ALTERNATIVE FINANCING FORMS
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS

Author: Tatjana Anderer

Gründerin des FYB-Verlag
News

Düssel­dorf — KRÜGER GROUP has acqui­red Hermes Süss­stoff AG, based in Zurich.
The KRÜGER GROUP and its subsi­dia­ries have long been active along the entire produc­tion chain for sweeten­ers and are globally networked.
With the acqui­si­tion of Hermes Süss­stoff AG from the Klos­ter­frau Health­care Group, the KRÜGER GROUP has further expan­ded its posi­tion in the field of calo­rie-free sweeteners.
The KRÜGER GROUP, based in Bergisch Glad­bach, is a globally estab­lished family busi­ness in the food industry.
KRÜGER deve­lops, produ­ces and markets its products with around 5,600 employees at 21 loca­ti­ons in ten countries.
The Group owns brands such as KABA, Scho­get­ten, Trumpf, Fritt and Hafervoll.
Hermes Süss­stoff AG was foun­ded in 1904 and markets and produ­ces the inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned brands Herme­se­tas and SteviaS­weet in addi­tion to the sweete­ner Assugrin.
The tran­sac­tion has alre­ady been completed.
The busi­ness opera­ti­ons of Hermes Süss­stoff will conti­nue unch­an­ged after the takeover.
McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses the KRÜGER GROUP on inter­na­tio­nal tran­sac­tions as well as natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal anti­trust and compe­ti­tion law issues.
Advi­sors KRÜGER GROUP: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Düssel­dorf Dr. Thomas Ammer­mann (Corporate/M&A), Chris­tian Krohs (Anti­trust Law), Paul McGrath (Employ­ment Law, London), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt); Asso­ciate: Julian Rößler-Weis (Anti­trust Law) MLL Legal, Zurich (Swiss Law): Andrea Sieber (Corporate/M&A), Dr. Simon Holzer (IP), Renato Bucher (Compe­ti­tion Law), Asso­ciate Phil­ipp Falk (Corporate/M&A) Advi­sors KRÜGER GROUP Inhouse: Dr. Martin Fröh­lich (M&A), Dr. Kai Danel­zik (Corpo­rate), Kai Piepen­stock (Tax) About McDer­mott Will & Emery McDer­mott Will & Emery is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm with over 1,400 lawy­ers in more than 20 offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Our lawy­ers cover the entire spec­trum of commer­cial and corpo­rate law with their advice. The German prac­tice is mana­ged by McDer­mott Will & Emery Rechts­an­wälte Steu­er­be­ra­ter LLP. https://www.mwe.com/de

News

Koblenz / Vienna - The Koblenz-based Sdui Group, one of the leading provi­ders of educa­tion tech­no­logy in Europe, has acqui­red the educa­tion plat­form FoxE­du­ca­tion with its brands School­Fox, Kids­Fox and TeamFox.
Fox Educa­tion Services GmbH previously belon­ged to GoStu­dent, one of the world’s leading tuto­ring provi­ders and educa­tion platforms.
At the same time, Sdui has recei­ved a further 21 million euros from inves­tors. Summi­teer and HV Capi­tal are leading the new finan­cing round with broad support from new and exis­ting inves­tors — inclu­ding Haniel, Brigh­teye, Michael Hinde­rer and HTGF.
With the acqui­si­tion of FoxE­du­ca­tion, Sdui streng­thens its posi­tion as a leading educa­tion tech­no­logy provi­der in Europe and now serves over 22,000 schools and daycare centers.
In addi­tion, Sdui has raised a further 21 million euros from exis­ting and new investors.
Summi­teer and HV Capi­tal are leading the new finan­cing round with broad support from new and exis­ting inves­tors — inclu­ding Haniel, Brigh­teye, Michael Hinde­rer and HTGF.
Toge­ther with the 25 million euros from the first finan­cing round (Series A), the EdTech provi­der has raised a total of 46 million euros.
The company is inves­t­ing part of this sum in the acqui­si­tion of FoxEducation.
With the acqui­si­tion of FoxE­du­ca­tion, the Sdui Group intends to estab­lish itself as a market-leading EdTech provi­der in the field of commu­ni­ca­tion and messa­ging for schools and daycare centers in German-spea­king countries.
The company is active in all three count­ries of the DACH market with a broad product portfolio.
With the acqui­si­tion of FoxE­du­ca­tion, the Sdui Group serves a custo­mer base of 22,000 educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons throug­hout Europe.
Simi­lar to Sdui, FoxE­du­ca­tion also offers inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons to improve commu­ni­ca­tion between teachers, educa­tors, students and parents.
In the future, Sdui and FoxE­du­ca­tion will combine their exper­tise to further improve their products.
Both compa­nies also expect this to lead to stron­ger growth.
FoxE­du­ca­tion has alre­ady had three successful years of growth: the educa­tion plat­form was acqui­red by GoStu­dent in Septem­ber 2021 and grew by over 70 percent under the company’s management.
While FoxEducation’s growth repres­ents a signi­fi­cant achie­ve­ment for GoStu­dent, FoxEducation’s capa­bi­li­ties have evol­ved in a diffe­rent direc­tion than GoStudent’s core busi­ness of perso­na­li­zed tutoring.
For this reason, GoStu­dent has been able to leverage fewer imme­diate syner­gies with FoxE­du­ca­tion than with its broa­der port­fo­lio: TusMe­dia, Seneca and Studienkreis.
Deter­mi­ned to drive educa­tion forward through the use of tech­no­logy, the sale of FoxE­du­ca­tion to Sdui Group is a stra­te­gic move aimed at impro­ving commu­ni­ca­tion between schools, parents and students and streng­thening the EdTech ecosys­tem in the DACH region.
“The acqui­si­tion of FoxE­du­ca­tion is an important stra­te­gic move that signi­fi­cantly streng­thens the Sdui Group’s presence in the DACH region. With a growing, holi­stic product offe­ring, this exci­ting acqui­si­tion will enable Sdui to better serve educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons in German-spea­king count­ries and conso­li­date our posi­tion as the largest digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner for educa­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons in Europe.
The EUR 46 million we have raised in total will also enable us to conti­nue to invest in pionee­ring educa­tion tech­no­logy,” says Daniel Zacha­rias, foun­der and CEO of the Sdui Group. 

 

News

Wetz­lar / Kiel / Hamburg — INTRAG Inter­net Regio­nal GmbH (“INTRAG”), a specia­list in regio­nal online marke­ting with a focus on small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses, is to become part of the OMERGY Group (“OMERGY”) as part of a stra­te­gic growth partnership.
With this tran­sac­tion, the inno­va­tive provi­der of online marke­ting products based in Hamburg is expan­ding its service port­fo­lio and streng­thening its market posi­tion in the field of regio­nal online marketing.
Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor, toge­ther with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance one of Germany’s leading M&A advi­sory bouti­ques for medium-sized compa­nies, successfully advi­sed INTRAG on the merger.
Foun­ded in Kiel in 1999, INTRAG specia­li­zes in the marke­ting and provi­sion of online marke­ting services.
It focu­ses in parti­cu­lar on compa­nies that want to expand their local online presence in a targe­ted manner.
INTRAG offers its custo­mers a compre­hen­sive digi­tal service port­fo­lio that includes search engine marke­ting (SEO and SEA) as well as effec­tive online adver­ti­sing in the form of website design and corpo­rate videos.
INTRAG’s core product is the SEO opti­miza­tion of Google busi­ness profiles, supported by a speci­ally programmed SEO tool set and AI-based appli­ca­ti­ons for SEO content crea­tion. Conti­nuing the life’s work With the recent merger of INTRAG and OMERGY, both compa­nies are taking their growth to a new level: by inte­gra­ting INTRAG, the more than 2,100 active OMERGY custo­mers bene­fit from both the digi­tal SEO marke­ting tools and INTRAG’s many years of regio­nal expertise.
OMERGY, form­erly adzLo­cal and majo­rity-owned by Munich-based private equity firm PINOVA Capi­tal since June 2021, uses its unique tech­no­lo­gi­cal plat­form to support local compa­nies throug­hout Germany with a compre­hen­sive online marke­ting mix of Google Ads, website design and cont­act track­ing to acquire new custo­mers, which in turn will bene­fit the appro­xi­m­ately 8,500 INTRAG customers.
The previous INTRAG owners, Burk­hard and Hart­mut Wehr­meyer, are acqui­ring a mino­rity stake in the OMERGY Group as part of the tran­sac­tion and will conti­nue to closely support INTRAG’s further growth under the aegis of OMERGY.
Toge­ther with CEO Simone Baade-Doerf­ner and COO Cars­ten Schmidt, Hart­mut Wehr­meyer will help shape the Group’s product port­fo­lio as CPO and new member of the OMERGY manage­ment board.
“In OMERGY, we have found a part­ner with whom we can lead our company into a promi­sing, high-growth future. A merger from which both sides will bene­fit signi­fi­cantly. I look forward to accom­pany­ing the next steps of the part­ner­ship and thus promo­ting the growth of INTRAG and OMERGY,” explains Hart­mut Wehr­meyer, former owner and Mana­ging Direc­tor of INTRAG.
“The market for digi­tal marke­ting is growing rapidly — and the incre­asing use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is natu­rally fueling this deve­lo­p­ment further. Digi­tal marke­ting tools are ther­e­fore beco­ming incre­asingly important for compa­nies across all sectors. With the merger, both compa­nies are ideally posi­tio­ned to bene­fit from these market oppor­tu­ni­ties in the long term,” comm­ents David Weid­mann, Part­ner and respon­si­ble Project Mana­ger at Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor. About Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor GmbH, toge­ther with sonn­tag corpo­rate finance GmbH, is one of the leading M&A consul­ting firms in the German SME sector. The team of almost 30 experts accom­pa­nies medium-sized entre­pre­neurs exclu­si­vely through the entire sales process. “Our task is to safe­guard life’s work,” is how we see oursel­ves. In doing so, custo­mers bene­fit from a unique approach that has won multi­ple awards from the busi­ness press, and which protects the iden­tity of their compa­nies to a special degree. Thanks to their excel­lent access to medium-sized compa­nies, Nach­fol­ge­kon­tor and sonn­tag corpo­rate finance have also estab­lished them­sel­ves as a strong part­ner at the side of renow­ned natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal major compa­nies and inves­tors in acqui­si­ti­ons. This is also demons­tra­ted by the top posi­tion recently achie­ved at the Merger­mar­ket League Table. With a total of ten accom­pa­nied tran­sac­tions in the first quar­ter of 2024, the M&A consul­tancy ranks first in Germany.
www.nachfolgekontor.de | www.sonntagcf.com About INTRAG Inter­net Regio­nal GmbH www.intrag.de About OMERGY GmbH https://www.omergy.de/

News

Tübingen/ Berlin — YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the lead inves­tor Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal IV in the € 15 million Series C finan­cing round of Hepa­Re­ge­niX GmbH. Exis­ting inves­tors such as Novo Holdings, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim Venture Fund and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds also parti­ci­pa­ted in the investment.

Hepa­Re­ge­niX GmbH is a company in the field of clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment of novel thera­pies for the treat­ment of acute and chro­nic liver dise­a­ses. Since its launch in 2017, Hepa­Re­ge­niX has successfully disco­vered and deve­lo­ped seve­ral drug candi­da­tes for the treat­ment of acute and chro­nic liver dise­a­ses based on a novel mole­cu­lar target Mitogen-Acti­va­ted Protein (MAP) Kinase Kinase 4 (MKK4). HRX-215 is a small mole­cule inhi­bi­tor of mitogen-acti­va­ted protein (MAP) kinase kinase 4 (MKK4). This subs­tance has the poten­tial to signi­fi­cantly support liver rege­ne­ra­tion in pati­ents with liver meta­sta­ses or primary liver tumors.

The new funding will support the Phase Ib/IIa clini­cal trial, which will focus on impro­ving liver heal­ing and preven­ting liver failure.

Advi­sor to Hepa­Re­ge­niX: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin, Dr. Lutz Schrei­ber (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Part­ner, Hamburg, Benja­min Müller (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin, Matthias Treude (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Hamburg, Cyra Ditt­ber­ner (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

About Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal IV

Vesa­lius Bioca­pi­tal is an estab­lished Euro­pean life scien­ces venture capi­tal inves­tor with a long track record of consis­tent returns, inves­t­ing in the best/­first-class Euro­pean biopharma and health­tech companies.

The company invests in attrac­tive compa­nies at an advan­ced stage of deve­lo­p­ment in the fields of drug deve­lo­p­ment, medi­cal tech­no­logy and diagno­stics as well as eHealth/mHealth, prima­rily in Europe. The port­fo­lio compa­nies address unmet medi­cal and market needs and operate on the basis of strong intellec­tual property protection.

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. http://www.ypog.law

News

London/ Berlin — The Euro­pean family office Imker Capi­tal Part­ners from London has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the Berlin-based company AMV. the foun­ders of AVM, provi­der of the well-known Fritz­box routers. Imker Capi­tal Part­ners is supported by promi­nent figu­res from the busi­ness world, inclu­ding Dutch­man Teun van Rappard. Van Rappard’s father, Rolly van Rappard, is a co-foun­der of the well-known private equity firm CVC.

AMV, foun­ded by four students in Berlin in 1986, is regarded as a model company in the German IT sector. It has always specia­li­zed in in-house deve­lo­p­ments and is conside­red a pearl of the German IT indus­try. The company, which specia­li­zes in in-house deve­lo­p­ments and is best known for its “Fritz­box”, gene­ra­ted reve­nue of €580 million in 2023 with its 890 employees. Indus­try experts esti­mate AVM’s enter­prise value at up to € 1 billion.

AVM has now arran­ged the gene­ra­tio­nal change for the company. The foun­ders and mana­ging part­ners Johan­nes Nill, Peter Faxel and Ulrich Müller-Albring will remain mino­rity share­hol­ders and members of the company’s advi­sory board.

The inves­tor Imker Capi­tal Part­ners acqui­res the majo­rity of the shares. The foun­ders Johan­nes Nill, Peter Faxel and Ulrich Müller-Albring remain loyal to AVM as share­hol­ders. In future, you will hold a mino­rity inte­rest of an undis­c­lo­sed amount.

The finan­cial terms of the deal have not yet been disc­lo­sed. It is known that Nill, Faxel and Müller-Albring will leave the manage­ment board on Septem­ber 1. The trio will then accom­pany the company’s further deve­lo­p­ment in a newly formed advi­sory board. Regu­la­tory appr­oval is requi­red before the tran­sac­tion can be comple­ted, but the deal is expec­ted to be fina­li­zed in the second half of the current year.

The neces­sary gene­ra­tio­nal change has been “actively and syste­ma­ti­cally approa­ched”, Nill, curr­ently still CEO and spokes­man of the manage­ment board at AVM, is quoted as saying in a press release. Imker Capi­tal Part­ners shares the foun­ders’ vision for the future of AVM.

