algo­rithms for quan­tum compu­ters that can deal with these errors and enable our custo­mers to bene­fit from the perfor­mance advan­tage of quan­tum compu­ters earlier than their compe­ti­tors. In addi­tion, we offer custo­mi­zed simu­la­tion solu­ti­ons for conven­tio­nal compu­ters with an inte­gra­tion of high-end simu­la­tion methods and the possi­bi­lity to use the upco­ming quan­tum computers.

About btov Partners
btov Part­ners, foun­ded in 2000, is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm foun­ded and funded by serial entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness angels, focu­sing on indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and digi­tal leaders in the Euro­pean economy. The company mana­ges an invest­ment volume of 420 million euros and reviews over 3,000 invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties annu­ally. The btov Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies team supports indus­tri­ally rele­vant compa­nies ranging from hard­ware compa­nies with embedded soft­ware to appli­ca­tion and infra­struc­ture soft­ware provi­ders for various indus­try segments. The focus is on robo­tics & auto­no­mous vehic­les, indus­try 4.0 and indus­trial IoT, cyber-physi­cal secu­rity, elec­tro­nics & photo­nics, addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring, energy conver­sion and storage, and medi­cal and quan­tum tech­no­lo­gies. Past invest­ments include Black­lane, Data Artisans, DeepL, Dyem­an­sion, Effect Photo­nics, Elec­tro­chaea, ORCAM, Quanta, Raisin, SumUp, Volo­c­op­ter and XING. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.btov.vc/industrial-technologies.

About Unter­neh­mer­tum Venture Capi­tal Partners
Unter­neh­mer­tum Venture Capi­tal Part­ners (UVC Part­ners) is an early-stage venture capi­tal firm that invests speci­fi­cally in tech­no­logy-based start­ups in the Indus­trial Tech­no­lo­gies, Enter­prise Soft­ware and Mobi­lity sectors. Per invest­ment round € 0.5 — 3 million are inves­ted and in successful invest­ments up to € 12 million in total.
Port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team and from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With its more than 180 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM has many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. Through the part­ner­ship, UVC Part­ners can offer start­ups unique access to talent, custo­mers and part­ners. The port­fo­lio includes invest­ments such as Flix­Bus, Carjump (Free2Move), KONUX, Blick­feld, 3YOURMIND and Vimcar.
www.uvcpartners.com

About Hoepf­ner Bräu
Foun­ded in 1798 as a home brewery, Hoepf­ner Bräu now works as a deve­lo­per of high-end real estate and as a busi­ness angel for hi-tech start­ups. Hoepf­ner foun­ded Cyber­Fo­rum, now Europe’s leading network for hi-tech start­ups, and was the first Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund part­ner at the Euro­pean Angel Fund (EAF). Hoepf­ner has been support­ing HQS since the end of 2018. https://hoepfner-braeu.de/hoepfner-strategie/beteiligungen/

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of EUR 895.5 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 550 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

Essen, Germany — Abalos Thera­peu­tics announ­ced the closing of a €12 million Series A finan­cing round and its corpo­rate debut. The company’s goal is to deve­lop new immuno-onco­logy thera­peu­tics. This approach is based on a speci­fic type of arena­vi­rus that prefe­ren­ti­ally infects and repli­ca­tes in cancer cells, gene­ra­ting a strong immune response against the cancer cells. The Series A round was jointly led by Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund (BIVF) and Grün­der­fonds Ruhr and included invest­ments from NRW.BANK and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF). The newly formed Super­vi­sory Board of the company will be joined by repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of all investors.

As part of the finan­cing, Abalos further announ­ced the appoint­ment of Dr. Marcus Kostka as Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer and Dr. Jörg Voll­mer as Chief Scien­ti­fic Offi­cer. Both have many years of expe­ri­ence in corpo­rate development.

“Abalos’ goal is to leverage the potent immune acti­va­tion and highly speci­fic tumor tropism of arena­vi­ru­ses to deve­lop a diffe­ren­tia­ted immune-onco­logy approach and vali­date it clini­cally,” said Marcus Kostka, M.D., CEO of Abalos Thera­peu­tics. “Having alre­ady supported and finan­ced a number of biotech compa­nies over the last few years, what attrac­ted me to Abalos in parti­cu­lar was the promi­sing tech­no­logy. The oppor­tu­nity to build a company toge­ther with Jörg Voll­mer, an expe­ri­en­ced immu­no­logy expert, also repres­ents an extre­mely attrac­tive opportunity.”

