Invest-IQ

The Samwer brothers’ now famous Berlin incubator, Rocket Internet, has bagged a whopping USD 200 mln in funding from Russian-American billionaire Len Blavatnik. With that investment, Blavatnik’s Access Industries will now be the second largest investor in Rocket Internet, after Swedish investment house Kinnevik’s recent Eur 300 mln that was pumped in during the last [...]

German mobile ad start-up Madvertise has completed the acquisition of Turkish competitor Mobilike. In line with their objective of being a market leader in Europe, the acquisition puts the consolidated page impressions count at just under 2 billion, of which about 15 percent comes from Mobilike. Madvertise has used some of the recent $10 mln [...]

Penta Investments is known to have made a bid for German insolvent chain of drug stores, Schlecker, after almost a month since its last 40 percent stake purchase in Polish retail company EM&F. The bid for Schlecker is non-binding at this point, with the objective being that the Schlecker family will only own a marginal stake [...]

Leading Russian internet-centric VC firm Fast Lane Ventures has decided to sell its Shopping Live stake to Home Shopping Europe, a German company. Shopping Live was one of Fast Lane’s earliest and most successful portfolio companies to date, and marks Fast Lane’s second successful exit bid. Home Shopping Europe (www.hse24.de) Home Shopping Europe (HSE24)is a [...]

In a joint funding venture by German and Russian entities, Hepatera, a Russian pharmaceutical start up that makes liver treatment and disease prevention drugs, as well as its partner, German company MYR, have received funding from top German VC firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, as well as Russian Venture Capital (via its Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund). The investment will [...]

Beauty products mail order company Glossybox, which was launched, and is majority-owned (57.5 percent), by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet, has attracted a round of funding from Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries in exchange for a 7 percent equity stake. Yet to be launched in Russia, the company numbers Kinnevik (24 percent) and Holtzbrinck Ventures (7 [...]

Leading German automotive rim manufacturer BBS has been taken over by Austrian holding company Tyrol Equity. BBS, which currently employs about 1,200, is one of the country’s leading producers of premium light rims and counted Formula-1 among its clients. Tyrol is expected to invest EUR 8 million in the two facilities following the acquisition. Tyrol [...]

PE fund Finam, a Russian investor, has just pumped in USD 10 mln into IM+ developer Shape Services. Operating out of Stuttgart in Germany, Shape recently released Beep, a cross-OS push messenger that operates on Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone platforms. The new collaboration will result in a special version of the web messenger [...]

Russian Entrepreneur Yuri Milner’s DST will acquire a minority stake of 4 percent in Zalando, an online footwear retailer operating across Europe. Zalando is the footwear division of business incubator Rocket Internet and was launched by the Samwer brothers of Germany, who will also be taking part in this round of funding. Zalando currently generates [...]

Viennese firm Lead Equities has just invested in a 60-percent stake in German IT company MCL-Group. The majority-stake acquisition was completed by means of a partial owner buyout. Management-held shareholders retain the remaining 40 percent after the deal. Lead Equities is making this investment from its EUR 66 mln second fund, and the investment will [...]

Deutsche UFG Capital Management – the Russian joint-venture between Deutsche Bank AG and UFG Asset Management Ltd. – will be fully acquired by Germany’s flagship lender. The JV was formed in 2008 when Deutsche Bank had picked up a 40 percent stake in UFG Invest – the asset management arm of the Russian wealth manager.

Point Nine Capital has co-invested along with Team Europe in a EUR 8 mln round of financing for Delivery Hero and Lieferheld. The investment will finance the rapid expansion of both portals, which offer online ordering food ordering services to customers in various locations across Germany. This last round of financing has brought the total [...]

Russian gas behemoth Gazprom has expressed its interest in acquiring German energy and telecom company Envacom. The acquisition will bring 500,000 internet and mobile users, as well as Envacom’s green energy operations, under Gazprom’s wing. Envacom’s energy division, which only accounts for about 25 percent of total revenue, is likely to hit the EUR 75 [...]

A joint venture agreement between General Electric and German wind-farm developer Prowind has been reached to develop a 300MW grid connection with Transelectrica, Romania’s grid operator. The new wind farms will be connected with Transelectrica’s new sub-station to be built near the town of Banca, and will be spread over four locations with the help [...]

Vision Capital, a UK based private equity firm, has made a deal with Paragon Secondary Partners to acquire three of its Germany based companies. In partnership with Rubicon Partners, an industrial management group with experience in the German market, Vision Capital purchased ABL Technic, Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen, and Gensets. The total 2010 revenues for these three [...]

Ventizz Capital Partners, the private equity investment firm focused on German-speaking Europe, has sold 100% of medical manufacturer Medos Medizintechnik AG to zfhn Zukunftsfonds Heilbronn GmbH & Co. Medos recently unloaded one of its own subsidiaries, Life Systems Medizintechnik – Service GmbH, in a deal with SpecialtyCare Cardiovascular Resources, Inc. Ventizz Capital Fund III, L.P., [...]

AXA Private Equity has ended its six-year relationship with Germany’s Gealan, by selling the window maker to Halder, a subsidiary of Belgium’s Gimv. The minority shares currently held by Gealan management and board members will remain in their possession once the sale is complete. Under AXA’s guidance, Gealan increased turnover, despite the economic crisis which [...]

Fresenius Medical Care, a worldwide leader in dialysis services, has reached a deal to acquire Hungary’s International Dialysis Centres for €485 million. International Dialysis Centres is a division of Euromedic International, which is currently involved in a drive to dispose of assets not central to its core business. Euromedic plans to focus on cancer diagnostics [...]

Germany’s nfon AG has completed a successful round of growth financing led by European venture capital investor EarlyBird. EarlyBird was joined by BayBG, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and MIG Fonds to provide nfon with an additional €4 million that will significantly help the company’s growth plans for 2011. Specifically, the funding will be directed at scaling nfon’s [...]

Metzler, the private German bank based in Frankfurt, has announced plans for a new Russian investment fund. The Metzler Russia Fund will focus on firms either based in Russia, or doing the majority of their business in either Russia or Germany. An institutional version of the fund was launched this past summer, and the new [...]