Advi­sors to AVM foun­ders: Skad­den, Arps, Slate, Meag­her & Flom
Led by Dr. Jan Bauer and Dr. Rüdi­ger Schmidt-Bendun.
The law firm KNPZ was consul­ted for IP and IT law.

Advi­sor Imker Capi­tal Part­ners: Weil, Gotshal & Manges
Dr. Ansgar Wimber provi­des legal advice. As with the recent advice to Advent Inter­na­tio­nal in the context of the take­over of Aareon by TPG and CDPQ, this mandate was also acqui­red and mana­ged from Weil’s Frank­furt office.

Imker Capi­tal Part­ners is conside­red a well-connec­ted finan­cial investor

Imker Capi­tal Part­ners, head­quar­te­red in London, also holds a stake in SAP Fioneer via the Luxem­bourg-based company Rucio. Teun van Rappard, a promi­nent Dutch­man, is one of the share­hol­ders of Imker. His father, Rolly van Rappard, is a co-foun­der of the globally active private equity company CVC, which holds a stake in the Douglas perfu­mery chain in Germany and makes invest­ments in Europe such as the Maltese book­ma­ker Tipico. Teun van Rappard is a regu­lar guest at the World Econo­mic Forum in Davos, but remains largely with­drawn from the public eye.

News

Munich/Baden — Funds advi­sed by Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) acquire a majo­rity stake in Baden-based BSI Soft­ware AG, the leading provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for custo­mer rela­ti­onship manage­ment (CRM) and custo­mer expe­ri­ence (CX) in its focus indus­tries. As part of BU’s invest­ment, Capvis Equity V LP, the fund advi­sed by the Swiss company Capvis AG, sold its shares after four years of successful part­ner­ship with BSI. The BSI manage­ment team remains inves­ted and conti­nues its successful work toge­ther with BU.

Holi­stic soft­ware plat­form for CRM & CX

For over 25 years, BSI has been deli­ve­ring inno­va­tive soft­ware solu­ti­ons for compa­nies that want to lead the way in digi­ta­liza­tion and custo­mer centri­city. More than 500 employees work “with heart and soul” for their custo­mers and the “BSI Custo­mer Suite”, which now compri­ses seven inte­gra­ted products. The modern cloud solu­tion is prima­rily used by deman­ding custo­mers from the finan­cial services, insu­rance, energy & utility and retail sectors to digi­tize rela­ti­onships with milli­ons of end custo­mers in a custo­mer-orien­ted, effi­ci­ent and intel­li­gent way. The BSI Custo­mer Suite comes with an Indus­try Cloud, which inte­gra­tes in-depth indus­try know­ledge with speci­fic proces­ses and regu­la­ti­ons into the soft­ware. Exis­ting IT systems are always fully inte­gra­ted via various stan­dard connec­tors to enable a high degree of auto­ma­tion and a consis­tent data flow. The soft­ware and data are stored in Swiss or German data centers.

Markus Brunold, CEO of BSI comm­ents: “BSI connects people and soft­ware. The BSI Custo­mer Suite combi­nes custo­mer focus and indus­try exper­tise based on a mature no-code/­low-code plat­form. With this recipe for success, we are conti­nuing our growth stra­tegy in Europe to inspire more customers.”

Successful part­ner­ship with Capvis in recent years

When Capvis joined the company in 2020, the aim was to conti­nue BSI’s success story and at the same time provide further impe­tus for growth. Over the past four years, new soft­ware products have been deve­lo­ped, state-of-the-art cloud archi­tec­tures rolled out and the indus­try modu­les expan­ded. BSI was also able to acquire three compa­nies and expand the func­tion­a­lity of the Custo­mer Suite with Snap­view (GDPR-compli­ant video consul­ting), InSign (elec­tro­nic signa­tures of the highest secu­rity level) and Riskine (soft­ware solu­tion for consul­ting proces­ses at banks and insu­rance companies).

André Perwas, Part­ner at Capvis, adds: “We were deligh­ted when the foun­ders and manage­ment deci­ded to join Capvis in 2020. We have achie­ved a lot in this part­ner­ship and are convin­ced that BSI will also successfully shape the next chap­ter of growth.”

Part­ner­ship with BU conti­nues to focus on custo­mer-orien­ted growth and supports BSI’s expan­sion in Europe
With BU, BSI has gained a part­ner with outstan­ding expe­ri­ence in the soft­ware sector. BU is the largest mid-cap inves­tor head­quar­te­red in the DACH region and has been active in the invest­ment busi­ness since 2015.

“Of course, our custo­mers and our products will remain the focus of our further growth stra­tegy,” explains Markus Brunold, CEO of BSI. He explains: “With BU, we can simul­ta­neously drive forward inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and expand in our focus indus­tries within Europe.

Chris Rusche, co-foun­der and board member of BSI adds “the growing size allows us to conti­nue to invest in our people and products. All our custo­mers bene­fit from BSI’s success with a strong, compre­hen­sive, Euro­pean soft­ware plat­form for CRM and CX”.

Phil­ipp Struth, Part­ner at BU (photo), says: “BSI impres­sed us not only with its inno­va­tive product port­fo­lio, but above all with its unique corpo­rate culture, which has turned a very large part of its work­force into true co-entre­pre­neurs. We are hono­red to be able to help shape and support BSI’s future growth as a BU.”

The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial terms of the tran­sac­tion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to the appr­oval of the rele­vant authorities.

About Bregal Entre­pre­neu­rial Capital

Bregal Unter­neh­mer­ka­pi­tal (“BU”) is a leading private equity firm with offices in Zug, Munich and Milan. With a total of €7.0 billion in capi­tal raised since its foun­da­tion, BU is the largest mid-cap inves­tor head­quar­te­red in the DACH region. The funds advi­sed by BU invest in medium-sized compa­nies based in Germany, Switz­er­land, Italy and Austria. With the mission to be the prefer­red part­ner for entre­pre­neurs and family busi­nesses, BU focu­ses on part­ner­ships with market leaders and “hidden cham­pi­ons” with strong manage­ment teams and growth poten­tial. Since its foun­da­tion in 2015, the funds advi­sed by BU have inves­ted over €3.0 billion in more than 100 compa­nies with over 27,000 employees. More than 7,700 jobs were crea­ted in the process. BU supports entre­pre­neurs and fami­lies as a stra­te­gic part­ner to further deve­lop, inter­na­tio­na­lize and digi­ta­lize their compa­nies, helping them to create sustainable value respon­si­bly and with a view to the next generation.
For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.bregal.ch/ or follow us on LinkedIn.

About BSI

With the BSI Custo­mer Suite, the Swiss soft­ware manu­fac­tu­rer BSI offers a holi­stic, AI-supported plat­form for the digi­ta­liza­tion of custo­mer rela­ti­onships. BSI provi­des ever­y­thing that an excel­lent custo­mer expe­ri­ence needs for banking, insu­rance, retail and energy & utili­ties. In addi­tion to his many years of indus­try exper­tise, this also includes BSI’s CRM system with a gene­ra­tive 360° custo­mer view and a BSI Compa­n­ion. Around 230 corpo­rate custo­mers use BSI’s soft­ware to reach their more than 150 million end custo­mers throug­hout Europe. Since its foun­da­tion in Switz­er­land in 1996, the company has estab­lished itself as the market leader in its focus sectors in the DACH region. Its custo­mers include renow­ned compa­nies such as ADAC, the Raiff­ei­sen Banking Group, Signal Iduna, Post­Fi­nance and Merkur Versi­che­rung. Soft­ware and people working toge­ther — that’s what BSI stands for.
www.bsi-software.com

About Capvis

Capvis AG in Baar is the exclu­sive advi­sor to the Capvis funds, which prima­rily acquire majo­rity stakes in leading medium-sized tech­no­logy compa­nies. Its acti­vi­ties are based on many years of expe­ri­ence in crea­ting local and global market leaders in the fields of health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy and advan­ced services and soft­ware. Close coope­ra­tion with strong manage­ment teams ensu­res that the compa­nies’ poten­tial is fully exploi­ted and long-term value is crea­ted. Capvis has been active in the private equity sector for more than 30 years and has inves­ted more than 4 billion euros in 63 compa­nies. The remar­kable number of 10 IPOs docu­ments the quality of the invest­ments mana­ged and deve­lo­ped by Capvis.
www.capvis.com

News

Frein­berg (Austria)/ Munich — The manage­ment consul­tancy Dr. Wiesel­hu­ber & Part­ner (W&P), which specia­li­zes in family busi­nesses, has advi­sed the Pale­tar family, owners of the Schwarz­mül­ler Group, on the sale of a stake to the Krone Group (Bernard Krone Holding SE & Co. KG) as part of a stra­te­gic alli­ance. Schwarz­mül­ler, Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of special vehic­les in the commer­cial vehicle sector (around € 500 million turno­ver), is brin­ging its produc­tion sites in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Repu­blic and Austria under the umbrella of the Krone Commer­cial Vehicle Group as part of the indus­trial partnership.

Beate Pale­tar (photo© Schwarz­mül­ler Group), owner of the Schwarz­mül­ler Group, also empha­si­zes the importance of the tran­sac­tion: “W&P initia­ted and prepared the part­ner­ship with the Krone Group in the best possi­ble way and thus made an important contri­bu­tion to streng­thening Schwarz­mül­ler”. Supported by exper­tise from Krone, the Schwarz­mül­ler Group will conti­nue to operate under the exis­ting manage­ment. Appr­oval of the invest­ment by the anti­trust autho­ri­ties is expec­ted in the near future.

W&P’s Christan Groschupp, Part­ner Debt & Capi­tal Advi­sory, Phil­ippe Piscol, Part­ner M&A, and Dr.-Ing. Dirk Artelt, Mana­ging Part­ner Indus­trial Goods, played a key role in the tran­sac­tion: “The trus­ting rela­ti­onship between two tradi­tio­nal family busi­nesses is the start­ing point for a strong part­ner­ship ‚” says Chris­tian Groschupp. The Schwarz­mül­ler Group brands will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently in order to main­tain an indi­vi­dual custo­mer approach.

Schwarz­mül­ler Group

The Schwarz­mül­ler Group is the largest Euro­pean niche supplier of trai­lers and bodies. The company builds more than 150 vehicle types with the aim of guaran­te­e­ing its custo­mers added value in the appli­ca­tion. In its long history since 1871, Schwarz­mül­ler has become the leading specia­list for indi­vi­dual trans­por­ta­tion solu­ti­ons. With vehicle types of the two brands Schwarz­mül­ler and Hüffer­mann, the group supplies the cons­truc­tion indus­try, infra­struc­ture compa­nies, the raw mate­ri­als and recy­cl­ables indus­try and long-distance trans­port compa­nies in 20 countries.

KRONE Commer­cial Vehicle Group

With 60,000 units produ­ced, the KRONE Commer­cial Vehicle Group is a major Euro­pean manu­fac­tu­rer of trai­lers and semi-trai­lers for the trans­por­ta­tion indus­try and sees itself as a compre­hen­sive mobi­lity consul­tant. The Emsland-based family busi­ness covers the most important segments in road freight trans­port with its product range. At six plant loca­ti­ons with around 3,500 employees, the KRONE GROUP’s commer­cial vehicle divi­sion has deve­lo­ped signi­fi­cant core compe­ten­cies in the fields of digi­ta­liza­tion, auto­ma­tion, sustaina­bi­lity and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, in addi­tion to its produc­tion exper­tise in semi-trai­lers, axles and swap systems. The sales volume in the segment, which is made up of product and service sales, amounts to over EUR 2 billion (as at 2022/2023).

Dr. Wiesel­hu­ber & Partner

Dr. Wiesel­hu­ber & Part­ner (W&P) is the leading cross-indus­try top manage­ment consul­tancy for family busi­nesses. She specia­li­zes in the entre­pre­neu­rial fields of stra­tegy, digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, busi­ness perfor­mance and restruc­tu­ring & corpo­rate finance, which also includes (distres­sed) M&A. From its offices in Munich, Hamburg, Stutt­gart and Düssel­dorf, Dr. Wiesel­hu­ber & Part­ner offers its clients compre­hen­sive indus­try and metho­do­lo­gi­cal exper­tise with the aim of sustain­ably and perma­nently incre­asing the growth and compe­ti­ti­ve­ness, profi­ta­bi­lity and enter­prise value of its clients. www.wieselhuber.de

News

Neubeuern/Karlsruhe — ORCA Soft­ware GmbH (“ORCA”), based in Neubeu­ern and a leading soft­ware company in the cons­truc­tion indus­try, is under­go­ing a change of owner­ship. The foun­der and sole share­hol­der of ORCA Soft­ware GmbH and its sister company ORCA-online GmbH, Heinz Nießen, has sold all of his shares indi­rectly to funds mana­ged by LEA Part­ners (“LEA”) for reasons of age.

Heinz Nießen, foun­der and sole share­hol­der of ORCA Soft­ware GmbH and ORCA-online GmbH, is selling all his shares for reasons of age. Toge­ther with the LEA port­fo­lio compa­nies PROJEKT PRO and SOFTTECH, ORCA will signi­fi­cantly advance the market leader­ship in the DACH region for commer­cial cons­truc­tion soft­ware and acce­le­rate the digi­ta­liza­tion of the cons­truc­tion indus­try. The total of 15,000 custo­mers will bene­fit in future from the unique exper­tise of over 250 employees to further increase their econo­mic and plan­ning success

“In LEA, we have found a strong, relia­ble part­ner to lead the ORCA Group into the future. Of course, it’s diffi­cult when you hand over your life’s work to new hands,” says Heinz Nießen, who will also be step­ping down as Mana­ging Direc­tor, “but the LEA team is the perfect fit, both perso­nally and profes­sio­nally, to give ORCA the right impe­tus to conti­nue the impres­sive growth trajec­tory of recent years with the entire team.”

LEA plans to conti­nue the company at the Neubeu­ern site with the exis­ting manage­ment team. The purchase agree­ment, the terms of which the parties have agreed not to disc­lose, is to be comple­ted by the end of August at the latest.

The remai­ning Mana­ging Direc­tor, Manfred Scholz, adds: “We are deligh­ted for our entire team and our custo­mers that LEA has a long-term approach to estab­li­shing ORCA even more stron­gly as a premium brand in the cons­truc­tion soft­ware sector and to conti­nuously improve our port­fo­lio of products and services.”

Toge­ther with the exis­ting LEA port­fo­lio compa­nies in the cons­truc­tion soft­ware sector, PROJEKT PRO (project manage­ment and control­ling soft­ware) and SOFTTECH (AVA and visua­liza­tion soft­ware), ORCA will be able to drive forward the expan­sion of its market leader­ship in the DACH region for commer­cial cons­truc­tion soft­ware and acce­le­rate digi­ta­liza­tion. In future, the compa­nies will be able to combine their exper­tise in commer­cial solu­ti­ons and visua­liza­tion soft­ware to make the cons­truc­tion indus­try more effi­ci­ent and inno­va­tive. In future, custo­mers will bene­fit from the unique exper­tise of over 250 employees to further increase their econo­mic and plan­ning success.

