Actionable Insights for your M&A

Last week we learned that Cinven completed the largest Spanish VC deal in recent years by buying Hotelbeds for €1.165M, and Mytwinplace also closed a round led by Inveready.

Yesterday we learned that Global Fashion Group has received €300M in a round led by the giant Rocket Internet, which wants to consolidate its "fashion" division. Spain is also investing in online fashion startups, in recent months, in addition to the purchase of Privalia by Vente-privee, we have detected several companies in the fashion world in niches such as children's clothing or menswear that have received funding, such as Offemily and Fashiop.

In 2016 the venture capital is and venture capital raised €1,481M in new funds. This year 2016 seems to continue to meet the favourable conditions for fundraising: liquidity in the markets, international LPs' interest in VC&PE firms and support for the sector through public funds of funds (Innvierte and Fond-ICO global). We have recently heard about new fundraising: N+1 has raised €400M for its new fund and Capitana Ventures Partners is raising new funds for Capitana Tech Fund.

The Finnish giant has seen the opportunity that the e-health sector can offer and has bought the company Withing for $170M. The E-health sector has a lot of potential: the market is demanding it and this makes investors interested in the sector.

According to the OECD, Spain is in the top 10 countries with the highest development in the biotechnology sector. Although we are far from the top centres such as Boston, Silicon Valley, London or Switzerland, the news is encouraging, after a few years in which the scarce access to funding in the sector made things difficult. In the last two years we have witnessed how Spanish biotech companies are obtaining amounts of funding not seen before in the sector.

On Saturday 23rd April the Minetur AEESD 2016 call for R&D project funding opened. This call will be open for 20 days. A new feature of this year's call is that thematic priority will be given to projects in the Industry 4.0 and connected industry 4.0, in addition guarantees will be determined [...].

In the last month we see several energy efficiency and renewable energy companies have received funding both from venture capital firms such as Axon Partners and Collins and from crowdfunding such as Crowdcube.

CAD IT has acquired SFB's 30% in order to strengthen its presence in the European software market, with the option to acquire a further 21% in 2018 and existing shareholders selling up to the remaining 49%.

Mahou San Miguel has reached a pre-agreement to acquire the 74% of the Valencian distribution company Cermadis. This purchase is the 7th in the last 6 years. Here is a brief summary of the acquisitions made by Mahou in recent years.

Ysios Capital, Spain's leading private equity firm in the biotech sector, announced on 14 April that it has participated in a $68M round in US-based Kala Pharmaceuticals, which specialises in the development of innovative treatments for eye diseases. We review the investments made by this fund manager.

The new Feder Innterconecta call to promote interregional R&D cooperation through the development of innovative technologies, with economic and commercial projection at international level between the following communities is expected to open soon: Andalusia, Asturias, Galicia, Canary Islands, Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura and Murcia. From Abra-Invest we wanted to review the projects approved last year.

France's Vente-Prive, which specialises in the sale of online stock, has bought its Spanish competitor Privalia, for a price that although not disclosed is estimated to be around €500M. This operation responds to the objective of strengthening its presence in France and Spain, with the creation of an e-commerce giant of €2,500M. With this operation, the French giant aims to grow by 40% internationally.