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bm|t newsletter Q2 2019

Q2 2019 was an eventful period for bm|t with two suc­cessful exits coming on con­se­cu­tive days in June. Exits are often per­cei­ved as the ulti­mate achie­ve­ment in the world of ven­ture capi­tal inves­t­ing, and they cer­tainly gar­ner much head­line atten­tion. Howe­ver, for bm|t, as a ven­ture inves­tor that, in addi­tion to being per­for­mance-ori­en­ted, also has a strong moti­va­tion to see Thüringen’s eco­nomy pro­sper, we often view exits as merely the best next step in a company’s deve­lo­p­ment. Indeed, these two June exits both occur­red because it was the right time for the com­pa­nies to join forces with strong cor­po­rate part­ners in order to advance to the next level.

In this Newsletter 

EXIT, EXIT, Read All About It

HASEC, an EMS pro­vi­der from Wutha-Farn­roda, became a bm|t inves­tee part­ner in 2011, and the com­pany appro­xi­m­ately dou­bled in size during the eight years of our part­ner­ship. The EMS indus­try has deve­lo­ped rapidly over the past decade and fre­quently cus­to­mers are loo­king for pro­vi­ders with over 100 Mio. EUR in sales. Through excel­lent exe­cu­tion and the deve­lo­p­ment of new, cut­ting-edge capa­bi­li­ties HASEC, even as a smal­ler EMS pro­vi­der, was able to grow stron­gly in this envi­ron­ment of rising scale requi­re­ments.
It became incre­asingly clear that the com­pany could take a huge leap for­ward and win cus­to­mers of an enti­rely dif­fe­rent cate­gory and size if it were to join forces with a lar­ger player in the space. Scan­fil Group, a Fin­nish publicly lis­ted EMS pro­vi­der with more than 500 Mio. EUR in sales, pro­ved to be the per­fect part­ner for HASEC. Not only can HASEC bene­fit from Scanfil’s sheer size but it will receive strong sup­port, as Scan­fil plans for HASEC to be its core loca­tion for the entire DACH region. We know that HASEC will pro­sper in many new and exci­ting ways.

read more ›

Lyna­tox, an Ilmenau-based deve­lo­per of air and water fil­tra­tion tech­no­lo­gies, with its proof-of-tech­no­logy in hand, was ready for a stra­te­gic part­ner that could com­mer­cia­lize its tech­no­lo­gies. bm|t had inves­ted in 2017 with a focus on fun­ding the tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment, and this mile­stone was achie­ved.
Diersch & Schrö­der, a family-owned busi­ness based in Bre­men, was sear­ching for uni­que tech­no­lo­gies to enhance its Energy & Che­mis­try busi­ness unit, which is focu­sed on pro­tec­ting the essen­tial resour­ces of the future (clean air and water). It is a great match, and D&S will inte­grate Lynatox’s tech­no­logy into its exis­ting busi­ness unit, which will cata­lyze Lynatox’s mar­ket ent­rance and growth.

read more ›

We are very plea­sed with these exits, espe­ci­ally because in both cases the com­pa­nies will con­ti­nue to grow and pro­sper in Thü­rin­gen and now with addi­tio­nal resour­ces sup­port­ing them. We wish HASEC and Lyna­tox all the best for their future deve­lo­p­ment and are thank­ful for the part of the jour­ney that we shared with these great companies.

Your bm|t Team

Welcome to the Family

The Organ-on-a-Chip mar­ket is red hot, and Dynamic42 has deve­lo­ped many uni­que tech­no­lo­gies to improve the results of stu­dies invol­ving syn­the­tic organ sys­tems to test drug toxi­city and potency by bet­ter mimi­cking rea­li­stic human body con­di­ti­ons. The savings poten­tial for pharma and bio­tech com­pa­nies to test com­pounds in human-like con­di­ti­ons ear­lier and with signi­fi­cantly lower costs is enorm­ous. This invest­ment will allow for fur­ther tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­gress, the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal organ models, as well as the deepe­ning of pro­jects with large pharma com­pa­nies. For more details about Dynamic42 and this exci­ting new invest­ment please read the fol­lo­wing press release:

press release ›

Follow-on Investments

Pake­tIn has deve­lo­ped a cloud and app-based sys­tem for the manage­ment of par­cel deli­very boxes, which can, for exam­ple, be pla­ced out­side apart­ment buil­dings or homes in order to greatly reduce fric­tion in the deli­very and recei­ving of packa­ges. Deli­very ser­vices and apart­ment or home resi­dents can sim­ply open or lock the box doors using the app, and push noti­fi­ca­ti­ons and sta­tus updates are easily seen on users’ smart­phones. The variety of appli­ca­ti­ons for PaketIn’s tech­no­logy plat­form is exten­sive, and this invest­ment will pri­ma­rily fund expan­sion into addi­tio­nal markets.

Smartplatz’s mar­ket test in Erfurt demons­tra­ted strong results and pro­vi­ded the basis for the com­pany to deve­lop a slightly modi­fied model and expand to Leip­zig as its second focus city. With strong buy-in from retail­ers loo­king for an easy and cost-effec­tive way to com­bat the rise of online com­pe­ti­tors, such as Ama­zon, Smart­platz is well posi­tio­ned to suc­ceed with its new model com­bi­ning the ease of dis­co­very of online shop­ping with the bene­fits of in-store expe­ri­en­ces. This invest­ment was made with a cor­po­rate co-inves­tor and will sup­port the roll­out to mul­ti­ple cities over the coming year.

Investor Days Thüringen 2019

Inves­tor Days Thü­rin­gen 2019 was again a big suc­cess with over 500 par­ti­ci­pants and truly impres­sive pit­ches from more than 30 com­pa­nies across a wide variety of sec­tors. Con­side­ring the excel­lent and varied pit­ches as well as the great work­shops and lec­tures on the fol­lo­wing day, there was some­thing for ever­yone. A huge THANK YOU to all the pre­sen­ters, atten­dees, and orga­ni­zers for their important con­tri­bu­ti­ons to this fan­ta­stic event, which has become the pre­mier inves­tor event in middle Ger­many. We will be co-hos­ting Inves­tor Days Thü­rin­gen again next year and will be sen­ding out the save-the-date noti­fi­ca­ti­ons soon. We look for­ward to see­ing you again in Erfurt in 2020!

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