Nils Berger, LEA Part­ners: “The digi­ta­liza­tion of the cons­truc­tion indus­try is one of the most exci­ting and biggest tasks that LEA Part­ners has been passio­nate about for years. With over 30 years of expe­ri­ence as a market leader in the AVA sector, ORCA is another important buil­ding block in achie­ving this goal of an abso­lute market leader. By working toge­ther with PROJEKT PRO and SOFTTECH, we can expand and opti­mize our soft­ware product offe­ring for the custo­mer groups. We are deligh­ted to be able to accom­pany the ORCA team on their future path as a spar­ring part­ner and investor.”

About ORCA Soft­ware GmbH

Foun­ded in 1990, ORCA Soft­ware GmbH is a leading soft­ware company in the cons­truc­tion indus­try. Over 110 employees work at the Neubeu­ern site near Rosen­heim. The ORCA AVA and AUSSCHREIBEN.DE product brands prima­rily support archi­tects, engi­neers, specia­list plan­ners and product manu­fac­tu­r­ers with intui­tive tools that offer opti­mum data quality and plan­ning relia­bi­lity. As a well-connec­ted part­ner, ORCA actively promo­tes the topics of BIM, digi­ta­liza­tion and sustaina­bi­lity in the cons­truc­tion indus­try. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at www.orca-software.com.

About LEA Partners

LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. With a 30+ team in Karls­ruhe, one of Europe’s largest tech­no­logy clus­ters, LEA has mana­ged invest­ments in more than 70 tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. More at www.leapartners.de

 

News

Munich — The soft­ware company Rocket Soft­ware, Inc. has acqui­red the Appli­ca­tion Moder­niza­tion and Connec­ti­vity (“AMC”) divi­sion of Open Text, form­erly part of Micro­Fo­cus. — Rocket Soft­ware was advi­sed by the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Bird & Bird in various count­ries. At the US level, Rocket Soft­ware was advi­sed on the tran­sac­tion by Kirk­land & Ellis. Bird & Bird had previously advi­sed Rocket Soft­ware on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in the German soft­ware company B.O.S..

Rocket Soft­ware has deca­des of expe­ri­ence solving complex IT chal­lenges for the largest and most inno­va­tive orga­niza­ti­ons. With the acqui­si­tion of the AMC busi­ness, Rocket Soft­ware can now offer its custo­mers moder­niza­tion soft­ware solu­ti­ons ranging from the main­frame to the cloud and has built a more diverse port­fo­lio that is closely aligned with custo­mer needs.

Bird & Bird advi­sed Rocket Soft­ware on the current tran­sac­tion in 27 juris­dic­tions mainly in Europe and Asia (Belgium, Bulga­ria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Nether­lands, Norway, Poland, Portu­gal, Roma­nia, Spain, Switz­er­land, Sweden, United King­dom, South Africa, Brazil, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Austra­lia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malay­sia, Singa­pore) with its own lawy­ers and retai­ned part­ner law firms. At the end of 2023, the focus was on support­ing Euro­pean aspects of the purchase agree­ment and then, follo­wing the agree­ment, on the trans­fer of AMC employees.

The purchase agree­ment was signed at the end of Novem­ber 2023 and concluded on May 1, 2024.

The coope­ra­tion between the law firm and Rocket Soft­ware came about through a cont­act between the Munich M&A part­ner Stefan Münch and Rocket Soft­ware. Munich employ­ment law part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer and his team took the lead in support­ing Rocket Software’s people team and coor­di­na­ting the largely employ­ment law issues. Bird & Bird was once again able to demons­trate its exper­tise in advi­sing on inter­na­tio­nal projects in this transaction.

Consul­tant Rocket Software

Bird & Bird: Part­ner Stefan Münch, Coun­sel Dr. Chris­tina Lorenz, LL.M. and asso­cia­tes Kilian Hummel and Marina Dolina, LL.M. (all corporate/M&A, Munich/Frankfurt), part­ner Dr. Ralph Panzer (lead) and asso­cia­tes Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Koch, Chris­toph Lutz and Vincent Kirsch (all employ­ment law, Munich), part­ner Thomas Hey and asso­cia­tes Alisa Nent­wig and Julia Bellin­ger (all employ­ment law, Düssel­dorf), part­ner Dr. Rolf Schmich (tax law, Frank­furt), part­ner Amedeo Rampolla and asso­ciate Marco Preti (both employ­ment law, Milan (Italy)), part­ner Stefano Silves­tri and asso­cia­tes Linda Pietros­te­fani and Gior­gio Cesari (all corporate/M&A, Milan (Italy)), part­ner Miguel Pastur and asso­ciate Carlos Zabala (both employ­ment law, Madrid (Spain)), part­ner Lour­des Ayala, asso­cia­tes Anto­nio Balles­te­ros and Mónica Sangalli (all corporate/M&A, Madrid (Spain)), part­ner Natha­lie Dever­nay (employ­ment law, Lyon (France)), part­ner Bert­rand Levy, part­ner Etienne Guillou, asso­ciate Clémence Breuil and para­le­gal Laura Daut­huille (all corporate/M&A, Paris (France)), part­ner Philip Hart­man and asso­ciate Anne-Aimée Dabek­aus­sen (both employ­ment law, The Hague (Nether­lands)), part­ner Kata­rina Åhlberg and asso­ciate Dasha Arntyr (both employ­ment law, Stock­holm (Sweden)), part­ner Teea Kemp­pi­nen and asso­ciate Noora Hein­onen (both employ­ment law, Helsinki (Finland)), part­ner Pieter de Koster, part­ner Anton Aerts and asso­ciate Jehan de Wasseige (all employ­ment law, Brussels (Belgium)), part­ner Cedric Berck­mans, coun­sel Erik Holm­gren and asso­ciate Stan Prenen (all corporate/M&A, Brussels (Belgium)), Part­ner Brendan O’Brien, Asso­cia­tes Daniel Faul­k­ner and Nadine McMa­hon, Corpo­rate Para­le­gal Conor Delaney and Trai­nee Ed Carroll (all Corporate/M&A, Dublin (Ireland)), Part­ner Karo­lina Stawi­cka and Asso­ciate Pawel Wyre­bek (both Employ­ment Law, Warsaw (Poland)), Part­ner Diana Purdy and Asso­ciate Jacky Chan (both Employ­ment Law, Hong Kong), Part­ner Seow Hui Goh and Asso­ciate Saman­tha Lau (both Employ­ment Law, Singa­pore), Part­ner Sandra Seah and Coun­sel Jona­than Kao (both Corporate/M&A, Singapore).

In-house coun­sel: Matthew L. Vittig­lio (Asso­ciate Gene­ral Coun­sel, Walt­ham (United States)
Kirk­land & Ellis: Andrew Struck­meyer (Part­ner, Corpo­rate, Chicago (United States))

Law firms in Norway, Portu­gal, South Africa, Switz­er­land, Brazil, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Malay­sia were also commissioned.

News

Hamburg / Munich — EQT Future and the globally opera­ting Kühne Holding acquire a 35% stake in Flix SE (“Flix” or the “Company”). In addi­tion to a primary invest­ment in Flix, EQT Future and Kühne Holding will acquire shares from exis­ting share­hol­ders in order to build a long-term anchor stake in Flix. The company recor­ded sales growth of 30% in 2023, reaching EUR 2 billion in total annual sales for the first time. — The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to certain custo­mary condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

“We are plea­sed to welcome EQT Future and Kühne Holding as strong and focu­sed inves­tors with a proven track record of sustainable, long-term invest­ment stra­te­gies. Their capi­tal and exper­tise are a great asset to the over­all stra­te­gic vision of our company. We could­n’t wish for better part­ners to start the next chap­ter of the Flix jour­ney,” comm­ents André Schwämm­lein, CEO and co-foun­der of Flix.

“EQT Future supports high-quality, growing compa­nies that have the poten­tial to be leaders in their fields. Flix is the perfect exam­ple of this. We are deeply impres­sed by what André and his team have built. They have deve­lo­ped Flix from a start-up to a clear global market leader opera­ting in 43 count­ries,” said Andreas Aschen­bren­ner, Foun­ding Part­ner and Deputy Head of the EQT Future advi­sory team.

“For us at EQT, it’s always about provi­ding more than just capi­tal. We are proud to part­ner with Kühne Holding, one of the leading trans­por­ta­tion and logi­stics inves­tors, and André and his team and look forward to support­ing Flix’s stra­te­gic growth agenda in the long term. We want to ensure that Flix’s low-carbon solu­tion for long-haul travel reaches even more people around the world, and we believe Flix is well on its way to making a name for itself in the indus­try and beyond.”

Domi­nik de Daniel, CEO of Kühne Holding AG, commen­ted: “Flix is driving the next gene­ra­tion of coll­ec­tive trans­por­ta­tion. Kühne Holding is proud to support the company as a stra­te­gic part­ner in its next phase of expan­sion. Over the past few months, we have built up a good rela­ti­onship with our colle­agues at EQT Future. We have great confi­dence in André Schwämm­lein and his team and look forward to support­ing the future of Flix in a bene­fi­cial partnership.”

Karl Gernandt, CEO of Kühne Holding AG, added: “As one of the largest stra­te­gic inves­tors in the trans­por­ta­tion and mobi­lity sector, Kühne Holding is now taking a further step into the market for coll­ec­tive bus trans­port. With Flix’s proven asset-light opera­ting model, we see great syner­gies with our other invest­ments in the trans­por­ta­tion sector. We also want to support the inter­na­tio­nal network’s expan­sion stra­tegy. We are buil­ding on the great success Flix has had in estab­li­shing the bus as the leading sustainable mode of trans­por­ta­tion — for more than a decade in Europe and now overseas.”

Promo­ting profi­ta­ble growth

The invest­ment comes at a time when Flix is conti­nuing to grow stron­gly and expand strategically.
The company recor­ded sales growth of 30% in 2023, reaching EUR 2 billion in total annual sales for the first time. This will be achie­ved with increased profi­ta­bi­lity and an adjus­ted EBITDA of EUR 104 million in 2023. The strong momen­tum enables Flix to achieve stra­te­gic goals such as expan­ding its global presence, trans­forming the North Ameri­can bus market and further scaling Flix­Train to respond to the incre­asing demand for alter­na­tive rail services in Germany.

Expan­sion of global presence

In order to further streng­then its geogra­phi­cal presence, Flix recently ente­red two of the most important
bus markets world­wide: Chile and India. The company’s global presence now extends to 43 count­ries world­wide. Euro­pean expan­sion is being driven forward with both Flix­Bus and Flix­Train. Flix­Bus is signi­fi­cantly expan­ding its services in Great Britain, Portu­gal and the Ukraine and has added new services in Norway and Finland. Flix’s clear goal is to achieve market leader­ship in these markets.

Expan­sion of busi­ness in North America

Flix has been opera­ting in the United States since 2018. In 2021, the company acqui­red Grey­hound Lines, an iconic inter­city bus provi­der, further expan­ding its reach, inclu­ding in Canada and Mexico. The trans­for­ma­tion and inte­gra­tion of opera­ti­ons into the Flix plat­form is well under­way, which is incre­asingly reflec­ted in a growing share of “asset-light” assets, driving growth and profi­ta­bi­lity in the market.

About EQT

EQT is a purpose-driven global invest­ment orga­niza­tion with total assets under manage­ment of EUR 242 billion (EUR 132 billion in fee-gene­ra­ting assets under manage­ment), opera­ting in two busi­ness segments — Private Capi­tal and Real Assets. EQT owns port­fo­lio compa­nies and assets in Europe, Asia-Paci­fic and the Ameri­cas and supports them in achie­ving sustainable growth, opera­tio­nal excel­lence and market leadership.
Further infor­ma­tion: www.eqtgroup.com

About Flix

Flix aims to trans­form public trans­por­ta­tion by offe­ring sustainable and afforda­ble solu­ti­ons for long-distance bus and train travel in more than 40 count­ries on four conti­nents. With its asset-light busi­ness model and inno­va­tive tech­no­logy plat­form, Flix, which was foun­ded in 2013, has quickly become a market leader for long-distance coach travel in Europe. After North America and Turkey, Flix­Bus, Flix­Train, Kamil Koç and Grey­hound are expan­ding further into South America and India.

Driven by the growing aware­ness of sustainable travel, Flix aims to become climate-neutral in Europe by 2040 and world­wide by 2050. In order to evaluate its progress within a scien­ti­fi­cally reco­gni­zed frame­work, Flix has set short-term targets for emis­si­ons reduc­tion with the Science Based Targets initia­tive. While Flix mana­ges the commer­cial side of the busi­ness such as network plan­ning, pricing, opera­ti­ons control, marke­ting and sales, quality manage­ment and conti­nuous product deve­lo­p­ment with a data-driven approach, trus­ted Flix part­ners run the day-to-day opera­ti­ons. The inno­va­tive combi­na­tion of Flix’s tech­no­logy and distri­bu­tion plat­form with tradi­tio­nal passen­ger trans­por­ta­tion has turned a Euro­pean start-up into a leading and globally expan­ding travel tech­no­logy company.
Further infor­ma­tion: corporate.flixbus.com

About Kühne Holding

Kühne Holding AG, based in Switz­er­land, compri­ses the busi­ness inte­rests of Klaus-Michael Kühne. With an entre­pre­neu­rial focus on invest­ments in the logi­stics and trans­por­ta­tion sector, it holds a majo­rity stake in Kühne+Nagel Inter­na­tio­nal AG and is the largest single share­hol­der in Hapag-Lloyd AG, Deut­sche Luft­hansa AG and Brenn­tag SE. In April 2024, Kühne Holding announ­ced the acqui­si­tion of the Aenova Group, a global leader in phar­maceu­ti­cal contract deve­lo­p­ment and manufacturing.

 

 

 

News

Munich/ Düssel­dorf — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Soft­Pro­ject, a leading German provi­der of busi­ness process manage­ment soft­ware. Soft­Pro­jects foun­der and CEO Dirk Detmer remains Mana­ging Direc­tor and shareholder.

Main Capi­tal will support Soft­Pro­ject in its next growth phase. The acqui­si­tion is Main Capital’s first plat­form invest­ment with the new MCVIII fund.

Foun­ded in 2000, Soft­Pro­ject GmbH provi­des BPM soft­ware for over 300 compa­nies, inclu­ding indus­try leaders such as AXA and BMW. The company’s flag­ship product is the X4 BPMS plat­form, a low-code solu­tion that simpli­fies process mode­ling, auto­ma­tion and data integration.

