Author: Tatjana Anderer

Munich — The uvex group (uvex), a leading global family-owned company in the field of protec­tion and safety products for work, sport and leisure, announ­ces that Warburg Pincus, a pioneer among growth-orien­ted private equity firms, will acquire a majo­rity stake in the company. The share­hol­der fami­lies Winter and Grau will retain a signi­fi­cant mino­rity stake and will conti­nue to actively shape the company’s growth trajec­tory. — Kirk­land & Ellis advi­sed Warburg Pincus on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in Uvex Winter Holding GmbH & Co KG (“uvex”)

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926 by Phil­ipp M. Winter, who began manu­fac­tu­ring safety eyewear in his “Opti­sche-Indus­trie-Anstalt”, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The guiding prin­ci­ple “protec­ting people” is both a mission and a respon­si­bi­lity. uvex deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and in their leisure time. 

The uvex group posi­ti­ons itself as an inno­va­tion leader in the premium segment and its products meet the highest quality stan­dards, offe­ring the best wearing comfort through unique tech­no­lo­gies and inspi­ring design. With Warburg Pincus as a new part­ner, the uvex group will conti­nue to drive inter­na­tio­nal growth, selec­tively expand its premium range and deve­lop new busi­ness areas. The group will also conti­nue to acce­le­rate growth through stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons and thus build on its previous successes
.

Michael Winter, Mana­ging Part­ner and CEO of the uvex group, comm­ents: “100 years of the brand promise ‘protec­ting people’ is a commit­ment. As a respon­si­ble family busi­ness in its fourth gene­ra­tion, we want to shape the next phase of the company’s deve­lo­p­ment with a strong growth part­ner in order to further increase the resi­li­ence of our group in the future and remain the first choice for our custo­mers. We are convin­ced that we have found such a growth part­ner in Warburg Pincus
.”

Tobias Weid­ner (photo © Warburg Pincus), Mana­ging Direc­tor at Warburg Pincus, says: “We congra­tu­late the Winter and Grau fami­lies, who have built uvex into a successful company with an excel­lent brand over the past 100 years. We look forward to working with them and conti­nuing on this path toge­ther. Our goal is to deve­lop uvex into the global market leader for protec­tive equip­ment and to make uvex premium products acces­si­ble to more people worldwide.” 

The tran­sac­tion is subject to the usual regu­la­tory approvals.

Since its foun­da­tion in 1926, uvex has deve­lo­ped into one of the worl­d’s leading specia­lists in the field of occu­pa­tio­nal safety and sport. The company deve­lops, produ­ces and distri­bu­tes high-quality and inno­va­tive products and services to protect people at work, during sport and leisure acti­vi­ties. uvex is repre­sen­ted by 49 bran­ches in 23 count­ries, has over 3,000 employees and produ­ces in its own factories. 

Advi­sor Warburg Pincus: Kirk­land & Ellis, Munich

Dr. Benja­min Leyen­de­cker, Dr. Philip Goj, Dr. Chris­toph Jerger (all lead, all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Längs­feld (Debt Finance), Dr. Michael Ehret (Tax); Asso­cia­tes: Dr. Johan­nes Rowold, Dr. Sophia Probst, Fried­rich Focke, Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Licht, Dr. Sabrina Seitz, Carl Grupe, Dr. Pablo Tretow (all Private Equity/M&A), Dr. Barbara Dunkel (Debt Finance)

Kirk­land & Ellis, London: Ian Barratt, Thomas Raftery (both Debt Finance), Rhys Davies (Sustaina­bi­lity); Asso­cia­tes: Lara Stein­bach (Anti­trust & Compe­ti­tion), Brent Tan, Phil Rigley (both Debt Finance)

About Kirk­land

With around 4,000 lawy­ers in 22 cities in the USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Kirk­land & Ellis is one of the leading law firms for high-cali­ber legal services. The German team specia­li­zes in private equity, M&A, restruc­tu­ring, corpo­rate and capi­tal markets law, finan­cing and tax law. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.kirkland.com.

Munich — INTARIA AG, a leading provi­der of audit and tax advi­sory services for medium-sized clients in Germany, has ente­red into a stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV from the Nether­lands and Moore King­s­ton Smith from the UK. In this context, Moore Belgium has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in INTARIA, wher­eby the INTARIA part­ner­ship will conti­nue to manage the German busi­ness as entrepreneurs. 

In the coming years, the service port­fo­lio is to be expan­ded through targe­ted acqui­si­ti­ons and mergers and the geogra­phi­cal coverage within Germany is to be streng­the­ned. INTA­RIA’s clear objec­tive in taking this step is to build a group that will provide custo­mers from the SME sector with a full range of services as a trus­ted part­ner. The merger will also enable them to bene­fit from inte­gra­ted support across borders for their Euro­pean issues. 

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, Moore King­s­ton Smith and INTARIA have alre­ady been coope­ra­ting for some time in the Moore Global network and now want to signi­fi­cantly inten­sify this coope­ra­tion as a Euro­pean group of natio­nal cham­pi­ons in order to offer clients from the Euro­pean upper midmar­ket a seam­less inter­na­tio­nal offe­ring and to tackle the dyna­mic chal­lenges in the audi­ting and tax consul­ting indus­try with combi­ned forces. In addi­tion, a declared goal of Moore Belgi­um’s invest­ment in INTARIA is to acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s growth as one of the German market leaders in the SME sector. Among other things, the Belgian company’s expe­ri­ence in inor­ga­nic and orga­nic growth will serve as a driving force. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the opera­tio­nal manage­ment and respon­si­bi­lity for the busi­ness in Germany will remain in the hands of the INTARIA part­ners, who will also retain a signi­fi­cant share­hol­ding. INTARIA has appoin­ted addi­tio­nal part­ners who, toge­ther with the exis­ting team, will drive forward the imple­men­ta­tion of the ambi­tious growth strategy. 

Focus on acqui­si­ti­ons and orga­nic growth levers

In view of the dyna­mi­cally deve­lo­ping market envi­ron­ment, the future closer part­ner­ship with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith offers INTARIA the oppor­tu­nity to diffe­ren­tiate itself stra­te­gi­cally and opera­tio­nally from the local compe­ti­tion as part of a Euro­pean group of leading provi­ders for SMEs and to find answers to the rapidly chan­ging client requi­re­ments. Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are the three largest Moore Global network members in Europe and are on a dyna­mic growth path, which has been supported for seve­ral years by the Euro­pean invest­ment company Water­land with capi­tal and compre­hen­sive know-how. INTARIA expects a wide range of addi­tio­nal growth poten­tial within this network for the bene­fit of custo­mers and employees. For exam­ple, INTARIA will be able to offer its more than 1,100 clients addi­tio­nal services, such as advice on digi­tal analy­tics or subsi­dies, as a result of the closer coope­ra­tion and thus further streng­then its posi­tion as a flexi­ble solu­tion part­ner. At the same time, as part of the growth stra­tegy, indus­try exper­tise is to be built up and expan­ded in order to be able to support clients with addi­tio­nal exper­tise in future challenges. 

In addi­tion, INTARIA will gain access to the latest tech­no­lo­gi­cal tools and AI-based solu­ti­ons that Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, and in the future INTARIA, are jointly deve­lo­ping to be at the fore­front of digi­tal deve­lo­p­ments in the profes­sion. In this way, INTARIA will be able to bene­fit from the use of inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies for grea­ter process digi­tiza­tion and streng­then its compe­ti­ti­ve­ness. At the same time, the focus will remain on the quality and inde­pen­dence of its advi­sory services and its close proxi­mity to clients in day-to-day business. 

“INTARIA has deve­lo­ped stron­gly in recent years and has grown steadily. Our clients appre­ciate the quality and our DNA ‘From SMEs for SMEs’. By part­ne­ring with Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith, with whom we share values and goals, we will advise the Euro­pean upper mid-market even more compre­hen­si­vely and across natio­nal borders, while paving the way to signi­fi­cantly acce­le­rate INTA­RIA’s natio­nal growth,” explains Thomas Zieg­ler, Mana­ging Part­ner of INTARIA (photo © INTARIA).

Fabian Galler, also Mana­ging Part­ner, adds: “Our almost 200 employees are the foun­da­tion of our successful deve­lo­p­ment. By conti­nuously expan­ding the team over the years, we have been able to create a culture charac­te­ri­zed by cohe­sion, quality aware­ness and expert know-how. Based on these values, we want to acce­le­rate our growth course and are convin­ced that the constel­la­tion as a new strong player will give us all addi­tio­nal clout in the market.”

Peter Verschel­den, Execu­tive Chair­man of Moore Belgium, comm­ents: “I am deligh­ted with this new part­ner­ship with INTARIA. As a company we share the same values, appre­cia­tion for our employees and the same vision for how we want to advise our custo­mers. This part­ner­ship enables us both to serve our clients with the same high quality stan­dards across natio­nal borders. Germany is an important econo­mic market for many clients within our Group and vice versa. I look forward to conti­nuing to grow together.” 

About INTARIA

INTARIA is a leading tax consul­tancy and audi­ting firm with offices in Munich, Rosen­heim and Traun­stein. Active in southern Bava­ria, a region with a strong SME sector, the company curr­ently employs more than 190 people. Foun­ded in 1993, the company has been trading as INTARIA since its renaming in 2019 and has steadily expan­ded its range of services and increased its work­force. INTARIA offers compre­hen­sive services such as tax consul­ting, audi­ting, legal advice, corpo­rate finance, IT and ESG consul­ting. The company is mana­ged by eight part­ners, inclu­ding mana­ging part­ners Thomas Zieg­ler and Fabian Galler. 

About Moore Belgium, Moore DRV, and Moore King­s­ton Smith

Moore Belgium, Moore DRV and Moore King­s­ton Smith are leading inde­pen­dent member firms of the global Moore network. Toge­ther, they stand for excel­lent consul­ting quality and compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of audi­ting, tax consul­ting, accoun­ting, manage­ment consul­ting and digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion — with a parti­cu­lar focus on medium-sized and family-run companies.
Moore Belgium, based in Antwerp, is the largest inde­pen­dent audi­ting and consul­ting firm in Belgium. With around 1,900 employees at 11 loca­ti­ons, the company offers tailor-made solu­ti­ons in the areas of audit, tax, corpo­rate finance, accoun­ting and data & IT advisory.
Moore DRV, based in Rotter­dam, supports entre­pre­neurs and SMEs in the southern Nether­lands with over 1,500 employees at more than 25 loca­ti­ons. The focus is on perso­nal advice in the areas of tax, audit, consul­ting and IT services. 

