YPOG Deal Update: Current Transactions
Berlin/Hamburg/Cologne – At YPOG, every single day the Team works hard to help its clients achieve their strategic goals by providing comprehensive legal advice with specialization in the fields of Tax, Funds, Corporate, Litigation, Transactions, IP/IT, Notary Services, Banking + Financial Services and FinTech + Blockchain. In recent weeks, YPOG has again been involved in a large number of transactions in the startup sector. Among others, investors and companies such as Cansativa, Emerge Education, enercity, Leaps by Bayer, Project A Ventures, Resourcify, Vorwerk Ventures and 42CAP recently relied on the expertise of the boutique law firm with offices in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne.
YPOG advises Leaps by Bayer on its investment in Ada Health
A YPOG team led by Stephan Bank comprehensively advised Bayer AG’s impact investment unit, Leaps by Bayer, on an extension financing round of Berlin-based digital health company Ada Health, joined by Farallon Capital, Red River West, and Bertelsmann Investments as new investors. Adding another $30 million, the Series B financing round now closes at $120 million. The new funding will be used to accelerate the growth of Ada Health’s enterprise offering and strengthen its presence in the US, following strong interest and traction in that market. Ada has collaborated with leading health systems and care providers in North America, while continuing existing client partnerships internationally with the likes of Bayer, Novartis, and Sutter Health. More information can be found here.
Leaps by Bayer, a unit of Bayer AG, leads impact investments into solutions to some of today’s biggest challenges in health and agriculture. The investment portfolio includes more than 35 companies. They are all working on potentially breakthrough technologies to overcome some specific challenges such as, e.g. regenerating lost tissue function, reducing the environmental impact of agriculture, preventing or curing cancer, and others.
Team:
Dr. Stephan Bank (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Dr. Florian Wilbrink (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Dr. Christoph Lüttenberg (Corporate), Associate
Peter Schäfer (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
YPOG advises 42CAP on two financing rounds
A YPOG team led by Frederik Gärtner provided comprehensive advice to 42CAP on two of its most recent financing rounds. YPOG advised 42CAP as lead-investor on the €1.5 million pre-seed financing round of the Malmö-based startup Noodl. The company is developing a no-code software platform for people to build and ship advanced web apps without sacrificing the product or technical vision. The fresh money will be used to enhance the third-party integration capabilities, as well as to develop new hosting options and workflows. 42CAP was also advised by YPOG on the latest seed financing round of Berlin-based AI-driven genetic analysis platform Nostos Genomics. The financing round was led by 42CAP and has a total volume of €5 million with participation from Frontline Ventures, Amino Collective, Entrepreneur First as well as Konstantin Mehl (Kaia Health), Robert Fenton (Qualio), Mark Evans (Kindred Capital) and Acequia Capital.
42CAP is a European investor team, participating in early-stage companies with global ambitions focused on B2B technology. The founders and partners are successful entrepreneurs who built up big companies. The founding investors Alex Meyer and Thomas Wilke established eCircle as one of Europe's largest SaaS companies and sold it to Teradata (NYSE:TDC) in 2012. Moritz Zimmermann turned the software company Hybris big before it was integrated into SAP. Following the credo 'Peers among Entrepreneurs', 42CAP supports industry- and product-oriented founders, highly data-driven business models and sustainable company development. This background is appreciated by founders such as Nicolas Reboud (SHINE, Paris), Kristjan Vilosius (Katana, Tallinn) and Alexander Igelsböck (Adverity, Vienna). More information can be found here.
Team:
Dr. Frederik Gärtner (Lead, Transactions), Partner
Konstantin Häfner (Transactions), Associate
YPOG advises Vorwerk Ventures on its investment in Alpakas
YPOG advised Berlin-based venture capital fund Vorwerk Ventures as new investor of zero-waste delivery service Alpakas. Next to Vorwerk Ventures, previous investors such as Foodlabs or the MVPF Factory invested again as well as new investor and entrepreneur Verena Pausder with her fund. YPOG previously advised Vorwerk Ventures during its latest investment in the telemedicine startup Medkitdoc, which closed its seed financing round in December 2021. More information can be found here.
Vorwerk Ventures is an independent venture capital fund grown out of the Vorwerk Group in late 2019 and defines itself through a strong commitment towards consumer-facing digital businesses. Headquartered in Berlin Germany, Vorwerk currently has more than €250 million in assets under management and is constantly on the look-out for promising opportunities starting with Seed/Series A investments of €1 million up to €10 million and ensuring continuous support reserving up to €15 million for upcoming financing rounds.
Team:
Dr. Benjamin Ullrich (Co-Lead, Transactions), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Transactions), Associated Partner
Dr. Benedikt Flöter (IP/IT), Associated Partner
Stefanie Heinemann (Transactions), Transaction Support
YPOG advised Cansativa on €13 million financing round
YPOG provided comprehensive advice to Canastiva on its recent Series B financing round. The investment has a total volume of €13 million and was led by Casa Verde, with participation from Argonautic Ventures and Munich-based family office Alluti. Cansativa is, amongst others, the exclusive distributor of the Cannabis Agency at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) for domestically grown medical cannabis. The company will use the funding to expand its medical cannabis product portfolio and to develop its platform for consumer recreational use in the anticipation of legalization in Germany. The fund, initiated by rapper Snoop Dogg, regularly invests in up-and-coming companies in the cannabis segment. The investment in Cansativa is Casa Verde’s largest investment to date in Europe. More information can be found here.