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the DACH region, the Bene­lux count­ries, the Nordic count­ries and the United States. Main Capi­tal mana­ges assets of over 2.2 billion euros and main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of more than 45 soft­ware groups.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH: McDer­mott Will & Emery, Munich/ Frankfurt/ Düsseldorf

Hanno M. Witt (Part­ner, Lead, Private Equity, Munich), Dustin Schwerdt­fe­ger (Finan­cing, Düssel­dorf), Krasen Kras­tev (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Düssel­dorf), Stef­fen Woitz (IP/IT, Munich), Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, IT/Data Protec­tion Law, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Nicole Kaps (Private Equity, Munich), Marion Dalvai-König (Private Equity, Munich), Dr. Armin Teymouri (Private Equity, Munich), Sönke Wasser­mann (Employ­ment Law, Frank­furt), Simon Apelojg (IP/IT, Munich), Markus Hunken­schrö­der (Finan­cing, Düsseldorf)

News

Munich — Satel­lite launch services provi­der Isar Aero­space today announ­ced a signi­fi­cant increase of more than €65 million in its Series C finan­cing round, which now totals over €220 million. The NATO Inno­va­tion Fund (NIF) — an inde­pen­dent venture capi­tal fund supported by 24 NATO member states with an invest­ment volume of over one billion euros — is inves­t­ing in Isar Aero­space for the first time; this is also the first direct invest­ment by the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund in a satel­lite launch service provi­der. The fund supports deep-tech compa­nies in the fields of defense, secu­rity and resi­li­ence. The commit­ment repres­ents NIF’s first direct invest­ment in a satel­lite launch services provi­der and unders­cores the importance of space tech­no­lo­gies for both civil inno­va­tion and defense capabilities.

Other new inves­tors in the exten­sion of the Series C finan­cing round include the Euro­pean family office G3T as well as the inves­tors 10x Group, Besant Capi­tal, Finad­vice Med HOLDINGS and LP&E. Exis­ting inves­tors Lake­star, Early­bird, Airbus Ventures, Porsche SE, Bayern Kapi­tal and UVC Part­ners made signi­fi­cant contri­bu­ti­ons to the Series C finan­cing round.

Using commer­cial tech­no­lo­gies as a lever for sovereignty

Andrea Traver­sone, Mana­ging Part­ner of the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund, says: “Access to space is criti­cal to the tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­nty of Europe and the UK. Space tech­no­lo­gies like Isar Aerospace’s offer huge poten­tial and will enable us to build a secure and prospe­rous future for gene­ra­ti­ons to come. We will support Isar by promo­ting deploy­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in both govern­ment and commer­cial sectors.”

Leading nati­ons such as the USA are alre­ady basing their space and defense stra­te­gies on commer­cial space capa­bi­li­ties, as the procu­re­ment of private commer­cial services and products is more inno­va­tive, more effi­ci­ent and, above all, more cost-effective.
Daniel Metz­ler, co-foun­der and CEO of Isar Aero­space, says: “The NATO Inno­va­tion Fund’s invest­ment in Isar Aero­space is a strong sign of confi­dence in our approach and under­lines the funda­men­tal role of space tech­no­lo­gies for our economy and society. But more than that, it shows that Euro­pean govern­ments need to encou­rage and leverage private inno­va­tion and products to compete globally.”

Leading New Space company in Europe

With a total finan­cing volume of more than 400 million euros since its foun­da­tion in 2018, Isar Aero­space is the most capi­ta­li­zed inde­pen­dent New Space company in Europe. The company has estab­lished itself as a tech­no­logy leader thanks to complete verti­cal inte­gra­tion with its own deve­lo­p­ment, produc­tion and test­ing proces­ses. Isar Aero­space relies on scalable series produc­tion to indus­tria­lize the produc­tion of launch vehicles.

In May 2024, Isar Aero­space announ­ced plans to build the world’s most modern produc­tion faci­lity for orbi­tal launch vehic­les near Munich. In coope­ra­tion with the pan-Euro­pean real estate company VGP Group, which will deve­lop and build the faci­lity, Isar Aero­space will be able to produce up to 40 Spec­trum launch vehic­les per year.

This latest funding will enable Isar Aero­space to invest in the initial set-up and ramp-up of its series produc­tion. With a high degree of auto­ma­tion and a focus on scala­bi­lity, the company will be able to meet the growing demand from the private and public sectors for the trans­por­ta­tion of small and medium-sized satel­li­tes and satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons at compe­ti­tive prices.

About Isar Aerospace
Isar Aero­space, based near Munich, deve­lops and builds launch vehic­les for the trans­por­ta­tion of small and medium-sized satel­li­tes and satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons into Earth orbit. The company was foun­ded in 2018 as a spin-off of the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. Since then, it has grown to over 400 employees from more than 50 nati­ons, who have many years of prac­ti­cal space exper­tise as well as expe­ri­ence in other high-tech sectors. With a total finan­cing volume of more than EUR 400 million, Isar Aero­space is the best-finan­ced inde­pen­dent new space company in Europe and a pioneer in scaling and indus­tria­li­zing the produc­tion of launch vehic­les through verti­cal inte­gra­tion. The two-stage orbi­tal launch vehicle “Spec­trum” is speci­ally desi­gned for the cons­truc­tion of satel­lite constel­la­ti­ons and provi­des access to one of the most crucial tech­no­lo­gi­cal plat­forms of our time: space. Further infor­ma­tion can be found at: https://www.isaraerospace.com/.

About the new inves­tors in Isar Aerospace’s Series C finan­cing round

About the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund:
The NATO Inno­va­tion Fund is a venture capi­tal fund supported by 24 NATO member states that invests more than one billion euros in cutting-edge tech­no­lo­gies to address defense, secu­rity and resi­li­ence chal­lenges. The fund invests inde­pendently, with 24 states support­ing the success of the port­fo­lio and helping deep tech entre­pre­neurs gain access to commer­cial and govern­ment markets. The parti­ci­pa­ting NATO count­ries are: Belgium, Bulga­ria, Denmark, Germany, Esto­nia, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Luxem­bourg, the Nether­lands, Norway, Poland, Portu­gal, Roma­nia, Sweden, Slova­kia, Spain, the Czech Repu­blic, Turkey, Hungary and the United King­dom. Further infor­ma­tion: https://www.nif.fund/

About the 10x Group:
10x Group is a group of serial entre­pre­neurs inves­t­ing in foun­ders across Europe and Sili­con Valley. Previous invest­ments include Adyen, Equip­mentS­hare, Revolt, Enpal, Open­Door, Lumi­nar, Deli­ver­y­Hero, Robin­hood and seve­ral other well-known global companies.

About Besant:
Besant is an invest­ment company with assets under manage­ment of over USD 500 million and offices in Europe and the Ameri­cas. It offers dedi­ca­ted invest­ment solu­ti­ons in selec­ted growth sectors that are bene­fiting from far-reaching chan­ges. Besant’s team has exten­sive exper­tise in finan­cial, stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal manage­ment and brings more than 50 years of combi­ned expe­ri­ence in public and private markets, with over $2.9 billion inves­ted. Besant Digi­tal focu­ses on global venture capi­tal invest­ments with a focus on tech­no­logy and digi­tal busi­ness models. The main target regi­ons are Europe, Israel and the USA as proven centers for innovation.

About Finad­vice Med HOLDINGS:
Finad­vice Med HOLDINGS is a Swiss invest­ment company supported by a group of Euro­pean entrepreneurs.

About G3T:
The family busi­ness is a holding company with indus­trial roots. It was a share­hol­der in Aber­tis, one of the world’s leading compa­nies in the high­way and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons infra­struc­ture sector. Its main busi­ness areas are curr­ently rene­wa­ble ener­gies, real estate (Spain, France and Germany) and health­care centers, and it is also present in the agri­cul­tu­ral and indus­trial sectors through finan­cial invest­ments. It holds a signi­fi­cant stake in Flui­dra, the global market leader for swim­ming pool and well­ness equipment.

The corpo­rate busi­ness is mana­ged directly, and in the case of finan­cial invest­ments, whether listed or private equity, the company holds a signi­fi­cant and stable posi­tion, is closely linked to the manage­ment and pursues a long-term orien­ta­tion. Venture Capi­tal was inte­gra­ted into the stra­te­gic plan as a new busi­ness area with the aim of acqui­ring mino­rity inte­rests in tech­no­logy-orien­ted growth companies.

About LP&E:
LP&E is a priva­tely held venture capi­tal firm based in Switz­er­land that focu­ses on invest­ments in emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies and inno­va­tive busi­ness models.

About Porsche SE:

Porsche Auto­mo­bil Holding SE (Porsche SE) is a holding company with invest­ments in the mobi­lity and indus­trial tech­no­logy sector. As at Decem­ber 31, 2023, the company employed just under 50 people and gene­ra­ted conso­li­da­ted net income of EUR 5.1 billion in the 2023 finan­cial year. Porsche SE holds the majo­rity of the ordi­nary shares in Volks­wa­gen AG and 25 percent plus one share of the ordi­nary shares in Porsche AG as core share­hol­dings. In addi­tion, there are mino­rity inte­rests in seve­ral tech­no­logy compa­nies in North America, Europe and Israel as well as invest­ments in private equity and venture capi­tal funds.

News

Nürtin­gen — Menold Bezler has advi­sed Nürtin­gen-Geis­lin­gen Univer­sity (HfWU) on the estab­lish­ment of the non-profit Zukunft.Gründen — Future.Hub for Entre­pre­neur­ship & Inno­va­tion GmbH (ZuG), a plat­form for sustainable busi­ness start-ups.

ZuG promo­tes a sustainable start-up culture, for exam­ple through lectures on entre­pre­neur­ship, scho­lar­ships for promi­sing start-up projects and the promo­tion of start-up coope­ra­tion programs for SMEs. The initia­tive, which was previously supported by the Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics, has now been spun off. In order to estab­lish and finance new joint ventures, ZuG works with other compa­nies via its newly foun­ded subsi­diary Zukunft.Gründen — Venture Studio for Entre­pre­neur­ship & Inno­va­tion GmbH and connects foun­ders with busi­ness angels.

The law firm advi­sed HfWU on corpo­rate and contrac­tual issues rela­ting to the estab­lish­ment of ZuG and the estab­lish­ment of the ZuG subsidiary.

Consul­tant Nürtin­gen-Geis­lin­gen Univer­sity of Applied Sciences:

Menold Bezler (Stutt­gart): Dr. Kars­ten Gschwandt­ner (part­ner), Thomas Futte­rer, Michelle Gutjahr (all corpo­rate law/M&A), Kath­rin Seiz (employ­ment law)

About Menold Bezler

Menold Bezler is a commer­cial law firm in Stutt­gart with a part­ner­ship struc­ture and 300 employees. More than 120 profes­sio­nals offer legal advice, tax advice, audi­ting and busi­ness manage­ment advice from a single source. Our clients include well-known medium-sized compa­nies, listed corpo­ra­ti­ons, the public sector and its compa­nies as well as non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons. More at www.menoldbezler.de.

News

Vienna — The SCRM plat­form Prewave has recei­ved 67 million US dollars (63 million euros) in a Series B finan­cing round. The round was led by the invest­ment company Hedo­so­phia and included invest­ments from exis­ting inves­tors Crean­dum, Ventech, Kompas, Speed­in­vest and Working Capi­tal Fund. The funds will be used to shape the next phase of Prewave’s growth. In addi­tion, further product rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment based on the company’s proprie­tary AI tech­no­logy will help to achieve the goal of beco­ming the world’s only plat­form for super intel­li­gence in the supply chain.

Accor­ding to Prewave, it uses the possi­bi­li­ties of AI to inte­grate super­in­tel­li­gence into the supply chain in order to make compa­nies’ supply chains more trans­pa­rent, compli­ant and resi­li­ent. It iden­ti­fies 140 types of risk on a global level and supports compa­nies in mana­ging them. These include issues that affect resi­li­ence and cause disrup­tion (natu­ral disas­ters, finan­cial stress, cyber risks, acci­dents and legal issues), sustaina­bi­lity and ESG risks, as well as compli­ance with a growing number of natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal regulations.

Strong growth in Europe

Accor­ding to the company, it has grown rapidly due to strong demand across Europe and tripled its turno­ver in 2023. More than 200 compa­nies, inclu­ding Ferrari and Dr. Oetker, alre­ady use Prewave in their SCM.

Harald Nitschin­ger, Co-Foun­der and Mana­ging Direc­tor of Prewave said: “We are seeing strong demand from leading Euro­pean brands who reco­gnize that Prewave can help them protect their repu­ta­tion, improve their perfor­mance and increase their profi­ta­bi­lity. This funding will allow us to acce­le­rate our global expan­sion, with the US market being our top priority.”

“We want to make supply chains more trans­pa­rent, more resi­li­ent and more sustainable,” adds his co-foun­der Lisa Smith, who laid the foun­da­ti­ons for Prewave with her docto­ral thesis in compu­ter science.

Sabina Wizan­der (photo © Crean­dum), Part­ner at Crean­dum comm­ents: “We have seen during the pande­mic how vulnerable global supply chains can be. Complete trans­pa­rency in the supply chain is one of the top prio­ri­ties of the company’s manage­ment, parti­cu­larly in view of incre­asing regu­la­tion, geopo­li­ti­cal insta­bi­lity and climate change. Prewave has deve­lo­ped the best product to meet these requi­re­ments. This is also reflec­ted in the feed­back from custo­mers. Prewave has strong momen­tum and this new invest­ment will help to acce­le­rate the company’s growth.”

About Crean­dum

When we foun­ded Crean­dum in 2003, the oppor­tu­ni­ties in Europe were not as great as they are today. There were few real venture capi­ta­lists, most entre­pre­neurs and venture capi­ta­lists did not think it was possi­ble to build global tech­no­logy compa­nies from Europe, and the US share of global venture capi­tal invest­ment was domi­nant. We had no idea that we would open hubs in Stock­holm, Berlin, London and San Fran­cisco by 2023, that the Crean­dum funds would have raised USD 1.7 billion and inves­ted in more than 130 compa­nies in the seed and Series A phase. Today, we are proud that one of six compa­nies in the port­fo­lio is a unicorn, inclu­ding Spotify, Depop, iZettle, Bolt, Trade Repu­blic and Klarna.
https://creandum.com/

 

News

Hamburg — Peter Möhrle Holding sells Grofa Action Sports (Bad Camberg, Germany) to the elec­tro­nics group Darfon Elec­tro­nics (Taoyuan City, Taiwan). In a first step, the tran­sac­tion compri­ses the acqui­si­tion of 80% of the shares in Grofa Action Sports GmbH, which was foun­ded in 1980, with the option to expand to 100%. A team led by HEUKING part­ner Dr. Peter Chris­tian Schmidt advi­sed Peter Möhrle Holding on this transaction.

Grofa Action Sports GmbH is a distri­bu­tor of bicy­cles, e‑bikes and their compon­ents, bicy­cle and sports access­ories. The sales network covers Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Nether­lands, Luxem­bourg and Poland. In total, Grofa serves over 5,800 retail­ers and major custo­mers. Grofa curr­ently repres­ents 27 premium sports brands with a focus on brand deve­lo­p­ment, brand manage­ment and market expan­sion. In 2023, Grofa achie­ved a turno­ver of more than 100 million euros.

Darfon Elec­tro­nics is a Taiwa­nese elec­tro­nics group mainly enga­ged in the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring and sales of precis­ion compu­ter peri­phe­ral products and compon­ents for green energy products. For Darfon, the acqui­si­tion marks its first entry into the German market and a targe­ted expan­sion in the Euro­pean e‑bike sector.

The tran­sac­tion is still subject to appr­oval by the anti­trust authorities.