Moore King­s­ton Smith, head­quar­te­red in London, is one of the leading mid-market consul­tancies in the UK and Ireland. Over 1,500 employees at 10 loca­ti­ons in the UK and 7 support compa­nies, non-profit orga­niza­ti­ons and inter­na­tio­nal clients with compre­hen­sive services — from audit and tax advice to outsour­cing and ESG consul­ting. The three compa­nies combine a regio­nal presence with an inter­na­tio­nal perspec­tive and support their clients in achie­ving sustainable growth and successfully maste­ring complex challenges.

Düssel­dorf — The health tech start-up hello­med has raised a seven-figure late-seed finan­cing round. A seven-figure sum was inves­ted in the company in the finan­cing round by busi­ness angels and well-known family offices. The finan­cing round was imme­dia­tely follo­wed by an increase in share capital. 

The venture capi­tal (VC) team led by Düssel­dorf-based HEUKING part­ner Dr. Patrick Müller has provi­ded legal advice to the health tech start-up hello­med Group GmbH on a late seed financing.

Foun­ded in 2022, Berli­ner GmbH is regis­tered in the Char­lot­ten­burg commer­cial regis­ter. It offers IT, marke­ting, HR, consul­ting and logi­stics services for phar­macies in the health­care sector and alre­ady descri­bes itself as the market leader for phar­macy solu­ti­ons in the field of profes­sio­nal care. 

With the hello­med-OS-APP, prescrip­ti­ons can be conve­ni­ently trans­mit­ted online or reques­ted from the doctor. The tablets are then blis­te­red fully auto­ma­ti­cally in the clean room. Finally, the blis­ter packs are triple-checked — by means of a medi­ca­tion check using photo optics and by phar­macists. The pre-sorted pills are sent directly to the pati­ents at monthly or fort­nightly inter­vals. The app provi­des the care provi­ders with infor­ma­tion about the current medi­ca­tion status, the so-called range and auto­ma­tic follow-up prescrip­tion requests. 

HEUKING regu­larly advi­ses start-ups and VC inves­tors in various VC finan­cing rounds.

Advi­sor hello­med Group GmbH: HEUKING

Dr. Patrick Müller, LL.M. (Univer­sity of the West of England, Bris­tol), (lead), Düsseldorf,
Caro­line Frohn­wie­ser, Hamburg,
Laura Jochem, LL.M. (Univer­sity of East Anglia, Norwich), (all venture capi­tal), Düsseldorf

Paris/ Frank­furt a. M. — With the active support of Ardian Expan­sion and Latour Capi­tal, Groupe RG — a leader in the distri­bu­tion of perso­nal protec­tive equip­ment (PPE) for over 35 years — announ­ces the acqui­si­tion of Cotral Lab, the worl­d’s leading manu­fac­tu­rer of custom hearing protec­tion and reco­gni­zed provi­der of prescrip­tion safety eyewear, and Comu Systems, a specia­list in tacti­cal and criti­cal communications.

This acqui­si­tion is part of a clear stra­tegy to conti­nuously increase added value for custo­mers, improve the Group’s exper­tise and conso­li­date its role as an inde­pen­dent, specia­li­zed multi-brand distri­bu­tor. “This acqui­si­tion perfectly comple­ments Groupe RG’s range of custo­mi­zed PPE. We remain first and fore­most a distri­bu­tor serving all our manu­fac­tu­rer part­ners and provi­ding objec­tive advice to our custo­mers. We want to ensure the quality of our recom­men­da­ti­ons and the diver­sity of our offer. Cotral Lab streng­thens our tech­ni­cal product port­fo­lio and our service in a highly specia­li­zed segment,” says Pierre Manchini, Presi­dent of Groupe RG. 

Cotral Lab will remain an inde­pen­dent company. The sales team will main­tain its inde­pen­dence and current struc­ture, and products will conti­nue to be distri­bu­ted prima­rily through direct chan­nels to end-user companies. 

Groupe RG’s philo­so­phy remains unch­an­ged: to act as a broker of exper­tise, able to bring toge­ther manu­fac­tu­r­ers, profes­sio­nals and end users to pursue common goals — better protection,
more inno­va­tion and sustainable construction.

About Groupe RG

With a turno­ver of almost 600 million euros, around 1,500 employees and 70 bran­ches and subsi­dia­ries in France and Europe, Groupe RG is the leading specia­li­zed PPE distri­bu­tor in France and a major player in Europe. Its strong orga­nic growth, combi­ned with a dyna­mic acqui­si­tion stra­tegy, under­pins its ambi­tion to become the leading specia­list in PPE distri­bu­tion and rela­ted services in Europe. Since 2019, the Group has comple­ted 14 acqui­si­ti­ons in France, Bene­lux, Spain, Italy, Tuni­sia, Slova­kia and Ireland. www.groupe-rg.com

About Cotral Lab

With more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence, Cotral Lab has estab­lished itself as a global leader in the design, manu­fac­ture and distri­bu­tion of custo­mi­zed hearing protec­tion for profes­sio­nals. The inte­gra­tion of Comu Systems has enab­led Cotral Lab to diffe­ren­tiate itself in the tacti­cal market by offe­ring commu­ni­ca­tion systems for criti­cal envi­ron­ments. In addi­tion, the company has expan­ded its exper­tise by laun­ching a third busi­ness line focu­sed on visual protec­tion, offe­ring CONFIDENTIAL prescrip­tion safety eyewear speci­fi­cally desi­gned for expo­sed workers. With these three core acti­vi­ties, Cotral Lab has equip­ped nearly 2.5 million users in more than 30,000 compa­nies on 4 conti­nents. The company, which is growing by more than 15% per year, curr­ently employs around 350 people and has a turno­ver of 60 million euros, 25% of which is gene­ra­ted by exports. — www.cotral.fr

Düssel­dorf — Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer has advi­sed The Storytel­ling Company, a port­fo­lio company of Holland Capi­tal Manage­ment B.V., on the acqui­si­tion of Berlin-based visual design studio flora&faunavisions. With this tran­sac­tion, The Storytel­ling Company is expan­ding its exis­ting core areas — Brand Expe­ri­en­ces, Event Expe­ri­en­ces and Tech­no­logy Solu­ti­ons — to include Expe­ri­ence Design. 

The Storytel­ling Company deve­lops and imple­ments expe­ri­ence centers, visual instal­la­ti­ons and inno­va­tive brand and event expe­ri­en­ces. The company covers the entire range of services — from stra­te­gic consul­ting, concept and content deve­lo­p­ment, soft­ware, expe­ri­ence design and tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion to global event management. 

Holland Capi­tal Manage­ment B.V. has been inves­t­ing in fast-growing small and medium-sized compa­nies in the Nether­lands and Germany for more than 40 years. With offices in Amster­dam and Düssel­dorf, Holland Capi­tal focu­ses on the health­care, tech­no­logy and agrif­ood tech sectors. 

flora & fauna­vi­si­ons is an award-winning, inter­di­sci­pli­nary design studio based in Berlin. The studio concei­ves, stages, designs and reali­zes large-scale, narra­tive-driven immersive exhi­bi­ti­ons, stage produc­tions, brand expe­ri­en­ces and origi­nal IPs for inter­na­tio­nal clients, part­ners and a global audience. 

Advi­sors to The Storytel­ling Company: Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer, Düsseldorf

Dr. Michael Gläs­ner (Coun­sel, lead), Dr. Oliver Duys (both Corporate/M&A), Dr. Stef­fen Hörner (Tax, Frank­furt); Asso­cia­tes: Johan­nes Niege­mann, Lena Tubes (both Corporate/M&A), Tatiana Güns­ter (Tax, Frankfurt).

About Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer

Herbert Smith Freeh­ills Kramer (HSF Kramer) was formed in June 2025 from the merger of Herbert Smith Freeh­ills and Kramer Levin, estab­li­shing itself as one of the worl­d’s leading global commer­cial law firms. With over 6,000 employees, inclu­ding around 2,700 lawy­ers, in 26 offices, HSF Kramer offers compre­hen­sive legal advice in all major regi­ons of the world. HSF Kramer is excel­lently posi­tio­ned to assist clients in reali­zing their ambi­tious projects and, in parti­cu­lar, to support them in complex tran­sac­tions and legal disputes. 

Berlin — ProSiebenSat.1 has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Studio Bummens. Olga Balan­dina-Luke, Dr. Jesko von Mirbach, Dr. Clemens Waitz, Dr. Jan Heerma and Mario Tepe of the law firm V14 advi­sed Studio Bummens on this transaction. 

Studio Bummens is one of the leading German podcast publishers and is known for a variety of successful formats with the best-known and most popu­lar podcas­ters in the German-spea­king world. The company, run by Konstan­tin Seiden­stü­cker, Tobias Bauck­hage and Jon Hands­chin, is respon­si­ble for “Baywatch Berlin” with Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, Thomas Schmitt and Jakob Lundt, “Apoka­lypse & Filter­kaf­fee” with Micky Beisen­herz, “Copa TS” with Tommi Schmitt, “G Spot” with Stefa­nie Giesin­ger and “Einfach mal Luppen” with Toni Kroos and Felix Kroos, among others. Studio Bummens brings with it an outstan­ding talent network that enri­ches the ProSiebenSat.1 portfolio. 

ProSiebenSat.1 is thus setting another stra­te­gic mile­stone to streng­then its posi­tion in the fast-growing podcast busi­ness. With this step, the media group is further expan­ding the podcast produc­tion busi­ness of its in-house podcast unit Seven.One Audio and ensu­ring even closer inte­gra­tion of produc­tion and marketing. 

Consul­tant Studio Bummens: V 14

Olga Balan­dina-Luke (Photo © V 14)
Dr. Jesko von Mirbach
Dr. Clemens Waitz
Dr. Jan Heerma
Mario Tepe

Amster­dam / Munich / Marl — Marl-based Elbfrost, a leading food distri­bu­tor and logi­stics service provi­der, wants to become a supra-regio­nal supplier cham­pion and is brin­ging a new majo­rity share­hol­der on board: the leading invest­ment company NPM Capi­tal — head­quar­te­red in Amster­dam and also active in German-spea­king count­ries since the begin­ning of the year — is acqui­ring a majo­rity stake in Elbfrost. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted within the third quar­ter of 2025, subject to regu­la­tory approvals. 

