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Q4 2021

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bm|t newsletter Q4 2021

We stron­gly believe an inves­tor base that cor­re­sponds well to a company´s evol­ving needs is an essen­tial ele­ment for suc­cess, espe­ci­ally in early-stage com­pa­nies, which evolve rapidly. In fact, one of the aspects we enjoy most about inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive, growth orga­niza­ti­ons is working with entre­pre­neurs and co-inves­tors to estab­lish an opti­mal inves­tor mix to enable the busi­nesses to perform.

In this Newsletter 

An Optimal Investor Mix

The estab­lish­ment of an opti­mal inves­tor mix is indeed a pro­cess rather than an achie­ved state and in many cases is never com­ple­ted, as the opti­mal inves­tor mix chan­ges as a com­pany pro­gres­ses through various deve­lo­p­men­tal pha­ses. In the early stages of a company´s deve­lo­p­ment, when the enter­prise is rapidly deve­lo­ping and fre­quently reinven­ting its­elf, it is abso­lut­ely nor­mal and usually quite healthy for the inves­tor base to evolve as well.

To achieve an opti­mal inves­tor mix, one key ingre­di­ent is having an abun­dance of inves­tors from which to sel­ect the ideal part­ners. We are con­fi­dent that our net­work of co-inves­tors and our ability to attract new inves­tors to our Inves­tee-Part­ners is a valuable asset for foun­ders and entre­pre­neurs who part­ner with us. The vast majo­rity of our funds require the par­ti­ci­pa­tion of pri­vate inves­tors on a pari-passu basis with our invest­ment, and this requi­re­ment has for­tui­tously led to the deve­lo­p­ment of a varied and powerful net­work of pri­vate co-inves­tors, inclu­ding other insti­tu­tio­nal ven­ture inves­tors, family offices, busi­ness angels, cor­po­ra­tes, etc.

Because bm|t is for­t­u­nate to have this broad and diverse set of co-inves­tors, entre­pre­neurs who part­ner with us can gain access to inves­tors who offer a healthy mix of capi­tal, expe­ri­ence, advice, addi­tio­nal net­works, resi­li­ence and ver­sa­ti­lity. We have found that a key ele­ment in main­tai­ning a healthy inves­tor mix is inclu­ding inves­tors who have diverse sources of capi­tal and vary­ing invest­ment philosophies.

While having inves­tors with dif­fe­ring under­ly­ing views or man­da­tes can be chal­len­ging and stre­nuous, it is gene­rally an advan­tage for a com­pany, espe­ci­ally when the inves­tor mix is struc­tu­red and balan­ced appro­pria­tely. For exam­ple, we believe it is extre­mely wise for entre­pre­neurs, even those who are able to attract suf­fi­ci­ent pri­vate capi­tal at an early stage, to have an intel­li­gent mix of pri­vate and public capi­tal. Importantly, these two inves­tor groups often have a low cor­re­la­tion in their access to capital.

Gene­rally, pri­vate inves­tors are less vul­nerable to regu­la­tory or poli­ti­cally-dri­ven chan­ges than public funds. Con­ver­sely, public inves­tors are less likely to reduce their invest­ment appe­tite (and in some ins­tances actually increase it) when broa­der macroe­co­no­mic chal­lenges emerge.

The Corona pan­de­mic over the past two years has, for many of our Inves­tee-Part­ners, cer­tainly demons­tra­ted the value of having public inves­tors, as bm|t was able to access addi­tio­nal capi­tal in the form of two new funds (Thü­rin­ger Zukunft­fonds & Thü­rin­ger Zukunft­fonds II) in the midst of a cri­sis period. We mana­ged these funds with a very simi­lar approach to our stan­dard funds, and were active in deploy­ing capi­tal to ensure our Inves­tee-Part­ners´ pro­mi­sing deve­lo­p­ments were not unduly com­pro­mi­sed due to the pandemic.