Consul­tant Peter Möhrle Holding: HEUKING

Dr. Peter Chris­tian Schmidt (in charge),
Dr. Julius Wede­meyer, LL.M. (both corpo­rate law/M&A),
Dr. Stefan Brett­hauer (Merger Control),
Dr. Hans Markus Wulf (IP, Media & Technology),
Natha­lie Hemmer­ling (Corpo­rate Law/M&A),
Jia-Xi Liu (Merger Control), all Hamburg

News

Wies­ba­den — Aareal Bank and Advent Inter­na­tio­nal (“Advent”) have announ­ced that they have ente­red into an agree­ment with TPG and CDPQ to acquire Aareon, a Euro­pean provi­der of Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) solu­ti­ons for the real estate indus­try. The finan­cial terms of the sale were based on an enter­prise value for Aareon of around € 3.9 billion, which corre­sponds to a valua­tion of Aareal Bank’s stake in Aareon of around € 2.1 billion. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to take place in the second half of 2024, subject to the usual condi­ti­ons and regu­la­tory approvals.

The tran­sac­tion and part­ner­ship with TPG will provide Aareon with access to addi­tio­nal specia­li­zed resour­ces and exper­tise to drive inno­va­tion and future growth. TPG will invest in Aareon through TPG Capi­tal, the company’s US and Euro­pean private equity plat­form, in a consor­tium with CDPQ, a global invest­ment group. CDPQ will acquire a mino­rity stake in Aareon along­side TPG as a co-inves­tor. Advent will conti­nue its invest­ment in Aareon and invest new equity for a mino­rity stake in the inde­pen­dent company.

With its property manage­ment system, Mainz-based Aareon promo­tes the effi­ci­ent and sustainable manage­ment and main­ten­ance of real estate. The Aareon port­fo­lio enables seam­less, auto­ma­ted end-to-end proces­ses that connect property mana­gers and owners in the resi­den­tial and commer­cial real estate sectors.

Jochen Klös­ges, Chair­man of the Manage­ment Board of Aareal Bank and Chair­man of the Super­vi­sory Board of Aareon AG, said: “We are deligh­ted to have found new owners for Aareon, whose finan­cial strength and exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence put them in a good posi­tion to take Aareon to the next major stage of its deve­lo­p­ment. In recent years, we have deve­lo­ped Aareon into a ‘Rule of 40’ company that has grown orga­ni­cally and inor­ga­ni­cally in an impres­sive manner. We will conti­nue our successful coope­ra­tion via our joint venture First Finan­cial Soft­ware. This not only streng­thens our long-term part­ner­ship with Aareon, but also opens up further growth pros­pects for all parties involved.”

Flavio Porciani, Part­ner at TPG, said: “We have been enthu­si­a­stic about Aareon’s role as one of the leading compa­nies in the Euro­pean real estate manage­ment indus­try for many years. We look forward to working in part­ner­ship with the Aareon team and our co-inves­tors to conti­nue the company’s busi­ness success in its future inde­pen­dence. The need for compre­hen­sive property manage­ment solu­ti­ons is growing in view of the incre­asing digi­ta­liza­tion of work­flows and the ever more complex regu­la­tory requi­re­ments in the property indus­try. Aareon’s offe­ring responds to this deve­lo­p­ment by provi­ding owners and decis­ion-makers in the property indus­try with an inte­gra­ted, modern system that impro­ves connec­ti­vity and opti­mi­zes busi­ness processes.”

Jeff Paduch, Mana­ging Part­ner of Advent Inter­na­tio­nal and member of the Aareon Super­vi­sory Board, commen­ted: “We are proud to have supported Aareon’s manage­ment team and employees in the successful trans­for­ma­tion leading to one of the largest corpo­rate sales in the Euro­pean soft­ware indus­try in 2024. The company is well posi­tio­ned to conti­nue to act as an inno­va­tion leader for its custo­mers in the Euro­pean housing indus­try ecosys­tem. Aareon is on a sustainable growth path and offers exci­ting future oppor­tu­ni­ties for all stakeholders.”

Harry Thom­sen, CEO of Aareon, said: “This tran­sac­tion is a mile­stone in Aareon’s deve­lo­p­ment. Thanks to the strong support of our owners Aareal Bank and Advent Inter­na­tio­nal, the company has made excel­lent progress in recent years. Now we can take the next step in our deve­lo­p­ment. We are in an ideal posi­tion to take advan­tage of further growth oppor­tu­ni­ties and welcome TPG and CDPQ as expe­ri­en­ced and strong new partners.”

Even after the tran­sac­tion, Aareal Bank and Aareon will conti­nue their close coope­ra­tion and support their clients toge­ther via the First Finan­cial Soft­ware joint venture. First Finan­cial Soft­ware offers custo­mers specia­list exper­tise in payment tran­sac­tion soft­ware solu­ti­ons for the real estate indus­try and rela­ted sectors.

Signi­fi­cant gain on dispo­sal after tran­sac­tion-rela­ted costs expec­ted in 2024

The sale of Aareon will result in a signi­fi­cant gain on dispo­sal for Aareal Bank Group, after tran­sac­tion-rela­ted costs of around € 2 billion. This will be reco­gni­zed upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion (closing), which is expec­ted in the second half of 2024. Howe­ver, the majo­rity of the costs asso­cia­ted with the tran­sac­tion, amoun­ting to around € 150 million, will alre­ady be reco­gni­zed in the second quar­ter when the tran­sac­tion is signed. The gain on dispo­sal less the costs asso­cia­ted with the tran­sac­tion was not included in Aareal Bank Group’s previous fore­cast for the 2024 finan­cial year. This will now be adjus­ted upwards. In addi­tion, Aareon will be repor­ted as a discon­tin­ued opera­tion in accordance with IFRS 5 from the second quar­ter until closing.

Aareal Bank is well on track to achieve its opera­ting target of € 250 million to € 300 million for the 2024 finan­cial year in the banking busi­ness exclu­ding Aareon. The bank alone gene­ra­ted a conso­li­da­ted opera­ting result of around € 92 million in the first quar­ter of 2024 and an opera­ting result of € 221 million in the 2023 finan­cial year. The Common Equity Tier 1 capi­tal ratio (Basel IV phase-in) was 19.7% at the end of the first quar­ter of 2024.

Arma Part­ners acted as lead finan­cial advi­sor and Gold­man Sachs acted as finan­cial advi­sor to Advent Inter­na­tio­nal and Aareal Bank, CMS acted as legal coun­sel to Aareal Bank.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP advi­sed Advent Inter­na­tio­nal on legal matters.

Morgan Stan­ley & Co. Inter­na­tio­nal Plc acted as finan­cial advi­sor to TPG and CDPQ and Kirk­land & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel.

About Aareal Bank Group

Aareal Bank Group, head­quar­te­red in Wies­ba­den, is a leading inter­na­tio­nal real estate specia­list. The Bank uses its exper­tise to iden­tify trends, chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties at an early stage and exploit them for the bene­fit of its stake­hol­ders. Aareal Bank Group offers smart finan­cing, soft­ware products and digi­tal solu­ti­ons for the property sector and rela­ted indus­tries, and is repre­sen­ted on three conti­nents — in Europe, North America and Asia. Aareal Bank Group’s busi­ness stra­tegy is geared towards sustainable busi­ness success, with ESG (envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance) aspects as key components.

Aareal Bank AG compri­ses the Struc­tu­red Property Finan­cing, Banking & Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons and Aareon segments. The Struc­tu­red Property Finan­cing segment compri­ses Aareal Bank Group’s property finan­cing and refi­nan­cing acti­vi­ties. Here she assists clients with large-volume invest­ments in commer­cial real estate. In the Banking & Digi­tal Solu­ti­ons busi­ness segment, Aareal Bank Group offers compre­hen­sive advi­sory services and product solu­ti­ons to compa­nies from the housing and property indus­tries, as well as the energy sector, as a digi­ta­liza­tion part­ner, bund­ling these with tradi­tio­nal corpo­rate banking and depo­sit-taking busi­ness. The subsi­diary Aareon, Europe’s proven provi­der of SaaS solu­ti­ons for the property indus­try, forms the third busi­ness segment.

About Advent International

Foun­ded in 1984, Advent Inter­na­tio­nal is one of the largest and most expe­ri­en­ced global private equity inves­tors. The company has inves­ted in over 420 private equity invest­ments in 43 count­ries and had assets under manage­ment of EUR 84 billion as of Decem­ber 31, 2023. With 15 offices in 12 count­ries, Advent has built a globally inte­gra­ted team of over 302 private equity invest­ment profes­sio­nals in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The company focu­ses on invest­ments in five core sectors, inclu­ding busi­ness and finan­cial services, tech­no­logy, health­care, indus­try and retail, consu­mer goods and leisure. After 40 years in the inter­na­tio­nal invest­ment busi­ness, Advent conti­nues to pursue the approach of working with manage­ment teams to achieve sustainable sales and earnings growth for its port­fo­lio compa­nies. www.adventinternational.com

About TPG

Foun­ded in 1992 in San Fran­cisco, TPG is a globally active alter­na­tive asset mana­ger. The company mana­ges US$ 224 billion in assets and has invest­ment profes­sio­nals and opera­ti­ons around the world. The spec­trum of TPG’s invest­ment stra­te­gies is broadly diver­si­fied and includes private equity, impact inves­t­ing, credit, real estate and market solu­ti­ons. Our unique stra­te­gic approach is based on colla­bo­ra­tion, inno­va­tion and inclu­sion. Our teams combine in-depth product and sector expe­ri­ence with broad exper­tise and distinc­tive skills. This gives us diffe­ren­tia­ted insights and crea­tes value for our fund inves­tors, port­fo­lio compa­nies, manage­ment teams and stake­hol­der groups. You can find out more about TPG at www.tpg.com.

About CDPQ

CDPQ pursues a cons­truc­tive invest­ment approach in order to gene­rate sustainable returns over the long term. As a global invest­ment mana­ger, we manage funds for public pension and bene­fit funds; toge­ther with our part­ners, we build compa­nies that drive perfor­mance and progress. We are active in the most important finan­cial markets as well as in private equity, infra­struc­ture, real estate and private debt. As at Decem­ber 31, 2023, CDPQ had net assets of CAD 434 billion. For more infor­ma­tion, visit cdpq.com, our presence on Linke­dIn and Insta­gram, or follow us on X. — CDPQ is a regis­tered trade­mark of Caisse de dépôt et place­ment du Québec and licen­sed for use by its subsidiaries.

About Aareon

Aareon is Europe’s estab­lished provi­der of SaaS solu­ti­ons for the real estate indus­try and a pioneer for the digi­tal future of the sector.

By connec­ting people, proces­ses and proper­ties, Aareon is crea­ting a closely networked real estate ecosys­tem. Our property manage­ment system offers intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­ti­ons for effi­ci­ently mana­ging and main­tai­ning proper­ties and digi­tally inte­gra­ting all stake­hol­ders. As a relia­ble and inno­va­tive part­ner, we are passio­na­tely commit­ted to sustainable living and working spaces.

 

News

Hamburg / Langen — With the Euro­pean invest­ment company Water­land, dacoso has brought a strong growth part­ner on board. Toge­ther with the new majo­rity share­hol­der, inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion is to be driven forward and the successful course of the company, which is head­quar­te­red in Langen, Hesse, is to be inten­si­fied. In the course of digi­ta­liza­tion, the markets for ICT networks and cyber secu­rity will conti­nue to grow signi­fi­cantly globally in the coming years. dacoso, one of the leading IT service provi­ders for networks and cyber secu­rity in the DACH region, also wants to bene­fit from this.

The sellers of the shares are the company foun­ders Thomas Joswig and Horst Pohl as well as their two sons Felix Pohl and Robin Pohl; all will remain share­hol­ders in the future and Felix Pohl will conti­nue to lead the group as CEO. The tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory appr­ovals; finan­cial details will not be disclosed

Foun­ded in 2004 and conti­nuously growing, dacoso GmbH is a leading IT network inte­gra­tor and data secu­rity provi­der in the DACH region. The focus is on mana­ged services for opti­cal networks, intel­li­gent networks and cyber secu­rity, which dacoso opera­tes for its busi­ness custo­mers in its own certi­fied IT Network & Secu­rity Opera­ti­ons Center (SOC). These are comple­men­ted by services such as consul­ting, inte­gra­tion and roll­out with nati­on­wide field service — a holi­stic port­fo­lio that focu­ses on perfor­mance, data secu­rity and econo­mic effi­ci­ency as well as the customer’s criti­cal infra­struc­ture. The long-stan­ding custo­mer base includes nume­rous well-known blue-chip compa­nies (enter­prise and carrier), which use dacoso to connect data centers, network loca­ti­ons or set up carrier back­bones, for exam­ple, and to iden­tify and ward off attack risks. In addi­tion to its head­quar­ters near Frank­furt am Main, dacoso is present at eleven other loca­ti­ons in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and gene­ra­tes a three-digit million euro turno­ver with almost 300 employees.

Thomas Joswig and Horst Pohl agree: “After 20 years, it is the perfect time to hand over the manage­ment comple­tely to the new gene­ra­tion and to enter the next stage of orga­nic and inor­ga­nic growth — we are deligh­ted to have found a part­ner in Water­land who will closely accom­pany us on this path with exper­tise and finan­cial strength. Both employees and custo­mers will bene­fit from this partnership.”

CEO Felix Pohl says: “In Water­land, we have found a part­ner for our future path who has special exper­tise in the further deve­lo­p­ment of growth compa­nies as well as many years of expe­ri­ence in the ICT sector. The chemis­try is also right — on this opti­mal basis, we now want to tackle the deve­lo­p­ment of an inter­na­tio­nally market-leading group of companies.”

Dr. Cars­ten Rahlfs, Mana­ging Part­ner at Water­land (photo © Water­land), adds: “A stable ICT infra­struc­ture with high trans­mis­sion volu­mes and defense against cyber attacks are beco­ming incre­asingly important. The corre­spon­ding posi­tio­ning of dacoso in its indus­try is alre­ady excel­lent in the DACH region; now we want to join forces to build a Euro­pean market leader in the field of network inte­gra­tion and cyber security.”

Water­land is one of the most active Euro­pean invest­ment compa­nies and has made nume­rous invest­ments in the digi­ta­liza­tion, IT and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sectors. In the DACH region in parti­cu­lar, the port­fo­lio curr­ently includes compa­nies such as netgo (IT service provi­der), Hyand (soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment), enreach (unified commu­ni­ca­ti­ons), Skay­link (mana­ged enter­prise plat­form) and Serrala (payment technologies).