Foun­ded in 1990, Elbfrost has deve­lo­ped from a local company into a regio­nal market leader for frozen and dry products with over 210 employees. The company is head­quar­te­red in Marl, North Rhine-West­pha­lia, and opera­tes four stra­te­gi­cally loca­ted distri­bu­tion centers in western and eastern Germany. Elbfrost offers 1,400 prima­rily frozen items from the product groups meat, fish, poul­try, game, fruit, vege­ta­bles, vege­ta­rian foods as well as potato and dough products, supple­men­ted by an exten­sive range of conve­ni­ence products. On the custo­mer side, the company has focu­sed on commu­nal cate­ring: univer­si­ties, schools, cate­ring compa­nies, company canteens and public autho­ri­ties as well as compa­nies in the cate­ring sector such as hospi­tals and reti­re­ment homes are among its regu­lar customers. 

Elbfrost brought the invest­ment company Bencis on board as a part­ner around three years ago. During their time toge­ther, important initial steps were taken towards an inten­si­fied growth stra­tegy, inclu­ding the acqui­si­tion of A+K Kälte-Team GmbH from the Ruhr region. With the newly concluded part­ner­ship, NPM Capi­tal, toge­ther with the manage­ment, is taking over the previous shares in the frozen food specia­list and intends to usher in the next growth phase towards a leading supra-regio­nal role. 

NPM Capi­tal is a leading invest­ment company based in Amster­dam that has been successfully inves­t­ing in fast-growing medium-sized compa­nies since 1948. It is part of SHV Holding, one of Euro­pe’s largest priva­tely mana­ged family busi­nesses with roots in the Nether­lands and acti­vi­ties in over 60 count­ries. As a result, NPM Capi­tal has a parti­cu­larly stable and secure capi­tal base and can operate with a long-term invest­ment hori­zon. The focus is on sustainable value crea­tion in the areas of digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies, health­care, educa­tion, indus­try, food and sustainable tech­no­lo­gies. NPM Capi­tal sees itself not only as an inves­tor, but also as an active part­ner that stra­te­gi­cally supports compa­nies in growth phases — be it in expan­sion, digi­ta­liza­tion or succes­sion solu­ti­ons. The invest­ment in Elbfrost is part of NPM Capi­tal’s invest­ment area Feeding the World, which focu­ses on sustaina­bi­lity and inno­va­tion in the global food supply chain. The opening of an office in Munich and the first successful tran­sac­tion marks an important step for NPM Capi­tal in rolling out the successful invest­ment philo­so­phy of a family inves­tor in German-spea­king count­ries in the future. 

“We will provide Elbfrost with long-term support in scaling its busi­ness. With its opti­mi­zed product port­fo­lio, effi­ci­ent proces­ses and broad custo­mer base, the company is ideally posi­tio­ned to take advan­tage of the growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the German food­ser­vice sector,” explains Alexis Milko­vic (photo © NPM Capi­tal), Head of NPM Capi­tal’s Munich office, Part­ner and Coun­try­head. In addi­tion to him, two other invest­ment profes­sio­nals are alre­ady working on site: Phil­ipp Gauß as Invest­ment Direc­tor and Vincent Falcke as Asso­ciate. “We want to expand the team further and are alre­ady working on the next tran­sac­tions,” says Milkovic. 

About NPM Capital

NPM Capi­tal is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment company that helps medium-sized and large compa­nies in the Bene­lux and DACH region to realize their ambi­ti­ons and build the compa­nies of the future. With offices in Munich, Amster­dam and Ghent, NPM Capi­tal focu­ses on family busi­nesses and compa­nies with strong manage­ment teams. The current port­fo­lio compri­ses 24 invest­ments, both majo­rity and mino­rity stakes, in themes that are shaping the future: Sustainable Future, Digi­tal & Tech­no­logy, Feeding the World and Healthy Life & Lear­ning. For more infor­ma­tion visit www.npm-capital.com

About Bencis

Bencis is an inde­pen­dent invest­ment firm that supports owners and manage­ment teams in achie­ving their growth objec­ti­ves. With offices in Amster­dam, Brussels and Düssel­dorf, Bencis has been inves­t­ing in strong and successful compa­nies in the Nether­lands, Belgium and Germany since 1999. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.bencis.com.

The ARQIS team, led by part­ner Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze, regu­larly acts for Bencis, in parti­cu­lar also on the entry into Elbfrost 2022.

Advi­sor Bencis: ARQIS (Düssel­dorf)

Deal Team: Dr. Jörn-Chris­tian Schulze (Part­ner, Lead), Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Back­haus (Mana­ging Asso­ciate), Tim Meyer-Meisel (Asso­ciate, all Tran­sac­tions), Part­ners: Thomas Chwa­lek (Tran­sac­tions), Dr. Ulrich Lien­hard (Real Estate), Coun­sel: Malte Grie­pen­burg (Tran­sac­tions), Jens Knip­ping (Tax), Nora Strat­mann (Commer­cial, Munich), Martin Wein­gärt­ner (HR Law), Mana­ging Asso­cia­tes: Tim Brese­mann (Real Estate), Marina Bume­der (HR Law, Munich), Rolf Tichy (IP, Munich), Asso­cia­tes: Ivo Erte­kin, Stef­fen Schu­bert (both Tran­sac­tions), Rebecca Gester (Commer­cial, Munich), Senior Legal Specia­list: Qing Xia (Tran­sac­tions)

MARCK (Düssel­dorf): Dr. Georg Schmitt­mann (Anti­trust Law)

POELLATH (Munich): Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte, Dr. Michael de Toma (Consul­ting Management)

Dussel­dorf — Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advi­sed HSBC Conti­nen­tal Europe on the sale of its cust­ody busi­ness in Germany to BNP Pari­bas S.A., a German bank., Germany Branch. The cust­ody busi­ness in Germany focu­ses on dome­stic cust­ody, clea­ring and safe­kee­ping services for German insti­tu­tio­nal clients. 

This tran­sac­tion is part of the global simpli­fi­ca­tion stra­tegy announ­ced in Octo­ber 2024.

Advi­sor HSBC Conti­nen­tal Europe: Norton Rose Fulbright

The inter­na­tio­nal team was led by London part­ner Emma de Ronde (Corporate/M&A, London) and Düssel­dorf part­ner Anne Fischer (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).
Other team members — the part­ners: Dr. Tim Scha­per (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg), Clau­dia Poslu­schny (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Dr. Chris­toph Ritzer (Data Protec­tion Law, Frank­furt), Dr. Frank Herring (Banking Law, Frank­furt), as well as the asso­cia­tes: Alex­an­der Mathes (Corporate/M&A, Munich), Michaela Bach­meier (Employ­ment Law, Munich), Vero­nika Koch (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Nico­las Krämer (Corporate/M&A, Düssel­dorf), Tobias Teich­ner (Anti­trust Law, Hamburg) and Elea­nor Jones (Corporate/M&A, London) and Michael Bola­wole (Project Manage­ment, London).

The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory approvals.

About Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global busi­ness law firm. With more than 3,000 lawy­ers in over 50 offices world­wide in Europe, the USA, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Austra­lia, Africa and the Middle East, we advise leading natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal companies. 

We offer our clients compre­hen­sive advice in all major sectors. These include Finan­cial Insti­tu­ti­ons; Energy; Infra­struc­ture, Mining and Commo­di­ties; Trans­por­ta­tion; Tech­no­logy and Inno­va­tion and Life Scien­ces and Health­care. Our global Risk Advi­sory Group combi­nes this exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence with its exper­tise in legal, regu­la­tory, compli­ance and gover­nance. This enables us to provide our clients with prac­ti­cal solu­ti­ons to the legal and regu­la­tory risks they face.
Where­ver we operate, we act in accordance with our busi­ness prin­ci­ples of “Quality, Unity and Inte­grity”. We provide legal advice of the highest stan­dard and main­tain this level of quality in every contact. 

Düssel­dorf — Lant­män­nen has signed an agree­ment with Volvo Cons­truc­tion Equip­ment (Volvo CE) to divest Swecon, an autho­ri­zed distri­bu­tor of Volvo CE in Sweden, Esto­nia, Latvia, Lithua­nia and Germany. The tran­sac­tion is subject to regu­la­tory appr­ovals. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second half of 2025. 

A HEUKING team led by Düssel­dorf part­ners Dr. Martin Imhof and Astrid Lued­tke advi­sed Lant­män­nen on the German parts of the tran­sac­tion, which were imple­men­ted by a sepa­rate purchase agreement.

Lant­män­nen is a Swedish agri­cul­tu­ral coope­ra­tive and Nort­hern Euro­pe’s leading company within agri­cul­ture, machi­nery, bioen­ergy and food products. Lant­män­nen coope­ra­tes with 17,000 Swedish farmers, employs 12,000 people, opera­tes in over 20 count­ries and has an annual turno­ver of SEK 70 billion. 

Swecon has been a divi­sion of the Lant­män­nen Group since it was foun­ded 25 years ago. Swecon’s net sales amoun­ted to SEK 10 billion in 2024. The tran­sac­tion includes Swecon’s entire busi­ness area with around 1,400 employees, i.e. sales of products and services, rental of machi­nes, after­mar­ket services and custo­mer service as well as offices and work­shops. The tran­sac­tion also includes the company Entrack. 

Volvo CE sees the invest­ment in Swecon as a stra­te­gic step to further expand sales in core markets: Germany as the largest cons­truc­tion equip­ment market in Europe, Sweden as Volvo CE’s home market as well as Esto­nia, Latvia and Lithua­nia. Toge­ther with Volvo CE’s current sales orga­niza­tion, this acqui­si­tion also means that Volvo CE will directly manage the majo­rity of its sales in Europe. Thus, distri­bu­tion will become part of Volvo CE’s core busi­ness in Europe. 