In fact, Q4 was a remar­kably pro­li­fic quar­ter of invest­ment acti­vity for us and cap­ped off a record-brea­king year, which we detailed in the fol­lo­wing press release:

› A record year 2021 for bm|t’s Inves­tee Partners

We look for­ward to con­ti­nuing to work with all our valued Inves­tee-Part­ners and Co-Inves­tors in the important quest of estab­li­shing an opti­mal inves­tor mix that cata­ly­zes and pro­pels busi­ness suc­cess,

Your bm|t Team

Partial Exit

This excel­lent par­tial exit for bm|t is a per­fect exam­ple of how an inves­tor base should evolve over time in order to best posi­tion a com­pany for ulti­mate suc­cess. bm|t acted as pre-seed inves­tor for Pfle­ge­platz­ma­na­ger, and along with a mix of out­stan­ding and well-sui­ted busi­ness angel inves­tors pro­vi­ded the initial capi­tal for the company´s plat­form deve­lo­p­ment and mar­ket launch. Pflegeplatzmanager´s rapid mar­ket suc­cess and strong per­for­mance led to a point where the com­pany had crea­ted so many growth ave­nues that it nee­ded lar­ger sums of invest­ment to appro­pria­tely address its highly-attrac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties. In order to enable this fur­ther growth, Deut­sche Bala­ton AG and a group of other inves­tors inves­ted an eight-figure sum in the com­pany. In the con­text of this invest­ment, and with an eye to achie­ving this excel­lent evo­lu­tion in the inves­tor base, bm|t rea­li­zed a par­tial exit and remains a key inves­tor in Pflegeplatzmanager.

For more infor­ma­tion about this trans­for­ma­tio­nal tran­sac­tion please see the fol­lo­wing press release:

Fur­ther growth secu­red: Pfle­ge­platz­ma­na­ger GmbH from Thü­rin­gen clo­ses an invest­ment round in the dou­ble-digit mil­lion range

Welcome to the Family

We are extre­mely plea­sed and exci­ted to be a core equity inves­tor in Wei­nert Indus­tries, a newly for­med com­pany to con­sum­mate the manage­ment-led buy­out of Leoni´s fiber optics cable busi­ness. Wei­nert Indus­tries will be a signi­fi­cant glo­bal player in the fiber optics cable busi­ness and will have its head­quar­ters in Thü­rin­gen. Part­ne­ring with a highly-expe­ri­en­ced manage­ment team to purchase a well-estab­lished player in an attrac­tive space with intri­guing growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, and having the epi­cen­ter of the glo­bal com­pany here in Thü­rin­gen, is an ideal con­stel­la­tion for our Thü­rin­gen Indus­trial fund, with which we inves­ted a seven-figure amount along­side manage­ment. We look for­ward to being a strong part­ner not only for this tran­sac­tion but also for Wei­nert Indus­tries´ future growth and success.

Wei­nert Indus­tries and bm|t will be publi­shing much more infor­ma­tion about this impactful com­pany and invest­ment in the future. Some back­ground infor­ma­tion was alre­ady issued by Leoni in this press release:

LEONI AG – Sale of Fiber Optics and j‑plasma

Follow-on Investments

Tro­pho­SYS is deve­lo­ping a new inno­va­tive method for the gen­der-spe­ci­fic sel­ec­tion of pro­duc­tive ani­mals, which can dra­ma­ti­cally improve pro­duc­ti­vity and enhance food secu­rity, all while making a signi­fi­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the ethi­cal hand­ling of ani­mals. Importantly, the inno­va­tion is based solely on the phy­sio­lo­gi­cal dif­fe­ren­ces of the cell sur­faces and allows for gamete sepa­ra­tion wit­hout any mani­pu­la­tion of gene­tic mate­rial. The signi­fi­cant pro­gress that the com­pany has made since our initial invest­ment con­vin­ced Treu­en­burg Ven­ture Part­ners, Spar­kasse Jena, and other well-sui­ted pri­vate inves­tors to join bm|t in this seven-figure series A round aimed at enab­ling Tro­pho­SYS to fina­lize its pro­duct deve­lo­p­ment and prepare for mar­ket entry.

More infor­ma­tion about this excel­lent Series A round can be found here:

Invest­ment in sus­tainable live­stock: Tro­pho­SYS GmbH clo­ses a suc­cessful 7‑figure finan­cing round

rooom AG offers a com­plete solu­tion for 3D, Aug­men­ted Rea­lity (AR) and Vir­tual Rea­lity (VR), with which com­pa­nies and indi­vi­du­als can easily and cost-effec­tively create, edit, and pre­sent indi­vi­dual 3D models and envi­ron­ments online. With this award-win­ning solu­tion, e‑commerce shops can pre­sent their pro­ducts in 3D and Aug­men­ted Rea­lity wit­hout losing loa­ding time; the real estate indus­try can visua­lize real estate con­ve­ni­ently; and muse­ums can archive tem­po­rary exhi­bi­ti­ons and make them per­ma­nently acces­si­ble. rooom AG has recently suc­cessfully expan­ded its ori­gi­nal capa­bi­li­ties to become one of the lea­ding meta­verse com­pa­nies glo­bally. bm|t was joi­ned by an ide­ally-matched pri­vate inves­tor in this seven-figure invest­ment round focu­sed on turbo char­ging the company´s alre­ady explo­sive growth, inclu­ding inten­si­fy­ing internationalization.

