Earlybird wins VC exit of the year for 2006
At the Deutsche unquote” Private Equity Awards that took place in October 2007, Earlybird was winner of the ‘Venture Capital Exit of the Year’ award, recognising it for Interhyp AG.
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The judging panel was drawn comprised Maximilian Brönner (partner, LGT Capital Partners), Nick Money-Kyrle (managing partner, Steadfast Capital), Paul de Ridder (partner, Halder), Dirk Schekerka (director, Barclays Private Equity), Peter Schwanitz (managing director, VCM Capital Management) and Emanuel Eftimiu (editor, Deutsche unquote”).
Sticking it out through thick and thin
Interhyp, an internet and telephone based mortgage broker in Germany, was founded with Earlybird as a seed-investor in 1999 and launched its service in January 2000, with a second financing round in July 2000 in which 3i also came in as an additional institutional investor.
At the company’s stock market flotation in September 2005, Earlybird sold 33 percent of its holding into the IPO, and following the new issue, which was oversubscribed 30x, it held a 15 percent interest in Interhyp after the sale of a portion of its holdings.
A return of x50 Interhyp was the most successful of 22 IPOs in 2005 in Germany, with an 81 percent increase in share price since the IPO until year end 2005, according to Deutsche Börse and Ernst & Young. Interhyp returned more than 50x the original Earlybird investment.
Early stage persistence pays off
Earlybird’s partner and former chairman of the supervisory board of Interhyp, Dr. Christian Nagel, commented, “We are happy about the international recognition of one of our exits. The award demonstrates that it is possible to achieve a very good early stage venture capital performance in Europe with a systematic approach of identifying and developing companies, and the necessary staying power as a venture capitalist.”
Six of Earlybird’s high-tech investee companies have floated on various European stock exchanges over the last two years: Interhyp, Tipp24 and Wilex (all Prime Standard, Frankfurt), Esmertec (Swiss Exchange, Zurich), Entelos (London Stock Exchange) and NoemaLife (Borsa Italiana, Milan). In addition, Earlybird supported element 5 in its acquisition by Digital River, Identify in its acquisition by BMC Software and Alantos in its sale to Amgen for $300m.
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