Consul­tant Lant­män­nen: HEUKING

Dr. Martin Imhof (corpo­rate law / M&A — lead),
Astrid Lued­tke (IP / data protec­tion — lead),
Dr. Chris­tiane Vikto­ria Göb-Krumme (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Dr. Melina Brune (corpo­rate law / M&A),
Chris­toph Hexel (employ­ment law),
Chris­toph Nöhles, LL.M. (Boston Univer­sity), (Real Estate Law),
Beatrice Stange, LL.M. (King’s College London), (Merger Control / FDI), all Düsseldorf,
Fabian G. Gaffron (Tax),
Simon Pommer, LL.M. (Tax), both Hamburg

23Munich — The commer­cial law firm Gütt Olk Feld­haus has provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the factory Group GmbH, a port­fo­lio company of the Multi-Family Office, DRS Invest­ment, on the finan­cing of the acqui­si­tion of Vignold Group GmbH, based in Germany, and GSDH Krea­tiv­agen­tur GmbH, based in Switzerland.

The finan­cing was used to imple­ment a cross-border buy-and-build stra­tegy in the agency and crea­tive sector. Two estab­lished target compa­nies in Germany and Switz­er­land were inte­gra­ted into the group. Gütt Olk Feld­haus played a leading role in struc­tu­ring and nego­tia­ting the financing.
This tran­sac­tion streng­thens the factory Group’s posi­tion as a growth-orien­ted plat­form in the field of marke­ting and commu­ni­ca­tion services with an inter­na­tio­nal focus. 

Legal advi­sors to the factory Group GmbH: Gütt Olk Feld­haus, Munich

Dr. Tilmann Gütt, LL.M. (London) (Part­ner, Banking/Finance Law), Chris­to­pher Krappitz, M.A. (Senior Asso­ciate), Katha­rina Pröbstl, LL.M. (London), Anja Schmidt (Asso­ciate) (all Banking/Finance Law) 

About Gütt Olk Feldhaus

Gütt Olk Feld­haus is a leading inter­na­tio­nal law firm based in Munich. We provide compre­hen­sive advice on commer­cial and corpo­rate law. Our focus is on corpo­rate law, M&A, private equity and finan­cing. In these areas of exper­tise, Gütt Olk Feld­haus also provi­des liti­ga­tion services.

www.gof-partner.com

Berlin/London — Hypax, the invest­ment company specia­li­zing in group carve-outs, has successfully raised capi­tal commit­ments of EUR 120 million for Euro­pean Invest­ment Deve­lo­p­ment GmbH und Co KG (“EID”). EID is an ever­green invest­ment struc­ture that provi­des long-term capi­tal for above-average invest­ment horizons. 

Hypax targets the acqui­si­tion of compa­nies with reve­nues of EUR 20 to 200 million and below-average profi­ta­bi­lity (“stres­sed” and profi­ta­ble “under­per­for­mers”) based in Europe, parti­cu­larly in Germany and the UK. Hypax can invest up to EUR 30 million per tran­sac­tion and, thanks to its ever­green struc­ture, provide long-term capi­tal for holi­stic trans­for­ma­tion proces­ses and longer holding peri­ods. This gives compa­nies the time and support they need to realize their full potential. 

This is in line with Hypa­x’s specia­liza­tion in corpo­rate carve-outs of medium-sized parts of corpo­rate groups and its focus on incre­asing opera­tio­nal value through growth and lever­aging opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment poten­tial. In addi­tion to capi­tal, Hypax concen­tra­tes on provi­ding opera­tio­nal support. Follo­wing the carve-out, Hypax works closely with the manage­ment teams of the port­fo­lio compa­nies to realize the full poten­tial along levers such as opera­tio­nal excel­lence, digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion, stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment and the realiza­tion of add-on acquisitions. 

As a situa­tion specia­list, Hypax invests in a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding consu­mer goods, indus­trial goods, services and TMT.

Dr. Chris­tian Schmehl, Mana­ging Part­ner of Hypax, says: “We are grateful for the trust of our inves­tors. The capi­tal commit­ments we have recei­ved under­line our track record and the attrac­ti­ve­ness of the market oppor­tu­ni­ties. Thanks to our exten­sive opera­tio­nal exper­tise and our expe­ri­ence with complex carve-out tran­sac­tions, we are ideally posi­tio­ned to unlock value and drive sustainable growth in our port­fo­lio. We look forward to working with the manage­ment teams to create value in this unique market segment.”

Phil­ipp Ster­kel, Mana­ging Part­ner of Hypax, adds: “We see a wealth of attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in our target market. As larger compa­nies and groups are incre­asingly shar­pe­ning their stra­te­gic profile and ratio­na­li­zing their group struc­tures, we are seeing more and more carve-outs. As a “non-core busi­ness”, the affec­ted parts of the company often have an expan­da­ble entre­pre­neu­rial basis and are also charac­te­ri­zed by considera­ble untap­ped poten­tial. The current highly vola­tile macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment as well as chan­ging frame­work condi­ti­ons and shif­ting stra­te­gic prio­ri­ties — often in conjunc­tion with pres­sure from owners to change — are leading to exci­ting invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for us.” 

Hypax was foun­ded in 2023 and previously worked with a “deal-by-deal” syndi­ca­tion approach.

About Hypax

Hypax is a Berlin and London based invest­ment firm specia­li­zing in corpo­rate carve-outs and mid-market compa­nies where value can be enhan­ced through growth and opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ments. The funds mana­ged by Hypax have capi­tal commit­ments of €120 million. With a strong opera­tio­nal focus, Hypax supports compa­nies and their manage­ment teams in over­co­ming peri­ods of uphe­aval and accom­pa­nies stra­te­gic trans­for­ma­ti­ons. The mana­ging part­ners Phil­ipp Ster­kel and Dr. Chris­tian Schmehl have more than 25 years of expe­ri­ence in the imple­men­ta­tion of complex carve-outs and holi­stic transformations. 

www.hypax.com

Munich — Proxima Fusion, the fastest growing fusion energy company in Europe, announ­ced the closing of a €130 million ($150 million) Series A finan­cing round. This is the largest private invest­ment round in the fusion energy sector in Europe. The Series A finan­cing round was co-led by Cherry Ventures and Balder­ton Capi­tal, with parti­ci­pa­tion from UVC Part­ners, the DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF), Plural, Leit­mo­tif, Lightspeed and Bayern Kapital. 

Redal­pine, which led the seed finan­cing, as well as Club degli Inves­ti­tori, Omnes Capi­tal, Visio­na­ries Tomor­row, Wilbe and Elaia Part­ners also parti­ci­pa­ted in this round.

Proxima Fusion now has a total of more than 185 million euros (200 million dollars) in public and private funding and can conti­nue its mission to build the worl­d’s first commer­cial fusion power plant based on a stel­la­ra­tor design.

Fran­cesco Sciort­ino (photo © Proxima), CEO and co-foun­der of Proxima Fusion, said: “The merger marks a turning point: it allows us to replace the previous depen­dence on natu­ral resour­ces with a stron­ger focus on tech­no­lo­gi­cal leader­ship, opening up new growth and compe­ti­tive poten­tial. Proxima is perfectly posi­tio­ned to capi­ta­lize on this momen­tum: We are brin­ging toge­ther a spec­ta­cu­lar engi­nee­ring and manu­fac­tu­ring team with world-leading rese­arch faci­li­ties to acce­le­rate the path to Euro­pe’s first fusion power plant in the next decade.”

Shif­ting global energy dependence

Proxima was foun­ded in early 2023 as a spin-out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics (IPP), with which it is working closely in a public-private part­ner­ship to lead Europe into a new era of clean energy. The EU and natio­nal govern­ments, inclu­ding Germany, the UK, France and Italy, are incre­asingly reco­gni­zing fusion as a stra­te­gic, timely tech­no­logy that is essen­tial for energy sove­reig­nty, indus­trial compe­ti­ti­ve­ness and carbon-neutral econo­mic growth. 

Proxima builds on Euro­pe’s long-stan­ding public invest­ment in fusion and rela­ted indus­trial supply chains. In doing so, the company is laying the foun­da­ti­ons for a new high-tech energy indus­try that will trans­form the Euro­pean conti­nent from a pioneer in fusion rese­arch to a global force in fusion technology. 

“We support foun­ders who are tack­ling huma­ni­ty’s toug­hest problems — and few are bigger than the need for clean, unli­mi­ted energy,” said Filip Dames, foun­ding part­ner of Cherry Ventures. “Proxima Fusion combi­nes Euro­pe’s scien­ti­fic edge with commer­cial ambi­tion. This is deep tech at its best and a clear signal that Europe can be a leader on the world stage.” 

Proxima is pursuing a simu­la­tion-driven tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach that uses advan­ced compu­ter tech­no­logy and high-tempe­ra­ture super­con­duc­ti­vity (HTS) tech­no­logy to build on the ground­brea­king results
of IPP’s Wendel­stein 7‑X (W7‑X) expe­ri­ment. Earlier this year, Proxima presen­ted Stel­la­ris toge­ther with IPP, the Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy (KIT) and other part­ners. As the first stel­la­ra­tor concept to be peer-reviewed by
world-renow­ned experts, taking into account physi­cal, tech­ni­cal and main­ten­ance aspects from the outset, Stel­la­ris is widely regarded as a major breakth­rough for the fusion indus­try and under­pins the posi­tion of quasi-isody­na­mic stel­la­ra­tors as the most promi­sing route to a commer­cial fusion power plant. 

Daniel Water­house, Part­ner at Balder­ton Capi­tal, said: “Stel­la­ra­tors are not just the most tech­no­lo­gi­cally viable approach to fusion power — they are the power plants of the future that can lead Europe into a new era of clean energy. Proxima has firmly secu­red its posi­tion as the leading Euro­pean conten­der in the global race for commer­cial fusion. We are deligh­ted to be working with Proxi­ma’s pionee­ring engi­nee­ring team and Euro­pe’s leading manu­fac­tu­r­ers to build a company that will trans­form Europe.” 

With the new funding, the company will complete its model stel­la­ra­tor coil by 2027, which will make HTS tech­no­logy relia­bly usable for stel­la­ra­tors and signi­fi­cantly advance Euro­pean HTS inno­va­tion. Proxima will also fina­lize a site for Alpha, its demons­tra­tion stel­la­ra­tor, for which discus­sions are alre­ady under­way with seve­ral Euro­pean govern­ments. Alpha is sche­du­led to be opera­tio­nal in 2031 and will demons­trate Q>1 (net energy gain): An important step on the way to a first fusion power plant. The company will conti­nue to expand its team of more than 80 people at its three bran­ches: At its head­quar­ters in Munich, at the Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute (PSI) near Zurich and at the Culham Fusion Campus near Oxford (UK).