About Water­land

Water­land is an inde­pen­dent private equity invest­ment firm that helps compa­nies realize their growth plans. With substan­tial finan­cial support and indus­try exper­tise, Water­land enables its port­fo­lio compa­nies to achieve acce­le­ra­ted growth both orga­ni­cally and through acqui­si­ti­ons. Water­land has offices in the Nether­lands, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Spain and Switz­er­land. Curr­ently, appro­xi­m­ately 14 billion euros in equity funds are under management.
Water­land has consis­t­ently outper­for­med with its invest­ments since its incep­tion in 1999. The company ranks fourth globally in the HEC/Dow Jones Private Equity Perfor­mance Ranking (Janu­ary 2023) and seventh among global private equity compa­nies in the Preqin Consis­tent Perfor­mers in Global Private Equity & Venture Capi­tal Report 2022.
www.waterland.de

News

Munich — Funds advi­sed by the Munich-based inde­pen­dent invest­ment company Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) have acqui­red a majo­rity stake in TKD Group (“TKD”) from the foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors. A large part of the invest­ment, which is in the three-digit million range, will flow directly back into the opera­ting struc­ture in order to acce­le­rate growth.

TKD offers large compa­nies with inter­na­tio­nal loca­ti­ons a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets from various renow­ned manu­fac­tu­r­ers. The leased mobile devices are sustain­ably inte­gra­ted into a circu­lar economy that ensu­res that depart­ments such as purcha­sing, IT and finance are quickly and easily reli­e­ved and the customer’s ESG requi­re­ments are met. ESG stands for Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Governance.

By using the company’s own “Soft­ware as a Service” plat­form TKD.360, custo­mers’ employees can order end devices inclu­ding mobile phone profiles them­sel­ves after acti­va­tion, manage them and flexi­bly replace them with the latest models after a fixed term. The mobile devices are auto­ma­ti­cally confi­gu­red accor­ding to the company’s secu­rity speci­fi­ca­ti­ons and sent to the employee’s work­sta­tion in a perso­na­li­zed manner. This means they are ready for imme­diate use. The compa­nies not only bene­fit from CO2-neutral use and thus improve their sustaina­bi­lity stra­tegy, but also reli­eve their IT depart­ment and receive a trans­pa­rent cost over­view of the mobile users through the monthly billing of the devices used in the rental model, which is digi­tally trans­mit­ted to the finance department.

“In recent years, working closely with our manage­ment team, we have succee­ded in deve­lo­ping a range of products and services that are fully tail­o­red to custo­mer needs. With Deut­sche Private Equity, we now have a strong part­ner at our side who not only reco­gni­zes the poten­tial of our coope­ra­tion with key play­ers in the device-as-a-service market, but also values it. In addi­tion, DPE will make a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to our tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lo­p­ment and thus drive the expan­sion of our plat­form,” say Ulrich Wink­ler and Oliver Torlée, the foun­ders of TKD.

Andreas W. Schmid, Part­ner at DPE, explains: “We are very impres­sed by TKD’s solu­tion-orien­ted appli­ca­ti­ons, which provide custo­mers with the best possi­ble support for admi­nis­tra­tive and IT chal­lenges. We see signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial not only natio­nally, but also inter­na­tio­nally, as well as an attrac­tive value lever in the finan­cing of the devices and look forward to working with TKD.”

Advi­sors TKD: Houli­han Lokey (M&A sell side), FGS (tax) and Fresh­fields (legal)

Advi­sors to DPE: Roland Berger (Commer­cial), Deloitte (Finan­cial), PwC (Tax & ESG), Gütt Olk Feld­haus (Legal), MCF (Debt Advi­sory) and Hogan Lovells (Finan­cial Coun­sel).

About TKD

TKD offers large compa­nies a rental model for mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets
Renting as part of a circu­lar economy is CO2-neutral and reli­e­ves the burden on custo­mers’ purcha­sing, IT and finance depart­ments. TKD has been based in Langen­feld near Düssel­dorf since 2014 and now has more than 100 employees. Over the past two years, TKD has focu­sed on sustaina­bi­lity and ISO certi­fi­ca­tion and is now one of the one percent most sustainable compa­nies in Germany (accor­ding to ecova­dis Sustaina­bi­lity Rating, Febru­ary 2024). This compe­ti­tive advan­tage has enab­led TKD to conti­nuously drive forward the expan­sion of its busi­ness. As a result, TKD now mana­ges a total of more than 150,000 mobile devices for over 1,000 major custo­mers with inter­na­tio­nal locations.

About Deut­sche Private Equity

Deut­sche Private Equity (“DPE”) is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that supports medium-sized compa­nies on their growth path as a part­ner inves­tor. Over the past 15 years, DPE has become one of the largest growth inves­tors in the DACH region and curr­ently mana­ges total assets of over €3 billion. The core of DPE’s invest­ment stra­tegy is in the areas of digitalization/software, health­care, indus­trial tech­no­logy, B2B services, energy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. Within these sectors, DPE focu­ses on estab­lished compa­nies that hold a strong market posi­tion with a leading product or service offe­ring and offer signi­fi­cant growth poten­tial for the future. DPE focu­ses on medium-sized compa­nies in Germany, Austria and Switz­er­land and gene­rally invests 50 to 200 million euros of equity per company. www.dpe.de

News

Frank­furt / Munich — Gibson Dunn has advi­sed EMK Capi­tal in connec­tion with the acqui­si­tion of a group of compa­nies in the secu­rity tech­no­logy sector, consis­ting of four German medium-sized compa­nies, by the Garda Group supported by EMK Capi­tal. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

The newly foun­ded group of compa­nies compri­ses the Gleich Group from Aschaf­fen­burg, the vi2vi Group from near Karls­ruhe, Schmid Alarm GmbH from Munich and the Frei­hoff Group from Langen­feld. The merger is inten­ded to create one of the largest secu­rity service provi­ders in Germany.

EMK is a UK-based private equity firm that invests in mid-market compa­nies where it can support growth and trans­for­ma­tion. In June 2023, EMK announ­ced the acqui­si­tion and conso­li­da­tion of the Garda Group, the largest provi­der of secu­rity solu­ti­ons in Nort­hern Europe. In April 2024, the Garda Group took over the Frei­hoff Group, follo­wed by the acqui­si­tion of the Gleich Group, the vi2vi Group and Schmid Alarm GmbH.

About EMK

EMK was estab­lished to pursue the mana­ging part­ners’ shared vision and invest­ment philo­so­phy when inves­t­ing in mid-market compa­nies. This philo­so­phy has enab­led the mana­ging part­ners’ 20-year track record and enab­led our port­fo­lio compa­nies to increase their EBITDA by an average of more than 25 % per year during this time. www.https://de.emkcapital.com/

Consul­tant EMK: Gibson Dunn

The Gibson Dunn private equity team, co-led by Frank­furt part­ner Dr. Wilhelm Rein­hardt (photo © W. Rein­hardt) and Munich asso­ciate Dr. Dennis Seif­arth, included part­ner Dr. Dirk Ober­bracht (Frank­furt), of coun­sel Dr. Aliresa Fatemi (Frank­furt), as well as asso­cia­tes Maxi­mi­lian Schnie­wind, Johan­nes Reul (both Munich), Lisa Holl­fel­der and Dr. Mattias Prange (both Frank­furt). Employ­ment law advice was provi­ded by Of Coun­sel Dr. Peter Gumnior (Frank­furt) and Asso­ciate Ann-Katrin Pfei­fer (Munich). Part­ner Kai Gesing and asso­cia­tes Yannick Ober­acker and Chris­toph Jacob (all Munich) advi­sed on IP and data protec­tion, part­ner Dr. Georg Weiden­bach and asso­ciate Jan Voll­kam­mer (both Frank­furt) on anti­trust law, asso­ciate Bastiaan Wolters on finan­cing issues, part­ner Dr. Lars Peter­sen and asso­ciate Victor Thonke (both Frank­furt) on regu­la­tory issues and part­ner Benja­min Rapp (Frank­furt and Munich) on tax law.

About Gibson Dunn

Gibson, Dunn & Crut­cher LLP is one of the leading inter­na­tio­nal law firms and is ranked among the top law firms world­wide in indus­try surveys and by autho­ri­ta­tive publi­ca­ti­ons. With more than 1,900 lawy­ers in 21 offices, the firm has a global presence in all major econo­mic regi­ons. Gibson Dunn’s offices are loca­ted in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Century City, Dallas, Denver, Dubai, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Los Ange­les, Munich, New York, Orange County, Palo Alto, Paris, Beijing, Riyadh, San Fran­cisco, Singa­pore and Washing­ton, D.C. — For more infor­ma­tion, visit gibsondunn.com.

 

News

Düssel­dorf — Düssel­dorf-based MedTech company CUREo­sity announ­ced that it has recei­ved 3.8 million euros in a finan­cing round from exis­ting and new inves­tors. In addi­tion to other new co-inves­tors, the exis­ting inves­tor Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) and the Belgian family office Noma­in­vest also participated.

TVF, specia­li­zing in invest­ments in medi­cal tech­no­logy compa­nies, has been support­ing CUREo­sity in its virtual reality therapy through gami­fi­ca­tion since 2021.

The finan­cing round was also supported by the law firms ADVANT Beiten and Forvis Mazars. — The latest finan­cing round will enable the German company to further advance its inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons and expand its market presence.

Caesar van Heynin­gen, CEO of CUREo­sity, says: “The current successful course — consis­ting of scaling the markets and high-quality updates to our therapy soft­ware — will be streng­the­ned by this finan­cing. We plan to invest heavily in commer­cial expan­sion and inte­grate tomorrow’s tech­no­lo­gi­cal possi­bi­li­ties into our product road­map today. With this finan­cing round, we can ensure finan­cial inde­pen­dence and sustainable busi­ness operations.”

The idea behind CUREosity

CUREO is based on the perso­nal expe­ri­en­ces of the foun­ders — Thomas Saur, Stefan Arand and Marco Faul­ham­mer: After a car acci­dent in 2000, Thomas Saur’s young son suffe­red from para­ple­gia. In the search for the best possi­ble care and reha­bi­li­ta­tion, exis­ting methods did not bring the desi­red success.

The two co-foun­ders of CUREo­sity — Stefan Arand and Marco Faul­ham­mer — expe­ri­en­ced simi­lar fates and chal­lenges, which led them to the decis­ion to deve­lop a new form of therapy that combi­nes their thera­peu­tic expe­ri­ence and know­ledge with current tech­no­lo­gies and neuro­sci­en­ti­fic findings. Thanks to many years of expe­ri­ence in 3D visua­liza­tion and the crea­tion of appli­ca­tion concepts in the IT and science sector, the foun­ders have sound tech­ni­cal know-how.

The combi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal skills, exper­tise in 3D visua­liza­tion, expe­ri­ence with virtual reality and perso­nal moti­va­tion due to medi­cal condi­ti­ons led to the foun­ding of CUREo­sity and the idea for CUREO.

CUREo­sity: Virtual reality therapy through gamification

Under the leader­ship of Caesar van Heynin­gen, CUREo­sity became known for its virtual reality therapy system called CUREO for clinics and practices.

The advan­ta­ges include evidence-based thera­peu­tic success, sustained relief for staff, increased pati­ent moti­va­tion, a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons and simple and intui­tive opera­tion. The 50 trai­ning sessi­ons in 7 modu­les can be used in physio­the­rapy, occu­pa­tio­nal therapy and neuro­psy­cho­logy. Curr­ently, the soft­ware is used in 24 count­ries worldwide.
www.cureosity.com

About Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF)

Tech­Vi­sion Fund (TVF) is a seed capi­tal firm focu­sed on inves­t­ing in tech­no­logy compa­nies that have the poten­tial to trans­form key indus­tries. The company’s stra­tegy is based on early enga­ge­ment and prima­rily targets seed-stage invest­ments, with occa­sio­nal initial invest­ments in Series A. The company’s focus spans SaaS/software, IoT, digi­tal solu­ti­ons, medtech, biotech, new mate­ri­als and greentech/cleantech.

Björn Lang, Part­ner at TVF, says: “CUREOSITY solves the problem of the shortage of skil­led workers in the therapy sector. Smart solu­ti­ons such as CUREO are highly rele­vant to society, parti­cu­larly due to demo­gra­phic change. We look forward to parti­ci­pa­ting in the solu­ti­ons and succes­ses in the future.”

News

Frank­furt a. M. — KKR’s take­over offer for a total of 87,007,448 Enca­vis shares was accepted in due time on June 18, 2024. This corre­sponds to appro­xi­m­ately 87.41 percent of all outstan­ding Enca­vis Shares, inclu­ding the Enca­vis Shares which ABACON and other share­hol­ders have sold to the Bidder under binding agree­ments or which will be trans­fer­red to the Bidder by way of a roll-over. KKR intends to complete the delis­ting of Enca­vis as soon as legally and prac­ti­cally possi­ble in order to bene­fit from the finan­cial flexi­bi­lity and long-term commit­ment of KKR and Viess­mann in private owner­ship. On March 14, 2024, the bidder announ­ced a volun­t­ary public take­over offer for all outstan­ding Enca­vis shares. Viess­mann is inves­t­ing as a share­hol­der in the consor­tium led by KKR. The volun­t­ary public take­over offer is still subject to the condi­ti­ons set out in sections 12.1.1, 12.1.3 (ii), (iv), (v) and 12.1.4 of the Offer Docu­ment. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the fourth quar­ter of 2024. The offer docu­ment and further infor­ma­tion are available at www.elbe-offer.com. In March 2024, the family-owned company Viess­mann, toge­ther with KKR, announ­ced a new stra­te­gic invest­ment in Enca­vis, one of the leading plat­forms for rene­wa­ble ener­gies based in Hamburg. As part of the tran­sac­tion, Viess­mann inves­ted as a share­hol­der in the KKR-led consor­tium. About KKR KKR is a leading global inves­tor provi­ding alter­na­tive asset manage­ment, capi­tal markets and insu­rance solu­ti­ons. The focus is on gene­ra­ting attrac­tive invest­ment returns through a long-term and disci­pli­ned invest­ment approach, employ­ing highly skil­led profes­sio­nals and support­ing growth at its invest­ment proper­ties and in the commu­ni­ties where KKR has a presence. KKR finan­ces funds that invest in private equity, credit products, real assets, and — through stra­te­gic part­ners — hedge funds. KKR’s insu­rance subsi­dia­ries offer pension, life and reinsu­rance products under the manage­ment of Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group. Refe­ren­ces to KKR’s invest­ments may also refer to the acti­vi­ties of funds mana­ged by KKR and its insu­rance subsi­dia­ries. KKR laun­ched its global infra­struc­ture busi­ness in 2008 and has since grown to become one of the largest infra­struc­ture inves­tors in the world with a team of more than 115 dedi­ca­ted invest­ment profes­sio­nals. The company curr­ently (as of Decem­ber 31, 2023) mana­ges infra­struc­ture assets of around USD 59 billion world­wide and has made over 80 infra­struc­ture invest­ments in a range of sub-sectors and regi­ons. KKR’s infra­struc­ture plat­form is speci­fi­cally desi­gned for long-term, capi­tal-inten­sive struc­tu­ral invest­ments. Further infor­ma­tion about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), can be found on the KKR website at www.kkr.com. For more infor­ma­tion about Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group, please visit the Global Atlan­tic Finan­cial Group website at www.globalatlantic.com. About Viess­mann Foun­ded in 1917, the inde­pen­dent family-owned company Viess­mann is today a global, broadly diver­si­fied group. All acti­vi­ties are based on the corpo­rate mission state­ment “We create living spaces for future gene­ra­ti­ons” — this is the passion and respon­si­bi­lity that drives the members of the large global Viess­mann family every day. In line with this goal, Viess­mann offers compa­nies and co-crea­tors an ecosys­tem that is commit­ted to avoi­ding, redu­cing and storing CO2 beyond the heating indus­try. About Enca­vis Enca­vis AG (Prime Stan­dard; ISIN: DE0006095003; ticker symbol: ECV) is a produ­cer of elec­tri­city from rene­wa­ble ener­gies listed on the MDAX of Deut­sche Börse AG. As one of the leading inde­pen­dent power produ­cers (IPP), Enca­vis acqui­res and opera­tes (onshore) wind and solar parks in twelve Euro­pean count­ries. The plants for sustainable energy gene­ra­tion gene­rate stable income through guaran­teed feed-in tariffs (FIT) or long-term power purchase agree­ments (PPAs). The Enca­vis Group’s total gene­ra­tion capa­city curr­ently amounts to more than 3.5 giga­watts (GW), of which around 2.2 GW is gene­ra­ted by Enca­vis AG, which corre­sponds to a saving of around 0.8 million tons of CO2 per year by Enca­vis AG alone. In addi­tion, the Group curr­ently has around 1.2 GW of gene­ra­tion capa­city under cons­truc­tion, inclu­ding around 830 MW in its own port­fo­lio. Within the Enca­vis Group, Enca­vis Asset Manage­ment AG specia­li­zes in the area of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors. Stern Energy S.p.A., which is also part of the Enca­vis Group and head­quar­te­red in Parma, Italy, is a specia­li­zed provi­der of tech­ni­cal services for the Europe-wide instal­la­tion, opera­tion, main­ten­ance, revam­ping and repowe­ring of photo­vol­taic systems. Enca­vis is a signa­tory to the UN Global Compact and the UN PRI network. Enca­vis AG’s envi­ron­men­tal, social and gover­nance perfor­mance has been reco­gni­zed by two of the world’s leading ESG rese­arch and rating agen­cies. MSCI ESG Ratings rates Enca­vis’ sustaina­bi­lity perfor­mance with an “AA” level, while the inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned ISS ESG awards Enca­vis “Prime” status. www.encavis.com  