The funding round will enable Abalos to advance its arena­vi­rus-based drug candi­da­tes into clini­cal vali­da­tion. The first product candi­da­tes are being deve­lo­ped using the company’s proprie­tary Fast Evolu­tion plat­form, which gene­ra­tes viral strains with opti­mal anti-tumor proper­ties. These candi­da­tes are selec­ted based on their poten­tial to repro­gram the immune system and elimi­nate mali­gnant tumor tissue in a targe­ted and effi­ci­ent manner. The approach is based on the inno­va­tive rese­arch of immu­no­lo­gists Prof. Dr. Karl Lang, Head of the Depart­ment of Immu­no­logy at the Medi­cal Faculty of the Univer­sity of Duis­burg-Essen, and Prof. Dr. Phil­ipp Lang, Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Mole­cu­lar Medi­cine II at the Univer­sity of Düssel­dorf. Abalos opera­tes in close coope­ra­tion with the univer­si­ties of Duis­burg-Essen and Düsseldorf.

Dr. Aris­to­te­lis Nastos from Grün­der­fonds Ruhr commen­ted: “We see signi­fi­cant progress in the field of immuno-onco­logy, howe­ver, there is still a need for product candi­da­tes that should enable the full power of the entire immune system to be harnes­sed. It is parti­cu­larly important that these not only attack the primary tumor but also more distant meta­sta­ses. We are plea­sed to support Abalos’ expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team and its dedi­ca­ted scien­tists as they work towards an arena­vi­rus-based solution.”

Dr. Frank Hensel, Prin­ci­pal of High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, adds: “Abalos Thera­peu­tics is an excel­lent exam­ple of first-class scien­ti­fic achie­ve­ments at univer­si­ties in Germany. The combi­na­tion with an indus­try-expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team has resul­ted in a company that is capa­ble of taking a decisive step in cancer treatment.”

Dr. Marcus Kostka is a seaso­ned indus­try expert with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in various posi­ti­ons at Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim (BI) where he iden­ti­fied and drove inno­va­tion. Most recently, Dr. Kostka was a venture fund part­ner at BI and held super­vi­sory board posi­ti­ons at seve­ral compa­nies. He was also invol­ved in the successful exits of Rigon­tec and ICD Therapeutics.

Dr. Jörg Voll­mer brings to his posi­tion as CSO at Abalos Thera­peu­tics exten­sive know­ledge and expe­ri­ence in the fields of immu­no­logy, onco­logy and infec­tious dise­a­ses. He has acqui­red these in the course of his career in various R&D and manage­ment posi­ti­ons. Most recently, Dr. Voll­mer was CSO at Rigon­tec, where he was invol­ved in the deve­lo­p­ment of a novel immuno-onco­logy treat­ment approach and its clini­cal vali­da­tion. He also led the company’s R&D acti­vi­ties until its acqui­si­tion by MSD in 2017.

About Abalos
Abalos Thera­peu­tics is using the unique immune stimu­la­tion of arena­vi­ru­ses to deve­lop a new approach to fight­ing cancer. This should enable the full power of the entire immune system to be used speci­fi­cally against cancer cells. The goal of Abalos’ arena­vi­rus-based product candi­da­tes is to acti­vate the body’s innate and adap­tive immune response by propa­ga­ting the viru­ses in cancer cells. As a result, all rele­vant immune cell types speci­fi­cally attack the primary tumor and also distant meta­sta­ses. Led by expe­ri­en­ced biotech entre­pre­neurs and immu­no­logy pioneers, Abalos aims to make a quan­tum leap in immuno-oncology.

About Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Corpo­rate Venture Fund (BIVF)
Foun­ded in 2010, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund GmbH (BIVF) invests in biotech­no­logy compa­nies focu­sed on breakth­rough new thera­pies to drive inno­va­tion in biome­di­cal rese­arch. The BIVF seeks signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments in pati­ent care through ground­brea­king scien­ti­fic disco­veries as well as their clini­cal trans­la­tion by buil­ding long-term rela­ti­onships with scien­tists and entre­pre­neurs. The focus of the BIVF is to explore novel thera­peu­tic approa­ches that address high unmet medi­cal needs in immuno-onco­logy, rege­ne­ra­tive medi­cine, infec­tious dise­a­ses, and digi­tal health. These concepts may include, but are not limi­ted to, novel plat­form tech­no­lo­gies in response to previously untreata­ble dise­a­ses, next-gene­ra­tion vacci­nes, and/or New Biolo­gi­cal Enti­ties, such as onco­ly­tic viral therapy.