Cansativa is Germany’s largest medical cannabis distributor, one of the country’s largest cannabis businesses and a driving force within Germany’s rapidly evolving cannabis industry. The company’s B2B platform manages every stage of the cannabis value chain from import to distribution and related logistics, serving thousands of pharmacies across the country. Through an exclusive agreement with Germany’s regulatory body, it is the only company permitted to distribute domestically grown medical cannabis.
Team:
Dr. Benjamin Ullrich (Co-Lead, Transactions), Partner
Dr. Johannes Janning (Co-Lead, Transactions), Associated Partner
YPOG advised Emerge Education on €3,4 million seed financing round of Zavvy
YPOG advised London-based venture capital investor Emerge Education on the recent seed financing of Munich-based employee enablement company Zavvy. The funding has a total volume of €3.4 million and was led by La Famiglia VC, with further participation from Picus Capital and several angel investors such as Eventbrite co-founder Renaud Visage, Personio co-founder and CEO Hanno Renner and Forto co-founder and CEO Michael Wax. Zavvy offers support during the onboarding process for new employees and for individual professional development. Based on existing data, Zavvy creates employee programs that are integrated into its customers' workflows. The fresh money will be used to develop the HR management platform for companies and to expand Zavvy's customer portfolio. The start-up also wants to extend its services by offering solutions for trainings and surveys. More information can be found here.
Emerge Education is one of the leading European investors in the education sector. The London-based venture capitalist primarily invests in connection with pre-seed and seed financing rounds of early-stage EdTech start-ups. In addition to providing capital, Emerge Education offers its portfolio companies access to investors, strategic partners, and a network of key education and industry decision makers. The venture capitalist's portfolio companies include Unibuddy, Sales Impact Academy, Engageli, FourthRev, Yoto and Crehana.
Team:
Dr. Frederik Gärtner (Lead, Transactions), Partner
Jonas Huth (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
YPOG advises Project A Ventures on $30 million financing round of Micropsi
YPOG provided comprehensive advice to venture capital investor Project A Ventures on the Series B financing round of Berlin-based robotics startup Micropsi Industries. The funding has a total volume of $30 million and was led by Metaplanet, VSquared and Ahren Innovation Capital. Next to existing investor Project A, Amplifier (which was advised by another YPOG team led by Partner Stephan Bank), and M Ventures also participated again. Micropsi plans to use the new funding to expand its operations in the US, to increase its sales and to expand to additional robotic platforms. More information can be found here.
Project A is one of the leading venture capital companies in Europe with offices in Berlin and London. In addition to $600 million in assets under management, Project A supports its portfolio companies with a team of over 100 in-house experts in themes such as software and product development, business intelligence, brand, design, marketing, sales and recruitingP roject A was founded in 2012 and since then has backed more than 100 startups. The portfolio includes companies such as Trade Republic, WorldRemit, sennder, KRY, Spryker, Catawiki and Voi. .
Team:
Dr. Benjamin Ullrich (Lead, Transactions), Partner
Dr. Martyna Sabat (Corporate/Transactions), Senior Associate
YPOG advises enercity on its investment in Installion
YPOG provided comprehensively legal advise to energy service provider enercity on its investment in the startup Installion. enercity acquires around 30 percent of the shares in the assembly platform provider. The startup was founded in 2019 and uses its digital platform to realize assembly work of photovoltaic systems, e-charging boxes and storage units. By joining Installion as a new shareholder, enercity extends its portfolio to a strategically important business sector. More information can be found here.
enercity AG, headquartered in Hanover, Germany, is a provider of sustainable and intelligent energy solutions. The enercity group is one of the largest German local energy providers with a revenue of around €3.7 billion (2020) and approximately 3.000 employees. The company supplies around 1 million people with electricity, heat, natural gas and water. Additionally, enercity offers energy-related services around electromobility, energy efficiency, decentralized customer solutions, telecommunications and intelligent infrastructure.
Team:
Dr. Martin Schaper (Lead, Corporate/Transactions), Partner
Pia Meven (Corporate/Transactions), Associate
Alexander Sekunde (Corporate/Antitrust), Associate
YPOG advises Resourcify on €5 million financing round
YPOG advised recycling startup Resourcify on its recent financing round. The funding has a total volume of €5 million and raises Resourcify's total investment up to €9 million. The financing round was led by European venture capital fund Ananda Impact Ventures and early-stage investor Speedinvest, previous investors include the founders of transport startup Sennder as well as Schüttflix founder Christian Hülsewig. With the fresh money, Resourcify will expand its workforce up to 50 employees. In order to win new customers, the Hamburg-based company will also practice proactive marketing. More information can be found here.
Resourcify provides companies and waste management companies across Europe a digital solution to manage and simplify sustainable waste disposal and recycling processes. The software reduces effort and costs of waste management, increases revenues out of recycling materials and the recycling rate, and helps companies to realize their zero-waste strategies. Waste management companies use Resourcify's modern customer service software to automatize their operations, acquire new customers and strengthen their competitiveness.
Team:
Dr. Benjamin Ullrich (Co-Lead, Transactions), Partner
Dr. Adrian Haase (Co-Lead, Transactions), Associated Partner
