Digital+ Partners raises 350 million euros in growth capital

Frankfurt/Munich — Digi­tal+ Part­ners, the specia­list in growth capi­tal for the bene­fit of fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies, has successfully closed a signi­fi­cant growth fund for B2B tech­no­logy compa­nies with a sum of €350 million. Digi­tal+ Part­ners thus signi­fi­cantly excee­ded the origi­nal target volume of €300 million and reached the hard cap. Digi­tal+ Part­ners will thus make an important contri­bu­tion to closing the growth capi­tal gap in Germany and the DACH region.

The fund successfully intro­du­ces an important asset class for growth finan­cing of compa­nies with proven tech­no­lo­gies to the German market, as Digi­tal+ Part­ners can invest up to €50 million each, inclu­ding follow-on finan­cing, in young and high-growth “busi­­ness-to-busi­­ness” (B2B) compa­nies from the indus­trial and finan­cial services sectors.

Port­fo­lio alre­ady includes six attrac­tive growth compa­nies The fund invests in compa­nies that are active in the attrac­tive B2B market segment and are deve­lo­ping promi­sing tech­no­lo­gies in the areas of Inter­net of Things (IoT), data analy­tics or arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. “We support young inno­va­tive compa­nies that have the poten­tial to trans­form core indus­tries,” says Patrick Beitel (photo 5th from right), one of the four foun­ding part­ners of Digi­tal+ Part­ners and adds: “Germany has an excel­lent tech­no­logy ecosys­tem for a B2B tech­no­logy growth fund with strong compa­nies, high rese­arch spen­ding and inno­va­tive rese­arch alli­ances. We want to leverage these growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for promi­sing tech­no­logy compa­nies and our investors.”

“We see great poten­tial in finan­cing more mature German tech­no­logy start-ups,” explains Thomas Jetter (photo 3rd from left), also a foun­ding part­ner of Digi­tal+ Part­ners. “Growth finan­cing remains under­de­ve­lo­ped in Germany. We esti­mate the finan­cing gap at more than one billion euros per year. Venture and growth inves­tors in the USA invest around 60 times as much money in young tech­no­logy compa­nies as compa­ra­ble inves­tors in Germany,” adds Axel Krie­ger (photo 2nd from left), also a foun­ding part­ner of Digi­tal+ Part­ners.

Digi­tal+ Part­ners targets over 500 out of seve­ral thousand growth compa­nies each year and compre­hen­si­vely analy­zes around 100 compa­nies. “We finance young compa­nies that have func­tio­ning busi­ness models, inno­va­tive tech­no­lo­gies and rapid growth, and alre­ady have a broad custo­mer base,” says Dirk Schmücking (photo 7th from right), also a foun­ding part­ner.

Digi­tal+ Part­ners has alre­ady inves­ted over €60 million in six investments:
— Star­mind, an Arti­fi­cial Intel­­li­­gence-based cloud plat­form for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of experts and know­ledge docu­men­ta­tion in companies;
— riskme­thods, a SaaS solu­tion for enter­prise risk manage­ment of inter­na­tio­nal supply chains;
— NavVis, an inno­va­tive provi­der for the digi­tiza­tion of indus­trial inte­ri­ors and the crea­tion of “digi­tal twins”;
— moving­i­mage, a leading SaaS provi­der of a video plat­form for compa­nies for the effi­ci­ent manage­ment and distri­bu­tion of moving images;
- order­bird, a leading provi­der of cloud-based payments soft­ware in the hos- pita­lity segment;
— Cell­con­trol, a “machine vision” plat­form to prevent cell phone distrac­tion in work proces­ses and vehicle guidance.

The growth capi­tal specia­list not only provi­des equity capi­tal, but also its know-how and network through close coope­ra­tion with foun­ders, inves­tors and other compa­nies. Digi­tal+ Part­ners thus helps its port­fo­lio compa­nies to profes­sio­na­lize and scale, for exam­ple as a spar­ring part­ner for buil­ding profes­sio­nal proces­ses for HR manage­ment and recrui­ting as well as sales and tech­no­logy development.

The fund’s inves­tors include leading insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors and tech­no­logy compa­nies as well as tech­­no­­logy-savvy family offices from Germany, Europe, the USA and Asia. The Euro­pean Invest­ment Fund (EIF) and KfW also parti­ci­pa­ted in the fund. The funds inves­ted by the EIF and KfW come from the Euro­pean Reco­very and Recon­s­truc­tion Program (ERP). EIF funds also come from LfA — Gesell­schaft für Vermö­gens­ver­wal­tung mbH and from the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) supported by the Euro­pean Union in the form of the Euro­pean Fund for Stra­te­gic Invest­ments (EFSI), the core of the Invest­ment Plan for Europe.

Digi­tal+ Part­ners has a strong network of indus­try and tech­no­logy experts Digi­tal+ Part­ners was foun­ded in July 2015 by the expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment, finance, indus­try and stra­tegy experts Patrick Beitel, Thomas Jetter, Axel Krie­ger and Dirk Schmücking. The foun­ding part­ners have excel­lent inter­na­tio­nal networks in the areas of digi­tiza­tion of tradi­tio­nal indus­trial sectors and the finan­cial indus­try. The company is supported by indus­try part­ners who have exten­sive expe­ri­ence in scaling tech­no­logy compa­nies. Further­more, the company is advi­sed by an Advi­sory Board consis­ting of expe­ri­en­ced profes­sio­nals from the fields of finan­cial services, tech­no­logy and strategy.

About Digi­tal+ Partners
Digi­tal+ Part­ners is a specia­list in growth capi­tal for fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies for B2B solu­ti­ons in the indus­trial and finan­cial services sectors in Germany and inter­na­tio­nally. Digi­tal+ Part­ners plays an important role in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of core German indus­tries. In addi­tion to provi­ding growth capi­tal, Digi­tal+ Part­ners brings exten­sive exper­tise to best support its port­fo­lio compa­nies in imple­men­ting their growth trajec­tory. www.dplus.partners