Smart­Dye­Li­very deve­lops func­tion­a­li­zed nano­par­tic­les in which the­ra­peu­tic com­pounds are enve­lo­ped and safely trans­por­ted to spe­ci­fic organs, which the medi­ci­nes are tar­ge­ting. This paten­ted plat­form deli­very tech­no­logy can be uti­li­zed in a wide range of the­ra­peu­tic appli­ca­ti­ons and also allows for a uni­que ther­ano­stic use case. Curr­ently, the Smart­Dye­Li­very team is deve­lo­ping a the­rapy for sep­sis-indu­ced liver fail­ure with the goal of redu­cing the mor­ta­lity rate of such cases by 90%. With this seven-figure invest­ment from bm|t and a renow­ned family office Smart­Dye­Li­very is well posi­tio­ned to take its uni­que nano­the­rapy through phase one cli­ni­cal tri­als and have ample time to eva­luate part­ner­ship options. 

Q‑Sensei ori­gi­nally star­ted with a vision to create fas­ter and bet­ter-inde­xed query results (face­ted search) over large amounts of data.  The com­pany built an excel­lent plat­form for this pur­pose and has won many well-renow­ned cus­to­mers inclu­ding Net­flix and Sequ­ans. Recently, Q‑Sensei has greatly enhan­ced its front-end user inter­face and has inte­gra­ted machine lear­ning and AI aspects into its offe­ring. Q‑Sensei´s tag­line is Auto­ma­ting Intel­li­gence and its new ambi­tious vision is to advance ana­ly­tics and human-data inter­ac­tion with Slack-like usa­bi­lity and design – all with extre­mely easy instal­la­tion and admi­nis­tra­tion. bm|t and a group of US-based pri­vate inves­tors led this invest­ment round aimed at fina­li­zing the new expan­ded plat­form  deve­lo­p­ment and acce­le­ra­ting sales globally.

LAXXON Medi­cal has made excel­lent pro­gress in its deve­lo­p­ment of a uni­que 3D screen prin­ting tech­no­logy to deve­lop novel phar­maceu­ti­cal dosage forms. The company´s addi­tive manu­fac­tu­ring pro­cess allows for the pro­duc­tion of mul­ti­laye­red drugs with novel geo­me­tric struc­tures, enab­ling a con­trol­led release of active com­pon­ents. Importantly, the company’s tech­no­logy also allows for high-through­put prin­ting so that its pro­duc­tion capa­bi­li­ties are almost as inte­res­t­ing as the tech­no­lo­gi­cal pos­si­bi­li­ties regar­ding effi­cacy and safety aspects of con­ven­tio­nal drugs. These include opti­miza­tion of drug release by hete­ro­ge­neous dis­tri­bu­tion, impro­ving tre­at­ment suc­cess and pati­ent com­pli­ance as well as water­mar­king to com­bat coun­ter­feit­ing. Given the sub­stan­tial medi­cal impro­ve­ments and the phar­maceu­ti­cal industry’s strong inte­rest in pro­lon­ging the patent life of key drugs through tech­no­logy trans­fer, it is hard to ima­gine a tech­no­logy with more poten­tial than mass-pro­du­ced 3D-screen-prin­ted phar­maceu­ti­cals. LAXXON recently con­so­li­da­ted its share­hol­der base into its US Corp TopCo and in the pro­cess rai­sed an eight-figure sum to advance its multi­tude of deve­lo­p­ment pro­jects, often in part­ner­ship with well-known phar­maceu­ti­cal companies.

