Four additional platform investments of the Afinum 9 fund as well as nine strategic add-ons and five distributions across the portfolio  

Afinum looks back at yet another exceptionally active and successful year on the back of a challenging market environment.  

In total, the growing Afinum investment team completed four platform deals as well as nine strategic add-on investments over the course of the year. The Afinum 9 fund-generation, launched at the end of 2021, is already almost fifty per cent invested, and comprises a diversified portfolio of six highly promising investments along its five verticals. In addition, significant capital returns were distributed to our investors of Afinum 7 and Afinum 8. 

In May 2022, Afinum 9 invested in Hartl Group, a provider of managed cloud services with its own data center. Within 8 months following the initial investment 3 strategic add-ons were completed for this platform.  

In addition, Afinum 8 sold its investment in Zeit für Brot in July 2022. A follow-on investment was made by Afinum 9, together with the founder and another institutional investor who had approached Afinum proactively. 

In November 2022, Afinum 9 acquired a stake in Christian Koenen Group, the technology leader for high-precision stencils and screens in the field of technical printing. 

Further, Fishing-King acquired Stollenwerk, an e-commerce provider for fishing equipment, which integrates ideally into Afinum’s strategy of building the leading digital platform for fishing enthusiasts across synergetic service streams.  

Just before Christmas, the team signed the sixth platform deal for Afinum 9 in a proprietary situation. The transaction is due to close in February and will add a fast-growing MedTech leader to our portfolio, building strongly on our expertise in supporting high growth cases in the Software & Technology space.  

The performance of Afinum 7 and Afinum 8 was also significantly advanced through add-on acquisitions and distributions.

Lemco acquired 50% in machine retrofitting specialist Robert & Schneider and carved-out a substantial part of US-based Sorenson Engineering by way of an asset deal to strengthen its global position. Kappa acquired Schmid Engineering, deepening its technology focus. Also in June, TISSO Naturprodukte entered the veterinary market with the acquisition of Provicell. Most recently, Listan expanded its product portfolio in premium peripherals for gaming and streaming through the acquisition of Mountain in November 2022. 

Afinum 7 generated significant returns through the sale of COTTA and the refinancing at ONSKINERY. Afinum 8 investors also received significant returns through the exit of Zeit für Brot and the refinancings at Threema and Ledlenser. Further exits and refinancings are planned for 2023, with processes already initiated. In total, Afinum returned capital of EUR 150m to its investors in 2022. 

With the classification of Afinum 9 as an article 8 fund according to the SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) of the EU, ESG has once again gained more importance in 2022. We will report on this in detail in our ESG Report in April 2023.  

As for our team, we welcomed two new members to the Afinum family: Marton Lotz, Associate in Munich and Mischa Graf, Analyst in Zurich. We continue to look actively for Associates and Analysts to join our team. Please check our website klick here for more information on this and other open positions. 

Four promotions were announced at the end of last year: Torsten Schneider (Partner), Elias Bitzer (Partner), Maximilian Fleck (Director) and Dr. Marcel Maier (Director).  

We would like to thank all of you, your families and our team members for their commitment and trust in Afinum and we look forward to further exciting projects in the current year.