DBAG invests in Cloudflight

The two founders of Catalysts and Crisp Research have reinvested in the new company. DBAG has also co-invested approximately €8m from its own balance sheet, which represents around 12% of shares in Cloudflight Holding. Thomas Stoek has been appointed CEO for the group and has also invested in the new company.

This is the seventh investment from the firm's DBAG Fund VII, which is now 60% deployed. The firm held a final close for the fund on €1bn in 2016 and it can make investments of up to €200m per buyout.

A source close to the deal told Unquote that DBAG was approached by GCA Altium, which initiated the sale. Unquote understands that the multiple paid for the companies was around 10x EBITDA. The combined revenues of the companies are in the range of €25-50m. Following the transaction, the company will make further strategic acquisitions.

Debt was provided by Blackrock. The transaction is expected to close in June 2019.

Company
Cloudflight will employ approximately 350 people and it will offer strategic advice on digitalisation, platform construction, architecture design, software development and cloud operations to clients. It will be based in Germany.

Catalysts is based in Linz, Austria, and operates branches in Austria, Germany and Romania. It recorded annual growth rates of more than 30% and employs 330 people. It primarily offers software development services.

Crisp Research is based in Kassel, Germany. It employs 20 people and offers digital strategy and cloud computing architecture services.

People
Deutsche Beteiligungs AG – Torsten Grede (spokesperson, board of management).
Cloudflight – Thomas Stoek (group CEO).
Catalysts – Christian Federspiel (co-founder, managing partner).
Crisp Research – Carlo Velten (chair, management board).

Advisers
Equity – Mayer Brown, Julian Lemor (legal); GCA Altium, Sascha Pfeiffer (M&A); Deloitte, Marc Rauner, Ines Leffers (financial due diligence, tax); Willis (risk due diligence, insurance due diligence); ERM, Jens Wrabel (environmental due diligence); Skillnet, Thomas Pabst (commercial due diligence).
Vendor – CMS, Maximilian Grub (legal); IMAP, Carsten Lehmann (M&A).
Debt – Latham & Watkins (legal).

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• Topics
• Buyouts
• DACH
• Technology
• Deutsche Beteiligungs AG
• Management Buy-in
• Mayer Brown
• GCA Altium
• Deloitte
• Germany
• Austria
• CMS Cameron McKenna
• Latham & Watkins