deals - Unquote

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also gave Curetis the opportunity to expand
its staff to 30 people.
Curetis’s investors Life Sciences Partners
and Forbion Capital Partners are based
in the Netherlands and have offices in
Germany. Foreign investors that have
entered the DACH market are a common
sight and demonstrate how the venture
scene has become international over
the years. “Many regional venture capital
firms are out of business, have left the
industry or have raised smaller funds than in
the years before,” says Holger Reithinger, a
GP at Forbion.
Helping hand
To ensure funding for the launch of new
companies and their further growth, the
German government has launched a number
of initiatives to aid funding. High-Tech
Gründerfonds is one attempt to close the
A LOOK at early-stage activity in 2011 across Europe shows the
DACH region is consistently the strongest player in the earlystage
market, followed by the UK & Ireland. Deal volumes in the
DACH region began with 16 deals in Q1, increasing to 22 the
following quarter, which is the highest number of deals per quarter
recorded in 2011. The number of investments almost stayed the
Issue 1 – February 2012
funding gap. The organisation provides seed
funding for young companies operating
in the high-tech sector and has been well
established during the last years, showing a
good track record of portfolio companies.
Consequently, it recently closed a second
fund at €288.5m. The new investment pot
contains capital from companies such as
Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss, alongside
state funding.
Sturdy foundations
High-Tech Gründerfonds and other regional
seed funds provide a strong basis for the
support of start-ups and compensate for
the reductions in number of private venture
capital investors since the financial crisis
began. This has helped encourage the
formation of enterprises, many of which
spin-off from universities or private research
departments and, in turn, develop the local
unquote.com/dach
venture market, potentially encouraging other
investors to the DACH countries.
At the moment, competition between
European venture investors in DACH
is high and US investors have also been
showing an interest in the region. With
many promising young companies on the
market, deal flow in the German-speaking
countries is expected to remain high in
2012, as it has been in the last five years.
According to unquote” data, the number
of deals has remained steady between 204
and 312 per year. A slight drop in volume
can be seen in 2010, but a year later the
number of deals was almost back to the
recorded volume of 2009.
The consistent volume of venture
investments, together with anecdotal reports
of continuing high-quality dealflow, means
the outlook for the DACH venture market
in 2012 is very positive. �
Early-stage deal rate highest in Europe
Volume
Volume of early-stage deals in Europe by region
25
20
15
10
5
0
Benelux
Nordics
2011 - Q1
2011 - Q2
DACH
UK & N Ireland
2011 - Q3
France
Southern Europe
2011 - Q4
Source: unquote”
same in the following three months until it fell back to the Q1
level in the last quarter. Value-wise DACH performs strongest in
the second quarter when deal values in the rest of Europe dropped
off. In Q4, the German speaking countries and the UK & Ireland
were level on total deal value at around €57m, despite the higher
number of deals in the DACH region.
Value (€m)
Value of early-stage deals in Europe by region
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Benelux
Nordics
2011 - Q1
2011 - Q2
DACH
UK & N Ireland
2011 - Q3
France
Southern Europe
2011 - Q4
Source: unquote”
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