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

DGAP-News: German Startups Group enters the PropTech segment with a financing of realbest and expands its stakes in five portfolio companies

DGAP-News: German Startups Group Berlin GmbH & Co. KGaA / Key word(s): Investment German Startups Group enters the PropTech segment with a financing of realbest and expands its stakes in five portfolio companies

16.03.2016 / 10:52 The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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+++ Press Release +++ for immediate publication

German Startups Group enters the PropTech segment with a financing of realbest and expands its stakes in five portfolio companies

- Increase of stakes in Book a Tiger, Friendsurance, Lingoda, Mister Spex, and Savedo - Classification into Tech sector by the German Stock Exchange

Berlin, 16 March 2016 - German Startups Group, the second most active venture capital investor in Germany in the period since 2012 (CB Insights, 2015), provides the PropTech startup realbest with venture capital. realbest is the first online transaction platform for real estate that digitalises the significant steps within the purchase and sales process. The company, founded in 2013 and based in Berlin, sells real estate across Germany from private and professional property sellers through its online network of qualified real estate agents and financial service providers. According to the company, this network reaches over 100.000 potential buyers. Currently, over 350 million euros worth of real estate offers can be found on realbest. Co-investors include Obotritia Capital from Rolf Elgeti, Ventech, as well as immotech ventures from the property developer Marius Marschall von Bieberstein. Technology companies within the real estate area are summarised under the term PropTech. Next to FinTech, PropTech is considered one of the new trends in the area of digitalisation.

Furthermore, German Startups Group has expanded its stake in Book a Tiger, one of the leading online booking platforms for cleaners, in Friendsurance, a successful Insur-/FinTech startup, in Lingoda, a live online language school, in Mister Spex, the leading online optician in Europe, and in Savedo, a FinTech startup for optimising term deposits.

German Startups Group GmbH & Co. KGaA (ISIN: DE000A1MMEV4) has been listed on the German Stock Exchange in the Entry Standard since 11 November 2015. As part of the listing, the share capital of 11.1 million shares was included in trading. From 21 March 2016 onwards, the German Stock Exchange will no longer consider German Startups Group part of the "Classic" sector, but classify it as part of the "Technology" sector.

Press contact German Startups Group Theo Bonick Tel: +49 147 7984135 Mail: presse@german-startups.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 second most active venture capital investor in Germany since 2012 (CB Insights, Germany Venture Capital Overview). 23 of the 43 minority stake holdings in operationally active companies are of particular significance to German Startups Group and together comprise 89% of the total value of all 43 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 at www.german-startups.com

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16.03.2016 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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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