Great Hill Partners: € 180 million investment in merger of Echobot and Leadfeeder

Boston/ Berlin — A YPOG team co-led by Martin Scha­per and Tim Schlös­ser advi­sed Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Part­ners on its invest­ment in German sales intel­li­gence provi­der Echo­bot and Finnish online plat­form Lead­fee­der. The merger, offi­ci­ally announ­ced by both compa­nies, is supported by a €180 million invest­ment from Great Hill Part­ners. Great Hill will use the capi­tal to support the newly formed group in its product deve­lo­p­ment, sales expan­sion and inter­na­tio­nal growth. A further €50 million was allo­ca­ted to future stra­te­gic acquisitions.

The combi­ned group is led by Echo­bot foun­der Bastian Karweg as CEO and Lead­fee­der foun­der Pekka Koski­nen as CPO. Head­quar­te­red in Germany, the company opera­tes with a globally networked team of 250 employees at six loca­ti­ons in Europe and the U.S., serving 8,500 customers.

The YPOG team of Martin Scha­per (photo) and Tim Schlös­ser worked with a team from Choate Hall & Stewart LLP led by Daniel P. Riley. Marius Fritz­sche and Luca Rawe of Pusch Wahlig Work­place Law advi­sed on labor law issues, Pascal Friton and Florian Wolf of Blom­stein were invol­ved for sanc­tions law issues. A team from the Finnish law firm Meri­lampi, led by Antti Kahri, advi­sed on the Finnish part of the transaction.

Advi­sor Great Hill Part­ners: YPOG
Dr. Martin Scha­per (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Tim Schlös­ser (Co-Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Stephan Bank (Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax), Partner
Ann-Kris­­tin Loch­mann (Tax), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT), Asso­cia­ted Partner
Dr. Karen Freh­­mel-Kück (Corporate/Transactions), Senior Associate
Dr. Martyna Sabat (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Associate
Barbara Hasse (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Alex­an­der Sekunde (Corporate/Antitrust), Associate
Melisa Keme (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Benja­min Müller (Corporate/Transactions), Associate

About Great Hill Partners

Great Hill Part­ners is a Boston-based private equity firm seeking invest­ments of $25 million to $500 million in high-growth compa­nies in soft­ware, digi­tal commerce, finan­cial tech­no­logy, health­care and digi­tal infra­struc­ture. Over the past two deca­des, Great Hill has recei­ved more than twelve billion dollars in commit­ments and inves­ted in more than 90 compa­nies. Great Hill has an exten­sive track record of buil­ding long-term part­ner­ships with entre­pre­neurs and provi­ding flexi­ble resour­ces to help mid-sized compa­nies expand. Great Hill was recently reco­gni­zed for its leader­ship in the indus­try, ranking #5 in the HEC — DowJones.

About Echo­bot

Echo­bot is a leading sales intel­li­gence plat­form for Euro­pean markets. Over 1,500 custo­mers bene­fit from high-quality B2B data and thus easily digi­tize their sales & marke­ting proces­ses. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and the dyna­mic company data­base help to select the target group in a fine-granu­lar way and thus gene­rate more B2B leads, new custo­mers and sales. Echo­bot deli­vers the most important infor­ma­tion about the desi­red custo­mer in seconds — comple­tely DSGVO-compliant!

About Lead­fee­der

Lead­fee­der is B2B lead gene­ra­tion soft­ware that uses your anony­mous web traf­fic to gather data about custo­mer buying inten­ti­ons. Lead­fee­der iden­ti­fies the compa­nies that visit your website, how they got there, their beha­vior and their purchase inten­ti­ons. With over 60,000 users world­wide, Lead­fee­der is the sales and marke­ting tool of choice to improve lead generation.

About YPOG
YPOG is a specia­list tax and commer­cial law firm opera­ting in the core areas of Corpo­rate, Funds, Liti­ga­tion, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, IP/IT, Notary Services, Banking + Finan­cial Services and FinTech + Block­chain. 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 natio­nally and inter­na­tio­nally ranked by JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Legal 500, Focus, and Cham­bers and Part­ners. Today, YPOG employs more than 90 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors, tax specia­lists and a notary in three offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Colo­gne. Further infor­ma­tion: www.ypog.law