“Fusion energy is ente­ring a new era, making the leap from labo­ra­tory to indus­try,” said Dr. Fran­cesco Sciort­ino. “The new funding vali­da­tes our approach and gives us the resour­ces to deli­ver the hard­ware essen­tial to make clean fusion energy a reality.” Ian Hogarth, Part­ner at Plural, said: “Proxima Fusion exem­pli­fies a new kind of Euro­pean ambi­tion — the deter­mi­ned commit­ment of all forces to the deve­lo­p­ment of the worl­d’s first fusion power plant. Since the first round of funding two years ago, Fran­cesco and his team have achie­ved extre­mely chal­len­ging mile­sto­nes ahead of sche­dule, assembling a team of experts in plasma physics, advan­ced magnet design and compu­ter simu­la­tion. Their peer-reviewed concept for a stel­la­ra­tor power plant proves that fusion can indeed be commer­ci­ally viable and gives Europe the chance to be the first to get there.” 

About Proxima Fusion

Proxima Fusion was spun out of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Plasma Physics in 2023 to build the first gene­ra­tion of fusion power plants using QI-HTS stel­la­ra­tors. Proxima has since assem­bled a world-class team of scien­tists and engi­neers from leading compa­nies and insti­tu­ti­ons, inclu­ding IPP, MIT, Harvard, SpaceX, Tesla and McLaren. 

Through a simu­la­tion-driven approach to engi­nee­ring that uses advan­ced compu­ting and high-tempe­ra­ture super­con­duc­tors to build on the ground­brea­king results of IPP’s W7‑X experiment,
Proxima is leading Europe into a new era of clean energy, forever.

www.proximafusion.com

Munich — Gleiss Lutz is advi­sing the German listed semi­con­duc­tor company Infi­neon Tech­no­lo­gies on the acqui­si­tion of Marvel­l’s auto­mo­tive Ether­net busi­ness for German merger control purpo­ses. The purchase price is appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.2 billion. The tran­sac­tion comple­ments Infi­ne­on’s market-leading auto­mo­tive micro­con­trol­ler port­fo­lio with Marvel­l’s auto­mo­tive Ether­net busi­ness and streng­thens its system compe­tence for soft­ware-defi­ned vehic­les. Ether­net is a key tech­no­logy for low-latency, high-band­width commu­ni­ca­tion and connec­ti­vity solu­ti­ons and is a criti­cal func­tion for soft­ware-defi­ned vehic­les. — The acqui­si­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and regulatory
approvals. 

Infi­neon deve­lops, manu­fac­tures and supplies a large number of semi­con­duc­tors and semi­con­duc­tor-based products world­wide for a wide range of appli­ca­ti­ons, inclu­ding in the auto­mo­tive sector.

Marvell is a US-based, publicly traded company that provi­des semi­con­duc­tor solu­ti­ons for data infra­struc­ture worldwide.

The tran­sac­tion was accom­pa­nied by Daniela Mariotti (Direc­tor & Corpo­rate Legal Coun­sel) at Infi­neon. Daniela Mariotti also coor­di­na­ted the other regu­la­tory proce­du­res world­wide for the appr­oval of the transaction. 

Advi­sor Infi­neon Tech­no­lo­gies: Gleiss Lutz 

Dr. Moritz Holm-Hadulla (part­ner, Munich, lead), Dr. Laura Roßmann (coun­sel, Stutt­gart), Dr. Anto­nia Hage­dorn (all anti­trust law, Munich).

www.gleisslutz.com

Munich — Munich-based Co-Power, which builds decen­tra­li­zed energy infra­struc­tures for Euro­pean indus­try, has raised EUR 6.4 million to acce­le­rate the deploy­ment of its inno­va­tive large-scale battery storage and solar PV systems. Sven Demar­c­zyk and Samuel Aebi of V14 advi­sed Co-Power on this finan­cing round. 

Cherry Ventures led the finan­cing round, in which the German energy and impact-focu­sed family offices Abacon Capi­tal and Aurum Impact as well as the foun­ders of Flix­bus, former Enca­vis CEO and Total­Ener­gies board member Dierk Paskert, DZ4 foun­der Tobias Schütt and Constan­tin Eis, former CEO of Licht­Blick and current CEO of CMBlue, participated.

The funding will acce­le­rate the intro­duc­tion of Co-Power’s energy systems and support the market launch of its indus­trial VPP.

Consul­tant for Co-Power: V14, Berlin

Samuel Aebi
Sven Demarczyk

About V14

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

www.v14.de

Munich — McDer­mott Will & Emery has advi­sed Main Capi­tal Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion and finan­cing of the take­over of German soft­ware company CONTECHNET by Main port­fo­lio company i‑doit. The acqui­si­tion marks i‑doit’s first add-on tran­sac­tion since Main Capi­tal Part­ners’ invest­ment in June 2022 and brings i‑doit closer to its goal of beco­ming a leading Euro­pean provi­der in the field of IT Opera­ti­ons Manage­ment (ITOM).

i‑doit, foun­ded in 1996, offers CMDB soft­ware to simplify IT and asset manage­ment. Head­quar­te­red in Düssel­dorf, the company serves around 1,700 custo­mers from various indus­tries, parti­cu­larly from the public sector. 

CONTECHNET, foun­ded in 2007 and head­quar­te­red in Patten­sen, Germany, is a specia­li­zed provi­der of soft­ware solu­ti­ons for ISMS, IT contin­gency plan­ning and data protec­tion. Through a network of over 40 part­ners, the company serves more than 400 custo­mers from indus­tries such as finance, health­care, educa­tion and utilities. 

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 around EUR 6.5 billion and main­ta­ins an active port­fo­lio of more than 45 soft­ware groups. 

McDer­mott regu­larly advi­ses Main Capi­tal on tran­sac­tions, inclu­ding financing.

Advi­sor Main Capi­tal Part­ners: McDer­mott Will & Emery

Hanno M. Witt, LL.M. (Lead, Private Equity), Ludwig Zesch (Lead, Finance; both Munich), Krasen Kras­tev (Coun­sel, Private Equity, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Thomas Gennert (Employ­ment Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Florian Schie­fer, Marcus Fischer (Coun­sel; both Tax Law, both Frank­furt), Dr. Claus Färber (Coun­sel, Data Protec­tion Law, Munich); Asso­cia­tes: Nicole Kaps, Dr. Manuel Weiß, Dr. Armin Teymouri, Julia Külzer (all Private Equity, Munich), Matthias Bosbach (Finance), Janek Joos­ten (Employ­ment Law; both Düssel­dorf), Paulina Simons (Intellec­tual Property, Munich)

Munich/ Bremen — The US indus­trial group Dover Corpo­ra­tion (“Dover”) has acqui­red SIKORA AG
(“SIKORA”), a leading provi­der of measu­ring and control tech­no­lo­gies. Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, SIKORA will be inte­gra­ted into Dover’s MAAG Group opera­ting unit within the Pumps & Process Solu­ti­ons segment. The acqui­si­tion of SIKORA is in line with Dover’s stra­tegy to acquire syner­ge­tic, growth and margin-enhan­cing compa­nies within its core busi­nesses. POELLATH advi­sed SIKORA on the legal and tax aspects of the sale. 

Bremen-based SIKORA AG is a leading provi­der of precis­ion measu­ring, inspec­tion and control solu­ti­ons for produc­tion proces­ses in the wire and cable, hose, tube, sheet, fiber­glass and plas­tics indus­tries. The company’s solu­ti­ons enable its custo­mers to ensure the highest quality and longe­vity of their end products while incre­asing cost effi­ci­ency, process opti­miza­tion and compli­ance for quality assu­rance. With the global shift to elec­tri­cal tech­no­lo­gies, the company is beco­ming incre­asingly important — espe­ci­ally in fast-growing areas such as
data centers. SIKORA employs more than 25,000 people and has recor­ded orga­nic growth in the double-digit percen­tage range over the past three years. 

Dover is a globally active, diver­si­fied indus­trial group with around 24,000 employees. The company offers inno­va­tive machi­nes, compon­ents, consu­ma­bles, soft­ware solu­ti­ons and services in five busi­ness areas, inclu­ding Clean Energy & Fueling and Climate & Sustaina­bi­lity Technologies. 

Consul­tant SIKORA AG: POELLATH 

Otto Haber­stock, M.C.J. (NYU) (Part­ner, Lead, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte (Part­ner, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Michael Best (Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Nico Fischer (Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Timo Winkel­mann, LL.M. (Part­ner, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Gerald Herr­mann (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Munich)
Dr. David Hötzel, LL.M. (San Diego) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Tax, Berlin)
Dr. Andreas Reuther (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Employ­ment Law, Munich)
Daniel Wied­mann, LL.M. (NYU) (Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Anti­trust, Frank­furt aM)
Dr. Puya Rezai Hariri, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Daniel Zhu (Coun­sel, M&A/PE, Munich)
Dr. Klara Bothe, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Marina Hennings, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, Real Estate Tran­sac­tions, Berlin)
Ange­lina Seel­bach, LL.M. (Colum­bia) (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Daniel Hoppen (Senior Asso­ciate, Anti­trust, Frank­furt aM)
Moritz Löff­ler, LL.M. (Senior Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Jannis Lührs (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Corne­lius L. Roth (Senior Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Floren­tine Wagner (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich)
Rudolf Kanter (Asso­ciate, Tax, Munich)
Dr. Maxi­mi­lian Link (Asso­ciate, M&A/PE, Munich) 

About PÖLLATH

POELLATH is a market-leading, inter­na­tio­nally active commer­cial and tax law firm with
more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Ber-
lin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset
manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and
highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients.
Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings
regu­larly reco­gnize our advi­sors as leading experts in their field.

Comprehensive

Colo­gne — As part of its stra­te­gic deve­lo­p­ment, INTEC Holding GmbH has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in the three compa­nies OSW Tech­ni­sche Doku­men­ta­tion Verlag GmbH, TECO Tech­ni­cal Concept GmbH and SCOPE Engi­nee­ring GmbH from ARBOR Gruppe GmbH.

The team led by Colo­gne-based HEUKING part­ner Kris­tina Schnei­der advi­sed INTEC throug­hout the entire acqui­si­tion process — from legal due dili­gence and contract nego­tia­ti­ons to the final imple­men­ta­tion of the tran­sac­tion. The acqui­si­tion repres­ents a further step in INTEC’s entre­pre­neu­rial deve­lo­p­ment and is in line with the company’s stra­te­gic orientation. 

