New Portfolio Company for Leonardo Venture

Leonardo Venture GmbH & Co. KGaA is taking a share in GROHNO-Guss GmbH.

It is already the second round of financing for GROHNO Guss. In addition to Leonardo Venture the company located in Düren also found two new investors: KfW and a business angel, the entrepreneur Matthias Popp who also became the new CEO on November 1st, 2009. Seedinvestor High-Tech Gründerfonds approached Leonardo Venture which decided to become the new lead investor. Investment manager Andreas Quauke welcomes the joining of the new investors: “Leonardo Venture, KfW and entrepreneur Matthias Popp all are investors with a great customer network. With this development and advantage GROHNO gets access to the board levels of manufacturers of automotives, turbines and pumps. Those are companies that have the chance to upgrade their products in an energy efficient and sustainable way by using the Strukto Guss technology because they are driven by economic, ecologic and regulatory requirements.”

It is the first the investment for Leonardo Venture since their limited partner changed. General manager Steffen Paul explains why this transaction is a perfect match for the new investment strategy: “This investment meets two important components of our new strategy. First of all it is the collaboration with co-investors which increases the transparency of our activities. Secondly we planned to decrease our amounts of holding and investment with the objective to spread our risk. We also fulfill this requirement now.”

The company GROHNO-Guss fits in perfectly with the already existing portfolio of Leonardo Venture. The technology venture was founded in 2006 and developed a precision casting process, which enables microstructures to be cast in metal surfaces. Only one production step is needed to cast surfaces with a sharkskin structure for example. This structure makes sure that the flow resistance on surfaces is minimized which in the end saves energy. Those structures also lead to self-cleaning effects on surfaces. Microstructures are very important for components in aircraft engines, gas turbines and pumps. Being a cross-sectional technology StruktoGUSS is applicable for different areas in different industries. In addition to aircraft engines, gas turbines and pumps GROHNO-Guss is already trying to develop new application areas such as aerospace, energy and cleantech or medicine and food technology.

Leonardo Venture assumes that the GROHNO-Guss products will establish itself on the market in the future. Steffen Paul: “Everyone is speaking about scarcity of resources and saving energy. Therefore GROHNO-Guss and its technology meet a current and inevitable topic and serve the demand of the market.”

About Leonardo Venture GmbH & Co. KGaA:
Leonardo Venture GmbH & Co. KGaA is a venture capital fund focusing on companies in Germany or German-speaking countries with the emphasis on health and quality of life. Being an investor in an early stage, Leonardo provides the money but also know-how which is important for the company’s performance.

Contact:
Leonardo Venture Capital GmbH & Co. KGaA
Steffen Paul
Augusta Carree
Augustaanlage 32
68165 Mannheim
Tel: +49 621 4384300
Fax: +49 621 43843010
kontakt@leonardoventure.de
www.leonardoventure.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds:
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests venture capital in young, high-opportunity technology
companies, which convert promising research results into commercial enterprises. With the assistance of seed financing of up to EUR 500,000, the start-ups are to continue with the R&D projects up to the preparation of a prototype or proof of concept or up to introduction into the market. High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of around EUR 272 million available. The investors of the public private partnership include the German Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology, the KfW banking group and the six industrial groups BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss.

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Andreas Quauke
Investment manager
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn
Tel: +49 228 – 965685-00
Fax: +49 228 – 965685-50
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de