Excellent exit: Investors sell sonnen to Shell

Frank­furt a. M. — The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN”) on the sale of its share­hol­ding in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”) toge­ther with further
The inves­tors, inclu­ding GE Ventures, eCapi­tal, MVP, INVEN and SET Ventures have sold their stake in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”) to Shell Over­seas Invest­ment B.V..

sonnen, head­quar­te­red in Wilpolds­ried, Germany, is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent, decen­tra­li­zed elec­tri­city storage systems and a pioneer in tech­no­lo­gies for a clean, decen­tra­li­zed and networked energy system. As one of the fastest growing tech­no­logy compa­nies in Germany and Europe, sonnen has alre­ady been awarded nume­rous inter­na­tio­nal prizes. sonnen is repre­sen­ted with its products in nume­rous count­ries and has its own loca­ti­ons in Germany, Italy, the United King­dom, Austra­lia and the USA. Photo: white “sonnen” char­ger next to elec­tric car being charged.

“sonnen is a leading global provi­der of intel­li­gent, decen­tra­li­zed elec­tri­city storage systems, whose success is based on very custo­­mer-orien­­ted inno­va­tions. The acqui­si­tion will hence­forth enable us to offer an even wider range of products to our custo­mers who want to choose relia­ble, afforda­ble and clean energy,” said Mark Gains­bo­rough, Shell’s execu­tive vice presi­dent, New Ener­gies. “Toge­ther, in line with Shell’s stra­tegy to provide more and clea­ner energy solu­ti­ons to our custo­mers, we can now move forward to build an energy system that puts the custo­mer first.”

INVEN is a venture capi­tal fund of the ČEZ Group, whose corpo­rate purpose is focu­sed on invest­ments in clean-tech and smart-energy companies.

Advi­sors to INVEN: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
The Frank­furt office of the inter­na­tio­nal law firm WEIL advi­sed Inven Capi­tal SICAV, a.s. (“INVEN”) on the sale of its stake in sonnen Holding GmbH (“sonnen”). Weil’s Frank­furt office regu­larly advi­ses INVEN on its invest­ments, such as its invest­ment in the start-up Cloud&Heat Tech­no­lo­gies GmbH and the most recent finan­cing round at Sunfire GmbH.
The Weil tran­sac­tion team was again led by Fran­k­­furt-based Corpo­rate Part­ner Dr. Kamyar Abrar. He was supported by asso­cia­tes Thomas Weise, Aurel Hille and Stef­fen Giolda (all Corpo­rate, Frankfurt).

eCapi­tal, MVP and SET Ventures were repre­sen­ted in the tran­sac­tion by the Munich office of the law firm GÖRG Rechts­an­wälte, led by corpo­rate part­ners Dr. Bernt Paudtke and Dr. Chris­tian Glauer. Senior Coun­sel Michael Prinz zu Löwen­stein from the Frank­furt office of King & Spal­ding LLP advi­sed GE Ventures.

About SET Ventures
Since 2007, Amster­­dam-based SET Ventures has inves­ted in Euro­pean tech­no­logy compa­nies that impact the future of the energy system. SET Ventures focu­ses broadly on inno­va­tive energy gene­ra­tion, energy distri­bu­tion and storage, and energy effi­ci­ency. SET Fund III provi­des early growth-stage capi­tal to ventures that shape the energy system tran­si­tion through smart soft­ware and services-based busi­ness models. For more infor­ma­tion please visit www.setventures.com.

About eCAPI­TAL
eCAPI­TAL AG, based in Müns­ter, is a capi­tal manage­ment company for alter­na­tive invest­ment funds (AIF) accor­ding to the EuVECA regu­la­tion. The company is one of the leading venture capi­tal inves­tors in Germany and has been actively support­ing inno­va­tive entre­pre­neurs in promi­sing indus­tries since 1999. The focus is on fast-growing compa­nies in the software/IT, Indus­try 4.0, clean­tech and new mate­ri­als segments. eCAPI­TAL curr­ently mana­ges six funds with a subscrip­tion capi­tal of over 240 million euros.

About WEIL
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is an inter­na­tio­nal law firm with more than 1,100 lawy­ers, inclu­ding appro­xi­m­ately 300 part­ners. Weil is head­quar­te­red in New York and has offices in Boston, Dallas, Frank­furt, Hong Kong, Hous­ton, London, Miami, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Prince­ton, Shang­hai, Sili­con Valley, Warsaw and Washing­ton, D.C.