With the acqui­si­tion, INTEC is expan­ding its exis­ting port­fo­lio in a targe­ted manner. The three acqui­red compa­nies contri­bute addi­tio­nal exper­tise in areas such as the deve­lo­p­ment of safety-criti­cal systems, tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­tion, system inte­gra­tion and product and soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment. The invest­ment streng­thens INTEC’s posi­tion, parti­cu­larly in the defense and auto­mo­tive sectors, and supports the goal of further expan­ding the range of services. 

As part of the tran­sac­tion, HEUKING was also entrus­ted with provi­ding legal advice on draf­ting the real estate leasing docu­men­ta­tion for the new Avia­tion Support Center at the Nord­holz airbase. This included the draf­ting of a gene­ral trans­fer agree­ment and the conside­ra­tion of publicly subsi­di­zed finan­cing conditions. 

Consul­tant INTEC Holding GmbH: HEUKING

Kris­tina Schnei­der (photo © K. Schnei­der), LL. M. (lead), (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Cologne,
Dr. Henrik Lay (Tax Law), Hamburg,
Susanne Monsig (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Cologne,
Dr. Alex­an­der Bork (Employ­ment Law), Düsseldorf,
Dr. Ruben A. Hofmann (IP, Media & Tech­no­logy), Cologne,
Dr. Katha­rina Pras­uhn (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), Munich,
Mathis Dick, LL.M. (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Düsseldorf,
Stefan Cesar (Corpo­rate Law / M&A),
Meike Dani­els (Corpo­rate Law / M&A),
Lena Kurth, LL.M. (Stel­len­bosch Univer­sity), (IP, Media & Technology),
Tim Remmel, LL.M. (Corpo­rate Law / M&A), all Cologne,
Dr. Tilman Span­cken (Real Estate & Cons­truc­tion), Düsseldorf,
Sandra Pfis­ter, LL.M. (Banking & Finance), Hamburg 

Munich — The commer­cial law firm SKW Schwarz has advi­sed the share­hol­ders of Grob Aircraft SE on the sale of the company to the Euro­pean defense and AI tech­no­logy company Helsing. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is still subject to custo­mary regu­la­tory approvals. 

Grob Aircraft, based in Tussen­hau­sen-Matt­sies, is an estab­lished manu­fac­tu­rer of trai­ning aircraft for the mili­tary sector and is known world­wide for its G 120 aircraft series. The company has deca­des of expe­ri­ence in the avia­tion sector and plays a central role in the trai­ning of mili­tary pilots on seve­ral continents. 

Helsing, a company specia­li­zing in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and defence tech­no­logy, is acqui­ring all shares in Grob Aircraft SE as part of the tran­sac­tion. The aim of the acqui­si­tion is to streng­then Euro­pean tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­nty in the defense sector and to inte­grate AI-supported capa­bi­li­ties into modern avia­tion platforms. 

Advi­sor to share­hol­der Grob Aircraft: SKW Schwarz, Munich

Dr. Sebas­tian Graf von Wall­witz (Part­ner, Corpo­rate Law/M&A), Raluca-Ramona Calin (Tran­sac­tion Management)

SKW Black

SKW Schwarz is an inde­pen­dent full-service law firm. With around 130 lawy­ers at four loca­ti­ons in Germany, the firm advi­ses in all rele­vant areas of commer­cial law. At the end of 2018, the firm foun­ded SKW Schwarz @ Tech GmbH, in which the lawy­ers bundle all acti­vi­ties in the field of legal tech across loca­ti­ons and specia­list areas.

Düssel­dorf — Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH is one of the plat­forms with the widest reach for leisure and
event recom­men­da­ti­ons in major German cities, with more than four million page views in the
month and more than 360,000 regis­tered users on the website and in the app. — DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH. It was advi­sed on this tran­sac­tion by Deloitte Legal. 

Raus­ge­gan­gen GmbH is one of the plat­forms with the widest reach for leisure and
event recom­men­da­ti­ons in major German cities, with more than four million page views per month and more than 360,000 regis­tered users on the website and in the app. Raus­ge­gan­gen offers an all-in-one solu­tion for cultu­ral event orga­ni­zers, clubs, venues and festi­vals — inclu­ding indi­vi­dual ticke­ting solu­ti­ons, online pre-sales, guest lists, a custo­mizable scan­ner app and exten­sive marke­ting features. 

The buyer, the DuMont Media Group, is one of the oldest and largest publi­shing houses in Germany, which is focu­sing on digi­tal growth with its three busi­ness areas of regio­nal media, busi­ness infor­ma­tion and marke­ting technology.

With this stra­te­gic acqui­si­tion, DuMont is speci­fi­cally expan­ding its regio­nal media port­fo­lio with a fast-growing digi­tal plat­form model and streng­thening its range of inno­va­tive digi­tal products. At the same time, the affi­lia­tion with DuMont opens up new deve­lo­p­ment pros­pects for Raus­ge­gan­gen — for exam­ple through content and marke­ting coope­ra­ti­ons with brands such as Kölner Stadt-Anzei­ger, Kölni­sche Rund­schau, Radio Köln and EXPRESS. 

Deloitte Legal advi­sed DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG on all legal aspects of the transaction
. DuMont Medi­en­gruppe regu­larly relies on the advice of Deloitte Legal in its transactions
.

Advi­sor to DuMont Medi­en­gruppe GmbH & Co. KG: Deloitte Legal Germany

Dr. Michael von Rüden, LL.M., Dirk Hänisch, LL.M., Thilo Hoff­mann, LL.M. (all lead, all part­ners, all corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Horst Heinzl, LL.M., Chris­toph Meves (both Coun­sel), Maxi­mi­lian Giep­mann, LL.M. (Asso­ciate), Victo­ria Zahn (Asso­ciate, all Corporate/M&A, all Düssel­dorf), Nauar Kaumi (Asso­ciate, Banking and Finance, Düssel­dorf), Claus Wilker (Coun­sel), Daniela Wasseram (Senior Asso­ciate, both Employ­ment Law, both Hanover).

Munich — Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment announ­ces the final closing of Picus Venture Fund II with a cap of € 250 million. The fund saw signi­fi­cant inves­tor demand from new and exis­ting inves­tors and closed more than double the size of its prede­ces­sor, Picus Venture Fund I. The fund was over­sub­scri­bed follo­wing signi­fi­cant inves­tor demand. This latest vintage is c. 2.5x the size of Picus’ inau­gu­ral fund, Picus Venture Fund I, laun­ched in 2021. 

Backers of Picus Venture Fund II include global Tier 1 inves­tors such as Wilshire, a major Euro­pean insurer, in addi­tion to previously disc­lo­sed anchor inves­tors M & G Invest­ments, one of the UK’s largest asset mana­gers, inves­t­ing through Titan­bay. Other part­ners include the Global Fund of Funds, inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies, major Euro­pean family offices and promi­nent tech founders. 

Picus Venture Fund II will conti­nue to apply the firm’s unique stra­tegy of iden­ti­fy­ing emer­ging winners and lever­aging insight and access advan­ta­ges deri­ved from early stage, priva­tely funded port­fo­lio and selec­tive new deals that also utilize the firm’s early stage scree­ning capa­bi­li­ties. With a global presence spread across multi­ple offices world­wide, Picus Capi­tal conti­nues to support the most ambi­tious entre­pre­neurs at the earliest stages, while the venture fund stra­tegy streng­thens these capa­bi­li­ties by allo­wing the group to support these most promi­sing port­fo­lio compa­nies and their foun­ders throug­hout each stage of their growth journey. 

Raphael Muko­mi­lovPart­ner and Head of Growth, says: “We are deligh­ted to achieve this signi­fi­cant mile­stone for Picus. In a highly compe­ti­tive and vola­tile market, this reflects the strength of our focu­sed stra­tegy and our ability to deli­ver compel­ling risk-adjus­ted returns through our diffe­ren­tia­ted approach. We are also plea­sed to have alre­ady made the Fund’s first invest­ments in global, highly disrup­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies that align with our vision of support­ing purpose-led inno­va­tion. In addi­tion, our stra­te­gic colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners such as M & G Invest­ments unders­cores our commit­ment to support­ing the next gene­ra­tion of tech­no­logy compa­nies that build for both scale and impact. ”

Robin Goden­rath, Foun­ding Part­ner and Mana­ging Direc­tor, adds: “With the launch of Picus Venture Fund II, we are deligh­ted to deepen our commit­ment to the visio­nary entre­pre­neurs we have worked with since our incep­tion. This new fund will allow us to conti­nue to provide even more compre­hen­sive support at key inflec­tion points in their growth journeys. 

Since Picus Capi­tal’s incep­tion in 2015, our goal has been to serve as a long-term spar­ring part­ner to excep­tio­nal foun­ders buil­ding trans­for­ma­tive compa­nies with the poten­tial for outsi­zed impact. The successful closing of Fund II is a testa­ment to this mission and rein­forces our commit­ment to this approach. Today, we are proud to support over 200 compa­nies, not only with capi­tal, but also with the stra­te­gic insights, opera­tio­nal exper­tise and global network needed to realize their full potential.” 

About Picus Capi­tal and Picus Capi­tal Management

Picus Capi­tal is commit­ted to support­ing global, leading tech­no­logy compa­nies at the earliest stages and was the first inves­tor in seve­ral unicorns such as Perso­nio ( most recently valued at USD 8.5bn ) and Enpal ( most recently valued at EUR 2.2bn ), gene­ra­ting an annual IRR of 45% since its incep­tion in 2015.