The BIVF takes an active role vis-à-vis the compa­nies in its port­fo­lio and adds signi­fi­cant value through its own exten­sive expe­ri­ence in drug disco­very, science and manage­ment. BIVF mana­ges EUR 250 million and curr­ently over­sees a port­fo­lio of over 25 companies.
boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com.

About the Grün­der­fonds Ruhr
The Grün­der­fonds was initia­ted jointly by Initia­tiv­kreis Ruhr and NRW.BANK and is the first private-sector early-stage fund in the Ruhr region finan­ced by regio­nal indus­trial and finan­cial compa­nies. The fund invests in inno­va­tive and tech­no­logy-orien­ted compa­nies from the life science & health, digi­tal economy, chemi­cals & new mate­ri­als, energy & indus­try, and logi­stics & trade sectors. Prere­qui­si­tes are good growth and exit pros­pects as well as compe­tent manage­ment. As a multi-corpo­rate early-stage fund, it also opens up important indus­try access points for the respec­tive port­fo­lio companies.
gruenderfondsruhr.com.

About NRW.BANK
NRW.BANK is the deve­lo­p­ment bank for North Rhine-West­pha­lia. It supports its owner, the state of NRW, in its struc­tu­ral and econo­mic policy tasks. In its three promo­tion fields “Economy”, “Housing” and “Infrastructure/Municipalities”, NRW.BANK uses a broad range of promo­tion instru­ments: from low-inte­rest deve­lo­p­ment loans to equity finan­cing and advi­sory services. It works toge­ther with all banks and savings banks in NRW on a compe­ti­tion-neutral basis. In its promo­tion acti­vi­ties, NRW.BANK also takes into account exis­ting offers from the fede­ral govern­ment, the state and the Euro­pean Union.
nrwbank.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of EUR 895.5 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 550 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

Munich — The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) is provi­ding EUR 12 million to the fast-growing Fazua GmbH. The finan­cing is provi­ded under the EU Bank’s venture debt product, a type of venture capi­tal for inno­va­tive compa­nies. The loan is secu­red by a guaran­tee from the “Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments” (EFSI). UVC Part­ners is provi­ding the remai­ning 3 million euros. The VC fund of Unter­neh­mer­TUM was alre­ady invol­ved as lead inves­tor in the last finan­cing round of 6.5 million euros.

FSI is a central compo­nent of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe, better known as the “Juncker Plan”, in which the EIB and the Euro­pean Commis­sion work closely toge­ther as stra­te­gic part­ners to make Europe’s economy more compe­ti­tive. Munich-based Fazua GmbH will use the money to expand the company and for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment activities.

The e‑bike market is growing. And that’s what Fazua wants, too. With its detacha­ble drive system for e‑bikes, the Munich-based startup is alre­ady the market leader in some sectors such as bicy­cle racing. In order to open up new markets and to expand its own product range, Fazua is able to raise growth finan­cing of 15 million euros. In addi­tion to legacy inves­tor UVC Part­ners, the startup will also receive money from the Euro­pean Fund EFSI, which is mana­ged by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB). This fund, which totals 21 billion euros, is inten­ded, among other things, to support compa­nies in the start-up phase, growth and expan­sion by provi­ding venture capital.

Consis­tent and profi­ta­ble growth
Fabian Reuter, CEO of Fazua, is deligh­ted with the success.

Foun­ded in 2013, the young company manu­fac­tures extre­mely light­weight eBike drive systems that are fitted with the motor and battery in the down tube of the bikes. With its drive systems aimed prima­rily at sporty riders who want to expe­ri­ence optio­nal assis­tance, espe­ci­ally at special moments, Fazua closes the gap between conven­tio­nal eBike drives and conven­tio­nal non-moto­ri­zed bikes. Since ente­ring the market, Fazua has built up a custo­mer base that now includes more than 35 Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­r­ers offe­ring bikes in the “eMoun­tain­bike”, “eUrban”, “eGra­vel” and “eRace­bike” segments, where Fazua holds a leading market position.