Pre­ci­Point has done an excel­lent job crea­ting a suite of pro­ducts and ser­vices for digi­tal micro­scopy and is poi­sed for explo­sive growth as it enters the cli­ni­cal labo­ra­tory mar­ket after per­fec­ting its craft in the rese­arch mar­ket. Ama­zin­gly, today still appro­xi­m­ately 95% of patho­logy slide ana­ly­sis is per­for­med ana­log – humans pee­ring through the clas­sic micro­scope, making an eva­lua­tion, and recor­ding the data. Precipoint´s afforda­ble digi­tal micro­scope starts with high-reso­lu­tion digi­tal image cap­ture, which opens many oppor­tu­ni­ties for addi­tio­nal value crea­tion through algo­rith­mic ana­ly­sis and easy data trans­fer, thus brea­king the rest­ric­tions of phy­si­cal loca­tion for, at times life-saving, inter­pre­ta­tion of the data. This seven-figure invest­ment was initia­ted by mul­ti­ple family offices and busi­ness angels, and the capi­tal will fund the entry into the labo­ra­tory mar­ket and posi­tion Pre­ci­Point well for its upco­ming Series A round. 

HAPILA (Highly Active Phar­maceu­ti­cal Ingre­di­ent Labs) pro­vi­des high-value ser­vices & solu­ti­ons to a broad range of cus­to­mer seg­ments, inclu­ding medium-sized phar­maceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, “Big Pharma”, Gene­rics, R&D, Bio­tech and Fine Che­mi­cals. The com­pany offers extre­mely high-level exper­tise to solve deman­ding pro­blems in the deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­ture of phar­maceu­ti­cal ingre­di­ents. HAPILA’s ser­vices range from early stage deve­lo­p­ment through to GMP manu­fac­tu­ring in the fields of syn­the­sis, puri­fi­ca­tion and design. bm|t led this growth finan­cing focu­sed on expan­ding the company’s uni­que manu­fac­tu­ring capa­bi­li­ties and capa­city in order to meet alre­ady con­trac­ted demand for a key product.

onc­gno­stics’ Gyn­Tect test allows women who have tes­ted posi­tive for HPV to quickly gain valuable infor­ma­tion regar­ding the degree of serious­ness of their dia­gno­sis. Gyn­Tect is able to detect even early stages of DNA methy­la­tion which are the first indi­ca­tors of can­cer deve­lo­p­ment. Ear­lier detec­tion of can­cer deve­lo­p­ment allows phy­si­ci­ans to treat pati­ents soo­ner, which can often be lifes­aving. Addi­tio­nally, and very importantly, most HPV infec­tions resolve wit­hout pro­gres­sion to cer­vical can­cer, mea­ning unneces­sary ope­ra­ti­ons, tre­at­ments, and men­tal stress can be avo­ided if it can be demons­tra­ted that an HPV infec­tion has not cau­sed DNA methy­la­tion. This invest­ment is desi­gned to allow the com­pany to deepen its rela­ti­onships with well-sui­ted stra­te­gic partners.

siOP­TICA is a lea­ding deve­lo­per and sup­plier of switcha­ble screen pri­vacy-fil­ter tech­no­logy with many appli­ca­ti­ons in auto­mo­tive dis­plays, lap­tops, tablets, mobile pho­nes, and pay­ment ter­mi­nals. Data pri­vacy is an extre­mely important topic, and siOP­TICA is well-posi­tio­ned to play an instru­men­tal role in revo­lu­tio­ni­zing screen-based data pri­vacy solu­ti­ons. The com­pany recently achie­ved a signi­fi­cant tech­no­lo­gi­cal mile­stone. bm|t led this seven-figure round focu­sed on fur­the­ring the indus­tria­liza­tion and high-volume manu­fac­tu­ring of the company’s pro­ducts, as they near mar­ket launch.

Spleen­Lab uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to greatly improve the uti­lity of aerial vehic­les. The company´s tag­line is: Safe Machine Lear­ning Solu­ti­ons. With dro­nes and city air-taxis as key mar­kets with cur­rent col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons in place, Spleen­Lab is poi­sed to take off and help aerial vehic­les reach level 5 – full route and flight auto­ma­tion. bm|t led this seven-figure round focu­sed on fur­ther acce­le­ra­ting the company´s reve­nues and addi­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gi­cal developments.

APP­so­lute Mobi­lity’s plat­form enables com­pa­nies to design, create, and publish their own apps/environments for inter­nal and exter­nal busi­ness pro­cess opti­miza­tion. To enable this self-ser­vice, APP­so­lute Mobi­lity has con­s­truc­ted a highly-intui­tive and fle­xi­ble deve­lo­p­ment envi­ron­ment. The com­pany has had signi­fi­cant suc­cess in its ori­gi­nally tar­ge­ted ver­ti­cals and is now expan­ding its offe­ring to a wide variety of cus­to­mers with a con­ve­ni­ent SaaS offe­ring. bm|t led this seven-figure round focu­sed on deepe­ning and broa­de­ning the cus­to­mer base, which alre­ady boasts many top-name clients.