Picus Capi­tal is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal firm head­quar­te­red in Munich with offices in New York, Berlin, London, Banga­lore and Madrid. Picus Capi­tal Manage­ment is the Group’s fund manage­ment unit. Picus Capi­tal works with entre­pre­neurs from pre-seed to later growth stages through Picus Capi­tal Manage­men­t’s venture fund stra­tegy. The company focu­ses on tech­no­logy compa­nies in finan­cial services, human resour­ces, energy and climate, health­care, enter­prise soft­ware and infra­struc­ture, tech­bio, cyber­se­cu­rity and AI appli­ca­ti­ons. As an entre­pre­neu­rial spar­ring part­ner, Picus main­ta­ins a long-term invest­ment philo­so­phy and supports foun­ders from the idea phase to IPO and beyond. 

www.picuscap.com

Hamburg — The B2B tech company akeno has successfully closed a seed finan­cing round of EUR 4.5 million. The round was led by Cusp Capi­tal Part­ners GmbH (“Cusp Capi­tal”), further inves­tors were TS Ventures and Another.vc.

akeno, based in Hamburg, was foun­ded in 2021 by Alex­an­der Ebbrecht, Dmit­rij Direk­tor and Stef­fen Ramm. The startup has deve­lo­ped AI-based soft­ware that analy­zes real-time data from ongo­ing produc­tion proces­ses and auto­ma­ti­cally adjusts plans. This soft­ware promi­ses higher plant utiliza­tion, redu­ced invent­ories and better deli­very relia­bi­lity. The solu­tion is aimed speci­fi­cally at indus­tries with complex and sensi­tive produc­tion proces­ses — inclu­ding the chemi­cal and phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­tries, the food and beverage sector and the metal­wor­king indus­try. With this soft­ware, akeno aims to solve problems that cannot be opti­mally solved with other common tools such as Excel spreadsheets or APS systems. 

Custo­mers alre­ady include BASF Coatings, SunChe­mi­cal and the Beckers Group. The company is alre­ady active in China and plans to use the fresh capi­tal to expand into other inter­na­tio­nal markets, such as North America and other Asian countries. 

Cusp Capi­tal is a venture capi­tal firm with a focus on Euro­pean soft­ware and tech­no­logy. The fund invests in fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies “on the cusp” that have the poten­tial to rede­fine their respec­tive markets. The Cusp Capi­tal team consists of long-stan­ding members of the tech­no­logy ecosys­tem who have inves­ted more than EUR 600 million over the last 15 years in compa­nies such as Zalando, Deli­very Hero, Klarna, Scalable Capi­tal, data Artisans, Perso­nio and SoSafe. — www.cuspcapital.com

POELLATH advi­sed Cusp Capi­tal on the seed finan­cing round with the follo­wing team:

Chris­tian Tönies, LL.M. Eur. (Part­ner, Co-Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Markus Döll­ner, LL.M. (London) (Coun­sel, Co-Lead, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Dr. Sebas­tian Gerlin­ger (Part­ner, Venture Capi­tal, Munich)
Chris­tine Funk, LL.M. (Coun­sel, IP/IT, Frankfurt)
Oliver Ferstl (Rese­arch Asso­ciate, Venture Capi­tal, Munich) 

www.pplaw.com

Munich — Munich-based private equity firm Para­gon Part­ners (“Para­gon”) has acqui­red DYMATRIX GmbH (“DYMATRIX”), a leading provi­der of Soft­ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) solu­ti­ons for data-driven and AI-supported custo­mer expe­ri­ence manage­ment. The seller is Perfor­mance Inter­ac­tive Alli­ance GmbH (“PIA”). The DYMATRIX manage­ment team will remain opera­tio­nally respon­si­ble after the acqui­si­tion and will actively drive the company’s next growth steps in close part­ner­ship with Paragon. 

With this acqui­si­tion, Para­gon is consis­t­ently imple­men­ting its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth compa­nies and support­ing them on their further orga­nic and inor­ga­nic expan­sion course. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the finan­cial details of the tran­sac­tion. POELLATH provi­ded legal advice to Para­gon Part­ners on the manage­ment parti­ci­pa­tion in the acquisition. 

Stutt­gart-based DYMATRIX is one of the leading provi­ders of data-driven and AI-supported solu­ti­ons for custo­mer expe­ri­ence manage­ment. With its SaaS plat­form, it has been helping compa­nies to perso­na­lize custo­mer expe­ri­en­ces in real time for over 20 years — based on real inter­ac­tions and supple­men­ted by AI-supported analy­ses and predic­tions. More than 200 renow­ned compa­nies from the retail, insu­rance, energy, media and services sectors rely on DYMATRIX. — www.dymatrix.de

“With the acqui­si­tion of DYMATRIX, we are parti­ci­pa­ting in the attrac­tive market for tech­no­logy and data-based marke­ting solu­ti­ons. The company has deve­lo­ped excel­lently since its foun­da­tion more than 20 years ago and enjoys an excel­lent repu­ta­tion in German-spea­king count­ries. Para­gon is looking forward to the trustful coope­ra­tion with the expe­ri­en­ced team around the two company foun­ders Thomas Dold and Stefan Oertel”, says Marco Atto­lini (photo: Para­gon), Senior Part­ner at Para­gon Part­ners.

About Para­gon Partners

Para­gon Part­ners is an owner-mana­ged, private equity firm focu­sing on estab­lished medium-sized compa­nies with signi­fi­cant stra­te­gic and opera­tio­nal deve­lo­p­ment poten­tial in the German-spea­king region. The company works closely with its port­fo­lio compa­nies to gene­rate sustainable growth and improve opera­tio­nal proces­ses. Para­gon is active in various indus­tries and curr­ently holds invest­ments in 13 compa­nies. — www.paragon.de

Advi­sor Para­gon: POELLATH 
Silke Simmer, LL.M. (Coun­sel, Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Dr. Bene­dikt Hohaus (Part­ner, Co-Lead, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)
Nata­lie Tafel­ski (Asso­ciate, Manage­ment Parti­ci­pa­ti­ons, M&A/PE)

POELLATH is a market-leading, inter­na­tio­nally active commer­cial and tax law firm with more than 180 lawy­ers and tax advi­sors in Berlin, Frank­furt and Munich. We stand for high-end advice on tran­sac­tions and asset manage­ment. We offer legal and tax services from a single source. In our selec­ted and highly specia­li­zed prac­tice groups, we not only know the law, but also shape best prac­tice in the market toge­ther with our clients. Natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal rankings
regu­larly reco­gnize our advi­sors as leading experts in their fields.
We offer compre­hen­sive services in the follo­wing areas: Mergers & Acqui­si­ti­ons | Private Equity | Venture Capi­tal | Private Funds | Real Estate Law | Corpo­rate and Capi­tal Markets Law | Finan­cing | Tax Law | Succes­sion and Wealth | Foun­da­ti­ons and Non-Profit Orga­niza­ti­ons | IP. — www.pplaw.com

Paris, France — Cathay Inno­va­tion has closed its latest venture capi­tal fund at USD 1 billion. This makes it the largest AI-dedi­ca­ted fund in the Euro­pean Union. To date, the company has deployed €235 million from Fund III across 14 invest­ments, 50 percent of which are based in Europe. The focus is on four key sectors: consu­mer, health­care, finan­cial services and energy/mobility.

With the support of 20+ leading inter­na­tio­nal compa­nies, Cathay Inno­va­tion has deve­lo­ped the worl­d’s largest VC plat­form, inves­t­ing in emer­ging start­ups and connec­ting them with indus­try leaders around the world looking to trans­form through cutting-edge innovation.

Cathay Inno­va­tion was recently named Fran­ce’s largest private VC inves­tor per capi­tal, inves­t­ing in local start­ups and making a rele­vant contri­bu­tion to Fran­ce’s rise as one of Euro­pe’s top AI and tech hubs.

Fund III is backed by a diverse base of insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors as well as multi­na­tio­nal compa­nies looking to access the latest AI startup tech­no­lo­gies that are criti­cal to indus­try-wide trans­for­ma­tion. These include French indus­try leaders such as Sanofi, Total­Ener­gies, Valeo, BNP Pari­bas Cardif, Groupe SEB and Groupe ADP since the first closing, along with seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal indus­try play­ers such as Latams Vale Ventures, Copec WIND Ventures and others. 

“Our fund is dedi­ca­ted to helping entre­pre­neurs scale and bring forth new pioneers who put inno­va­tion at the service of the common good. We believe we can acce­le­rate the trans­for­ma­tion of Euro­pean indus­try and create lasting econo­mic and social impact,” said Mingpo Cai, Foun­der and Chair­man of Cathay Capi­tal and Cathay Innovation. ”

Where AI meets indus­try: the largest plat­form for colla­bo­ra­tive transformation

Beyond invest­ment, Cathay Inno­va­ti­on’s global plat­form and ecosys­tem connects start­ups to a broad network of compa­nies to enable deeper indus­try colla­bo­ra­tion. This includes stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, co-invest­ments or other busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment opportunities. 

Cathay Inno­va­ti­on’s vision revol­ves around the belief that Euro­pean VCs cannot thrive in the long run by dupli­ca­ting the Ameri­can approach based on merging robust finan­cial markets with the Sili­con Valley ecosys­tem. Taking into account the Euro­pean context and needs, Cathay Inno­va­tion bridges the gap between start­ups and indus­try leaders, unlo­cking access to key inno­va­tion hubs. 

“At a time when Europe is approa­ching AI with the aim of prio­ri­tiz­ing respon­si­ble inno­va­tion, stra­te­gic auto­nomy and resi­li­ence, Fund III reflects a unique Euro­pean model with global scale: not only for growth, but also for indus­trial trans­for­ma­tion and socie­tal bene­fit,” said Denis Barrier, Co-Foun­der of Cathay Inno­va­tion. “AI is a gene­ral-purpose tech­no­logy — like elec­tri­city — with the poten­tial to reinvent entire indus­tries while shif­ting the role of start­ups from disrup­t­ors to trans­for­ma­tion part­ners. Over the past decade, we have built the worl­d’s largest venture capi­tal plat­form to connect start­ups and corpo­ra­tes under one roof — combi­ning capi­tal with indus­trial inno­va­tion to jointly drive this trans­for­ma­tion and create the jobs of tomorrow. ” 

Cathay Inno­va­tion Fund III: Equip­ped for the new indus­trial age

Fund III focu­ses prima­rily on start­ups using AI that are deeply tail­o­red to speci­fic sectors. Fund III targets foun­ders at each stage and can invest up to 100 million in a single startup. To date, the company has inves­ted in 14 start­ups in Europe, the US and Asia, including

Health­care: Nabla (AI co-pilot for doctors), AQEMIA (AI + disco­very of quan­tum physics drug), Biop­ti­mus (first univer­sal basic model for biology), Nelly (Euro­pean fintech simpli­fies health­care payments)
Finan­cial services: Reach (AI-driven asset manage­ment), Flow­desk (full-stack market-making for digi­tal assets), Ping ++ (open banking and payments infrastructure)
Consu­mers: Geist (B2B market­place for excess inven­tory), Reebelo (market­place for refur­bis­hed tech devices), Imagino (custo­mer data plat­form for modern brands), Mogic (genAI-driven short-form video crea­tion), Beat­bot (intel­li­gent robo­tic clea­ning systems)
Energy: David Energy (energy plat­form for next-gene­ra­tion retail), Ental­pisch (funda­men­tal model-based mate­rial disco­very for low-carbon innovations)

The company’s geogra­phic diver­sity is a stra­te­gic advan­tage in today’s frag­men­ted world, helping Euro­pean start­ups to learn from and operate in Sili­con Valley, Latam or other parts of the world, for exam­ple, and vice versa. Fund III is also clas­si­fied as an Article 8 fund under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion (SF DR), reflec­ting its commit­ment to envi­ron­men­tal and social impact. It supports high-growth compa­nies where AI is being used to drive indus­tries forward in a locally groun­ded, globally scalable and soci­ally posi­tive way. 

