DGAP-News: German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA

DGAP-News: German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA aims to create room for growth and proposes capital increase at General Meeting

German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

13.01.2016 21:01

Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer / publisher is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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+++ Quasi ad hoc announcement +++ for immediate publication

German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA aims to create room for growth and proposes capital increase at General Meeting

Berlin, 13 January 2016. German Startups Group, the second-most active venture capital investor in Germany since 2012 (CB Insights, 2015), invites its shareholders to an extraordinary General Meeting on 25 February 2016.

Amongst other things, the General Partner and Supervisory Board will propose an increase of the share capital in the amount of up to EUR 27 million through cash contributions to the General Meeting.

With this proposal, the company would like to create room to manoeuvre for the period leading up to 25 August 2016, for the possibility that attractive investment opportunities and capital market conditions are present, to raise further capital in order to purchase further shareholdings in successful startups and thus promote its own growth. A growth spurt would give the company greater weight in the German VC and capital market. A preliminary decision, when and if the management will make use of the proposed General Meeting decision at all, is not attached to the proposal.

German Startups Group will release the business figures for 2015 already at the beginning of February 2016.

< END OF QUASI AD HOC ANNOUNCEMENT >

About German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA 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 second most active venture capital investor in Germany since 2012 (CB Insights, Germany Venture Capital Overview). 28 of the 42 minority stake holdings in operationally active companies are of particular significance to German Startups Group and together comprise 96% (unaudited) of the total value of all 42 active minority stake holdings. According to German Startups Group, its investment portfolio reflects a cross-section of extremely 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 is available on our website under www.german-startups.com

Contact: cometis AG Investor Relations Ulrich Wiehle / Mariana Kuhn Unter den Eichen 7, 65195 Wiesbaden Tel.: +49 611 20 585 5-61 Fax.: +49 611 20 585 5-66 E-mail: kuhn@cometis.de

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Information and Explaination of the Issuer to this News:

'We were able to continue the positive development of the first half in the second half of 2015, and I am confident that this will be reflected in the business figures', says Christoph Gerlinger.

13.01.2016 The DGAP Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Media archive at www.dgap-medientreff.de and www.dgap.de

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