The Organ-on-a-Chip mar­ket remains 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. bm|t led this invest­ment focu­sed on fur­the­ring the company´s IP base, the deve­lo­p­ment of addi­tio­nal organ models, as well as the deepe­ning of pro­jects with large pharma companies.

Dash­fac­tory pos­s­es­ses an inno­va­tive pro­duct to help pro­tect bicy­cle riders from hit and run acci­dents. The company’s solu­tion is a rear-moun­ted camera that is GDPR com­pli­ant because it only saves video mate­rial when the legally requi­red distance of pas­sing cars has been brea­ched and the risk of an acci­dent is estab­lished. The Dash­bike dash­cam can also gene­rate urban and traf­fic data to assist in digi­tiz­ing bicy­cle traf­fic for smart infra­struc­ture plan­ning. Through its DASHTRACK pro­duct, Dash­fac­tory part­ners with cities to make a valuable con­tri­bu­tion to safer bicy­cle mobi­lity and infra­struc­ture by pro­vi­ding data such as cri­ti­cal risk spots, fre­quen­ted rou­tes, and road con­di­ti­ons. bm|t lead this round aimed at buil­ding on the early suc­cess of both the DASHCAM & DASHTRACK businesses.

More infor­ma­tion about Dashfactory´s deve­lo­p­ments and this invest­ment can be found here:
Green light for safe cycling and smart cities: Dash­fac­tory GmbH clo­ses fol­low-up finan­cing round with bm|t

mi2-Fac­tory is one of the deepest tech com­pa­nies in bm|t’s port­fo­lio. The com­pany is spe­cia­li­zed on phe­no­me­n­ally accu­rate and struc­tu­red ion implan­ta­tion in sili­con car­bide wafers, which dra­ma­ti­cally enhan­ces the per­for­mance of the micro­chips. mi2-Fac­tory alre­ady col­la­bo­ra­tes with many of the top chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers on cut­ting edge R&D pro­jects. Since our ori­gi­nal invest­ment mi2-Factory´s the­sis that sili­con car­bide chips will expe­ri­ence extre­mely high growth has pro­ven cor­rect. Sili­con car­bide chips are now being desi­gned into many appli­ca­ti­ons that require high vol­ta­ges, such as rene­wa­ble energy and e‑mobility. bm|t led this invest­ment to advance the inte­gra­tion of mi2-Factory´s energy fil­ter into the wafer finis­hing pro­ces­ses and enable the com­pany to con­ti­nue to deepen its rela­ti­onship with lea­ding play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor space.

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, which became even more of an issue during the pan­de­mic. 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 from bm|t will pri­ma­rily fund expan­sion into addi­tio­nal markets.

More details about Pake­tIn and this invest­ment are available here:
Par­cel deli­very for indus­try and local trade reim­agi­ned ‑PAKETIN clo­ses new six-figure finan­cing round

Jene­tric is a bio­me­tric com­pany focu­sed on digi­tal fin­ger­print cap­ture. It is the pio­neer and one of few com­pa­nies world­wide able to effec­tively employ TFT tech­no­logy for fin­ger­print sens­ing on screens. The company´s core mar­ket is home­land and bor­der secu­rity, and its mobile devices are highly inno­va­tive and have ope­ned up many new use cases for mobile fin­ger­print-based secu­rity, such as police forces. bm|t led this invest­ment aimed at con­ti­nuing to ramp up reve­nues and fur­ther the company´s incre­asing strength in com­ple­men­tary software.

Save the Date — Investor Days Thüringen 2022

On June 14th and 15th, Inves­tor Days Thü­rin­gen (IDT), the pre­mier early- and growth-stage pitch event in middle Ger­many, will be wel­co­ming over 500 par­ti­ci­pants, with appro­xi­m­ately 60 start-ups pre­sen­ting their inno­va­tions and visi­ons. We are pre­pared for eit­her a live event (our strong hope!) or a fully-digi­tal ver­sion like last year. We are loo­king for­ward to see­ing you in June!

If your part­ners or col­le­agues might be inte­res­ted in our regu­lar updates,
please don’t hesi­tate to share this link.

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