About Cathay Innovation

Cathay Inno­va­tion is a multi-stage venture capi­tal firm affi­lia­ted with Cathay Capi­tal that invests in foun­ders buil­ding trans­for­ma­tive compa­nies in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The plat­form connects foun­ders with inves­tors and the ecosys­tem of leading Fortune 500 compa­nies to help start­ups scale and trans­form indus­tries with consu­mer-to-enter­prise and AI solu­ti­ons in retail, fintech, digi­tal health and mobility/energy. Cathay Inno­va­tion was foun­ded in Paris in 2015 and now mana­ges over €2.5 billion AUM with addi­tio­nal offices in San Fran­cisco, Berlin, Madrid, Shang­hai and Singa­pore. It has inves­ted in over 120 start­ups inclu­ding Chime, Pinduo­duo (NASDAQ: PDD), Glovo, Wall­box (NYSE: WBX), Owkin, Getaround, Ledger, ZenBusi­ness. — www.cathayinnovation.com.

Sina Lühr and Samuel Aebi from the law firm V14 have advi­sed the energy startup trawa on a EUR 24 million Series A finan­cing round. The round was led by Head­line and also included Norrs­ken VC, the impact fund of the Klarna co-foun­der, as well as exis­ting inves­tors Balder­ton Capi­tal, Speed­in­vest and AENU. 

Consul­tant:

Samuel Aebi

Sina Lühr

The law firm:

V14 is a Berlin-based law firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, tech­no­logy and media.

Munich — The issue price of Inno­scripta shares was 120 euros, which was at the lower end of the targe­ted price range of 110 to 140 euros. Accor­ding to Inno­scripta, a total of 1.82 million shares were sold. For the foun­ders, owners and board members Michael Hohe­nes­ter and Alex­an­der Meyer, this means proceeds of 218 million euros. Mean­while, the company itself will not receive any cash inflows from the IPO. 

The enter­prise value was set at EUR 1.2 billion as part of the IPO.

Compli­ance soft­ware in focus

Inno­scripta is a soft­ware company that specia­li­zes in cloud-based compli­ance soft­ware for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment. The newco­mer to the stock market claims to be the market leader in this field and as such is “active in advi­sing compa­nies from various sectors on tax-rela­ted rese­arch funding” for the successful manage­ment and docu­men­ta­tion of their rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment projects. 

“Our vision is to be the worl­d’s leading provi­der of R&D manage­ment solu­ti­ons and to trans­form the way compa­nies inno­vate and grow. We strive to create a world where breakth­rough ideas are seam­lessly brought to life through advan­ced tech­no­logy and opti­mi­zed proces­ses. By conti­nuously impro­ving our plat­form and expan­ding our reach, we aim to help compa­nies and indus­tries realize their full poten­tial, drive progress and make a lasting impact on the world,” the company said. 

Inno­scripta opera­tes profitably

Busi­ness has been going very well at Inno­scripta recently. In 2024, the company gene­ra­ted reve­nue of EUR 64.7 million, compared to reve­nue of EUR 39.4 million in the previous year. Inno­scripta is also profi­ta­ble: EBIT rose from 15.15 million euros in 2023 to 37.3 million euros in 2024. 

The stock market plans were supported by Beren­berg, Hauck Aufhäu­ser and M.M. Warburg.

www.innoscripta.com/de

Second IPO on the OTC market

Inno­scripta is the second company within a few weeks to go public on the Frank­furt Stock Exch­ange in the “Scale” OTC segment. Pfis­terer had previously cele­bra­ted its stock market debut and impres­sed inves­tors. The initial price was above the issue price, and the Pfis­terer share has contin­ued to trade at this level ever since.

Frank­furt a. Main — Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­ses Ston­e­peak and Energy Equa­tion Part­ners on the acqui­si­tion of a majo­rity stake in JET. The US oil company Phil­lips 66 is dive­s­t­ing its majo­rity stake in its Jet gas stati­ons in Germany and Austria. A consor­tium consis­ting of the invest­ment firms Energy Equa­tion Part­ners and Ston­e­peak is acqui­ring 65 percent of the busi­ness. As part of the tran­sac­tion, the petrol station network is valued at around 2.5 billion euros. 

Ston­e­peak, a leading invest­ment firm with a parti­cu­lar focus on the infra­struc­ture and real estate sectors, and Energy Equa­tion Part­ners (“EEP”), an invest­ment firm with parti­cu­lar exper­tise in the fuel retail sector, have announ­ced an agree­ment to acquire a majo­rity stake in JET Tank­stel­len Deutsch­land GmbH (“JET”) from a subsi­diary of Phil­lips 66 (NYSE: PSX). JET is a leading fuel retailer in Germany and Austria and is valued at appro­xi­m­ately EUR 2.5 billion as part of the tran­sac­tion. Phil­lips 66 will retain a mino­rity stake of 35% in JET through a newly formed joint venture. 

The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to be comple­ted in the second half of 2025 and is subject to custo­mary closing conditions.

Henge­ler Muel­ler advi­sed Ston­e­peak and EEP toge­ther with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on the transaction.

Henge­ler Muel­ler team for Ston­e­peak and EEP

Corporate/M&A: Dr. Georg Frowein, photo © HM (Lead, Part­ner), Guglielmo Ziani (Senior Asso­ciate), Lukas Buch­waldt, Laura Esmaty, Lukas Sengül­sen, Dr. Philip Falk (all Asso­ciate, all Frankfurt),

Tax law: Dr. Sebas­tian Adam (Part­ner, Frank­furt), Miriam Fried­richs (Asso­ciate, Munich),

Employ­ment law: Hendrik Bocken­hei­mer (Part­ner), Musa Müjdeci (Senior Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),

Real Estate Law: Jean Fried­rich Härtelt, Dr. Talbot Zander (both Asso­ciate, both Frankfurt),

Anti­trust law: Dr. Sebas­tian Dwor­schak (Part­ner), Jonas Sill­mann (Asso­ciate, both Düsseldorf),

FDI: Dr. Jan Bonhage (Part­ner, Berlin), Jan Schül­ting (Senior Asso­ciate, Düsseldorf),

Supply contracts: Andreas Breier (Coun­sel, Berlin),

Public Commer­cial Law/Regulation: Dr. Rebecca Klein (Senior Asso­ciate, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Matthias Schindl­beck, Anna­lena Nink (both Asso­cia­tes, both Berlin),

IP/IT: Dr. Matthias Roth­kopf (Part­ner), Nina Macken­stedt (Asso­ciate, both Düsseldorf),

Data protec­tion: Dr. Michael Schramm (Part­ner), Johan­nes Jäkle, Tanja Peschen (both Asso­ciate, all Düsseldorf).

Essen/ Munich — Expan­sion of AI exper­tise: FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its invol­vement in the regio­nal job board market and acqui­ring the Munich-based recrui­ting start-up ever­bay. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

Foun­ded a good four years ago as a purely social recrui­ting company, ever­bay now supports recruit­ment with AI-based tools: Anna, the start-up’s AI assistant, can cont­act appli­cants in compli­ance with GDPR, conduct inter­views, record data, provide infor­ma­tion on job profiles or coor­di­nate appoint­ments between candi­da­tes and recruiters.

“Our aim is to take the pres­sure off HR mana­gers in their day-to-day work,” says CTO Peter Kirch­ner. “They should be able to concen­trate on what really matters: hiring the right people. We take care of the rest.” 

With the complete acqui­si­tion of the start-up, FUNKE Medi­en­gruppe is further expan­ding its exper­tise in the HR tech sector. The acqui­si­tion is part of the stra­tegy to offer an ecosys­tem of recrui­ting services that provi­des corpo­rate clients with effi­ci­ent solu­ti­ons — from candi­date search and scree­ning to hiring. Pelka, CEO of the newly formed group and driving force behind the acqui­si­tion: “I am very plea­sed that we have been able to win over the foun­ders and team of ever­bay for our plans. ever­bay will help us get closer to our goal of a holi­stic, Germany-wide HR offe­ring for corpo­rate clients.” 

The FUNKE team was won over by ever­bay’s unique tech­ni­cal basis: the AI tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in-house analy­zes the effec­ti­ve­ness of ongo­ing social campaigns in real time and auto­ma­ti­cally makes opti­mal budget decis­i­ons for further play­out. The ideal chan­nel mix from natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal plat­forms — inclu­ding Meta, Google, part­ner networks and many more — is dyna­mi­cally selec­ted and conti­nuously adjus­ted. This ensu­res maxi­mum reach and effi­ci­ency when approa­ching candidates. 

“We were convin­ced by FUNKE’s vision,” says Matthias Oden, ever­bay COO. “Recrui­ting must not consist of isola­ted solu­ti­ons if you want to be successful as an employer in the battle for talent these days. The fact that we are now part of an over­ar­ching complete offe­ring is exactly what we wanted for everbay.” 

“We are deligh­ted that we can now offer our custo­mers an even higher-perfor­mance recruit­ment service thanks to the oppor­tu­ni­ties we have within the FUNKE Group,” says ever­bay CSO Martin Plöckl. “We will also be able to drive forward the further deve­lo­p­ment of our product range more quickly.” 

The acqui­si­tion will be comple­ted retroac­tively to the begin­ning of the year. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose the purchase price. With the take­over, the Munich-based company’s team of around ten people will move to FUNKE, and the three foun­ders will also remain on board as mana­ging direc­tors. The company will conti­nue to operate inde­pendently on the market as a brand. 

www.funkemedien.de