General Atlantic invests in bus network

Harriet Bailey
08 January 2015

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General Atlantic has taken a majority stake in both Flixbus and MeinFernbus, with plans to build a pan-European bus network.

Flixbus's existing investors Holtzbrinck Ventures and UnternehmerTUM have committed further funding as part of the merger agreement.

Previous funding
Holtzbrinck and UnternehmerTUM injected growth capital into Flixbus in September 2013. The financing was used to expand Flixbus's operating network.

Company
Berlin-based MeinFernbus was founded in 2011 by Torben Greve and Panya Putsathit. It first began operating a green bus service in April 2012, offering a route between four destinations in southern Germany. The company now has 320 buses serving 241 destinations across 88 routes.

Flixbus was also founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Munich. It has 240 buses serving 148 destinations in Germany and eight other EU countries on 90 routes.

The new partnership will see both businesses handling network planning, customer service, marketing, ticketing, pricing and sales for their respective companies, while their 160 regional bus partners will also be responsible for their own routes.

People
Torben Greve is founder of Meinfernbus. Jochen Engert and Andre Schwämmlein are co-founders of Flixbus. Jörn Nikolay is head of General Atlantic in Germany.

Advisers
Company – Hogan Lovells, Nikolas Zirngibl, Peter Huber, Tobias Böckmann, Guido Brockhausen, Thomas Dünchheim, Ingmar Dörr, Falk Loose, Christoph Wünschmann, Falk Schöning, Tim Joppich, Martin Pflüger, Peter Lang, Ferdinand Oelschlegel, Pascal Salomon, Tim Bremke, Laura Philipp, Charlotte Heckmann (Legal, Corporate finance, M&A, Tax); Hengeler Mueller, Nicolas Böhm, Jens Wenzel, Martin Klein, Thorsten Mäger, Christian Hoefs, Mathias Link, Fabian Seip, Nadine Hartung, Torsten Göcke, David Huthmacher, Steffen Neumann, Christoph Wilken (Legal, M&A, Tax).
Equity – Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, Norbert Rieger, Alexander Rinne, Matthias Schell, Andrea Eggenstein, Sebastian Heim, Benjamin Leuchten, Sebastian Reiner, Dennis Seifarth, Leopold Riedl, Thomas Tiedemann, Katharina Kolb (Corporate finance, M&A, Tax); Orth Kluth, Anselm Grün, Michael Sitsen, Andreas Ege (Legal); Inhouse Recht, Andreas Wisser (Legal).