Transactions of members

General partner Versute Investments s.r.o. (“Versute”) and Sub-fund BHS Private Equity Fund (“BHS PE Fund”) prepared in cooperation with the owners of Babičkin Dvor a.s. (“Babičkin Dvor”) project for the reconstruction and operation of manufactory of feed mixtures for livestock under a separate company Babičkin Dvor Agro Servis a.s. (“BDAS”).

ARX Equity Partners has agreed to complete the acquisition of Promens Zlin.

ARX is acquiring the company from Berry Global (NYSE: BERY) with deal completion being subject to customary closing conditions. As part of the investment, ARX has agreed to partner with the company´s existing management team, who will continue to lead its future growth and development.

Promens Zlin (headquartered in Zlin, Czech Republic) is a Tier 1 system and development supplier, focused predominantly on large vehicle exterior and interior parts, which are key components in the production of buses, earth moving vehicles and agriculture equipment. Promens Zlin possesses exceptional R&D capability, especially in the important areas of reaction injection molding and vacuum forming. The company is currently undergoing a substantial capital expenditure programme to both expand and modernise its production facility, in order to meet growing demand from its customer base. In fiscal year ending 2020, Promens Zlin generated sales of ~€ 37 million.

ARX Equity Partners (“ARX”) has agreed to complete the acquisition of Instrumentation Technologies (“I-Tech”, www.i-tech.si). Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Solkan, Slovenia, I-Tech is the global market leader in the development and assembly of high-specification instrumentation for data acquisition and signal processing used in scientific particle accelerators. Also core to the I-Tech strategy is utilizing the company’s know-how and R&D capabilities to develop instrumentation for medical proton therapy applications as well as broader industrial markets.

The transaction also includes Red Pitaya (www.redpitaya.com), a handheld electronics lab incorporating instruments such as oscilloscopes and signal generators and which is seeing widespread adoption among signal processing engineers, hobbyists and students.

ARX acquired the company from its founders and financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. As part of the transaction, ARX agreed to partner with the company´s existing management team who will lead the future growth and development of the Company.

INVEN CAPITAL, which invests into promising start-ups in the new energy
sector, has acquired a minority share in the Swedish company Eliq, using funds
from both its investors: CEZ Group and European Investment Bank. The
company specialises in developing applications which help energy companies
precisely analyse household consumption patterns and subsequently offer
customers tailored cost-saving solutions. The co-investor in this EUR 5 million
round of investment, alongside Inven Capital, was Contrarian Ventures, which is
a VC fund from Lithuania specialising on smart energy investment.

From its headquarters in Gothenburg, the dynamic company Eliq promotes its customer
application to energy companies in Europe and recently also in South America. Besides the
Swedish giant Vattenfall, energy corporations in Norway, France, Spain, Great Britain and Chile
rely on its software solutions. The number of Eliq software platform users has surpassed one
million worldwide.
At the customer end, Eliq applications aggregate extensive data about consumption from smart
electricity meters and combine them with other information inputs such as weather data or data
from other smart sensors in the household (e.g. indoor temperature and humidity, smart
appliance operation, photovoltaic production, etc.) and the client’s account with the energy
company (chosen tariff, payment settings, etc.). Thanks to a sophisticated data analysis system,
customers have a real-time overview of their consumption, which they can compare over time or
with other customers in the area. They can also receive notices from the energy company about
sudden fluctuations or offers of cost-saving solutions. Eliq supplies the user interface to the
utility through a white-labelled application which the utility is subsequently offering to its end
users.
To acquire the minority stake, Inven Capital has partially used funds from the European
Investment Bank, which has committed EUR 50 million for joint investments.
“Eliq represents the future of communication between energy companies and their customers. It
builds on combining and analysing data from various sources and the active approach of
households with respect to monitoring consumption. As a result, utilities can offer effective
services and be reliable partners to their customers when seeking suitable cost-saving
solutions. We see future potential in Eliq applications even for CEZ Group companies,” said
Tomáš Pleskač, a Member of the Board of Directors of CEZ and Chief Renewable Energy and
Distribution Officer.
Eliq is the eleventh investment for Inven Capital. “We were amazed by how Eliq is lowering the
churn rate of their utility customers, for some by up to 70%. They are enabling to build deep
trust between the utility and the end consumer which is manifested by the steep increase in
engagement rate and interaction time – in some cases tenfold,” said Petr Míkovec, Managing
Director of Inven Capital.
Eliq plans to use the additional funds for continuous expansion on the European market and for
further development of its products. “We enable utilities to become a meaningful part of
customers’ lives and ultimately help accelerate the Energy Transition from within those
customers’ homes. The new funds will enable us to bring more solutions to market quickly, and
to broaden our geographical reach by growing the teams both at our Gothenburg headquarters
and our London operations,” says Håkan Ludvigson, CEO and co-founder of Eliq.
In addition to Inven Capital, the Lithuanian venture capital fund Contrarian Ventures, which
specialises in investments into smart energy, also participated in the current round of
investment. Both companies will have their representative in Eliq´s Board of Directors. Some of
the existing investors have also joined.
In five years of activity and investments into energy start-ups, Inven Capital gained a reputation
as a qualified and capable investor that supports companies starting out in the new energy
sector. A qualified management team, portfolio of invested companies, fund performance and
successful due diligence were the basis of the 2017 European Investment Bank’s decision to
create a joint investment structure with Inven Capital.