News

Berlin — The Dutch Care Cosme­tics B.V. (“Care Cosme­tics”) and its share­hol­der 3d inves­tors from Belgium are acqui­ring Sommaire Beauté GmbH (“Sommaire Beauté”) with compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice. Through this part­ner­ship, Care Cosme­tics is ente­ring the German-spea­king market. — YPOG advi­sed the Dutch Care Cosme­tics B.V. and its share­hol­der 3d inves­tors on this transaction.

Sommaire Beauté was foun­ded in Düssel­dorf in 2014 and has deve­lo­ped into a leading distri­bu­tion company for niche cosme­tics and life­style brands. The foun­ders and mana­ging direc­tors Patrick Mehrow and Chris­toph Broich will conti­nue to drive the growth of Sommaire Beauté as part­ners toge­ther with Care Cosmetics.
Care Cosme­tics is a market leader in the distri­bu­tion of profes­sio­nal cosme­tics in the Bene­lux and manu­fac­tu­rer of two own brands. The company was foun­ded in 1996 by Duco van Keim­pema and has been supported by 3d inves­tors from Belgium since 2020.
The part­ner­ship with Sommaire Beauté is an important step in Care Cosme­tics’ inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion stra­tegy and the asso­cia­ted buy-and-build strategy.

About Care Cosmetics
Care Cosme­tics is an estab­lished company in the cosme­tics indus­try. With over 25 years of expe­ri­ence, it offers a wide range of products and treat­ments. The brands distri­bu­ted by Care Cosme­tics include Dr. Renaud, Skeyn­dor, PCA Skin, Neova, Guinot, Acade­mie, Matis, Pupa Milano, Roc, Anne­ma­rie Börlind and Simone Mahler. Further infor­ma­tion: https://www.carecosmetics.nl/

About 3d investors
3d inves­tors is a family busi­ness. It was foun­ded in 1992 by the Donck and Desim­pel fami­lies, who are active in the dairy and buil­ding mate­ri­als indus­tries respec­tively. The company builds on a proud tradi­tion of entre­pre­neur­ship and has chosen to support solid compa­nies with growth poten­tial. It is based on its core values: Entre­pre­neur­ship, empa­thy, inte­grity, passion and agility. https://www.3d-investors.be/

Consul­tant Care Cosme­tics and 3d inves­tors: YPOG

Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Ferdi­nand Cadmus (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Amelie Insel­mann (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Laura Franke (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Roman Schäle (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin
Dr. Gerrit Breet­holt (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Hamburg

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. The firm and its part­ners are ranked natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, Cham­bers and Part­ners and Leaders League. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. www.ypog.law

News

Berlin, June 2024 — Vsquared Ventures, a Euro­pean early-stage deep tech venture capi­tal fund, raises €214 million, signi­fi­cantly excee­ding its origi­nal target of €165 million. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Vsquared Ventures on the final closing of its current fund, Vsquared Ventures II.

This makes it the largest early-stage deep tech fund in Europe to date. With the final closing of Vsquared Ventures II, the total assets mana­ged by Vsquared Ventures increase to around €450 million.

Vsquared Ventures invests in start-ups that build compa­nies with inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and create new markets. The fund has a strong focus on promo­ting a sustainable Euro­pean deep tech ecosys­tem. Vsquared Ventures targets compa­nies in the fields of AI & next-gen soft­ware, energy trans­for­ma­tion, new compu­ting and sensor tech­no­logy, new space, robo­tics and manu­fac­tu­ring, and tech-bio.
With Vsquared Ventures II, Vsquared Ventures has alre­ady inves­ted in eight tech start-ups, inclu­ding Neura Robo­tics, Cylib, Quan­tune, Atrandi, Dynelec­tro, Lace Litho­gra­phy, ConstellR and Synthara.

The fund is supported by a large number of inves­tors, inclu­ding insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and family offices. Inves­tors include Novo Holdings, Lombard Odier Invest­ment Mana­gers, the NATO Inno­va­tion Fund (NIF), KfW Capi­tal, the Growth Fund and the Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF).

Advi­sor Vsquared Ventures: YPOG
Jens Kretzschmann’s team has been advi­sing Vsquared Ventures on legal and tax matters since its foun­da­tion. Team:
Jens Kretz­schmann, (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Tax), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sebas­tian Schödel (Funds), Part­ner, Colo­gne Michael Blank (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Stefa­nie Nagel (Funds), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin Johan­nes Gehring (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin Florian Thrun (Funds), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Sylwia Luszcek (Funds), Senior Legal Project Mana­ger, Berlin

About Vsquared Ventures

Vsquared Ventures is a tech­no­logy-focu­sed early-stage inves­tor based in Munich. Supported by pionee­ring entre­pre­neurs and tech­no­logy indus­try experts, they are crea­ting a streng­thening ecosys­tem to provide inter­di­sci­pli­nary know­ledge and access to those who are inven­ting the future, and to coll­ec­tively take their compa­nies to the next level of deve­lo­p­ment. Areas of focus include New Space, Quan­tum Compu­ting, New Mate­ri­als, AI, Robo­tics and Enter­prise SaaS.

Home

News

Berlin — Project A Ventures has led the €254.4 million finan­cing round of Aachen-based DeepT­ech start-up Black Semi­con­duc­tor as lead inves­tor. Porsche Ventures acted as co-lead inves­tor, other new inves­tors are Scania Growth, Capna­mic, Tech Vision Fonds and NRW.BANK. Exis­ting inves­tors such as Vsquared Ventures, Cambium Capi­tal and Onsight Ventures are also parti­ci­pa­ting in the Series A finan­cing round. Project A Ventures was alre­ady a co-lead inves­tor in the seed finan­cing round. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to Project A Ventures.

In addi­tion to the €25.7 million in equity finan­cing from venture capi­tal inves­tors, the semi­con­duc­tor start-up recei­ves €228.7 million in funding from the Fede­ral Minis­try of Econo­mics and the state of North Rhine-West­pha­lia. The public funding is spread over seven years as part of the EU IPCEI ME/CT program.
Over­all, this is one of the largest finan­cings for a deep tech chip company in Europe.

Foun­ded in 2020 by Dr. Daniel Schall and Sebas­tian Schall, the company uses graphene to improve the perfor­mance and effi­ci­ency of chips. Graphene is an inno­va­tive mate­rial that acce­le­ra­tes data commu­ni­ca­tion between chips and increa­ses energy effi­ci­ency. This tech­no­logy thus enables trans­for­ma­tive appli­ca­ti­ons in various areas such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, data centers and auto­no­mous driving.
The start-up intends to use the new capi­tal to expand its produc­tion capa­ci­ties and drive forward the deve­lo­p­ment of a new gene­ra­tion of graphene-based chips.

Advi­sors: YPOG has alre­ady advi­sed Project A Ventures on the seed finan­cing round.
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Ferdi­nand Cadmus (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Roman Schäle (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin.

About Project A Ventures

Project A is one of the leading early-stage tech inves­tors in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addi­tion to $1 billion in assets under manage­ment, Project A supports its port­fo­lio compa­nies with a plat­form team of over 140 profes­sio­nals in key areas such as soft­ware and product deve­lo­p­ment, busi­ness intel­li­gence, brand, design, marke­ting, sales and recrui­ting. The venture capi­tal company was foun­ded in 2012 and has supported more than 100 start-ups to date. The port­fo­lio includes compa­nies such as Trade Repu­blic, World­Re­mit, senn­der, KRY, Spry­ker, Cata­wiki, Unmind and Voi. https://www.project‑a.com

About YPOG

YPOG is a law firm specia­li­zing in tax and commer­cial law, active in the core areas of funds, tax, banking + finance and tran­sac­tions. The YPOG team advi­ses a wide variety of clients. These include emer­ging tech­no­logy compa­nies and family-run medium-sized enter­pri­ses as well as corpo­ra­ti­ons and private equity/venture capi­tal funds. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses for venture capi­tal, private equity and fund struc­tu­ring in Germany. Today, YPOG employs more than 120 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax consul­tants, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. — http://www.ypog.law

News

Munich — KEYOU, the pioneer of CO2-neutral hydro­gen mobi­lity, has closed the first part of its Series B finan­cing round with a double-digit million amount. The finan­cing round is led by DILO Arma­tu­ren und Anla­gen GmbH, which has inves­ted a large seven-figure sum in KEYOU. Other inves­tors include the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil (EIC), the BESTO GmbH “Family Office” of the two Swabian entre­pre­neu­rial fami­lies Beyer and Stoll (FESTO indus­trial group) and Baywo­bau, which alre­ady inves­ted in KEYOU as part of the Series A finan­cing round. The funds will prima­rily be used to build up the pioneer fleet and to adapt the KEYOU-inside system to a 40-ton semi­t­rai­ler tractor.
‍
Follo­wing the successful conclu­sion of the first part of the finan­cing round, the Munich-based hydro­gen expert is alre­ady in talks with other poten­tial inves­tors. The Series B round, which is expec­ted to be comple­ted by the end of the year, is expec­ted to raise a total of around EUR 35 million. KEYOU intends to use the fresh capi­tal prima­rily to drive forward the expan­sion of its pionee­ring fleet, the further deve­lo­p­ment and adapt­a­tion of the KEYOU-inside system to a 40-ton arti­cu­la­ted truck for the commer­cial roll­out of its “H2Mobility as a Service” solu­tion (H2MaaS) and the further struc­tu­ral and person­nel expan­sion of the company. DILO is not only in the role of inves­tor, but is also laun­ching its first joint project with KEYOU.

With DILO, KEYOU has gained another important stra­te­gic inves­tor. The leading gas specia­list from Bava­ria deve­lops inte­gra­ted solu­ti­ons for profes­sio­nal, emis­sion-free gas manage­ment and intends to further expand its busi­ness acti­vi­ties in the promi­sing hydro­gen segment. The coope­ra­tion between the two compa­nies is corre­spon­din­gly promi­sing. The first concrete project coope­ra­tion has alre­ady begun. KEYOU is support­ing DILO with its H2 exper­tise in the deve­lo­p­ment of a univer­sal H2 service device for work­shops that reli­e­ves employees of all hydro­gen-rela­ted work. The aim of the deve­lo­p­ment is to qualify more work­shops to work with hydro­gen vehic­les and to conti­nuously expand the H2 work­shop network in line with the incre­asing number of vehic­les and hydro­gen regions.

In future, the H2 service tool will auto­mate basic service func­tions that could previously only be carried out by speci­ally trai­ned person­nel. Details of this device will be announ­ced at a later date. At the moment, DILO and KEYOU are only announ­cing that it will be a comple­tely new device with inno­va­tive func­tions that are not yet available on the market.

The human factor was a key factor

“We are deligh­ted to have found another inves­tor in DILO who belie­ves in the future of the combus­tion engine in combi­na­tion with hydro­gen and in our approach to conver­ting exis­ting vehic­les,” says Thomas Korn, CEO and co-foun­der of KEYOU. “Another major advan­tage is DILO’s many years of exper­tise in the field of indus­trial gases, which opens up valuable synergy poten­tial for us. In addi­tion, as with all our stra­te­gic inves­tors, it was important to us that the ‘human factor’ was right. This is defi­ni­tely the case with DILO.”

“The capi­tal increase from DILO and our exis­ting inves­tors will not only enable us to enter the market smoothly, but also to scale our tech­no­logy to other engine and vehicle clas­ses. This will enable us to work the market even more inten­si­vely in the future and further expand our tech­no­logy leader­ship,” adds Olaf Berg­ner, CFO of KEYOU (photo © Keyou).

DILO is also looking forward to the colla­bo­ra­tion: “With KEYOU, we are support­ing a future-orien­ted and inno­va­tive growth company that, as a pioneer in the field of emis­sion-free hydro­gen mobi­lity, fits in perfectly with us and our motto ‘One Vision. Zero Emis­si­ons’,” says Chris­tian Schel­ler, Mana­ging Direc­tor of DILO Arma­tu­ren und Anla­gen GmbH. “We are convin­ced that hydro­gen engi­nes are an important part of the solu­tion for the mobi­lity tran­si­tion, and that prag­ma­tic solu­ti­ons that enable the rapid and econo­mical decar­bo­niza­tion of the indus­try are parti­cu­larly in demand in the commer­cial vehicle sector.”

Market entry with 18-ton trucks, 40-ton trucks in preparation

KEYOU will deli­ver its first 18-ton pioneer vehic­les to pilot custo­mers this year and thus complete its market entry. This is the first time the company intends to demons­trate the market matu­rity of its conver­sion tech­no­logy and prepare the market for further scaling.

