+++ Press release +++
German Startups Group looks back on a successful year 2017 and gives an outlook on 2018
Berlin, 22 December 2017 – The management of German Startups Group, a leading venture capital provider in Germany and Berlin-based digital agency with 140 employees, is expecting a preliminary net profit of at least 0.20 EUR per share for the overall year 2017 (IFRS consolidated). The company has recently paid off a further part of its loans from generated proceeds.
In October 2017, German Startups Group added Stryking Entertainment to its portfolio which offers an innovative online platform for football fans (www.football-stars.com) and holds an official license by the German football league as well as cooperates with the widespread German football magazine “Kicker”. Stryking lets users compile their team with real football stars and bet on their specific success during match days to earn coins andother rewards. Also, German Startups Group made a follow-on investment in TVSmiles in November and sold its stake in gonetto, a shareholding not significant to the company.
Beginning of 2018, among further follow-on investments, the company plans an already largely negotiated stake acquisition in another mature and very successful German growth company which is comparable to the portfolio company Mister Spex in terms of market significance and familiarity. Mister Spex is the biggest online retailer for eyewear and contact lenses in Europe and expanding strongly. The new portfolio company would represent a focus investment of the company as measured by portfolio weighting, too.
Furthermore, German Startups Group currently deals with the question how the future of the digital agency and venture capital business might look in light of younger disruptive trends such as crowdfunding, crowdinvesting and crowdsourcing as well as new basic technologies like the blockchain and cryptocurrencies emerged therefrom. One element of the answer will be embodied by the already announced secondary platform German Startups Market for whose inception German Startups Group has already founded a 100% subsidiary named German Startups Market GmbH, elaborated a legal and regulatory concept and registered an identical trademark (www.german-startups.market).Through this, the company aims for further earnings growth beyond its balance sheet, therefore, without the execution of capital increases.
Investor Relations Kontakt
German Startups Group
Marcel Doeppes
ir@tpgholding.com
www.tpgholding.com
German Startups Group – We Love Startups!
German Startups Group is a listed investment company based in Berlin that focuses on young, fast-growing companies, so-called startups. The company acquires majority and minority shareholdings mainly by providing venture capital. The portfolio companies that German Startups Group holds also stand to benefit from German Startups Group’s expertise, experience and network with respect to strategy development, financing rounds, restructuring necessities, M&A transactions or selling the company, including a possible IPO. According to its own assessment, German Startups Group provides startups with so-called “smart money” by acquiring a shareholding. Its focus is on companies whose products or business models represent a disruptive innovation, allow for a high degree of scalability to be expected, and in which it has a great deal of trust in the entrepreneurial abilities of the founders to whom it feels that it obtains early access to due to its close relationships to relevant players in the startup scene. The geographical focus is on the German-speaking region. Since it commenced with operations in 2012, German Startups Group has in its opinion built up a diversified portfolio of investments in young companies and become the most active private venture capital investor in Germany since 2012 (CB Insights 2015, PitchBook 2016). 22 of the 42 minority stakeholdings in operationally active companies are of particular significance to German Startups Group and together comprise 89% of the total value of all 42 active minority stakeholdings. The 10 core holdings alone make up 61% of the value of all active minority stakeholdings. According to German Startups Group, its investment portfolio reflects a cross-section of promising German startups of various maturity stages (“Seed,” “Early” and “Growth Stage,” by German Startups Group’s own definition) and includes some of the most successful and best known German startups.
More information at https://tpgholding.com/.