A year after acquiring a minority stake in the German start-up Zolar, the CEZ Group
venture capital fund Inven Capital is the lead investor among the current investors
increasing their financial stake by another €15 million. Despite the coronavirus
epidemic, Zolar has doubled their annual revenue and aims to spread their activities
not just throughout Germany but also by expanding abroad. They will use the
acquired capital to strengthen the unique platform which connects people interested
in photovoltaic and battery systems with suppliers and installation firms.
Aside from Inven Capital, the existing investors include Munich-based BayWa RE Energy Ventures,
Norwegian Statkraft Ventures, Heartcore Capital and global investment firm Partech Ventures.
These investors will provide the German start-up Zolar with money for additional development. The
€15 million increase was initiated by Inven Capital and the existing investors and it takes the SeriesB financing round to a total of 25 million euro. In the past four years, Zolar has built a successful
digital platform, which is used by thousands of customers across Germany to purchase photovoltaic
plants and battery systems. The platform also connects purchasing customers to more than 250
registered installation firms and entrepreneurs. Not even the coronavirus crisis could curb the rising
number of sales. On the contrary, Zolar wants to make the most of the current surge of interest in
household electricity production and storage.
“This large internal financing round with EUR 15 million of fresh capital is a confidence vote to use
this opportunity in the market and to move the company to the next level after they had already
shown a strong performance this past year,” said Tomáš Pleskač, a Member of the Board of
Directors of CEZ and Chief Renewable Energy and Distribution Officer.
“We see strong signs for anti-cyclicality in the PV market, driven by the threat of the pandemic and
recession. As a result, people thrive to achieve energy independence while increasing the value of
their property. This creates great opportunities for Zolar, which is also confirmed by Zolar’s 100% annual
revenue growth,” said Petr Míkovec, Managing Director of Inven Capital.
According to the international analytics company EuPD Research, demand last year for solar energy
from German households increased to 78,500 new solar installations, representing a year-on-year
increase of 41%. Increasingly more customers are choosing the combination of a photovoltaic power
plant with a battery storage system. More than 65,000 of these were installed last year, growing by
75 % in comparison to 2017. According to BSW Solar (German Solar Association), only around 10%
from the 15 million households living in single or double-family homes currently have photovoltaics
installed, which implies huge market opportunities.

“The new capital paves the way for us to become the first address for those who want to switch to
clean energy via solar systems, to expand internationally and to establish ourselves as a data
provider. Not only can our customers use the platform to choose tailor-made solar solutions, but we
are also managing the installation side trough certified external installation partners, according to the
availability and the customer’s preferences,” explained Alexander Melzer, the founder and CEO of
Zolar. This eliminates the common problem where the technicians of companies supplying solar
systems are swamped with orders, meaning the customer must wait a long time for installation.
Inven Capital acquired a minority stake in Zolar last September, in a €10 million investment round.
The current additional investment of €15 million is provided purely by the five existing investors.

Polish Enterprise Fund VI, a private equity fund managed by Enterprise Investors, has sold the Skoczykłody wind farm. The buyer is PGE Energia Odnawialna, a subsidiary of PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna. The enterprise value is EUR 50 million.

Building on experience gained in the course of its investment in Polish Energy Partners (PEP), now Polenergia, in 2012 Enterprise Investors made its next investment in the renewable energy sector when it founded Wento. EI invited a group of experienced managers to run the project, including Wojciech Cetnarski, the founder and former CEO of PEP, who steered the new entity. Initially Wento acquired wind projects at an advanced stage of development, improved their parameters, built the wind farms and sold them to end buyers. In 2016 the company entered the solar energy segment, in which it develops projects from concept to going concern. To date, Wento has developed or constructed wind farms with a combined output of more than 80 MW, and photovoltaic projects generating close to 230 MW.

Skoczykłody is a modern and highly efficient wind farm that generates 36 MW. Thanks to the Wento team’s considerable experience, the facility was constructed on time and to budget in a mere 15 months. The farm became commercially operational in the fourth quarter of 2015.

“We are very pleased that by selling the Skoczykłody wind farm to PGE Group we are contributing to the green transformation of Poland’s energy sector,” – said Michał Rusiecki, managing partner at Enterprise Investors who is responsible for this investment. “We are one of Poland’s renewable energy pioneers, and our portfolio company Wento, which is currently developing projects with total capacity close to 700 MW, is among the top solar power companies in Poland,” he added.