KEYOU is alre­ady working on larger motors to address the heavy-duty segment in the near future, as this is where the company sees the grea­test poten­tial in the coming years. A look at the TCO (total cost of owner­ship) of KEYOU’s 40-ton H2 truck shows that it is signi­fi­cantly chea­per than battery and fuel cell trucks simply due to econo­mies of scale and toll exemp­ti­ons. In the medium term, it will even under­cut the TCO of conven­tio­nal 40-ton diesel trucks.

www.keyou.de

 

News

The United Talent Agency (UTA) takes over the leading German soccer player agency ROOF “Repre­sen­ta­ti­ves Of Outstan­ding Foot­bal­lers”. — ROOF is one of the largest soccer player agen­cies in Euro­pean profes­sio­nal soccer and Europe’s leading profes­sio­nal soccer consul­tancy with offices in Germany, Great Britain and Spain.

Through the part­ner­ship with UTA/Klutch, ROOF is joining the ranks of the world’s top sports recruit­ment agen­cies. The play­ers served by ROOF will gain direct access to the Ameri­can market as a result of the merger and will be able to bene­fit from UTA/Klutch’s expe­ri­ence in advi­sing play­ers in the future. In return, UTA, which with its subsi­diary Klutch has so far mainly advi­sed athle­tes from US sports, inclu­ding the NBA, NFL, WNBA and NCAA, will gain access to the Euro­pean continent.

POELLATH advi­sed ROOF on this transaction.

Under the direc­tion of Dr. Frank Thiä­ner a multi­di­sci­pli­nary team of POELLATH toge­ther with PwC Legal led by Lars Benger with Rebecca Klenke provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the mana­ging part­ners of ROOF and the finan­cial inves­tor INVISION on the sale of their stake in ROOF Group GmbH to United Talent Agency, LLC, toge­ther with its sports consul­ting firm Klutch Sports Group (Klutch). The mana­ging part­ners of ROOF have acqui­red a signi­fi­cant stake in UTA as part of the transaction.

In 2019, POELLATH had alre­ady advi­sed the foun­ders and share­hol­ders of ROOF, form­erly arena11 sports group GmbH, on the entry of the finan­cial inves­tor INVISION. By taking on the insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, the ROOF Group took the first step towards successfully conso­li­da­ting and profes­sio­na­li­zing the Euro­pean player consul­tant market. Follo­wing the successful merger with Coaches & More GmbH, Spie­ler­rat GmbH subse­quently joined the joint venture. This was follo­wed in 2022 by the merger with the British player consul­tants Neil Fewings and Nabile Hakimi and the estab­lish­ment of a joint company in the UK. ROOF now repres­ents over 150 of the best foot­bal­lers and coaches in the world’s most important soccer leagues, inclu­ding the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and the German Bundesliga.

Björn Beze­mer, share­hol­der and mana­ging direc­tor of ROOF, commen­ted on the tran­sac­tion: “We felt very well advi­sed by POELLATH and PwC as part of the team on this major step for us. Frank and Lars were part of the small nego­tia­ting team that made the tran­sac­tion possi­ble not only legally but also strategically.”

Foun­ded in 1991, UTA is a leading talent, sports, enter­tain­ment and consul­ting firm repre­sen­ting artists, athle­tes, storytel­lers, enter­tai­ners and brands world­wide. Among the cele­bri­ties under contract with UTA are US stars such as LeBron James of the Los Ange­les Lakers, actors Sylves­ter Stal­lone, Arnold Schwar­zen­eg­ger and Harri­son Ford, and singer Chris­tina Aguilera.

ROOF is one of the leading agen­cies in the soccer land­scape and repres­ents around 150 soccer play­ers and coaches in the five major Euro­pean leagues — the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and the German Bundes­liga. ROOF advi­ses German inter­na­tio­nals such as Kai Havertz, Niclas Füll­krug and Marc-André ter Stegen, as well as Virgil van Dijk and Harvey Elliott from the English Premier League. ROOF curr­ently opera­tes from offices in Munich, London and Madrid and intends to expand internationally.

Foun­ded in 2012, Klutch is an athlete consul­ting agency that repres­ents some of the world’s grea­test athle­tes in profes­sio­nal sports. Klutch laun­ched its part­ner­ship with UTA in 2019, provi­ding stra­te­gic support in areas inclu­ding bran­ding, commu­ni­ca­ti­ons, content, social respon­si­bi­lity and other oppor­tu­ni­ties at the inter­sec­tion of sports, enter­tain­ment and culture.

POELLATH provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal and tax advice to the mana­ging part­ners of ROOF with the follo­wing team:

Dr. Frank Thiä­ner (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich)
Gerald Herr­mann (Part­ner, Tax Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Distri­bu­tion and Anti­trust Law, Frank­furt aM)
Dr. Domi­nik Gerli­cher, LL.M. (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Erik Muschei­tes (Coun­sel, Tax Law, Frank­furt aM)
Torben Busch (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Domi­nik Sorber (Senior Asso­ciate, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Asso­ciate, Tax Law, Munich)

 

News

Düssel­dorf — Main Capi­tal subsi­diary ZIG comple­tes merger with Doozer Real Estate Systems. A Deloitte Legal team under the joint leader­ship of Max Lüer­ßen (part­ner) and Felix Fell­ei­sen (part­ner) advi­sed Zig on the acqui­si­tion of Doozer Real Estate Systems GmbH. Zig and Doozer are leading soft­ware provi­ders for the real estate sector in the Nether­lands and Germany respec­tively. The merger was supported by Main Capi­tal Part­ners (“Main”), a private equity inves­tor focu­sed exclu­si­vely on the soft­ware industry.

Doozer is a German deve­lo­per of real estate manage­ment soft­ware that enables real estate compa­nies to map, initiate and moni­tor reno­va­tion proces­ses via a digi­tal plat­form. The soft­ware maxi­mi­zes effi­ci­ency by simpli­fy­ing and opti­mi­zing vacancy manage­ment in the re-letting process. This bene­fits both the tenants, because apart­ments are available again more quickly, and the land­lords, who opti­mize their rental income and opera­ting proces­ses. The company is based in Berlin, was foun­ded in 2014 by Nicho­las Neer­pasch and is now jointly mana­ged by him and Cars­ten Petzold.

Doozer’s most important custo­mers include asset mana­gers, property manage­ment compa­nies and trades­men. Doozer serves well-known real estate compa­nies such as LEG, Adler and degewo. At the end of last year, Doozer reached the target of 1 billion euros in cons­truc­tion volume commis­sio­ned via the plat­form. A total of 170,000 apart­ments have been reno­va­ted using the Doozer plat­form to date.

The successful acqui­si­tion of Doozer is an important first step in Zig’s inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion stra­tegy. Follo­wing the acqui­si­tion, Zig now has a strong and talen­ted local team in place for further expan­sion in Germany, lever­aging Zig’s exper­tise and best prac­ti­ces while streng­thening Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ presence in the real estate sector. Doozer’s manage­ment team will remain on board and conti­nue to be fully commit­ted to the company. At the same time, Zig will conti­nue to focus on its home market, the Nether­lands, and concen­trate on support­ing custo­mers with intel­li­gent soft­ware solu­ti­ons and helping them to succeed.

The acqui­si­tion is the fourth stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion since Main Capi­tal Part­ners ente­red into a part­ner­ship with Zig at the end of 2021. The move streng­thens the company’s foun­da­ti­ons, which is why Main is very confi­dent that it will be able to achieve its ambi­tious growth targets in the PropTech sector.

Felix Fell­ei­sen and Max Lüer­ßen have been advi­sing Main since the begin­ning of Main’s expan­sion into Germany and have alre­ady advi­sed the stra­te­gic soft­ware inves­tor on a large number of plat­form and add-on acqui­si­ti­ons, most recently on the acqui­si­tion of PMG Projekt­raum Manage­ment GmbH, which supports its custo­mers with the modu­lar and cloud-based colla­bo­ra­tion plat­form PAVE in cons­truc­tion and real estate projects, by Pro4all, a Main Capi­tal port­fo­lio company that deve­lops soft­ware for cons­truc­tion and real estate manage­ment, and on the acqui­si­tion of the sycat group of compa­nies by the JobRou­ter Group, provi­der of the cross-indus­try low-code digi­tiza­tion plat­form JobRou­ter®, also a Main Capi­tal port­fo­lio company.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal: Deloitte Legal

Max Lüer­ßen, photo (©Lüer­ßen) (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, lead), Felix Fell­ei­sen (Part­ner, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf, co-lead); Andreas Leclaire, LL.M. (Part­ner, Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf); Stefan Weste (Coun­sel, Employ­ment Law, Berlin); Dr. Fleur Johanna Prop, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Lara Sophie Worbs (Coun­sel, Commer­cial, Düssel­dorf), Pia Fran- ziska Kara­pa­nos (Coun­sel, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Nicole Rurik (Senior Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf); Nicole Deneke (Asso­ciate, Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Constanze Rass­feld (Asso­ciate, Commer­cial, Düsseldorf).

Advi­sor seller: Vogel Heerma Waitz Part­ner­schaft von Rechts­an­wäl­ten mbB

Dr. Frank Vogel, LL.M. (Cantab.) (Part­ner); Dr. Andreas Wüst­hoff, LL.M. (UPenn) (Coun­sel, both Berlin)

Notary’s office: Michel.Partner, Berlin
Lawyer and notary Tobias Fuhrmann

Corpo­rate Finance Advi­sor Seller: Oaklins AG

Oliver Grigat (Direc­tor, Frank­furt); Felix Daetz (Asso­ciate, Hamburg); Iwen Boje (Analyst, Frankfurt)

About Zig

Since its foun­da­tion in 2001, Zig has deve­lo­ped into a leading company in the resi­den­tial real estate sector. The company offers a wide range of solu­ti­ons, inclu­ding ERP, CRM and BI. Zig provi­des its soft­ware to a broad custo­mer base of over 200 orga­niza­ti­ons. Custo­mers include De Alli­an­tie, Roch­dale, Sociale Verhu­ur­ders Haag- landen, DUWO, Mooi­land, Klik voor Wonen, Thuis in Limburg, Elkien, Bouw­in­vest and A.S.R. The company employs over 250 people. https://www.zig.nl/

About Doozer

Doozer is a German provi­der of real estate manage­ment soft­ware and a digi­tal plat­form that enables real estate compa­nies to digi­tally map, initiate and moni­tor reno­va­tion proces­ses. The company was foun­ded in 2014 and is based in Berlin. The company’s focus is on the resi­den­tial real estate sector with well-known clients such as LEG, Adler and degewo. Over 400,000 apart­ments are curr­ently regis­tered on the Doozer plat­form. https://www.doozer.de/

About Main Capital

Main Capi­tal Part­ners is a leading soft­ware inves­tor in the Bene­lux, DACH region, the Nordics and the United States with appro­xi­m­ately EUR 6 billion in assets under manage­ment. Main has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence in the deve­lo­p­ment of soft­ware compa­nies and works closely with the manage­ment teams of its port­fo­lio as a stra­te­gic part­ner to achieve profi­ta­ble growth and create larger, outstan­ding soft­ware compa­nies. As a leading soft­ware inves­tor mana­ging private equity funds in Northwest Europe and North America, Main employs 70 people in its offices in The Hague, Düssel­dorf, Stock­holm, Antwerp and an affi­lia­ted office in Boston. Main holds an active port­fo­lio of over 45 soft­ware compa­nies. The port­fo­lio compa­nies employ over 12,000 people in Summer. Through the Main Social Insti­tute, Main supports students with grants and scho­lar­ships to study IT and compu­ter science at tech­ni­cal univer­si­ties and univer­si­ties of applied scien­ces. https://www.main.nl/

News

Vöhrin­gen, Bava­ria — Foun­ded in 1975, SMG Sport­platz­ma­schi­nen­bau GmbH (www.smg-machines.com) has long since estab­lished itself as a global leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of state-of-the-art machi­nes for the sports indus­try and is now used by teams such as Real Madrid, FC Bayern Munich and the Miami Dolphins. Toge­ther with Tobias and Daniel Owege­ser, who will remain share­hol­ders, Gimv will drive SMG’s further growth and inter­na­tio­nal expansion.

SMG’s impres­sive port­fo­lio includes specia­li­zed machi­nes that are used in a variety of sports and leisure areas — from arti­fi­cial or hybrid turf to athle­tics faci­li­ties and tennis courts. SMG has been a pioneer in the field of synthe­tic sports surfaces and arti­fi­cial turf for almost 50 years and offers machi­nes that mix various compon­ents, lay base layers and line their surfaces. Their inno­va­tive arti­fi­cial turf machi­nes are known for the filling, care and main­ten­ance of sports pitches and offer both self-propel­led models and models with ride-on technology.

The machi­nes are deve­lo­ped and produ­ced in Germany. To this end, SMG works closely with leading mate­rial manu­fac­tu­r­ers and instal­la­tion compa­nies to ensure the highest quality at all times. The company, which serves over 1,200 custo­mers world­wide, is supported by 55 dedi­ca­ted employees in Vöhrin­gen and an exten­sive network of inde­pen­dent sales part­ners world­wide. The USA is curr­ently SMG’s largest market, with renow­ned custo­mers such as colleges, univer­si­ties, high schools and Ameri­can foot­ball clubs.

The part­ner­ship with Gimv marks the start of the next phase of SMG’s remar­kable jour­ney. The exper­tise of Gimv as the new majo­rity share­hol­der will help to streng­then further inter­na­tio­nal growth in the coming years and take the products to the next level.

Daniel and Tobias Owege­ser, co-owners of SMG, explain: “We have alre­ady grown stron­gly in recent deca­des and have laid the foun­da­ti­ons for the successful expan­sion of our busi­ness, parti­cu­larly in the USA. Toge­ther with our father Johann and our brot­her Markus, we have deci­ded to bring a strong part­ner on board in order to successfully conti­nue our growth story. With Gimv at our side, we now want to take the next steps toge­ther towards further inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion and make targe­ted use of the many oppor­tu­ni­ties abroad.”

Ronald Bartel, Part­ner Smart Indus­tries (photo © GIMV), explains: “With SMG, we are deligh­ted to welcome an excep­tio­nal and impres­sive new addi­tion to our Smart Indus­tries plat­form. We are deeply convin­ced by the product, the owners and the manage­ment team and look forward to support­ing SMG on its growth path.”

About GIMV

Gimv is a Euro­pean invest­ment company listed on Euron­ext Brussels. As one of the market leaders, we are a part­ner to entre­pre­neu­rial and inno­va­tive compa­nies in 5 future-orien­ted invest­ment areas. We curr­ently manage a port­fo­lio of around 60 compa­nies with a total turno­ver of EUR 4.0 billion and more than 20,000 employees.

Gimv has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship for over 40 years. Our flexi­ble approach is based on a solid balance sheet, pati­ent capi­tal and a long-term perspec­tive. Gimv is commit­ted to crea­ting sustainable value by successfully combi­ning the strengths of entre­pre­neu­rial, ambi­tious and talen­ted manage­ment teams with our dedi­ca­ted, compe­tent and well-connec­ted invest­ment teams. www.gimv.com

Subscribe newsletter

Here you can read about the latest transactions, IPOs, private equity deals and venture capital investments, who has raised a new fund, how Buy & Build activities are going.

Get in touch

Contact us!
fyb [at] fyb.de

Send email